"Mouse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... least odd, because it was his own grandfather who was swallowed up by the lily-white duck, just after the cat and her kittens came tumbling into Mrs. Mouse's hall, although Mr. Crow says, in some poetry I've got of his, that one animal is always like others of his kind. If old Mr. Frog went down the throat of a duck, I don't know why his grandson shouldn't feel proud of being taken in by one of ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... one's self, or of offense against a social or disciplinary code. I came away feeling that I had touched bottom in my sexual experiences, and I understood what it was that Faust saw when the red mouse sprang from the mouth of the witch in the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... she smiled, as she recalled May's triumph when, at last, after a laboured description of its leading characteristics, it had dawned upon her that the small beast with a smooth coat, a pointed nose, a long tail, and—yes, that told the story!—four legs, was a mouse! ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... was expected for dinner and Bobby had received five cents as the price of his silence during the meal. He was as quiet as a mouse until, discovering that his favorite dessert was being served, he could no longer curb his enthusiasm. He drew the coin from his pocket, and rolling it across the table, exclaimed: "Here's your nickel, ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... as she lay like a little brown mouse under the mosquito-net, watching the stars through the open window, the old lady suddenly decided to ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... replied the barber. "The wound is not a good one, but yet not of the kind by which one dies at once. It's one of those wounds which play with the wounded like a cat with a mouse, and with such play time may ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... news of her young brothers besides this. Bob and Fred were enamored of the radio. They were ingenious lads. Nell said she believed they could rig a radio set with a hair-pin and a mouse-trap. But she was going to help them obtain a fairly good set; only, because of the shortage of funds at the parsonage, Bob and Fred would be obliged themselves to make every ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... knight to the ground, and, dismounting, killed him. It was noticeable that from the death-wound came no blood, but only a flowing of very fine black sand, out of which scrambled and hastily scampered away a small vermilion-colored mouse. ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... horn, plunging into thickets, skipping, firing off his gun in the air continually, and then ramming in some more ammunition anyhow, with a laugh and a curse if the charge explode in his own jolly face. The chances are he will bring home in his bag nothing but a field-mouse he trod on by accident. Not the less his is the true sport and ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... sheltering itself in their windings. The polypus was no longer swimming; it was running like a terrestrial animal, climbing over the rocks by its armed extremities, which were now serving as apparatus of locomotion. It was the struggle of a tiger with a mouse. When the crab had half of its body already hidden within the green lichens of a hole, one of the heavy serpents fell upon its back clutching it with the irresistible suction of his air-holes, and causing it to disappear ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... treasure, my little mouse," she said, over and over again, kissing his face and hands ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... rejoice to see his spirit,—at least it would be something. What am I saying—unfaithful lips, thus to betray my secret?—The table thrown over:—that looks like the work of fear; a workbox, with all its implements scattered,—only a woman's fear: a mouse might have caused all this; and yet there is something solemn in the simple fact that, for so many years, not a living being has crossed these boards. Even that a table thus overthrown could so remain for years seems scarcely natural, and therefore ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... peregrine—a true 'falcon gentle,' 'sharp- notched, long-taloned, crooked-winged,' whose uncles and cousins, ages since, have struck at duck and pheasant, and sat upon the wrists of kings. And now he is full proud of any mouse or cliff-lark; like an old Chingachgook, last of the Mohicans, he lingers round 'the hunting-field of his ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Paraguay, the boundary treaty has been made on the basis of the Brazilian idea of what is right between the two governments. The liberty of opinion accorded to Paraguay by Brazil is merely the liberty which a cat grants to a captive mouse, to run about within ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... setting out in life; but when the father died there was nothing left—all his property mortgaged or something—at any rate Elizabeth never got a cent, and her cousin would have been poor as a church-mouse but for the money which had set him up in a splendid business. He wanted to make that over ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... he. "I dare presoom to say there hain't a woman amongst 'em but what is afraid of a mouse, and would run from a ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... about the room, and Haensel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together in perfect happiness. My tale is done. There runs a mouse; whosoever catches it may make himself a big ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... answered, solemnly. "I happened to find a poor, little dead mouse under the gas range and I thought I'd farewell the ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... of all. That you who pass your days amid such people, so beautiful, so witty, should think me worthy of your love, me, who am such a quiet little mouse, all alone in this great house, so shy and so backward! ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had not been to school that day, and did not know what lessons were given out; and, besides, was quite out of her usual habits and life generally. "If I must do my examples, so must you, or I won't do them at all," cried Cheppi again. Wiseli kept as still as a mouse. "Well, then, it is all right," said the boy noisily. "I won't do another stroke of work." And he threw ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... a teetotaler," Carr corrected, "and he's the greatest filibuster alive. He knows these waters as you know Broadway, and he's the salt of the earth. I did him a favor once; sort of mouse-helping-the-lion idea. Just through dumb luck I found out about this expedition. The government agents in New York found out I'd found out and sent for me to tell. But I didn't, and I didn't write the story either. Doyle heard about that. So, he asked me to come as his ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... Why,' says he, 'there was two tents, one openin' into the other. This shoat was on a platform, tied with a little chain. I seen a giant and a lady with a fine chance of bushy white hair in the other tent. I got the shoat and crawled out from under the canvas again without him squeakin' as loud as a mouse. I put him under my coat, and I must have passed a hundred folks before I got out where the streets was dark. I reckon I wouldn't sell that shoat, Jeff. I'd want ma to keep it, so there'd be a witness to what ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... very much out of sight during most of the time also came to the same small tree at that early hour. It was regularly visited, and its thin bole industriously examined, by the nuthatch and the quaint little mouse-like creeper. Doubtless they imagined that five o'clock was too early for heavy human creatures to be awake, and were either ignorant of my presence or thought proper to ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... something drifting visibly out of reach. He was not a man, however, to be beat while it was possible to persist. Believing Dick Stanmore the great obstacle in his way, he watched that preoccupied gentleman as a cat watches a mouse. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... "You pretty little mouse! If I had just one wish I'd wish I was a man, an' I'd just grab you up in my arms an' I wouldn't stop goin' until I set you down in front of a preacher. Come here an' let ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... all by himself. He put on more wood, and drew the rocking-chair up by the fire, and lay back in it. It was very still; he could hear every mouse that moved. The stillness seemed to settle clear down to his heart. Presently a wagon went clattering by. Then, as the sound died away in the distance, it seemed stiller than ever. Willie tried to sleep; but he couldn't. He kept listening; and after ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... corn. But from the level of the sunk stream bed Neither he nor she could see the target aimed at, Yet in the pause they heard the poor child scream; A second arrow, second scream; she fought, But soon like bundle bound, hung o'er his shoulder, Helpless as a mouse in cat's mouth carried off In search of quiet, there to play with it. Those arrows missed?—or did they not? The child Shrieked twice, yet scarcely like a wounded thing She thought and hoped and still but thinks and hopes. Where is that boy? Where is her husband ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... manner fell upon the little man, and he glanced, one after the other, at the four corners of the room, as if he heard a mouse moving and wanted to detect it. Then he looked sternly at the door, and I thought he was going to peer up the chimney, but instead he leaned across the table and ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... she is naturally strong, it is not long since she recovered from a severe illness. Nothing, however, surprises me so much as the way in which my dear wife has come through it all. It seems to have given her quite a turn in the right direction. Why, she used to be as timid as a mouse! Now she scoffs at burglars. After what occurred last night she says she will fear nothing under the sun. Isn't it odd? As for the children, I'm afraid the event has roused all that is wild and savage in their natures! They ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... rusty guns, and had to eat dried berries, herbs and nuts; for no other food could be found. Aunt Wee got an old fiddle, and had a dancing-school, where Daisy capered till she was tired. So they rummaged out some dusty books, and looked at pictures so quietly that a little mouse came out of a drawer and peeped about, thinking no one ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... she excelled. Her delight in the consciousness of her ingenuity broke out in a thousand puckish freaks, freaks in which one can hardly see any purpose beyond the purpose of sheer mystification. She revelled in "bye-ways" and "crooked ways." She played with grave cabinets as a cat plays with a mouse, and with much of the same feline delight in the mere embarrassment of her victims. When she was weary of mystifying foreign statesmen she turned to find fresh sport in mystifying her own ministers. Had Elizabeth written the story of her ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... and mice. Still there was no danger of her investigating the grain-chests on her own account, for she was very much afraid. She would not have lifted one of those lids, with the chance of a rat or mouse being under it, for the world. If ever a mouse was seen in the kitchen Nabby took immediate refuge on the settle or the table and left some one else to do ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... advancing machine of millions, the slighter array of the Allies, and especially the British at their ultimate outpost, saved themselves by a succession of hair's-breadth escapes and what must have seemed to the soldiers the heartrending luck of a mouse before a cat. Again and again Von Kluck's cavalry, supported by artillery and infantry, clawed round the end of the British force, which eluded it as by leaping back again and again. Sometimes the pursuer was, so to speak, so much on top of his prey that it could not ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... let them scrupulously discuss the immense problem whether I still possess, or possess no longer, the title of my once-Governorship; let them ask for credentials, discuss the limits of my commission, as representative of Hungary. I pity all such frog and mouse fighting. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... account of one night's camping-out experience in the mountains of southeastern France. Stevenson's only companion was Modestine, a donkey "not much bigger than a dog, the color of a mouse, with a kindly eye and a determined jaw." The selection is especially fine in its interpretation of night out of doors. Read it to gather the impressions that the sights and sounds made upon the author. Then read it to discover what you would have listened for (and probably heard) had you been ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... young fellow asked him if he was satisfied, and held out his hand. But the other sulked, and muttered something about revenge.—Jest as ye like,—said the young man John.—Clap a slice o' raw beefsteak on to that mouse o' yours 'n' 't'll take down the swellin'. (Mouse is a technical term for a bluish, oblong, rounded elevation occasioned by running one's forehead or eyebrow against another's knuckles.) The young fellow was particularly pleased that he had had an opportunity of trying his proficiency ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... of hiding in the swamp, tried it and came staggering back to the camp with a bullet hole in his foot. Roger reasoned that Garman's cat-and-mouse tactics were calculated to break his nerve or to provoke a fight which could have only one result. Failing in this the trap had but to be maintained and the inevitable result would ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... their concealment and preservation, then white or any other conspicuous colour must be hurtful, and must in most cases shorten an animal's life. A white rabbit would be more surely the prey of hawk or buzzard, and the white mole, or field mouse, could not long escape from the vigilant owl. So, also, any deviation from those tints best adapted to conceal a carnivorous animal would render the pursuit of its prey much more difficult, would place it at a disadvantage among its fellows, and in a time of scarcity would probably cause it to ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Achitophel," "The Way of the World," "Gulliver's Travels" and "The Rape of the Lock." There is a whole literature of mockery: parodies like Prior's "Ballad on the Taking of Namur" and "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse"; Buckingham's "Rehearsal" and Swift's "Meditation on a Broomstick"; mock-heroics, like the "Dunciad" and "MacFlecknoe" and Garth's "Dispensary," and John Phillips' "Splendid Shilling" and Addison's ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... through it are less prolific than creatures of equal weights which go through the smaller exertion of moving about over solid surfaces. The extreme infertility of the bat is most striking when compared with the structurally similar but very prolific mouse; a difference in the rate of multiplication which may fairly be ascribed to the difference in the rate ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... are very rare; but we have been to the store where we get our lizards, and tadpoles, and goldfish, and the man who keeps it has promised to see if he can hear of one. If he is fortunate enough to find such a mouse he is to let us know, and if you send us your address we will tell you how much he wants for it, and where you ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... but I don't like the cold, calculating expression in his eyes. He is the rich man of this neighborhood. Do you suppose he acquired a fortune honestly in this forsaken district, where everyone else is poor as a church mouse?" ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Miss Nugent and Lord Colambre never once looked at each other. She was very diligently trying the changes that could be made in the positions of a china-mouse, a cat, a dog, a cup, and a brahmin, on the mantel-piece; Lord Colambre as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... and gazed on the child, who was half-slumbering. For five minutes she sat there like a cat ready to jump at the first movement of a moribund mouse. Apparently she was engaged in concentrating her mind ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... that is all I ask; for willingly I never make acquaintance with the dead. 80 The full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me, And if a corpse knocks, I am not at home. For I am like a cat—I like to play A little with the mouse before I eat it. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... said he in a low voice. "I ran an hour through various halls and corridors, like a mouse chased by a cat. And I confess that, not merely did I not understand that road, but I could not have even escaped from the place unattended. Death in the sunlight may be pleasant, but death in those dens, where a mole would ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... He knows that troops behave as they are handled at first;—that is his cheap secret; just what happens to every two persons who meet on any affair,—one instantly perceives that he has the key of the situation, that his will comprehends the other's will, as the cat does the mouse; and he has only to use courtesy, and furnish good-natured reasons to his victim to cover up the chain, lest he ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... under circumstances so contradictory and prejudices so different and distinct, how could he suppose his mind was the common measure of man? Faultless? Perfect? Vain supposition! Extravagant hope! The driver of a mill-horse, he who never had the wit to make much less to invent a mouse-trap, will detect and point out his blunders. All satisfied? No; not one! Not a man that reads but will detail, reprove, and ridicule his ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... said Meister Karl, "I could go on all day with Romany songs; and I can count up to a hundred in the black language. I know three words for a mouse, three for a monkey, and three for the shadow which falleth at noonday. And I know how to pen dukkerin, lel dudikabin te chiv o manzin ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... And by degrees so thought to mould the dame To his desires. She in that lone retreat And savage, open to his evil aim, And like a mouse, beneath Grimalkin's feet, Had liefer found herself i' the midst of flame; And ever on one thought her fancy beat: If any mode, if any way, remained To scape that wilful man, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... way that Napoleon treated Spain. He played with it as a cat plays with a mouse, and when the proper time came pounced upon it and gathered it in. Charles IV., the Spanish king of Napoleon's time, was one of the feeblest of his weak line,—an imbecile whom the emperor of France counted no more than a feather in his path. He sought to deal with him as ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... the feline spirit in these Raturan savages. As the cat plays with the mouse before killing it, so did they amuse themselves with the pirate before putting him to the final torture which was to terminate ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Mouse," I said, "we'll just have a little trip together. The nurse that'd lose you deserves to worry till you're found. The mother that's lucky enough to own you will be benefited hereafter by a sharp scare on your account just ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... eaten, not as much as he wanted, but as much as he thought was prudent (for who could say when he would be able to buy anything more?), he set to work like a little mouse to make a hole in the withes of straw and hay which enveloped the stove. If it had been put in a packing-case he would have been defeated at the onset. As it was, he gnawed, and nibbled, and pulled, and pushed, just as a mouse would ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... skirt of a soft, mouse-coloured velvet, very quiet and nondescript in hue, and the hat, with its curling brim, was covered with the same material. So far, very douce and quiet; but entirely round the hat, and curling gracefully over one side, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... iron. Schelling was far outdone in fantastic analogies of this kind by his pupils, especially by Oken, who in his Sketch of the Philosophy of Nature, 1805, compares the sense of hearing, for example, to the parabola, to a metal, to a bone, to the bird, to the mouse, and to the horse. As nature was the imaging of the infinite (unity or essence) into the finite (plurality or form), so spirit is the taking up of the finite into the infinite. In the spiritual realm also all three divine original potencies are every, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... nose and sniffed. His natural voice gave a faint whine of discontent. "I'm supposed to have a nose," he complained. "This is like trying to smell out a lone mouse in a zoological ...
— History Repeats • George Oliver Smith
... do not these speak more plainly than if they had uttered long orations? What flow of words could have expressed the ideas as clearly? Darius, in the course of the Scythian war, received from the king of the Scythians a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows. The ambassador deposited this gift and retired without a word. In our days he would have been taken for a madman. This terrible speech was understood, and Darius withdrew to his own country with what speed he could. Substitute a letter for these symbols ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... kirk-deacons—drilygood-natured addresses to his cronies, (he certainly would not stop us if he were here this moment, from classing that "to the De'il" among them)—"to Mailie and her Lambs," "to auld Mare Maggie," "to a Mouse," ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... dog, with a ribbon on, was holding a ball within its feathery toes, and playing with it as a cat does a mouse; a gardener was refreshing the thirsty flowers, which had outgrown their strength; and Fleda, Estelle, and Lola, twelve, eleven, and nine, were playing croquet with the zest ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... never done talkin' about my mouse-coloured hair; but they'll soon have to stop because it's gettin' ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... thought you were talking of some danger. I wouldn't give in to dragons. I never saw one. I'm not in dread of beasts unless it might be a mouse in the night-time! ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... and chatted, and did one curious thing after another to amuse us. He made a tiny toy squirrel out of clay, and it ran up a tree and sat on a limb overhead and barked down at us. Then he made a dog that was not much larger than a mouse, and it treed the squirrel and danced about the tree, excited and barking, and was as alive as any dog could be. It frightened the squirrel from tree to tree and followed it up until both were out of sight in the forest. He made birds out of clay ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... the end of the bishop of Mentz, And oft at the midnight hour, He comes in the shape of a fog so dense, And sits on his old "Mouse-Tower." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... the third youth, "will seek neither; for I would not be wise over-much, while of what I deem myself to know I would be well assured. Happy am I, and bless my lot, yet have I beheld a red mouse in closer contiguity to my beloved than I could bring myself to approve, albeit it leapt not from her mouth as they do sometimes. Yet do I know it for a red mouse and nothing worse; had I inhabited the Palace of Illusion haply I had deemed it a rat. And, it being a red mouse as it indubitably ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... soon. Thus I once came upon a leopard. I had got caught in a tornado in a dense forest. The massive, mighty trees were waving like a wheat-field in an autumn gale in England, and I dare say a field mouse in a wheat-field in a gale would have heard much the same uproar. The tornado shrieked like ten thousand vengeful demons. The great trees creaked and groaned and strained against it and their bush-rope cables groaned and smacked like ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... is represented by gigantic and well preserved animal forms, widely distributed and accustomed to the most varied methods of nutrition, whereas the competitor appears in the form of small, harmless marsupials. It would be equivalent to a struggle between the elephant and the mouse." ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... had a little bird, or a mouse, in a cage, and should open the door and let it out, should you say that you made the ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... Neergard's tiny mouse-like eyes, set close together, stole brightly in Selwyn's direction; but they usually looked just a little past ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... cast affection's glance on this poor but honest soger! George Lord S. is not the nobleman to cut the object of his flame before the giddy throng; nor to keep her boxed up in an old mouse-trap, while he himself is revelling in purple splendours like these. He didn't know you, Jean: he was afraid to. Do you call that a man? Try a man ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... popilar taste not by a nundred miles, they 'aven't. Why, I ain't seen a single thing as I'd reckincile it to my conscience to perduce before my public—there ain't 'ardly a droring in the 'ole bloomin' show as I'd be seen settin' down beyind! Put down some of these 'ere Pastellers to do a mouse a nibbling at a candle, or a battle in the Soudang, or a rat snifin' at a smashed hegg, and you'd soon see they was no good! Precious few coppers 'ud fall into their 'ats, I'll go bail! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... cheerful. Accordingly the reconstructed house continues it as a living room. The new kitchen can best be located in an extension either original or new but designed to be in keeping. Here the noises and odors of cooking will not permeate the main structure and with mouse-proof new partitions, kitchen, pantry, and servants' quarters can be arranged so they will be logical and convenient. Wherever possible the garage ought to be a part of the service wing for ease of ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... Bobs o' vinegar, gentleman, Kiss, toss, mouse, fat, Bore a needle, bum a fiddle, Jink ma jeerie, jink ma jye, Stand you there, you're ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... as they alight upon it. Another method was explained to Sam by an old Indian hunter, and with some help in securing the material they had a great deal of fun in trying it. The first thing they did was to make a great black rag mouse about as big as a beaver. To this was added a tail about five feet long. Then to the nose of this great bogus mouse was attached one end of a large ball of twine. This was the whole outfit, except, of course, the guns. One evening ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... p. 381.).—The word, I apprehend, means sharp. The mouse, which is not the field-mouse, as Halliwell states, but an animal of a different order of quadrupeds, has a very sharp snout. Shrewd means sharp generally. Its bad sense is only incidental. They seem connected with ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 26. Saturday, April 27, 1850 • Various
... a man happier than a mouse, or a mouse than a turnip, or a turnip than a lump of chalk? But what man would be a mouse or a turnip, or vice versa? What turnip would be a lump—of anything but itself? Are two people happier than ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... saloon that was hung with jade-green silk, we leaned over the bulwarks and contemplated the remote scene before us. We could just discern by the pier some small tramp steamer reposing. In the little white houses one or two lights twinkled, and presently, not far off, we distinguished a mouse-colored something, the upper outlines of which resolved themselves into high gables. Like Childe Roland when he came to the dark tower, we realized that these were the gables of Noltland Castle. Next morning we explored this building. The ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... acknowledge that I had; and then it was, in the sweetest of tones, that she said: "But if I had thought you really were tangled I would not have spoken of it. Now tell me what you were going to say, and I promise to listen like a mouse in a corner." ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... hollow wall of an old brick mansion, away up near the roof, there lived a family of mice. It was a snug little home, pleasant and quiet, and as dark as any mouse could desire. Mamma Mouse liked it because, as she said, the draught that came through the rafters made it cool in summer, and they were near enough to the chimney to keep warm ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... chasing a little field-mouse, which at last ran tremblingly up the low branch of a tree and hid ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories;" "The Mouse-Trap and Other Farces;" "The Sleeping Car and ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... wood or in any place where there are old leaves, as in a dry ditch, you will usually get through the ear the first tidings of any moving thing. For instance, you will hear a field-mouse rustling long before you can see its queer pointed nose pushing its way through the dead leaves. Or it may be a mole blundering blindly along. If by any chance a mole is caught in a trap while you are ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... claret and water were poured out for my refreshment they jumped on the table for a sit-to.... I had to leave the wild-cat on the Rio Grande; he was too savage and had grown as large as a small sized dog. He would pounce on a kid as Tom Tita [his daughter's cat] would on a mouse and would whistle like a tiger when you ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... no good at all. The retrievers were all puppies, so gentle and playful that they would not have frightened even a mouse from the caravan door. But the next, which was at Bermondsey, was better. Here, in a small backyard, they found Mr. Amos, the advertiser, surrounded by kennels. He was a little man with a squint, and he declared that he had nothing but the best-bred ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... the parent-form.[341] In the Zoological Gardens, some rodents have coupled, but have never produced young; some have neither coupled nor bred; but a few have bred, as the porcupine more than once, the Barbary mouse, lemming, chinchilla, and the agouti (Dasyprocta aguti), several times. This latter animal has also produced young in Paraguay, though they were born dead and ill-formed; but in Amazonia, according ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... away The mice will play. If you have cut your wisdom-teeth, You'll know your mouse. His name ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... necessary for those five daughters, of whom Cynthia was the first-born. I even gathered that, a year or two earlier, there had been scenes and grave anxiety over a preference which Cynthia had shown for a painter, poor as a church mouse, who, very considerately, had proceeded to die of a fever in Southern Italy. Mrs. Lane had, to a large extent, arranged the forthcoming marriage with Charles Barthrop, I think. In the interests of the ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... warm coats and stockings out of the skins of the birds that we had caught; and we made caps, too, out of them,—plucking off the feathers, and leaving only the soft, warm, mouse-colored down upon the skin. And out of the seal's skin we made mittens and nice soft boots, or rather, as I ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... love them. Hence we pick a fly out of a milk-jug and watch with pleasure over its recovery, for we are confident that under no conceivable circumstances will it want to borrow money from us; but we feel less sure about a mouse, so we show it no quarter. The compilers of our almanacs well know this tendency of our natures, so they tell us, not when Noah went into the ark, nor when the temple of Jerusalem was dedicated, but that Lindley Murray, grammarian, died January 16th, 1826. This is not because ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... how dew due out now few hue hour cow mew blue flour bow new June trout plow Jew tune shout owl pew plume mouth growl hue pure sound brown glue flute mouse ...
— How to Teach Phonics • Lida M. Williams
... the Knob Channel, and the sea, although still heavy, was more regular. As they passed the Mouse Light-ship there were several large steamers at anchor there, but it was now a straight run down to the Nore and ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... of her crutches on the floor distressed him greatly, Barbara had padded the sharp ends with flannel and was careful to move about as little as possible when he was in the house. She had gone, mouse-like, to her own particular chair while Miriam was hanging up his coat and hat and placing his easy chair near the open fire. He sat down and held his slender hands close ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... rise more! deservedly execrated by all honest men, lamented by none but those who profited by their being in office, by their hangers-on, and by such men as Mr. Waithman, the city patriot, who was looking out for a place with as much eagerness and anxiety as a cat would watch to pounce upon a mouse: a few such men as these were mortified and hurt at the fall of those to whom they were looking up for situations of profit, and for pensions, which were to be extorted from the pockets of the people; but the nation at large rejoiced at the downfal of these upstart, hypocritical pretenders ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... behind it]. You DO look a swell. You're much handsomer than you used to be. You've made the acquaintance of Ellie, of course. She is going to marry a perfect hog of a millionaire for the sake of her father, who is as poor as a church mouse; and you must help me to ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... listening to the ticking of the clock. A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall. The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went downstairs ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... may be studied, using the same order and general method of treatment: pigeon, cat, canary, guinea pig, white mouse, raccoon, squirrel, parrot. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... glitter of the place where Pete was to take her. An entertainment of many hues and many melodies where she was afraid she might appear small and mouse-colored. ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... animal drink of it?" "They disallow it." All fowls disallow it, excepting the dove, because it sucks. All creeping animals do not disallow it, excepting the weasel, because it laps. Rabban Gamaliel said, "also the serpent, because it spews." R. Eliezer said, "also the mouse." ...
— Hebrew Literature
... position, in which he was clearly making a point of remaining as long as possible, while his face grew very red, we held our first conversation. I had hitherto sat propped up as quiet as a mouse, but now ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... are giving yourself airs, and doing the grand heroic! And then the shy coquetry comes in again. The pathetic eyes are full of a grave compassion, if he must really never see her more. The cat plays with the poor mouse, and pretends that really the tender thing is gone away at last. He will take this half of a broken sixpence back: it was given in happier times. If ever he should marry, he will know that one far away prays for his happiness. And if—if these unwomanly tears—And suddenly the crass idiot ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... by Mr. Charles Montague, afterwards Earl of Hallifax, and Mr. Matthew Prior, who joined in writing the Hind and Panther, transversed to the Country Mouse, and City Mouse, Lond. 1678, 4to. In the preface to which, the author observes, 'that Mr. Dryden's poem naturally falls into ridicule, and that in this burlesque, nothing is represented monstrous and unnatural, that is not equally so in the original.' ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... expressed, Inoffensive, welcome guest! While the rat is on the scout, And the mouse with curious snout, With what vermin else infest Every dish, and spoil the best; Frisking thus before the fire, Thou hast all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... world."—Ibid. "There is, indeed, nothing in poetry, so entertaining or descriptive, but what a didactic writer of genius may be allowed to introduce in some part of his work."—Blair's Rhet., p. 401. "Brasidas, being bit by a mouse he had catched, let it slip out of his fingers: 'No creature, (says he,) is so contemptible but what may provide for its own safety, if it have courage.'"—PLUTARCH: Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. i, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... chariots and cavalry on the straggling masses of the fugitives is inexplicably arrested. The weary day's march, which must have seemed as suicidal to the Israelites as it did to their pursuers, had ended in bringing them into a position where, as Luther puts it, they were like a mouse in a trap or a partridge in a snare. The desert, the sea, the enemy, were their alternatives. And, as they camped, they saw in the distance the rapid advance of the dreaded force of chariots, probably the vanguard of an army. No wonder that they lost heart. Moses alone keeps his ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... contact with the birdlime. The cries of those which are thus situated now attract others, and thus are large numbers taken in a short space of time. If owls were themselves desired to be taken, it is only during the night that this can be done, by counterfeiting the squeak of the mouse. Larks, other birds, and water-fowl, are sometimes taken by nets; but to describe fully the manner in which this is done, would here occupy ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... virtue from rank, but to rank from virtue. Look, too, at the nature of that power which ye find so attractive and glorious! Do ye never consider, ye creatures of earth, what ye are, and over whom ye exercise your fancied lordship? Suppose, now, that in the mouse tribe there should rise up one claiming rights and powers for himself above the rest, would ye not laugh consumedly? Yet if thou lookest to his body alone, what creature canst thou find more feeble than man, who oftentimes ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... mouthful, which he ate. Again and again did he fling it over the wire, for it soon slipped off, and it was perfectly plain that the object was to give him purchase to pull against. Then I could see small legs on the fragment, and a tail like a mouse's. While I stood watching this feast in progress, a call came from across the road. It was not loud, and it was of a quality hard to express, not exactly harsh, nor yet musical. It was instantly answered by the two on the fence, and the one I was ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... in the throat of debauchery. It seemed to me that my mistress, having been unfaithful, must have such a voice. I was reminded of Faust who, dancing at the Brocken with a young sorceress, saw a red mouse emerge from her throat. ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... thoughts were turn'd, Whereof I give account in this dire heat." Straight Ciriatto, from whose mouth a tusk Issued on either side, as from a boar, Ript him with one of these. 'Twixt evil claws The mouse had fall'n: but Barbariccia cried, Seizing him with both arms: "Stand thou apart, While I do fix him on my prong transpierc'd." Then added, turning to my guide his face, "Inquire of him, if more thou wish to learn, Ere he again be rent." My leader thus: "Then tell us of the partners ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... is no need to fear that little thing," said Overton. "Really, it is not a snake to bite—no more harm in it than in a mouse." ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... turned it into a cat itself. Immediately it began to suffer from its fear of a dog, so the magician turned it into a dog. Then it began to suffer from fear of a tiger. The magician therefore turned it into a tiger. Then it began to suffer from fear of hunters, and the magician said in disgust: "Be a mouse again. As you have only the heart of a mouse, it is impossible to help you by giving you the body of a nobler animal." The moral of the story ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... driven between two pillars and stuck there like a mouse in a trap," said Dave, "and if we cannot ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... his neck, with my knee well into the small of his back, and down he comes. He tried to sing out, but the minute he opened his mouth I rammed my handkercher down his throat, and that kept him as quiet as a mouse; and so he's like to be till morning, when I reckon he'll find hisself just about in the centre of a hobble, with these here boats all gone, and the brig afire fore and aft, please God. D'ye think ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... splinters! All that day the chamber was deserted. It was forsaken the next bright summer day. A mouse came out of his hole, and, looking timidly about, gave a faint, surprised squeak. The flies buzzed in the sunshine, and had all the time they wished to hum through their tunes. The only other noise was the wind that murmured about the door and the window that Aunt Stanshy ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... door, there came that tap again; A woman with an anguished face implored me to forego My music for some days to come—a man was dead below. I shut down my piano till the corpse had left the house, And spoke to Tom in whispers and was quiet as a mouse. ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... fathers and mothers. Sometimes they do go out a little way with their mother before this, and they go in a very funny fashion. Of course, when they are babies, they drink warm milk from her body as the children of most four-legged people do. Sometimes a young Meadow Mouse does not want to stop drinking his milk when it is time for his mother to leave the nest, so he just hangs on to her with his tiny, toothless mouth, and when she goes she drags him along on the ground beside ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... mouse-dun mustang, with crop-ears, a roached mane, and the back markings of a mule. She always rode at a run, sitting with easy erectness. A wide army hat rested snugly on her fair hair, and shaded a white forehead and level-looking ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... that involuntarily Calton recoiled. Her white hair was unbound, and hung in tangled masses over her shoulders in snowy profusion. Her face, parched and wrinkled, with the hooked nose, and beady black eyes, like those of a mouse, was poked forward, and her skinny arms, bare to the shoulder, were waving wildly about as she grasped at the bedclothes with her claw-like hands. The square bottle and the broken cup lay beside her, and filling herself a dram, ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... does not leap upon the mouse with more avidity than Lord Chatterino and myself pounced upon the third protocol, seeking new grounds for the argument ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... me still more your debtor. By the Holy Evangels! if I were assured the Abbot Aldam of Kirkstall had aught to do with that attack upon me, I would harry his worthless old mummery shop so clean a mouse would starve ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... lady—indeed I do, from the bottom of my heart—on your accession to title and property. As you never saw, or indeed, I fancy, never heard of, your relative the late baronet, your grief need not be very poignant on that account, so we'll say nothing about it just now. I have been working away like a mouse in a cheese ever since I got an inkling that you were the rightful heir, and have only just discovered the last link in the chain of evidence; and then, having rigged myself out, as you nautical gentlemen would say, in a presentable evening ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... giving a good opportunity for looking at the animal. It is about the height of our common fallow deer, but much stronger and larger in make, large necks and feet, large-boned legs, with immense antlers covered with flesh and skin, a dark mouse colour, coat thick, most even and beautiful to look at. The milk is rich beyond any ever tasted. They dined with the Laps on reindeer soup and bouillie, scalded milk and cheese—a characteristic meal. The scalded ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... her own domain where the three of us fought for the position of her most abject slave. Even Mary Ellen could scarcely work for watching her antics with an old stocking, which she pretended was a rat. Once she caught a live mouse and set us all shouting. Mary Ellen, in her excitement, upset a gravy-boat of hot gravy, and The Seraph slipped and sat down in it, and Giftie gambolling, mouse in mouth, ran through it and tracked it over the freshly scrubbed boards. If she had been a tigress with her prey she could not have been ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... person, coy and simple, with dainty fingers, small mouth, and clean attire,—a refined sort of a woman for that age, ornamented with corals and brooch, so stately as to be held in reverence, yet so sentimental as to weep for a mouse caught in a trap: all characteristic of a respectable, kind-hearted lady who has lived in seclusion. A monk, of course, in the fourteenth century was everywhere to be seen; and a monk we have among the pilgrims, riding a "dainty" horse, accompanied with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... flowers, at the close of which the spirits were dismissed with the formula, "Depart, ye ghosts, the revels now are ended." Mr. Andrew Lang has suggested that the animals associated with gods and goddesses (such as the mouse which is found in the hand, or the hair, or beside the feet of the statues of Apollo, the owl of Minerva, etc.) are relics of the earlier worship. This would satisfactorily explain much of the disreputable element ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... birds have an enemy in our native white-footed mouse, though I have not proof enough to convict him. But one season the nest of a chickadee which I was observing was broken up in a position where nothing but a mouse could have reached it. The bird had chosen a cavity in the limb of an apple-tree which stood ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl, on the fifteenth of February, 1787, put a mouse into the bosom of another girl, who had a great dread of mice. The girl was immediately thrown into a fit, and continued in it with the most violent convulsions for twenty-four hours. On the following day three more girls were seized in the same manner; and on the seventeenth, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before man with her anesthetics: the cat's first shake stupefies the mouse; the lion's first shake deadens the man's fear and feeling; and the crotalus paralyzes before he strikes. He waited as in a trance,—waited as one that longs to have the blow fall, and all over, as the man who shall be in two pieces in a second waits for the axe to drop. But while ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... of small lakes, favourite resorts of wild duck. The flowers were in great profusion; but we saw no animals anywhere, excepting a few chipmunks and gophirs, which are sort of half-rats, half-squirrels. The chipmunks are dear little things about the size of a mouse, with long bushy tails and a dark stripe running the whole length ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall |
