"Centaur" Quotes from Famous Books
... and in spite of the limpid springs in his eyes, Henri had a lion's courage, a monkey's agility. He could cut a ball in half at ten paces on the blade of a knife; he rode his horse in a way that made you realize the fable of the Centaur; drove a four-in-hand with grace; was as light as a cherub and quiet as a lamb, but knew how to beat a townsman at the terrible game of savate or cudgels; moreover, he played the piano in a fashion which would have enabled him to become an artist ... — The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... virago evidently spoke from a broad background of experience. She was at least half convincing. While the Captain repelled her charge against his quiet, hard-working brown helper, he admitted it against Cissie Dildine, whom he did not know. She was an animal, a female centaur, a wanton and a strumpet, as all negresses are wantons and strumpets. All white men in the South firmly believe that. They believe it with a peculiar detestation; and since they used these persons very profitably for a ... — Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... was as brave as he was gentle and jolly, and as hardy as he was brave. At five years old he killed his first fox; at seven he could manage his horse like a young centaur; and at twelve he had his first successful bear hunt. He was as obstinate as he was hardy; he steadily refused to learn Latin or French—the languages of the court—until he heard that the kings of Denmark and Poland understood them, and ... — The Junior Classics • Various
... prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline; which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other ... — The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... been considered the first edifice in Rome, next to the capitol, particularly for its fine collection of statues. The most remarkable among them were the Fighting Gladiator; Silenus and a Faun; Seneca, in black marble, or rather a slave at the baths; Camillus; the Hermaphrodite; the Centaur and Cupid; two Fauns, playing on the flute; Ceres; an Egyptian; a statue of the younger Nero; the busts of Lucius Verus, Alexander, Faustina and Verus; various relievos, among which was one representing Curtius; ... — Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Paddock to his daughter as they rode back, "if you love that young man of yours and want to keep him, make him promise to give up riding. A more reckless and more brilliant horseman I have never seen. He took that double jump at the gate and that stream like a centaur. But he will break his neck sooner or later, and he ought to be stopped." Young Paddock was so delighted with his prospective brother-in-law's great riding that that night in the smoking-room he made him a present of Satan before all ... — Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... case), that will not ensure a good effect, unless the mixture is harmonious and well-proportioned; it is possible that the resultant of two beauties may be bizarre. The readiest instance to hand is the centaur: not a lovely creature, you will admit, but a savage, if the paintings of its drunken bouts and murders go for anything. Well, but on the other hand is it not possible for two such components to result in beauty, as the combination of wine and honey ... — Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... science, there was one negative result and two positive. The first mentioned is a son Malcolm, whom I have not met. He has a commission in the cavalry, is a devil at billiards, can't read a map, and rides like a Centaur. ... — The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... gravely, "without being a demon; 'tis not a thing wholly incredible. Such creatures as God framed to have no part in Adam's heritage, these can no more be damned than they can be saved. I can never believe that the Centaur Cheiron, who was wiser than men are, is suffering eternal torments in the belly of Leviathan. A traveller who penetrated once into Limbo, relates how he saw him seated in a grassy spot and conversing with Rhipheus, the ... — The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... these lonely gossips tore to tatters every scrap of rumor. No citizen came or went without being studied, characterized, accounted for, and every woman was scrutinized as closely as a stray horse, and if there was within her, the slightest wayward impulse some lawless centaur came to know it, to exult over it, to make test of it. Her every word, her minutest expression of a natural coquetry was enlarged upon as a sign of weakness, of yielding. Every personable female was the focus of a natural desire, ... — The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys 80 In song, where Fame as yet hath left no sign Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine; Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye, But yields young History all to Harmony; A boy Achilles, with the Centaur's lyre In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire. For one long-cherished ballad's[378] simple stave, Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave, Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side, Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide, 90 Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear, Than ... — The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... taciturnity, without disturbing his reason. He was incapable of fear, of fatigue, of remorse. He could remain for days and nights without dismounting-eating, drinking, and sleeping in the saddle; so that to this terrible centaur his horse seemed actually a part of himself. His soldiers followed him about like hounds, and were treated by him like hounds. He habitually scourged them, often took with his own hand the lives of such as displeased him, and had been known to cause ... — The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The Centaur Nessus, in dying by the arrow of Heracles, which had been dipped in the venom of the Hydra, persuaded the bride Deanira, whose beauty was the cause of his death, to keep some of the blood from the wound as a love-charm for her husband. Many years afterwards, when Heracles was returning ... — The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... for there was a terrific and ever-increasing discharge of cannons and muskets on the left, and it seemed that the time to go forward again and win glory was at hand. Presently one came riding back from the battle. His face was shining with delight, and, sitting like a centaur to the fiery plunges of his horse, he swung his hat and shouted. It was Sedgwick's chief of staff, McMahon, and he brought glorious news, for he said that the corps was to move toward the heavy firing, where ... — Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... position, upon those in the neighbourhood of the autumnal equinox. By little more than a turn of my head I could see in one direction Polaris (alpha Ursae Minoris) with the Great Bear, and in another the Southern Cross, the Ship, and the Centaur. ... — Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... before an earthquake, and, casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that had started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his just stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was as the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had been cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He moved on, as if he could have made shift with yet half of the body-portion which was left him. The os sublime was not wanting; ... — The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... performance which he printed was a prose publication, entitled, the Centaur not fabulous, in six Letters to a Friend on the Life in Vogue. The conclusion is dated November 29, 1754. In the third letter is described the deathbed of the "gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont." His last words were, "my principles have ... — The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... all; Charlie on the roster though not in sight, the silken-satin standard well in view, rent and pierced, but showing seven red days of valor legended on its folds, and with that white-moustached old centaur, Maxime, still upholding ... — Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... broad, as his legs were too short. He was dressed in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting trousers; wore a shawl round his neck; smelt of lamp-oil, straw, orange-peel, horses' provender, and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded of the stable and the play-house. Where the one began, and the other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsman of ... — Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... half demoniac. On the first round his cap had fallen off, and the shaggy hair of his head and face streamed in the wind, adding greatly to the fierceness of his looks. He had perfect control of himself and horse, and rode like a centaur, ready to take any advantage which circumstances or guile threw in his way. He also had held in his horse with bit and bridle, reserving his best efforts for the closing part of ... — The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... short duration. In about half an hour admiral Boscawen's mizen-mast and topsail-yards were shot away, and the enemy hoisted all the sail they could carry. Mr. Boscawen having shifted his flag from the Namur to the Newark, joined some other ships in attacking the Centaur, of seventy-four guns, which, being thus overpowered, was obliged to surrender. The British admiral pursued them all night, during which the Souveraine and the Guerrier altered their course, and deserted their commander. At day-break, M. de la Clue, whose left leg had been broke in ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... organized, while the difficulties of the road drew heavily on the marching capacity—or rather incapacity—of the men. Straggling was then, and continued throughout to be, the vice of Southern armies. The climate of the South was not favorable to pedestrian exercise, and, centaur-like, its inhabitants, from infancy to old age, passed their lives on horseback, seldom walking the most insignificant distance. When brought into the field, the men were as ignorant of the art of marching as babes, and required ... — Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... reared upon a beautiful pedestal in the garden attracted him first. It proved to be the statue of a centaur. An inscription informed the unlearned visitor that it exactly represented Chiron, the beloved of Apollo and Diana, instructed by them in the mysteries of hunting, medicine, music, and prophecy. The inscription also bade the stranger look out at a certain ... — Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the singer, lying upon bear-skins and fragrant boughs, Cheiron the ancient Centaur, the wisest ... — Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... little gentleman, who domineered over the entire household, and would have been grievously spoilt, if his mother had not taken all the crossing the stout little will upon herself. He had a gallant pair of legs, and the disposition of a young Centaur, he seemed to divide the world into things that could be ridden on, and that could not; and when he bounced at the study door, with 'Papa! gee! gee!' and lifted up his round, rosy face, and despotic blue eyes, Mr. Kendal's foot ... — The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as much more beautiful in fact and seen full-size as I had hoped from all smaller reproductions. A fine equestrian figure always strikes one as enthroned, and not merely riding; if I can't get that, I consider a centaur the nobler creature with its human body set down into the socket of the brute, and all fire—a candle burning at both ends: which, in a way, is what ... — An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... at his best in a car, or, to put it another way, he was at his worst everywhere else. When he and Christina went out together they were only one entity. They were a centaur on wheels; Mr. Russell could feel the rushing of the road beneath his tyres, and I think if you had stuck a pin into the back seat, Mr. Russell would have known it. You could feel now the puzzled growl of Christina's ... — This Is the End • Stella Benson
... unprepared for this thunderbolt that fell in their midst. While forming his lines of battle, and while bullets were flying all around, General Kershaw came dashing down in front of his column, his eyes flashing fire, sitting his horse like a centaur—that superb style as Joe Kershaw only could—and said in passing us, "Now, my old brigade. I expect you to do your duty." In all my long experience, in war and peace, I never saw such a picture as Kershaw and his ... — History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... that place a heap of wreckage lay, Triglyphs and pediments and carven portals, With centaur, sphinx, chimera, satyrs gay— Figures of fabled monsters ... — The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... [1]Cheiron the Centaur lived in a cavern on Mount Pelion and was reputed to be the wisest of mortals. All the young heroes of the time, Jason, Achilles, and others, were his pupils and spent their boyhood with him. He is sometimes represented as having the head ... — Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... Jocelyn preserved one characteristic, an unerring instinct for field-sports that no amount of drinking could impair. He could hit a flying bird with a stone, was a deadly shot for snipe or mallard, rode like a centaur, and fished with the instinct of a heron. It is probable that his consciousness of this faculty was at the bottom of his startling recovery. Possibly he was frightened to find a little of his skill failing. I only know that at the ... — The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... reduce these [present evils], to your former [happy] state by a propitious change. Now it is fitting both to be bedewed with Persian perfume, and to relieve our breasts of dire vexations by the lyre, sacred to Mercury. Like as the noble Centaur, [Chiron,] sung to his mighty pupil: "Invincible mortal, son of the goddess Thetis, the land of Assaracus awaits you, which the cold currents of little Scamander and swift-gliding Simois divide: ... — The Works of Horace • Horace
... granite peak. Built of the strong rock from which it soars by the giant labor of the now dying Past, it seems during the lapse of centuries to have grown up from its stony heart, as the human breast grows from the broad back of the Centaur. A single banner streams above its lofty turret, the only banner of the Cross now raised on earth; the symbol of God's mystic love alone floats high enough to pierce into the unclouded blue of the ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of modern days, would have set at rest for ever the question as to the state of this art among the ancients. The subject was a favorite one with all artists of all ages,—from the world-famous Iliad: the story of the goddess-born Achilles. Here tutored by the wise Centaur, Chiron, in horsemanship and archery, and all that makes a hero; here tearing off the virgin mitre, to don the glittering casque proffered, with sword and buckler, among effeminate wares, by the disguised Ulysses; there wandering in the despondent gloom of injured pride along the stormy ... — The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... that by order of the Houses was to dance a morrice through the west of England. Well, he's a nimble gentleman; set him upon Banks his horse in a saddle rampant, and it is a great question which part of the Centaur shows ... — Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... remember me, and the poets sing my praise in immortal verse!" The strident wheels turned at the far end of the room and came back. The fantastic and frightful apparition, man and machinery blended in one—the new Centaur, half man, half chair—flew by me again in the dying light. "I am Shakespeare!" cried the frantic creature now. "I am writing 'Lear,' the tragedy of tragedies. Ancients and moderns, I am the poet who towers over them all. Light! light! the lines flow out like lava from the ... — The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... Nessus; but in both, your colours are dirty, carelessly dirty: in your distant hills you are improved, and not hard. The figures are too large—I don't mean in the Elizabeth Castle, for there they are neat; but the centaur, though he dies as well as Garrick can, is outrageous. Hercules and Deianira are by no means so: he is sentimental, and she most improperly sorrowful. However, I am pleased enough to beg you would continue. As soon as Mr. Muentz ... — Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... to decipher illegible inscriptions, to contemplate a throttled centaur on a dilapidated frieze, or a carved acanthus on a fallen capital, grope over the Acropolis and invoke Athenian Pallas," said Mike; "but for me these painted seraglios and terraced, bower-canopied gardens, vocal with nightingales and seeming to impregnate ... — Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... the chapel of S. John (not the lower church of S. John), at Siena, are ascribed to Quercia, and are in his manner; but when they were finished I do not know. They set forth six subjects from the story of Adam and Eve, with a compartment devoted to Hercules killing the Centaur Nessus, and another to Samson or Hercules and the Lion. The choice of subjects, affording scope for treatment of the nude, is characteristic; so is the energy of handling, though rude in detail. It may ... — Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... these there were other lesser gods, Bacchus, Isis, Hebe, the Muses and the Fates, etc.; also Sleep, Dreams and Death; and there were still others who had free will and intelligence, and having mixed forms, such as the Pegasus, or winged horse, the Centaur, half man and ... — Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... printed was a prose publication, entitled "The Centaur Not Fabulous, in Six Letters to a Friend on the Life in Vogue." The conclusion is dated November 29, 1754. In the third letter is described the death-bed of the "gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont." His last words were—"My principles have poisoned my friend, ... — Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... was all bone and sinew and muscle. He rode like a Centaur, as if he were a part of the horse, as easily and gracefully as a chip does the waves. The outlaw was furious with hate, blind with a madness that surged through it; but all its weaving and fence-rowing could not shake the perfect poise of the rider, nor tinge ... — A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... struggle for life. With a supreme effort some mariners would reach the board and eagerly scan the blue, transparent deep, hoping to see a naiad's pink shoulder flash in the hollow of an azure wave, or a drunken gay centaur dash along and in frenzy splash the wave with his hoof. But the sea was like a wilderness, and the deep ... — Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... Lord, An overmuch severeness, I repeat, When faith is wavering makes the waverer pass Into more settled hatred of the doctrines Of those who rule, which hatred by and by Involves the ruler (thus there springs to light That Centaur of a monstrous Commonweal, The traitor-heretic) then tho' some may quail, Yet others are that dare the stake and fire, And their strong torment bravely borne, begets An admiration and an indignation, And hot desire to imitate; so the plague Of schism spreads; were there but three or four Of these ... — Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Bulwer-Lytton. The marriage and its results were so predominant in the career of the man, and poisoned it so deeply to the latest hour of his consciousness, that to attempt a biography of him without clear reference to them would have been like telling the story of Nessus the Centaur without mentioning the poisoned arrow of Heracles. But Lord Lytton shall ... — Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... draw Dejanire for you,' and he takes a soft pencil and a piece of smooth card-board, and in five minutes draws me an outline of a naked woman on a centaur's back, a creature of touching beauty no other hand in the world could produce—so aristocratically delicately English and of to-day—so severely, so nobly and classically Greek. C'est la chastete ... — The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Richard was on his way to Gloucester, mounted on Beelzebub, and much stared at by the inhabitants of every village he passed through. Apparently, however, there was something about the centaur-compound which prevented their rudeness from going farther. Beelzebub bore him well, and, though not a comfortable horse to ride, threw the road behind him at a wonderful rate, as often and as long as Richard was able to bear it. But he found himself stronger after every rest, and by the ... — St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... pastures, in woods, and on chalky cliffs, yet the Centaury cannot be reared in a garden. Of old its tribe was called "Chironia," after Chiron, the Greek Centaur, well skilled in herbal physic; and most probably the name of our English plant was thus originated. But the Germans call the Centaury Tausendgulden kraut—"the herb of a thousand florins,"—either because of its medicinal value, or as a corruption of Centum aureum, ... — Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the gypsies, a splendid looking fellow who sat his horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which sprang forward. But the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an unmistakable way commanded them ... — Dracula • Bram Stoker
... discourse, while no guest and beggar beside thee hears our speech? Wine it is that wounds thee, honey sweet wine, that is the bane of others too, even of all who take great draughts and drink out of measure. Wine it was that darkened the mind even of the Centaur, renowned Eurytion, in the hall of high-hearted Peirithous, when he went to the Lapithae; and after that his heart was darkened with wine, he wrought foul deeds in his frenzy, in the house of Peirithous. Then wrath fell on all the heroes, and they leaped ... — DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... drawing away; slowly the sorrel's great crest and flaring nostrils fell to the rear, back and back, level with my gloved hands, my knee, my elbow, out of my view, and presently, glancing behind, I saw Anthony riding like a centaur—a wildly-galloping figure blurred in a ... — Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the power of a new spirit came upon the Greeks, and the stones were filled with breath, and the clouds clothed with flesh; and then came the great spiritual battle between the Centaurs and Lapithae; and the living creatures became "Children of Men." Taught, yet, by the Centaur—sown, as they knew, in the fang—from the dappled skin of the brute, from the leprous scale of the serpent, their flesh came again as the flesh of a little child, and ... — The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... composing the third, he seemed impelled to exceed his bounds, and depart on an adventurous quest," from which we might infer that we are here concerned with a sort of double monster, half horse and half cavalier. With regard to a certain Eroica, this Centaur is very hard pressed, because he did not succeed in making it clear "whether it is a question of a conflict on the open field or in the deep heart of man." In the Pastoral there is said to be "a furiously raging storm," for which it is "almost too insignificant" ... — Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... attack Grant at Pittsburg Landing. When day broke, orders were given to open out and allow the cavalry to pass ahead and reconnoitre our front. I had always felt proud of Virginian horsemanship, but those Texans were in a class by themselves. Centaur-like they sat their horses, and for our amusement, while passing at full gallop, swung from their saddles and picked up hats and handkerchiefs. There was something about the Texans that fascinated me, and that ... — Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... the simile which had occurred again and again: these trees reminded me of centaurs with proud, upright man torsos, and great curved backs. In one, a root dropped down and rested on the back, as a centaur who turns might rest his hand on ... — Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... incapable of ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis acquired a ... — Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Jazz. The horse was a sorrel, and it knew all the tricks of its kind. It went sunfishing, tried weaving and fence-rowing, at last toppled over backward after a frantic leap upward. The rider, long-bodied and lithe, rode like a centaur. Except for the moment when he stepped out of the saddle as the outlaw fell on its back, he stuck to his seat as though he were glued ... — Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... who was a most accomplished cavalier, a perfect centaur in fact, noticing the amazed and somewhat alarmed glances of the Inca's men at the movements of his restless horse, suddenly determined to exhibit his skill at the manege. Striking spurs to his charger, he caused him to curvet and prance ... — South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... wept. Her corpse he kissed, and heavenly incense brought, And solemnised the death himself had wrought. But, lest his offspring should her fate partake, Spite of the immortal mixture in his make, He ripped her womb, and set the child at large, 120 And gave him to the centaur Chiron's charge: Then in his fury blacked the raven o'er, And bid him prate in his white ... — The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Centaur. Olga Popoff Muller This bestial creature is in the act of abducting a beautiful woman. She has ... — Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts • Juliet James
... am neither your Minotaur, nor your Centaur, nor your satyr, nor your hyaena, nor your babion, but your mere traveller, ... — Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... neighborhood was so expert, so agile as he. For, above all things, he had what we Yankees call faculty,—the knack of doing everything. If he rode with a neighbor who was a good horseman, Theodore, who was a Centaur, when he mounted, would put any horse at any gate or fence; for it did not occur to him that he could not do whatever was to be done. Often, after writing for a few hours in the morning, he stepped out of doors, and, ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... spur, and the good horse started at a gallop—a rollicking gallop and in the very tune of his master's mood; and if all Port Nassau had not been at its devotions, the chins of its burghers might have tilted themselves in wonder at the apparition—a Centaur, enlarged upon ... — Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the stable at the end of the garden, and this horse was ordered as soon as the light failed. He would say, "Mes amis et mes amies, je regrette, mais mon cheval m'attend." And the women liked to see him mount, and many thought, I am sure, that he looked like a Centaur as ... — Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... whether religion deals invariably with a personal god. It is often assumed in discussion of this question that "personal god," as well as "god," is a distinct and familiar kind of entity, like a dragon or centaur; its existence alone being problematical. This is doubly false to the religious employment of such an object. If it be true that in religion we mean by God a practical interpretation of the world, whatsoever be its nature, then the personality of God must be a derivative of the attitude, and ... — The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... her say, in answer to a question as to her present feelings: 'I feel that I am carried away by a centaur!' The comparison had been used or implied to ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and wall, and behind it were the beaks of the ships and the host of Aquaiusha, even of his own dear people the Achaeans. There were the old blazons, and the spears that had fought below Troy town. There were the two lions of Mycenae, the Centaur of the son of Polypaetas, son of Pirithous; there were the Swan of Lacedaemon, and the Bull of the Kings of Crete, the Rose of Rhodes, the Serpent of Athens, and many another knightly bearing of old friends and kindred dear. And now they were ... — The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... shall behold no more With long stride making down the beechy glade, Clear-eyed, with firm lips laughing,—at his heels The clamor of his fifty deep-tongued hounds; Him the wise Centaur shall ... — In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... conceal the face. Even this failed, and he found himself compelled to meet the fixed and stern gaze of the colossal priest, who was on horseback, and bore in his huge right hand a whip, that might, so gripped, have tamed a buffalo, or the centaur himself, if he were ... — Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... are all dead! If any ever really lived!" cried Cap, in a fury. "Heaven knows I am inclined to believe them to have been a fabulous race like that of the mastodon or the centaur! I certainly never saw a creature that deserved the name of man! The very first of your race was the meanest fellow that ever was heard of—ate the stolen apple and when found out laid one half of the blame on his wife ... — Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... city stands; Three Trojans tug at ev'ry lab'ring oar; Three banks in three degrees the sailors bore; Beneath their sturdy strokes the billows roar. Sergesthus, who began the Sergian race, In the great Centaur took the leading place; Cloanthus on the sea-green Scylla stood, From whom Cluentius draws his ... — The Aeneid • Virgil
... leads us into regions from whence a ray of light, according to an assumption not wholly improbable, requires millions of years to reach our earth—to distances for whose measurement the dimensions (the distance of Sirius, or the calculated distances of the binary stars in Cygnus and the Centaur) of our nearest stratum of ... — Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... centaur, swirled by me to do the thing I ordered. Behind me rode Beverly Clarenden bareheaded, his face aglow with power. As I looked back the dust engulfed him for a moment, and then I heard an arrow sing, and a sharp cry of pain. The dust had lifted and Beverly ... — Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... "The Centaur laboured so much, that I could scarce hope she would swim till morning: ... our sufferings for want of ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... over my head, searching for admiration. Esther Levenson brought Ellen Terry over and he forgot me entirely in sparkling for the good lady—showing his teeth, shaking his yellow locks, bellowing like a centaur. ... — O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... dexterous wielder of the knife and cord. He, Juan de Dios! Come hither, O Centaur of the boundless cattle-plains! We will not ask you to dismount,—for that you never do, we know, except to eat and sleep, or when your horse falls dead, or tumbles into a bizcachero; but we want to have a look at your savage self, and ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... god of light and the promoter of health. In the "Iliad" he is hailed as the disperser of epidemics, and, in this respect, the ancients were well informed in attributing destruction of infection to the sun's rays. Chiron, the Centaur, it was believed, was taught by Apollo and Artemis, and was the teacher, in turn, of AEsculapius, who probably lived in the thirteenth century before Christ and was ultimately deified as the Greek god of ... — Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... rear, she screamed for help with all her might, but nothing answered her save an echo. The situation seemed critical for Jacqueline. As to M. de Talbrun, he was quite at his ease, as if he were accustomed to make love like a centaur; while the girl felt herself in peril of being thrown at any moment, and trampled under his horse's feet. At last she succeeded in striking her aggressor a sharp blow across the face with her riding-whip. Blinded ... — Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... said the Englishman, heartily. "Rides like a centaur and wields a saber as if it were a piece ... — The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse added the fleetness ... — The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... but his great performances were not. He fought with the centaurs and giants. When his period of slavery had ended, he married Dejanira; with her he went to Trachinia. At the river Evenus he encountered the centaur Nessus. Nessus, under pretence of carrying Dejanira over, attempted to offer her violence, which caused Hercules to slay him with a poisoned arrow. Nessus, before expiring, instructed Dejanira how to prepare a love potion for Hercules. He erected ... — The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... father over here, and, as his own horse was knocked up, I mounted him at his own request on Jezebel, he preferring her to all the horses in the paddock on account of her beauty, after having been duly warned of her wickedness. But Mr. Halbert seems of the Centaur species, and rather to enjoy an extra chance of ... — The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... and I summoned to the feast the gods, one and all. And with my own hand I raised the bridal torch, in return for the kindly honour thou didst pay me. But come, let me tell a tale that erreth not. When thy son shall come to the Elysian plain, he whom now in the home of Cheiron the Centaur water-nymphs are tending, though he still craves thy mother milk, it is fated that he be the husband of Medea, Aeetes' daughter; do thou aid thy daughter-in-law as a mother-in-law should, and aid Peleus himself. Why is thy wrath so steadfast? He was blinded by folly. For blindness ... — The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... eie: Darke working Sorcerers that change the minde: Soule-killing Witches, that deforme the bodie: Disguised Cheaters, prating Mountebankes; And manie such like liberties of sinne: If it proue so, I will be gone the sooner: Ile to the Centaur to goe seeke this slaue, I greatly feare my monie ... — The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... eight or ten compartments, and painted in such a manner that the festoon of leaves fall over and hide the fruit most picturesquely; two ivory cups, one in alto, the other in basso relievo; the latter the finer and most charmingly carved; a small group in bronze by John Bologna, "Dejanira and the Centaur," admirably done. Here are tables of the rarest marbles, one composed of a block from the Himalaya Mountains. In one of the windows is a piece of African marble brought to this country for George IV; also a small bath of Egyptian porphyry. In the lower room was ... — Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... Rodney to command the convoy sent home with the numerous fleet of merchantmen from the West Indies in the month of July.—He accordingly hoisted his flag on board the Ramillies of 74 guns, and sailed on the 25th from Blue Fields, having under his orders the Canada and Centaur of 74 guns each, the Pallas frigate of 36 guns, and the following French ships, taken by Lord Rodney and Sir Samuel Hood, out of the armament commanded by the Count de Grasse, viz. the Ville de Paris, of 110 guns; the Glorieux and Hector, of 74 guns each; ... — Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be sure to come in on their side. So in the fable that Achilles was brought up under Chiron, the centaur, who was part a man and part a beast, expounded ingeniously but corruptly by Machiavel, that it belongeth to the education and discipline of princes to know as well how to play the part of a lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and justice. Nevertheless, ... — The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... of the brightly-beaming constellation Argo, of the Milky Way between Scorpio, the Centaur, and the Southern Cross, the picturesque beauty, if one may so speak, of the whole expanse of the southern celestial hemisphere, has left upon my mind an ineffaceable impression. The zodiacal light, which rises in a pyramidal form, ... — COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... and appalling depths, With caverns, vast and gloomy, which would seem Meet for the haunt of centaur or of gnome; The gorgon and the labyrinthodon; The clumsy mammoth and the dinosaur; Or all gigantic and unwieldy shapes Which earth has seen in the mysterious past, Would seem in more accord and harmony With such surroundings than the puny ... — Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... Associated Words: archery, archer, toxophilite, crossbow, quiver, centaur, ascham, belomancy, bowman, Sagittarius, ... — Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of Franconi, or Astley's: there is little variety in these performances, as there are only a certain quantity of feats, which can be performed either by the horses or the riders, nevertheless we had some novelty. We had the very best feminine rider I ever saw; she was a perfect female Centaur, looking part and parcel of the animal upon which she stood; and then we had a regularly Dutch-built lady, who amused us with a tumble off her horse, coming down on the loose saw-dust, in a sitting posture, and making ... — Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... have fallen in love with men; for there was a cock who took a fancy to a man of the name of Secundus, a cupbearer of the king; and the cock was nicknamed "the Centaur." This Secundus was a slave of Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia; as Nicander informs us in the sixth book of his essay on 'The Revolutions of Fortune.' And at AEgium, a goose took a fancy to a boy; as Clearchus relates in the first ... — Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Already a good horseman, he was now initiated into the arts of the manege, which, when carried to perfection, almost realise the fable of the Centaur, the guidance of the horse appearing to proceed from the rider's mere volition, rather than from the use of any external and apparent signal of motion. He received also instructions in his field duty; but I must own, that when his first ardour was ... — Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... quality. Later we shall see a picture by Michelangelo which has been accused of blending Christianity and paganism; but Bellini's sole purpose was to do this. We have children from a Bacchic vase and the crowned Virgin; two naked saints and a Venetian lady; and a centaur watching a hermit. The foreground is a mosaic terrace; the background is rocks and water. It is all bizarre and very curious and memorable and quite unique. For the rest, I should mention two charming Guardis; a rich little ... — A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... ?): Pair of sphinxes, Exterior architrave: pairs Centaur, wild hog, man pursuing of sphinxes in centre of E. & woman, two men in combat, W. fronts (?), Herakles and etc. Triton, Herakles and Centaurs, ... — The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... Roman name; but in its burlesque applicability to the theme of the communication, it was as felicitous as Thackeray's "MANLIUS PENNIALINUS," or that "APOLLONIUS CURIUS" from whom Hood fabled to have borrowed the legend of "Lycus the Centaur." The writer of the letter lamented—as others have done before and since—the barren fertility of the news sheets of his day. There was, he contended, some diversion and diversity in card-playing. ... — De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... here by the blue ragged sailor of gardens, and not our Centaury, a distinctly American group of plants, which, Ovid tells us, cured a wound in the foot of the Centaur Chiron, made by an ... — Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... England, are very seldom found in the duchy: the writer of the present article never recollects to have met with any; and Mr. Cotman's more extensive researches have brought him acquainted only with a single instance, a centaur, in the act of discharging his arrow at a stag, in the church of Urville, ... — Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... was a very real sentiment, that of the intolerable tedium of captivity. Raleigh had been living a life of exaggerated activity, never a month at rest, now at sea, now in Devonshire, now at Court, hurrying hither and thither, his horse and he one veritable centaur. Among the Euphuistic 'tears of fancy' which he sent from the Tower, there occurs this little sentence, breathing the most complete sincerity: 'I live to trouble you at this time, being become like ... — Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... left rose the dingy form of a thin, upright clock in an oaken case; beyond the clock, a spit and a musket were fastened in parallels to the wall. Below those twin emblems of war and cookery were four shelves, containing plates of pewter and delf, and terminating, centaur-like, in a sort of dresser. At the other side of these domestic conveniences was a picture of Mrs. Lobkins, in a scarlet body and a hat and plume. At the back of the fair hostess stretched the blanket we have before mentioned. As a relief to the monotonous surface ... — Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Severn, if not beyond those rivers. They are found in large numbers, and of most varied devices, all showing the influence of classical art. A head (probably his own portrait) is often on the obverse, and on the reverse Apollo playing the lyre, or a Centaur, or a Victory, or Medusa, or Pegasus, or Hercules. Other types show a warrior on horse or foot, or a lion,[114] or a bull, or a wolf, or a wild boar; others again a vine-leaf, or an ear of bearded wheat. On a very few is found the horse, surviving from the ... — Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... since the capture of Sweaborg and the recapture of Gothland, states that the Russians and Swedes had each eleven sail of the line: it was agreed that the Swedish fleet should be reinforced by two ships, the Centaur of 74 guns, Rear-admiral Sir Samuel Hood, and the Implacable 74, Captain Byam Martin, and take a position at Hango-udde, a small, ill-fortified harbour at the north-west point of Finland, round which the Russian flotilla must pass to attack Abo and ... — Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... women simple in the extreme. They were all splendid horsemen, and often as they entered the camp at full speed on their spirited chargers, it seemed as though the steed and its rider, like the fabled centaur, were but one animal. Their bodies were painted and oiled so as ... — Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... giving the true cause,—he chose rather to join in the laugh against himself; and as he never carried one single ounce of flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare a figure as his beast,—he would sometimes insist upon it, that the horse was as good as the rider deserved;—that they were, centaur-like,—both of a piece. At other times, and in other moods, when his spirits were above the temptation of false wit,—he would say, he found himself going off fast in a consumption; and, with great gravity, would pretend, he could not ... — The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... little goose means a centaur, and she called him a Cyclops," exclaimed Jo, with a ... — Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... dime novels and, latterly, in moving pictures. He, like the mountaineer of the South, has himself been largely inarticulate except for his rude songs and ballads; formula and tradition caught him early and in fiction stiffened one of the most picturesque of human beings—a modern Centaur, an American Cossack, a Western picaro—into a stock figure who in a stock costume perpetually sits a bucking broncho, brandishes a six-shooter or swings a lariat, rounds up stampeding cattle, makes fierce war on Mexicans, Indians, and rival outfits, and ardently, ... — Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... the flagship, then steamed toward the Dutch coast, followed by the Coventry, Dragoon, Danal and Centaur. Other ships followed in line with their navigation lights showing. The picture was a noble one as the great vessels, with the moon still shining, plowed their way to take part in the ... — History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... existence been in love with Antigone, and that makes us find no full content in any mortal tie." In the letter of June 18, 1822, again he says:—"The 'Epipsychidion' I cannot look at; the person whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a Juno; and poor Ixion starts from the Centaur that was the offspring of his own embrace. If you are curious, however, to hear what I am and have been, it will tell you something thereof. It is an idealized history of my life and feelings. I think one is always in love with something ... — Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Sir Charles Napier was not noticed when, nearly ten years ago, he wrote, "The cavalry charger, on a Hounslow Heath parade, well fed, well groomed, goes through a field-day without injury, although carrying more than twenty stone weight; he and his rider presenting together, a kind of alderman centaur. But if in the field, half starved, they have, at the end of a forced march, to charge an enemy! The biped full of fire and courage, transformed by war-work to a wiry muscular dragoon, is able and willing, but the ... — A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... himself from the protoplasm of ignorance, and in the gloomy fog of fear and superstition grew by degrees into a formidable monster, being changed by the overheated imaginations of dogmatists into a reptile, an owl, a raven, a dog, a wolf, a lion, a centaur, a being half monkey, half man, till, finally, he became a polite and ... — Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... great hygienic conditions! Causes, causes, and again causes,—more and more we fall back on these as the chief objects of our attention. The shortest system of medical practice that I know of is the oldest, but not the worst. It is older than Hippocrates, older than Chiron the Centaur. Nature taught it to the first mother when she saw her first-born child putting some ugly pebble or lurid berry into its mouth. I know not in what language it was spoken, but I know that in English it would sound ... — Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to; but what we contend and inscribe on our banner is the fact that classical philology, as a whole, has nothing whatsoever to do with the quarrels and bickerings of its individual disciples. The entire scientific and artistic movement of this peculiar centaur is bent, though with cyclopic slowness, upon bridging over the gulf between the ideal antiquity—which is perhaps only the magnificent blossoming of the Teutonic longing for the south—and the real antiquity; and thus classical philology pursues ... — Homer and Classical Philology • Friedrich Nietzsche
... you what a part of the horse he is. Hark back to these models when you are listening to the vapourings of a riding-master lately expatriated from the stables of Sir Henry. To ride well is to recreate the fabulous centaur of Thessaly. ... — Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... herb so called because by its virtue the centaur Chiron was healed when the poisoned arrow of Hercules had ... — The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... three in order to determine the latitude more exactly by the altitude of various stars then approaching the meridian. These were Aries and Menkar; while the two feet of the Centaur, both fine circumpolar stars, were so steadily reflected in the placid stream that I obtained by that means the altitude of both BELOW THE POLE. It was most essential to the accuracy of my survey of the river that I should ... — Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... generally recognized as beautiful; although it can happen, as it did to Michael Angelo, that our appreciation of the actual form of the human body should be too keen and overmastering to allow us to relish even so charming and imaginative an extravagance. The centaur is another beautiful monster. The imagination can easily follow the synthesis of the dream in which horse and man melted into one, and first gave the glorious ... — The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... swan, lusus naturae[Lat], rara avis[Lat], queer fish; mongrel, random breed; half-caste, half-blood, half-breed; metis[Lat], crossbreed, hybrid, mule, hinny, mulatto; tertium quid[Lat], hermaphrodite. [mythical animal] phoenix, chimera, hydra, sphinx, minotaur; griffin, griffon; centaur; saggittary[obs3]; kraken, cockatrice, wyvern, roc, dragon, sea serpent; mermaid, merman, merfolk[obs3]; unicorn; Cyclops, "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders" [Othello]; teratology. [unconformable to the surroundings] fish out of water; neither one thing nor another, ... — Roget's Thesaurus
... very light but most effective bas-reliefs of jesting subject:—two cocks carrying on their shoulders a long staff to which a fox (?) is tied by the legs, hanging down between them: the strut of the foremost cock, lifting one leg at right angles to the other, is delicious. Then a stag hunt, with a centaur horseman drawing a bow; the arrow has gone clear through the stag's throat, and is sticking there. Several capital hunts with dogs, with fruit trees between, and birds in them; the leaves, considering the early time, singularly well set, with the edges outwards, sharp, and deep cut: snails and frogs ... — The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... that persons are likely to be competent trainers of animals if they are born under the influence of the Whale or of the Centaur or the Lion or the Scorpion or when the Lesser Bear rises at dawn or in those watches of the night when the Great Bear, after swinging low in the northern sky, is again beginning to swing upwards, or at those hours of the day when, as it can be established by calculations, the ... — Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... uncontrolled, through her brain. Incidents crowded into her recollection, memories of headlong gallops across the desert riding beside the man who, while she hated him, compelled her admiration, memories of him schooling the horses that he loved, sitting them like a centaur, memories of him amongst his men, memories more intimately connected with herself, of his varying moods, his swift changes from savage cruelty to amazing gentleness, from brutal intolerance to sudden consideration. There had even been times when he had interested ... — The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... could see the figures of Christ and his apostles in mosaic; turning to the side walls, they could see Nero, Galba, and six other Roman emperors, Diana hunting the stag, Hylas stolen by the nymphs, Cybele on the chariot drawn by lions, a lion attacking a centaur, the chariot of Apollo, figures performing mysterious Egyptian rites, and other such profanities, represented in opus sectile marmoreum, a sort of Florentine mosaic. This unique set of intarsios was destroyed in ... — Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... task which had been feebly attempted by Philip of Side, a prolix and contemptible writer. Even the work of Cyril has not entirely satisfied the most favorable judges; and the Abbe de la Bleterie (Preface a l'Hist. de Jovien, p. 30, 32) wishes that some theologien philosophe (a strange centaur) would undertake the ... — The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... "The Centaur not Fabulous; in Six Letters to a Friend, on the Life in Vogue," which reads very much like the most objurgatory parts of the "Night Thoughts" reduced to prose. It is preceded by a preface which, though addressed to ... — The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... along the ground. Ah, beauteous maid! let this example move Your mind, averse from all the joys of love. Deign to be loved, and every heart subdue! What nymph could e'er attract such crowds as you? 70 Not she whose beauty urged the Centaur's arms, Ulysses' queen, nor Helen's fatal charms. Ev'n now, when silent scorn is all they gain, A thousand court you, though they court in vain— A thousand sylvans, demigods, and gods, That haunt our mountains and our Alban woods. But ... — Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... Donatello. Behind Perseus is the Rape of Polixena, amarble group, by Pio Fedi, in 1864. In the centre is an antique group supposed to represent Ajax dragging the body of Patrocles—restored by S.Ricci. Next it is the marble group, by G.Bologna, representing Hercules slaying the Centaur. In this Piazza is also the Fountain of Neptune, by Ammanati (pupil of Bandinelli), 1571. It is crowded with nymphs and satyrs, presided over by a statue of Neptune (19 feet high) in a car drawn by four horses. Adjoining is a superb equestrian statue of Cosmo, by Bologna. The horse is ... — The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... a rich reward for many labors, and a happy climax to their honors, to make an equestrian statue of Washington for our country. I wish they might all do it, as each would show a different kind of excellence. To present the man on horseback, the wise centaur, the tamer of horses, may well be deemed a high achievement of modern, as it was of ancient art. The study of the anatomy and action of the horse, so rich in suggestions, is naturally most desirable to the artist; happy he who, ... — At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... about, which in England would bring their authors under Lord Campbell's statute. In one caricature she is represented stark naked, with Prince Joinville sketching her. In another, called "the Spanish cow," she is made a sort of female Centaur. In another she is dancing the Can-can, and throwing her petticoats over her head, before King William, who is drinking champagne, seated on a sofa, while her husband is in a cage hung up to the wall. These scandalous caricatures have not even the merit of being funny, they are a reflection ... — Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... which fed on human flesh, dragons, he mastered the three-headed dog Cerberus, he tore asunder the rocks at the Strait of Gibraltar which bear his name to open a channel between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. He fought the Centaur and brought back Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, from the pale regions of death where she had gone to save her husband's life. In all these labors, which were so great that works of extraordinary magnitude have since been called Herculean, the brave, patient, suffering hero, was helping ... — Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... hundred maddened animals, or in the performance of a hundred other feats of reckless and daring horsemanship, the cowboy is absolutely unequalled; and when he has his own horse gear he sits his animal with the ease of a centaur. Yet he is quite helpless the first time he gets astride one of the small eastern saddles. One summer, while purchasing cattle in Iowa, one of my ranch foremen had to get on an ordinary saddle to ride out of town and see a bunch of steers. He is perhaps the best rider on the ranch, and will without ... — Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... death. Hercules having subdued OEchalia and killed Eurytus the king, carried off the fair I{)o}le, his daughter, with whom Dejanira suspecting him to be in love, sent him the garment of Nessus, the Centaur, as a remedy to recover his affections; this garment, however, having been pierced with an arrow dipped in the blood of the Lernaean hydra, whilst worn by Nessus, contracted a poison from his blood incurable by art. No sooner, therefore, was it put on by Hercules ... — Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway |