"Harpy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... year 1729, with Youth, Health, a strong Frame, and a comely Countenance (as they told me), indeed, but with just two Guineas in my pouch for all my Fortune. Many a Lord Mayor of London has begun the World, 'tis said, with a yet more slender Provision (I wonder what Harpy Hopwood had to begin with?) and Eighteenpence would seem to be the average of Capital Stock for an Adventurer that is to heap up Riches. Still I seemed to have made my Start in Life's Voyage a ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... for several dates with Sylvia. Out of the office she wasn't quite the protective harpy about Paul Cleary that she had been in the office, although the thought was ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... his being set adrift in an open boat, with his infant daughter and his books for company, are wrecked through his art upon the island of which he has become the master. Ariel, the spirit who serves Prospero, a mysterious, ever changing form, now fire, now a Nymph, now an invisible musician, now a Harpy, striking guilt into the conscience (and yet apparently not interested in either vice or virtue, but {206} longing only for free idleness), guides all to Prospero's cave, and receives freedom for ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... winter apple was to leave a shaky tooth behind) obligingly took the first bite, but made that bite include nearly half the apple—that rapacious betrayer of confiding helplessness deserved to be called a harpy. But she wasn't; she was ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... and winged. So HESIOD drew The legendary Harpy crew, The "Spoilers" of old fable; Maidens, yet monsters, woman-faced, With iron hearts that had disgraced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... explicit on this point. Furthermore, the erroneous reference of Calaeno's omen to Anchises in the seventh book (l. 122) would indicate that this part at least was written before the harpy-scene of the third, for the latter is so extensive that the poet could hardly have forgotten it if it had ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... grates upon the shingly strand, their ears are saluted by a chorus of cries—the alarm signal of seabirds, startled by the intrusion; among them the scream of the harpy eagle, resembling the ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... for—Frost? Fuller? Father and mother don't want the Bride to come; and mother thinks the Bride don't want to come. So why should they ask her to come? And why should she come? I wouldn't," Edith said; "but I hope she will, for I love her! And oh, I hope she'll bring her harp! I've never seen a harpy. But people are funny," Edith summed it up; "inviting people and not wanting 'em; and visiting 'em and not wanting to. It ain't sense," ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... is dumbfounding to other animals. Of course, their intelligent and quick-witted methods of defence, menace, guard-duty, and loyalty to tribe makes them great warriors, and enables them to survive even the onslaughts of their greatest enemy and nightmare of every non-carnivorous animal—the harpy eagle! ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... references to such bird-like beings which play important roles and which bear evidence of archaic origins. There is, however, one fragment of a food bowl which is adorned with a pictograph so realistic and so true to modern legends of a harpy that I have not hesitated to affix to it the name current in modern Tusayan folklore. This fragment ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... said Tarvrille to the table generally. "Go on! It's not a general conflagration, and the fire brigade won't be five minutes. Don't see that it's our affair. The stuff's insured. They say old Lady Paskershortly was dreadful. Like a harpy. The Dowager Empress had shown her some little things of hers. Pet things—hidden away. Susan went straight for them—used to take an umbrella ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... meeting with him. It was just after the Boer war and old Johnny Beaminster gave a dinner party to some men pals of his at the Phoenix. Johnny was not so old then—none of us were; it was a short time after the death of that old harpy, the Duchess of Wrexe, and some wag said that the dinner was in celebration of that happy occasion. Johnny was not so ungracious as that, but he gave us a very merry evening and he did undoubtedly feel a kind of lightness in the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... Oppression, in his harpy fangs, From Want's weak grasp the last sad morsel bears, Can ye allay the dying parent's pangs, Whose infant craves relief with ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... astrology, and people would believe anything. In this enlightened age of the universal subscription-paper, exhausted givers are familiar objects, but a receiver who finds the labors of his calling excessive is as non-existent as the harpy, his mythological prototype.] ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... age, which occasioned the saying, that they snatched the victuals out of his mouth. Le Clerc thinks, that the Harpies were vast swarms of grasshoppers, which ravaged all Paphlagonia, and caused a famine in the dominions of Phineus; the word 'arbati,' whence the term 'Harpy' is derived, signifying 'a grasshopper;' and that the North wind blowing them into the Ionian sea, it gave rise to the saying, that the sons of Boreas pursued them so far. Diodorus Siculus does not mention the Harpies, though he speaks of the arrival of the Argonauts ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... steed which was yoked with these immortal twain, the brood of Zephyr and the Harpy Podarga; only we can hardly say of the poet what Homer says ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... fatigued with wandering about, and famished for want of food, he had suddenly set before them a delicious banquet, and then, just as they were going to eat, he appeared visible before them in the shape of a harpy, a voracious monster with wings, and the feast vanished away. Then, to their utter amazement, this seeming harpy spoke to them, reminding them of their cruelty in driving Prospero from his dukedom, and leaving him and his infant daughter to perish in the sea; saying that for ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... always been of one mind about everything. My goodness, what hard-hearted creatures the old Nuesslers are," she added, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor. "The old woman," said Braesig, "is a perfect harpy." "You're right, Braesig, that's just what she is. My pastor must try to touch the conscience of the two old people; I don't mean about the little girl, she will come here and live with us, or I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... Wit's fair goddess[3] brought to bed, There follow'd at his lying-in For after-birth a sooterkin; Which, as the nurse pursued to kill, Attain'd by flight the Muses' hill, There in the soil began to root, And litter'd at Parnassus' foot. From hence the critic vermin sprung, With harpy claws and poisonous tongue: Who fatten on poetic scraps, Too cunning to be caught in traps. Dame Nature, as the learned show, Provides each animal its foe: Hounds hunt the hare, the wily fox Devours ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... travellers are surprised to encounter strange monsters, and to be enveloped in dense mists, through which they hear the flapping of bat-like wings and catch glimpses of harpy-like creatures. Knowing monsters and mists are mere delusions, Sir Guyon pays little heed to them, and the palmer soon disperses them by a touch from his magic staff. Still bearing the steel net and ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... heap, and ruin seems 590 Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where Armies whole have sunk: the parching Air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of Fire. Thither by harpy-footed Furies hail'd, At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce, From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice 600 Thir soft Ethereal warmth, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Berry, "I know what's coming. I had it last night until I fell asleep. Then that harpy"—he nodded at Daphne—"dared to rouse me out of a most refreshing slumber to ask me whether I thought 'the Chinese did both sides at once or one after the other.' With my mind running on baths, I said they probably began on their feet and washed upwards. By the time the ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... property of Godoy. King Charles IV and his wife were in Rome, living in the Barberini Palace, and they spent their days in the seclusion of the Villa Mattei; and while the favourite and the Queen, who had now become a harpy, walked in those poetical avenues, bordered with box and laurel, the good Bourbon, now an old man, walked behind them, his forehead ornamented like a faun's, enchanted to watch them; I don't know whether he was playing ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... Tarpeian rock, Jove's black eagle tearing at the quick flesh, senseless of the cruel feast. Poet's conceit is not too extravagant or remote. He who in any age filches from time-lock combination light for his kind, must have his Caucasus, whereon, blind scavangers of fate, batten harpy gorge, while not a kindly drop softens Olmypus' cold, drear scowl. No prayer moves those tense lips, but Caucasus groans with the voiceless petition, and Olympus' huge molars chatter with the prophetic beseeching. No uttered ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... her way through the corridors, quarreling over money in foul-mouthed language with the servants, and with no other vestiges of her past than the gowns of rustling silk, and the diamonds, emeralds and pearls that took their turns in her stiff, shrivelled ears. This harpy had loved Leonora with the fondness of the veteran for the ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... around him, and confound him, the confounder of us all; Pelt him, pummel him, and maul him; rummage, ransack, overhaul him; Overbear him and outbawl him; bear him down, and bring him under. Bellow, like a burst of thunder, robber! harpy! sink of plunder! Rogue and villain! rogue and cheat! rogue and villain, I repeat! Oftener than I can repeat it has the rogue and villain cheated. Close around him, left and right; spit upon him, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... daughters, Marziella and Puccia. Marziella was as fair to look upon as she was good at heart; whilst, on the contrary, Puccia by the same rule had a face of ugliness and a heart of pestilence, but the girl resembled her parent, for Troccola was a harpy within and a very ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's pomp, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power! Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee) From Superstition's harpy minions And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions, The guide of homeless winds and ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... passing the island where Syracuse now stands, and rounding the southern coast of Sicily. Then they sailed past the tall rock of Acragas and palm-loving Selinus, and so came to the western corner, where the harbor of Drepanun gave them shelter. Here a sorrow overtook AEneas, that neither the harpy nor the seer had foretold. Anchises, weary with wandering and sick of long-deferred hope, fell ill and died. Sadly AEneas sailed from hence without his trusted friend and counselor, and steered his ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... with episodes that Medenham might regard with disdain, yet he would be shocked out of his well-fed cynicism by the notion that his son was gallivanting round the country as the chauffeur of an unconventional American girl and a middle-aged harpy ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... her voice speaking to the dogs: "Ah, my friends, ah, my dears! I know you every one. Jo Portugais is here. I know your bark, you, Harpy, and you, Lazybones, and you, Cloud and London! I know you every one. I heard you as I came from Mass, beauty dears. Ah, you know me, sweethearts? Ah, God bless you for coming! You have come to bring us home; you have come to fetch us home—father ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... relations in a good position whom I might offend if I treated her roughly, and that I might make an enemy capable of exacting a terrible revenge; and, finally, that Madame might disapprove of my using violence to this hideous harpy.... ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... took with thee, a tender maid, In thy war thinking perfect peace to find, And all my arms upon the ground I laid, Yielding myself to thee with trustful mind: Thou, harpy-tyrant, whom no faith may bind, Eftsoons didst swoop on me, And with thy cruel claws ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... sailed up with a cordial greeting to her good cousin, and wanted to set him down to loo or ombre; but the veteran knew too well what the play in her house was, and saw, moreover, Lady Aresfield sitting like a harpy before the green baize field of her spoils. While he was refusing, Sir Amyas returned to him, saying, "Sir, here is a gentleman whom I think you must have known in Flanders;" and the Major found himself shaking hands with an old comrade. Save for his heavy heart, he would been extremely ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... day my experience with the Pterodactyl Pups was not forgotten, and as a direct result of looking out for soaring vultures and eagles, with hopes of again seeing a white-plumaged King and the regal Harpy, I caught sight of a tiny mote high up in mid-sky. I thought at first it was a martin or swift; but it descended, slowly spiraling, and became too small for any bird. With a final, long, descending curve, it alighted in the compound of our bungalow laboratory and rested quietly—a great ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... his arrival he began to complain that he felt worse. It was then that he became the ranch's incubus, its harpy, its Old Man of the Sea. He shut himself in his room like some venomous kobold or flibbertigibbet, whining, complaining, cursing, accusing. The keynote of his plaint was that he had been inveigled into ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... to think this by seeing how low, how unjust, how unworthy, the judgments of this world are; and I would not that what I so much respect, love, and revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... but a Harpy who delivered this prophecy. See Book VIII. stanza xxix. This, and other slight inconsistencies in the Aeneid are undoubtedly due to the fact that Virgil died before he had ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Juan, 'carpe, carpe!' To-morrow sees another race as gay And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. 'Life 's a poor player,'—then 'play out the play, Ye villains!' above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... The bud upon the bough? Is it right, is it fair, That we perish of despair In this land, on this soil, Where our destiny is set, Which we cultured with our toil, And watered with our sweat? We have ploughed, we have sown But the crop was not our own; We have reaped, but harpy hands Swept the harvest from our lands; We were perishing for food, When lo! in pitying mood, Our kindly rulers gave The fat fluid of the slave, While our corn filled the manger Of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... of the squadron named in the margin—[the Elephant, Defiance, Monarch, Bellona, Edgar, Russell, Ganges, Glatton, Isis, Agamemnon, Polyphemus, and Ardent, ships of the line; the Amazon, Desiree, Blanche, and Alcmene, frigates; the Dart, Arrow, Cruiser, and Harpy, sloops; the Zephyr, and Otter, fire-ships; the Discovery, Sulphur, Hecla, Explosion, Zebra, Terror, and Volcano, bombs; with eight gun-brigs]—which you did me the honour to place under my command, I beg leave to inform you that, having by the assistance of that able officer Captain Riou, and ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... to Phoebus' influences, his tripods and laurels, to stars and tongues of birds and auguries of prosperous flight, tell me now,—for the voice of revelation was all favourable to my course, and all divine influence counselled me to [364-396]seek Italy and explore remote lands; only Celaeno the Harpy prophesies of strange portents, a horror to tell, and cries out of wrath and bale and foul hunger,—what perils are the first to shun? or in what guidance may I overcome ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... so material a particular in the History of AEneas, it may be worth while to consider with how much Judgment he has qualified it, and taken off every thing that might have appeared improper for a Passage in an Heroick Poem. The Prophetess who foretells it, is an Hungry Harpy, as the Person who discovers it is ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... another manuscript, I was caught by the name Charpillon, which every reader of the Memoirs will remember as the name of the harpy by whom Casanova suffered so much in London, in 1763-4. This manuscript begins by saying: 'I have been in London for six months and have been to see them (that is, the mother and daughter) in their own house,' where ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... notes they scattered; The great house is down at last; The image of gold is shattered, And never can be recast. The bankrupts show leaden features, And weary, distracted looks, While harpy-eyed, wolf-souled creatures Pry through their dishonored books. On, and on, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... grievance—a publisher by the name of Hotten, a sort of literary harpy, of which there were a great number in those days of defective copyright, not merely content with pilfering his early work, had reprinted, under the name of Mark Twain, the work of a mixed assortment of other humorists, an offensive volume ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a bottomless pit; it is a cormorant, a harpy, that devours everything. John Bull was flattered by the lawyers that his suit would not last above a year or two at most; that before that time he would be in quiet possession of his business; yet ten long years did Hocus steer his cause through all the meanders ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... of a couple of hundred acres. Several Members connected with the shipping interest protested against the tax. Mr. LEIF-JONES implied that it was more disastrous than the U-boats, and Mr. HOUSTON loudly protested at being represented as a harpy. ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... overturned tin pap-cup. Against the wall a Dutch clock was fixed out of level, and ticked wildly in longs and shorts, its entrails hanging down beneath its white face and wiry hands, like the faeces of a Harpy ('foedissima ventris proluvies, uncaeque manus, et pallida semper ora'). A baby was crying against every chair-leg, the whole family of six or seven being small enough to be covered by a washing-tub. Mrs. Higgins sat helpless, clothed in a dress which had hooks and ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... on great dishes! how I gloat Upon the sight!" exclaims some harpy-throat. Blow strongly, blow, good Auster, and ferment The glutton's dainties, and increase their scent! And yet, without such aid, they find the flesh Of boar and turbot nauseous, e'en though fresh, When, gorged to sick repletion, they request Onions or radishes ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... give up the ocean," thought Jack, "and my share of it, but also my share of the Harpy, unto anyone who fancies it. Equality enough here, for everyone appears ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... and tact in motion. And as the actions of the foot and the hand in man are made by every great painter perfectly expressive of the character of mind, so the expressions of rapacity, cruelty, or force of seizure, in the harpy, the gryphon, and the hooked and clawed evil spirits of early religious art, can only be felt by extreme ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... ranged themselves around the fire, one at each of the cardinal points. Each held an arrow made of the cliff rose (Cowania mexicana) in his extended right hand. The head of the arrow was of stone, the fletching of eagle feathers, and the "breath feather" of the downy plume of the Tsenáhale (the Harpy of Navajo mythology). As they held the arrows they ejaculated, "ai', ai', ai', ai'," as they who dance the kátso-yisçà u do in the ceremonies to this day, and after the fourth ai' each one swallowed his arrow, head foremost, until the ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... vastly his superior; and experience, he believed, is what makes women old. As to the family, the suborder to which she belonged, he was at an utter loss to decide. For instance, she accepted her present situation with a sang-froid equaling that of a camp harpy, a few of whom Pierce had seen; then, too, she was, or had been, married to a no-account foreigner to whom she referred with a calloused and most unwifely flippancy; moreover, she bore herself with a freedom, a boldness, quite irreconcilable to the modesty of so- called "good women." Those ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... persons just home from a vacation. "One has positively seen nothing, and has always been robbed; the landlady was a harpy, the bedroom was unhealthy, and the mutton was tough. The other has always found the coziest nooks, the cheapest houses, the best landladies, the finest views, ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... I mean by this senseless interrupted tale, is, that by my central situation I am a little over-companied. Not that I have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious to drive away the harpy solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a cheerful glass; but I mean merely to give you an idea between office confinement and after-office society, how little time I can call my own. I mean only to draw a picture, not ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... ne'er so high, I have the jesses that will pull you down; And AEque tandem shall that canker cry Unto the proudest peer of Britainy. Thou that compar'st him to a flying-fish, And threaten'st death whether he rise or fall, 'Tis not the hugest monster of the sea, Nor foulest harpy, that shall swallow him. Y. Mor. If in his absence thus he favours him, What will he do whenas he shall be present? Lan. That shall we see: look, where ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... eat, using large round cakes or biscuits to put their meat on. Presently they came to eating up the cakes. Little Ascanius cried out, "We are eating our very tables," and AEneas, remembering the harpy's words, knew ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... out of my house a rabble of filthy, unclean, and plaguily pestilentious rake-hells, black beasts, dusk, dun, white, ash-coloured, speckled, and a foul vermin of other hues, whose obtrusive importunity would not permit me to die at my own ease; for by fraudulent and deceitful pricklings, ravenous, harpy-like graspings, waspish stingings, and such-like unwelcome approaches, forged in the shop of I know not what kind of insatiabilities, they went about to withdraw and call me out of those sweet thoughts wherein I was already beginning to repose myself and acquiesce ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... keep hard in chase The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race, Wha count on poortith as disgrace— Their tuneless hearts! May fireside discords jar a base To a' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... fell Oppression in his harpy fangs From Want's weak grasp the last sad morsel bears, Can ye allay the heart-wrung parent's pangs, Whose famish'd child craves help ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... diem," Juan, "carpe, carpe!" To-morrow sees another race as gay And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. "Life's a poor ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... season, when appetite is laid; when the still small voice can be heard, and the reason of the grace returns—with temperate diet and restricted dishes. Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving. When Jeshurun waxed fat, we read that he kicked. Virgil knew the harpy-nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celasno any thing but a blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of the deliciousness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is a meaner and inferior gratitude: ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... kind. These harpies watch their chance, and when they lay siege to a blooming young girl surround her with every species of enticement. She is taken to church, to places of amusement, or to the Park, and, in returning, a visit is paid to the house of a friend of the harpy. Refreshments are offered, and a glass of drugged wine plunges the victim into a stupor, from which she awakes ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... recall? 30 Recall the Muses too Driv'n from their antient seats In Albion, and well-nigh from Albion's shore, And with keen Phoebean shafts Piercing th'unseemly birds, Whose talons menace us Shall drive the harpy race ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... Oberon) be dwelling! Your notion's lovely, winning, grand, The fiscal cat most bravely belling; Guileless NATHANIEL, too, affects World-hardened hearts—almost to weeping, Volunteer taxes who expects To draw from Mammon's harpy keeping. Go, lure the tomtit from the twig, Go, coax the tiger from his quarry, The toper from his thirsty swig, The swindler from his schemings sorry: "Persuade" the Sweater to be just, The 'cute Monopolist to be kindly; Tempt hunger to resign his crust, The niggard churl to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... for January; among the harpers, listen to M. DE BLOWITZ harping on the journalistic string—good; and, his talent having served him to a pretty tune, 'tis well he should harp on it in Harper's. The Baron hopes that M. DE B. has spent a Harpy Christmas. Allow the B. DE B.-W. to draw his friends' attention to "A Military Incident," and two other short papers, in The Cornhill. BARON ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... despaired at once of obtaining any work of art. It seemed as if an angry heaven had sent this fearful scourge into the world expressly to destroy all harmony. Scorn of the world was expressed in his countenance. His tongue uttered nothing save biting and censorious words. He swooped down like a harpy into the street: and his acquaintances, catching sight of him in the distance, sought to turn aside and avoid a meeting with him, saying that it poisoned all ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... indorse what is said of those harpy-defilers of knowledge known as juvenile books. A limited use of the works of Abbott, Edgeworth, Sedgwick, and a very few others may certainly be permitted. But the common practice of removing every occasion for effort from the path of the young—of boning and spicing the mental ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... did Ariel play them. Once he set a banquet before them, and just as they were going to fall to, he appeared to them amid thunder and lightning in the form of a harpy, and immediately the banquet disappeared. Then Ariel upbraided them with their sins ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... a scanty breakfast, lingered around the place until the fire had left nothing more for them, when they shook their ugly heads, and hopping a few steps, to get up a momentum, flapped their harpy ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... her flight to hell, And summons all my senses to depart: The heat and moisture, which did feed each other, For want of nourishment to feed them both, Are [126] dry and cold; and now doth ghastly Death With greedy talents [127] gripe my bleeding heart, And like a harpy [128] tires on my life.— Theridamas and Tamburlaine, I die: And fearful vengeance light upon ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... of Envy and of Love! That turnest into pain thy father's joys, To evil Argus-eyed, but blind as mole to good. Minister of torment! Jealousy! Fetid harpy! Tisiphone infernal! Who steals and poisons others' good, Under thy cruel breath does languish The sweetest flower of all my hopes. Proud of thyself, unlovely one, Bird of sorrow and harbinger of ill, The heart thou visitest by thousand doors; If entrance unto thee could be denied, The reign ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... Bess rented rooms and sold drinks according to the easy-going ideas of that day. But there was something untouched by the sordidness of her calling about this ample Rabelaisian woman. There was a noise about Queen Bess lacking in her harpy contemporaries. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the Great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... "You can always get money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy...." ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to the palace. When he failed to find her he flew into a terrible rage, and hastened home to consult his books, by which means he discovered that it was his son who had deprived him of this precious treasure. Immediately he took the shape of a harpy, and, filled with rage, was determined to devour his son, and even the Princess too, if ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... meats he to an open galley bears, And other banquet spreads on other ground. Behold, as wont, the harpy-squad appears; Astolpho quickly lifts the bugle's round; And (for unguarded are their harassed ears) The harpies are not proof against the sound; In terror form the royal dome they speed, Nor meat nor aught beside the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Percival looked, and a woman came out, frigid, thin-lipped and sandy-haired. She paused on the step and gave an order to the servant: evidently she was Miss Macgregor. Percival's heart died within him. "That harpy!" he said under his breath. The door closed behind her, and there was a prison-like sound of making fast within. The young man turned and walked away, oppressed by a sense of gray dreariness. "Will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... Coeur was poured into the laps of Charles and his harpy courtiers, and the victim was consigned to oblivion. Of all he had saved and supported, one man alone was grateful—Jean du Village, his clerk, devoted himself to his master's interests, and his life, and part of his property ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... away that Panada conversation which friends think proper to administer at sick-bedsides with becoming steadiness, bid him write his brothers word that he was dead, and gently desired a woman who waited to leave him quite alone. No interested attendants watching for ill-deserved legacies, no harpy relatives clung round the couch of Baretti. ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... you old harpy!" I exclaimed, being now in a sort of rage, and quite familiar with him. "Where is the money? Where is ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... puerilities of the old days behind me for ever. But half-an-hour ago—when the Bishop sent off that ring—a sudden grip at the base of my heart filled me with a nameless terror—me, the fearless! I recognized its cause when she walked into the room. Cecil: this woman is a harpy, a siren, a mermaid, a vampire. There is only one chance for me: flight, instant precipitate flight. Make my excuses. Forget me. Farewell. [He makes for the door and is confronted by Mrs George entering]. Too late: I'm lost. [He ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... 'A. Harpy. Licensed to sell wines, spirits and malt liquor by retail to be consumed either on or ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies,—rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy: You have ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... arrived during my stay at the Cape were a French 40-gun frigate, an East India ship, and a brig, of the same nation: likewise two other French ships with slaves from the coast of Mozambique bound to the West Indies: a Dutch packet from Europe, after a four months passage: and the Harpy, a South Sea Whaler with 500 barrels of spermaceti, and 400 of seal and other oils. There is a standing order from the Dutch East India Company that no person who takes a passage from Batavia for Europe in any of their ships shall be allowed ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... the living began to well up within him ... for Hilmer in the relentless grip of the harpy who would tear at his content with her scrawny fingers ... for Mrs. Hilmer, condemned to feed to the end upon the bitter fruits of hatred ... for his wife, drifting to a pallid fate made up of petty adjustments and compromises. Yes ... he found himself pitying Helen ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... The man that stole little missy had been to her precious hovel, and old Mother Brimstone had found a change of clothes for little missy, in token of which, and on payment of another sovereign, the old harpy gave me little missy's own clothes; and there ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... might be argued, being double-edged, will ultimately right themselves. But it is otherwise in practice. Such folk as the pastor's harpy relatives will generally have a boat, and will never have paid for it; such men as the pastor may have sometimes paid for a boat, but they will never have one. It is there as it is with us at home: the measure of the abuse of either system is the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the roots of which wanted the property of sweetness so necessary to give point to the device. Unnatural or chimerical figures could not be admitted, excepting those to which tradition or classical authors had given fixed forms and attributes—as the mermaid, harpy, phoenix; consequently, a device representing a winged tortoise, the motto, Amor addidit (Love has added them), was improper. Qualities ascribed to animate or inanimate bodies by the ancients, were considered ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... in the street. She could not go back to that circle of harpy faces, all eagerly tearing to pieces the details of poor old Madame Gautier's death. She must be alone—think. She would have to write home. Her father would come to fetch her. Her aunt was beyond ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... gentleman sold the fair slave to Gurdoin Choicewest; in addition to which he had apartments at Lady Tuttlewell's most fashionable house, where the little doll-like thing used to be so sprightly in waiting at table. The quick eye of this harpy, as may readily be supposed, was not long in detecting the person of Annette the slave in our fair mother; which grand discovery he as soon communicated to Montague, pluming himself a generous fellow for ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams |
