"Kite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... go and ask Mother. She showed me a picture of one the other day. I think it's called a Banks cat, 'cause maybe it lives in a bank, and it doesn't have any tail so it can't get caught in the door. You go and ask Mother if a kite isn't like a cat 'cause they both have tails, and some kites have no tails and so ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... sum. There's some danger that it will take all the sense out of you, if you keep writing verses at this rate. You young scribblers think any kind of nonsense will do for the public, if it only has a string of rhymes tacked to it. Cut off the bobs of your kite, Gifted Hopkins, and see if it does n't pitch, and stagger, and come down head-foremost. Don't write any stuff with rhyming tails to it that won't make a decent show for itself after you've chopped all the rhyming tails off. That's my advice, Gifted Hopkins. Is there any book you would like to have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... having entered on board the Princess Royal, in October 1778, he was made a Lieutenant by Admiral Byron, in the Renown, on the 26th of November following. He returned to England in the subsequent year; and served in the Channel on board the Kite cutter, and Ariadne frigate, till the beginning of 1783. With Captain Phillip he went to the East Indies, as Lieutenant of the Europe, in January 1783; from whence he returned on the restoration of complete ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... "I can't go and wake her like the Prince did, but I do wish she'd get up and do something, now I can see. I daren't throw a stone, it might hit some one, or holler, it might scare her. Pussy won't help, and the sparrows are too busy scolding one another. I know! I'll fly a kite over, and that will please her any way. Don't believe she ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... Rugg at the noon recess, when the Bobbsey twins and the other children went home for lunch. But when school was let out in the afternoon, and when Bert was talking to Charley Mason about a new way of making a kite, Danny Rugg, accompanied by several of his chums, walked up to Bert. It was in a field some distance from the school, and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... years old, as roses go. How small the world has grown to a man of forty, if he has put his eyes, his ears and his brain to the uses for which they are adapted. And as for time—why, it is no longer than a kite string. At about the age of forty everything that can happen to a man, death excepted, has happened; happiness has gone to the devil or is a mere habit; the blessing of poverty has been permanently secured or you are exhausted with the cares of wealth; you can see around the corner ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... fundamental principles of the law of gravitation which has revolutionized science; sitting at a humble tea table Watt watched the gurgling of the steam escaping from the kettle, and evolved the steam engine therefrom; with his simple kite, Franklin drew down the lightning from the clouds, and started the science of electricity; through studying a ball, the ancient scholars conceived the earth to be a sphere, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... you goose," said Sahwah emphatically. "We love you for yourself and it wouldn't make any difference to us if you had a title as long as a kite tail! Now do you believe it?" and she bestowed a convincing hug on Veronica that nearly ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... to Electricity building stood all the while the figure of an old-time Quaker. His eyes looked upward, and he held in his hand the feeble instrument which made possible the glories of this night. Franklin, with his kite, looked out upon the consummation of what he dreamt of when he drew lightning from the summer cloud. For two hours the "White City" blossomed in new beauty. The great basin was bathed in a flood of fairy moonlight. Outside the peristyle the lake beat its monotone against the walls. On the plaza ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... little Jacques, and prevent him from trotting between the boxes, putting all sorts of undesirable goods into them; and Ulysse had collected his toys, and was pleading earnestly that a headless wooden horse and a kite, twice as tall as himself, of Lanty's ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for sleep just now," replied Hall, without smiling. "The kite test will carry us up the flanks of the Teton, but I am not going to try for the top this time. If you will come along I'll ask you to help me by carrying and operating a light transit I shall carry ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... the East. Admiral Kamimura was sixty-five years old, and had spent the greater part of his life in naval service. After the final Russian defeat he was rewarded with the title of Baron and invested with the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun and the first-class of the Golden Kite. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... two words about natural history. Can you not get me a male and female khokora—I mean the great bird like a kite, which makes so great a noise, and often carries off a duck or a kid? I believe it is an eagle, and want to examine it. Send me also all the sorts of ducks and waterfowls you can get, and, in short, every sort of bird you can obtain which is not common ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... but Stephen was implacable. He cut the string, and captured the bag, then with a parting kick bade Bates go after his comrades, for his Eagle was nought but a thieving kite. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, with a train of followers, like a great kite with a very long tail, has, for a week, been amusing Senatorial and Assembly Committees, with her woman's rights performances, free of charge, unless the waste of time that might be better employed in the necessary ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... than Coney's robe Soft, or goose-marrow or ear's lowmost lobe, Or Age's languid yard and cobweb'd part, Same Thallus greedier than the gale thou art, When the Kite-goddess shows thee Gulls agape, 5 Return my muffler thou hast dared to rape, Saetaban napkins, tablets of Thynos, all Which (Fool!) ancestral heirlooms thou didst call. These now unglue-ing from thy claws restore, Lest thy soft hands, and ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... they hadn't wings—but do you reckon they fly with them? It stands to reason they don't. The wings would wear out before they got half-way; even the pin-feathers would be gone; the wing frames would be as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on. The distances in heaven are billions of times greater; angels have to go all over heaven every day; could they do it with their wings alone? No, indeed; they wear the wings for style, ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... to bide waiting about, till half the game was over! I'm as light as a kite when anything's going on!" crowed Grandfer ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... and electricity, that he was convinced of their identity, and determined to ascertain by direct experiment the truth of his bold conjecture. A spire which was erecting at Philadelphia he conceived might assist him in this inquiry; but, while waiting for its completion, the sight of a boy's kite, which had been raised for amusement, immediately suggested to him a more ready method of attaining his object. Having constructed a kite by stretching a large silk handkerchief over two sticks in the form of a cross, on the first appearance of an approaching storm, in June 1752, he went out ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... quiet man, "'tis not the kite that floats the tail, but the wind which floats both kite and tail. Thank God, we've caught the rising wind; so, hey for draggle-tails!—we'll take up all ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... their autumn—the twilight that will rise again with twilight of dawn—the stream that flows always, and the resting on the cliffs of the clouds that return if they vanish; but of human life, he says, a boy climbing among the trees for his entangled kite, and these white stones in the mountain churchyard, show forth all the ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... but Mr. Bruin, as the Bear was sometimes called, was not in sight. Then a ragged little boy, who had been flying a kite, came ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... fagots, swiftly learning woodland ways. Then Boone with Rigdon in the wilderness Dauntlessly facing times of strife and stress. Crossing the Common in the morning sun Young Benjamin Franklin comes: about him hung Symbols of trade and hope—kite, candles, book. The crystal gazer enters, bids him look At all the guerdon that the years will bring. The Vision next: Trianon in the Spring, And Franklin honored by the Queen of France With courtly minuet and festal dance. Lastly, a cabin clearing in the West, Where ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... which proved so economical, and for which he refused a patent. For years he entertained the theory that galvanic electricity, and that which produced lightning and thunder were identical; but it was not until 1752 that he demonstrated the truth by an original but ingenious contrivance attached to a kite, and to Franklin we owe the honor of inventing the lightning rod, but not its abuse which has caused such widespread animosity to that valuable ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... sentiment with which I regarded my air-gun underwent a change. When a friend had made me a present of it a year before I regarded it in the light of a toy and rather resented the gift as too juvenile. "I wonder he did not give me a kite or a hoop," I mentally reflected. Then I had found it useful among Italians, who are a trifling people and like playthings; but now that it had saved my life and sent a bullet through a man's heart, I no longer entertained the same feeling of contempt for it. Not again would I make light of it—this ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish line down when I'd set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... circus or Fourth of July is to an American farmer's boy or girl. He has his cash for candy or fruit, his crackers which he fires off at New Year's time, making day a time of unrest, and night hideous. Kite-flying is a pleasure which no American boy appreciates as does the Chinese, a pleasure which clings to him till he is three-score years and ten, for it is not uncommon to find a child and his grandfather in the balmy days of spring flying their kites ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... seconds later, the two craft came gently down to the ground, undulating until they could drop as lightly as a boy's kite. And, as they came to a stop with the application of the drag brake, after rolling a short distance on the bicycle wheels, the craft were surrounded by the ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... sufficiently strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive, would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a balloon that of a sail acting as a kite. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... you-all," Daylight added, as the roar of laughter died down, "that them four kings of Jack Kearns sure has played hell with my prospects. I'm busted higher'n a kite, and I'm ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... shouts in the sails of the ships at sea, He steals the down from the honeybee, He makes the forest trees rustle and sing, He twirls my kite till it breaks its string. Laughing, dancing, sunny wind, Whistling, howling, rainy wind, North, South, East and West, Each is the wind I like ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... that he might find the Kid there at any visit. He kept his armament ready, and had a frequent eye for the pear thicket at the rear of the /jacal/. Thus he might bring down the kite and the humming-bird ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... 1896 the Germans, and now other nations, have adopted a long cylindrical-shaped balloon, so affixed to its cable as to present an inclined surface to the wind and thus act partly on the principle of a kite. Though coal-gas and even hot air may occasionally be used for inflation, hydrogen gas is on account of its lightness fat preferable. In the early days of ballooning this had to be manufactured in the field, but nowadays it is almost universally carried compressed in steel tubes. About 100 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to the inn, we beheld something floating in the ample field of golden evening sky, above the chalk cliffs and the trees that grow along their summit. It was too high up, too large, and too steady for a kite; and as it was dark, it could not be a star. For although a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a walnut, so amply does the sun bathe heaven with radiance, that it would sparkle like a point of light for us. The village was dotted with people with their heads in air; and the children were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... greater difficulty (effort). 17. Iustiore altero proelio in a second and more regular engagement. —W. 23. incondtos rough, unpolished. 'The Gaul shall come against thee From the land of snow and night: Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies To the raven and the kite.' —Macaulay.] ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... not much to tell, but we are to be partners once and for all. See, my beauty. He was a kite-livered captain. There was gold on board. We mutinied and put him and four others—their livers were like his own— in a boat with provisions plenty. Then we sailed for Boston. We never thought the crew of skulkers would reach land, but by God they drifted in again the very ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stony soil, the antelope scouring the sandy flats, and the fox stealing along to his burrow, are all desert and Tartarian types of the animal creation. The shrill whistle of the marmot alone breaks the silence of the scene, recalling the snows of Lapland to the mind; the kite and raven wheel through the air, 1000 feet over head, with as strong and steady a pinion as if that atmosphere possessed the same power of resistance that it does at the level of the sea. Still higher in the heavens, long black V-shaped trains of wild ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... was—gardening, philosophy, reading, travel, billiards, raising animals, training animals, killing animals, yachting, collecting pictures or postage-stamps or autographs or snuff-boxes or scalps, astronomy, kite-flying, house-furnishing, foreign languages, cards, swimming, diary-keeping, the stage, politics, carpentry, riding or driving, music, staying up late, getting up early, tree-planting, tree-felling, town-planning, ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... kite when it hits us," he declared. Several more pairs of eyes were turned helplessly upward. Suddenly Buck swung ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... subtlety. And therefore he chose rather to ride upon an ass when, if he had pleased, he might have bestrode the lion without danger. And the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of a dove, not of an eagle or kite. Add to this that in Scripture there is frequent mention of harts, hinds, and lambs; and such as are destined to eternal life are called sheep, than which creature there is not anything more foolish, ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... have no doubt in the world that he could conjugate Latin verbs, discuss the effect of the Fall of Rome on Western Civilization, and probably compute the orbit of an artificial satellite. But can James Holden fly a kite or shoot a marble? Has he ever had the fun of sliding into third base, or whittling on a peg, or any of the other enjoyable ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Moon, the Feast of Lanterns and the Festival of the Dragon Boat. A feature of the festivals is the employment of thousands of lanterns made of paper, covered with landscapes and other scenes in gorgeous colours. Of outdoor sports kite-flying is the most popular and is engaged in by adults; shuttle-cock is also a favourite game, while cards and dominoes are indoor amusements. The theatre and marionette shows are largely patronized. The habit of opium smoking is referred ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... the lightning, just as millions before him had done; but, unlike the others, he believed the brilliant display was the evidence of a great and unseen power—electricity. By the use of his now famous kite and key he proved it to be so, and for a time he was the only man in the world who knew what lightning ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... flying has attracted the attention of the world. This kite is the invention of H.H. Clayton, Chief Observer at Blue Hill Observatory, near Boston. It is used at this and other weather stations for sending up instruments in making observations. Kites of this type have attained the wonderful height of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 42, August 26, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... if he had gone on at me like that, I should have split, I know I should: but he just said, 'There, your face has given your tongue the lie: you haven't brains enough to play the rogue.' Oh, and another thing—he said he wouldn't talk to the sparrow-hawk any more, when there was the kite hard by: so by that I guess your turn is coming, sir; so mind your eye. And then he turned his back on me with a look as if I was so much dirt. But I didn't mind that; I was glad to be shut ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... attempt to study it without extensive knowledge of the beliefs which it reflects were mere waste of time. By art I do not mean painting and sculpture but every kind of decoration, and most kinds of pictorial representation—the image of a boy's kite or a girl's battledore not less than the design upon a lacquered casquet or enameled vase,—the figure upon a work-man's trowel not less than the pattern of the girdle of a princess,—the shape of ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... "Set your old kite, then," roared the victim through a cloud of spray; "only don't lay it to me if anything happens. Penn, you go below right off an' git your coffee. You ought to hev more sense than to bum ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... first began there was no land, but only the stea and the sky, and between them was a kite. [154] One day the bird which had nowhere to light grew tired of flying about, so she stirred up the sea until it threw its waters against the sky. The sky, in order to restrain the sea, showered upon it many islands until it could no longer rise, but ran back and forth. Then ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... Edward often insisted upon his going out to play. George told him all about the affairs at school, and related many amusing incidents that happened among his comrades, and informed him what sports were now in fashion, and whose kite soared the highest, and whose little ship sailed fleetest on the Frog Pond. As for Emily, she repeated stories which she had learned from a new book, called THE FLOWER PEOPLE, in which the snow-drops, the violets, the columbines, the roses, and all that ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... enough he would want it by and by, but there was no use in saying anything more, and she said nothing. Barry got his kite together and went off. Then came a heavier step on the stairs, which she knew; and she hastily went into the other room to see that all was ready. The tea was made, and Mrs. Mathieson put the smoking dish of porridge on the table, just as the door opened and a man came ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... chanc'd that day, as wont, the virgins chaste, Bore on their heads in canisters festoon'd, Their offerings pure to Pallas' sacred fane. Returning thence the winged god espy'd The troop, and straight his onward flight restrain'd; Wheeling in circles round. As sails the kite, Swiftest of birds, when entrails seen from far By holy augurs thick beset,—he fears A near approach, but circling steers his flight On beating wings, around his hopes and round. So 'bove the Athenian towers the light-plum'd ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... for this that these islands were taken and retaken, till every gully held the skeleton of an Englishman? Was it for this that these seas were reddened with blood year after year, till the sharks learnt to gather to a sea-fight, as eagle, kite, and wolf gathered of old to fights on land? Did all those gallant souls go down to Hades in vain, and leave nothing for the Englishman but the sad and proud memory of their useless valour? That at ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... as divinely inspired, his words to be caught as oracles, or as possessed by a devil, to be chained and scourged, since Pinel's great work has brought insanity within the range of organic disease. When Franklin's kite drew electricity from the cloud to his knuckle, the superstitious theory of thunder died a ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... are worth just what I say; or, at least, they were a year ago, though the war has knocked things higher than a kite just now. Nobody except my loving grandpa has got the ready cash to pay down; and mother thinks the place wouldn't fetch much, if anything, over the mortgage. But in time it will be ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... less in size than the house pigeon. In the air it looks not unlike the kite, wanting the forked or "swallow" tail. That of the pigeon is cuneiform. Its colour is best described by calling it a nearly uniform slate. In the male the colours are deeper, and the neck-feathers present the same changeable hues of green, gold, and purple-crimson, generally observed in birds ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... all full? there comes a ravening kite, That both at quick, at dead, at all will smite. He shall, he must; ay, and by'r Lady, may Command me to give over holiday, And set wide open what you would ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... seen everything," he announced. "I saw the balloon in which a French engineer made an ascent to the clouds, to reconnoiter the Austrian camp. He went up as high as a kite, and they held on to the rope below, down which he sent his messages—observations of the Austrians' movements. I saw the bridge, which is two hundred and forty fathoms long, which can be transported from place to place, and reaches from one bank of the Danube ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... proceeding is selfish, heartless, and perfidious in the highest degree; and d—— me if I think it would be honorable in me to stand by and see such a villainous game played against so excellent a family—against so lovely and so admirable a girl as Alice Goodwin. It is a union between the kite and the dove, Charley, and it would be base and cowardly in me to ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... after a ship, with wings outspread, against the wind, never seeming to move a feather? You understand how a kite mounts upon the breeze: the string holds it from going back, so it must go up. But where is the string that ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... greatly interested in the study of science. He "snatched lightning from the skies" by the use of a key and a kite with a silk string. This experiment led to his invention of the lightning rod, which was soon placed on public and private buildings not only in America but also in England and France. He invented the "Franklin Stove," which is still in use in some places. This is an open stove made in such a way ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... was all tinged with red and gold and had dissipated the haze which usually, in the early morning, screens the blue of the sky from the eyes. It was quiet. . . . The birds were hardly yet awake . . . . The corncrake uttered its clear note, and far away above a little tumulus, a sleepy kite floated, heavily flapping its wings, and no other living creature could be seen all ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... A fine kite disappeared from Harry Grafton's lawn, a ball that Rob Lindsey had been playing with could not be found, while at Sherwood Hall the lawn mower was searched for, and discovered ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... The second, bearing a kite with a scarlet body and a white head, is that of Vichenou, who, though preserver of the world, has passed part of his life in wicked actions. You sometimes see him under the hideous form of a boar or a lion, tearing human entrails, or under that of a horse,* shortly to come ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... chance off the next ship, mon garcon, but mine is passed. A woman, it is true—an old peasant out of the fields, with a face as yellow as a kite's claw. But Gaston, who threw a nine against my eight, got as fair a little Normandy lass as ever your eyes have seen. Curse the dice, I say! And as to my woman, I will sell her to you for a firkin ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The kite wheeling invisible in the blue heavens, the vulture appearing mysteriously from nowhere in the track of the staggering buck, possess qualities which are shared by certain favoured human beings. No newspaper announced the fact that ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... sail beat wildly about, the men ran a fearful risk of being caught by them and hurled into the foaming sea. Bravely they faced the danger, and, cutting away the remainder of the sail, off it flew like a gigantic kite ahead of the ship. Now came the task of bending another sail. Notwithstanding the difficulty, this was accomplished, the ship happily escaping ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... who dignify labor. We have millions such in America, and they are most estimable citizens. Our ancestors were all Europeans, and that man who is not proud of his parentage should have been born a beast. But I'd knock higher than Gilderoy's kite the theory that America should forever be the dumping- ground for foreign filth—that people will be warmly welcomed here whom no other country wants and the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It had torn itself out of ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... been procured for me from Moscow, which hung against the wall without ever being used, and which had been tempting me for a long time from the size and strength of its paper. I had at last resolved to make a kite of it, and, taking advantage of Beaupre's slumbers, I ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... desolation, and a grandeur inseparable from heights. Before us grouped the mountains of Auvergne, hoary headed; and looking down we could see the twistings of the road we had travelled, whirling away and away, like the blown tail of a kite trailed ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... kite free. I's bin kotched by rubbers an' rescued by Gauchos, an' stole by Injins, an' I's runned away an' found myself here, an' dey's bin good to me here, but dey don't seem to want me much—so I's ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Our convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and on the spur of the moment, they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order. I hope in God, this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted. You ask me, if any thing transpires here on the subject of South America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... your sake," responded the Countess, with apparent reluctance, looking rather like a kite from whose talons the Queen had extracted a sparrow intended for ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... penitentiary, but in Georgia, whipped into heroism, had betaken himself into the swamp, and never returned. Tradition among the Lamar slaves said he had got off to Ohio, of which they had as clear an idea as most of us have of heaven. At any rate, old Kite became a mystery, to be mentioned with awe at fish-bakes and barbecues. He was this uncouth wretch's father,—do you understand? The flabby-faced boy, flogged in the cotton-field for whining after his dad, or hiding ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with; and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor, poverty-stricken boy in the morning, ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... grief, which is the string of this venturesome kite, man would soar too quickly and too high, and the chosen souls would be lost for the race, like balloons, which, but for gravitation, would never ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... uncoiling on the sand at my feet. In an instant I seized them and passed the ends around a cedar-tree, hooking the clasps tight. Then I cast one swift glance upward, where the bird wheeled, screeching, anchored like a kite to the pallium wires; and I hurried on across the dunes, the shells cutting my feet and the bushes tearing my wet swimming-suit, until I dripped with blood from shoulder to ankle. Out in the ocean the carcass of the thermosaurus floated, claws outspread, belly ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... This has been cultivated with the greatest success in our country, from the time when Franklin with his kite drew down electricity from the thunder cloud, to that when Henry showed the electrical currents produced by the distant lightning discharge. In Franklin's day the idea prevailed that there were two kinds of electricity, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... pleasing address and his wide education, he blarneyed the State Department out of a consulate. They sent him to Ehrenstein, at a salary not worth mentioning, with the diplomatic halo of dignity as a tail to the kite. He had been in the service some two years by now, and those who knew him well rather wondered at his sedative turn of mind. Two years in any one place was not in reckoning as regarded Carmichael; yet, here he was, caring neither ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... heavier-than-air machine was made with a huge glider, which was fitted with floats. The curious craft was towed along the River Seine by a fast motor boat named the Rapiere, and it actually succeeded in rising into the air and flying behind the boat like a gigantic kite. ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... without once flapping its wings. He says that, if the bird wished to descend, the wings were for a moment collapsed; and when again expanded, with an altered inclination, the momentum gained by the rapid descent seemed to urge the bird upwards with the even and steady movement of a paper kite. In the case of any bird soaring, its motion must be sufficiently rapid for the action of the inclined surface of its body on the atmosphere to counterbalance its gravity. The force to keep up the momentum of a body moving in a horizontal plane in the air (in which ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... do good if we can persuade him to carve cherry-stones and fly kites; and this use of his fingers and limbs may eventually be the cause of his becoming a wealthy and happy man; but we must not therefore argue that cherry-stones are valuable property, or that kite-flying is a profitable mode of passing time. In like manner, a nation always wastes its time and labour directly, when it invents a new want of a frivolous kind, and yet the invention of such a want may be the sign of a healthy activity, and ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... confusedly. "Ay, I'll make you a kite, a huge one, that'll go right up to the clouds. That ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... great difference between us. But I say, Carter, can you help me with this kite? There's something wrong about it. ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... the albatross," shouted the boys, who with Ben were hastening up the ladder leading to the raised stern. It did not look, however, as if they could reach there before the professor was carried overboard like the tail of a kite, by the huge bird he ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... occurs in clear weather, without any other warning than the white foam it occasions on the surface of the sea, and a very thin haze. When this squall reaches a ship, copious rain attends it. It is very destructive to the flying-kite school, and many lives ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... turmoil of that business falsely called a calm, now, in the assault of squalls burying her lee-rail in the sea.... Flying fish, a skimming silver rain on the blue sea; a turtle fast asleep in the early morning sunshine; the Southern Cross hung thwart the forerigging like the frame of a wrecked kite—the pole star and the familiar plough dropping ever lower in the wake; these build up thus far the history of our voyage. It is singular to come so far and ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... upon their heads to the joyful citadel of Pallas. The winged God beholds them returning thence; and he does not shape his course directly forward, but wheels round in the {same} circle. As that bird swiftest in speed, the kite, on espying the entrails, while he is afraid, and the priests stand in numbers around the sacrifice, wings his flight in circles, and yet ventures not to go far away, and greedily hovers around {the object of} his hopes with waving wings, so does the active Cyllenian {God} ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the Lych to devour, The Sallow kite and the Swart raven, Horny of beak,— and Him, the dusk-coated, The white-afted Erne, the corse to Enjoy, The Greedy war-hawk, and that Grey beast, The Wolf of the Wood. No such Woeful slaughter Aye on this Island Ever hath been, By edge of the Sword, as book Sayeth, Writers of Eld, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... said the Colonel, solemnly. "I saw it myself: blocks and blocks of stock in that distillery trust that went up higher'n a kite last year. Roger had put all of ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... in mine, thank you!" cried Jack. "I'd rather sail on a kite than go through what ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... times. But at last the arrow fell quite near the tub, and Alfy called out to his sisters not to draw it back as it floated closer, and then with the help of the handle of Mansy's bulgy umbrella he pulled it in and of course the kite string with it. ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... didn't," said Babs. "I took him away from the spider. I wouldn't be kite so cruel as to let the poor thing die; but I s'pect he'll die all the same, for he can't get out of ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a very fine new kite that he and his father had made together. They named it the Skylark, because they thought it would fly higher than any of the other kites. But something was wrong. Instead of sailing up gracefully, as it should, the first time Bobby tried to fly it, the Skylark pitched about ...
— The Goody-Naughty Book • Sarah Cory Rippey
... are very fond of flying kites, which are shaped like fish or butterflies or dragons. Old gentlemen are just as fond of kite-flying as boys. ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... brown-paper skirt that fell to the hearth. Above this, along the mantel, was another skirt, made of a newspaper, short and pouty, and scissored at the lower edge into an elaborate saw-tooth design. The mantel was further adorned by certain assorted belongings in the way of a doll, a kite, an empty bank, a racquet, books, and the like, all cast into their various positions by the seven small Olivers. On either side of the fireplace were bracket-lamps. Across the room was the inevitable army cot, spread with wolf skins. There were chairs—two of them—wrought from sugar ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... of work, Colby. I've seen twenty that run El Sangre, and never even got close enough to eat his dust. Nacheral pacer, right enough. I've seen him kite across country like a train! And his mane and tail blowing ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... when he had anybody to play with. But his father's house was a long distance from the village, and so he did not often have playmates, and it is poor sport to play marbles or ball by one's self. He did sometimes roll his hoop or fly his kite when alone, but he would soon get tired, and then, if it was a clear day, he would most ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... done; All your childish ways I've run, All your joys and pangs I've had— All that make you gay or sad; I have sported in the brook, Truant from my work or book; Chased the butterfly and bee, Robb'd the bird's nest on the tree; Damm'd the brook and built my mill; Flew my kite from hill to hill; Sported with my top and ball— Childish joys, I know them all. Childish sorrows, too I've felt— Anguish that my heart would melt; Tears have wet my burning cheek, Caused by thoughts I could not speak. Mysteries then confused my ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... flower from the bars of a lamp-post. Now it was Dicky hoisting himself along on his crutches, his face alight with his radiant smile. Now it was a line of laughing, rosy-cheeked children, as long as the tail of a kite, pelting to goal at the magic cry "Liberty poles are bending!" Or it was a group of little girls, setting out rows and rows of bright-colored paper-dolls among the shadows of one of the deep old doorways. But always in a few moments came the sweetest kind of sleep. And always ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... floating in air, like the tail of a kite. Only the strap and his viselike grip saved him. The plane had struck ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... testimony for that cause. January, bearing a New Year's card in hand, declared: "I've promised that not a drop of wine shall touch these temperance lips of mine." February bore a fancy valentine, with an appropriate motto. March lifted aloft a new kite, with "Kites may sail far up in the sky, but on strong drink I'll never get high." July, bearing a flag and a bunch ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... British Baraland, runs from east to west, along the southern side of Gueldersdorp, swelled by innumerable thready water-courses, dry in the blistering winter heat, that the wet season disperses among the foothills that bristle with Brounckers' artillery. Seen from the altitude of a balloon or a war-kite, the course of the beer-coloured stream, flowing lazily between its high banks sparsely wooded with oak and blue gum, and lavishly clothed with cactus, mimosa, and tree-fern, tall grasses, and thorny creepers, would have looked like a verdant ribbon meandering over the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Dry-as-dust! Thought I'd surprise you. Glad to see me? Anything to eat? By George! You're as yellow as a kite's foot. Been reading yourself into a mummy, ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... would go down to the beach, where everybody went who had a kite to fly—for all the men in that country flew kites, and all the children,—and there she would fly a kite of her own up into the blue air; and watching the wind carrying it farther and farther away, would grow quite happy thinking how a day might come at last when she ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith, "Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;"[706] And such a straw, borne on by human breath, Is Poesy, according as the Mind glows; A paper kite which flies 'twixt Life and Death, A shadow which the onward Soul behind throws: And mine's a bubble, not blown up for praise, But just to play with, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... manageable. The resistance of the air, combined with the propelling power of the screw, exercised all its force in vain: the wings remained stationary. Their lines were carefully studied to facilitate the flow of the air, on the principle of Langley's kite: and the two of them presented a carrying surface ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... that all must be decent and in order about the place whereas lay his love. And he came and stood over the body and said: "I have naught to do to hate him now: if he hated me, it was but for a little while, and he knew naught of me. So let his bones be covered up from the wolf and the kite. Yet shall they not lie alongside of her. I will raise a cairn above him here on this fair little plain which he spoilt of all joy." Therewith he fell to, and straightened his body, and laid his huge limbs together and closed his eyes and folded his ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... before. That kept me on edge 'cause I wanted to see him when he first arrived; so I kept a couple o' the boys watchin' each road; but day after day dragged around until I got desperate. For all I knew Silver Dick had enough black blood in him to take advantage of me an' just fly his kite. He might have got news from England too, an' all ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... up to this point," he judged. "I don't think that at any point it will be high enough to cover the springs. We don't want it to if we can help it, for that would destroy some of the beauty of it. Have you noticed that our lake will be much like a kite in shape, with this winding ravine the tail of it. We'll have to take in a lot of acreage to cover this property, but it will be worth it. I'm going to look after options right away. I'm glad now I had already decided to stay ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... door, when I came down, he was probably getting on very well indeed. I found him still driving at it with a long pen, and his head almost laid upon the paper. He was so intent upon it, that I had ample leisure to observe the large paper kite in a corner, the confusion of bundles of manuscript, the number of pens, and, above all, the quantity of ink (which he seemed to have in, in half-gallon jars by the dozen), before he observed ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... one behind the other, in line on a warp. One end of this rope would be passed through a hole at the aftermost end of the keel, where it would be made fast. As the vessel sailed along she would thus tow a whole string of barrels like the tail of a kite, but in order to keep the casks from bobbing above water, sinkers were fastened. Normally, of course, these casks would be kept on board, for the resistance of these objects was very considerable, and lessened the vessel's way. Any one who has trailed even a ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... answered the old lawyer amiably but defiantly. "Then if you've got to enforce the law against a fine old chap like that I've got to do my darnedest to smash that law higher than a kite. And I'll tell you something, Peckham—which is that the human heart is a damn sight ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... someone did, and before he had been there a minute—a watchman going about his business. He unlocked the place carelessly, looking over his shoulder at a kite fighting with two nesting crows. In an instant Smith, who was not minded to stop and answer questions, had slipped past him and was gliding down the portico, from monument to monument, like a ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... and woos; the Lisbon priest, like his confessor one of Love's train, fares well on rabbits and sausages and good red wine, even as the portly pleasure-loving Lisbon canons; the country priest resembles a kite pouncing on chickens; the ambitious chaplain accepts the most menial tasks, compared with whom the sporting priest of Beira is at least pleasantly independent; and there are the luxurious hermit, the dissipated ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... to his seat, at the side of Jim Fenton, who hugged him so that he almost screamed. "Ye're a brick, little feller," Jim whispered. "That was a Happy David, an' a Goliar into the bargin. You've knocked the Ph'listine this time higher nor a kite." ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... sanitation, with the oddest results sometimes, so far as his conversation was concerned. And then in the middle of his disquisitions, which would keep her breathless with a sense of being whirled through space at the tail of an electric kite, the kite would come down with a run, and the preacher and reformer would come hat in hand to the girl beside him, asking her humbly to advise him, to pour out on him some of that practical experience of hers among the poor and suffering, for the sake of which he ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her with a hint when he saw her heading for water that was too shoal. The course she took was southerly and brought her near Man-o'-war Bush, from which rose hundreds of man-o'-war hawks, or frigate pelicans, the most graceful bird on the continent, excepting the fork-tailed kite. These birds soared high overhead, circling, rising and falling with scarcely a perceptible motion of their wings. From another key a flock of roseate spoon-bill, or pink curlew, flew at the approach of the boat, while young herons sat fearlessly on branches ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... The cloth was two-thirds off, and slipping, by a very gradual process, to the floor. On the remaining third stood an inkstand and a bottle of mucilage, as well as a huge pile of books, a glass tumbler, a Parian vase, a jack-knife, a pair of scissors, a thimble, two spools of thread, a small kite, and a riding-whip. The rest of the table had been left free to draw a map on, and was covered with pencils and rubber, compasses, paper, and torn ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Davy," said he; "fer God's sake don't pester 'em. They're spoilin' fer a fight. Stand back thar, ye critters," he shouted, brandishing his rifle in their faces. "Ugh, I reckon it wouldn't take a horse or a dog to scent ye to-day. Rank b'ar's oil! Kite ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... toss from one to another over our shoulders, hitting the shuttlecock with the flat soles of the shoes we are wearing. Sometimes we hit with one part of the foot, sometimes with another, according to the rules of the game. This, like kite-flying, is a great amusement among ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... apples, or rabbit feed, or worms for bait were tied up in him. His feet, with what was left of the Constitution, were torn off and rammed into a small cannon's mouth for wadding; and, finally, he went up on the tail of a kite. In mid-air he became detached, and dropped into a tall thorn-tree. Here he got stuck fast, and so remained till he fluttered himself to ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... Prince Itsuse received a mortal wound. A fierce battle ensued. Prince Iware burned to avenge his brother's death, but repeated attacks upon Nagasune's troops proved abortive until suddenly a golden-plumaged kite perched on the end of Prince Iware's bow, and its effulgence dazzled the enemy so that they could not ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... includes a passage that is taken from some other author or speaker; as, John said: "See my kite." ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the Directeur leaped into the limelight with a savage admonition to the Wooden Hand—who saluted, opened the door suddenly, and looked at me with (dare I say it?) admiration. Instead of availing myself of this means of escape I turned to the little kite-flying gentleman ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... the long skirt, Mrs. Bombagger, or whatever your name is. That's it, over her head first and then down along the floor so she will look as if she was grown up. And now the big ostrich-plume fan—a little seedy, my dear, and yellow as a kite's foot, but nobody'll see it under that big, yellow lantern. Now let me look at you! Nat, NAT! where are you, you beggar, stop rummaging around that dead stuff and come behind here and look at this live child! yes, right in here. Now look! Did you ever ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... rode up a steep hill, and came out upon Westfield Plains. And then what beautiful things they saw!—a man with a gun, a squirrel cracking a nut, a little girl with red hair, a man picking apples from a tree, and, best of all, a boy flying a kite. ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... the volume, says—"Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order." Epic poetry of the highest order! Ungrateful will be our future epic poets if they do not learn from this—if such is done by boys sailing toy-boats, surely boys flying a kite will illustrate far better the great astronomical knowledge of our days. But he is rather unfortunate in this bit of criticism; for he compares this incident with one of Claude's, which we, however, think a far better and more poetical incident. "Claude, in subjects of the same kind," (not, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... transmitting outfit (Fig. 59). It includes a battery, dispatching key, and an induction coil having its secondary circuit terminals connected with two wires, the one leading to an earth-plate, the other carried aloft on poles or suspended from a kite. In the large station at Poldhu, Cornwall, for transatlantic signalling, there are special wooden towers 215 feet high, between which the aerial wires hang. At their upper and lower ends respectively the earth and aerial wires terminate in brass balls separated ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... skilfully? Even after the campaign was over we might have failed, had it not been for the suppers. We owed this idea, like the first, to the immortal Selina Whiston. A lucky accident—as momentous in its way as the fall of an apple to Newton, or the flying of a kite to Dr. Franklin—gave her the secret principle by which the politics of men are directed. Her house in Whittletown was the half of a double frame building, and the rear-end of the other part was the private office of—but no, I will not mention the name—a ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... well established rule that the greater should never be subordinated to the less. Therefore, suffrage should never be made a tail to the kite of any political party. There are momentous issues now before the people, but none so momentous as woman suffrage. This principle appeals to the conscience of the people, and will ultimately convince all those ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various |
