"Black cat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the charge, endeavouring to persuade his little granddaughter that the "bogie" had really been "cook's black cat," generally condemned to the kitchen and blackbeetles, but occasionally let loose to roam the upper floors in search of nobler game. The child dried her eyes, and listened, gravely weighing his remarks. Her face gradually cleared, and when at the end he said slyly, "And ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to be led a few steps further, and then drew back again. "O Benny," said she, "there's her broomstick! there it is, right outside o' the door—and O Benny, Benny, there's her old black cat!" ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... A black cat, I've heard it said, Can charm all ill away, And keep the house wherein she dwells From ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... rain-charm employed by sorcerers was made from the blood and gall of a black ox. In a district of Sumatra, in order to procure rain, all the women of the village, scantily clad, go to the river, wade into it, and splash each other with the water. A black cat is thrown into the stream and made to swim about for a while, then allowed to escape to the bank, pursued by the splashing of the women. The Garos of Assam offer a black goat on the top of a very high mountain in time of drought. In all these cases the colour of the animal is part of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... I have found a horse-shoe! Faith it was just in time, for t'other night I laid two straws across at Margery's door, And afterwards I fear'd that she might do me A mischief for't. There was the Miller's boy Who set his dog at that black cat of hers, I met him upon crutches, and he told me 'Twas all her ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... could be, seeing that her goodman had been a child of God until very near his end, and much given to prayer; albeit I had indeed marvelled why he had other thoughts in his last illness; she answered, that one day he had seen her spirit, which she kept in a chest, in the shape of a black cat, and whose name was Kit, and had threatened that he would tell me of it; whereupon she, being frightened, had caused her spirit to make him so ill that he despaired of ever getting over it. Thereupon she had comforted him, saying that she would presently heal ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... reprehensible thing if anyone were to do something, somehow or other that is the very thing that Jack and you do. It was only last week I said that it would be a very objectionable trick if anyone was to tie paper bands round the neck of the clergyman's black cat—who is always stealing our chickens—and to my surprise, the next morning, when we started for business, there was quite a crowd outside his house, watching the cat calmly sitting over the porch, with white ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... and run into danger; it was better to wait for a favorable opportunity which chance would doubtless offer. For a whole month I lay in ambush, witnessing the same spectacle every morning, when one day I saw a huge black cat arrive first at the place of meeting and hide itself behind a rock, almost under my hand. A black cat could be nothing else than an enchanter, according to what I had learned in my childhood, and I resolved to watch him. ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... is!" she said to herself. "I wonder if some wicked fairy has put everybody to sleep? I wish I might go into their houses and break the spell. And here comes an enchanted prince," she continued, laughing at the fancy, as a large black cat came across the street ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... into anything," said the other of her capturers, "young or old. I saw her one night near Madaura, a month ago, in the tombs in the shape of a black cat." ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... legs are from them." "Whosoever wishes to know their existence, let him take ashes passed through a sieve, and strew them in his bed, and in the morning he will see the marks of a cock's claws. Whosoever wishes to see them, let him take the inner covering of a black cat, the kitten of a first-born black cat, which is also the kitten of a first-born, and let him burn it in the fire, and powder it, and fill his eyes with it, and he will see them. And let him pour the powder into an iron tube, and seal it with an iron signet, lest they ...
— Hebrew Literature
... about three years old, and she had a large black cat. The cat was of a jet black color, and her fur was very soft and glossy. It was as ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... black cat!' said the old woman; 'he always comes up to this room to sleep, but we thought ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... to the little girls. There was a feeling of London they thought, in the new house, and "London smelt of tobacco." Thus once more, says his daughter, "after his first happy married years, my father had a home and a family—if a house, two young children, three servants, and a little black cat can be called ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... been constructed, for no other purpose apparently, than to connect the north and south forests. A little church had been built—there had never been any regular service held in it—and a small school-house which promptly degenerated into the Black Cat Tavern, General Store, and Post Office. A few modest houses met the highway face to face; a few more turned their backs upon it and were content with an outlook across Long Meadow and toward Beacon Hill, beyond ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Town Councillors did not interfere, and the rabble passed bawling by the Pack-horse. Long before it came the Emigrant had recognised the ungainly man. It was Dicky Loony, the town butt. He had chivvied the imbecile a hundred times in just the same fashion, yelling "Black Cat!" after him as these young imps were yelling—though why "Black Cat" neither he nor the imps could have told. But Dicky had always resented it as he resented it now, wheeling round, shaking his stick, and sputtering maledictions. A stone or two flew harmlessly by. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a typical figure: she was usually a simple, old woman living in a lonely cottage with a black cat, gathering herbs by the light of the moon. But she was not always an ancient beldam; some witches were known as the purest and fairest maidens of the village; some were ladies in high station; some were men. A ground for suspicion was sometimes ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... give Snoop a saucer of milk every day, Dinah!" said Nan, as she rubbed the black cat which was purring around ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... or the relics of an overnight shower glittered on the leaves and grass. Hoopdriver had breakfasted early by Mrs. Gunn's complaisance. He wheeled his machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang within him. Halfway up, a dissipated-looking black cat rushed home across the road and vanished under a gate. All the big red-brick houses behind the variegated shrubs and trees had their blinds down still, and he would not have changed places with a soul in any one of them for a ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... mice, all nicely dressed and hanging upon spits to tempt the hungry passers-by, while above a large pot from which the steam was issuing was a card, which, being translated by our guide, read, "A big black cat within; ready soon." The dogs which are eaten are fed especially for the purpose, and are hung up in state with labels setting forth their superior merits. As far as I should have known, they might have passed for delicious young ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... sides. Ste. Marie, from his bed, cheered them on, but there came a commotion in the ivy which draped the wall below, and the two birds fled in ignominious haste, and just in the nick of time, for when the cause of the commotion shot into view it was a large black cat, of great bodily activity and ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... light of his little face absorbed into the black bombazeen drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of her countenance, and peering at the hard grey eye, until Mrs Pipchin was sometimes fain to shut it, on pretence of dozing. Mrs Pipchin had an old black cat, who generally lay coiled upon the centre foot of the fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire until the contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The good old lady might have been—not to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... full of sweet, mingled eventide sounds as I walked back to the house. Aunt Lucy was knitting on the verandah. Gussie brought out cake and milk and chatted to us while we ate, in an inconsequent girlish way, or fed bits of cake to a green-eyed goblin in the likeness of a black cat. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... flickered in the shrine lamps before each altar, but it was early yet and for the moment no mass was being said. An old, white-haired monk was sweeping the worn pavement. He was swathed in a blue linen apron, and his rusty brown frock was tucked up about his ankles. A lean black cat followed him, mewing, and now and then he stopped his work to stroke it. There was a great stack of chairs by the door, and a few were scattered about the aisles and occupied by stray worshippers, women with ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... trying to tell you just now, only you didn't seem to be listening—a black cat ran across my path only this afternoon.' He smiled, gratified ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... ken the breed o' them, for they will be sore feart o' clean burn-water, but they'll be coorieing ower a fire a' day, and talking to the black cat, and I had it in my mind to be turning when I saw her, for did she not come into the byre at Dyke-end when the beasts were at their fother, and she stood and she ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... to the grave in a coffin covered with a black velvet pall. The worthy man, astonished and half-frightened at so strange a pageant, hastened home and told what he had seen to his wife and children. Scarce had he finished, when a great black cat that sat beside the fire raised himself up, exclaimed "Then I am king of the cats!" and vanished up the chimney. The funeral seen by the gude man, was ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... her silver rays, the long entry of the Ortlieb house, with its lofty ceiling, was illumined only by the light of three lanterns, which struggled dimly through horn panes. The shining dots in a dark corner of the spacious corridor were the eyes of a black cat, watching ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ideals possibly inspired in some forgotten tune by the charm of an Indian dancing-girl. Shelved against the naked brickwork above, I could perceive multitudes of lesser shapes: demon figures with eyes that burned through the dark like the eyes of a black cat, and figures half man, half bird, winged and beaked like ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... the luxurious humor of the moment and the calm of the snow-fall, and made my reverie one of the perfectest things in the world. When I was lost the deepest in it, I was inexpressibly touched and gratified by the appearance of a black cat at the dormer-window. In Venice, roofs commanding pleasant exposures seem to be chiefly devoted to the cultivation of this animal, and there are many cats in Venice. My black cat looked wonderingly upon the snow for a moment, and then ran across the roof. Nothing could have been better. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... gaze was certainly not a little amusing. On the top of a log which we sometimes used as a table sat the black cat with a very demure expression on its countenance, and in front of it, sitting on the ground with his legs extended on either side of the log, was Peterkin. At the moment we saw him he was gazing intently into the cat's face, with his nose about four inches from it, his hands being thrust into ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... reasons. That old Frenchman, descendant of Jean Lafitte, was no fool. What does he in this burial of treasure? Ah! He takes him a white parrot, a black cat and a live monkey, and these three, all of them, he buries on top of the treasure-box and covers all with earth and grass above the earth. And then above the grave he says such a malediction upon any who may disturb it as would alone frighten to the death any person ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... It was market-day on Thursday, and the two sovereigns in his pocket stood for his banking account. They would last for twenty minutes, if his luck were out, and he would never forgive himself. But at that moment a black cat crossed the footpath rapidly in front of him, and his courage revived. That made the third tonight. Men were slipping in at the door of the school, which was guarded by a sentinel. Chook, being unknown, waited till he saw an acquaintance, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... showed a light behind them; in it there stood a lamp, and beside it, seated at a table, was a dear old ruddy-faced woman in a country cap. She was bending over her knitting and stopping occasionally to stroke a large black cat upon a ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "A little black cat with white shirt-front," babbled George perseveringly. "She's usually either here or there, or—or somewhere. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... in the little stove crackled; the water in the little kettle spluttered; a gaunt black cat crowded his way through the poorly fastened door and rubbed himself against Tim's legs, whereat the widow threw a stick of ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... break somewan's back here yet, an' I'm tellin' you that sthraight. They say a black cat's full av th! divil, but Diablo's ould Nick hisself, though I'm sayin'it was th' b'y Shandy's fault sp'ilin' him. An' if it wasn't fer Miss Allis it's a pity you couldn't a-sold him the Chestnut. He's ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... of a fisher, and he examined it as one does any animal—or man—that one has so long heard described in superlative terms that it has become idealized into a semi-myth. This was the desperado of the woods; the weird black cat that feared no living thing. This was the only one that could fight and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... pursuers, but only two young fellows chatting and laughing over the dismay of the cook, for he had called to them that if they saw a big goat, small dog and black cat to run over them and kill them ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... rather than a bhut. It is believed that some women have the power to change their soul into a black cat, who then goes about in the houses where there are sick people. Such a cat has a peculiar way of mewing, quite different from its brethren, and is easily recognised. It steals quietly into the house, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... was conscious of this in the dream), and was determined to have her revenge, and prevent us carrying out our plan. She had hypnotized my wife, and had her scared so that she was in great mental agony. I heard her saying, "Now you are a big black cat," or something much like this, at any rate making her think she was a cat and at the same time leaving her partly conscious of who she was. This woman looked exactly like a woman who lives in the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... was old Pomp, called "old" to distinguish him from the young Pomp of to-day, or "Pompanita." He died of pneumonia at the age of three years; but he was the handsomest black cat—and the blackest—I have ever seen. He had half a dozen white hairs under his chin; but his blackness was literally like the raven's wing. Many handsome black cats show brown in the strong sunlight, or when their fur is parted. But old Pomp's fur was jet black clear through, ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... But as soon as I laid eyes on that air man, I says, says I, that air man, says I, has got the shingles, says I. I know'd the minute I seed it. And if they'd gone clean around, nothing could a saved him. I says, says I, git me a black cat. So I jist killed a black cat, and let the blood run all over the swellin'. I tell you, doctor, they's nothin' like it. That man was well ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... nice people. They have a little pug dog. There was a black cat in the yard, and the dog ran after it. It seemed as if the cat was crazy. It dragged its hind legs behind it, and pulled them with its front legs, and crawled under the barn before the dog got ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... of state troops and constabulary, the Chief of Police, the Mayor himself, and some representatives of the conservative element of organized labor. Quiet men, these last, uneasy and anxious, as ignorant as the others of which way the black cat, the symbol of sabotage and destruction, would jump. The majority of their men would stand for order, they declared, but there were some who would go over. They urged, to offset that reflection on their organization that the proletariat of the city ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... First Thessalonians; Second Thessalonians, he's dead an' gone to the Bad Place 'cause he skunt a cat,—I don't mean skin the cat on a actin' role like me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln does,—he skunt a sho' 'nough cat what was a black cat, what was a ole witch, an' she come back an' ha'nt him an' he growed thinner an' thinner an' weasler an' weasler, tell finely he wan't nothin' 't all but a skel'ton, an' the Bad Man won't 'low nobody 't all to give his parch' tongue no water, an' he got to, ever after amen, be toast ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... of a large black cat with one eye, and a parrot which he had caught and tamed and educated himself in the course of one of his voyages, and which uttered a variety of sea-phrases with the hoarse brattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The establishment reminded me of that of the renowned ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... And some way farther down (at the corner of White Street) is a jolly old tavern which looked so antique and inviting that we went inside. Little tables piled high with hunks of bread betokened the approaching lunch hour. A shimmering black cat winked a drowsy topaz eye from her lounge in the corner. We asked for cider. There was none, but our gaze fell upon a bottle marked "Irish Moss." We asked for some, and the barkeep pushed the bottle forward ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... has been sunk. It would seem almost as if we were back in the Middle Ages when witches were burned because they kept black cats. There seems no more reason why a black stoker should be an ill omen for the Titanic than a black cat should be for an ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... I went quickly up the garden-path. The little widow was waiting for me in the porch, her face beaming with welcome. Tinker rushed out of the kitchen as soon as he heard my voice, and gambolled round us with awkward demonstrations of joy that nearly upset us, and Joe the black cat came and rubbed himself against my gown, with tail erect and ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... our black cat, goes under the trees where the little birds are, the old bird flies down, pecks him on the back, and looks very angry. Pluto looks as if he would like to eat her at ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... wait. Presently I heard a scratching at a door opposite to that by which I had entered the room. There was a murmured word or so, then the door opened, and Dom Antoine de Mouchy stepped in, bearing in his arms an immense black cat. Where the afternoon sunlight shone warmly on the carved chest he placed the beast, stroking its back once or twice, and then turned, and stood for a moment ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... impudent stare which possibly amuses rather than displeases his wife, he tells Eleanor she has had enough, and rises to signify departure. Lothario is still covering Clytie with his gaze. She pauses to caress a lean black cat with hungry eyes, that has crept in unobserved from the street. Hurriedly emptying a jug of cream in her saucer, Eleanor is about to present it to the plaintiff stranger. Tom, however, scents the cream, springs on his hind legs, and upsets ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... one,) pointed her stick at her, and muttered some strange words which sounded like "Buggara wuggera boogle jum, Hobble-gobble!" She said this last word suddenly and sharply, and Polly was quite startled; but fancy her alarm when a large black cat crept out from beneath the red cloak, and sitting down on his mistress's knee, looked up in her face with an air of unearthly sagacity, and poor Polly fell back in her chair, unable to move hand or foot. There she sat, motionless, but perfectly conscious, watching this dreadful ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... Tom rose upon his hind feet, clawed the air futilely and came down sheepishly upon all fours. Next, a small, nimble black cat jumped and fell short of the bait. Uncle Ike snickered, and I drew in my breath excitedly, as the pampered exquisite, My Lady Preciosa, tripped mincingly into the open. The moon shone out obligingly to ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... touches if ye can). 'Suddenly an animal, a strange animal, came by, something like a mad bull' (of course you can enlarge or diminish the animal as required; in the mist of night I have found a black cat very telling). 'She saw the vision quite plainly. It passed, touched her, there was a word in the air whose significance she was unable to determine, and in the morning the friend was well—or dead.' For conversational ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... the aged house. A black cat sat on the porch thoughtfully polishing her countenance with the back of one paw. Three diminutive parti-coloured kittens frisked and rolled and toddled around her; and occasionally she seized one and washed it ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... on the ridge pole of the next roof, sat a black cat, big and terrible against the sky. "Ma-a-uw," said the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... of grimy backyards, where the sooty trees were making a fight with the spring, and putting forth a rash of buds like green points of electric light: the same sort of light that showed in the eyes of a black cat seasonably appearing under them. Inquiries into English civilization can always wait, but such passing effects stay for no man, and I put them down roughly in behalf of a futile philosopher who ought to have studied ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... women were unkind in what they said about people the Fates—I have told you another story about the Fates—the Fates to punish them turned them into wolves. The Wolf Charmer, who really is the old gypsy who killed the black cat of the village witch, goes out into the night. The owl calls the wolves to attack the gypsy. But the gypsy knew the old women before they were turned into wolves so he calls them by name: "Kate, Anne, and Bee!" And soon ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... superstition, being all idolaters; insomuch that upon the most frivolous motives they will give over the most important enterprises: Thus the king of Quiloa failed to meet Don Francisco de Almeyda, because a black cat crossed his way when going out. The cattle, fruit, and grain are answerable to the wildness of the country. The Moors or Arabs, who inhabit this coast and the adjacent islands, seldom cultivate the ground, and mostly subsist on wild beasts and several loathsome things. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... engineer goin' to work the other day and a black cat run in front of him, and he went back 'cause he said he would have a wreck with his train if he didn't. So you see, the white folks believes in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... am powerful strong. Iffen you chews on it and spits a ring round de person what you wants somethin' from, you gwine git it. You can git more money or a job or most anythin' dat way. I had a black cat bone, too, but it ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... black cat! hey, my pretty black cat! Go ye and sit on Goody Corey's breast, and claw her if she stirs. Do as I bid ye, my pretty black cat, and ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... don't know. They," said Psmith, indicating the rest with a wave of the hand, "don't know. Nobody knows. His locality is as hard to ascertain as that of a black cat in a coal-cellar on a moonless night. Shortly before I joined this journal, Mr. Wilberfloss, by his doctor's orders, started out on a holiday, leaving no address. No letters were to be forwarded. He was to enjoy complete rest. Where is ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... young artist had no paint-brushes; nor were there any to be bought, unless he had sent to Philadelphia on purpose. However, he was a very ingenious boy, aid resolved to manufacture paint- brushes for himself. With this design he laid hold upon—what do you think? Why, upon a respectable old black cat, who was sleeping quietly by ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had the five thousand and a few odd dollars, and all Bill Bassett had was the wanderlust and a black cat he had bought for a mascot. Bill shook hands with me when ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... every stick there's a witch astride, The string you see to her leg is tied. She will do a mischief if she can, But the string is held by a careful man, And whenever the evil-minded witch Would cut come caper, he gives a twitch. As for the hag, you can't see her, But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr, And now and then, as a car goes by, You may catch a gleam from ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... about, very sick at heart, he saw a little black cat running madly back and forth along the edge of a steep cliff from one of whose crevices came a persistent, unhappy mewing. The poor cat was a mother-cat, and was trying to rescue a kitten of hers that had fallen ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... her own application to studies, going to and from the Owl's Nest, "like clockwork, you little grinder!" as the boy expressed it, making his awkward admission to her on Christmas Eve, the two wreathing the house with holly and evergreens. This was something which Carlo and Smut the black cat thought it their duty to look into, to judge from the way they pryingly inspected the monster heap of greenery in the wide passage, where the boy and girl worked, making Inna laugh and laugh again, till her uncle ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... Trees and bushes crowned the wall, and above again towered the lofty houses on whose massive beauty Time has only set the hand of approval. The sun was hot and we were lazy; time was our own, and we lingered, leaning on the wall. Just below us was a pretty sight—a great black cat lying stretched in the sun, whilst round her gambolled prettily a tiny black kitten. The mother would wave her tail for the kitten to play with, or would raise her feet and push away the little one as an encouragement to further play. They were just at the ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... of the air plants; I must have something more substantial than sentiment, or I should pine with green and yellow hunger, not melancholy. I never cried but once, that I recollect, and that was when a favorite black cat of mine was killed,—maliciously, villanously killed, by an old maid, just because she devoured her favorite Canary. No, with the daughter of ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... stone flags, and small, barred windows upon the farther wall. In the centre of this room, lying in the middle of a golden patch of sunlight, there was stretched a huge creature, as large as a tiger, but as black and sleek as ebony. It was simply a very enormous and very well-kept black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of light exactly as a cat would do. It was so graceful, so sinewy, and so gently and smoothly diabolical, that I could not take my eyes ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... discovered; he was perhaps not aware that the jaguar of Brazil, which comes next to the tiger, has been found black (Felis nigra of Erxleben). A black tiger would be a prize. General MacMaster relates that he once watched a fine black cat basking in the sun, and noticed that in particular lights the animal exhibited most plainly the regular brindled markings of the ordinary gray wild or semi-wild cat. These markings were as black or blacker than the rest of his hair. His mother ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... sign, no movement, from the crowd. Across the fields came the sharpening of a scythe, the cry of the grasshoppers, and the sound of a mill-wheel arose near by. In the mill itself, far up in a deep dormer window, sat Parpon with his black cat, looking down upon the scene ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... some time, the Fairy said to him, "To-morrow I will show you another kite, more wonderful than these. I will make it so, that it will draw down the electricity from the sky. Have you ever rubbed a cat's fur the wrong way, in the dark?" "Oh, that I have! it's great fun. There's our black cat, at home, I have often done it to her, and I can see the sparks in cold weather." "Well, that is electricity, and there is electricity in every thing, only some objects have more than others. When you ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... Seems like he'd been war correspondent in the Boer war, and the Spanish-American, an' Gawd knows where. He spoke low, not usin' any big words, either, an' I thought his eyes looked somethin' like those of the Black Cat up on the mantel just over his head—you know what I mean, when the electric lights is turned on in-inside{sic} the ugly thing. Well, every time he showed signs of stoppin', one of the boys would up with a question, and start him goin' again. He knew everybody, an' everything, an' ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the high court of Arras, but the fool judge decided that it was a mole, and not a witch-mark! I escaped a red gown that time, however. I laughed at his stupidity, and bewitched him for it in earnest. I was young and pretty then! He died in a year, and Satan sat on his grave in the shape of a black cat until his friends set a cross over it. I like to be a woman, I do, it is so easy to be wicked, and so nice! I always tell the girls that, and they give me twice as much as if I had told them to be good and nice, as they ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... thing with many feet, black of colour, rough with hair, the bigness of a cat'; her daughter, Margaret Waite, had as 'her spirit, a white cat spotted with black, and named Inges'; Jennet Dibble had 'her spirit in the shape of a great black cat called Gibbe, which hath attended her now above 40 years'; Dibble's daughter, Margaret Thorpe, had a 'familiar in the shape of a bird, yellow of colour, about the bigness of a crow—the name of it is Tewhit'; Elizabeth Dickenson's spirit was 'in the likeness of a white ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... crackling and snapping of fire, and in the absence of a candle emitted sparks of a pale whitish blue light, similar to the flashes produced by cutting loaf-sugar in the dark, or stroking the back of a black cat: the same effect was also produced when I combed ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Magazine All-Story Weekly American Boy Argosy Black Cat (except Sept.) Christian Herald Cosmopolitan Harper's Bazar Hearst's Magazine Live Stories McCall's Magazine McClure's Magazine Magnificat Munsey's Magazine Parisienne Queen's Work Red Book Magazine Short Stories Smart Set Snappy Stories To-day's Housewife Woman's Home Companion (except ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that in some respects the panic bore a likeness to those that had preceded. The spirits, which took extraordinary and bizarre forms, were the offspring of the same perverted imaginations, but they had assumed new shapes. Ursley Kemp kept a white lamb, a little gray cat, a black cat, and a black toad. There were spirits of every sort, "two little thyngs like horses, one white, the other black'"; six "spirits like cowes ... as big as rattles"; spirits masquerading as blackbirds. One spirit strangely enough remained invisible. It will be observed by the reader that the spirits ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... viewing each other gravely as they waited. On the table there were now only some dirty plates, Mme Bron having recently distributed the last of the bouquets. A single fallen rose was withering on the floor in the neighborhood of the black cat, who had lain down and curled herself up while the kittens ran wild races and danced fierce gallops among the gentlemen's legs. Clarisse was momentarily inclined to turn La Faloise out. The idiot wasn't fond of animals, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... does swar," said woolly-headed Mandy. "I hearn him yesterday, at dinner. I hearn all about it then, 'cause I got into the closet where Missis keeps the great jugs, and I hearn every word." And Mandy, who had never in her life thought of the meaning of a word she had heard, more than a black cat, now took airs of superior wisdom, and strutted about, forgetting to state that, though actually coiled up among the jugs at the time specified, she had been fast asleep all ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... threshold of the room stood a huge black cat with bristling tail and fiery eyes. It seemed as though he would dispute the entrance of the strangers, and Cuthbert said to himself that he had never seen an uglier-looking brute of the kind since the monster wildcat ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... hand. She seemed to fear nothing, and to be intent only on obtaining possession of some coveted treasure. As she pulled out the drawer, she was startled by a very unexpected incident. A great black cat, suddenly released from imprisonment, sprang out of the drawer, and, terrified by the appearance of the naughty girl, ran around the room several times, and then disappeared through an open window. The cat was a stranger to her; it was not a Woodville cat; and, though Fanny was not frightened, ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... what's called Catnip; sure Oi moind well the day Oi furst larned about that. It warn't a Injun nor a docther nor a man at all, at all, that larned me that. It was that ould black Cat, an' may the saints stand bechuxt me an' his grane eyes! Bejabers, sometimes he scares me wid his knowin' ways, but I hev nothin' agin him except that he kills the wee burruds. He koind o' measled all wan ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... fond of her in a way, and he is anxious to obey the last wish of his father. But it seems to me that he is more in love with that black cat." ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... according to Fleury, in A.D. 1233, were certain unruly fenmen, who refused to pay tithes, committed great cruelties on religious of both sexes, worshipped, or were said to worship, a black cat, etc., considered the devil as a very ill-used personage, and the rightful lord of themselves and the world, and were of the most profligate morals. An impartial and philosophic investigation of this and other early continental heresies is ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... of the cottage, there was no one to be seen within. The fire was burning hot and flameless; a three-footed pot stood half in it; other sign of presence they saw none. As Alister stooped searching for some implement to serve their need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back, and disappeared. The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... studies and become a doctor or an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring beside ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and even intimate, terms, was working with him, and apparently under his close and constant supervision. A thrush with very bright eyes looked on from an adjacent elder bush. Upon the wall, near the end of the Bishop's Palace, a black cat was sunning itself and lazily attending to ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... man with a long beard creeping out of the forest, carrying a sack bigger than himself. The women and children ran by his side, weeping and trying to drag the sack from off his back, but he shook them off, and went on his way. There was also a tale of a magnificent black cat as large as a foal, but men could not believe all the wonders told by the peasant, and it was difficult to make out what was true and what was false in his story. However, the fact remained that strange things did ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... highly to her sense of humor. With a hoarse chuckle she was about to close the window when a portion of the shadow that lay alongside the chimney showed signs of life, and, rising on four long and skinny legs, became a cat—a lean, black cat, which crept meekly toward the window, its phosphorescent eyes gleaming, its lank jaws parted in a vain effort to mew. Startled, old Marg drew back for an instant; then, glancing from the animal to the pavement below, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... go, left it hanging, and sat down on a great stone, with her black cat, which had followed her all round the cave, by her side. Then she began to knit and mutter awful words. The snake hung like a huge leech, sucking at the stone; the cat stood with his back arched, and his tail like a piece of cable, looking up at the snake; and ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... black cat doesn't cover himself with talcum powder and make believe he's a white kid glove going to a dance, I'll tell you next about ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... Bohemian restaurant in the quarter is the Black Cat. It is not really more typical than the others,—indeed it is rather less so,—but it is extremely striking, and most conspicuous. There is, in the minds of the hypercritical, the sneaking suspicion that the Black Cat is almost too good to be true; it is too obviously and ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... streamed down upon them through the broad, straight flue. The pot that hung from the clumsy iron crane was boiling sleepily, and if the curious visitor could have peeped into it he would have seen that the little cabbage bed in the garden had contributed of its produce to the pot-au-feu. An old black cat was sitting as close to the fire as he could without singeing his whiskers, and gravely watching the simmering pot with longing eyes. His ears had been closely cropped, and he had not a vestige of a tail, so that he looked like one of those grotesque Japanese ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... salutary realities of existence. If Poe be fully as gifted, he is, for this reason, less sanely endowed. It may be conceded that he is not always as shudderingly sardonic and removed from human sympathy as in "The Cask of Amontillado" or "The Black Cat"; yet it is no exaggeration to affirm that he is nowhere more typical, more himself. On the contrary, in a tale like "The Birth Mark," what were otherwise the horror and ultra-realism of it, is tempered by and merged in the suggestion ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... yard one after the other, keeping close to the wall, and taking the greatest precautions to avoid wetting their paws. They peeped into the stable, and then stalked up to the sleeping girl, and lay down, purring, close by her. Moumou, the big black cat, curled itself up close to her cheek, and ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... sensation-mongers, and the baffled fury of Grandier. So far the play, if melodramatic, had not approached the tragic. Sometimes it degenerated to the broadest farce comedy. Thus, on one occasion when the devil was being read out of the mother superior, a crashing sound was heard and a huge black cat tumbled down the chimney and scampered about the room. At once the cry was raised that the devil had taken the form of a cat, a mad chase ensued, and it would have gone hard with pussy had not a nun chanced to recognize in it the pet ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... walk, dad, after school, out in the lanes; we saw a big black cat, and t' dogs chased her into a tree, then we got 't a pond, and d'ye know, dad, Bess went in and swam about, ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... old man with a long beard came out of the wood, carrying a sack longer than himself. The women and children shouted out, and ran to meet him, dancing round him, and trying to pull the sack off his back; but the old man shook himself free. After this, a black cat as large as a foal, which had been sitting on the doorstep glaring with fiery eyes, leaped upon the old man's sack, and then disappeared in the cottage. But as the spectator's head ached and everything swam before his eyes, his report was not clear, and people could not quite ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... old—fellow—come, let us go" 68 "See how tall they've grown" 69 "They called the cats" 70 "The Essex people had dreadful times" 71 "The withered hags were free" 72 "A strange sea-monster stole their bait" 74 "They could hear him twenty miles" 75 "They came ... at their master's call" 76 "You can hear her black cat's purr" 78 "Catch a gleam from her wicked eye" ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the cottage, and by a general plebiscitum, ransacked the little dwelling, partly in indignation, and partly, if the truth be told, in the hope of plunder; but plunder there was none. Lucy had decamped with all her movable wealth, saving the huge black cat among the embers, who at the sight of the bloodhound vanished up the chimney (some said with a strong smell of brimstone), and being viewed outside, was chased into the woods, where she lived, I doubt not, many happy years, a scourge to all ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... contemptuous laugh from one or two of the new hands, but the oldsters began shifting sundry articles which depended from their belts into positions from which they might be handled at the shortest notice; and the black cat, more wise than any of them, having drunk his fill, stalked solemnly out into the security ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... Derek felt that it would be glorious to be attacked by night-birds in this dark, lonely street, to have a splendid fight and drive them off, showing himself to Nedda for a man, and her protector. But nothing save one black cat came near, and that ran for its life. He bent round and looked under the blue veil-thing that wrapped Nedda's head. Her face seemed mysteriously lovely, and her eyes, lifted so quickly, mysteriously true. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Leonards Kirche. Wilhelmine seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, and there were not wanting murmurers among the Duchess's servitors who averred that witches had ever been able to vanish at will, and that probably 'the Graevenitzin' would return in the form of a black cat or a serpent, and suddenly change into a woman again when it suited her. They were all in a flutter of superstitious excitement; and Maria the maid, who loved Wilhelmine, went about with reddened eyes, and was ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... at once. He seated himself, curled his tail into a graceful ring around his paws—and stared at the boy. It was a large black cat with one white spot on his chest. His fur lay sleek and soft, and shone in the sunlight. The claws were drawn in, and the eyes were a dull gray, with just a little narrow dark streak down the centre. The cat ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... a chair and thence to the table, but so quietly that the large black cat with four white paws, called Muff, because she was so fat and soft and her fur so long, who sat dozing in front of the fire, just opened one eye and went to sleep again. She had tried to get her nose into the milk jug, but it was too small; and the junket dish was too deep for ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... inner society, bound to be the enemies of all that was holy, into which they were admitted upon their reviling and denying their faith, and committing outrages on the cross and the images of the saints. It was further said that they worshipped the devil in the shape of a black cat, and wore his image on a cord round their waists; that they anointed a great silver head with the fat of murdered children; that they practised every kind of sorcery, performed mass improperly, never went to confession, and had ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... rejection I still kept on writing fresh stuff. I did not know what an editor looked like. I did not know a soul who had ever published anything. Finally a story was accepted by a Californian magazine, for which I received five dollars. Soon afterwards "The Black Cat" offered me forty dollars for ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... warned against the malicious Gorgonzola. She also was invited, but she neither came to the banquet nor received her present; but as soon as all the others were seated at table, after bestowing their gifts upon the little Princess, she stole into the Palace, disguised as a black cat, and hid herself under the cradle until the nurses and the cradle-rockers had all turned their backs, and then she sprang out, and in an instant had stolen the little Princess's heart and made her escape, only being chased by a few dogs and ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... the evening when I first entered the house. Sir Jervis took me into the dining-room—and there sat Miss Redwood, with a large black cat on her lap. Older than her brother, taller than her brother, leaner than her brother—with strange stony eyes, and a skin like parchment—she looked (if I may speak in contradictions) like a living ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... camera, and being careful to take a safe position, as did all the boys, I told Takahashi I was ready to photograph him and his skunk. He got a pole that was too short to suit me, and he lifted up the box-trap. A furry white and black cat appeared, with remarkably bushy tail. What a beautiful little animal to bear such opprobrium! "All same like cat," said Takahashi. "Kittee—kittee." It appeared that kitty was not in the least afraid. On the contrary she surveyed the formidable ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... him adrift. The ship's company knew that long afore; for it was not a few that he had cheated, and we were all glad to see him and his traps handed down the side. Now, sir, this here fellow had a black cat—but it warn't at all like other cats. When it was a kitten, they had cut off his tail close to its starn, and his ears had been shaved off just as close to his figure-head, and the hanimal used to set up on his hind legs and fight like a rabbit. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... made a tiny wound. Just as she had told this tale, the lay sister, as if to prevent all commentary, was seized with convulsions, and Barre recommenced his prayers and exorcisms, but was soon interrupted by shrieks; for one of the persons present had seen a black cat come down the chimney and disappear. Instantly everyone concluded it must be the devil, and began to seek it out. It was not without great difficulty that it was caught; for, terrified at the sight of so many people and at the noise, the poor animal had sought refuge ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... very black eyes, and so thin that he is only skin and bones. He kisses him, and feels that he is cold as ice. After this kiss, the novice easily forgets the Catholic faith; afterwards they hold a feast together, after which a black cat comes down behind a statue, which usually stands in the room ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... in her ears she wore a pair of long gold-dropped earrings, similar to what one sees among the Norman peasantry—the gift, as I afterwards learned, of a drowned lover. After scrutinising us for a second or two, during which time a large black cat kept walking to and fro, purring and rubbing itself against her, she held back the door and beckoned us to enter. The little place was cleanly swept up, and a faggot and some dry brushwood, which she had just lighted for the purpose of boiling ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... terrible!" gasped the tramp. "I didn't know this farmer kept a trained lion as a watchdog. I knew he had a black cat, but not a lion. Oh, ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... not a cat! Instantly Amos fixed upon Larry as the responsible cause of the calamity,—Larry, who is so soaked in a species of folk-lore, blended of tradition, imagination, and high spirits that, after hearing him talk, it is easy to believe that he deals in magic by the aid of a black cat, and unfortunately the cat brought in by David was ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... answered, "You do not know, it seems, that she is possessed by Genie Maimoun, the son of Dimdim, who is fallen in love with her. But I know well how this good head of the dervises may cure her; the thing is very easy, and I will tell it you. He has a black cat in his convent, with a white spot at the end of her tail, about the bigness of a small piece of English money; let him only pull seven hairs out of this white spot, burn them, and smoke the princess's head with the fume, she will not only be presently cured, but ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown
... cat in a ditch— The dear black cat of Anna the witch; Upon me, at night, seven were-wolves came down, Seven women they were, from ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... the heavier stride of Ann, and knew that the little old lady who entered, fresh and tidy as a clean withered apple, was their mother. She had a pan of new-picked peas in one arm and a saucer of milk balanced in the other hand, plainly the breakfast for the sleek black cat that bounded in beside her. This she set carefully on a flagstone corner before she noticed her visitor, it seemed, and yet she did not appear startled at company, and showed all of the younger women's untroubled ease as she explained that a message from Dr. Stanchon had called them both ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... lack of sense of the fitness of things that would make the average reporter scribble away for dear life, if, when the President's message on the tariff was being read in Congress, a large black cat had happened to walk up the aisle of the House and jumped on the back of Speaker Cannon. Such an occurrence, I venture to say, would have commanded more space in the next morning's papers than any pearls cast before Congress by the President in ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... hang on." "Strike from the shoulder." "A kick for a blow, always bestow." "When you get a good thing, keep it—keep it." "When you get a black cat, skin it to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... of "treating," he would say, "Send it in, my boy, send it in, I'll see what can be done with it." There was a long counter, and the way to be published by Mr B. was to straddle on the counter and play with a black cat. There was an Irishman behind this counter who, for three pounds a week, edited the magazine, read the MS., looked after the printer and binder, kept the accounts and entertained the visitors. I did not trouble ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... prospectin' outfit all ready—he allers has—up to Black Cat Camp. That's the startin'-point for the Rodman trail, on which the Landslide Mine an' my mine was located. Now we haven't any outfit, so we'll have to git one right ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... and quiet upon the ground floor. In the kitchen a kettle was singing on the fire, and a large black cat lay coiled up in the basket; but there was no sign of the woman whom I had seen before. I ran into the other room, but it was equally deserted. Then I rushed up the stairs, only to find two other rooms empty and deserted at the top. There was no one at all in the whole ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... once saw a black cat perched on the shoulder of an innocent, chattering old gran'ma. The next day a neighbor had a convulsion; and Cotton Mather went forth and exorcised Tabby with a hymn-book, and hanged gran'ma by the neck, high on Gallows ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... should collect for baking purposes, we had made a semicircular wall of stones. The nearest available stones, quartz boulders from the blow, were used, and so it came about that we had a gold-studded fireplace! We used to have a curious visitor from the caves—a small black cat, which was tame enough to wander between our legs as we sat round the fire, but too wary to be caught. I can hardly imagine a prospector carrying a cat as companion, and yet how else did it get there? Its shyness inclined us ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... And Margery's black cat came and mewed to me, and rubbed itself against my pinafore, and walked up and down with me till I went in and got the "Ancient Mariner" and my little chair, and came back and read ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... naturally well-tuned soul, gave a beautiful and harmonious expression to her whole being. Whatever she did, she did well, and with grace; and whatever she wore became her; it was a kind of proverb in the family, that if Eva were to put a black cat on her ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... leading his bride through the chapel at the conclusion of the ceremony, when his attention was caught by something outside one of the windows. At first he thought it was a black cat curled up in some impossible fashion, but soon saw it was a dark human face. And that face he discovered to be Mr. Pike's, peering ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... everyday things to him, but in the second week of his winter work he got a sudden thrill. He was coming down the long hill back of Yancey's when what should he see there, sitting on its tail, shiny black with yellow eyes like a huge black cat unusually long and sharp in the nose, but a wonderful Silver Fox! Possibly the same as the one he saw at the Canyon, for that one he knew had disappeared and there were not likely to be two in the Park. Yes, it might be the same, and Josh's bosom surged with mingled feelings. Why did he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... that rare thing, a use of old material that is so inspired that it has the dignity of a new creation. The raw stuff of the plot is pieced together from the story of The Tell-tale Heart and the poem Annabel Lee. It has behind it, in the further distance, Poe's conscience stories of The Black Cat, and William Wilson. I will describe the film here at length, and apply it ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... an inner room, and closed the door behind her. In five minutes it opened again. She appeared in a dressing gown and with her feet in slippers. Her fine hair fell heavily about her shoulders; in her arms she held a beautiful black cat, with ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... gazer looks into a basin of water. In the visions of my subject, Lea, typical forms were pictured, which always recurred. Regarded as symbols they were, as subsequent analysis showed, almost all subjected to inward accentuation or intro-determination. Thus, for instance, a black cat appeared. At first it appeared as representative of Lea's grandmother, who was cat-like, malicious and fawning. Later the cat stood for the corresponding traits that she perceived in herself. Above all the cat is the symbol of her grandmother, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... was just thinking of going down to see your camp," he said with a grin, "but I didn't know the way exactly. I'm glad you happened along. I've got the left hind foot of a rabbit that was caught by a black cat at midnight, in the dark of the moon, in a negro cemetery, on the grave of a black man who was hanged for murder. Guess that's brought ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... one of them without telling the crew that the ship would never return to port. He had had dreams about it, and the black cat had mewed when he left home, and he saw the three magpies in a tree hard by when he stepped from the door, and many other portents of that kind. The first time he well-nigh scared some of the crew, but after the first voyage—from which we came ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... with the glow of it as she threw open the window, and as she paused for a moment with palms on the sill, she looked down into the deepening shadows of back passages and alleys, nooks and recesses, where lurked ash and garbage cans and heaps of rubbish. A black cat came slinking around the corner of an old gray-brick stable, disappeared for a moment in a passage, and a moment later she saw him spring to the top of a rotting board fence, pause, and then lightly let himself down into the shadow of the other side. And just a hundred feet to the ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... to find a curious fascination in Mrs. Pipchin. He would sit by the hour before the fire looking steadily at her, where she sat with her old black cat beside her, till his gaze quite disturbed her. He did not care to play with other children—only with Florence, whom he called "Floy." Often, as they sat together on the beach, he would ask her what it ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... I became specially interested. The most important, and the one to whom I felt the place belonged by right of appreciating it, was a personage of dignified manners, and evidently of rank in his own world, a magnificent silver tabby, the beauty of the neighborhood. Next in interest was a white-and-black cat for whom I had sincere respect because she lived most amicably with two canaries whose cages were always within reach and never disturbed. The third was to my eyes anything but attractive, being a faded-looking gray tabby, who entered the place by ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... black cat that was curled comfortably on the skirt of her dress, and stroking him softly, resumed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... The bones are then taken to the creek and thrown in. The bone that goes up stream is the lucky bone and is the one that should be kept." "There is a boy in this neighborhood that sells liquor and I know they done locked him up ten or twelve times but he always git out. They say he carries a black cat bone," related ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... and Vanya there were Vladimir and Bayan. Vladimir was a cat, a big black cat, as stately as an emperor, and just now he was lying in Vanya's arms fast asleep. Bayan was a dog, a tall gray wolf-dog. He could jump over the table with a single bound. When he was in the hut he usually lay underneath the table, because that was the only place where he could lie without ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... yon'er on Still Water Creek, I got stalded an' stayed a week. I see'd Injun Puddin and Punkin pie, But de black cat stick 'em in de yaller ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... are shunted and shouted into the ring from the pen where they have been kept in the dark. Before we escaped her husband sold us some very vivid postal cards representing the sport; so that with the help of a large black cat holding the center of the ring, we felt that we had seen as much of a bull-fight ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... she seemed to be getting her own way, and her jealousy was allayed, Favorita was soft, and sweet, and affectionate as a little black cat. "Rosso is going to Hungary," she purred. "You can easily say you are going with him on his trip, whereas you ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... service clothes And flags flung out from tradesmen's doors; I saw some thousand drifting men Some thousand aimless women; I saw some thousand wearied eyes That caught no sparkle from the myriad lights Which blazoned everywhere; I saw a man stop in his walk To pet an old black cat. ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... Mart slipped up sometimes alone And drew the ladder in, to lie and moon Over some novel all the afternoon. And one time Johnty, from the crowd below,— Outraged to find themselves deserted so— Threw bodily their old black cat up in The airy fastness, with much yowl and din. Resulting, while a wild periphery Of cat went circling to another tree, And, in impassioned outburst, Uncle Mart Loomed up, and thus relieved his ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... thought Aunt Peggy herself had flown at her, and she could hardly help calling for assistance, but making a great effort to recover her composure, she saw at a glance that it was Aunt Peggy's enormous black cat, who not only resembled her in color, but disposition. Jupiter, for that was the cat's name, did not make another grab, but stood with his back raised, glaring at her, while Phillis, breathing very short, sunk into Aunt Peggy's chair and wiped ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... for it to go and come, and in the meantime I tried my hand at short stories. I sold one to the "Overland Monthly" for five dollars. The "Black Cat" gave me forty dollars for another. The "Overland Monthly" offered me seven dollars and a half, pay on publication, for all the stories I should deliver. I got my bicycle, my watch, and my father's mackintosh ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... beats me," said Mrs. Eben with a sigh of perplexity. "You know that black cat we've had for two years? Eben and I have always made a lot of him, but Sara seemed to have a dislike to him. Never a peaceful nap under the stove could he have when Sara was home—out he must go. Well, a little spell ago he got his leg broke accidentally and we thought he'd have ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the community houses, big and substantial, but gauntly plain; their yellow paint, flaking and peeling here and there, shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning. Except for a black cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white doorstep, the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life. There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; a sort of emptiness, and a silence that ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... one of them, whose name I afterward learned was Jack, and who came next to Miss Laura in age, gave a low whistle and said, "Doesn't the old lady come out strong when any one or anything gets abused? I'll never forget the day she found me setting Jim on that black cat of the Wilsons. She scolded me, and then she cried, till I didn't know where to look. Plague on it, how was I going to know he'd kill the old cat? I only wanted to drive it out of the yard. Come on, let's look ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... watched her as a cat watches a mouse in a trap. Adrian had taken refuge in the place where he slept above. It was a dreary, vacuous chamber, that once had held stones and other machinery of the mill now removed, the home of spiders and half-starved rats, that a lean black cat hunted continually. Across its ceiling ran great beams, whereof the interlacing ends, among which sharp draughts whistled, lost themselves in gloom, while, with an endless and exasperating sound, as of a knuckle upon a board, the water ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... the door, where his horse was champing the bit, and pawing with impatience. Along the deserted streets, out of the sleeping town, he rode toward the long stone bridge that spanned the winding river. When he had reached the centre, his horse darted aside, because of the sudden leap of a black cat from the coping of the nearest pier, whence she sped on, keeping just ahead of him. The spectral sickle of a waning moon hung on the edge of the sky, and up and down the banks of the stream floated ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson |
