"Flea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rabbit gone loco. Now, here I set like a bag of beans, tryin' to tell John Torrance why I'm quittin' this here job without makin' him think I'm glad to quit—which I am, and I ain't. It's like tryin' to split a flea's ear with a axe; it can't be did without mashin' the flea. Now, if John was here I could tell him in three jumps. The man that invented writin' must 'a' been tongue-tied or had sore throat some time when he wanted to talk awful bad. ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... shade. The jealous queen started in rage; She kick'd her crown and beat her page: "Bring me my magic wand," she cries; "Under that primrose there it lies; I'll change the silly, saucy chit, Into a flea, a louse, a nit, A worm, a grasshopper, a rat, An owl, a monkey, hedge-hog, bat. Ixion once a cloud embraced, By Jove and jealousy well placed; What sport to see proud Oberon stare, And flirt it with a pet-en Pair!" Then thrice she stamped the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... they slept by day; I wot they rade by an unkenned track; "The Bishop was licht as a flea," said Sim, "Or ever we ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... intestina, among the annulosa; the tortoises, among the reptilia; the armadillo and scaly ant-eater, pig, mouse, jerboa, and kangaroo, among quadrupeds; the waders and tenuirostres, among birds; the coleoptera, (bug, louse, flea, &c.) among insects; the gastrobranchus, among fishes; are examples which will illustrate the special characters of this type. These are smallness, particularly in the head and mouth, feebleness, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... he said, "'twouldn't be no manner of good if it come down to a runnin' chase. Nearest depot's fifty mile' across the county line. Racin' this car ag'in' the sheriff's 'ud be like matchin' a flea ag'in' a grasshopper. Dern it, she's balked ag'in." He wrestled with the crank, conquered it and the machine shivered like a hunting dog while his aunt adjusted spark and gas. She nodded to him to start and they moved off, Miranda waving a farewell as she called ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... suddenly friendly to this man who took what he wanted regardless of cost. She thought pleasantly of the ride home in the cab, but she was pulled up with a jerk when Jonah led the way to the tram. He wore an anxious look, as if he had spent more than he could afford, and yet the money was a mere flea-bite to him. But whenever he spent money, a panic terror seized him—a survival of the street-arab's instinct, who counted his money in ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... hunt for these lively insects just before going to bed, and I have no doubt that the exercise assisted to keep me in good health. I used to remove my clothing, which I turned inside out and shook very carefully. Then I bathed from head to foot in some villainous brandy that no respectable flea would or could endure; after this ablution was ended, I donned my garments, wrapped in my blanket, and proceeded to dream that I was a hen with thirteen chickens, and doomed to tear up an acre of ground ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... one or two remarks, then, turning, walked away together. And, as they walked, Dick's hand went up his back and he scratched an imaginary flea. ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... apparatus. With his forefinger he kept tripping the doors, showing how a person's weight operated the contrivance, shutting the doors behind and simultaneously opening the doors in front; but Mr. Harnden did not draw attention to the palpable fact that a waiter would need to have the agility of a flea to escape being swatted in the rear or ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the Leviathan—to an ant or a flea—such portly terms might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... devouring passion for Leandro. I protest I have no reason to think she cares a button for anything but her own art. I never tried; but it's my impression that if I had ever whispered a word in her ear I should have got a flea in my ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... looked up quickly. As a matter of fact, he had but a moment before found a flea in the wool he was examining, and the wool was indeed a wisp of dog hair. The party Mr. Gubb had been engaged to find was a dog, and Mr. Gubb was—by the inductive method of detecting—trying to reason out the location of the dog. By the aid of the microscope, Mr. Gubb ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... whispered, "what you want to startle anybody like that for? Don't you know that the wicked flea pursueth every man, but the righteous shall ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... out of Pigdom. This creature would not have passed muster at a county fair; no Suffolk blood compacted and rounded him; he belonged to the "racers," and skipped about his pen with the alacrity of a large flea, wiggling his curly tail as expressively as a dog's, and "all but speakin'," as Israel said. He was always glad to see Miss Lucinda, and established a firm friendship with her dog Fun, a pretty, sentimental, German spaniel. Besides, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... reply would lead one to infer that Gossamer proceeded from spiders in general; and if it be meant that all true spiders spin, it is no doubt correct; but the Gossamer which "A Young Inquirer" asks about is the production of a small black spider about the size of a flea, which was a true aeronaut long before Montgolfier or Lunardi, and if "A Young Inquirer" has access to either the "Linnean Transactions" or the first series of Loudon's "Magazine of Natural History," he will find particulars in the latter, showing that a violent controversy raged through the ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... killed on the northern side of the Altar, and flea'd, cut in pieces and salted in the northern gate of the Temple; and therefore the building or exhedra on the eastern side of this gate, was for the Priests who had the oversight of the charge of the Altar, and Daily Service: ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... wave; I mean artistic individualism, which is so much crueller, so much blinder and so much more irrational even than commercial individualism. The decay of society was praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms. The aesthete was all receptiveness, like the flea. His only affair in this world was to feed on its facts and colours, like a parasite upon blood. The ego was the all; and the praise of it was enunciated in madder and madder rhythms by poets whose Helicon was absinthe and ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... began doing business with Bi at right guard again. The left guard on the Varsity was Bannen—"Slugger" Bannen. He didn't weigh within seven pounds of Bi, but he had springs inside of him and could get the jump on a flea. He was called "Slugger" because he looked like a prizefighter, but he was a gentle, harmless chap, and one of the Earnest Workers in the Christian Association. He could stick his fist through an oak panel same as you or I would put our fingers through a sheet of ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... there are those who hold John Law, and his studies, not so light as doth his own brother. For myself, the matter furnishes no surprise at all. As for you, you had never confidence in me, nor in yourself. Gad! Will, hadst but the courage of a flea, what days we two might have together here ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... a benign and almost paternal glance. "You're tremendously sweet to put that flea in my ear, Kay. It's a wonderful prescription, but it lacks one small ingredient—the wealthy, courageous and self-sacrificing friend who will consent to run the sandy on your astute parent, as a favor ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... could have made them laugh, like to see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned palate,—spit ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... proudlier on the bit: My master with good managing Brought her first unto the ring;[230] He likewise taught her to corvet, To run, and suddenly to set; She's cunning in the wild-goose race, Nay, she's apt to every pace; And to prove her colour good, A flea, enamour'd of her blood, Digg'd for channels in her neck, And there made many a crimson speck: I think there's none that use to ride But can her pleasant trot abide; She goes so even upon the way, She will not stumble in a day; And when ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... mother looked at each other. 'Do you hear that?' whispered he. 'He talks of a flea. I broke ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... young fellow—what had they nicknamed him—'The Buccaneer?' looked precious hangdog there behind her; had got a flea in his ear, he shouldn't wonder. Serve him right, taking her down all that way to look at the house! The proper place to look at a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... what you're talking about, sir," answered the voice, which seemed to be that of his housekeeper; "but you can't see Joe; he's gone out with a flea in his ear. The idea of his letting you get your feet ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... attracted by the respectability of the other's appearance and the bulging saddle-bags. But he did not stop. Neither did he return. The young man with the old horse looked to him like a fighter—and even if the saddle-bags were stuffed with gold they would prove but a flea bite to the stake which he ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... some people recommend me to sleep in a bag drawn tightly round the throat, others to sprinkle my bedding freely with insect powder, others to smear the skin all over with carbolic oil, and some to make a plentiful use of dried and powdered flea-bane. All admit, however, that these are but feeble palliatives. Hammocks unfortunately cannot be used in ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... flea Has smaller that upon them prey And these have smaller still to bite 'em And ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... inspected it and talked about it at leisure. A small bird of the canary species had to be stirred up with the butt-end of the whip before it would move, and then it moved only a couple of feet. It is said that even the suspicious flea is tame and sociable in Bermuda, and will allow himself to be caught and caressed without misgivings. This should be taken with allowance, for doubtless there is more or less brag about it. In San Francisco they used to claim that their native flea ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the officer. "We can't be bothered with a single prisoner. What is one flea on a blanket? Another time, if we come across you again with enough of your comrades to make the game worth while, why then, perhaps we may give ourselves the pain of keeping you. You've seen that we have enough food to feed your whole trench, and ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... them pain. The superfluous flesh was often cut out, which caused them to eject much blood through the mouth. Afterwards, a violent pain seized their arms and legs, which remained swollen and very hard, all spotted as if with flea-bites; and they could not walk on account of the contraction of the muscles, so that they were almost without strength, and suffered intolerable pains. They experienced pain also in the loins, stomach, and bowels, had a very bad cough, and short breath. In a word, they were ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... day twice as long as it is, a man might find it diverting to probe down into that unsatisfactory fellow-creature and try to reach some common root of feeling other than those physiological needs which we share with every beast of earth. Diverting; hardly profitable. It would be like looking for a flea in a haystack, or a joke in the Bible. They can perhaps be found; at the expense of ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... moved from place to place with wonderful agility. Johnson sat in great impatience till the gentleman had finished his tedious narrative, and then burst out (playfully however,) 'It is a pity, Sir, that you have not seen a lion; for a flea has taken you such a time, that a lion must have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sort of things never come singly, it seems. I had another request for your hand, my dear, only this afternoon, from that scoundrel Frank Muller, of all men in the world," and his face darkened as he said the name. "I sent him off with a flea in his ear, I can tell you. Had I known then what I know now, I should have referred him to John. There, there! He is a bad man, and a dangerous man, but let him be. He is taking plenty of rope, and he will hang himself one of ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble, Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail, Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket thou; Braved in my own house by a skein of thread! Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant!" (Taming of the Shrew, Act ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... below notice; but, morally, he assured me that he would give me a written character of the very best description, whenever I chose to apply for it. "You're honest," he said; "you're willing, though lazy; you would pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and, though a monstrous coward, you don't run away." My own demurs to these harsh judgments were not so many as they might have been. The idiocy I confessed; because, though positive that I was not uniformly ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... a few things which he wishes he had left behind. The Hessian fly, the wire-worm, the flea, and grubs and scale insects thrive mischievously. The black and grey rats have driven the native rat into the recesses of the forest. A score of weeds have come, mixed with badly-screened grass-seed, or in any of a hundred ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... know, that Mr. Jonathan, our butler, is a very grave good sort of old man, with his hair as white as silver! and an honest worthy man he is. I was hurrying out with a flea in my ear, as the saying is, and going down stairs into the parlour, met him. He took hold of my hand (in a gentler manner, though, than my master) with both his; and he said, Ah! sweet, sweet Mrs. Pamela! what is it I heard but just now!—I am sorry at my heart; but I am ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... across Europe by a powerful autumn gale, blowing steadily in one direction. In physiological language, they belong to the sporadic, not to the endemic class, of which a remarkable instance is afforded in the flea-bane (Erigeron canadensis), a plant which, having found its way to this side the Atlantic only since the discovery of America, is now a common weed on the continent of Europe. Running streams and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... me. Curse the cold, say I. It robs a man of all spirit. To grapple with this rigour one should have fed all one's life on blubber. I defy a man to be brave when he is half-frozen. I feel a match for any three men now; but on the heights a flea would have ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... something, as if, in fact, he were resenting the man's words, but it might have only been that he was being troubled by the flea which he had several times that morning tried to scratch out ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the secret of its popularitee, Nor get a ounce of pleasure from the Rule of Three,— I was bad right through; sweared 'hully gee,' And worse sometimes, like 'jiminee;' Scrawled with a pencil on my jographee, Stole birds' eggs in the huckleberry tree,— Oh, I was bad; tried to learn a flea How to keep his balance on a rolling pea,— Oh, regular bad; and my ma, said she, 'If you don't be better than what you be, I'll put you in the cupboard and turn the key.' But I wouldn't and I ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... idea without which the fact is barren, M. Delbeuf repeats certain statements with which readers of modern zoological science are tolerably familiar, such as the following: A flea can jump two hundred times its length; therefore a horse, were its strength proportioned to its weight, could leap the Rocky Mountains, and a whale could spring two hundred leagues in height. An Amazon ant walks about eight feet per minute, but if the progress of a human Amazon were proportioned ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... he said. 'The understanding of a flea, a hopping flea with a proboscis. Why should you crawl abject before the understanding of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... said Mike Flannery, "ye would not say that same, for to the flea professor th' flea is as big as a house. He studies him throo a telescope, Mrs. Muldoon, that magnifies th' flea a million times. Th' flea professor will take a dog with a flea on him, mam, and look at th' same with his telescope, and th' ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... deportment are allowed to brush and comb him, while three other good boys may serve him with food and drink. But every Saturday morning the climax of the week is reached, when three superlatively good boys give him a nice lathery bath with hot water and flea soap. The privilege of serving as Singapore's valet is going to be the only incentive I shall need ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Gillenormand on account of his wife, a pretty and coquettish barberess. M. Gillenormand admired his own discernment in all things, and declared that he was extremely sagacious; here is one of his sayings: "I have, in truth, some penetration; I am able to say when a flea bites me, from ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... chapels, plastered and nicely warmed, and comfortably seated, could have dropped in upon us and spent an hour. Of course, they would have had the back-ache and cold feet, and, perhaps, carried away a flea or two, even in March, but they would have gone home saying, "If people can meet in such a place, some refined, intelligent ladies even, and continue to go night after night, I ought to be very, very ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 07, July, 1885 • Various
... of the Saints. London, 1874), using probably a version of the legend reading pulicem, instead of pollicem suum, has clapped a flea into ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... proverb of the ancients, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked: but mine hand shall not be upon thee. 14. After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea. 15. The Lord therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand. 16. And it came to pass, when David had made an end of speaking these words unto Saul, that Saul said, Is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... jigger, chigoe, or nigua (Pulex penetrans of science) is a microscopic flea, that buries itself under the skin and lays a myriad eggs; the result is a painful tumor. Jiggers are ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... attacking these plants are: the flea- beetle, the cabbage-worm, the cabbage-maggot (root) and "club-root"; directions for fighting all of which will be found in the ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... exhausted. Let me fight this day." When the warriors caught sight of Judah's lion face and his lion teeth, and heard his lion voice, they were greatly afraid. Judah hopped and jumped over the army like a flea, from one warrior to the next, raining blows down upon them incessantly, and by evening he had slain eighty thousand and ninety-six men, armed with swords and bows. But fatigue overcame him, and Zebulon took up ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... working. I can but enumerate their names, and I take this opportunity of saying that this is the last time I shall put on record the names of competitors who give no sort of clue to the process by which their answers were obtained. In guessing a conundrum, or in catching a flea, we do not expect the breathless victor to give us afterwards, in cold blood, a history of the mental or muscular efforts by which he achieved success; but a mathematical calculation is another thing. The names ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... his wages. Suspicions were excited; but again they remained vague. The autopsy showed a state of things not precisely to be called peculiar to poisoning cases the intestines, which the fatal poison had not had time to burn as in the case of the d'Aubrays, were marked with reddish spots like flea-bites. In June Penautier obtained the post that had been held by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to break the wind. The fleas bit the sheep, and the sheep bit the ground, and the sore had spread to this extent. It is astonishing what a great sore a little scratch breedeth. Who knows but Sahara, where caravans and cities are buried, began with the bite of an African flea? This poor globe, how it must itch in many places! Will no god be kind enough to spread a salve of birches over its sores? Here too we noticed where the Indians had gathered a heap of stones, perhaps for their council-fire, which, by their weight having prevented the sand under ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... sons to this curious race of vagabond students, when she herself was without any university to satisfy the cravings of her thoughtful and intellectual people. 'No country without a Scot or a flea' was an uncomplimentary proverb due to the numerous young clerks, equally fierce for frays and for lectures, who flocked to the seats of learning on the Continent, and sometimes became naturalized there, sometimes came home again, to fight ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that big bands were in the immediate neighborhood. It has been a long, hard summer's work for the troops, and the Indians have been, to all commands that boasted strength or swiftness, elusive as the Irishman's flea of tradition. Only to those whose numbers were weak or whose movements were hampered have they appeared in fighting-trim. But combinations have been too much for them, and at last they have been "herded" down to the Elk, have crossed, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... before every young gentleman in Great Britain; and to judge by the mental stamina it affords him in most cases, what a waste of good food it is! The dishes are so numerous and so quickly changed, that he has no time to decide on which he likes best. Like an industrious flea, rather than a bee, he hops from flower to flower in the educational garden, without one penny-worth of honey to show for it. And then—though I feel how degrading it is to allude to so vulgar a matter—how high is the price of admission to the feast in question! Its purveyors ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... heaved a thumping stone At a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by, (And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,) Then abiit—what's the Ciceronian phrase? - Excessit, evasit, erupit—off slogs boy; Off like bird, avi similis—(you observed The dative? Pretty i' the Mantuan!)—Anglice Off in three flea skips. Hactenus, so far, So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male -, Where was I with my trope 'bout one in a quag? I did once hitch the syntax into verse: Verbum personale, a verb personal, Concordat—ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps—cum Nominativo, with its nominative, ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... I knew I could do as much in proportion with five million dollars as with five dollars. And the result, I was perfectly aware, would be to those achieved by John as the elephant in his normal strength compares with the elephant whose strength is to his size as the flea's strength to his size. John could take the flea's leap with five dollars, but was satisfied with the elephant's leap with five ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... and Path Finder, striding alone, Then the good horse, Red Ember, the flea-bitten roan. Then the little Gavotte bearing less than ten stone. Then a crowd of all colours with Peterkinooks Going strong as a whale goes, ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... wounds your selfe, and fill them up with gall: Yea you can see me sound, and faint for want of breath, And gaspe and grone for life, and struggle still with death, What can you now do more, sweare by your maydenhead, The for to flea me quicke, or strip me ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... made him the instrument of his own death, but only his excessiveness of wisdom? whereby, while he was searching into the nature of clouds, while he was plodding and contemplating upon ideas, while he was exercising his geometry upon the measure of a flea, and diving into the recesses of nature, for an account how little insects, when they were so small, could make so great a buzz and hum; while he was intent upon these fooleries he minded nothing of the world, or its ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... is an old soldier; and, in marshalling the forces for a bull or a badger-bait, displays all the tactics of an experienced general officer. Caleb Baldwin would no more bear comparison with Jem than a flea does ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... A Flea, a Grasshopper, and a Toy-goose once wanted to see which of them could jump highest, and so they invited the whole world and everybody else who would like to come, to see the frolic. When the three met together in the room, everyone thought ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... faithfully the provisions of the clause providing for the perpetual care and maintenance of my tomb. If they don't care and maintain," he said, giving me a hard look, "that million and a half is to go to the Home for Flea-Bitten Dogs." ...
— Solander's Radio Tomb • Ellis Parker Butler
... dulcinea, incensed at the opprobrious term; "such a b— as your mother, you dog! D— you, I've a good mind to box your jaws instead of your comepiss. I'll let you know, as how I am meat for your master, you saucy blackguard. You are worse than a dog, you old flinty-faced, flea-bitten scrub. A dog wears his own coat, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... night. When I rose from my blankets this morning, after a sleepless night, I do not think there was an inch square of my body that did not exhibit the inflammation consequent upon a puncture by a flea, or some other equally rabid and poisonous insect. Small-pox, erysipelas, measles, and scarlet-fever combined, could not have imparted to my skin a more inflamed and sanguineous appearance. The multitudes of these insects, however, have been generated by Indian filthiness. They ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... is my hope, as well as belief, that these my Labours will be no more comparable to the Productions of many other Natural Philosophers, who are now every where busie about greater things; then my little Objects are to be compar'd to the greater and more beautiful Works of Nature, A Flea, a Mite, a Gnat, to an Horse, an ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... the natural variety of aristocratic humanity. He has the good taste to refuse condescension sufficient to allow him to eat at table with a Frederick Douglass, a Samuel R. Ward, or a Dr. Pennington. Poor light little soul! It can borrow a pair of flea's legs, and, hopping up to the magnificent lights of public opinion, sit looking down upon the whole colored race in ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... wall of the Catskills stands out clear and strong, while in the south the mountains of the Highlands bound the view. The day is warm and the bees are very busy there in that neglected corner of the field, rich in asters, flea-bane, and golden-rod. The corn has been cut, and upon a stout, but a few rods from the woods, which here drop quickly down from the precipitous heights, we set up our bee-box, touched again with the pungent oil. In a few moments a bee has found it; she comes up to leeward, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... lingering hope remained—that the Captain had pushed ahead into the woods, and that, as yet, Mr. Jack Rogers (whose good nature I might almost count upon) had alone detected me and would pack me home to the ship with nothing worse than a flea in my ear. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... deeds? For one useless life a thousand lives saved from decay and death. One death, and a hundred beings restored to existence! There's a calculation for you. What in proportion is the life of this miserable old woman? No more than the life of a flea, a beetle, nay, not even that, for she is pernicious. She preys on other lives. She lately bit Elizabeth's finger, in a fit of passion, ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... flea in Rosario, however—just one flea; but he is a most ubiquitous and a most insatiably blood-thirsty little person. The worst of it is that, night or day, you are never perfectly sure where he may be. It is no use killing him either—that ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!—incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... flea and the mammal it feeds on is even less close than that which exists between the Ornithomyia and bird. The fact that fleas are so common and universal—for in all lands we have them, like the poor, always with us; and that ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Tousseau had plunged into all the fun of the fair. They had gambled in the most lucrative lottery in Europe, presided over by a man who excelled in dubious witticisms. They had seen the fattest goose in the world, and the celebrated flea, "Bismarch," who could drive six horses. Furthermore, they had purchased gingerbread, shot at a target for clay pipes and soft-boiled eggs, and finally had danced a waltz in ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... the man. "I know the guy, and how to handle him. You just watch him like he's watching you, Mr. Mershone, and if anything happens you skip as lively as a flea. I can use that two hundred in ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... face, light up my hair, My garments touch, dart everywhere; And if I try to catch them They're quicker than the wicked flea— And then I wonder how 'twould be To have a ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... same time it is a mistake to regard each wild bird or quadruped as a sacred thing, which under no circumstances may be utilized by man. We are not fanatical Hindus of the castes which religiously avoid the "taking of life" of any kind, and gently push aside the flea, the centipede and the scorpion. The reasoning powers of such people are strictly limited, the same as those of people who are opposed to the removal by death of the bandits and murderers of ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... wall. He is not a very beautiful dog, and the light shows numerous old wounds where the hair will not grow. He is afraid of nothing on the face of the earth or under it. He will tackle a bullock as readily as he will tackle a flea. He hates all other dogs—except kangaroo-dogs—and has a marked dislike to friends or relations of the family. They seldom call, however. He sometimes makes friends with strangers. He hates snakes and has killed many, but he will be bitten some day and die; most ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the like Gesture; and he offering himself to him, he made a Shew of taking something off his Garment, which he presently threw away. But when the King was urgent upon him, seeming unwilling to tell what it was, mimicking Abundance of Modesty, he at last told him it was a Flea; the King perceiving the Fraud, says to him, What do you make a Dog of me? and orders him to be taken away, and instead of 40 Crowns orders ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... the civilised world. From having been the prey of the inexpressible foreigner in his shooting season, it suddenly becomes, and remains during about five months, the happy hunting ground of the silent flea, the buzzing fly and the insinuating mosquito. The streets are, indeed, still full of people, and long lines of carriages may be seen towards sunset in the Villa Borghesa and in the narrow Corso. Rome and the ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... James Gollop was as sedate as a monkey and twice as ebullient. The Judge suffered from a prodigious sense of responsibility and dignity, whilst his double was given to frivolities, a distressing sense of the ridiculous and was as irresponsible and happy as a flea hurdling from one boarding house to ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... forsooth, they have discovered in me something to be made the most of, as a variety of food seldom coming within their province. But the complaining moans of "Ali-Akbar" from "The Aged," the guttural grunts of disapproval from the mirza and the mudbake, and the impatient growls of "kek" (flea) from the khan, tell of their being at least partial companions in misery; but, being thicker-skinned, and withal well seasoned to this sort of thing, their sufferings are less ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the air of Subiaco is thin, the water is light, and, for a house, mine is of the better ones. One knows that we are country people, but we are clean people; there are neither chickens nor children. If you find a flea, I will have him set in gold. You shall say, 'This is the flea that was found in Stefanone's house.' In that way every one will know. I do not speak of the beds. The pope could sleep in the one in the large room at the head of the staircase, the pope with all his cardinals. They ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... horizon, waiting for the outcome of the search, got a start. Yonder, far away on the other side of the river, between a little wood and the Staria Derevnia, a light boat drew to the shore, and a little black spot jumped from it like a flea. Koupriane recognized the little black spot as Kathanna. She was safe. Now he could not reach her. It would be useless to search the maze of the Bohemian quarter, where her country-people lived in full control, with customs and privileges that ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... inhabitants of the moon (for we now found we were in Madam Luna) fly about on these birds. The king, we found, was engaged in a war with the sun, and he offered me a commission, but I declined the honour his majesty intended me. Everything in this world is of extraordinary magnitude! a common flea being much larger than one of our sheep: in making war, their principal weapons are radishes, which are used as darts: those who are wounded by them die immediately. Their shields are made of mushrooms, and their darts (when radishes are out of season) of the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... am Pride. I disdain to have any parents. I am like to Ovid's flea; I can creep into every corner of a wench; sometimes, like a perriwig, I sit upon her brow; next, like a necklace, I hang about her neck; then, like a fan of feathers, I kiss her lips; [81] and then, turning myself to a wrought smock, do what I list. But, fie, what a smell is here! I'll ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... to give greater power to the leg-muscles of the flea, that he may more easily escape from his enemies. The balance of attack and defence is broken.... ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... without God's assistance,—I will not trust in my own selfe, and Isa's health will be quite ruined by me,—it will indeed." "Isa has giving me advice, which is, that when I feal Satan beginning to tempt me, that I flea him and he would flea me." "Remorse is the worst thing to bear, and I am afraid that I will fall a ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... picture of shame. In his perplexity, he always finds relief in endeavoring with his paw to scrape a supposititious fly from the side of his nose. He then deals with what I suppose to be an equally imaginary flea; after he has thus gained a few seconds for readjustment, he welcomes me joyously. All this is so thoroughly human-like, that even the naturalist, the professional doubter, is forced to believe that the dog's mind works substantially ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... about, tip him a bob for me and be civil to him, because he was decent enough to me. Auntie Eva said something about your bringing a gentleman home with you. I hope he's a jolly sort of chap. Rosalind's temper is all anyhow. When I told her a visitor was coming, she shut me up with a regular flea in my ear. Never mind, she's been a brick to old Roger and Auntie Eva, so we must make allowances. Old Hodder calls up nearly every day to ask after us all. He's grown quite young since he was left alone in his cottage, and Armstrong came down like a sack of coals on that ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... seeing me in such inhospitable quarters, with fleas in hundreds invading my blankets, urged me to return with him to his island domain, where he might have an opportunity to make me comfortable. The kind gentleman little knew how hardened I had become to such annoyances as hard floors and the active flea. Such inconveniences had been robbed of their discomforts by the kind voices of welcome which, with few exceptions, came from every southern gentleman whose territory had been invaded by the ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... than if they had been beggars askin' you for a shillin'. Now, stop your snivellin' there, I tell you. You are like your poor sainted father,—God bless him where he lies,—he too used to cry, likely enough, if a flea bit him." ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... just the one thing she would fall for in a rank outsider—superlative manners. His being poor is rather in his favor. I'll put a flea in her ear—" ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... live. But that is no reason why a man should indulge in fretful complaints, and, like Beresford,[1] pull a long face over the Miseries of Human Life,—and not a single hour is free from them; or still less, call upon the Deity at every flea-bite—in pulicis morsu Deum invocare. Our aim should be to look well about us, to ward off misfortune by going to meet it, to attain such perfection and refinement in averting the disagreeable things of life,—whether they come from our fellow-men or from the physical world,—that, ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... more clearly the interdependence of the sciences than the reciprocal impulse given to new researches in pathology and entomology by the discovery of the part played by insects in the transmission of disease. The flea, the louse, the bedbug, the house fly, the mosquito, the tick, have all within a few years taken their places as important transmitters of disease. The fly population may be taken as the sanitary index of a place. The discovery, too, that insects are porters ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... refuses to see him; or having seen him,—for a man may force his way in anywhere with a little trouble,—if she sends him away with a flea in his ear, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of procedure," continued Mr. Tutt, brushing the flea aside, "which was adhered to with the utmost technical accuracy. You could try an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or you could try a whole family, swarm or herd. If a town was infested by rats, for example, they first assigned counsel—an advocate, he was ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... remedy for the potato bug is Paris green, 2 pounds or more of poison to 150 to 200 gallons of water, with a little lime. For the blight, spray with bordeaux mixture, and spray thoroughly. Bordeaux mixture will also keep away the flea ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... of the room with a flea in his ear. "How dare you speak in that way of your betters? Mr. Puffle, the lady's father, has for many years been my friend. I am not saying anything of the lady, nor saying that she has done right. Of course, down-stairs, in ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... Scaliot, blacksmith, in the 20th of Queen Elizabeth, made a lock of eleven pieces of iron, steel, and brass, with a pipe key, and golden chain of forty-three links, which were hung round the neck of a flea.—The animal, together with this burthen, weighed only one grain and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... go," he said, "to Canada to his kinsfolk, where they had named a Transatlantic valley after the glen of their fathers. Janet," he said, "should kilt her coats like a leaguer lady; d—n the distance! it was a flea's leap to the voyages and marches he had made on a ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... agitated. And, of course, when one of my hind legs scratched one of Potts' ears or one of his shoulders, I was perfectly satisfied—first, because that sort of thing was good for the whole dog; and, second, because the thing would get about even when Potts' head would reach around and bite a flea off my hind legs or snap ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... are you not charmed with the splendid accommodations of your fancy ship?" whispered the mischievous Jim. "There is not room for a flea to hop, without giving him ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Sawney?" he cried. "You're setting up as a pedlar, and trying to cut in on our trade. Od twist me, but we'll put an end to that, my bully-boy. D'you think the King, God bless him, made the laws for a red-haired, flea-bitten Sawney to diddle true-born Englishmen? What'll the King's Bench say ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... blockhead land-men submitted. 'None of your coquette airs, therefore, with me, madam,' said he, 'for I am resolved to have you this night. No struggling nor squalling, for both will be impertinent. The first man who offers to come in here, I will have his skin flea'd off at the gangway.' He then attempted to pull me violently towards his bed. I threw myself on my knees, and with tears and entreaties besought his compassion; but this was, I found, to no purpose: I then had recourse to threats, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... in her own. Nor write, nor speak you more of sacred writ, But what shall force up your arrested wit. Be chast; religion and her priests your scorn, Whilst the vain fanes of idiots you adorn. It is a mortal errour, you must know, Of any to speak good, if he be so. Rayl, till your edged breath flea your raw throat, And burn remarks on all of gen'rous note; Each verse be an indictment, be not free Sanctity 't self from thy scurrility. Libel your father, and your dam buffoon, The noblest matrons of the isle lampoon, Whilst Aretine and 's bodies you ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... stummick, because he was all muddy anyway, where he fell down the cellar; and how could it matter to anybody that had any sense at all? Well, then we had the rixual, and—and—why, the teeny little paddlin' he got wouldn't hurt a flea! It was that little coloured boy lives in the alley did it—he isn't anyways near HALF Georgie's size but Georgie got mad and said he didn't want any ole nigger to paddle him. That's what he said, and it was his own foolishness, because Verman won't let ANYBODY call him ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... said the executioner, with half a shrug and half a shiver; 'they are dust—they are nothing—the possession of Georgia by the Russians is to Persia what a flea which has got into my shirt is to me: it teazes me now and then, but if I gave myself the least trouble, I would hunt it out in a minute. The Russians are nothing.' Then, as if he were anxious to waive the subject, he turned to me, and said: 'Well, I agree to take you into the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... flop in the tank as a raho rose to the surface, an occasional outburst from the ducks, an angry clamour from the water-hens and blue-fowl. My dogs were lying round me blinking and winking, and making an occasional futile snap at an imaginary fly or flea. It was a drowsy and peaceful scene. I was nearly dropping off to sleep, from the heat and the monotonous drone of the putwarrie, who was intoning nasally some formidable document about fishery ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Professor Sandburr's bony, spectacled face was thrust forward. "I would not have missed it for a great deal. I would like to capture a specimen of a Patagonian alive and take him home in a cage. The Patagonian dog-flea, too, I understand, ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... however gentle, was absurd and she knew it. Margaret could go where she liked. It would all be chaste as a piano-recital. But the flea that she had been trying to put in the girl's ear seemed very ineffective. She is just as I was at her age, thought this lady, who, in so thinking, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... land any good," Samson answered. "What it needs is manure and plenty of it. You can't raise anything here but fleas. It isn't decent to expect God to help run a flea farm. He knows too much for that, and if you keep it up He'll lose all respect for ye. If you were to buy another farm and bring it here and put it down on top o' this one, you could probably make a living. I ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... a luxurious and time-wasting method of expressing amazement, and Mr. Phinney could not afford luxuries just then. For the rest of that day he was a busy man. As Bailey Stitt expressed it, he "flew round like a sand flea in a mitten," hiring laborers, engaging masons, and getting his materials ready. That very afternoon the masons began tearing down the chimneys of the little Berry house. Before the close of the following day it was on the rollers. By two of the day after ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... man, will you? That last fellow you had ought to have been tied up himself. His flogging wouldn't have killed a flea." ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the bare shoulder and spoke him burning words. "Canalla," he cried him, "horrible flea! Thou makest the air to reek—impossible to breathe. Fly, thou gnat of the midden, or I crack thee on ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... back and get your things now, or shall we bring them over to-morrow? We've taken every care of them." He sighed. "When I think," he added, "that, but for my good offices, Nobby would have sent that treacherous drawlatch away, not only empty, but with the modern equivalent of a flea in his ear, I could writhe. When I reflect that it was I who supported the swine's predilection for hard cash, I could scream. But when I remember that ever since our purchase of the shawl, my wife has never once stopped enumerating and/or indicating the many superiorities which distinguish it ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... this room only." She spread her hands abroad, as if warning the air around to secrecy, and lowered her voice to an awestruck whisper. "I've ben here a week now, Mis' Penny. Every night the death-watch has ticked in Mel'dy's room the endurin' night. I don't sleep, you know, fit to support a flea. I hear every hour strike right straight along, and I know things that's hid from others, Mis' Penny, though I do say it. Last night as ever was I heard a sobbin' and a sighin' goin' round the house, as plain as I hear you this minute. Some might ha' said't was the wind, but there's other ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... kitchen just like a mouse in a trap, while she was baking cakes?" "O yes," said the hero; "and I suppose she roared, and made up a bed among the boxes of peas, and for aught I know she may be sleeping there still, unless a flea has woke her up." "Have you stolen Sarvik's good sword?" asked Tuehi again. "Perhaps I may have taken the weapon too, dear brother," answered the hero. "Who can separate a man and his sword? One is worth nothing without the other." Then Tuehi asked if he had taken the hat. "I ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... and twenty-two steps which lead to their apartment, and have dined frequently with them in their chilly Roman dining-room. This room is only warmed by the little apparatus which in Rome passes for a stove. It has a thin leg that sticks out of a hole in the side of the house and could warm a flea at ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... married a Lenox and got sleeked up. And Jeb ain't near so close as some. That's a lot in a husband." And in a kind of hysteria, bred of fear of silence just then, she rattled on, telling how this man lay awake o' nights thinking how to skin a flea for its hide and tallow, how that one had said only a fool would pay over a quarter for a new ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... both Maimoune and Danhasch. Maimoune then changed herself into a flea, and leaping on the prince's neck, stung him so smartly, that he awoke, and put up his hand to the place; but Maimoune skipped away, and resumed her pristine form, which, like those of the two genies, was invisible, the better to observe what ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... than the whole world!" And Falstaff, cracking a kindred joke on Bardolph's carbuncled nose, avows his opinion that it will serve as a flaming beacon to light lost souls the way to purgatory! Again, seeing a flea on the same flaming proboscis, the doughty knight affirmed it was "a black soul burning in hell fire." In this element of mediaval life, this feature of mediaval literature, a terrible belief lay under the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I play a trick on you? Come, sir, and you will see her presently, all dressed up and decked with jewels. Her damsels and she are all covered with diamonds, and rubies, and cloth of gold. And what is more, they are riding three flea-bitten gambling hags, the like of which won't ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... see him. Like the flea in the American story, when you've got your finger on him is the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and contempt did they not look down upon the wretched little scribbler, the man of mere letters and jargon, half-clothed in untanned hides, his only weapon an inkhorn at his belt, his pennon the feather of a goosequill! How they laughed at him, calling him an atom or a flea, good for nothing! 'He does nothing, he cannot even collect our taxes, or look after our estates, whilst we bold riders, armed to the teeth, sword in hand and lance on thigh, we fight, and we are the finest fellows in the land!' So they ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... we've got a space drive—flea sized. Now the question before the board becomes, just what are we going to do with it? Turn ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... the dog in the face with an inquiring expression to see if he be angry. The dog, however, seems rather to enjoy the operation, and, showing no symptoms of displeasure, the monkey continues her search; and when she sees a flea, catches it in the most active manner, looks at it for a moment, and then eats it with great relish. Having exhausted the game on the poodle, she jumps on the back of the blood-hound, and having looked into her face to see how ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... descendants of the monsters of mythology and geology, for nothing could be a more terrible or ferocious antagonist than many of our well-known insects, if sufficiently enlarged. No animal now alive has more than a small fraction of the strength, in proportion to its size, of the minutest spider or flea. It may be that through lack of food, difficulties imposed by changing climate, and the necessity of burrowing in winter, or through some other conditions changed from what they were accustomed to, their size has been ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... the person spoken to. ern, the sea-eagle. die, to expire. yew (yu), a kind of tree. dye, to color. eye, the organ of sight. draught (draft), drawing I, myself. ay, yes. draft, a bill of exchange. aye, an affirmative vote. dun, a dark color. flee, to run away. done, performed. flea, an insect. fate, destiny. flew (flu) , did fly. fete, a festival. flue, a passage ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... of the stuff, and put a flea in his ear to the effect that you think Carson is the guilty party. This will cause the fellow's room to be searched and the stuff will be found. You must be on hand to identify the office ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield |
