"Tail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to reason as the talent of a beaver—which can build houses, and uses its tail for a trowel—to the genius of a prophet and poet. Reason is all but extinct in this age; it can never ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... was the first in the attack: he seized the cow by the tail, and cried out it was a gentleman commoner, as he had him by the tail of his gown; while the Doctor, who had caught the cow by the horns at the same time, immediately replied, "No, no, you blockhead, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... it is the eagle and lamb of temporal and spiritual idealism that form the "head" of this coin, the craftsman and anvil but the modest "tail." The application ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes
... discoveries have made the hundred and sixty thousand francs which we possess, net and clear! Without my genius, for I certainly have talent as a perfumer, we should now be petty retail shopkeepers, pulling the devil's tail to make both ends meet. I shouldn't be a distinguished merchant, competing in the election of judges for the department of commerce; I should be neither a judge nor a deputy-mayor. Do you know what I should be? A ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... like any other animals. But suppose, advancing into the forest in search of the tiger aforesaid, and bellowing his challenge of war, he espies not one but six tigers coming towards him? This manifestly is not his game at all. He puts his tail between his royal legs, and retreats into his own snug den as quickly as he may. Were he to attempt to go and fight six tigers, you might write that ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... were attacked and overwhelmed. In all Burgoyne lost some eight hundred men and four guns. The American loss was seventy. It shows the spirit of the time that, for the sport of the soldiers, British prisoners were tied together in pairs and driven by negroes at the tail of horses. An American soldier described long after, with regret for his own cruelty, how he had taken a British prisoner who had had his left eye shot out and mounted him on a horse also without the left eye, in derision at the ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... June brought, and placed as ordered. It was a bird of spun glass only, but a great beauty in Daisy's eyes. Its tail was of such fine threads of glass that it ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... over his left shoulder. He stalked stately up and down the arc of a circle which a stone seat defined. Tormillo sat upon the edge of the seat, his elbows on his knees, and looked at the ground. But he kept his master in the tail of his eye. Now and again, furtively, but as if he loved what he feared, he put his hand into his breast and felt the ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... and twistings of their rapid shooting flight. You frequently see them glide rapidly near the ground, and then with a sidelong motion mount aloft, to dart downwards like an animated meteor, their plumage glowing in the light with metallic splendor, and the row of white spots on the tail contrasting ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... mistaken when we look at our trials as unmixed evils. They "are blessings in disguise." The dripping clouds which hide the sun, enrich the earth. The difficulties with which we have to contend, increase our strength. The tail of the kite, which seems to pull it down, helps it to rise. And the afflictions, which seem to press us to the ground, help to raise us ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... have had some trouble in keeping to the trail, but Jack trotted easily along and never once seemed at fault. In a very few minutes he stopped in a rocky depression where a horse had been tied, and waited for Swan, wagging his tail and showing his teeth in a panting smile. The man he had trailed had mounted and ridden toward the ridge to the west. Swan examined the tracks, and Lone sat on ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... and carrying a tally-stick) caught sight of Papa, he hastened to take off his lamb's-wool cap and, wiping his red head, told the women to get up. Papa's chestnut horse went trotting along with a prancing gait as it tossed its head and swished its tail to and fro to drive away the gadflies and countless other insects which tormented its flanks, while his two greyhounds—their tails curved like sickles—went springing gracefully over the stubble. Milka was ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... not satisfied with his refusal, and began another long speech, which, as Norman remarked, "Though it might have a head, there seemed but little chance of seeing its tail." He advised his father to try and cut ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... the game hound would be laid open by a cut from the kangaroo's hind feet, determined Dr. Barker and myself to watch an opportunity of creeping up behind a tree to assist in the struggle. We accordingly did so, and managed to seize the animal by his monstrous tail, so that by keeping a strain on it he was prevented from lifting his hind leg, as if he had we should have ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... fall. The mass he denounced as the greatest and most horrible abomination, inasmuch as it was 'downright destructive of the first article,' and as the chiefest of Papal idolatries; moreover, this dragon's tail had begotten many other kinds of vermin and abominations of idolatry. With regard to the Papacy itself, the Augsburg Confession had been content to condemn it by silence, not having taken any notice of it in its articles on the essence and nature of the Christian ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the moment, I ran up the white steps of a house facing the museum railings, and stood there until the crowd should have passed. Happily the dog stopped at the noise of the band too, hesitated, and turned tail, running ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... out, and with a guardian angel on the mat at his bedside, in the shape of a long brown body which sought fresh ease in an occasional sprawl, and flopped a responsive tail each time he dropped a friendly pat on to its head in the dark—Graeme looked confidently for a ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... scrub and keep the mess clean and tidy; to draw all the provisions and prepare them for cooking; then, to take them to the galley, and fetch them when cooked. That this last was no simple matter, such as any shore-going tail-coated waiter might undertake, was brought forcibly out one day during what seamen style ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... give a fuller account of them. They were of a type approaching to that of our mastiff, being smooth haired, strong limbed, with a somewhat heavy head and neck, small pointed but drooping ears, and a long tail, which was bushy and a little inclined to curl. They seem to have been very broad across the chest, and altogether better developed as to their fore than as to their hind parts, though even their hind legs were tolerably strong and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... villagers go by. Their old Sheikh rides in the midst of them, with his white-and-gold turban, his long gray beard, his flowing robes of rich silk. He is mounted on a splendid white Arab horse, with arched neck and flaunting tail; and a beautiful, gaily dressed little boy rides behind him with both arms clasped around the old man's waist. They are going up to the city for the Mohammedan rite ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... in detail upon the pale western sky. To my left rose, like the giant of Cologne, the high spire of St. Martin's, with its two towers; and, almost in front, the somber apsed cathedral, with its many sharp-pointed spires, resembling a monstrous hedgehog, the crane forming the tail, and near the base two lights, which appeared like two eyes sparkling with fire. Nothing disturbed the stillness of the night but the rustling of the waters at my feet, the heavy tramp of a horse's hoofs upon the bridge, and the sound ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... screamed the lady, as she awoke with Snoop's tail whisking over her face. "Goodness, gracious! what is that?" and before she had fully recovered from the shock she actually jumped up on the chair, like the funny pictures of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... himself; and he had already started with his little Fanny by his side. The proud, beautiful Jane—I really believe I had forgotten to mention that, while Cousin Jehoiakim was upsetting chairs, and spilling pitchers of water, and breaking glasses, and treading on people's toes, and the cat's tail, a distant cousin of ours arrived—rather a guess cousin than Cousin Jehoiakim; tall as the last named, to be sure, but bearing about the same resemblance to him as a vigorous, graceful young willow does to an overgrown mullen stalk. This new cousin—by cognomen ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... with a twisted stump of a tail and feet like small boxing gloves and ears almost as big as rabbits' hopped clumsily in view. He lifted it down, gave it a pat. Then, nodding familiarly to Effie, he unstrapped a little pack from his back and laid it on ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... stopping, as the pretty little spaniel trotted up to the boy's reclining figure, and began snuffing about it, and then broke into a quick short bark of pleasure, and fawned and frisked about him, and leapt upon him, joyously wagging his tail. ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... near Boursonne there was much animation and conversation. All the beasts were in, oxen, cows, horses, chickens, and in one corner, a flock of geese. The poor little "goose girl," a child about ten years old with bright-blue eyes and a pig-tail like straw hanging down her back, was being scolded violently by the farmer's wife, who was presiding in person over the rentree of the animals, for having brought her geese home on a run. They wouldn't ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... Adam, the carrion crow, The old crow of Cairo; He sat in the shower, and let it flow Under his tail and over ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... children. Whosoever transgresses the words of the Scribes is guilty of death. Whosoever teaches a statute before his teachers ought to be bitten by a serpent. There is no likeness between him who has bread in his basket and him who has none. Rather be the head of foxes than the tail of lions." This, however, again appears as "Rather be the tail of lions than the head of foxes." "The righteous in the city is its splendor, its profit, its glory: when he is departed, there is also departed the splendor, the profit, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... she decided, "I'm going to stay in here until it stops raining. If I get any wetter somebody'll take me for a sponge." She took off her jacket and wrung the water out of it and then wrung the water from the tail of her skirt, where it had been dripping on her ankles. Luckily she could not see herself in the darkness, for the green color from her veil had run in streaks all over her face and she looked like a ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... then the knot of 'Qui hi's,' sent to the Cape, per doctor's certificate, to husband their threadbare constitutions, and lavish their rupees: next the obsequious, smirking, money-making China-man, with his poking shoulders, and whip-like pig-tail: then the stout, squat Hottentots—who resemble the Dutch in but one characteristic!—and half castes of every intermediate tint between black and white. These are well relieved and contrasted by the tall, warlike figures and splendid costume of his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... their imagination for their facts. The boat soon neared the whale; on a sign from Simpson the men rested on their oars, and brandishing his harpoon, the experienced sailor threw it with all his strength; it went deep into the thick covering of fat. The wounded whale struck the sea with its tail and plunged. The four oars were immediately raised perpendicularly; the cord fastened to the harpoon, and attached to the bow, rolled rapidly out and dragged the boat ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... at the end of it, and came out into the open air. But an obstacle opposed itself. A huge dragon, Ladon the terrible, reared up his hundred heads, his eyes flashing fire and fury, his mouths emitting baleful flames and pestilential breath, his tail, covered with metallic scales of green, scarlet, and blue, coiling away to a great distance. The page drew his sword; but the knight took a little black book and aimed it at the volcanic heads. It was a Holy Book, and the names ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... such as never before had she known, even in her worst dreams. Yet was there to her, in the midst of her sorrow and loss, a strange fascination in the scene. Such a hive of burning human life now cold and silent! Even Marquis appeared aware of the change, for with tucked-in tail he went about sadly sniffing, and gazing up and down. Once indeed, and only once, he turned his face to the heavens, and gave a strange protesting howl, which made Dorothy weep, and a little relieved ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... changes in the affairs of Italy. Having adopted his son-in-law, Eugene Beauharnois, as his own son, he settled that kingdom upon him in tail male, and incorporated with the legations of Ancona, Urbino, Macerata, and Camerino, which were the pope's dominions; stating in a decree as the sole reason for this act of undisguised despotism, "that the sovereign of Rome had refused to make ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... I was a tiny black egg in a globe of clear white jelly, and floated around along the bank of this same brook. Soon I grew into a wee tadpole, and freed myself from the globe of jelly, and found I could swim about. I had a long flat tail which I used as a paddle to help me swim. I had no feet nor legs then, but I grew very fast, and soon two legs came out near my tail, and by and by two front ones came, and I did not need my tail any more, so it disappeared. Then I discovered that I had a long, slender tongue to catch ...
— Buttercup Gold and Other Stories • Ellen Robena Field
... there would be no trouble regarding the transfer of title to the Georgia lands, for while, for weighty reasons, the grants had been made in tail male, there was no intention, on the part of the Trustees, to use this as a pretext for regaining the land, and if there was no male heir, a brother, or failing this, a friend, might take the title. (In 1739 the law entailing property ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... he, "that I am Ralph Jobson? Why it knew me, and seemed to wag its tail; nay, made as though it would lick ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... hills and gullies, is like Mulligan's blanket, always coming and going; and by fits an' starts as the ague took the goose; and likewise backwards and forwards, like Boscastle fair: so that our cables be twisted worse than a pig's tail." ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... blue sky that was suffused with dust colour on the horizon. He was marching up the hill. In spite of his lameness there was something military in his approach. Mrs. Jarvis, as she came out of the Rectory gate, saw him coming, and her Newfoundland dog, Nero, slowly swept his tail ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... king, Olaf quitted the house and went by secret ways to the stables, where he found his foster brother at work combing out the mane of Sigurd's fighting steed. A very tall and powerful animal it was, with a glossy brown coat and a long tail that reached nearly to the ground. It was well trained, and many a well won fight had it fought. Sleipner was its name, and it was so called after the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... consideration, it was vehemently discussed for four hours, in five-minute speeches, Judge Frank Doster leading the affirmative. The debate was closed by Mrs. Diggs, and the resolution was adopted, ayes 337, noes 269; carried by 68 majority in a delegate body of 606. During the fray a tail in some way tacked itself on to the resolution, which said, "but we do not regard this as a test of party fealty." So the party adopted a plank declaring that it did not regard a belief in one of its own fundamental principles as a test of fealty; but in the wild excitement which ensued, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... intense, in the voice and throat of the bird, which is the air incarnate; and so descending through the various orders of animal life to the vibrating and semi-voluntary murmur of the insect; and, lower still, to the hiss or quiver of the tail of the half-lunged snake and deaf adder; all these, nevertheless, being wholly under the rule of Athena as representing either breath or vital nervous power; and, therefore, also, in their simplicity, ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... shines, how the blue sky spreads, how the life lives, and how kind the people are on all sides! If we were going anywhere but to Italy, and if I were a little less plainly mortal with this disagreeable cough of mine, I would gladly stay and see in the Empire with M. Proudhon in the tail of it, and sit as a watcher over whatever things shall be this year and next spring at Paris. As it is, we have been very fortunate, as usual, in being present in a balcony on the boulevard, the best place possible for seeing the grandest spectacle in the world, the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... peace-loving man can no more roam the wood, hunting for the food that sustains life, without the fear of being murdered, than a fighting-man in search of his prey.—Thee sees now what little dog Peter is doing? He runs to the tracks, and he wags his tail;—truly I am of the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... through the yard the lamb, which Jenkyns had set down there when he passed through, came trotting towards him, the long thick tail vibrating like a pendulum as it ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Any person convicted before a county magistrate of being an undomiciled or vagabond Quaker to be stripped naked to the middle, tied to the cart's tail, and flogged from town to town to the border. Domiciled Quakers to be proceeded against under Act of 1658 to banishment, and then treated as vagabond Quakers. The death penalty was still preserved but not enforced. [Footnote: Mass. Rec. vol. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... to woman as against man. The same reason caused Austria also to open Universities to female students, in order that the Mohammedan women of Bosnia and Herzegovina might enjoy medical attendance. Even Germany, whose "pig-tail" was thickest, i. e., where the disfavor towards admitting women to the Universities was most bitter, has been compelled to fall in line with progress. In the spring of 1894, the first female student passed her examination ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... one short passage more, I had like to have omitted, which our author leaves as a sting in the tail of his libel; his words ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... roughly," he said. He placed a finger-tip at about the middle of the forward edge and drew it slowly toward the centre. "Here, what would correspond with the upper side of the companionway, there came down very gradually the shadow of a tail. I watched it streaking out there across the deck, wiggling the slightest bit now and then. When it had come down about half-way across the light, the solid part of the animal—its shadow, you understand—began to appear, quite big and round. But how ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... awful stench and dismal wail Come from the broiling souls, Whilst Satan with his fireproof tail Stirs up ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... jerked loose as soon as he heard the tones of Holmes's well-remembered voice that had bawled him out at the inquisition the day before, and in a second had escaped by the back door, leaving Holmes with a shred of cloth out of his coat-tail ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... different ways behind ice-boulders, wanting her to go on nearer the shore, before killing; but, passing close, she spied, and bore down at a trot upon me. I fired into her neck, and at once, with a roar, she turned tail, making now straight in Maitland's direction. I saw him run out from cover some hundred yards away, aiming his long-gun: but no report followed: and in half a minute he was under her fore-paws, she striking out slaps ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... flounced about our market-place with insufferable airs of patronage and condescension. She bought, indeed, with liberality, but her manner of studying us through a quizzing-glass, and playing cicerone to her followers, acquitted us of any gratitude. She had a tail behind her of heavy, obsequious old gentlemen, or dull, giggling misses, to whom she appeared to be an oracle. 'This one can really carve prettily: is he not a quiz with his big whiskers?' she would say. 'And this one,' indicating myself with her gold eye-glass, 'is, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bombs began to detonate, fifty fathoms down. The Mekinese duty-officer below had just learned that the spies' signalling device was cut off, when a detonation lifted the hull of the Mekinese cruiser and shook it violently. Another twisted its tail and crushed it. A bomb hit sea bottom a quarter-mile away. More bombs exploded still nearer, in close contact with the giant hull. A two-ton bomb clanked into contact with its ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... flying; so they just buzz away like flying, and all the time sitting still. The snake-feeders are too full to feed anything—even more sap to themselves. There's a lot of hard-backed bugs—beetles, I guess—colored like the brown, blue, and black of a peacock's tail. They hang on until the legs of them are so wake they can't stick a minute longer, and then they break away and fall to the ground. They just lay there on their backs, fably clawing air. When it wears off a bit, up they ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... shown that a similar limitation of the benefits of the ancient [380] warranty was required by its earlier history before the assign was allowed to sue, and that the fiction by which he got that right could not extend it beyond that limit. This analogy also was followed. For instance, a tenant in tail male made a lease for years with covenants of right to let and for quiet enjoyment, and then died without issue male. The lessee assigned the lease to the plaintiff. The latter was soon turned out, and thereupon brought an action upon the covenant against the executor ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... brand was hot, and the lovers shook In their several shoes, when by lucky fate A Dragon came, with his tail in a crook,— A Dragon out of a Nankeen Plate,— And gobbled the hard-hearted potentate And all of his servants, and snorted, and Passed on at a super-cyclonic rate,— For these things occur in the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... stepped forth. He was coal black, dressed in an Arab cloak, Haussa trousers, and a cap of red cloth, while two pretty little boys about ten years of age, acting as pages, followed him, each bearing a cow's tail in his hand to brush away flies and other insects. Six wives, jet black girls in neat country caps edged with red silk, accompanied him. To make some impression on this pompous king, Lander hoisted ...
— 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
... armed, and apparently bent on mischief. Cook was very busy, and did not want them on board, so to keep them off ordered a musket to be fired over them; but as it only caused them to stop for a moment, a round shot was sent over them, and they hurriedly turned tail. The place was given the name Cape Runaway. White Island was named, but it must have been quiescent as there is no note of its being a volcano. As they sailed along the coast they met with canoes from which fish, lobsters, and mussels ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... Berlioz, Schumann, and some others, and it would seem that it has not succeeded so badly up to now for there to be any occasion for us to alter our minds without urgent cause, and to put ourselves at the tail—of many ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... pretty, with graceful and eager movements, and certainly a rapid comprehension. Her grey eyes sparkled, and her brown hair was coquettishly tied up, rather in the manner of a horse's tail on May Day. She had arrived all by herself in the morning, with a tiny bundle, and she made a remarkably neat appearance—if you did not look at her boots, which had evidently been somebody else's a long time before. Hilda had been clearly aware of a feeling of pleasure at the prospect of this young ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... by these horrible apprehensions, Lane looked at the rattlesnake upon the sahuaro whose struggles by this time had diminished to a movement of the tail. ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... for such a dog as thou?" and forthwith brought him to the ground with a box on the ear. The ambassador laid a complaint before the mayor, who somewhat reluctantly sentenced the offending apprentices to be whipt at the cart's tail. That any of their number should be flogged for insulting a Spaniard, even though he were the Spanish king's ambassador, was intolerable to the minds of the apprentices of London, who were known for their staunchness to one another. The report spread like wildfire, and ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... one, 'Sure never liv'd beneath the sun; A lizard's body lean and long, A fish's head, a serpent's tongue, Its foot, with triple claw disjoined; And what a length of tail behind!'" ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... never draw your foot off British ground; but now, father, we see that you are drawing back, and we are sorry to see our father doing so without seeing the enemy. We must compare your conduct to a fat dog, that carries its tail on its back, but when affrighted, drops it between its legs and runs off. Father, listen! the Americans have not yet defeated us by land, neither are we sure that they have done so by water; we, therefore, wish ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... lamps. Lermontoff now changed his working methods. He began each night as soon as he had finished dinner, and worked till nearly morning, sleeping all day except when interrupted by the gaoler. Jack, following the example of Robinson Crusoe, attempted to tie knots on the tail of time by cutting notches with his knife on the leg of the table, but most days he forgot to perform this operation, and so his wooden almanac fell hopelessly out of gear. He estimated that he had been a little more than a week in prison when he heard by the clang of the bolts that the next cell ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... behind the curtains, flew by Kendric's head and perched balancing upon an arm of her chair. Idly she put out her hand, stroking the bright feathers. From somewhere else, startling the man when he saw it gliding by him on its soft pads, a big puma, ran forward, threw up its head, snarling, its tail jerking back and forth restlessly. Zoraida spoke quietly; the monster cat crept close to her chair and lay down before her, stretched out to five feet of graceful length. Zoraida set one foot lightly upon the tawny ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... little boy they told me if I wanted to catch a bird I must put salt on its tail. I ran after the birds with the salt in my hand, but I soon convinced myself that if I could put salt on a bird's tail, I could catch it, and realized that I had ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... at the three men, and it seemed to them that he grew every moment larger and more ferocious. Presently his owner took him from his perch, and seating him on his knee fell to stroking his fur, from head to tail, with his long slim fingers. It was as if he were drawing inspiration for some deadly mischief from ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... Leonardo's, made this drawing from his master's cartoon, if we compare it with the copy made by Raphael—here reproduced, for just above the fighting horseman in Raphael's copy it is possible to detect a horse which is seen from behind, going at a slower pace, with his tail flying out to the right and the same horse may be seen in the very same attitude carrying a dimly sketched rider, in the foreground of Cesare da ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... together. Let them each take a—there, see how scratched my sword is. It's that dog of a merchant, Abdulin. He sees the Governor's sword is old and doesn't provide a new one. Oh, the sharpers! I'll bet they've got their petitions against me ready in their coat-tail pockets.—Let each take a street in his hand—I don't mean a street—a broom—and sweep the street leading to the inn, and sweep it clean, and—do you hear? And see here, I know you, I know your tricks. You insinuate ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... feet, and said one to another, "Here comes an elephant; now we shall know what he is like." The first blind man put out his hand and touched the elephant's broad side. The second took hold of a leg. The third grasped a tusk, and the fourth clutched the animal's tail. ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... the third day, when the constellations appear, the astrologer points out to the married pair a very small star, close to the middle or in the tail of Ursa Major, which he directs them to worship, and which he says is ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... heads to look at us, and remained motionless if we stopped to watch them, others scuffled rapidly away at the faintest sound, giving us just a glimpse of a quivering tail as its owner disappeared down a ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... a warm and busy day at the office, I put on my top-hat and tail coat and went out. If there was any accident I was determined to be described in the papers as "the body of a well-dressed man." To go down to history as "the body of a shabbily-dressed individual" would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... fall of stirring incidents, while the amusing situations are furnished by Joshua Bickford, from Pumpkin Hollow, and the fellow who modestly styles himself the "Rip-tail Roarer, from Pike Co., Missouri." Mr. Alger never writes a poor book, and "Joe's Luck" is certainly ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... to stroke your hair as he does Eive's, and spoke for once with real tenderness, as if you were the person to be pitied! Any one else would have laughed heartily at the figure her esve made with half her tail pulled out. But not all Eveena's pleading could obtain pardon ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Je ne puis entrer dans aucun dtail; mais sois tranquille, et aime bien qui t'aime uniquement.(261) ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... brute sniffed at it all over, then ran whining a little way down the avenue, came back to sniff the coat again, and finally elevating its stump of a tail in triumph, uttered a succession of sharp yelps to show that it was satisfied that it had struck the trail. Its owner tied a long cord to its collar to prevent it from going too fast for us, and we all set off upon our search, the dog tugging and ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tears down each other's backs, and refused to be comforted. What if their father was an Emperor, and Marcus would be some day! It would not bring back Beppo, with his innocent lamblike ways, and make him get down on his knees and wag his tail when they fed him out of a pail! Beppo always got on his knees to eat, and showed his love and humility before he grew his horns and reached the age of indiscretion; then he became awfully wicked, and it took three ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... fan, composed of countless glowing rays which spread in dazzling radiance over the west, rose from the vanishing orb and for several minutes adorned the lofty dome of the deep-blue sky like the tail of a gigantic peacock. Then the glitter of the shining plumes paled. The light-giving body from which they emanated disappeared and, in its stead, a crimson mantle, with gold-bordered, crocus-yellow edges, spread itself over the space it had left until the gleaming ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... all like to pack On my load, without thought of my ribs or my back. I know there are heaps of things there that I hate, But it's always been so. I guess it's my fate." And he flicked his long ears, and switched his thin tail, And rasped his rough neck with a ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... fighting animals, i.e., those which steep their muzzles in blood, and live by devouring others. These have a similar apparatus for nutrition to our own; especially the bear, who, with the monkey, is the animal most nearly resembling man, seeing that he has feet like ours, with scarcely any tail, while the monkey has our hands, without specifying any other points of resemblance. Like ourselves, too, the bear is omnivorous; that is to say, it eats everything, vegetables and fruit as well as meat; and nature, which has given it our diet, has furnished it with molars almost exactly like ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... fer de right, Debil hol'in' to him tight, Year him swish dat forked tail, See de sinner-man turn pale, Come on an' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... see the children's dog walking back to his bed in the tent. Splash slept on a piece of old carpet. The dog was wagging his tail. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... as the tail over a cat; he washes thee as foam is washed in water, he squeezes (?) thee as a ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... aground at the same instant. Luckily it was almost calm, and the great Hercule lay quietly on the sand like a stranded whale. Whenever the least suspicion of a swell came, she gave a shudder, a sort of wag of her tail, which was very alarming. If the swell increased she would soon go to pieces, and every boat we had to launch would never be enough to save the crew. It was one of those anxious moments in a sailor's life when each man makes it his business to conceal ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... the diminishing scale of the parents' stations in life. The last child, a tiny chap of ten, thin, red-haired, freckled, came into possession of a small book of nature stories without illustrations or even head and tail pieces. He was the governess's child. She was a poor widow, and her little boy, clad in a sorry-looking little nankeen jacket, looked thoroughly crushed and intimidated. He took the book of nature stories and circled slowly about the children's toys. He ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... was clean exhausted. She then threw the street-door half open and, as I made for it to save my life, attempted violently to close it, so as to squeeze my soul out of my body; but I saw her design and baffled it, leaving behind me, however, the tip of my tail; and piteously yelping hereat I escaped further basting and thought myself lucky to get away from her without broken bones. When I stood in the street still whining and ailing, the dogs of the quarter seeing a stranger, at once came rushing at me barking and biting;[FN264] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... I admired Obanjo for the way he kept them in hand. We had now also acquired a small dug-out canoe as tender, and a large fishing-net. About 4 A.M. in the moonlight we started to drop down river on the tail of the land breeze, and as I observed Obanjo wanted to sleep I offered to steer. After putting me through an examination in practical seamanship, and passing me, he gladly accepted my offer, handed over the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the head and ears of a mule, the body of a camel, the legs of a stag, and the tail of a horse, and like this animal ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... the tumuli of Mongolia, I see the tents of Kalmucks and Baskirs, I see the nomadic tribes with herds of oxen and cows, I see the table-lands notch'd with ravines, I see the jungles and deserts, I see the camel, the wild steed, the bustard, the fat-tail'd sheep, the antelope, and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... ground of attack, and suggested that he was actuated by corrupt motives, not for his own advantage, but in order to obtain places for a host of needy adventurers who constituted what was termed his "tail." Finally, they denounced him as a coward, and the abettor therefore of a cowardly policy: that being afraid to place himself at the head of his armed countrymen, he affected to abhor bloodshed, and held out a hope which he knew to be delusive—that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... had finished, Briton had a huge dish of scraps; Veevee sat watching him eat, and the children were very much surprised to see Briton shove one of the biggest and best morsels towards him. The tiny dog picked up the titbit and wagged his tail. After he had eaten it, he went and lay down beside ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... stables and paused to watch a dozen colts playing in the inclosure. Beyond the stable under the shadows of great oaks was the dog kennel. A pack of fox hounds rushed to the gate with loud welcome to their young master. He stooped to stroke each head and call each dog's name. A wagging tail responded briskly to every greeting. In another division of the kennel romped a dozen bird-dogs, pointers and setters. The puppies were nearly grown and eager for the fields. They climbed over Custis in yelping puppy joy that ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... Caesar. "A woman's opinions isn't usually as stiff as the tail of a fighting Tom cat. They're more coming ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... given them, with others of their own selection in less good taste; while on the men an occasional damaged silk hat topped off a coat that would have made Joseph's of old look plain; with ironclad army shoes; or a half-worn wedding swallow-tail, eked out by a plantation broad-brim, and boots too much worn for either comfort or beauty. This motley band, led by a gentle and spiritual-faced woman, will not soon be forgotten by those who saw it depart. Leaving a few at one depot, and a few at another, to be met at the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... still more horrible fate was prepared. On his arrival at Mathra, Sindhia inflicted upon him the punishment of Tashhir, sending him round the bazaar on a jackass, with his face to the tail, and a guard instructed to stop at every considerable shop and beg a cowree, in the name of the Nawab of the Bawani. The wretched man becoming abusive under the contemptuous treatment, his tongue was torn out of his mouth. Gradually he was mutilated further, being first blinded, as a retribution ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... saw and our evidence will only increase their perplexity, for we saw nothing at all. For prudence sake we will stay a day or two, to see which way the wind is blowing. But it's quite settled: they will never be able to make head or tail of the matter." ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... wolfhound, who followed her round unendingly as if she had patches of sunshine in her pocket: glorious patches, fit for a life-sized wolfhound. Perhaps he was grateful because she had ordered him long daily walks. He wagged his tail now as she spoke, and rubbed himself curvingly against her. He was ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer |
