"Prey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man departed. In spite of the letters which he wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without apparent cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single thought gnawed her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first time her godfather asked her what she felt, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... durable, and at the same time perfectly harmless, green, the chemicals exploded, smashing the mortar which he held, and wounding him horribly about the head and chest. A fortnight later he died, apparently calm, but in reality a prey to bitter regrets. It was a terrible blow for his poor wife, and the thought of her son alone reconciled her to life. Pascal was now everything to her—her present and her future; and she solemnly vowed that she ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... an opulent city, second only to Milan among the towns of northern Italy, and Romanino obtained plenty of patronage; but in 1511 the city fell a prey to the horrors of war, was taken and lost by Venice, and in 1512 was sacked by the French. Romanino fled to Padua, where he found a home among the Benedictines of S. Giustina. Here he was soon well employed on an altarpiece with life-size figures for ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... way she was avoided as a pestilence. How she lived no one could tell, for none would permit themselves to know. It was asserted that she existed without meat or drink, and that she was doomed to remain possessed of life, the prey of hunger and thirst, until she could get some one weak enough to break the spell by drinking her hellish draught, to taste which, they said, would be to change places with herself, and assume her despair ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... scarcely what they were. I have listened in a primeval forest, listened for the soft rustling of a snake in the undergrowth, or the distant roar of some beast of prey. I have listened then with curiosity. I have not known fear. It seems to me, somehow, that in this place there is something different afoot. I don't like it, George—I don't like it. We will go home, if ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as in her sister she lost her protector from impulse. Since she was buried there was no one to keep her in order. With the sudden promotion to the category of persons sui juris, the poor "child" was a prey to great distress, everything worried her, everything was an insuperable difficulty. Those sharp scoldings had been less overwhelming to her, for if they had caused tears, they had been salutary in checking her juvenile ebullitions, and ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... bottom of the canoe and held a spear across his knees. In the boat on our right were five natives armed with spears and krises; in the one on our left, four. Beyond the craft nearest to us I could see others less distinctly—silent shadows on the water, each with her head toward our prey, like a school of giant fish. In the lee of the ship, the pinnace floated at the end ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... neck of the Feudal System" as a form of government, though he retained and developed the principle of feudal land tenure. Thus at one stroke he made the Crown the supreme power in England; had he not done so, the nation would soon have fallen prey to ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... doat upon him, used to confirming her hypocrisy with crocodile tears, vows and swoonings, when her cully has to depart awhile, or seems but to deny immediate desires; yet this lasts no longer than she can gratify her appetite, and prey upon his fortune. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... came nearer and the great rubicund face bore down upon him, the prominence of the notorious incisors affected him less than their carnivorous capacity—he felt himself almost swallowed up by this monstrous beast of prey, so admirably equated to our small day of large things, to that environment in which he, poor degenerate artist, was but a little singing-bird. The long-forgotten word Rishus came suddenly into his mind—was not ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... was only a very indignant old black ram. The fury of the baffled Expedition exceeded all bounds. They even wanted to wreak their unreasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute. But I stood between them and their prey, menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes and alpenstocks, and proclaimed that there was but one road to this murder, and it was directly over my corpse. Even as I spoke I saw that my doom was sealed, except a miracle supervened ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was soon full of threatening cries. I heard the tumult of my pursuers in the gap up the slope, then the crashing of the reeds, and every now and then the crackling crash of a branch. Some of the creatures roared like excited beasts of prey. The staghound yelped to the left. I heard Moreau and Montgomery shouting in the same direction. I turned sharply to the right. It seemed to me even then that I heard Montgomery shouting for me to run ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... and storms that seek your prey; With strong wings ravening through the skies by night; Spirits and stars that hold one choral way; O light of heaven, and thou the heavenlier light Aflame above the souls of men that sway All generations of all years with might; O sunrise of the repossessing ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... tiny hornet making a commotion at one end of this leafy domicile and the next instant catching the evicted caterpillar "on a fly" at the other. Grasping her prey with her legs and jaws, in another moment the wriggling body is passive in her grasp, subdued by the potent anaesthetic of her sting—a hypodermic injection which instantly produces the semblance of death in its insect victim, reducing all the vital functions to the point of dissolution, ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... latter is taken out on the man's arm, with his head covered by a gaudy little hood. This hood is quickly removed whenever an opportunity arises to send him off after some unfortunate bird. Then, mounting aloft, and spreading his wings and whirling round his prey in concentric circles, he gradually descends in a spiral, until, at last, dashing down upon his victim, he seizes it with his pointed claws and brings it to his master. At other times the falcon is not flown, but only used to attract, with his mesmeric ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... Hall were thus a prey to unavailing sorrow, the lovely little girl who had occasioned it was beginning to grow more reconciled to the cruelty of her destiny, and to support her different mode of life with resignation and composure. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... in whose vast hold lay stored The priceless riches of all climes and lands, Say, wouldst thou let it float upon the seas Unpiloted, of fickle winds the sport, And of wild waves and hidden rocks the prey? ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of stud after supper in the bunkhouse. Bob lay on his bed, a prey to wretched dread. He had made up his mind to have it out with Bandy, but his heart was pumping water instead of blood. When he looked at the squat puncher, thick-necked and leather-faced, an ugly sneer on his lips, the courage died out of ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... shuddered, and he knew it. But that fact rather added to his pleasure. The wolf prefers a cowering, frightened prey even though he dare fight on occasion. She was thinking against time. Through that one small, overburdened head, besides a splitting headache, there was flashing the ghastly thought of what was happening to her countrymen and women—of what would happen unless ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... if the serfs lost the protection of their owners, they might fall a prey to rapacious officials. As well might it have been argued that a mother should never loose her son ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... Christian Remembrancer and the Quarterly—those heavy Goliaths of the periodical press; and if I alone were concerned, this possibility would not trouble me a second. Full welcome would the giants be to stand in their greaves of brass, poising their ponderous spears, cursing their prey by their gods, and thundering invitations to the intended victim to "come forth" and have his flesh given to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field. Currer Bell, without pretending to be a David, feels no awe of the unwieldy Anakim; but—comprehend ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Take a year in which to thread a needle, rather than go dabbing at the texture with the naked thread. And observe, that there is an excellence and an efficacy of slowness, no less than of quickness. The armadillo is equally secure of his prey with the hawk or leopard; and Sir Charles Bell mentions a class of thieves in India, who, having, through extreme patience and command of nerve, acquired the power of motion imperceptibly slow, are the most formidable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... and frantically yelling with all my lungs, I dashed straight in for the lot of them. They were, as I expected, taken by surprise. They jumped to their feet and turned tail, but again stopped - this time farther off, and howled with vexation at having to wait till their prey succumbed. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... snake, seeing Orlando approach, glided away among the bushes. Orlando went nearer, and then he discovered a lioness lie crouching, with her head on the ground, with a cat-like watch, waiting until the sleeping man awaked (for it is said that lions will prey on nothing that is dead or sleeping). It seemed as if Orlando was sent by Providence to free the man from the danger of the snake and lioness; but when Orlando looked in the man's face, he perceived that the sleeper who was exposed to this double peril, was his own brother Oliver, who had so ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... day that he did not spend his time in walking the streets, and that not in his usual aimless gentlemanly fashion, but eagerly and with an intent gaze that roamed here and there, like a bird seeking its prey. It would often be as late as five o'clock before he came in, and if, as now frequently happened, he did not have company to dinner, he was even known to start out again after seven o'clock and go over the same ground as in the morning, looking with strained gaze, that vainly endeavored to ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... have the delicate tints of the valley. Let us kneel here as we gaze on the giants of the forest, as they spread their huge arms and rear their proud heads to the sky, and thank heaven that in some favoured spots the timber is not the prey of the ruthless destroyer, man. What new country in God's world but has been shorn of its beauty to gratify man's unsatiable love of clearing; and the ignorant clod is not the only despoiler, for peer and peasant rival the great Liberal Leader in wielding the axe, the one ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... more practical than appears, for the eye is a cannibal dainty. And certainly the root-idea of the dead, at least in the far eastern islands, is to prowl for food. It was as a dainty morsel for a meal that the woman denounced Donat at the funeral. There are spirits besides who prey in particular not on the bodies but on the souls of the dead. The point is clearly made in a Tahitian story. A child fell sick, grew swiftly worse, and at last showed signs of death. The mother hastened to the house of a sorcerer, who lived hard by. 'You are yet in ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... snares. The root idea of the word is a 'thing woven' (Cf. Spenser's 'welwoven toyles' in Astrophel, xvii, 1), and while it seems to have primary reference to a web or cord spread for taking prey, the old Fr. toile sometimes means a 'stalking-horse of painted canvas.' Shakespeare uses the word several times. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii, 351; Hamlet, III, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... answered, when there was a general shout of "Crewe, Crewe!" from an army of porters who came rushing out, and pounced upon the train as if it were their lawful prey. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... periods of their history, depended too much on their nets; and it was not until later times that they pursued their prey with dogs, and then not with dogs that ran by sight, or succeeded by their swiftness of foot, but by beagles very little superior to those of modern days [12]. Of the stronger and more ferocious dogs there is, however, occasional mention. The bull-dog of modern date does ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... birds; but its form is clumsy, and its bill very disproportionate to its size. It inhabits the banks of rivers and streams, where it will sit for hours on a projecting branch, watching for its prey. The ancients relate many fabulous stories of this bird, as that of its laying its eggs in the depth of winter, and that during the time of its incubation the weather remains perfectly calm, whence the expression ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... the world, Liverpool, perhaps, most abounds in all the variety of land-sharks, land-rats, and other vermin, which make the hapless mariner their prey. In the shape of landlords, bar-keepers, clothiers, crimps, and boarding-house loungers, the land-sharks devour him, limb by limb; while the land-rats and mice constantly nibble at ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... concerns in France, I took a panoramic scene of the great square. The smoke clouds curling in and around the skeleton walls appeared for all the world like some loathsome reptile seeming to gloat upon its prey, loath to leave it, until it had made absolutely certain that not a single thing was left to ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... olden times when a member of the Tartar tribe died, the tent in which he breathed his last, with all its contents intact, was converted into a tomb by simply covering it with a conical mound of earth or stones, in order to preserve it from the ravages of wolves and other beasts of prey. Even the row of stones that surrounded the outside of the tent and kept down the skins that covered it from being blown away by the storms of the steppe, was introduced into the structure of the tomb, and continued to surround the base of the funeral mound. He finds traces of this ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... showered with diamonds, but gave no hint of special favour or attention to any man, not even to Roger Seaton, the scientist in question, who stood apart from the dancing throng, in a kind of frowning disdain, looking on, much as one might fancy a forest animal looking at the last gambols of prey It purposed to devour. He had taken the first convenient interval to disappear, and as he did not return, Miss Herbert had asked her hostess what had become of him? Morgana, her cheeks flushed prettily by a just-finished dance, smiled in surprise at ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... illustrated with the bright light of the Ignatiuses, the Polycarps, the Basils, the Ephrems, and the Chrysostoms, blessed by the example and supported by the prayers of legions of eminent saints, are fallen a prey to almost universal vice and infidelity. With what floods of tears can we sufficiently bewail so grievous a misfortune, and implore the divine mercy in behalf of so many souls! How ought we to be alarmed at the consideration of so many dreadful examples of God's inscrutable judgments, and tremble ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... their eggs, and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every neighbouring state. These obscene harpies, who deck themselves in I know not what divine attributes, but who in reality are foul and ravenous birds of prey (both mothers and daughters), flutter over our heads, and souse down upon our tables, and leave nothing unrent, unrifled, unravaged, or unpolluted with the slime of their ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... protection of the ranches. This uprising of the Indians was almost inevitable. Deprived of their maintenance at the Missions, they were practically thrown on their own resources, and in many cases this left them a prey to the evil leadership of desperate men ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... he was the determined, eager, confident prospector, never for an instant prey to even the suggestion of a doubt that he would not shortly be rich. Whether he washed the golden specks from the sand of a sage-brush plain, or sought the mother-ledge of some wandering golden child, or dug with his pick to follow a promising surface ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... forgetfulness a prey, 85 This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... wherein the new bride was conueied, and then was she brought aboord the ship of Guilthdacus. Brenne escaped by flight as well as he might. But when Guilthdacus had thus obtained the [Sidenote: A tempest.] victorie and prey, suddenlie therevpon arose a sore tempest of wind and weather, which scattered the Danish fleete, and put the king in danger to haue beene lost: but finallie within fiue daies after, [Sidenote: Guilthdacus landed in the north.] being driuen by force of wind, he landed in Northumberland, with ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (3 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... still after him alone, hunting him by some mysterious built-in sense as it had overseas? He could see it now, moving in circles back and forth across the gorge, probably ready to dive on any prey venturing into the open. ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... day when, upon his denunciation, his cashier had been arrested, the banker, this active, energetic man of business, had been a prey to the most gloomy melancholy, and absolutely refused to take any interest in his affairs, seldom entering ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... second-rate offices Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much off his ease; The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles, Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files. Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab all this prey frum 'em An' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away frum 'em, An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not, In lickin' the Demmercrats all round the lot, Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... weak brother or a very feeble brute, but each person is, consciously or unconsciously, controlled by the sympathetic spirit of brotherhood or he hunts for spoil with the savage hunger of a beast of prey. ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... a hypocritical, psalm-singing, canting rogue in disguise," said Mason scornfully. "By the life of Washington! it worries an honest fellow to see such voracious beasts of prey ravaging a country for which he sheds his blood. If I had you on a Virginia plantation for a quarter of an hour, I'd teach you to worm ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the other day did not excite any special remark. But they were seen by three boys, all under sixteen, and they determined to get one and sell it. So one of the boys borrowed a Winchester rifle while the other two got a rowboat and a harpoon, and out they went after their prey. The boys rowed around awhile, and soon saw one of the fishes, and pulled up within forty or fifty feet. One of the boys fired a shot into the ray, which immediately breached, scooting fully twenty feet out and ahead, like a flying fish. Two more shots were fired, and, ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... along through the interminable corridors towards Maxwell's room in the House of Lords, a prey to what afterwards seemed to him the meanest moment of his life. Little knowing the pledges that a woman had given for him, he did say to himself that Maxwell owed him much—that he was not called upon to bear everything from a man he had given back ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... captor's galley. Her grief is expressed in a long soliloquy somewhat too reminiscent of Ariadne's lament in Catullus. Finally, Amphitrite in pity transforms the captive girl into a bird, the Ciris, and Zeus as a reward for his devout life releases Nisus, also transforming him into a bird of prey, and henceforth there has been eternal warfare between the Ciris ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... the enemy beyond a curve, we hoped that some of our obstructions had been effective in throwing him from the track, and that we would see him no more; but at each long reach backward the smoke was again seen, and the shrill whistle was like the scream of a bird of prey. The time could not have been so very long, for the terrible speed was rapidly devouring the distance, but with our nerves strained to the highest tension, each minute seemed an hour. On several occasions the escape of the enemy from wreck seemed little less ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... brought the two vessels alongside of each other. As the lugger approached, we made her out to be a stout, but active craft, of sixteen guns, and apparently full of men. She set the 'tri-color,' when half a mile distant, sure of her prey, should we turn out to be a prize. We showed-him the stars and stripes of course, fancying he would treat them as ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... rooms. When he came in at night she could hear him throw down his glazed hat, which fell with a dull thud, like a shovelful of clay, on the table. The black cloak hung against the wall rustled like the wings of some huge bird of prey. She could hear his every movement, and she spent most of her time listening to him with morbid horror, while he—all unconscious—hummed his vulgar songs and tipsily staggered to his bed, under which the poor woman's sick fancy pictured ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the single merit of never getting out of order. Furthermore ammunition is precious. In consequence, the wilderness hunter is not going to be merely pretty sure; he intends to be absolutely certain. If he cannot approach near enough to blow a hole in his prey, he does ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... for masticating leaves, and that these and its prehensile feet indicate its predacious nature: added to which, its singular resemblance to a leaf is no less a provision against its being discovered by its enemies, than an aid in deceiving its prey. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... permitted to try his theory—a kind of common property, where every juvenile statesman has been encouraged to make his inroads, as in Moray land, where, anciently, according to the idea of the old Highlanders, all men had a right to take their prey—a subject in a common dissecting room, left to the scalpel of the junior students, with the degrading ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... any of Salvator's brigands, in his wild and striking figure and countenance. He wore a dark-coloured blanket, and a black hat, the broad leaf of which was slouched over his face, which was the colour of death, while his eyes seemed to belong to a tiger or other beast of prey. I never saw such a picture of fierce misery. Strange to say, this man began life as a shepherd; but how he was induced to abandon this pastoral occupation, we did not hear. For years he has been the scourge of the country, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... drops of blood that had fallen from his victim. Going over a ridge, we lost the trail, and though we spread out and searched very carefully, it was nearly an hour before we could resume the pursuit. Every minute seemed an age, as we well knew that the tiger would thus gain time to devour his prey. Probably I was less agitated than the natives, but I freely and gladly admit that I have never had my nerves more unstrung than on that occasion, though I have been in much greater peril. We searched through several clumps of bushes, and examined ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... discover a fresh feeding-ground. This example strikingly shows us that the procuring a constant supply of wholesome food is almost the sole condition requisite for ensuring the rapid increase of a given species, since neither the limited fecundity, nor the unrestrained attacks of birds of prey and of man are here sufficient to check it. In no other birds are these peculiar circumstances so strikingly combined. Either their food is more liable to failure, or they have not sufficient power of wing to search for it over an extensive area, or during some season of the ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... and feet. My bird was purring gently, with the propeller turning slowly. It seemed thoroughly domesticated, but I knew that I had but to pull back on that manet to transform it into a rampant bird of prey. Before starting again I looked about me, and there was Drew racing all over the field. Suddenly he started in my direction as if the whole force of his will was turned to the business of running me down. Luckily he shut off his motor, ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... the waves hissing and foaming as though angry at being cheated of their prey. The storm-swept waters seemed to seize on the rope, as though to pull it beneath the billows. The anchor that held the rope which passed over the "shears" seemed to be pulling out of the sand ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... of his present, but of his past, iniquities. And yet Mr. Griffenbottom told very little; and it certainly did seem to the bystanders, that even the opposing counsel, even the judge on the bench, abstained from their prey because he was a member of Parliament. It was notorious to all the world that Griffenbottom had debased the borough; had so used its venal tendencies as to make that systematic which had before been ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... a prey to many swift emotions, but chief of these joy and a thrilling, hopeful expectancy, for amid the deep gloom before me I espied a faint beam of light, and I was praying within myself as, my gaze upon this blessed light, I descended into the deeper shadows. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... as the plants have had a long history. They have had a harder struggle than the plants, because many of them prey upon one another. We often dig up the skeletons of strange animals unlike any now living. These must have all been killed long ago. Each species or kind of animal now living must have come off victorious in ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... still of the same restful blue, were fixed on the ceiling watching a spider marching with diabolical intent on a wretched fly that had become entangled in its web. And as the secretary ambled monotonously on, Ryder watched and watched until he saw the spider seize its helpless prey and devour it. Fascinated by the spectacle, which doubtless suggested to him some analogy to his own methods, Ryder sat motionless, his eyes fastened on the ceiling, until the sudden stopping of the secretary's reading aroused him ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... his friends. The first moments of this journey, or better say, this flight, were troubled by a ceaseless dread of every horse and carriage to be seen behind the fugitive. It was not natural, in fact, if Louis XIV. was determined to seize this prey, that he should allow it to escape; the young lion was already accustomed to the chase, and he had bloodhounds sufficiently clever to be trusted. But insensibly all fears were dispersed; the surintendant, by hard traveling, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... led a family of my own on the long journey to our southern home. Three times have I made the journey to and from this meadow, and each time some of my family have fallen a prey to our many enemies. But the men with their fire-sticks are the worst of all. Why are they so cruel ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... Albinus, the proconsul[150]; but it was an army spiritless and unwarlike; incapable of encountering either danger or fatigue; more ready with the tongue than with the sword; accustomed to plunder our allies, while itself was the prey of the enemy; unchecked by discipline, and void of all regard to its character. The new general, accordingly, felt more anxiety from the corrupt morals of the men, than confidence or hope from their numbers. He determined, however, though the delay of the comitia ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... winded and spent, reached the extreme limit of their line of assault and achieved the task which had been set them. They were mad now, not human in their senses. They saw red through bloodshot eyes. They were beasts of prey—these decent Yorkshire lads. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... was changed. The weight of some mysterious circumstances had descended upon Antonio, overwhelming, as it seemed to me, the pleasure that he had found in this reunion. Through the rest of the dinner he was silent, a prey to that dark exultancy, to that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... "Lord, save us; we perish!" kept coming to his lips as he staggered onward. Surely there could not be much further to go! He turned for a moment to look behind him. The wolves were in sight, their dark forms showing distinctly against the snow as in silence now they gained upon their prey. Run as hard as he might, they must be upon him ere another fifty yards were passed. He felt as if it were all over with him, and so utter was his exhaustion that it seemed to benumb his faculties and make him half willing ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... to him bread and wine. This Melchisedech was king and priest of Jerusalem and all the country, and blessed Abram. And there Abram gave to him the tythes of all he had. And the king of Sodom would that Abram should have had such prey as he took, but he would not have as much as the latchet of a shoe, and thus gat Abram much love of ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... been said that the sovereign must not act in particular cases. To do so would be to confound law and fact, and the body politic would soon be a prey to violence. It is, therefore, necessary to institute an executive branch, which Rousseau calls indifferently government or prince, explaining that the latter word may be used collectively. But, differing in this from older writers, he denies that the establishment ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... convinced you that much that takes place here, even among those who can afford long finger-nails, would not be tolerated in Yuen-ping, and in order to avoid the suspicion that I am suffering from a serious injury to the head, or have become a prey to a conflicting demon, it will be necessary to continue an even more highly-sustained tolerant alertness. This person himself has frequently suffered the ill effects of rashly assuming that because he is conducting the adventure in a prepossessing spirit his efforts will be honourably received, ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... of Sarlat during the long years that they were fighting intermittently for their lives and property with the lawless bands of so-called English, who had turned so many rocks into fastnesses, and who issued from their fortified caverns, that they made almost impregnable, to prey upon the unfortunate people who strove to live by husbandry. These hardened ruffians and freebooters had no respect for treaties, and inasmuch as peace never lasted long, and the English kings of that epoch always liked to feel that they were ready for anything ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... likewise persecuted by the Tonny, and he (though not verie often) taken with them damage faisant. And that they may no lesse in fortune, then in fashion, resemble the Flying fish, certaine birds called Gannets, soare ouer, and stoup to prey vpon them. Lastly, they are persecuted by the Hakes, who (not long sithence) haunted the coast in great abundance; but now being depriued of their wonted baite, are much diminished, verifying the prouerb, What we lose in Hake, we shall haue in Herring. These Hakes and diuers ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... by Ovid's description—raises a presumption that the lower stratum of the Roman population, if the chance were given it, would the more readily understand the pictures of Etruscan artists and the allusions of Greek playwrights, and the more easily become the prey of the eschatological horrors which Lucretius describes as terrifying them. The material was there from the earliest times, and all that was needed was for Greeks and ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members of this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them;—men whose behavior, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest seats of justice,—some who, to my knowledge, were glad by going to a foreign ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... he was saying. The traders from Ujiji are simply marauders, and their people worse than themselves, they thirst for blood more than for ivory, each longs to be able to tell a tale of blood, and the Manyuema are an easy prey. Hassani assaulted the people at Moene Lualaba's, and now they keep to the other bank, and I am forced to bargain with Kasonga for a canoe, and he sends to a friend for one to be seen on the 13th. This Hassani declared to me that he would ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... elsewhere; and certainly when the prairie tribes were discovered, the men and animals lived in constant interaction, and many of the hunters acted and thought only as they were moved by their easy prey. As the Spanish horse spread northward over the Llano Estacado and overflowed across the mountains from the plains of the Cayuse, the Dakota and other tribes found a new means of conquest over the herds, and entered on a career so facile ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... personage is your excuse! And I can tell you, child, that when George Austin was playing Florizel to the Duchess's Perdita, all the maids in England fell a prey to green- eyed melancholy. It was the TON, you see: not to pine for that Sylvander was to resign from ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... the tortured imaginings of his pain-constricted brain, came the ugly black bird again, shrieking horribly and perching itself on his chest. Its huge claws raked his ribs, and its dripping beak fastened itself on his throat. Now he recognized the species for what it was: a vulture, a bird of prey, unwilling to be robbed of its Earth victim; trying to pinion him to the planet with the strength of its anger. Its great wings flapped, flapped, flapped, beating against his body, flooding it with ...
— Heart • Henry Slesar
... length, slowly turning, her eyes chanced to fall upon Mrs. Gregory St. Michael's card-case. There it lay, the symbol of Kings Port's capitulation. She swooped down and up with a flying curve of grace, holding her prey caught; and then, catching also her handsome skirts on either side, she danced like a whirling fan ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... expense of enrolling a number of workmen out of employment and idlers, of various kinds. Voluntary donations were solicited, and enthusiasm was so general that even servant-maids gave their rings. The sums thus collected were paid into the chest of Tettenborn's staff, and became a prey to dishonest appropriation. With respect to this money a Sieur Oswald was accused of not having acted with the scrupulous delicacy which Madame de Stael attributes to his namesake ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... absurdity. The less sympathy we have with men the more exquisite is our enjoyment of their folly: satirical delight is closely akin to cruelty. Defect and mishap stimulate our fancy, as blood and tortures excite in us the passions of the beast of prey. The more this inhuman attitude yields to sympathy and reason, the less are folly and error capable of amusing us. It would therefore seem impossible that we should be pleased by the foibles or absurdities of those we love. And in fact we never enjoy seeing our own persons in a satirical ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... so enslaved, was moreover miserably organized; the excesses of power were still less endurable than their unjust distribution. The nation, divided into three orders, themselves subdivided into several classes, was a prey to all the attacks of despotism, and all the evils of inequality. The nobility were subdivided: into courtiers, living on the favours of the prince, that is to say, on the labour of the people, and whose aim was governorships of provinces, or elevated ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... Wit and Charms the coldest Hearts cou'd fire! Now wretched Maid, and most unhappy Wife, In Sighs and in Complaints must end my Life. Abandoned by my Husband, e're enjoyed, With thoughts of Pleasure, yet untasted, cloy'd. He leaves me now to my sad Frights a Prey; O, my dear Bonvile! whither dost thou stray? Unheard, alas! I make my amarous Moans; The Winds and Waves refuse to bear my Groans: Eccho her self can't suffer my Complaint, But with repeated Sighs grows tir'd and faint. Where to find him, good Heaven direct me! For ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... know the law perhaps as well as you; But is there not since days of old a law And covenant with us that when a kinsman Falls slain before the enemy and his corpse Unburied lies a prey unto the raven, Blood vengeance ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... their fellow men may choose to inflict. They suffer all that can be inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal lust, by malignant spite, and by insane anger. Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every passion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest the master's bosom. If we could calculate the amount of wo endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwhelm every compassionate heart—it ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... are truly godly they care not how cheap they serve their masters, provided they may get into godly families, or where they may be convenient for the word. But now, if a master or mistress should take this opportunity to make a prey of their servants, this is abominable, this is making a gain of godliness, and merchandise of the things of God, and of the soul of thy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of the reunion of the church of Histria with the See of Rome. According to the "Liber Pontificalis" nine hundred and seventy-five pounds of silver were used in the work. There were the figures of S. Peter on the left and S. Paul on the right, surrounded by halos of precious stones. They were the prey of the Saracens in 845. Leo IV. restored them to a certain extent, changing the subject of the silver nielli. In the year 1437, Antonio di Michele da Viterbo, a Dominican lay brother, was commissioned by ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... Alice, when neither man nor woman is troubled with such sordid care. Not yet awhile; no, no; but the day will come. Human beings are not destined to struggle for ever like beasts of prey. Give them time; let civilization grow. You know what our poet says: "There the common sense of most shall hold ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the medical profession call paranoics are simply psychics, over-developed in the subjective faculties—a prey to all the disembodied forces of the subjective plane, and also to every floating thought on the physical plane; they are obsessed by ideas from within and without and their actions bear witness to this statement. Some very meddlesome women, and ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.
... general Form and Outside of Religion is pretty well worn out among us, there are many Persons, who, by a natural Unchearfulness of Heart, mistaken Notions of Piety, or Weakness of Understanding, love to indulge this uncomfortable way of Life, and give up themselves a Prey to Grief and Melancholy. Superstitious Fears and groundless Scruples cut them off from the Pleasures of Conversation, and all those social Entertainments, which are not only innocent, but laudable; as if Mirth was made for Reprobates, and Chearfulness of Heart denied ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... prey to remorse, was wretched. He tried to catch Clover's eye, but she wouldn't look at him. He leaned against the balustrade moody and miserable. Phil, who had watched these various interludes with interest, indicated his condition to Clover with another telegraphic wink. She glanced ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... to the dimpling water, there was a flash of a bronze body—a streak of light along the surface of the pool—and two widening circles showed where the master of the hole had leaped for some insect prey. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... their children were carried off and scattered through the Roman Catholic districts; their wives and daughters were violated, massacred, or made captives. As for those that still remained, all whom the enemy could seize became a prey devoted to carnage, spoliation, fire, excesses which cannot be told, and outrages which it would ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... light showed in that part of the passage where they had least expected the door to be. The stone door itself swung slowly open, and they were out of it, in the Temple of Flora, blinking in the good daylight, an unresisting prey to Kathleen's embraces and the ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... fell on her side, and before she was well down the steel hatpin, eight inches long of good Paris metal, plunged and found its prey. The man roared and wallowed clear, and she rose. The big room was wild with stamping feet and throaty noises such as dogs make. The bedside chair, kicked aside struck her ankles; she picked it up and ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... corpse, had made a dash at him, and its loud discordant scream in a moment brought a countless number of these formidable birds together, all prepared to contest for a share of the spoil. These large and powerful foes he had now to scare from their intended prey, and, by shouting and splashing with his hands and feet, in ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... blazed with the quick flashing of the lightning, and the temple itself seemed to rock beneath the voice of the thunder. I never knew in Rome so terrific a tempest. The stoutest trembled, for life hung by a thread. Great numbers, it has now been found, in every part of the capital, fell a prey to the fiery bolts. The capital itself was struck, and the brass statue of Vespasian in the forum thrown down and partly melted. The Tiber in a few hours overran its banks, and laid much of the city on its ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... by day. I told him he must beware of finding and booking it, lest life should have nothing more to show him. He said, "What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon all the family at dinner. You seek it like a dream, and as soon as you find it you become its prey." ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... unknown among the Spanish people. Their feeling towards a foreign invader was less distant from that of African savages than from that of the civilised and literary nations which had fallen so easy a prey to the French. Government, if it had degenerated into everything that was contemptible, had at least failed to reduce the people to the passive helplessness which resulted from the perfection of uniformity in Prussia. Provincial ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Margarita patache failed to meet the galleons at Cartagena, it was given its clearance and allowed to sail alone to Havana—a tempting prey to buccaneers ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... sheet of fire. The flames roared round and round, as if seeking for escape, licking every projecting cornice and sill with greedy tongues, as the serpent licks his prey before he swallows it. A hot, putrid breath came through the keyhole and smote Solon and Zonela like a wind of death. They clasped each other's hands with a moan of terror, and fled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... spaniel, a great devotee of the garbage-can, would occasionally be sick at mid-day instead of after the evening meal. But, with these exceptions, there was a uniformity about the course of life in the Mariner household which began to prey on Jill's nerves as early ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... time and all things else. But as he lost self-control, as he half-unconsciously put his glass to his lips with increasing frequency, his companions grew cooler and more wary. Their eyes no longer beamed good-naturedly upon their victim, but began to emit the eager, cruel gleams of some bird of prey. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... hours, All our powers, Vain and brief, are borne away; Time, my soul, thy ship is steering, Onward veering, To the gulph of death a prey. ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... waited, undecided, at the sudden disappearance of those whom they had regarded as a certain prey; and before they could form any plans, five muskets flashed out, and four of their number fell. A cry of rage burst from them, and there was a general discharge of their guns, the balls pattering ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... tigers howl for prey, They pitying stand and weep; Seeking to drive their thirst away, And keep them from the sheep. But, if they rush dreadful, The angels, most heedful, Receive each mild spirit, ...
— Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience • William Blake
... issue of the approaching conflict. One of the enemy was certainly greatly superior in force to the Champion, and the other two French ships might be much larger than the Thisbe and Druid. Even should their own ships be disabled, though not captured, many of the merchant fleet might fall a prey to the Frenchmen, and the Ouzel Galley might possibly be among the number. What then would be the fate of Ellen and her father? It was of the greatest importance to Mr Ferris to reach Jamaica without delay, and instead of that he might very likely be ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... the creek, he was certain there would not be a sufficient depth of water over the sand-bar at its mouth to allow of the brig sailing before high-water, which would be at about half-past six o'clock that evening; but we were unanimously of opinion that, having secured his prey, Senor Madera would sail then. As to what might happen in the interim, it would not bear thinking of, and we could only hope and pray for the best. Having by this time obtained all the light which it was possible to gain on the matter, we prepared to return to the Virginia, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... of the tempter was to lead his prey into further depths of infamy. The prince took the hand of the sailor and ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... heard of a sexagenarian rake and Danube adventurer, in person a description of falcon-Caliban, containing his shagginess in a frogged hussar-jacket and crimson pantaloons, with hook-nose, fox-eyes, grizzled billow of frowsy moustache, and chin of a beast of prey. This fellow, habitually one of the dogs lining the green tables of the foreign Baths, snapping for gold all day and half the night, to spend their winnings in debauchery and howl threats of suicide, never fulfilled early enough, when they lost, claimed his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hope. Yet he lived on and worked submissively. Paul's own case was different. Destiny had dashed him in unknown seas against unseen rocks. But he was young, he had the power of life, and the stimulus of love. Yet here he was, the prey to an idle fancy, tortured by ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... hand, And bids tempestuous nature silent stand; Commands the peaceful waters to give place, Or kindly fold him in a soft embrace: He bridles in the monsters of the deep: The bridled monsters awful distance keep: Forget their hunger, while they view their prey; And guiltless gaze, and round the stranger play. But still arise new wonders; nature's Lord Sends forth into the deep his powerful word, And calls the great leviathan: the great Leviathan attends in all his state; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... of him, regarding his persecutors with defiance in her flaming eye, and vengeance in her indignant nose. But there was about Miss Horn herself enough of the peculiar to mark her also, to the superficial observer, as the natural prey of boys; and the moment the first billow of consternation had passed and sunk, beginning to regard her as she stood, the vain imagination awoke in these young lords of misrule. They commenced their attack upon her by resuming it upon her protege. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... had she brooded under a cloud of despair. She had scarcely stirred out of her room; she had eaten scarcely enough to sustain life. She had shut herself up, a prey to harrowing remorse and terror—a remorse which she knew to be as useless as her terror was nerve-racking. Her awakening had come, sudden, awful. And, like all such awakenings, it had come too late, so that the horror of her future ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... the money which he sometimes spent so lavishly, and which enabled him to dress with affected elegance. His slim, lofty figure was not without a certain air of distinction, but his red lips spoke of strong passions and his bright eyes were those of a beast of prey. That evening he had two young fellows with him, one Rossi, a short, swarthy Italian, who had come to Paris as a painter's model, and had soon glided into the lazy life of certain disreputable callings, and the other, Sanfaute, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the royal domains to those who had deserved them, and allotted or confirmed to every family the income needful for their maintenance. He pitied the sufferings of his people, and did his utmost to alleviate them; he taught to all comers potent formulas against reptiles and beasts of prey, charms to cast out evil spirits, and the best recipes for preventing illness. His incessant bounties left him at length with only one of his talismans: the name given to him by his father and mother at his birth, which they had revealed to him alone, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... acquainted with these reproaches and sneers of the people, he determined, though with a sorrowful heart, to take him up to the mountain Alberz, and abandon him there to be destroyed by beasts of prey. Alberz was the abode of the Simurgh or Griffin,[4] and, whilst flying about in quest of food for his hungry young ones, that surprising animal discovered the child lying alone upon the hard rock, crying and sucking its fingers. The Simurgh, however, felt no inclination ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... in Base Ball and Athletic Goods, as in all other lines of business, unprincipled persons are always eager to prey on the reputation gained by honest dealing and good business management. We regret to state that we have not escaped the attention of such parties, who have appropriated our original designs, styles and names, and by using similar illustrations ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... was clearly out of Periwinkle's reach. Rob had a faint hope that the little thing might divert the wrathful teacher from her prey. He raised the latch and set ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and quietly possessed ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... coming, and he saw by their gestures that there was a vessel in the bay. He scribbled a note in reply, but they refused to take it, and began to crowd into the camp and handle their weapons. They were not going to be baulked of their prey. At the very moment when they were poising their spears, the relief party arrived. Four brave men — Captain Dobson of the Ariel, Dr. Vallack, Barrett a sailor, and the eager Jacky-Jacky — had forced ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... woman; thy words rebuke my weakness. But my sister!—if I fall, you, Nina, will not survive—your beauty a prey to the most lustful heart and the strongest hand. We will have the same tomb on the wrecks of Roman liberty. But Irene is of weaker mould; poor child, I have robbed her ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... placed his front paws on the Duke's breast, his teeth bared in an ugly snarl. Eberhard Ludwig laughed, but the dog's fangs were dangerously near his Highness's throat; and indeed it was no laughing matter, for a wolf-hound, once his teeth are fastened in a man's throat, does not leave his prey alive. It was a grim comedy. Wilhelmine rose from her chair near the window and ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay |
