"Parrot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wretchedly without a wife. The good Mussulmans, who think it a sin to live unmarried, excuse him because his residence in different parts of the regency is uncertain, and he tells them he cannot lead about a wife. The only object of affection of this bachelor is a parrot, which speaks pure Housa lingo, and is very angry at the gruff tones of the Touraghee language, always scolding the Touaricks when ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... fond of joking and laughing at her aunt. As for her husband, horrified at the impiety of what appeared to him to be a terrific parricide, he took to flight, pursued by the matrimonial furies (two curs and a parrot), with all the speed his lameness permitted, climbed into the first carriage he encountered, jumped into the first banka he saw on the river, and, a Philippine Ulysses, began to wander from town to town, from province to province, from island to island, pursued and persecuted ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... seals lying round, one directed conspicuously to The Honourable etc. etc. Great-grandmother, by the same artist; brown satin, lace very fine, hands superlative; grand old lady, stiffish, but imposing. Her mother, artist unknown; flat, angular, hanging sleeves; parrot on fist. A pair of Stuarts, viz., 1. A superb full-blown, medival gentleman, with a fiery dash of Tory blood in his veins, tempered down with that of a fine old rebel grandmother, and warmed up with the best of old India Madeira; his face is one flame of ruddy sunshine; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... may have seen in a cage, or chained to a stand, is the cockatoo. He is a cousin of the parrot, but much larger, and far more gorgeous. He has a beautiful crest of red and orange feathers on his head. His wings are a rosy pink in color; and he has a long pink ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... mortality has just occurred, which has favoured the conversation of the clubs, and thrown the west end into condolence and confusion for the last twenty-four hours. Colonel O'Kelly's famous parrot is dead. The stories told of this surprising bird have long stretched public credulity to its utmost extent. But if even the half of what is told be true, it exhibited the most singular sagacity. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... beautify your bedroom with all my possessions," returned Flamant heartily. "I have a stuffed parrot that is most decorative, but I have not ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... religion. The members of the tribunal demanded "who the boy was with the bleeding nose?" and "why were halberdiers admitted?" Veronese replied that they were the sort of servants a rich and magnificent host would have about him. He was then asked why he had introduced the buffoon with a parrot on his hand. He replied that he really thought only Christ and His Apostles were present, but that when he had a little space over, he adorned it with imaginary figures. This defence of the vast and crowded canvas did not commend itself, and he was asked ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... a little girl who had four dolls. One of them was French; the other three were wax. There was a parrot in the house where the little girl lived. This little girl had a nurse she loved very much. The little girl had a brother whose name was Harry. He had a little boat that went by steam. He sailed it in ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and that his large eyes seemed to be asking something like an eternal question, he took him for a fool, and one day decided to make him conspicuous by calling on him for the lesson. Basilio recited it from beginning to end, without hesitating over a single letter, so the professor called him a parrot and told a story to make the class laugh. Then to increase the hilarity and justify the epithet he asked several questions, at the same time winking to his favorites, as if to say to them, "You'll see how we're going to ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... expect to find treasure, inasmuch as it is mostly found just there. Presently the most hideous of faces was turned up at me from the threshold of a humble lodge. It was of a dead green color, with blood trimmings; the nose beaked like a parrot's, the mouth a gaping crescent; the eyeless sockets seemed to sparkle and blink with inner eyes set in the back of the skull; murderous scalp locks streamed over the ill-shapen brow; and from the depths of this monstrosity some one, or ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... our daily bill of fare profited by the boatswain's trawling lines, to the extreme satisfaction of stomachs weary of salt meat. Our lines brought us goby, salmon, cod, mackerel, conger, mullet, and parrot-fish. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... passing in and out; and poor old Sol, when Walter was not there, would come and lean against the doorpost, resting his weary wig as near the shoe-buckles of the guardian genius of his trade and shop as he could. But no fierce idol with a mouth from ear to ear, and a murderous visage made of parrot's feathers, was ever more indifferent to the appeals of its savage votaries, than was the Midshipman to these ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... 250 suckers, arranged over the inner sides of its tentacles and shaped like semispheric capsules. Sometimes these suckers fastened onto the lounge window by creating vacuums against it. The monster's mouth—a beak made of horn and shaped like that of a parrot—opened and closed vertically. Its tongue, also of horn substance and armed with several rows of sharp teeth, would flicker out from between these genuine shears. What a freak of nature! A bird's beak on a ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... voice grated also on old Judge Bowman, who threw down his book and looked up over his bowed spectacles. He was a testy old fellow, with a Burgundy face and shaggy white hair, a chin and nose that met together like a parrot's, and an eye like a hawk. It was one of his principles to permit none of his intimates to speak ill of his friends in his hearing. Criticisms, therefore, by an outsider like Cobb were ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... he seemed now not to notice her, though I was aware all the time of a sidelong glance of his eye, parrot-wise, in her direction. "He committed a murder," he went on, "by means of aconitine—then an almost unknown poison; and, after committing it, his heart being already weak, he was taken himself with symptoms of aneurism in a curious form, essentially similar to these; so that he ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... to the paroquet. Yet the bird thus positively identified as a paroquet, upon which identification have, without doubt, been based all the conclusions that have been published concerning the presence of that bird among the mound sculptures is not even distantly related to the parrot family. It has the bill of a raptorial bird, as shown by the distinct tooth, and this, in connection with the well defined cere, not present in the paroquet, and the open nostril, concealed by feathers in the paroquet, places its identity as one of the ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... listen to Charteris on the subject, one might have thought that he considered the matter rather amusing than otherwise. This, however, was simply due to the fact that he treated everything flippantly in conversation. But, like the parrot, he thought the more. The actual casus belli had been trivial. At least the mere spectator would have considered it trivial. It had happened after this fashion. Charteris was a member of the School corps. The orderly-room of the School corps was in the junior part ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... you say, Master Jack?" inquired Mrs. Wolston. "Do you suppose that Toby has learned embroidery in the same way that the parrot learned grammar?" ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... light yellow and remove freckles: it is also an internal remedy in leprosy. But the main use is that of a dye, and the Tob stained with Wars is almost universal in some parts of Arabia. Sonnini (p. 510) describes it at length and says that Europeans in Egypt call it "Parrot-seeds" because the bird loves it, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... crow now, and I want my breath to talk. I say, we have been sharp set. We began to feel like the talking parrot who was plucked by the monkey, ready to say, 'Oh, we have been having such a time!' Those ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... well say so, Miss," put in Ben. "That is, if you had to stay here all along, as I did, with nothing but them parrot birds screeching at you all day ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... rode up to the chief gateway, a grand circular archway, with all the noble though grotesque mouldings, zigzag and cable, dog-tooth and parrot-beak, visages human and diabolic, wherewith the Norman builders loved to surround their doorways. The doors were of solid oak, heavily guarded with iron, and from a little wicket in the midst peered out a cowled head, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that have given the name of cephalopod to these animals, were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies' hair. One could see the 250 air holes on the inner side of the tentacles. The monster's mouth, a horned beak like a parrot's, opened and shut vertically. Its tongue, a horned substance, furnished with several rows of pointed teeth, came out quivering from this veritable pair of shears. What a freak of nature, a bird's beak on ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... from prior association, or, as is most likely, by the attraction of antagonism, the fair, gentle, intellectual peasant boy adored the dark, fiery, imperious young patrician who loved, petted, and patronized him only as if he had been a wonderfully learned pig or very accomplished parrot! Bee knew this; but the pure love of her sweet spirit was incapable of jealousy, and when she saw that Ishmael loved Claudia best, she herself saw reason in that for esteeming her cousin higher than she had ever done before! If Ishmael loved Claudia so much, then Claudia must be more worthy than ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... swallows over and over again, without appearing to experience any other pleasure than that of satisfying her appetite. Birds of prey, it is true, have rather more convenient tongues, capable, moreover, of tasting up to a certain point; and the parrot, who is a complete epicure, and chews his food philosophically, has a charming-little black one, thick, fleshy, and susceptible—a true porter, in fact-who enables Polly thoroughly to enjoy her breakfast. But certain birds who live on insects surpass even the hen in the dryness and hardness ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... close this chapter; but finding that, as the parrot, which other while useth the form of a man's voice, yet being beaten and chaffed, returneth to his own natural voice, so some of our opposites, who have been but erst prating somewhat of the language of Canaan against us, finding themselves pressed and perplexed in such ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... by rote a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more distinct from harmony divine The constant creaking of a country ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... parrot tribe held the most conspicuous place. They were of all colors and sizes, from the large, awkward-looking mackaw, with his hoarse, discordant note, to the little, delicate-looking paroquet, dumb as a barnacle, and not bigger than a wren. The monkeys, of all ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... a rabbit, kitten, parrot, dog, canary, and a pair of chickens. I had a crow, but it died. I have a burying-ground for my pets, and in it there is the poor crow, a dog, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... PittyPatty———Prettybones, mayhap Im some such matter as a bear, as they will find who come to grapple with me; but damme if Im a monkey a thing that chatters without knowing a word of what it saysa parrot; that will hold a dialogue, for what an honest man knows, in a dozen languages; mayhap in the Bay of State lingo; mayhap in Greek or High Dutch. But dost it know what it means itself? canst answer me that, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... same, In different breasts together burn, Together both to ashes turn. But women now feel no such fire, And only know the gross desire; Their passions move in lower spheres, Where'er caprice or folly steers. A dog, a parrot, or an ape, Or some worse brute in human shape Engross the fancies of the fair, The few soft moments they can spare From visits to receive and pay, From scandal, politics, and play, From fans, and flounces, and brocades, From equipage and park-parades, From all the thousand female toys, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... got it but what she did with it. She got it along with her size, shape and structure—in other words, from her type—and she did just what you and everybody else does with his type-characteristics. She acted in accordance with her type just as a canary sings like a canary instead of talking like a parrot, and just as a rose gives off rose perfume ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... me unavoidable duty to live on this perch, Heller?" demanded Father Higgins. "Me opinion is that in that case I shall get mightily tired av me mission. I'd about as lave be a parrot, an' sit in ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... thickness—the longest being about twenty-four feet, and the shortest about eight. The under sides of these arms were supplied with innumerable suckers, while from the body there projected a horny beak, like the beak of a parrot. ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... he is to say is beyond the power of his mental comprehension, and hence of his active assimilation, we are only training him as we train an animal (Sec. 14), and not educating him. We call such recitations parrot recitations, and, by our use of the word, express exactly in what position the pupils are placed. An idiot is only a case of permanently arrested development. What in the intelligent child is a passing phase is for the idiot a fixed state. ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... thinks is like the man who puts on rouge, ridiculous." Voltaire said, "Ideas are like beards; women and young men have none." And witty Dr. Maginn carries to its extreme the atrocity: "We like to hear a few words of sense from a woman, as we do from a parrot, because they are so unexpected." Yet how can we wonder at these opinions, when the saints have been severer than the sages? since the pious Fenelon taught that true virgin delicacy was almost as incompatible with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... us that not less than forty different species of plants are cultivated in this island, and the nutmeg he conceives to be among its spontaneous ones. Of the fish found here he specifies mullet, Brasilian pike, garfish, dolphins, cavalhas, parrot-fish, sting-rays, toothless-rays, angel-fish, sharks, sinking-fish, and varieties of mackrel. Its birds are several sorts of pigeons, parroquets, fly-catchers, the Ceylonese owl, a species of creeper, a sort of duck, and a purple water-hen. The cock and hen are its only tame ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... Regent Street one day last week was accompanied by a white parrot. It is thought that this example will be widely followed by people who are not particularly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... enough to satisfy the modest expectations of the quiet young man. Yet Macaulay was far from being a match for Paul in any respect. Where Paul exhibited the force of his determination by intelligent hard work, Macaulay showed his desire for excellence by doggedly memorizing in a parrot-like way everything which he wished to know. Where Paul was enthusiastic, Macaulay was conscientious. Where Paul was original, Macaulay was a studious but dull imitator of the originality of others. Instead of Paul's indescribable air of good-breeding, Macaulay possessed what might ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... about her, on head and shoulders and arms, all unafraid, all content; then all fluttering with their clipped wings, about her lips, except a grey parrot who rubbed his ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... grief to Tooni, who could not understand it; but Sonny Sahib perversely refused to talk in his own tongue. She did all she could to help him. When he was a year old she cut an almond in two, and gave half to Sonny Sahib and half to the green parrot that swung all day in a cage in the door of the hut and had a fine gift of conversation; if anything would make the baby talk properly that would. Later on she taught him all the English words she remembered herself, which were three, 'bruss' and 'wass' and 'isstockin',' ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... dinners, which led to a dancing worse than speech-making. So is the cave where the flaring eyes of the old goat made such a goblin appearance in the dark. So is the site of the hut where Robinson lived with the dog and the parrot and the cat, and where he endured those first agonies of solitude, which—strange to say—never involved any ghostly fancies; a circumstance so very remarkable, that perhaps he left out something in writing ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... heard a hearty burst of laughter close to his head. He turned sharply, and there, just above him on the branch of a tree, sat a large Parrot, busily preening ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... contained a little pile of thin, flat cakes of a kind of bread, smoking hot. Then another man entered, bearing a gold dish containing what looked like a roast fowl, but what I presently discovered was a parrot; and Langila intimated that my dinner was served. And a very excellent dinner it proved to be; for the parrot was tender, juicy, of very appetising flavour, and perfectly cooked, while the little cakes of hot ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... There was a parrot in a corner of the dining-room, and, when prayers were over, Mrs. ——— praised it very highly for having been so silent; it being Poll's habit, probably, to break in upon the sacred exercises with unseemly interjections and remarks. While we were at breakfast, Poll began ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr Swift, Atossa, and Mr Pope, of Twitnam! What is the gentleman talking about?" says old goody, with a "Ho! ho!" and a laugh like a old parrot — you know they live to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a hundred is comparatively young (ho! ho! ho!). Yes, and likewise carps live to an immense old age. Some which Frederick ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... sunshine, which had kept a fickle Heine so faithful. Sometimes, one gathers, she as little realized the tragedy of Heine's suffering as she understood his writings. As such a woman must, she often left Heine very lonely; and seemed to feel more for her cat, or her parrot "Cocotte," than her immortal, ...
— Old Love Stories Retold • Richard Le Gallienne
... childishness in her. She would produce moving tones of voice quite aptly, but in the middle of a speech into which she seemed to be throwing her whole heart she would say a whole string of words that had absolutely no meaning. She recited her lesson like a parrot, without troubling about its meaning, and then she produced burlesque nonsense. She did not worry about it. When she saw it she would shout with laughter. At last she said: "Zut!", snatched the book from him, flung it into a corner of ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... precedence in the scale of animal intelligence should still be a mooted question. The primacy of the animal kingdom remains, of course, undisputed; but the dog, the elephant, the horse, the beaver,—nay, the parrot, the bee, and the ant,—have found learned and uncompromising advocates of their claims to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... himself with nodding to the auctioneer; and the lips of the latter had barely parted to parrot the bid when Victor sprang to his feet, his features working, his limbs shaking so that the legs of the chair beside him, whose back he seized, chattered on the floor, while the high-pitched voice broke ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... built for idiots, and there is much joy when after many years of persevering effort some devoted person succeeds in teaching these beings, whose mentality is far inferior to that of a monkey, to repeat a few words like a parrot, to scribble some words on paper, or to repeat a prayer mechanically with their eyes ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... Bobbin see 'Way down at Doubbledoon? He saw a crazy Arab Throwing bubbles at the moon, A monkey making faces And a rabbit in a rage, A parrot shouting "Murder!" From the ceiling of ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... recitation in Milton? He replied that he preferred 'Satan's Address to the Sun,' but that his father would not permit him to repeat it. On this account, and to ascertain whether the child merely performed parrot-fashion, the company were especially anxious to hear the forbidden reading. Young Lawrence's dutiful scruples, however, were not overcome until all present had promised to intercede on his behalf and obtain for him his father's ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Edwards said it over like a parrot, imitating her mother's fine, stilted tone perfectly. In truth, it was a formula of presentation which ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Gawd! We—we'll do our—we-we'll d-d-do—do our best, General." The general made a passionate gesture and galloped away. The colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings, began to scold like a wet parrot. The youth, turning swiftly to make sure that the rear was unmolested, saw the commander regarding his men in a highly regretful manner, as if he regretted above everything ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... speaks, and has conduct and acts which are called rational, because he alone has Reason in himself. And if any one might wish to say, in contradiction, that a certain bird can speak, as appears true, especially of the magpie and of the parrot; and that some beast performs acts, or rather things, by rule, as appears in the ape and in some other; I reply that it is not true that they speak, nor that they have rules, because they have not Reason, from which these things must proceed; neither is there ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... for August 6. That year it was fearfully hot in Paris. I believe that Perrin, who could not tame me alive, had, without really any bad intention, but by pure autocracy, the desire to tame me dead. Doctor Parrot went to see him, and told him that my state of weakness was such that it would be positively dangerous for me to act during the trying heat. Perrin would hear nothing of it. Then, furious at the obstinacy of this intellectual ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... big Abbe Le Blanc, the hypocrite Batteux. The big abbe is only spiteful before he has had his dinner; his coffee taken, he throws himself into an arm-chair, his feet against the ledge of the fireplace, and sleeps like an old parrot on its perch. If the noise becomes violent he yawns, stretches his arms, rubs his eyes, and says: "Well, well, what is it?" "It is whether Piron has more wit than Voltaire." "Let us understand; is it wit that you are talking about, or is it taste? For as to taste, your Piron ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... America a parrot which was the only living creature that could speak a word of the language of a lost tribe. The bird retained the habit of speech after his ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... storehouse. Now to reverse this process, to occupy the immature mind of childhood chiefly with the cultivation of faculties which are of later growth, and actually to put shackles and restraints upon the memory, nicknaming and ridiculing all memoriter exercises as parrot performances, is to ignore one of the primary facts of human nature. It is ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... disappear behind the snowy spray of the fountain, reappear again on the other side, and then vanish in the bushes. I felt as though I had been left alone in the world and were about to be lost forever; I listened for some bird or other creature, and was happy to hear the shriek of a parrot and the hissing of the fountain ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... This is the King Bird of Paradise—the Paradisea Regia, we naturalists call it. Well worthy is it of the name." When we stopped for the night, our attendants quickly built some leafy sheds, into which we crept, wrapped up in our mats, after we had partaken of our supper—consisting of a parrot pie, which we had brought with us, and also of some sago biscuit, washed down with arrack and water. Our guides would have preferred the spirit undiluted, as they are fond of potent liquors as well as of strong-tasted food. At early morn, before the sun rose, we heard ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... up a little convent not far from the college. They attempted to keep a school as a means of support, but had a very difficult time. Once, it is told, they were reduced to such poverty that they had to sell a parrot, which they had as a pet, in order to save themselves from starvation. These women, barefooted, according to the rule of their order, came of noble blood and had been born to luxury. One of them was Mary de la Marche, who advertised ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. In this view of him, as Man thinking, the theory of his office is continued. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her monitory pictures; him the past instructs; him ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... has just sent me a beautiful bird with the most gorgeous plumage of the brightest scarlet and blue. It is called a huacamaya, and is of the parrot species, but three times as large, being about two feet from the beak to the tip of the tail. It is a superb creature but very wicked, gnawing not only its own pole, but all the doors, and committing great havoc amongst the plants, besides trying to bite every one who ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... he was dressed! He wore tight red trousers, a red and blue turban on his head, and a tight jeweled tunic, covered with pearl buttons. His sash was green, dotted with purple spots. He had purple parrot feathers at his waist ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... shadows, as though they were doing a death-dance for their limbs on the funeral pyre. The silence was a complete blank except when a flapping of wings beat the air where some bird changed its night perch, or a parrot squawked hoarsely for a moment, causing a fluttering of smaller wings that soon settled ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... This was lucky, for my wrath flamed again. It was really cooling, as I tried to work out responsibility and adjust penalties. But parrots! Any person who wants to keep a parrot should go and live on an island ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... all for to-night, if you please, and in case the housecleaning man gets all the ice cream up from under the sitting-room matting, and makes a snowball of it for the poll parrot to play horse with, I'll tell you next about Bully and Bawly going to ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... a round pit, like a well, which you could look down into from above: it was about ten feet deep. They used to keep lions in such dens near the palaces and castles in those days. A lion in a den was a sort of plaything in former times, as a parrot or a pet lamb is now: this was in keeping with the fierce and warlike spirit of the age. If they had a lion there in Mary's time, Janet often, doubtless, took her little charge out to see it, and let her throw down food to it from above. The den is there ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... all. I shall very much prefer to have you give the sense in your own words: then I shall know that you understand the meaning of the text, and are not repeating sounds merely like a parrot; that you have not been going over the words without trying to take in the ideas they ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... above all else Vandyck's Boy in White Satin, in the midst of these ruined pictures which certainly once would have given us joy. The Boy in White Satin is perhaps the loveliest picture Vandyck left behind him; though it is but partly his after all, the fruit, the parrot, and the monkey being the work ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... point to which we ask special attention is that in endeavoring to estimate the mental capacity of the elephant, we will base no general conclusions upon any particularly intelligent individual, as all mankind is tempted to do in discussions of the intelligence of the dog, the cat, the horse, parrot and ape. On the contrary, it is our desire to reveal the mental capacity of every elephant living, tame or wild, except the few individuals with abnormal or diseased minds. It is not to be shown how successfully an elephant has been taught by man, but how all elephants in captivity have ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... mountain tribes: high overhead, The Andes, wild and desolate, were spread, Where cold Sierras shot their icy spires, And Chillan[193] trailed its smoke and smouldering fires. A glen beneath, a lonely spot of rest, Hung, scarce discovered, like an eagle's nest. Summer was in its prime;—the parrot-flocks Darkened the passing sunshine on the rocks; 10 The chrysomel[194] and purple butterfly,[195] Amid the clear blue light, are wandering by; The humming-bird, along the myrtle bowers, With twinkling wing, is spinning o'er the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... pages, the irrepressible youth twanged a banjo accompaniment, and roared with gusto the piratical chantey of Long John Silver's buccaneer crew; Hicks, however, despite his saengerfest, was completely lost in the enthralling narrative, so that he seemed to hear the parrot shrieking, "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... in a loose silk gown embroidered with flowers and a hat with a huge parrot half-crushed between blue and red ribbons. The dust of the road mingled with the rice-powder on her cheeks seemed to accentuate her wrinkles. As at the time we saw her in Manila, she now supported her lame husband ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... W. Grimm, in the notes to his "Kinder und Hausmrchen," referring to the German form of the story (which we shall come to by and-by), says, "The Parrot, which is the fourth story in the Persian Touti Nameh, bears some resemblance to this"—the Parrot is the reciter of all the stories in the collection, not the title of this ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... their thousand objects too. They have not the bar, but they have the milliner's shop; they can't fight, but they can sit by the window and embroider a work-bag; they don't rush into politics, but they plunge their souls into love for a parrot or a lap-dog. Don't let men flatter themselves; Providence has been just as kind in that respect to one sex as to the other; our objects are small, yours great; but a small object may occupy the mind just as ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... treasure—hear it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don't like treasure-voyages on any account; and I don't like them, above all, when they are secret, and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has been told to the parrot." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quiet, and let the King make the speech. After a while, the King wasn't able to speak coherently; he'd stammer, and repeat. So then Makann did all the talking; they couldn't even depend on him to parrot what they were giving him with an earplug phone. Then he stopped appearing entirely. I suppose there were physical symptoms they couldn't allow to be seen." Bentrik was cursing horribly under his breath; the officer ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... And such a fluke, as I have said. You see, it was all to have been Bill's. He has always been my aunt's favorite, though at first it was to have been divided between us; only when I was a little chap I blew off the tail of her parrot with a bunch of fire-crackers. Haw! haw! haw! I was never allowed there afterward, and she hated the very name of me. She and Bill have hit it off together so well that he never had the least fear of me stepping in. But on last Valentine's Day it seems ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... her intellect began to work: she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her own mind, and show it to another mind; and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression: it was no longer a dog, or parrot: it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of union with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome; and that henceforward nothing ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... instrument music in particular, can hardly be over-estimated. It may be said that in the Middle Ages no written music for instruments existed. The melodies and accompaniments produced from instruments were either extemporaneous or parrot-like imitations of vocal music. Madrigals and a few dances constituted the food upon which instruments were nursed until towards the close of the sixteenth century, when Gabrielli, or a contemporary musician, prepared a special and ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... or third removes, but in their own born atmosphere, laughter, sweat, unction. Perhaps no one ever sang "lads and lasses"—that universal race, mainly the same, too, all ages, all lands—down on their own plane, as he has. He exhibits no philosophy worth mentioning; his morality is hardly more than parrot-talk—not bad or deficient, but cheap, shopworn, the platitudes of old aunts and uncles to the youngsters (be good boys and keep your noses clean.) Only when he gets at Poosie Nansie's, celebrating the "barley bree," or among tramps, or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... of three equal bands - the vertical part is yellow (hoist side), black, and white and the horizontal part is yellow (top), black, and white; superimposed in the center of the cross is a red disk bearing a sisserou parrot encircled by 10 green, five-pointed stars edged in yellow; the 10 stars represent the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... average miss who, parrot-like, knows only a few French or Italian songs. Italian she loved even better than French, and could read Dante and Petrarch in the original, while she possessed an intimate knowledge of the poetry of Italy ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... He, however, supports it on the ground 'that it will increase the enjoyment of individuals,' which is certainly a very sensible claim. Humboldt writes to her about an old Indian language which was preserved by a parrot, the tribe who spoke it having been exterminated, and about 'young Darwin,' who had just published his first book. Here are some extracts from ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... parrot had called "Clarissa" a dozen times at least, and was listening with his cunning head on one side for footsteps on the stairs. Breakfast was ready; an urn, shaped something like a sepulchral monument, was steaming on the table, and near it stood an old china jar filled ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... of tinkling bells mingled with the squeak of a viola; the guffaws of a rompish company blended with the tuneless chanting of discordant minstrels, and the gray parrot in its golden cage, suspended from one of the oaken beams of the ceiling, shook its feathers for the twentieth time and screamed vindictively at the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the skull known as Parrot's nodes or bosses, and craniotabes, were formerly believed to be characteristic of inherited syphilis, but they are now known to occur, particularly in rickety children, from other causes. The bosses result from the heaping ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... variety of shapes into which his countenance was twisted, defy description. He had a manner of screwing his head on one side when he spoke; and of looking out of the corners of his eyes at the same time: which irresistibly reminded the beholder of a parrot. In this attitude, he fixed himself, the moment he made his appearance; and, holding out a small piece of orange-peel at arm's length, exclaimed, in a ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... I say? Eh? You fear to answer. You shield her, perhaps." A plump brown hand darted forth and seized Bernie by the ear, giving it a tweak like the bite of a parrot. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... be reserved to adorn with greater effect the principal subject within. The angel and the Holy Virgin are clothed in flowing white drapery, but the wings of the angel glitter with a play of soft and brilliant colour, imitating those of the green parrot. The heads are noble and well painted; the furniture of the room is executed with great truth, as well as the view through the arcade which forms the background of the Virgin's chamber, into the streets of a town, one of which we recognize as ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... the roads are muddy. The rain spears are as sharp as whetted knives. They dart down and down, edged and shining. Clop-trop! Clop-trop! A carriage grows out of the mist. Hist, Porter. You can keep on your hat. It is only Her Majesty's dogs and her parrot. Clop-trop! The Ladies in Waiting, Porter. Clop-trop! It is Her Majesty. At least, I suppose it is, but the blinds ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Sheep in the corner there Was bleating long and loud; But the Parrot said "Hush!" and pulled his hair, And he galloped off with the crowd! And the Tin Horn blew and the Toy Drum beat, But away they went down the frightened street, Till they all caught up with the Railroad Train, And they never went ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... was adorned; and on Mr. Johnnie stating that he looked at it in that light, she returned to Mr. Meeson. On her way she met Bill, carrying in his hands a loathsome-looking fish, with long feelers and a head like a parrot, in ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is up-stairs and down-stairs; his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some six ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... a century ago escaped from the various missions of Upper California, at which they had been bred, and since have propagated in incredible numbers; also the grouse, the prairie hen, the partridge, the quail, the green parrot, the blackbird, and many others which I cannot name, not knowing their generic denomination. The water-fowls are plentiful, such as swans, geese, ducks of many different species, and the Canadian geese with their long black ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... well versed in politics for a lad of his age, and could discuss glibly the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. He denounced the seditious doings in Annapolis and Boston Town with an air of easy familiarity, for Philip had the memory of a parrot, and 'twas easy to perceive whence his knowledge sprang. But when my fine master spoke disparagingly of the tradesmen as at the bottom of the trouble, my grandfather's patience came ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and then tried to find quiet for my siesta in the back spare-room. The worst of this house is that it really has no back—it has various fronts, like the war. The spinster next door but one has a parrot—a cynical, tired parrot, but still fond of the sound of his own voice. The lady across the street is raising Pekinese puppies, who apparently bitterly regret being born outside of Pekin. She puts them in baskets on the roof in the sun and lets them cry it out, in ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... for the night and started next morning at 11 o'clock for Memphis which city he reached at four o'clock. Above Memphis he was met by a fleet of excursion steamers and the sight of his flashing paddle as he approached them was the signal for the firing of a salute from a ten pound parrot gun on the deck of the General Pierson. Miss Jeanette Boswell, one of the reigning belles of Memphis, handed him a banner and made a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the Martinists with exuberant high spirits. Among these Nash was long thought to have held a very prominent place, for the two most brilliant tracts of the entire controversy, "Pap with an Hatchet," 1589, and "An Almond for a Parrot," 1590, were confidently attributed to him. These are now, however, clearly perceived to be the work of a much riper pen, that, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... prove anything. A parrot or a starling can talk, too; that does not make them human ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... fine rain; and the drip, drip, drip of heavy dew-drops from the broad banana-leaves sounded like a sharp shower. At this hour the birds are wide awake and hungry; a hundred unknown songsters warble their native wood-notes wild. The bush resounds with the shriek of the parrot and the cooing of the ringdove, which reminds me of the Ku-ku-ku (Where, oh, where?) of Umar-i-Khayyam. Its rival is the tsil-fui-fui-fui, or 'hair grown,' meaning that his locks are too long and there is no one to cut ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... There is a parrot market in every port, however, and this is a popular place of resort. Here are cool trees and drinking stands, or booths, where cocoanut milk and cool ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... lady in a little Western country town, who had induced her husband to subscribe liberally toward the expenses of a certain missionary on the West Coast of Africa. On his return, the missionary brought her as a mark of his gratitude a young half-grown parrot, of one of the good talking breeds. The good lady, though delighted, was considerably puzzled with the gift, and explained to a friend of mine that she really didn't know what to feed it, and it wasn't quite old enough to be able to talk and ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... He used to visit Washington frequently, and was always welcomed in society, where he made an imposing appearance, although he had the awkward habit of carrying his head slightly to one side, like a poll-parrot. He always attempted to be facetious, especially when conversing with young ladies, but when any political question was discussed in his presence, he was either silent, or expressed himself with great circumspection. From his first ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... worldly man is fundamentally frivolous; with all his maxims and cant estimations he is radically inane. He conforms to religion without suspecting what religion means, not being in the least open to such an inquiry. He judges art like a parrot, without having ever stopped to evoke an image. He preaches about service and duty without any recognition of natural demands or any standard of betterment. His moral life is one vast anacoluthon in which the final term is left out that might ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... crept through the gates of Metz, leading old horses, drawing ramshackle carts filled with mattresses, faded silk chairs, gilt ormolu stands, clocks and cloaks and parrot cages; all the strange things that men and women use for their lives. The furniture that had fled in other carts from villages now dust upon a dead plain was returning through all the roads of France, repacked and dusted, to set up ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... she had been afraid of looking at us—that she could not bear to see our happy sleeping faces with what she knew, in her heart. It is funny, but lots of things have come to me like that. I have remembered them in my mind without understanding them, like parrot words, with no meaning, and then long afterwards a meaning has come into them, and that I have never forgotten. It was a little that way with what I overheard that evening—the meaning that came into it all afterwards made such ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... long face, eyes rimmed like a parrot's, and discoloured nose, who, so long as he did not sit down, was permitted to frequent the pavement just there and sell the 'Westminster Gazette', marked her, and took his empty pipe out of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Little Poll Parrot Sat in her garret, Eating toast and tea; A little brown mouse Jumped into the house, ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... the branches of the forest to catch a glimpse of what I had searched for through many hundred miles of wilderness since my boyhood, but what had so far eluded my eager eyes. I felt certain these strange cries must come from the Carolina Parrot, or Parakeet (Conurus Carolinensis), which, though once numerous in all the country west of the Alleghanies as far north as the southern shores of the Great Lakes, has so rapidly diminished in number since ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... negroes and the whites] could not happen in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men.... In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one Negro as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot who speaks a few ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... dog, kangaroo, opossum, goanna, emu, native companion, cockatoo, swallow, pelican, parrot, eagle, fish, brown-snake, deadly-black-snake, flies, ...
— gurre kamilaroi - Kamilaroi Sayings (1856) • William Ridley
... the Tuesday after at Livingston, and Hank must have been pow'ful pleased at himself. For he gave Willomene a wedding present, with the balance of his cash, spending his last nickel on buying her a red-tailed parrot they had for sale at the First National Bank. The son-of-a-gun hollad so freely at the bank, the president awde'd the cashier to get shed of the out-ragious bird, or he would ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... him, like the squawking of a Brobdingnagian parrot, was only Ivan Fitzgerald laughing ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... affection; and besides several maid-servants that one would suppose she had selected with care, since it can not be by mere chance that they are all pretty, she has, after the fashion of old maids, various animals to keep her company—a parrot, a little dog whose coat is of the whitest, and two or three cats, so tame and sociable that they jump up on one in the most ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... Roddy and she were sent into the drawing-room to Mamma. A strange lady was there. She had chosen the high-backed chair in the middle of the room with the Berlin wool-work parrot on it. She sat very upright, stiff and thin between the twisted rosewood pillars of the chair. She was dressed in a black gown made of a great many little bands of rough crape and a few smooth stretches of merino. Her crape veil, folded back over her hat, hung behind her head in a stiff ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with fibre, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... to an owl or a crow? Or who feeds a parrot with a carcase? A crow should be fed with carrion, And a parrot with candy and sugar. Who loads jewels on the back of an ass? Or who would approve of giving dressed almonds to a ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... branches their various strains; the mocking bird trilled out her sweet notes fain and the turtle filled with her voice the plain. There sang the nightingale, whose chant arouses the sleeper, and the merle with his note like the voice of man and the cushat and the ring-dove, whilst the parrot with its eloquent tongue answered the twain. The valley pleased them and they ate of its fruits and drank of its waters, after which they sat under the shadow of its trees till drowsiness overcame them and they slept, glory be to Him who sleepeth not! As they lay ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... smash things here. Look at him! JULES VALLES! a patriot by name and a Pat-rioter by nature, with enough hair on his head to stuff a gabion, and not sense enough beneath it to accommodate a well-informed parrot. These fellows call FAVRE a "milk-sop," and the trouble of it is that FAYRE occasionally gives them reason for doing so. Strolling through the Passage des Princes this morning, I saw TROCHU and accosted him. "General," I said, probably ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... rested for lunch. I found the shade of the trees on the bank rather pleasant, and became interested in a blue heron, a russet-colored duck, and a brown-and-black snipe, all sitting on the sunken log. Near by stood a tall crane watching us solemnly, and above in the tree-top a parrot vociferously proclaimed his knowledge of our presence. I was wondering if he objected to our invasion, at the same time taking a most welcome bite for lunch, when directly in front of me the water flew up as if propelled by some submarine power. Framed in a shower of ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... ordered them back, they continued running about and getting in his way. In a very short while the Captain lost patience and commenced to talk loudly and with excitement; immediately Sipsoo took up his language and parrot-like started to repeat the Captain's exact words: "Get back there, get back—how in —— do you expect me to make a landing?" And thus does the innocent lamb of the North acquire a ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech; and very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... eyes: Dead is she long ago, From her fan sliding slow Parrot-bright fire's feathers Gilded as June weathers, Plumes like the greenest grass Twinkle down; as they pass Through the green glooms in Hell, Fruits with a tuneful smell— Grapes like an emerald rain Where the full moon has lain, Greengages bright as grass, Melons as cold as glass Piled on each gilded ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... entered into the plan. "So long as I have life I will fight against the Danes, and in a ship at least we can fight manfully till the end. We must not build her on the sea-coast, or before the time when we need her she may be destroyed by the Danes. We will build her on the Parrot. The water is deep enough far up from the sea to float her when empty, and if we choose some spot where the river runs among woods we might hide her so that she may to the last escape the ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... a specimen of Diomedea Albatros at Terra del Fuego, a large Salpa, and a Lepas, were all we were able to obtain. The Bay of Conception presents a rich field to the ornithologist. A kind of parrot, with a long tail, and naked round the eyes, flies about in swarms; and a smaller kind from the interior, is to be found tame in the houses; our guns frequently brought down two small kinds of doves. Of Ambulatores we met some, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... become the same, In different breasts together burn, Together both to ashes turn. But women now feel no such fire, And only know the gross desire. Their passions move in lower spheres, Where'er caprice or folly steers, A dog, a parrot, or an ape, Or some worse brute in human shape, Engross the fancies of the fair, The few soft moments they can spare, From visits to receive and pay, From scandal, politics, and play; From fans, and flounces, and brocades, From equipage and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... large canoes. A monster canoe led the way, with two rows of forty paddlers each, their bodies swaying to a barbarous chorus. In the bow were ten prime young warriors, their heads gay with the feathers of the parrot, crimson and grey: at the stern eight men with long paddles decorated with ivory balls guided the boat, while ten chiefs danced up and down from stem to stern. The crashing of large drums, a hundred blasts from ivory horns, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... further store of American words related chiefly to the diet and general well-being of one very small and very black pup, which was at that moment sleeping luxuriously in the chimney corner at home; and without the pup the words would be no more than parrot-chattering. So the senorita shook her head and smiled, and Mrs. Jerry went back to the problem of the small patch and ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... no mistake about it. The lady had married a gardener—a gentleman's gardener, he was; and there was a carpet all over the dining-room floor—a nice carpet, a Brussels carpet, an ol' Brussels carpet; and she kep' a parrot—oh, a nasty, spiteful parrot, it was—I useter hate it, I did, the nasty, squawlin' beast; and it was more to her than any baby; and I useter clean the silver and the soup tureens, and do the vegetables and dish-up, Toosdays it was; and ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... canvass of a Salvation Army Assurance Agent that Adjutant Lee came into contact with the Parrot family at Brighton. They lived in a poor enough street and house; but thinking people who live close to the working classes know that pounds a week which should go into the homes frequently find their way to the saloon- keeper's till. 'The only saving I want to think ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... are stoutly built birds, with a high and strong bill, and their remarkably long toes, which enable them to walk readily over the water plants, are frequently employed to hold the food, very much in the manner of a parrot, while eating. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... course!" assented Mr. Ravenslee gently, "and a very fine parrot too! Then the wax flowers and the antimacassars! What would a home be without them?" said he, dreamy-eyed and grave. "I think I shall be very bright and cheerful ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... aware of that," said the late passenger somewhat sharply, "but if people choose to make unjust and oppressive rules I don't mean to submit to them. Just think of a parrot, a horrid shrieking creature that every one acknowledges to be a nuisance, being allowed to travel free, or a baby, which is enough to drive one distracted when it squalls, as it always does in a railway carriage, while my sweet little pet ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... gone on for quite a long while, when at last there came a season such as the oldest parrot in the forest could never remember. Instead of two or three hundred inches of rain falling, which they were all accustomed to, month after month passed without a cloud, and the rivers and springs dried ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... it matter about Herr Schliefer?' Jill would say, in a sort of fury. 'I like him a hundred times better than I do that mincing little poll-parrot of a Madame Blanchard: she is odious, and I hate her, and I hate Fraeulein too. It is not the lessons I mind; one has to learn lessons all one's life; it is being shut up like a bird in a cage when one's wings are ready for flight. I should like to fly away from this ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... yet waiting, vigilant to seize upon the first promising opportunity to recover the lost ground. On the other hand, innkeepers were apt to be a well-informed class, as to public happenings, and this man told his tale with parrot-like precision. At any rate, there was nothing to do but reach Capua as soon as possible; for, the Carthaginian commander once within the walls, no one could tell what precautions and scrutiny might be established ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... alone are given of a word which the child understands (thirteen months), it will understand as well as if the word were fully spoken. Many children before they are six months old will repeat words parrot-like by mere imitation, without attaching to them any meaning. But this "echo-speaking" never takes place before the first understanding of certain other words is shown—never, e.g., earlier than the fourth month. Again, all children which hear but do ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... to this ridiculous scene, Mrs. Waddel's grey parrot, who was not the least important personage in her establishment, having been presented to her by her sailor son, fraternised with the prostrate lad, and echoed his laughter in the most ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... All the parrot tribe in Brazil is beautiful: but neither parrots nor parroquets talk well. However, no slave ship comes from Africa without a grey parrot or two; so that in the towns they are almost as numerous as the native birds, and much more noisy, for they ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... great resemblance to them, may be added logicians and sophisters, fellows that talk as much by rote as a parrot; who shall run down a whole gossiping of old women, nay, silence the very noise of a belfry, with louder clappers than those of the steeple; and if their unappeasable clamorousness were their only fault it would admit of some excuse; but they are at ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... life. In these rustic sitting-rooms and the adjacent bedrooms and dressing-rooms we come again on many a portrait of the humble friends of the family—the dogs which we seem to know so well; the early group of little Dash and big Nero, and Hector with the parrot Lorey; Cairnach, Islay, Deckel, &c. [Footnote: An anecdote of the royal kennels states that when no notice has been given, the servants shall know of her Majesty's presence in the vicinity, and will say among themselves, "The ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... practised in Barbados. He had a sugar refinery and negroes; he was robbed of a considerable sum; he assembled his negroes: "My lads," he said to them, "the great serpent appeared to me during the night, he told me that the thief would at this moment have a parrot's feather on the end of his nose." The guilty man promptly put his hand to his nose. "It is you who robbed me," said the master; "the great serpent has just told me so." And he regained his money. One can hardly condemn such a charlatanry; but one ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... wore only when guests were present, and so was always sorry to have guests come. I sat back on the chair instead of on its edge; I didn't swing my legs unless I had a lapse of memory; I said, "Yes, ma'am," and, "No, ma'am," like any other parrot, just as I did at rehearsal; and, in short, I was a most exemplary child save for occasional reactions to unlooked-for situations. The folks knew I was posing, and were on nettles all the while from fear of a breakdown; the guests knew I was posing, and I ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... on being summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in deep tin boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have been made for a parrot's beak, and soldered into metal cases for a voyage round the world. Next she fetched some little gray linen doilies, folded square, those tea-napkins which in thrifty families never get washed. A third time she came in with ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... arrived breathless, bearing a large gilt parrot-cage. She swept up the gangway of the Fall of Rome and was enthusiastically received. There were, however, concealed titterings and suppressed whispers. "My sakes! She's went ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... is on familiar terms, and he has a quiet way of drawing out the best there is in others, which causes every one to appear well in his presence. Children are his loyal and enthusiastic friends everywhere; and he was known among them in Amesbury as "the man with the parrot," that remarkable bird "Charlie" serving as a sort of connecting link between the poet and the little ones. He is always ready for a game of romps with the children even now, and they very much admire the stately old man who condescends to them so kindly. Long ago, when his little niece ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... like a human being, and that it flew about the country and listened to what people said—all of which it repeated to its mistress and myself; thus we knew everything that occurred, and the natives could not deceive us." This parrot was exceedingly tame, and was never confined. It was now walking about the deck, and while its extraordinary powers were being described by my Bari interpreter, Morgian, to the amazement and fear of the natives, it advanced stoutly to the sheik Bedden, and would have bitten his ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... said Miller. "You know how these Honduranian places are built, if a parrot scratches his feathers in the patio you can hear it in every room in the house. Well, she was reading on the balcony, and when her brother began to rage around and swear he'd have your blood, she heard him, and opened the shutters and came ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... in the bazar, and put it into a little cage, and lowered the cage into the cool darkness of a well, and sat on the well-curb, shouting bad language down to the parrot. He taught it to say: "Simmons, ye so-oor," which means swine, and several other things entirely unfit for publication. He was a big gross man, and he shook like a jelly when the parrot had the sentence correctly. ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... a chorus of voices. "Poll, you're wanted at the house this minute. Where are you hiding?—You're wanted at home this minute! Polly Parrot—where ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... of Admiralty being held at the Old Bailey, in May, 1701, Captain Kid, Nicholas Churchill, James How, Robert Lumley, William Jenkins, Gabriel Loff, Hugh Parrot, Richard Barlicorn, Abel Owens, and Darby Mullins, were arraigned for piracy and robbery on the high seas, and all found guilty except three: these were Robert Lumley, William Jenkins, and Richard Barlicorn, who, proving themselves to be apprentices to some of the officers of the ship, and producing ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... day when you're a millionaire, laying the foundation-stone of some of these big things the Aberdeen men build, and speechifying away to the rising generation of how ye began life with nothing but a stuffed Demerary parrot in your pocket. Willie, can't ye lend me some kind of a gun, that I may get him a few of these highly-painted fowl of the air? If I had but old Barney at my elbow now—GOD rest his soul!—we'd give a good account of ourselves among the cockatoos. Many's ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... isn't it?" said the fat coachman, looking down on Mrs. Bundle exactly as a parrot looks down from ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... what we know as distinct from what we really see. Thus a tree against the background of hill or sky seems to have a greater projection and relief than is actually presented to the eye, because we know the tree is round. Manet's "Girl with a Parrot," which appears to the ordinary man to be too flat, is more true to reality than any portrait that "seems to come out of its frame." Habitually in our observation of objects about us, we note only so much as ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... she stammered, parrot-like. "If you had only taken better care of me, Rudolph! If—No, it's too late, I tell you! You will be kind to Roger. I am only weak and frivolous and heartlesss. I am not fit to be his mother. I'm not fit, Rudolph! Rudolph, I tell you I'm not fit! Ah, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... wrapped in silver foil, have been pushed through the bottom of the cake at intervals; the bridesmaids find a ten-cent piece for riches, a little gold ring for "first to be married," a thimble or little parrot or cat for "old maid," a wish-bone for the "luckiest." On the ushers' side, a button or dog is for the bachelor, and a miniature pair of dice as a symbol of lucky chance in life. The ring and ten-cent ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post |
