"Feline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crumpled mind. He is delightfully frank and delightfully subtle; concealing himself by self-disclosure; opulent in ideas; shifting the pea of truth dexterously under the three gilded thimbles; blandly condescending and amiably contemptuous; a little feline, for he allows his adversary a moment's freedom to escape and then pounces upon him with the soft-furred claws; assured of his superiority in the game, yet using only half his mind; fencing with one arm pinioned; chess-playing with a rook and pawn given to his antagonist; or shall we ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... look up from her work and gaze at the woods, or at the long line of rails, but everything seemed deserted and silent. Finally, unable to sit still any longer, she arose and began to pace around the table with a soft, feline step, smiling and repeating to herself: "I will get him, I will get him! At last I will find a little rest in my life, my wanderings ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... reared her sinister, feline length against his leg, clawing at his thigh affectionately. He lifted her claws out ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... Mollenhauer; but for subtlety they were unmatched by either—deep, strange, receding, cavernous eyes which contemplated you as might those of a cat looking out of a dark hole, and suggesting all the artfulness that has ever distinguished the feline family. He had a strange mop of black hair sweeping down over a fine, low, white forehead, and a skin as pale and bluish as poor health might make it; but there was, nevertheless, resident here a strange, resistant, capable force that ruled men—the subtlety ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... without the change involving the alteration of all the rest. Darwinism affirms, on the contrary, that there was no express construction concerned in the matter; but that among the multitudinous variations of the Feline stock, many of which died out from want of power to resist opposing influences, some, the cats, were better fitted to catch mice than others, whence they throve and persisted, in proportion to the advantage over their ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... circulated freely, and much laughing and talking were going on. The prior had unbent from his judicial severity, and even the Lord of Mortimer was smiling and bland, although there was something in his aspect that suggested the fierce feline play of a man-eating creature biding its time ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Ralph had no words to answer. As for Jess, she did not even colour; she simply withdrew with the quickness and feline grace which were characteristic of her, without a flush or a tremor. It was not on such occasions that her heart stirred. When she was gone she felt that things had gone well, even beyond ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Those feline orbs of mingled gray and green, with their small, pointed pupils, were keen, vigilant, and observing beyond all eyes it had ever before or since been my lot to encounter. After meeting their penetrating glance I was not surprised to hear their possessor accost ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... answer but walked over to the table and began the work of investigation. Mr. Linden came too. "If you are to make feline discoveries, I must stand by you, little bird," ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... a kitten at once; one would have imagined by the eagerness of his manner that he was devoted to the whole feline tribe. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... by something leaping upon me, and licking my face with the rough tongue of a feline animal. "It is the white leopardess!" I thought. "She is come to suck my blood!—and why should she not have it?—it would cost me more to defend than to yield it!" So I lay still, expecting a shoot of pain. But the pang did not arrive; a pleasant warmth instead began to diffuse itself through ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... distinguished the Germans of Caesar's day. As for the Kabyle of more vulgar position, take away his haik and his bornouse, trim the points of his beard, and we have a perfect German head. Beside these we set a representative Arab head, sketched in the streets of Algiers. See the feline characteristics, the pointed, drooping moustache and chin-tuft, the extreme retrocession of the nostrils, the thin, weak and cruel mouth, the retreating forehead, the filmed eye, the ennui, the terrestrial detachment, of the Arab. He is a dandy, a creature of alternate flash ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... the rejoinder, "but we have never noticed any attempts at hibernation here. Bears are unusually lively during the cold months, and demand their food as regularly as do the lions and other feline animals. I don't know that any observations of value on this question have ever been made on animals in confinement. I have had some experience with outside animals, and a great many go through what is called a winter's sleep; and in warm countries there ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... too indifferent to do so, or was too well aware of the impossibility of reforming his own wretched offspring; and therefore he determined to drown them all at one fell swoop, just as cat-loving old ladies dispose of a too numerous and embarrassing feline progeny. Bethinking him, however, God resolved to save alive one family to perpetuate the race: he was willing to give his creatures another chance, and then, if they persisted in going the wrong way, it would still be easy to drown the lot of them again, and that without any ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... the maples and beeches have faded. All its reliefs and intaglios have electrotyped themselves in the medallions that hang round the walls of your memory's chamber.—The sea remembers nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet,—its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you; but it will crack your bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened. The mountains give their ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... pattern of a child's sleeping suit, was most cleverly contrived out of brown plushette, painted in bold bars to represent the stripes of a tabby. She wore a cat's mask on her head, and made such an excellent representation of a gigantic specimen of the feline race that the effect was quite appalling. The younger children squealed when she appeared on the field, especially as, to keep up her character, she made an occasional claw at one of them as she passed, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... all night and begs for water at short intervals. At last the demand is too much for the poor agonized mother—she takes refuge in silencing unworthy, and to which one feels her gentleness must be forced. "Hark! The cat will get you, Letty! See that cat?" And the feline horror in nameless form, evoked in an awe-inspiring whisper, controls the little creature, who murmurs, sobs ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... a dreadful shock to feline nerves, no doubt, but that white kitten was no ordinary animal. Its little heart beat bravely when it rose to the surface, and, before its young master came up, it had regained the bank. But, alas! what a change! It went into the stream a fat, round, comfortable ball ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Observing an unusually fine cluster of blossoms on the azalea-bush opposite, she crossed the road to pluck it, picking her way through the red dust, not without certain fierce little shivers of disgust and some feline circumlocution. And then ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... Tall—though not as tall or as massively built as Colin McKeith, firm boned and muscular, but with a sort of feline grace of movement. There was the unmistakable stamp of civilisation, and, at the same time, an exotic suggestion of the East, of wild spaces, adventure, romance. Not in the least a Bushman, but wearing with ease and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... common name for a cat, being that by which the representative of the feline race is distinguished in the History of Reynard the Fox. See Shakespeare's ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... their predecessors. The pair of cats had, during my two years' absence, increased twelve-fold. I tried all in my power to dislodge this burdensome brood of all ages and colors, but in vain; every night my sleep was disturbed by horrible choruses of four-footed animals, and feline ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... left in the ring were the Moorish hound—a creature full of feline grace and suppleness, with silky drop-over ears and a tufted tail—an exceptionally fine cross-bred collie, the Stone bulldog, a Dandie Dinmont, and a Welsh terrier, the last extraordinarily small, bright, shapely, and game. The ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... and at others he was hung up by his feet, the blood rushing to his head and placing him in imminent danger of sudden death. It was the intention of these brutes to torture him as much as possible before killing him, just as a member of the feline race plays with, tosses in the air and pirouettes around the victim which falls into his claws. If to the torture of the rope are added the blows with cudgels and the butts of rifles which were frequently ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... sulphur amid black powder, of burned stuffs and calcined earth which roams in sheets about the country, all the menagerie is let loose and gives battle. Bellowings, roarings, growlings, strange and savage; feline caterwaulings that fiercely rend your ears and search your belly, or the long-drawn piercing hoot like the siren of a ship in distress. At times, even, something like shouts cross each other in the air-currents, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... and in its indolence supple, feline movement, she rose from the chair, so provokingly ignoring me now, that for very rage I held my ground within less than a foot of her. Leisurely and tranquil, behaving right before me with the ease of a person alone ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... has a new feline provisional equipage ready to launch. The body is a dark black, and the wheels are of the same rich colour, slightly picked out here and there with a chalk stripe. The effect altogether is very light and pretty, particularly as the skewers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... this particular task if I have only a sniff, or a guffaw, as an explanation of another's beliefs. History sparkles with the lives of men and women, who proclaimed themselves messengers and servants of God, obedient to him first, and utterly and courageously negligent of that feline commodity, public ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... indicated to me vaguely the place of the struggle, toward which I crawled, divided between the ardent desire to "kill a panther" and a horrible fear of being eaten alive. No one dared to move; only after five minutes it occurred to one of the carriers to light a match. I then remembered the fear which feline animals exhibit at the presence of fire, and ordered my men to gather two or three handfuls of brush, which I set on fire. We then saw, about ten steps from us, one of our carriers stretched out on the ground, with his limbs frightfully lacerated by the claws of ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... expressed natural kindness, her pretentious exaggeration was exalted enthusiasm. I alone had scrutinized her grimacings, and stripped away the thin rind that sufficed to conceal her real nature from the world; her trickery no longer deceived me; I had sounded the depths of that feline nature. I blushed for her when some donkey or other flattered and complimented her. And yet I loved her through it all! I hoped that her snows would melt with the warmth of a poet's love. If I could only have made her feel all the greatness that lies in devotion, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... have some tale about every bird, beast, and fish, thus account for the loud cries which we heard at night in every 'bush.' King Leo, having lost his mother, commanded by proclamation all his subjects to attend her funeral, and none failed save Orson. One evening his Feline Majesty, when going his rounds, found the delinquent upon the ground, and roughly demanded the reason why. Orson, shuffling towards the nearest tree, pleaded in all humility, 'O King, is thy beloved parent really deceased? I never heard of it. I ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... gulf were bridged! What late, What all undreamed-of hurdle-winners Might blossom from a natural hate Of forming parts of feline dinners? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... her," was Miss Sanders's prompt reply, as she turned away and would have gone, but the elder restrained her. Janet did not wish the girl to go at all. She knew Angela had asked for her, and doubtless longed to see her; and now, having administered her feline scratch and made Kate feel the weight of her disapproval, she was quite ready to promote the very interview she had verbally condemned. Perhaps Miss Sanders saw and knew this and preferred to worry Miss Wren as much as possible. At all events, only with reluctance did she obey the ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... to works of piety inclined, Then recreation might have claimed his mind. The harmless game that shows the feline greed To cinch the shorts and make the market bleed[A] Is better sport than victimizing Creed; And a far livelier satisfaction comes Of knowing Simon, autocrat of thumbs.[B] If neither worthy work nor play command This gentleman of leisure's heart and hand, Then Mammon might his idle ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... were sleeping on the banks. The catawampuss secretly emerged from its den—horror, I am not ashamed to say, prevented me from interfering—stealthily crept across the cold floor, and, true to the instincts of all the feline tribe,[20] made straight for ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... and also an account of the operation of the Reading Club. As far as I can judge, it is a great institution for the discussion of apples and chestnuts, but is quite innocent of the pleasures of literature. It, however, brings the young people together, and promotes sociability and conversation. Our feline companions are flourishing. Young Baxter is growing in gracefulness and favour, and gives cat-like evidences of future worth. He possesses the fashionable colour of 'moonlight on the water,' apparently a dingy hue of the kitchen, and is strictly aristocratic in appearance and ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... up to it, heart and soul; my whole being thrilled with the passionate outpourings of a spirit freed. My voice trembled in the upper bars of a feline love-song, quavered, descended, swelling again into an intimation that I brooked no rival, and ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... shattered the swingletree on the other with the forewheel of our buggy. The old plow-horses plunged feebly, then lowered their heads in native dejection, while the Brocks shrieked, root and branch. Never have I seen such a look of feline ferocity upon the human countenance as when Brother Brock scrambled down from his seat into the road and, with his mouse-catching eyes, added William Asbury Thompson, preacher, to Charles Jason Weaver, loafer, drunkard ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... like a cat which sees a mouse running heedlessly by, ready to spring, yet waiting with that feline sense of enjoyment of mischief about to be ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... what one would imagine to be the case from the close association of cats with witches and magic, phantasms in a feline form are comparatively rare, and their appearance is seldom, if ever, as repulsive as that of the occult dog. I have seen phantasm cats several times, but, though they have been abnormally large and alarming, only once—and I am anxious to forget that time—were they anything like as offensive ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... victim to their feline charm. The children were pets, but you didn't feel like patting the adults on their big grinning heads. Personally I didn't like the one I knew best. He was called—well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist, ambassador, contact man, or whatever you like to call him, ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... cautiously did he proceed so as not to "flush the bird." Even as I saw, an hour ago, a cat creep upon a sparrow with fascinating eyes, and a waving, snake-like motion of the tail, and a treacherous feline smile upon her face, even so, cautiously and by degrees, Humphreys felt his way with velvet paws toward his prey. He knew the opportunity, that once gone might not come again; he soon guessed that this was the hour and power of ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... cleaning their rifles. The proceedings are superintended by a contemplative tabby cat, coiled up in a niche, like a feline flower in a ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... inquiring eyebrow upon me. Janet laid her hand on him. He dismissed the feline instinct to prolong our torture, and delivered ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in short mimosa tangle up to the knee, I disturbed a strange-looking animal, about the size of a sheep, brownish colour, long tail, short legs, feline in aspect and movement, but quite strange to me. I took my gun and shot it dead—yes, quite dead. Away tore my boy as fast as his legs would carry him, terrified beyond measure at what I had done! What, indeed? you may well ask. I had killed the cub of a lioness! Terror ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... suddenly appeared in the tent, dressed wonderfully in white panne, with a barbaric mottle of black and white civet-skins flung over one shoulder, and a tight-drawn cap of the fur, apparently held in place by the great claws of some feline mounted in heavy gold. She wore circles of fretted gold in her ears, and carried a tall ebony stick with a gold handle, Louis Quatorze fashion. From her huge civet muff a gold purse dangled. She looked at once more conventional and more dynamic than Mary had ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... smoky, the glassy water was copper-hued, the air was heavy and breathless. The sea purred upon the shore, lapping it caressingly like some huge feline creature biding its time to ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... understand his habits changed. From being a tolerably cheerful companion, he became a wretched hypochondriac; all his energies being directed to the avoiding a contact with any of the feline race. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... vigilant feline quadruped, frequently observed in the abodes of man, is absent, the common domestic animal of the genus mus may indulge in various relaxations of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... thatched roof full of holes and overgrown with weeds. As they approached the door a mighty clatter was audible within, and Mrs. Jenny held the boy's hand in a tightened grasp, fearful of devilry. As they stood irresolute to advance or retreat, a big cat dashed out at the doorway with a feline imprecation, and the wizard appeared, revengefully waving a stick, ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... the blackness, these slippery little savages of Titan, their half naked bodies crowding him and stifling him with their sweaty nearness. Again and again Carr struck out, but it was like fighting a horde of squirming and clawing feline creatures that swarmed over him and bore him down by sheer weight of numbers. They dragged Ora from his arms and quickly overpowered him. Thongs of rawhide twisted deeply into the flesh of his wrists and he was hauled forth into ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... of the trial in the great synclinorium of Greeba Castle—exhibiting contemporaneous carboniferous tuffs, soft argillaceous rocks with choriambic fossils as well as later dolerite dykes, amid which the feline amenities of the Princess were illustrated with miraculous agility by Miss Agneesh Crannoge—compares favourably with the most ambitious enormities ever perpetrated by the genius of BAKST, DIAGHILEV, or even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... is altogether different from the fierce glare seen in the eyes of many of our animals, especially the feline race, which seems to enlarge the eyes to enormous orbs of brilliant light. In the Martians it is simply a colourless, soft, and liquid glow which has a different effect on eyes of different colours; but it is ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... he waked us from heavy sleep—me with a cuff, the groom with a kick, the bride with a feline ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... attraction in the shape of the concierge's cat, on whom Sir Charles would call before paying his respects upstairs. At another house a cat named Pouf was held in great honour by him, and his feelings were deeply wounded when, with feline capriciousness, it turned, on Paul Hervieu's entrance, to bestow all its blandishments on the writer. His love of cats was as well known to his French as to his English friends, Emile Ollivier writes in 1891 from La Moutte: 'Campion lui-meme cherche ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... sort of relish in torturing her, which resembled the feline cruelty of a wild beast playing with its prey. "Ah! it was a delightful letter, that; what a pity it was that I was out of Paris that night, and never received it till, alas! it was too late to rush to your side. You remember how it was, do you ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... to recall something she had learned in the past, "there isn't any difference between bad girls and bad boys, only the boys are of the male sex and the girls are of the feline sex." ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... thoughtful-looking pose into which she fell naturally in leisure moments. The cat blinked at her through sleepy eyelids, then, deliberately ignoring the devotion of years, rose from its place by its mistress's side, stretched itself with feline grace, and stalked majestically across the rug to nestle against the soft white skirts. Miss Briskett eyed its desertion over the brim of her spectacles. Poor lady! her measure of love received was so small, that she felt a ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... grinning broadly, while Number Three advanced cautiously toward one of the creatures, making a low guttural noise, that could only be interpreted as peaceful and conciliatory—more like a feline purr it was than ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Sevres, or Venetian glass. Whichever side of the question we may assume, as the most popular, or the most right, the feelings of so large and respectable a minority are to be consulted, that it behooves the critic or reviewer to move cautiously, and, imitating the actions of a certain feline household reformer, to show only ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... vanished and she leaned slightly forward while her eyes got hard. Indeed, there was something feline in her alert pose. Now she had, so to speak, unsheathed her claws, he was glad the advantage was heavily on his side. For all that, he did not want ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... and dearly beloved Ozma, I pray you not to judge this feline prisoner unfeelingly. I do not think the innocent kitten can be guilty, and surely it is unkind to accuse a luncheon of being a murder. Eureka is the sweet pet of a lovely little girl whom we all admire, and gentleness and innocence are her chief virtues. ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... always approaches stealthily, like the cat, except when wounded; but anything having the appearance of a trap will induce him to refrain from making the last fatal spring. This is a peculiarity of the whole feline species. It has been found in India that when a hunter pickets a goat on a plain as a bait, a tiger has whipped it off so quickly by a stroke of his paw that it was impossible to take aim. To obviate this difficulty a small pit is dug, in the bottom of which ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... away from the now dulled expression in the cat's eyes. He did not find it strange that this was so. He knew in some inner sense that the mighty life force in him had quelled the cat. Had stilled the fighting in its feline eyes. ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... of triumph a tiger barred the way, his coolies bolted, and nothing would persuade them to go further. Mr. Forstermann was no shikari, but he felt himself called upon to uphold the cause of science and the honour of England at this juncture. In great agitation he went for that feline, and, in short, its skin still adorns Mrs. Sander's drawing-room. Thus it happened that on a certain Thursday a small pot of C. Spicerianum was sold, as usual, for sixty guineas at Stevens's; on the ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... the cat with indescribable terror; and she leapt back. The blast of a trumpet, the smash of a pile of crockery, or a pistol-shot fired by her ear would not have dismayed the feline to such an extent. All her ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... not, however, till the year 1819 that he first came to live at Sutton. His earliest recollection was, as he used to tell us, playing on the terrace with the great ginger- coloured tom-cat, "King George." We always supposed this feline magnifico to have derived from some stock imported by the first Sir Henry when he was Master of the Household to George III. As my readers will see, King George's successor, in the true "mode" of his race, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... ruin you," said Clementine, in the sharp tone of a Parisian woman, when she shows her feline distrusts. ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... was upon its way, something that she dreaded to see. But all the shoulders she hobnobbed with that day were warm enough—indifferently warm, and that was all she asked. So she smiled and radiated her fine, animal grace, her feline beauty, her superfemininity, and was as happy as any woman could be who had arrived at an important stage of her journey and could see a little way ahead ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... political condescendence of his superior officer towards the priest; and every day he was beseeching the Commander to let him do once, just once, "Ding-dong! Ding-dong!" merely for the sake of having a little fun. And he begged for it with feline gracefulness, the cajolery of a woman, the tenderness of voice of a beloved mistress craving for something, but the Commander did not yield, and to console himself, Mademoiselle Fifi exploded ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... her cosmopolitan reign, was at least local enough to remember the feline similes Lydia put such dependence on, and she used this one with relish. Lydia felt ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... written in less than courteous terms, a wrangle at the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. The trials within this class are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them but might have been spared if we or ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... them is called Katzenbuckel, and doubting that your German may not be able to cope with this quite simple compound, he proceeds to illustrate. He squats in the middle of the street, arching his back like a cat in a strong emotion, uttering lively miaowings and hissings. Then he springs, like the feline in fury, and leaps to his feet roaring with mirth. "You see?" he cries. "A cat, who all ready to spring crouches, that is of our beautiful ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... apartment and all the money that was to be his when the old man up the river should choke on his last morality. From a world fraught with the menace of debutantes and the stupidity of many Geraldines he was thankfully delivered—rather should he emulate the feline immobility of Maury and wear proudly the culminative ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... beautiful drawing-room, all designed by, and all belonging to her. Her chair is placed beneath an evergreen plant, and the long leaves lean out as if to touch her neck. The great white and red roses of the Aubusson carpet are spread enigmatically about her feline feet; a grand piano leans its melodious mouth to her; and there she sits when her visitors have left her, playing Beethoven's sonatas in the dreamy firelight. The spring-tide shows but a bloom of unvarying freshness; August has languished and loved in the strength ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... of visits with her mother, that so far from being welcome she was scarcely tolerated, and she reminded one of a stray cat that comes to a dwelling and seeks to maintain existence there in a lurking, deprecatory manner. Her kindred recognized this feline trait, for they were accustomed to remark, "She's ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... the Feline tribe will eat vegetables, unless domesticated, even then but rarely; and in their wild state, unless pressed by hunger, they will only eat what they themselves have killed. They have an abhorrence of ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... all was joy. The barriers were removed, and the child and the cat became inseparable companions. Miss Wealthy beamed with delight, and called upon the girls to observe how, in this most remarkable animal, intellect had triumphed over the feline nature. She was even a little jealous, when the Doctor forsook his hassock beside her chair to go and play at ball with Benny; but this was a passing feeling. All agreed, however, that a line must be drawn somewhere; and when Benny demanded to have his dinner ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... good deal. He usually attends me, unless I work too long in one place; sitting down on the turf, displaying the ermine of his breast, and watching my movements with great intelligence. He has a feline and genuine love for the beauties of Nature, and will establish himself where there is a good view, and look on it for hours. He always accompanies us when we go to gather the vegetables, seeming to be desirous ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were unhappy or merely depressed by the rain, whether they drank champagne from happiness or desperation. Notwithstanding his dreamy disposition his temperament was ardent; his was an unspoiled soul; he felt himself a sort of moral barometer for the magnificent and feline women who treated him as if he were a wooden post when they were gossiping, harried him like an animal when they were thirsty. He noted that they were always thirsty. They smoked more than they ate, and whispered more, if no men ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... up stealthily by the Tinkletons' abode on the third; up past the fire-escape Italian garden of little Mrs. Persimmon on the fourth; up past the windows of the disagreeable Garraways' kitchen below mine, and then, with the easy grace of a feline, zip! he silently landed within reach of my hand on my own little iron veranda, and craning his neck to one side, peered in through the open window and listened intently for two ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... attention to this. Her fingers began to curve back like claws, and her hands assumed the same feline attitude as Mrs. Poor's. It was easy to see that the pluck of the little woman extorted a certain admiration from the very men who had fathers, sons and brothers in the cells beyond. She was not a bit more than half as big as her antagonist, but she looked game to ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... disposed about her brow. Blanche rose above all this as she managed to rise above an inauspicious background, and the lazy stretch she gave beneath the sheet that was all that covered her, bringing out two white arms above her head so that the muscles swelled under the tight skin, was so lovely in its feline grace as to ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... have a feline tenacity of life; once more, a "fatal error." But Mr. Gladstone has forgotten an excellent rule of controversy; say what is true, of course, but mind that it is decently probable. Now it is not decently probable, ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... celebrated. Her fresh and piquant face, with its pure lines, shone with the roguish mischief of childhood, expressed in the regular eyebrows, the vivacious eyes, and the archness of the pretty mouth. Already she displayed those feline graces which nothing, not even captivity nor the sight of her dreadful scaffold, could lessen. The two queens—one at the dawn, the other in the midsummer of life—presented at this moment the utmost contrast. Catherine was an imposing queen, an impenetrable widow, without other passion ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... the front of the house and there was a closed door between the front and the back halls on both floors. But Janice heard Olga's big, flat feet land upon the floor almost instantly. That feline wail had evidently brought the Swedish girl out of her dreams, ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... the Afghan detachment posted there, to turn the main position on the Kotal, and bring about its evacuation. This plan had often succeeded against Afghans. Their characteristics both in peace and war are distinctly feline. Prone to ease and enjoyment at ordinary times, yet, when stirred by lust of blood or booty, they are capable of great feats of swift fierce onset; but, like all men and animals dominated by sudden impulses, their bravery is fitful, and is apt to give way under persistent ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... practising trills and preparing half-imitations, which, at some other time, sitting on the topmost twig, he shall hilariously seem to improvise before all the world. Can it be that he is really in some slight disgrace with Nature, with that demi-mourning garb of his,—and that his feline cry of terror, which makes his opprobrium with boys, is part of some hidden doom decreed? No, the lovely color of the eggs which his companion watches on that laboriously builded staging of twigs shall vindicate this familiar companion from any suspicion of original sin. Indeed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... too, without letting Barty know. I did not like the man—he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade me that no other treatment was even ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... to discover the like in the tortuous figures of Taglioni or Cerito, we have often observed in the conduct of ladies many years in the seniority of the one under notice, who, ever mindful of the idol of their thoughts and affections—a feline companion—may be seen carrying a precious morsel, safely skewered, in advance of them; this gentleness the artist has been careful to retain to eminent success. We are, nevertheless, woefully at a loss ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... figure of speech. I vividly recall the feeling, for example, with which I greeted the first cat I saw on American soil. It was on the Hoboken pier, while the steerage passengers were being marched to the ferry. A large, black, well-fed feline stood in a corner, eying the crowd of new-comers. The sight of it gave me a thrill of joy. "Look! there is a cat!" I said to Gitelson. And in my heart I added, "Just like those at home!" For the moment the little animal made America real ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Judge Hammond Mayne unless you knew his pet cats. You admire that calm and imperturbable dignity, that sphinxlike and yet vigilant poise of bearing which has made Judge Mayne so notable an ornament of the bench? It is purely feline: "He caught it from his cats, suh: he caught every God-blessed bit of ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... a subdued tone, his voice half-drowned by a second roar from the great feline, this time louder and ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... he was making game of his auditor or not she did not know, and never found out. But on they went, by many a home; through miles of growing crops, and now through miles of lofty pine forests, and by log-cabins and unpainted cottages, from within whose open doors came often the loud feline growl of the spinning-wheel. So on and on, Mary spending the first night in a lone forest cabin of pine poles, whose master, a Confederate deserter, fed his ague-shaken wife and cotton-headed children oftener with the spoils of his rifle than with the products of the ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... contempt, scattered the hounds like a pack of rats, and, with a majestic bound over bushes upwards of twelve feet high, re-entered the jungle. With a feeling of indignation at such contemptuous treatment, George Rennie re-charged his gun in haste, vowing vengeance against the whole feline race—a vow which he fully redeemed in after years. His brother John, who was injured to the extent of a scratch on the back and a severe bruise on the ribs by the rough treatment he had received, arose and slowly followed his example, ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... cat will lie upon the breasts of children and suck their breath away. Strange and even absurd as it was, it seemed to her that a cat was pressing and pressing down upon her breast. There could be no mistaking the feline presence. Now with a sudden energy of the body, she threw the Thing from her, and heard it drop, with the softness of feline feet, on the Indian rug upon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... like," he said, sulkily. "I have no—particular interest in the matter; but in that case he had better make the best of his time and get away. You hear?" said the master-spirit, making a sign to Wodehouse. He had roused himself up, and looked now like a feline creature preparing for a spring—his eyes were cast down, but under the eyelids he followed his brother's movements with vigilant observation. "If you like, you can betray him," he repeated, slowly, understanding, as bad men so often do, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... across Mrs. Surratt's face a stealthiness creeps—a sort of furtive, feline flashing of the eye, like that of one which means to leap sideways. At these times her face seems to grow hard and colorless, as if that tiger expression which Pradier caught upon the face of Brinvilliers ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... veranda of his house, stretched out on a chair and suffering greatly. He received me fairly well. At first he examined me silently, piercing me with his two feline eyes; then a kind of malicious smile spread over his features, which were rather hard. Finally he declared to me that all the attendants he had ever engaged in his service hadn't been worth a button, that they slept ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... music fills the quiet hall, If on her back a feline rival fall! And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house If old Self-interest ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... at once permitted; for gently removing the little intruder, he lighted the gas in order to see what kind of feline specimen had thus come voluntarily to seek his acquaintance. The little animal's appearance was greatly in its favour; there were many cats in the neighbourhood, some of them frightened-looking and half-starved ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... funerals took place. When the Apis died at Memphis, in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, his funeral cost not less than L13,000 sterling. When a cat died, the family it belonged to expressed great grief, and prayed and fasted several days. In cases of fire, more care was taken to preserve the feline animals than the most valuable property in the house. Dead cats, which were almost invariably embalmed, were sometimes carried from remote parts to be interred in the city of Bubastis, and hawks and moles were buried with great ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... a lioness before, striding and chafing in her regal rage, she is again, it must be confessed, a little like one now, but presenting a different aspect of the great feline, a sort of cruelty, a need to torment before sacrificing. "What would King Mark say if I were to slay his best servant, the most faithful of his retainers, who won for him crown and land? Does it seem to you such a paltry matter, that for which he stands indebted to ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Mr. Richard Venner to Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard to Miss Letty, Dudley Venner to Miss Helen Darley, and so on. The two young men looked each other straight in the eyes,—both full of youthful life, but one of frank and fearless aspect, the other with a dangerous feline beauty alien to the New ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... sleeping or reclining, and there is a cat sitting, a goat feeding, a deer scratching its side and a pheasant walking, among others, but the tragic note is struck in most of them. Probably the best works are to be found among those pieces representing members of the feline race, which were always the subject of Barye's most thorough study. The sculptures of horses are also very numerous, and it strikes one at first as curious that, after all the rebuffs he received from the academic faction, who recognized no animals but the horse ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... proverb 'a cat may look at a king' and adopt the realistic view that the king's being is independent of the cat's witnessing. This assumption, which amounts to saying that it need make no essential difference to the royal object whether the feline subject cognizes him or not, that the cat may look away from him or may even be annihilated, and the king remain unchanged,—this assumption, I say, is considered by my ingenious colleague to lead to the absurd practical consequence that the ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... was the proudest of men, and (that awful night at the Beach) she had expelled him from her presence like a schoolboy. Naturally he had been annoyed and offended—stung even into the rudeness of abandoning her in a summer-house to an entire stranger. How could you possibly wonder (unless feline) that he, great unsocial at best, had thereafter remained silent inside ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... city of Caneville, I lately drew the materials of a Bear's Biography. From the same source I now derive my "Adventures of a Dog." My task has been less that of a composer than a translator, for a feline editoress, a Miss Minette Gattina, had already performed her part. This latter animal appears, however, to have been so learned a cat—one may say so deep a puss—that she had furnished more notes ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... the intention of deceiving or to "show off." Have we not "Mock Turtle Soup," Mouton a la Chasseur, mutton prepared to taste like venison, "chicken" salad made of veal or of rabbit? In Europe even today much of the traditional roast hare is caught in the alley, and it belongs to a feline ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... musang, the civet cat, the royal tiger, the spotted black tiger, in whose glossy raven-black coat the characteristic markings are seen in certain lights; the tiger cat, the leopard, the Java cat, and four or five others. Many of these feline animals abound. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... was now up for vengeance. One hungry and fiery wish to destroy that diabolical caterwauler, took possession of my soul. At that instant the clock struck one. It was the death knell of the feline vocalist. I looked out of the window, and in the light of a stray lot of moonshine, streaming through the tall chimneys to the south-east, I saw Miss Dillon's romantic favorite, alternately cooing and fighting with a ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... fashionable house, where the company was abusing cats. He was unsupported; where was the Marquise, who would have brought a thousand arguments to his assistance, founded on her own experience of virtuous pussies? Instead of going to bed he will sit up and indite the panegyric of the feline race. He is still sore at the prejudice and injustice of the people he has just left. It culminated in the conduct of a lady who declared that cats were poison, and who, "when pussy appeared in the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... could inhabit. It is also evident that most changes would affect, either favourably or adversely, the powers of prolonging existence. An antelope with shorter or weaker legs must necessarily suffer more from the attacks of the feline carnivora; the passenger pigeon with less powerful wings would sooner or later be affected in its powers of procuring a regular supply of food; and in both cases the result must necessarily be a diminution of the population of the modified species. If, on the other ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... because my cruel parents established a decree, rigid and unbending as the laws of the Medes and Persians, that we must never have more than one cat at a time. Although this very law may argue that predilection, at an early age, for harboring everything feline which came in my way, which has since become at once a source ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... mounted guard over Carlotta, and Antoinette and her cat were busied with luncheon cook-pans, that my solitude was unimperilled. I see now there is nothing for it but the tower. And I cannot build the tower; so I am to be henceforward at the mercy of anything feline or feminine that cares to swish its tail or its skirts about ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... when he cruelly reproached her and when her native melancholy deepened into outbursts of despair. Finally there occurred an incident which is more or less obscure in parts. The Duchesse de Bouillon, a great lady of the court—facile, feline, licentious, and eager for delights—resolved that she would win the love of Maurice de Saxe. She set herself to win it openly and without any sense of shame. Maurice himself at times, when the tears of Adrienne proved wearisome, flirted ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... size, and his neck from head to shoulders was a mass of bristling hair—to all appearances a full-blooded wolf. Leclere was lying asleep in his furs when Batard deemed the time to be ripe. He crept upon him stealthily, head low to earth and lone ear laid back, with a feline softness of tread. Batard breathed gently, very gently, and not till he was close at hand did he raise his head. He paused for a moment and looked at the bronzed bull throat, naked and knotty, and swelling to a deep steady ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... about 5 feet 10 inches tall, compactly built, square shouldered, and just a trifle pursy at the waist line, approaching along the dancing floor. He was light on his small feet, his shoulders worked with feline grace, but his face was a face as hard as limestone and of about the same colour—bluish gray. His eyes were the colour of ice, with a greenish tinge. Smooth-shaven cheeks, close-cropped hair, wing-like ears, and a little round head ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... horse-tail as high as the waistcoat, with a stem as thick as a walking-stick. This is a sapling from which the prehistoric tree can readily be imagined. From our southern woods the wild cat has been banished, but still lives in the north as an English representative of that ferocious feline genus which roams in tropical forests. We still have the deer, both wild and in parks. Then there are the birds, and these, in the same manner as plants, represent the inhabitants of the trackless wilds abroad. Happily ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... as incapable of being welded into a nation, urging that their independence must destroy Austria-Hungary, a consummation desired by Madame Novikoff, with her feline contempt for "poor dear Austria," but which all must unite to prevent if they would ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... of amusement in it. "He seems a sort of Prince Charming that everybody takes a liking to." Wayne and Valdez were already returning, with Runyon between them. They pretended to lead him captive and his face radiated merriment and good nature. He walked with the elasticity of a feline creature; he carried his body as if it were the depository of precious jewels. Never was there a man to whom nature had been kinder—nor any man who was more graciously proud of what nature had done for him. For the occasion he was dressed in a suit of fawn-colored corduroy which ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... thus shaped itself under the touch of time, Grace was almost startled to find how little she suffered from that jealous excitement which is conventionally attributed to all wives in such circumstances. But though possessed by none of that feline wildness which it was her moral duty to experience, she did not fail to know that she had made a frightful mistake in her marriage. Acquiescence in her father's wishes had been degradation to herself. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... and considerate to me now in my old age that I plead for the others, the less fortunate ones of my species—and I also pray that all who read these simple annals of my life will find it in their hearts to remember their faithful feline friends and never under any circumstances be tempted ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... were portrayed on de Marmont's mobile face: they glowed in his dark eyes and breathed through his quivering nostrils. Now he rested his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, his nervy fingers played a tattoo against his teeth, clenched together like those of some young feline creature which sees its prey coming along and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Find a way through that barrier she must and would. Whatever scruples may have been aroused by his appeal to her she banished. No integer of the impressionable sex had ever yet won from her such a battle. None ever should: and assuredly not this one. The Great American Pumess was now all feline. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... beautiful, heartless animal, not a smile of derision but one of deliberate allure. He felt the hot blood mount to his temples. A languid arm beckoned him to her side and the amazing creature settled back in her cushions with the drowsy, contented motions of a lazy feline. ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... no longer see the small meadow where the grazers were. But Travis knew, as well as if he watched the scene, that the coyotes were creeping in, belly flat to earth, adding a feline stealth and patience to ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... resemblance exists in point of fact, but there is in it a something that is colossal and monstrous. M. Thiers has no suspicion of this, and pursues the even tenour of his way. All his life he has been stroking cats, and coaxing them with all sorts of cajolling processes and feline ways. To-day he is trying to play the same game, and does not see that the animals have grown beyond all measure and that it is wild beasts that he is keeping about him. A strange sight it is to see this little man trying to stroke ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... as light on his feet and as quick and graceful as a cat, but there was nothing feline about his appearance. He stood well over six feet in his stockings and tipped the beam close to the two hundred mark. Not one ounce of fat was on his huge frame. So fine was he drawn that unless one looked closely he would never suspect the weight of bone and muscle that ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... kill the tigress, had she not at that moment cast at him a look, which he seemed to fancy implored his mercy. As he approached, however, while she lay on the ground unable to move, she uttered a loud snarl of anger, and ground her teeth, and opened out the claws of her uninjured feet, as the feline race are wont to do, as if about to seize him. Still he persevered, wishing, if possible, to capture the animal alive. Speaking to her in a soothing voice, he got near her head, holding his rifle in such a position that he might fire in ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... defined by an authority to which either was willing to bow. Their struggles for precedency, and for the maintenance of alleged rights invaded, commenced A.D. 1377. (see Rot. Claus. 51 Ed. III. 76.), and were carried on with truly feline fierceness and implacability till the end of the seventeenth century, when it may fairly be considered that they had mutually devoured each other to the very tail, as we find their property all mortgaged, and see them each passing by-laws that their respective officers should be content with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... on his lips, burning like ice. To-morrow,—in a few hours,—his first thought, his only thought would be to find that woman again, to experience that voluptuous impression, that dream that had penetrated his heart. A danger, Lissac had said. The feline eyes of Marianne had a dangerous ardor; but it was their charm, their strength and their adorable seductiveness, that filtered like a flame ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... was difficult to associate one with the other; for whereas the dimly-seen figure had resembled that of a man (or, more closely, that of a woman) the eyes had looked out upon me from a point low down near the ground, like those of some crouching feline. ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... much as Grindot despised him. He waited to give him a parting scratch as he went out. By dint of living so long with his cats Molineux had acquired, in his manners as well as in his eyes, something unmistakably feline. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... know," his answer came after a moment's pause. "I have caprices of mood. Certain mental images made my temperature rise. Momentarily it did matter. One is like that at times. Andrews' feline face and her muscular fingers—and the child's extraordinarily exquisite flesh—gave me a second's ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... seeing babies born to people who don't know how to bring them up. I am tired of folks who smile continuously. I am tired of amiable fools and the platitudes of unintelligent saints. I am tired of mediocrity. I am tired of cats, both human and feline. I am tired of being a soldier and marching with the advance guard. I am tired of girls who giggle and of boys who swear. I am tired of married women who think it charming to be a little giddy, and of married men who ogle young girls and other ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... town. The defunct back yard is being covered by an extension that will give Martin a fine library, with a side window and a scrap of balcony, while the ailantus tree is left, that bob-tailed Josephus may not be deprived of the feline pleasures of the street or his original way of reaching it over the side fence; and the flower garden that was, will be the foundation of a garden of books under ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... note of the Cat-Bird, from which his name is derived, has been the occasion of many misfortunes to his species, causing them to share a portion of that contempt which almost every human being feels towards the feline race, and that contempt has been followed by persecution. The Cat-Bird has always been proscribed by the New England farmers, who from the first settlement of the country have entertained a prejudice against many of the most useful birds. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... alternately with brown and yellow, the ground being a sort of silver-grey. The head resembles that of the lion, but without the mane, and is prolonged into a face and snout more like those of the wild boar. Its limbs are less unlike those of the feline genus than any other Earthly type, but have three claws and a hard pad in lieu of the soft cushion. The upper jaw is armed with two formidable tusks about twelve inches in length, and projecting directly forwards. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... cover a continent. We have learned what the boasted philanthropy of England is worth when put to the test of sacrifice, and also how the British lion can put forth the sharpest and most venomous of feline claws when an opportunity presents itself of ruining a possible rival. More than this, we have learned to be self-reliant, to take greater and more elevated views of political duty, and to be heroic without being extravagant. Since we were a republic no one year ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... with the raging beast, and struggling for life, they rolled together down a steep declivity. All this passed so rapidly, that the other boor had scarcely time to recover from the confusion in which his feline foe had left him, to seize his gun, and rush forward to aid his comrade, when he beheld them rolling together down the steep bank in mortal conflict. In a few moments he was at the bottom with them, but too late to save the life of his friend. The leopard had torn open the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... been styled the king of beasts, but I think he is an usurper allowed to remain on the throne by public opinion and suffrage, from the majesty of his appearance. In every other point he has no claim. He is the head of the feline or cat species, and has all the treachery, cruelty, and wanton love for blood that all this class of animals have to excess. The lion, like the tiger and the cat, will not come boldly on to his prey, but springs from his concealment. It is true ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... author who expressed unpleasant sentiments in regard to Walton was Leigh Hunt. Here, again, I fancy that partizan prejudice had something to do with the dislike. Hunt was a radical in politics and religion. Moreover there was a feline strain in his character, which made it necessary for him to scratch somebody now and then, as a relief to ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... palate with her cunning sauces, and, after all, cared as little what he ate as any other healthy young man, boasted of his housekeeper continually by skilful allusions, till the honest wives of his fathers and brethren were outraged and grew feline, as any natural woman will if a servant is flung in her face ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... The constant runnings of evil fame, Foul, and dirty, and black as ink, That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink, Pour'd in her horn like slops in a sink: While sitting in conclave, as gossips do, With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green, And not a little of feline spleen Lapp'd up in "Catty packages," too, To give a zest of the sipping and supping; For still by some invisible tether, Scandal and Tea are link'd together, As surely as Scarification and Cupping; Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea— Or sloe, or whatever it ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... unattractive. His eyes had the color and the hard brightness of steel; his keen glances, subject to his will, often questioned, but never allowed themselves to be interrogated. Well made, slender, a slight and graceful figure, he had in his gait and movements a feline suppleness and stealthiness. He was slow, but easy of speech, and never animated; the tone of his voice was cold and veiled, and whatever the subject of conversation might be, he neither raised nor ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... of his quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded. He smiled in silence ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... barren in facts Round game of deception, in which nobody was deceived 'Twas pity, he said, that both should be heretics Wasting time fruitlessly is sharpening the knife for himself With something of feline and feminine duplicity ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... that the noise proceeded from the bathroom, and, hurrying to the door, we found A. Fish, Esq., sitting up in the water shouting for help, while Mrs. Mehetable Murchison and a whole group of her feline friends were out on the tiles, glaring ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... noises made by the carnivora at the Zoological Gardens at feeding-time; the idea was taken up by prisoner after prisoner until the whole place was alive with barkings, yappings, roarings, pelican chatterings, and feline yowlings, interspersed with shrieks of hysterical laughter. To many in that crowded solitude it came as an extraordinary relief. It was better even than the hymn-singing. ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... face. I gave him a scratch on the forehead with my finger-nails. Then we fell upon each other and rolled on the ground and hit and scratched with feline ferocity. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... and the war-cry is so peculiar and apparently so incongruous that it is fairly laughable. It is a rough breathing, like the "huff" of an angry cat, and a serious dispute between the birds reminds one of nothing but a disagreement in the feline family. If the stranger does not take the hint, and retire at the first huff, he is chased, over and under trees and through branches, so violently that leaves rustle and twigs are thrust aside, as long as the patience or wind holds out. On one ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... faint moan of feline defiance died away and silence fell on the room. Ashe turned to ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... was neither bear nor deer that they were running after, and as I had observed a path through the canes, I leaped upon my saddle, and followed the chase, wondering what it could be, as, had the animal been any of the smaller feline species, it would have kept to the briars, where dogs have never the least ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... luxuriously submitting to the skilful attentions of Pascherette; her wealth of lustrous hair enveloped her like a veil, rendering almost superfluous the filmy silken robe she had donned. But at sight of Milo all her feline contentment fled, and she thrust the maid from her and stood ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... her first youth, but could not yet be called middle-aged. Her figure was inclined to stoutness and her bearing was proud and confident. Her face was pale, but serene. It was a curious face, comely and yet feline, with a subtle suggestion of cruelty about the straight, strong little mouth and chubby jaw. She was draped in some sort of loose, white gown. Beside her stood a thin, eager priest, who whispered in her ear, and continually ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and had gotten almost beyond the shadow of the monument, when a dog belonging to one of the workmen pounced upon her and killed her, she, of course, not being in her best running trim, after performing such an extraordinary feat. One of the men procured the body of the dead feline, smoothed out her silky coat, and turned the remains over to a representative of the Smithsonian Institution, who mounted the skin and placed it under a glass case. The label on the case tells this wonderful story in a few words: "This cat on September 23, 1880, jumped from ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous
... in her honour immense festivals were there held. Her name is found in the beginning of the pyramid times; but her main period of popularity was that of the Shishaks who ruled from Bubastis, and in the later times images of her were very frequent as amulets. It is possible from the name that this feline goddess, whose foreign origin is acknowledged, was the female form of the god Bes, who is dressed in a lion's skin, and also came in from the east ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... awaiting some procession which tarried long. At a point under him where the road was torn up there stood a red light, and at the corner two men were talking in leisurely repose, as if sunning themselves at noonday. Lovers of a feline disposition, who were never seen by daylight, joked and darted at each other in ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... accustomed to write in a closet on the third story. Beside him sat his estimable wife, and on his knee his favourite cat; this feline affection he entertained in common ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Her gaze hung fixedly on a faded engraving which was over the mantel, and which represented a banquet held by one of the ancient English kings. With glassy eyes she stared at this picture representing the joys of living. She did not notice that Borgert had followed her with his feline step. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... ledge along the bed of the stream. How cool it is! He looks up the dark, silent defile, hears the solitary voice of the water, sees the decayed trunks of fallen trees bridging the stream, and all he has dreamed, when a boy, of the haunts of beasts of prey—the crouching feline tribes, especially if it be near nightfall and the gloom already deepening in the woods—comes freshly to mind, and he presses on, wary and alert, and speaking to his companions ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... them. This arrangement we have already encountered in undoubted Assyrian monuments (see Figs. 8, 29, and 123). If we turn the plaque, we find ourselves face to face with the beast. His skull is depressed, his features hideous, his grinning jaws wrinkled like those of a lion or panther. His feline character is enforced ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot |
