"Downy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... padded gray coat, of a most comfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no; I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him—upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... trumpet-calls that brought defeat Or victory so near, startle and rouse. The charioteers more ardent urge their steeds; The steeds are with hot emulation fired; The social multitude now cease to talk— Even age stops short in stories often told; Boys, downy-chinned, in rough-and-tumble sports Like half-grown bears engaged, turn quick and look; And blooming girls, with merry ringing laugh, Romping in gentler games, watching meanwhile With sly and sidelong look the rougher sports, Turn eagerly to see the scene below; While mothers for ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... that I, a mountain boy, A lover of green fields and flowers,— One, who with laughing rills could toy, And hold companionship for hours, With leaves that whispered low at night, Or fountains bubbling from their springs, Or summer winds, whose downy flight, Seemed but the sweep of angel wings:— 'Twas strange that I should love the clash Of ocean in its maddest hour, And joy to see the billows dash O'er the rent cliff with fearful power. 'Twas strange,—but I was nature's own, Unchecked, untutored; ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... and deep in her heart, such was her powers of perspection, she couldn't help contrasting Martin's simple nature and open praise of himself with John Warner's cleverer speechifying and far more downy and secret mind. ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... on a summer day. First, as my gaze dropped before that vision of radiant beauty, it saw only an exquisite figure draped in a dress of some white and filmy stuff, and swathed around the shoulders with a downy shawl, white also, across which fell one ravishing lock of waving brown, shining golden in the kiss of the now drooping sun. Then the gaze fell lower, lighted upon a little foot thrust slightly forward for steadiness on the bank's ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his food, and now I'm going back to my downy couch. If I don't see you to-morrow before you ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... pow'r I court thee, not to ruin: Smile on my wishes, and command the globe. Security shall spread her shield before thee, And love infold thee with his downy wings. If greatness please thee, mount th' imperial seat; If pleasure charm thee, view this soft retreat; Here ev'ry warbler of the sky shall sing; Here ev'ry fragrance breathe of ev'ry spring: To deck these bow'rs each region shall combine, And e'en our ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... a very novel barbarous durbar. The dances seemed to me wonderfully like those of the American Indians in general, a monotonous stamping accompanied by hand-clapping, head-jerking, and explosive grunts kept in time to grim drum-beats. The chief dancer and leader scattered great quantities of downy feathers like a snowstorm as blessings on everybody, while all chanted, "Hee-ee-ah-ah, hee-ee-ah-ah," jumping up and down until all were ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... been brought up each with his one faint, polite little hunger, his one ambition, his one pale downy desire in life, looking forward day by day, year by year, to the fine frenzy, to the fierce joy of Never ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... goddess born and bred, Appointed sovereign judge to sit On learning, eloquence, and wit. Our eldest hope, divine Iuelus,[30] (Late, very late, O may he rule us!) What early manhood has he shown, Before his downy beard was grown, Then think, what wonders will be done By going on as he begun, An heir for Britain to secure As long as sun and moon endure. The remnant of the royal blood Comes pouring on me ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... but thick, and whirled in circles by the wind, beats with a dry metallic sound against the window- panes; then the wind drops, and the flakes, growing larger, descend silently, monotonously, incessantly. The snow covers the streets like a downy carpet, spreads itself like a sheet over the roofs, fills up the cracks in the walls, heaps itself upon the window-sills, envelops the iron window-bars, and hangs in festoons ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... better taste than I, father," she said. "You have been enjoying the beauty of nature, while I was lying on a downy pillow." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... fumigated, the foreign rags all burned, and the girls and Miss Peters enjoyed a three days' holiday without having it deducted from their wages; how the old cat had presented the household with a lovely family of downy kittens, for which Alfred had made a little house in a box out in the yard; and how both boys had been very patient toward her cookery, laughing at her mistakes and helping her with their superior knowledge; and how they had stayed at home and played ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... and weak alkalies; the solution is precipitated by all diluted acids, by phosphoric acid at all the degrees of hydration, and even by a current of carbonic acid. All these precipitates redissolve with an excess of acid, sulphuric acid excepted. Concentrated sulphuric acid forms an insoluble downy white precipitate, and the concentrated vegetable acids, with the exception of tannic acid, do not determine any precipitate. Cerealine coagulated by an acid redissolves in an excess of the same acid, but it has become ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... till the reign of his son that was abolished the right of the royal officers, when the king came to Paris, to enter the houses of the bourgeoisie and carry off for their own use the bedding and the downy pillows they ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... in diameter, with milky sap. Leaves 1 1/2' long, sessile, opposite, ovate, expanded, minutely notched and glabrous, with a small downy swelling at the base, superior and glued to the branch. Flowers terminal, in racemes, with opposite pedicels. Calyx white, of 2 rounded leaflets bent downwards. Corolla white, 5 petals (not 4), oval, concave, twice as long as the calyx. Stamens ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... manhood, and in the very immovability of his limbs personified the utmost freedom of movement. His eyes beamed with clear decision; his velvet brows curved in a bold arch; his sunburnt cheeks glowed with all the ardour of youthful fire; and his downy black moustache ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... o'er the steaming rain-washed slopes, Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes, Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold, In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled, Floating like dreams, and melting silently, In the blue ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... muslin was one of Miss Chickie's fifteen, and was, in a "genteel" way, very suggestive of Slowbridge. Suspended from Octavia's waist by a long loop of the embroidered ribbon, was a little round fan, of downy pale-blue feathers, and with this she played as she talked; but Lucia, having nothing to play with, could only stand with her little hands hanging ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you mean, Captain Molineux?" he continued, his dark eye flashing indignation, and his downy cheek crimsoning with warmth. "Why this remark before me, sir, and wherefore this reflection ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Mrs. Quack. So the dear, precious secret of Mr. and Mrs. Quack was kept, for not even Paddy the Beaver knew just where that nest was, and in due time, early one morning, Mrs. Quack proudly led forth for their first swim ten downy, ...
— The Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack • Thornton W. Burgess
... impressed as the Gansers had been the first time they beheld the gorgeousness of their palace. He looked about with a proprietary sense—"I'll marry this little idiot," he said to himself. "Maybe my nest won't be downy, and maybe I won't lie at my ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... in its folds, she dropped some of the mixture in the middle of the box, tapping lightly with the spoon to call the attention of the chicks to its presence. The chickens pecked hungrily, and there was a satisfied note in the twitterings of the downy little group as Mrs. Chamberlain turned to the preparation of her ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... pattern; curtains of richest lace; lambrequins of costly texture; richly-embroidered and velvet-covered sleepy-hollows and lounging chairs; nothing stiff, nothing that did not betoken abandonment to ease and pleasure; downy cushions; rarest pictures; loveliest statuettes; finest bronzes; delicate vases; magnificent, full length mirrors, a bookcase, itself a rare work of art, containing the best works of the best authors, all in the richest of bindings—nothing here that the most refined and cultivated ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... fronting on some tawny beach, Exquisite with silky softness hangs the downy silver peach; But as dainty as the beauty of the bloom whereof I speak—Rain, nor sun, nor frost can change it—is the bloom ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... and after a moment's survey of the country beyond dropped down on the farther side. Now that was a lane much frequented by negroes, and, being alarmed for his safety, I sent a boy after him, and in a moment had him in my hand. He was a beautiful little creature, having a head covered with downy dark feathers, and soft black eyes, which regarded me with interest, but not at all with fear. All this time, of course, the parents were scolding and crying, and I held him only long enough to ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... grape-clusters dotted the creeping vine, half transparent in their tempting lusciousness; the red cherries seemed, in the distance, like the burning brilliancy of a summer sunset struggling through the branches and tangled leaves that intervened; and the downy peach peered provokingly from amongst the sheltering green, where, all the summer long, it had stolen the first blush of saffron-vested Aurora, when seraph hands unbar the gates of morning, and the last ray of golden light that paused at the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... truncate; above, transversely striate; the tibiae and tarsi spinose; wings dark fuscous, with a pale semitransparent macula at the base of the second discoidal cell and a dark fuscous macula beyond; the insect entirely covered with a fine orange-red downy pile. ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... But, as in cutting out she kept her head bent, I noticed, on passing behind her, her soft, white neck, which she had left bare that evening by dressing her hair higher than usual. A number of little downy hairs were curling there. This kind of down made me think of those ripe peaches one bites so greedily. I drew near, the better to see, and I kissed the back of ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... at last, upon the marge We found ourselves, and there, behold, In hosts the lilies, white and large, Lay close, with hearts of downy gold! ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... "the downy she"? She is no more artful than other people. She is my maid, Elspeth Mackay,' answered Miss Macrae, puzzled. They were alone, separated from the others by the ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... interposition, such as Burrell held out. It was astonishing to witness the fortitude with which the fragile and delicate Jewess, who had been clothed in purple and fine linen, fed on the most costly viands, and slept on the most downy couch, encountered the illness, terrors, and miseries attendant on a sea voyage in the vessel of a Buccaneer. The Fire-fly certainly deserved every encomium bestowed upon her by her captain; yet was she not the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... female is dusky-green; but the adult male is a beautiful white, excepting the extraordinary structure with which we are at present concerned. This is a tube about three inches long, which rises from the base of the beak. It is jet black, and dotted over with small downy feathers. The tube is closed at the top, but its cavity communicates with the palate, and thus the whole admits of being inflated from within, when, of course, it stands erect as represented in one of the two drawings. When ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... himself lying on a soft downy bed in a dim stone chamber, and feeling silky hair over his cheek and neck and arms, he knew that he was still with his new strange mother, the beautiful Lady of the Mountain. She, seeing him awake, took him up in her arms, and holding him against her bosom, carried him through ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... Mr. Scott, I've a deal to do before I get to my downy; and I don't like those doctored tipples. Good night, Mr. Scott. I wishes you good night, sir;' and making another slight reference to his hat, which had not been removed from his head during the whole interview, Mr. Manylodes ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... have died without telling a word—not a word—and I shall die soon, I know I shall." But when the dawn rises, the little maid is asleep, nestling by her sister, the stain of a tear or two upon her flushed downy cheek. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove's plumage, when the islets on Millinokett's bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet, and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in Louisa's arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid and brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked as ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... so absorbed in his wonderful geological story that she sat looking at him, leaning forward with crossed arms, and with an entire absence of self-consciousness, as if he had been the snuffiest of old professors, and she a downy-lipped alumna. He was so fascinated by the clear, large gaze that at last he forgot to look away from it occasionally toward Lucy; but she, sweet child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was proving to Maggie how clever he was, and that they would certainly be good ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... simple fashion, each boy with only a great bowl of bread and milk. Then to more music they were marched to their beds—downy white nests, in a great room arched with glass, through which they could see the moon and stars shining, and where the dawn could awaken them ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... dollars apiece are freely fluttering about unharmed. When the breeding season has opened, however, it will not close without some family of mocking-birds being made desolate, for the young Ethiopian hath an ear for music, and most eagerly seeketh the young bird in its downy nest, trusting to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the ten hours of undisturbed consecutive repose in the downy bed at the Mehadia hotel had made up the deficiency of sleep during the foregoing week, and drowsiness overcame us. I think we must have had a couple of hours of monotonous jog-trot on the fairly level road when I fell asleep, and I suppose my ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... the eye; no stunted, ruined nursling of Nature yet spoke unsuccess; no canker-bitten bud marked the cold finger of failure; for in that first rush of life all the earthborn host had set forth, if not equal, at least together. The primroses twinkled true on downy coral stems and the stars of anemone, celandine, and daisy opened perfect. Countless consummate, lustrous things were leaping, mingling, and uncurling, aloft and below, in the mazes of the wood, at the margins of the water. Verdant spears and blades expanded; ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of song at last is done, No more will it greet the rising sun; That tiny bird has found a rest More calm than its mother's downy breast ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... Underfoot, on the path beaten betwixt house and stable, the snow crunched and complained as they walked, and in the open where the mad winds had piled it in hard, white windrows. But in the thick woods it lay as it had fallen, full five foot deep, a downy wrapping for the slumbering earth, over which Bill Wagstaff flitted on his snowshoes as silently as a ghost—a fur-clad ghost, however, who bore a rifle on his shoulder, and whose breath exhaled ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... earth; then the ragged bare suspicion of green; then the strengthening and perfecting of that green until the whole earth is hidden away; then the soft, juicy look of the young blades nodding and waving at each other in the wind, that seems almost tender of them, and at last the fleecy, downy ears all whispering together." ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... evidently distasteful to both) go on to the conclusion of the ceremony, he could not comprehend. There were, however, so many things in the world that he could not comprehend, and he had grown so accustomed, after an effort to master a difficulty, to lean his head back upon downy ignorance, that he treated this significant letter of Edward's like a tough lesson, and quietly put it by, together with every recommendation it contained. For all that was practical in it, it might just as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... played and shouted and ran and laughed, while the long, pale-golden spring afternoon stood still, until Mother held up her finger and stopped the game. "The baby's awake!" she said, and Father went bounding off. When he came back with the downy pink morsel, everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the tiny fat hands and hungry little rosebud mouth. "He's starved!" said Mother. "He wants his supper, poor little Buddy! He doesn't want a ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... call 'the cold grey North' were obviously enjoying themselves. Their smooth, pale-yellow faces opened wider, and grew larger and more golden, day by day: while new, soft, pointed buds came poking up through their downy green blankets in unexpected places. Moreover, the warm weather lasted right through the summer. Not only did far more primroses flower than usual, but also, after they had faded, there was plenty of warmth to ripen the precious seed packet that each one had carried at ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... his ungoverned lips. Miss Dacre stared. He quelled the tumult of his thoughts, struggled with his outbreaking feelings, and triumphed; yet not without a tear, which forced its way down a face not formed for grief, and quivered upon his fair and downy cheek. Sir Lucius Grafton was well aware of the magic of his beauty, and used his charms to betray, as if he were ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... to enliven the days of my exile, Tommy was one towards whom I still feel a certain sense of obligation because he taught me for the first time what an owl is. For Tommy was an owl. From any dictionary you may ascertain that an owl is a nocturnal, carnivorous bird, of a short, stout form, with downy feathers and a large head; and if that does not satisfy you, there is no lack of books which will furnish fuller and more ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Sarcoptes, or Itch mite. On March 6th, Mr. C. Cooke called my attention to certain little mites which were situated on the narrow groove between the main stem of the barb and the outer edge of the barbules of the feathers of the Downy Woodpecker, and subsequently we found the other forms in the down under the feathers. These long worm-like mites were evidently the young of a singular Sarcoptes-like mite, as they were found on the same ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... heaviest silks, and the softest cashmeres; and to sleep in the downiest of beds; these were to her the necessities of life. That the food was provided from the larder of her niece; that the silks and cashmeres were gracious gifts, and that the downy couch cost her nothing, mattered little; her niece needed her, she needed her niece; ergo, her niece sought in every way possible to render her happy and comfortable; and she, in return for her comfort and happiness, was a model duenna; never questioning, never criticising, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... oh, my Harmonio, I could hear thee still; The nightingale to thee sings out of tune, While on thy faithful breast my head reclines, The downy pillow's hard; while from thy lips I drink delicious draughts of nectar down, Falernian wines seem bitter ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day; When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers? While artful shades thy downy couch enclose, And soft solicitation courts repose, Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight, Year chases year with unremitted flight, Till Want now following, fraudulent and slow, Shall spring to seize thee, like ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... for gala-days and saints'-days. The large scarlet capulet comes next, and one of the women dons it to show the effect. Then appear a scarf and two light shoulder-mufflers, made of the true Bareges wool, a specialty of the Pyrenees, soft and fascinatingly downy. These are followed by a few neatly-rolled ribbons, brought over at different times from Spain, which are duly unstreamed; some silver pins and a chain, and a rosary; worsted mittens, and a pair of men's white knee-stockings, similar to Caillou's. But ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... are whiter for the blue; The sky is deeper for the stars; They give and take in commerce true, And lend their beauty to the cars Of downy dusk, that all ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... masses, some of them tons in weight, to be built into the walls of the cone; while in windy, frosty weather, when the fall is swayed from side to side, the cone is well drenched and the loose ice masses and spray-dust are all firmly welded and frozen together. Thus the finest of the downy wafts and curls of spray-dust, which in mild nights fall about as silently as dew, are held back until sunrise to make a store of heavy ice to reinforce ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... been some kind of a fairy, for we didn't mention kittens, but we wanted one, and here are two darlings," cried Polly, almost purring with delight as the downy bunches unrolled and gaped till their bits ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... came out. She started to walk toward him, but presently turned to the right. Lewis followed her. At first she walked fast, but soon she began to pause beside some burst of green or tempting downy mass of pussy-willow, as though she were in two minds whether to fill her arms and rush back, carrying spring into the house or to go on. She went on slowly until she reached the barrier of rails that closed the ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... in the glass might well have reassured her. Dark eyes and hair, a brunette complexion, grace, health, physical strength—she certainly owed none of these qualities or possessions to her ancestor. The face reminded one of ripe fruit—so rich was the downy bloom on the delicate cheeks, so vivid the hazel of the wide black-fringed eyes. A touch of something heavy and undecided in the lower part of the face made it perhaps less than beautiful. But any man who fell ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a close observer might often have detected them in the act of furtively feeling their upper lips with anxious forefinger in the vain hope of discovering the appearance—if ever so slight—of a downy growth thereupon. For they, as well as he, were making sheep's eyes at those wonderful visions in golden locks and jetty locks, with brown eyes and blue eyes, with fluttering ribbons and snowy pinafores, known as "Miss ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... But often, even in doing right, they err: From caprice, not from choice, their favours come: They give, but think it toil to know to whom: The man that's nearest, yawning, they advance: 'Tis inhumanity to bless by chance. If merit sues, and greatness is so loth To break its downy trance, I pity both. ...
— English Satires • Various
... much, in his approaching stupor, Hal Hastings allowed himself to be coaxed to stretch himself at full length in the downy berth. ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... reddish cups, appeared to be a new species of VITEX, but its genus was uncertain, there being no flowers. What is here called GREVILLEA FLORIBUNDA may have been an allied species, for the leaves were more downy, almost tomentose above. In addition to this a new species of the common genus DODONOEA, frequently met with afterwards, was now producing its flowers.[*] Thermometer, at sunrise, 12 deg.; at noon, 50 deg.; at 4 P. M. 51 deg.; at 9, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... protected by a coat of a glutinous substance, which is impervious to water; in spring this melts, and the bud-scales are then cast off. The leaves are composed of seven radiating leaflets (long-wedge-shaped); when young they are downy and drooping. From the early date of its leafing year by year, a horse-chestnut in the Tuileries is known as the "Marronnier du 20 mars." The flowers of the horse-chestnut, which are white dashed with red and yellow, appear in May, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... so there's an end o' thy love! But pray you, Sir Downy Daintiness, how come ye that are so gentle so ungently dight? Discourse, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... ten years old then clasped hands above its downy head, and in childish earnestness vowed to one another to protect, to cherish, to defend it as long as life was spared to either. Hannibal was not older than we were when he swore his famous oath at Carthage, kneeling at the feet of Hamilcar before the altar, to hate the Romans. How was our oath ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... again lived over his triumphs, surrounded by their testimonials. He placed before him pictures of himself, taken at different ages. This bewitching page with his smooth, merry face, clad in dainty knee-breeches with bows and a silk doublet, this handsome lieutenant with the downy moustache and the bold, laughing glance, were images of him; he had looked thus, perhaps even better; for he remembered that the likeness, when taken, did not satisfy him, and that everybody thought he was really far handsomer. He opened ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... and brought out—Junior! He was only a month old, but you know how heavenly sweet they are with their rose-leaf skins, and their little crumpled hands and their downy heads—Junior's down was brown, for Billy ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... Mrs. Livingstone looked out upon the mud-bespattered vehicle, from which a leg, encased in a black and white stocking, was just making its egress. "Oh, heavens!" said she, burying her face again in the downy pillows. Woman's curiosity, however, soon prevailed over all other feelings, and again looking out she obtained a full view of her mother-in-law, who, having emerged from the coach, was picking out her boxes, trunks, and so forth. When they were all found, Mr. Livingstone ordered two negroes to ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... appeared, he determined to escape. But how? This question had not yet presented itself. Escape from the jail!—from death!—himself,—more than himself, his wife! Stone walls lost their appalling firmness, and were no more than downy masses, which his breath could ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... would wash the Temples of our gods And win them bow downe their immortall eyes Upon our offerings. Yet, I talke not idly, Yet, Anthonie, I may; for sleepe, I think, Is gone out of my kingdome, it is else fled To th'poore; for sleepe oft takes the harder bed And leaves the downy pillow of ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... little. Lieutenant Beechey succeeded in killing one of these animals, by lying down quietly, and imitating the voice of a fawn, when the deer immediately came up to him within gunshot. The horns of the deer killed at this season, as Mr. Fisher remarks, were "covered with a soft skin having a downy pile or hair upon it; the horns themselves were soft, and at the tips flexible and easily broken." The foxes, of which they saw several, "had a black spot or patch on each side of ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... any presents. That question was settled early the next morning, for she was awakened by a soft tap on her face, and opening her eyes she beheld a little black and white figure sitting on her pillow, staring at her with a pair of round eyes very like blueberries, while one downy paw patted her nose to attract her notice. It was Kitty Comet, the prettiest of all the pussies, and Comet evidently had a mission to perform, for a pink bow adorned her neck, and a bit of paper was pinned to it bearing the words, "For Miss Rose, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... who was the guest, for from time almost immemorial the old fruit seller has presided at the contests of Harwell, rejoicing in her victories, lamenting over her defeats. Down the line he limped, while gray-haired graduates and downy-lipped undergrads cheered him loyally, calling his name over and over, and so back to a seat in the middle of the stand, from where all through the battle his crimson-bedecked cane ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... means of double-winged sails which carry them far afield before they settle. Ash seeds have peculiar appendages which act like a skate-sail in transporting them to distant sections. Cottonwood seeds have downy wings which aid their flight, while basswood seeds are distributed over the country by means of parachute-like wings. The pods of the locust tree fall on the frozen ground or snow crust and are blown long distances from their source. On the other hand, oak, hickory, and chestnut trees produce ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... warblers disappeared at the border line of the open fields at Wakeby and the home-loving birds appeared again in numbers, robins, bluebirds, swallows and the sparrow kind. The downy woodpeckers and flickers, to be sure, passed to and from both zones, though they, too, seemed to love the trees of the open rather than those of the deeper wood, but in the main the boundary line, as usual, was quite distinctly marked. The noon sun was high and the north wind's chill had ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... hawthorn, rose-bushes, and broom. A few ilexes and stone-pines arched their evergreen foliage over the road; and the succulent milky stems of the wild fig-trees were covered with the small green fruit, while the downy leaves were just beginning to peep from their sheaths. It was one of those quiet gray days that give a mystic tone to a landscape. The cloudy sky was in harmony with the dim Campagna, that looked under the sunless smoky light unutterably sad and forlorn. Wreaths of mist lingered in the hollows ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... thou expect to see The downy peach make court to thee? Or that thy sense shall ever meet The bean-flower's deep-embosom'd sweet Exhaling with an evening blast? Thy evenings then will all ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... dandelion—are endowed with, what have not been inappropriately called, wings. These consist of a beautiful silk-looking down, by which they are enabled to float in the air, and to be transported, sometimes, to considerable distances from the parent plant that produced them. The swelling of this downy tuft within the seed-vessel is the means by which the seed is enabled to overcome the resistance of its coats, and to force for itself a passage by which it escapes from its ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... answered Mrs. Minot, as she took from its wrappings the waxen figure of a little child. The rosy limbs were very life-like, so was the smiling face under the locks of shining hair. Both plump arms were outspread as if to scatter blessings over all, and downy wings seemed to flutter from the dimpled shoulders, making ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Straits' settlements of the East, the following are the most approved varieties:—The royal plantain, which fruits in eight months; one which bears in a year, the milk plantain, the downy plantain, and the golden plantain or banana. A species termed gindy has been lately imported from Madras, where it is in great request. It has this advantage over the other kinds, that it can be stewed down like an ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... which now forms a park of extraordinary size, and of singular beauty. The hand of man seems to have done but little to improve that beauty: the house stands as if by chance in the midst of a wilderness of downy hills and grassy valleys, of hawthorn groves, and wild commons, of remnants of forests, and miles of underwood. I was so engrossed by the strange character of this, to me, perfectly novel scenery, that I thought little of ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... stump or tree makes Madame Nuthatch a cosy nursery, which she lines with feathers and leaves, making it soft and snug for her downy brood. Here they are safe from most of the prowlers that find the more exposed nests of many other birds. She deposits five to eight eggs of a white or creamy-white ground-color, speckled with rufous and lavender. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... when he was laughing and crying with his new parental emotions, and running to the side of the plain crib in which his alter egg, as he used to say, was swinging, to hang over the little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, red, downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips,—in that unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, and which gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant's life the character of a first old ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... the soft downy wool growing next the body of the goat. In color it is white, dark gray, or drab; and of this many of the finest India rugs are woven. Large-tailed sheep are common in Kabul, Peshawar, and other districts; these furnish wool from which many ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... will walk upon the wooded hill Where stands a grove, O pines, of sister pines, And when the downy twilight droops her wing And no sea glimmers and no mountain shines My heart shall listen still. For pines are gossip pines the wide world through And full of runic tales to sigh or sing. 'Tis ever sweet through pines to ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... movement shows some new grace and more seductive curve. Her rich brown hair reaches far below her slender waist, and when it is dressed with crimson pohutakawa blossoms, the orange flowers of the kowhaingutu kaka, or the soft downy white feathers that the Maoris prize, then it would compel the admiration of any London drawing-room. And what is it in Rakope's cheeks and chin, and rare red lips and pearly teeth, that makes one think of peaches and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... months, this species is not as commonly seen about houses or orchards as the Downy Woodpecker. During the summer they retire to the larger woods to nest, laying their eggs in holes in the trunks or limbs of trees at any height from the ground, and generally using the same hole year after year, and often twice or three times during one season, if the first sets ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... considered a cultivated product, its food and wants being carefully attended to, while the former is left in a natural state, and is less valuable. Wild cochineal is distinguished by having a woolly downy coat, which is not the case with the fine cochineal. The females, of which there are from one hundred and fifty to two hundred for each male, are marked by the absence of wings, and constitute the commercial article. They are generally killed by immersion in boiling ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... cedars flourish, and the poplars rise Sublimely tall, and shoot into the skies: Among the leaves refreshing zephyrs play, And crouding trees exclude the noon-tide ray; Whereon the birds their downy nests should form, Securely shelter'd from the batt'ring storm; And to melodious notes their choir apply, Soon as Aurora blush'd along the sky: While all around the enchanting music rings, And every vocal ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... somewhat round face, with straight dark hair and an almost downy-looking moustache, which barely hid his lips, although it was not brushed upwards in the mode of the moment. His eyes were rather far apart and he was characterized by an appearance of perfect health and equability ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... carnation glow, Like red blood on a wreath of snow; Like evening's dewy star her eye: White as the sea-mew's downy breast, Borne on the surge's foamy crest, Her graceful ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... dream-children—strong sons and daughters yet unborn. Their eyes seemed smiling, their fingers closing on hers. Cloudlike, yet very real, they beckoned her, and in her stirred the call of motherhood—of life to be. Her heart-strings echoed to that harmony; it seemed already as though a tiny head, downy—soft, was nestling in her bosom, while eager lips ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... heard him! Can any of you tell us what is honour? He drinks his wine, he feeds on beeves and capons; His table groans beneath a load of meats; His hounds, his hawks, are fed like Christian men! He sleeps in a downy couch, o'erhung with purple; And these, all these are honourable doings! He talks of liberty! Is it, then, liberty to be cooped up Within these prison walls, to starve from want, That we may have the liberty—mark it, my friends!— The wondrous liberty ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... "Downy old bird!" said Stalky to the allies one wet afternoon in the study. "He must have gone on a bend and been locked up under ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... without a fear, As she walk'd through the dank-moss'd dells; She breathed on their downy citadels, And whisper'd the young in their ivory shells: ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... build their nest? Robin Red Breast told me, First a wisp of yellow hay In a pretty round they lay; Then some shreds of downy floss, Feathers too, and bits of moss, Woven with a sweet, sweet song, This way, that way, and across: That's what ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... or "creepy" feeling along the spine. The organs registering the presence of a strange or alien creature consist of certain delicate nerves of the surface of the skin, generally connected with the roots of the downy hair of the body—or resting where the hair roots would naturally be, in the case of a hairless skin. These seem to report directly to the solar-plexus, which then acts quickly by reflex action on the other parts of the body, causing an instinctive feeling to either fly the scene ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... short, arched, much hidden in the soft downy plumage; barely capable of flight; tail short, generally formed of 16 feathers, developed at a late period in the young males; legs thick, feathered; spurs short, thick; nail of middle toe flat and broad; an additional ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... tall nor so muscular as his companion, but giving promise that he will excel him in due time. In the matter of hair, his head exhibited locks if possible more curly and redundant, while the chin and lip are not yet clothed with young manhood's downy shadow. ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... meads; There in soft murmurs interchange our souls; Together drink the crystal of the stream, Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields, And, when the golden evening calls us home, Wing to our downy ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... like a vapour To the palace above the snows, Where the shining gods held revel, And deathless laughter arose. But Hupnos swiftly descended Like a noiseless bird of the night And brushed his eyes with pinions Downy and thick and light, Circled dimly about him, And brushed his eyes as he prayed Laying a drowsy mandate, And the watcher ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... sat on a chair an inch or two higher than the rest, between two bundles. From the first, a huge heap of feathers and wings, she was taking the downy plumes, and pulling the others from the quills, and so filling bundle two littering the floor ankle-deep, and contributing to the general stock a stuffy little malaria, which might have played a distinguished part in a sweet room, but ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... thou saiest true, a cannot punish thee; Thou wert no actor of their Tragaedie. But for my beard thou canst not counterfet And bring gray haires uppon thy downy chinne; White frostes are never ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... was blushing at the approach of the amorous sun when Jose left his hammock and prepared to endure another day on the river. To the south the deep blue vault of heaven was dotted with downy clouds. Behind the laboring steamer the river glittered through a dazzling white haze. Ahead, its course was traceable for miles by the thin vapor always rising from it. The jungle on either side was brilliant with color and resonant with the songs ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the range in like peace grazed the enemy; white-fleeced, soft and downy as doves, and as harmless and innocent. Of all weapons ever used in warfare the strangest, these living emblems of innocence. It was a warfare fought far from the public eye. The men who fought the cattle were little like those bull-fighters ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... a fine, downy undercovering, obtained by combing the fleece of a goat native to the Kashmir Valley in India. A single animal yields scarcely more than an ounce or two, and the best product is worth about its weight in gold. ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... communion with the things about me. Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid That binds the skirt of night's descending robe! The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, Do make a music like to rustling satin, As the light breezes smooth their downy nap. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... of it before I begin—I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place—and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world—'tis the refuge of the unfortunate—the enfranchisement of the prisoner—the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary, and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompence the sufferings wherewith his justice ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... dog the best playmate that a boy can have? Did any one ever hear of Towser or Gyp being false friends? And the soft, dainty, cunning bit of a fluffy ball of a kitten who comes rubbing its downy sides against the tiny girl's skirts begging for a return caress, is there a play-fellow more lovable? And the squirrel who comes begging at the window for nuts; the bunny rabbit who snuggles its delicate nose, trustingly, under the little boy's chin; the horse who has been man's friend in times ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... and satins,—that shining hair shall be made radiant with gems,—jewels shall sparkle on that fair neck, and on those taper fingers,—you shall ride in a carriage, and have servants to wait on you,—and you shall sleep on a downy bed, and live in a grand house, like this. Say, will not all these fine things be better than selling fruit ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... absence or small size of the perianth,—in the protrusion of the stigmas at the period of fertilisation,—in the flowers being produced before they are hidden by the leaves,—and in the stigmas being downy or plumose (as in the Gramineae, Docks, etc), so as to secure the chance-blown grains. In plants which are fertilised by the wind, the flowers do not secrete nectar, their pollen is too incoherent to be easily collected by insects, ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... arranged in opposite rows, and a tall stem ending in a cylindrical spike, half to one foot long, of closely packed male (above) and female (below) flowers. The familiar brown spike is a dense mass of minute one-seeded fruits, each on a long hair-like stalk and covered with long downy hairs, which render the fruits very light and readily carried by the wind. The name bulrush is more correctly applied to Scirpus lacustris, a member of a different family (Cyperaceae), a common plant in wet places, with tall spongy, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... worn and broken by striking against one another, or by rolling on the ground. The touch of these snow-flowers in calm weather is infinitely gentle—glinting, swaying, settling silently in the dry mountain air, or massed in flakes soft and downy. To lie out alone in the mountains of a still night and be touched by the first of these small silent messengers from the sky is a memorable experience, and the fineness of that touch none will forget. But the storm-blast laden with crisp, sharp snow seems to crush and bruise and stupefy ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... downy covering of the seed of several special of cotton of cotton plant. It is a native of many parts of the world, being found by Columbus growing in the West Indies and on the main land, by Cortez in ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... I sought the spangled bowers, To cull a wreath of matin flowers, Where many an early rose was weeping, I found the urchin Cupid sleeping, I caught the boy, a goblet's tide Was richly mantling by my side, I caught him by his downy wing, And whelmed him in the racy spring. Then drank I down the poisoned bowl, And love now nestles in my soul. Oh, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest, I feel him fluttering in ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... ye west winds, through the lonely dale, And, Fancy, to thy faerie bower betake! Even now, with balmy freshness, breathes the gale, Dimpling with downy wing the stilly lake; Through the pale willows faltering whispers wake, And evening comes with locks bedropt with dew; On Desmond's moldering turrets slowly shake The trembling rye-grass and the harebell blue, And ever and anon ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... blossom? Fragile, fairy thing, Poised upon slender tip, and quivering To flight! a flower of the fields of air; A jeweled moth; a butterfly, with rare And tender tints upon his downy wings, A moment resting in our happy sight; A flower held captive by a thread so slight Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer Are light as the wind, with every wind astir, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite. O dainty nursling of the field and sky. What fairer thing looks up to heaven's ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... oppressed by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose; Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance With timid eye to read the distant glance; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease To name the nameless, ever-new, disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain, and that alone, can cure; How would ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... eyes! The snow had draped all things in white. The trees that had seemed so gaunt and skeleton-like as they writhed and moaned in the gale were now clothed with a beauty surpassing that of their summer foliage, for every branch, even to the smallest twig, had been incased in the downy flakes. The evergreens looked like old-time gallants well powdered for a festival. The shrubbery of the garden was scarcely more than mounds of snow. The fences had almost disappeared; while away as far as the eye could reach all was sparkling whiteness. Nature was like a bride adorned ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place,— Oh to abide in the desert with thee! Wild is the day and loud Far in the downy cloud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. Where, on thy dewy wing, Where art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. O'er fell and mountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... of Colutea cultivated in our garden the one here figured, is distinguished by the brilliancy of its' flowers, the largeness of its pods, and the downy appearance of the ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... frozen air, No shirt half so fine, so fair; A rich waistcoat they did bring, Made of the Trout-fly's gilded wing: At which his Elveship 'gan to fret The wearing it would make him sweat Even with its weight: he needs would wear A waistcoat made of downy hair New shaven off an Eunuch's chin, That pleased him well, 'twas wondrous thin. The outside of his doublet was Made of the four-leaved, true-loved grass, Changed into so fine a gloss, With the oil of crispy moss: It made ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Gulls, give me back my mantle which thou hast pilfered, and the Saetaban napkin and Thynian tablets which, idiot, thou dost openly parade as though they were heirlooms. These now unglue from thy nails and return, lest the stinging scourge shall shamefully score thy downy flanks and delicate hands, and thou unwonted heave and toss like a tiny boat surprised on the vasty sea by a ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... find a stimulus for service for the future, and a stimulus for hope for the time to come. His first convert was to him the first drop that predicts the shower, the first primrose that prophesies the wealth of yellow blossoms and downy green leaves that will fill the woods in a day or two. The first convert 'bears in his hand a glass which showeth many more.' Look at the workmen in the streets trying to get up a piece of the roadway. How difficult ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... cats, horses, cows of the little farms, the birds and animals of forest and brookside. He knew them all, and they knew, loved, and trusted him. The tinier creatures, such as butterflies, bees, ants, beetles, even caterpillars, downy or smooth, were his friends, or seemed so. He knew them, watched them, studied their habits, and was the little naturalist of Greenhills village, consulted by all, even by older ...
— Story-Tell Lib • Annie Trumbull Slosson
... said, hoarsely; "I'm too dirty." He put out a hand, and softly touched her dress. "Is it pink?" he asked, "or does it only look so in this light? It feels awfully downy and nice." ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... a nice thing for a sick-room-the best nuss-lamp I ever seed!" Having satisfied the curiosity of these people, and been much amused by their quaint remarks, I was quietly smuggled into Mr. Webb's "best room," where, if my spirit did not make feathery flights, it was not the fault of the downy bed in whose unfathomable ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... differences make a great difference in cultivating the several varieties, assuredly, in a state of nature, where the trees would have to struggle with other trees and with a host of enemies, such differences would effectually settle which variety, whether a smooth or downy, a yellow or a purple-fleshed ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... drearily through the rhododendrons and the pines; and Kiramat Ali, the pipe-bearer, shivered audibly as he drew his long cloth uniform around him. We rose and entered my friend's rooms, where the warmth of the lights, the soft rugs and downy cushions, invited us temptingly to sit down and continue our conversation. But it was late, for Isaacs, like a true Oriental, had not hurried himself over his narrative, and it had been nine o'clock when ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... I want to ask you if anything in my past life makes you think that I am a proper old hen to have a downy little chicken thrust right under my wing for safe keeping, whether I hatched her or not?" Mr. Vandeford demanded, and his rage was so perfectly impersonal and perplexed that Mr. Farraday sat down to go into the matter ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dust, nails the carpets to the floors in every corner of the house, brushes the cellar walls, polishes the knocker of the front door, oils the springs of the carriage,—in short, makes matter a nutritive and downy pulp, clean and shining, in the midst of which the soul expires of enjoyment and the frightful monotony of comfort in a life without contrasts, deprived of spontaneity, and which, to sum all in one word, makes ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... picketed, a low humming as if some sentry were cheering his dreary watch by recollections of an old west-country ditty, and then from a little distance there was the half-hissing, half-grating cry of a white owl, as it flapped along upon its downy, silent pinions, while, through the trees at the edge of the wood, there was a dull red light, which showed where the embers of the great oaken beams of the Hall sent forth their ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... practicable, useful specimens may be prepared, especially if a few notes be made as to colour, etc. The more important notes are as to the colour of the stem and pileus, together with any peculiarities of the surface, e.g., whether it be dry, viscid, downy, scaly, etc., and whether the flesh of the pileus be thin or otherwise; as to the stem, whether hollow or solid; as to the gills, whether they are attached to the stem or free; and especially what is their colour and that of the spores. ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... the downy, But your soul doth quake, At most fearful night-mares— Turkey, oysters, cake. While each leaden horror That your rest appalls, Cries, "Dear heart! how pleasant; Making ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... Master Empson," said the petite maitresse, sinking gently back on the downy couch, from which a momentary irritation had startled her—"I think the chocolate will please you, though scarce equal to what we had from the Spanish resident Mendoza.—But we must offer these strange people something. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... cigar, one tumbler of weak Hollands' grog, better named swizzle, all to be disposed of in pleasant company during some half-hour's walk on deck; when, if you should sometimes, as I hope you often may, fall in with a soft downy south-west breeze, a clear deep-blue sky over head, gemmed full with little stars, and fringed about, down into the watery round, by a broad border of jet-black cloud, against which each curling ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... moss, slightly saucer-shaped, about 4 inches in diameter, with a slight depression on the upper surface, which was everywhere thinly coated with sheep's wool and the fine white silky hair of some animal. The nest is usually a shapeless mass of downy fur, cattle-hair, and even feathers and wool, but when on a branch is strengthened exteriorly with moss. Even when in holes, they sometimes round the nest into a more or less regular though shallow cup, and use a good deal of moss or a little grass ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... species are found, but generally four different kinds of birds make up the small company that road the woods together. These four are the white-breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse, downy woodpecker, and the merry little chickadee. What a happy, contented ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied more than ever. It was an era in the history of their race. The downy woodpecker found such a savory morsel under its bark, that he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree, before he left it,—a thing which he had never done before, to my knowledge. It did not take the partridge long to find out how sweet its buds ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... impressed, and impressed more strongly the better you draw them, with the idea of their softness of surface. A distant tree is not a flat and even piece of color, but a more or less globular mass of a downy or bloomy texture, partly passing into a misty vagueness. I find, practically, this lovely softness of far-away trees the most difficult of all characters to reach, because it cannot be got by mere ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... 'Oh!' arose from the crowd of children gathered to the festival. I assure you, it was splendid; the great tree glittering with lights and gifts; and, on her invisible perch, up among the green boughs, sat the little golden-haired angel, all in white, with downy wings, a shining crown on her head, and the most serene satisfaction in her blue eyes, as she stretched her chubby arms to those below, and smiled her baby smile at them. Before any one could speak, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Volunteer Reserve—were awaiting my arrival with impatience. To them I told my story with the brevity that I now recount it to you. They were intrigued greatly, and the sous-lieutenant struck me violently upon the back and said, ma foi, that I was a 'downy old bird,' It was a compliment tres 'bizarre mais tres aimable. I was, it appeared, an old bird of the downiest plumage. I had noted the name of the house, and the Inspector seized a Directory. 'We have suspected that house for some time,' said he. ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... perpetual squawking, and ran wildly about, while the downy chicks huddled in fear under the huge leaves of a burdock plant, and uttered little frightened peeps that, however, were unheard in the din that Gyp ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... wish I were her earring, Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek, (So might my shadow tremble Over her downy cheek), Hid in her hair, all day and night, Touching her neck ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... downy, bright yellow little thing, but it had a monstrous big nose and feet, and such an ungainly walk as she knew no other instance of in her well-bred and high-stepping family. And as to behavior, it was not that it was either quarrelsome or moping, but simply ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... happy for me to be in her home, Among her soft and downy couches, Should Crede deign to hear me; Happy for me would be my journey. A bowl she has, whence berry-juice flows, With which she colors her eyebrows black; She has clear vessels of fermenting ale; Cups she has, and beautiful goblets. The ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... dread prompted her to turn round, and indeed there lay Jeanne, lowering upon them with deadly pale face and great inky-black eyes. The child had not made the least movement; her chin was still buried in the downy pillow, which she clasped with her little arms. She had only opened her eyes a moment before and ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola |
