"Scarecrow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... [33] This scarecrow is probably a talisman. In the Saharah, according to Richardson, the skull of an ass averts the evil ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... heart he was a poet—weak enough, but capable of endless delight. The time had been when now and then he read a good book and dreamed noble dreams. Even yet the stuff of which such dreams are made, fluttered in particoloured rags about his life; and colour is colour even on a scarecrow. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... gave him to understand that she was to marshal him to the altar, Balder, never more heroic than at that moment, offered her his arm, which she accepted with an air of scarecrow gentility. Either the change of costume had struck in, or it was the symbol of inward change. She seemed struggling against her torpor, her dimness and deadness. She tried, perhaps, to recall the day when that dress was first put on,—the day ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the judges, and, dismounting, began to unsaddle. Old Man Curry came wandering down the track from the paddock gate where he had watched the race. He was chewing a straw reflectively, and the tails of his rusty black frock coat flapped in the breeze like the garment of a scarecrow. Mose, with the saddle, bridle, blanket, and weight pad in his arms, disappeared under the judges' stand where the clerk of the scales weighed him together ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... entail. I must, I said, give the true key to my whole life; I must show what I am, that it may be seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be known as a living man, and not as a scarecrow which is dressed up in my clothes.... I will draw out, as far as may be, the history of my mind; I will state the point at which I began, in what external suggestion or accident each opinion had its rise, how far ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... wintry scene dissolves before my eyes, and I see again that dawn in the forest ... Francis and Monica, sleeping side by side, like the babes in the wood, half covered with leaves, the eager, panting retriever, and myself, poor, ragged scarecrow, staring openmouthed at the Dutchman whose kindly enquiry has just revealed to me the wondrous truth ... that we are ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... heard of my friend Paddy changing clothes with the scarecrow. I don't know which name is the most distinguished, that of the English ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thousands that dare not so much as once think of true religion, because of the power of the enemy which they behold, when alas! they see nobody but the very scarecrows which the devil hath set up for I count the persecutor of God's people but the devil's scarecrow, the old one himself lies quat—yet, I say, how are they frighted! how are they amazed! What a many of the enemies of religion have these folks seen today![23] yea, and they will as soon venture to run the hazard of hell-fire, as to be engaged by these enemies in this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... again to admit the last of the guests. A woman entered. Desmond was immediately struck by the contrast she presented to the others, Mortimer with his goggle eyes and untidy hair, Max, gross and bestial, Behrend, Oriental and shifty, and the scarecrow figure ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... to save the ripening fruit on a rather small tree of choice variety, I thought I should put up a scarecrow, and to this end rummaged a closet for some last winter's old clothes. These I crammed with straw, and I fastened the resulting figure in the crotch of the tree, tying the arms to the adjoining limbs, and giving it the ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... moths dead and dangling by the tongue from the wicked little charmers. If the flower assimilated their dead bodies as the pitcher plant, for example, does those of its victims, the fly's fate would seem less cruel. To be killed by slow torture and dangled like a scarecrow simply for pilfering a drop of nectar is surely an execution of justice ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... but whilst this dialogue was still going on an acquaintance made his arrival known by a knock at the door. It was a lank and hungry individual, grimy of face and hands, his clothing such as in the country would serve well for a scarecrow. Who could have recognised in him the once spruce and spirited Mr. Jack Bartley, distinguished by his chimney-pot hat at the Crystal Palace on Bob's wedding-day? At the close of that same day, as you remember, he ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... and tell the coroner that his little girl saw a strange man in the wood." He imagined it all so strongly that it almost seemed to happen. "Beg pardon, your honor, I don't rightly know as, it's wuth mentionin', but my lil' young 'un see'd a scarecrow sort of a feller not far from they rocks, the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... to," said Mrs. Muir, and then she went and laughingly delivered the message verbatim, adding, "Go and put on dry clothes. You'll catch your death with those wet things on, and you look like a scarecrow." ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... way-bill, counted the passengers, found them all right, and, remounting the box, got the horses again into a gallop, in the perfect conviction that some villanous young scarecrow had raised the ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... over their faces, or upon one side, and their empty sleeves flapping in the winds that swept through the valley. But old Mr. Crow was too wise to be fooled so easily. He would scratch up the corn at the very feet of a scarecrow—and chuckle ...
— The Tale of Old Mr. Crow • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the old maids, Dawn. You'll grow into a scarecrow that would frighten any man away if you hang ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... the lady had pleased the man, he would not have sent such a scarecrow to attend her, although she did not belong to the town, and they might never see her again! The lady, on her part, was about to insist on carrying the bandbox herself; but when Clare came forward, and ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... shabby little Montmartre restaurant, Janiaud chanced to be seated, at a table in a corner, sipping his favourite stimulant. He was deplorably dirty and suggested a scarecrow, and the English editor looked nervous when I offered an introduction. Still, Janiaud was Janiaud. The offer was accepted, and Janiaud discoursed in his native tongue. At midnight the Editor ordered ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn comrades to Falstaff's ragged regiment. Little skill as we boasted in other points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have served admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst of the matter was, that the first energetic movement essential to one downright stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor habiliments. So we gradually flung them all aside, and took to honest homespun ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hunt her up? 'Gad, I wouldn't miss a minute if I had a chance to be with a girl like that! And the other was no scarecrow. She is rather a beauty, too. Greatest town for pretty women I ever struck. Vienna ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... that draped so charmingly those of the living statue hired to parade before her. Jacqueline could not help laughing as she watched this way of hunting larks; and thought the mirror might have warned them, like a scarecrow, rather than have tempted ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... wended their midnight way toward their various houses and boarding places. The Wayne Hall girls marched across the campus, Emma Dean parading ahead with outspread arms, her rags flapping about her, giving her the appearance of a scarecrow which had just emerged from ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... comrade of Japan did the brow of Jonathan wrinkle more deeply. But every Briton swore that his kinsman would bar the yellow man's way to Hawaii, California, and the Philippines, and put him in the fields of Asia only as a terror to the Russians or a scarecrow to the Germans. A doubt remained, nevertheless; and we missed the chance of a strong insurance against Japanese encroachment. Stroked caressingly ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... shot the head off a scarecrow he had put up in the cherry tree when I was hiding around a corner to keep out of his sight. All the Springvale boys learned how to ride and shoot and to do both at once, although we never had any shooting to ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Garland" with the imaginary letters of an imaginary Arminius (Germany in long-past happier days lent the world these playful philosophical spirits), so the later author invents an old village grandpapa, with the grandpapa-name of Altegans and a prose-poem printed in scarecrow duodecimo on paper-bag pages and entitled "Erster Schulgang," 'first school-going,' or ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... first time Francis saw him angry. His eyes were blazing. His voice—Francis had followed him at once into the street—shook with passion. His hand had fallen heavily upon the shoulder of a huge carter, who, with whip in hand, was belabouring a thin scarecrow ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you want to make an invalid scarecrow of yourself before your time, it's not my business. Only don't come to me ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... Tom must have looked to the fugitive, who stood staring at him, lantern in hand, as if Tom were some ghostly scarecrow dropped ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... Grayson perished in a cornfield. His empty coat served well for a scarecrow. A wisp of straw stuck out through a hole ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... Leigh, I would certainly change my uniform; for, you will excuse my saying so, you look more like a scarecrow than an officer." ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... you brazen scarecrow,—what's your meaning?' retorted Quilp. 'Why do you talk to me of combining together? Do I combine? Do I know anything about ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... along the train. My father's head went up. So did mine. And our horses raised their weary heads, scented the air with long-drawn snorts, and for the nonce pulled willingly. The horses of the outriders quickened their pace. And as for the herd of scarecrow oxen, it broke into a forthright gallop. It was almost ludicrous. The poor brutes were so clumsy in their weakness and haste. They were galloping skeletons draped in mangy hide, and they out-distanced the boys who herded them. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... linen wings. But when I look, and cast mine eyes below, What monster meets mine eyes in human show? So slender waist with such an abbot's loin, Did never sober nature sure conjoin, Lik'st a strawn scarecrow in the new-sown field, Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield; Or if that semblance suit not every deal, Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel. Despised nature, suit them once aright, Their body to their coat, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... fed me ill, and some days not at all. And so I am but bones, now, with a rough and frowsy skin humped and cornered upon my shrunken body—that skin which was once so glossy, that skin which she loved to stroke with her hand. I was the pride of the mountains and the Great Plains; now I am a scarecrow and despised. These piteous wrecks that are my comrades here say we have reached the bottom of the scale, the final humiliation; they say that when a horse is no longer worth the weeds and discarded rubbish they feed to him, they sell him to the bull-ring for ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... the dark, dirty cave, with little food, had made him look thin, untidy, and a bit of a scarecrow. The people of Assisi had heard what he had done, and they decided he must have gone mad. So when he appeared in the city the boys began throwing stones and rubbish at him, and calling after him. Francis bore ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... to the hacienda by night, as I had wished on account of our appearance, and it was well we did so, for an inspection of the clothes I had worn displayed such a scarecrow suit as would have ensured the closing of any respectable door in ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... Florence's direction, he once more danced his dance of death. He raised himself to his full height and then suddenly crouched down again, throwing about his legs like the grotesque, ragged limbs of a scarecrow. And he sang and whistled and belched forth insults and ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... languidges—the father, you see, ould Denis himself, tuck a faver whin the son was near a year in the college, an' it proved too many for him. He died; an' whin young Dinny hard of it, the divil a one of him would stay any longer in Maynewth. He came home like a scarecrow, said he lost his health in it, an' refused to go back. Faith, it was a lucky thing that his father died beforehand, for it would brake his heart. As it was, they had terrible work about it. But ould Denis is never dead while young Denis is livin'. Faix, he was as stiff as they ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... demanded more consideration. The fat betting man and the scarecrow little butler walked aside and talked, both apparently indifferent to the impatience of a number of small customers; sometimes Joey called in his shrill cracked voice if he might lay ten half-crowns to one, or five shillings to one, as the case might be. Watkins would then raise his eyes ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... golden blossoms of the pines. Although it was early in February, we saw the negroes at work in the fields, 'listing' the ground—a process of breaking up the soil with hoes—while here and there a solitary palmetto stood, like a scarecrow, as if to warn away all invaders. We soon reached 'Camp Saxton,' which we found pleasantly situated near a large and magnificent grove of live oaks, just at the bend of the river, where a fine view is given of the winding stream, the harbor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fear of me or of Moll turning tail at a scarecrow," says Jack, adding with a sneer, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... cat I was!" said Carterette. "What a wild cat I was to make you haul me up! It was bad for me with the rope round me, it must have been awful for you, my poor esmanus—poor scarecrow Ranulph." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... absolute governments, with their following of parsons, professors, country squires and officials, it served as a welcome scarecrow against the ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... great emperor, and for that sufficient reason, although he was an impotent and shivering idiot, although he could not sleep without a friar in his bed to keep the devils away, for thirty-five years this scarecrow ruled over Spain, and dying made a will whose accomplishment bathed the Peninsula in blood. It must be confessed this institution of monarchy is a luxury ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the last one down near that scarecrow in the field," said Tom, pointing to a ragged figure in the middle of a ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... Mrs. Talcott. "She's as silly as they make 'em, I allow, but it's all to the good if her silliness keeps her sticking to you through thick and thin. It's just as well to have someone around to drive off the vultures, even if it's only a scarecrow—and Miss Scrotton is better than that. She's a pretty brainy woman, for all her silliness, and she's pretty fond of you, too, only you haven't treated her as well as she thinks you ought to have, and it makes her feel kind of spry and cheerful to see that her time's come to show you what ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Tripoli and exercise this same suzerainty by deposing the Bey; and every year our squadron used to proceed to Tunis, and stay there wasting its time while the Turkish ministry and those diplomats who were hostile to our influence amused themselves by waving the Capitan Pasha's attack before us like a scarecrow. ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... pony; he was reduced to a weight little exceeding 400 lbs. on his sledge and caved in altogether on the second part of the march. The load was reduced to 200 lbs., and finally Forde pulled this in, leading the pony. The poor thing is a miserable scarecrow and never ought to have been brought—it is the same pony that did so badly in the ship. To-day it is very fine and bright. We are giving a good deal of extra food to the animals, and my hope is that they will soon pick up again—but ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... compels me to present myself in this scarecrow aspect," he said. "I've had no time or chance for anything better. I can soon report to your father all that is essential, and then can ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... sewing-needle, which you have stolen. It is of no use to you now, for it is not necessary for me to go out in order that you may go and see Tib. We have nothing more to do with each other, and you can go where you wish. My sewing-needle, say I—my needle, or I will hang you as a scarecrow in my pea-patch, to frighten the sparrows out of it. My ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... nothing—and there would be no poet. Yet I am quite willing to admit that a man might assume a pose and yet have nothing to protect; but I stoutly maintain that pose in such a one is transparent to every one as the poles that support a scarecrow, simply because the pose never ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... born in Crown Office Row, in his exquisite way has sketched the benchers of the Temple whom he had seen pacing the terrace in his youth. Jekyll, with the roguish eye, and Thomas Coventry, of the elephantine step, the scarecrow of inferiors, the browbeater of equals, who made a solitude of children wherever he came, who took snuff by palmfuls, diving for it under the mighty flap of his old-fashioned red waistcoat. In the gentle Samuel Salt ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... who entered was a veritable scarecrow. A man with a torn coat and rent trowsers, and a battered hat which barely held together upon his head. He was covered from head to foot with mud. His ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... singing, Twen-ty-three and a half from N.W. with a sort of sublime ecstasy, feeling, as Festus had observed, that his money was safe, and that the French would not personally molest an old man in such a ragged, mildewed coat as that he wore, which he had taken the precaution to borrow from a scarecrow in one of his fields for ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... intervals, but quite always, how certain man, our American man,—how he holds himself cool and unquestioned master above all pains and bloody mutilation.... This, then, what frightened us all so long! Why, it is put to flight with ignominy—a mere stuffed scarecrow of the fields. Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... and began vigorously beating on it with the stick. He did not mind the noise now since he was helping to make it. Meanwhile old Jacob began flinging his arms and legs about in all directions, looking like a scarecrow made to tumble about by means of springs and wires. He pounded the clay floor with his ponderous old boots until the room was filled with a cloud of dust; then in his excitement he kicked over chairs, pots, kettles, and whatever came in his way, while he kept on revolving round the ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... durance. "What sort of dinner would be on my father's table-cloth if I were to sit under one all day?" said she in answer to Harriet's representation of the fitness of things. "La, my dear, what matters it what an old scarecrow like ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Princess Ozma, the Ruler, for an hour each day sits in a throne of glistening emeralds and listens to all the troubles of her people, which they are sure to tell her about. Around Ozma's throne, on such occasions, are grouped all the important personages of Oz, such as the Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead, Tiktok the Clockwork Man, the Tin Woodman, the Wizard of Oz, the Shaggy Man and other famous fairy people. Little Dorothy usually has a seat at Ozma's feet, and crouched on either side the throne ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... a loud laugh. "The Austrians, then, believe my soldiers to be sparrows, and think they can drive them out by setting up a scarecrow! If the Emperor Francis himself intends to command, he will command the army only to retreat, for the word 'forward' is not to be found in his dictionary. Have you looked over the dispatches from Germany, and can you report to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... the afternoon in throwing stones at a scarecrow. His aim was fairly good, and he succeeded in knocking off the hat and finally prostrating the wooden framework. Followed—an exciting chase ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... possession of. Granting, indeed, that a man's arm is moved by a simple physical cause, then of course we may dispute about the various external influences which, when it changes its position, sway it to and fro, like a scarecrow in a garden; but to assert that the motive cause is physical, this is an assumption in a case, when our question is about a matter of fact, not about the logical consequences of an assumed premiss. And, in like manner, if a people prays, and the wind changes, the rain ceases, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... a Justice of peace, At home a poor scarecrow, in London an asse, If Lowsie is lucy, as some volke miscalle it Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befalle it. He thinks himself greate Yet an asse in his state, We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate. If Lucy ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... thrust under my nose and drawing an inference. I must tell you that my grandfather was a notable lawyer, and who knows but that a scrap of his mantle may not have descended upon me! Now to answer your question right away—you will admit that pretty often your aunt is dressed like a last year's scarecrow; that she is drowsy, stupefied, and generally inaccessible. At another time she is real smart and vivacious, and puts other women in the shade. Then suddenly she disappears, shuts herself up along with Lily ayah, and not a soul may approach her—no, not even ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... in such profusion along the borders of the fields and among the grain, that the reapers, in cutting the wheat, laid the flowers low before them as well. Niels liked to bind the sheaves, and did his work so deftly that he was always welcome. He it was, too, who made such a wonderful "scarecrow" that not a bird dared venture near. But little Hansa laughed and said: "Silly birds! the old hat cannot harm you. See! I will bring my flowers close beside it." Then the reapers, laughing, called the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... a speculative eye as he worked, and thought he had never looked quite so unattractive as he did with an eight-days' growth of beard, his shirt stained with paint and petrol. His hands were grimy and nobody would have recognised in this scarecrow the elegant habitue of those fashionable resorts ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tiktok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People too Numerous ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... for we had no stabling at the old "Benbow." I followed him in, and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright doctor, with his powder as white as snow, and his bright black eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltish country folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow of a pirate of ours, sitting far gone in rum, with his arms on the table. Suddenly he—the captain, that is—began to pipe ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... walked back to the town with his guest, leaving him at the corner of the Calle Grande. As he was returning homeward one "Beelzebub" Blythe, with the air of a courtier and the outward aspect of a scarecrow, pounced upon him hopefully from ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... tea they bring in what would cost a lira in Florence. I'll drink a whole cup of it!—I'll eat pounds of butter—and lots, lots of pudding—that's what makes English people fat. I'll be fat too. You'll see!" And she threw a threatening nod at the scarecrow ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... last, for Martin learned that five years before, Captain Dabney had salvaged Little Billy off the beach at Suva, a dreadful scarecrow of a man, and Ruth's nursing, and the clean sea life, had built a new William Corcoran. But the appetite for the drink was uneradicable, and the genial hunchback's life was a series of losing battles with ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... useless to expostulate with this feminine scarecrow; her son was, happily for himself, unconscious, and after some more wrangling he was laid down on her doorstep, where he shortly afterward expired, his body being afterward carted away like so ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... them! Who shall say That at the bottom of their hearts they bear Love for our tyrant? I should like to lay They've our hate for him in their pockets! Here, But that I turned in haste and broke away, I should have kissed a corporal, stiff and tall, And like a scarecrow stuck ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... I become a scarecrow that all these children desert me so suddenly!" exclaimed Miss Laura, looking helplessly about and lifting her skirts the higher to avoid the dirty suds which somebody was emptying ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... together, while Giles again hugged himself in his doleful conceit, marvelling how a youth of birth and nurture could walk the streets on a Sunday with a scarecrow such as that! ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the young scarecrow, taking things as coolly as though he had always been used to having white men row him about a harbour," laughed Cabot, "and yet I don't suppose he was ever in ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... go to Pebble Bay, Golfing or to bathe and boat— Should you see a loaded shay, In the shafts a scarecrow goat, Tell him that you hope (with me) Pan will shortly set him free, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... dauphin; OEuvres completes (1828), t. xvii. pp. 541, 545.] Bossuet had good grounds for speaking so. Louis XII. himself said, in 1511, to the ambassador of Spain, that "this pretended council was only a scarecrow which he had no idea of employing save for the purpose of bringing the pope to reason." Amidst these vain attempts at ecclesiastical influence the war was continued with passionateness on the part of Julius II., with hesitation on the part of Louis XII., and with some disquietude on the part ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... her: he had pinioned her. She cried out to Oliver to run up, and set the mill-sails agoing, to bring neighbour Gool. Stephen took this second hint. He quietly swung Oliver off the steps, sent down his scarecrow after him, and himself took his seat on the threshold of the mill. There he sat, laughing to see how Ailwin wearied herself with struggles, while Roger, by merely hanging on her arms, prevented her getting ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... cloister after all, for to a Paris nunnery she was consigned when her Cardinal uncle had set eyes on her. "Let her have a year or two there," was his verdict, "and, who knows, she may blossom into a beauty yet. At any rate she can put on flesh and not be the scarecrow she is." And thus, while her more favoured sisters were revelling in the gaieties of Court life, Marie was sent to tell her beads and to spend ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... make what is called a dramatic entry, for most people who were in his condition would have hurried up for all they were worth. He was wet through from head to foot, his collar hung round his neck like a dirty rag, and his whole appearance reminded me of a scarecrow which has ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... she said, pettishly. "I live on cream, and it's no good. Of course, I know I'm an object and a scarecrow; but I'd rather people ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they governed by fraud alone. First they, by the artful and able agents which they have constantly kept in pay, frightened the people with the pretended dangers of a return of the old king's family. The people were amused with this scarecrow, while the chains were silently forging to bind them with. But the great fraud, the cheat of all cheats, was what they call the national debt. And now, Jack, pray attend to me; for I am going to explain the chief cause of all the disgraces and sufferings of the labourers ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... along an avenue of eucalypti planted some forty years ago. Detesting, as I do, the whole tribe of gum trees, I never lose an opportunity of saying exactly what I think about this particularly odious representative of the brood, this eyesore, this grey-haired scarecrow, this reptile of a growth with which a pack of misguided enthusiasts have disfigured the entire Mediterranean basin. They have now realized that it is useless as a protection against malaria. Soon enough they will learn that instead of preventing the disease, it actually fosters it, by ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... smirched face, and dressed in worn and rusty black, standing at the other side of a little stream. She was frightened; and while looking at this dirty, wicked, starved figure, Laura Silver Bell touched her, gazing at the same tall scarecrow, but with a countenance full of confusion and even rapture. She was peeping through the bush behind which she stood, and with a ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... shed tears. Even her confidence in the perfection of her own toilet could hardly sustain her against the horror of being presented by such a scarecrow. ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... sky. Phelan scanned the heavens with an experienced weather eye, then began to look for a possible shelter from the coming shower. On either side, the fields stretched away in undulating lines, with no sign of a habitation in sight. A dejected old scarecrow, and a tumble-down shed in the distance were the only objects ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... was cased in a woollen nightcap, over which he wore a flapped hat; he had a silk handkerchief about his neck, and his mouth was furnished with a short wooden pipe, from which he discharged wreathing clouds of tobacco-smoke." This scarecrow turned out to be an Italian marquis; and no doubt the singularity of his smoking apparatus was of a piece with the ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... our great crested flycatcher weave a snake-skin into its nest, or, in lieu of that, something that suggests a snake-skin, such as an onion-skin, or fish-scales, or a bit of oiled paper? It is thought by some persons that it uses the snake-skin as a kind of scarecrow, to frighten away its natural enemies. But think what this purpose in the use of it would imply. It would imply that the bird knew that there were among its enemies creatures that were afraid of snakes—so afraid of them that one of their faded and cast-off skins would ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... that if your ladyship keeps him much longer, you will not have one virgin in your house except myself. And yet I can't conceive what the wenches see in him, to be so foolishly fond as they are; in my eyes, he is as ugly a scarecrow as I ever upheld."—"Nay," said the lady, "the boy is well enough."—"La! ma'am," cries Slipslop, "I think him the ragmaticallest fellow in the family."—"Sure, Slipslop," says she, "you are mistaken: but which of the women do you most suspect?"—"Madam," says Slipslop, "there is Betty ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... thinking about it again, Bessie; give you my word on it. When I got home that time, and saw myself in a glass, I made up my mind that I looked like a scarecrow, and that any girl would be ashamed to have such a tramp stop her horse, whether he was running away or not. And we're all mighty glad we were on the old bridge when she took that drop, because it's been kind enough to carry us to you girls ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... gold?" she asked. The maiden told her all, how and when. The next day the stepmother sent her own daughter to the same mountain. The stepmother's daughter purposely let her distaff fall and it rolled into the hole. She went in to get it, but the old Dew mother turned her into a scarecrow ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... as if she longed to scratch my eyes out. She needn't have been so very vexed at my being taken for her daughter. I'm not a scarecrow, or a ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Peggy was dead! She who had been a kind of scarecrow in life, how terrible was the thought of her now! The severest threat to an unruly child was, "I will give you to Aunt Peggy, and let her keep you." But to think of Aunt Peggy in connection with darkness, and silence, and the grave, was dreadful ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... the occasions I have spoken of was Tommy Rockets, the son of a poor widow who lived near Jack's house. He was somewhat younger than myself and small for his age, but a sharp, intelligent little fellow, though amusingly ignorant of affairs in general. His chief employment was acting the part of a scarecrow by frightening birds from the cornfields, and running on errands into Bideford for any of the neighbours, by which means he enabled his mother to eke out her scanty pittance. I used to share with him my school pasty, and now and then ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... Barr deserves a new paragraph. Long, lean and hollow cheeked, the term "gangling" fits him better than any other. Mr. Luther Barr's black suit hung on him as baggily as the garments of a cornfield scarecrow and Mr. Luther Barr's sharp features were not improved by a small growth of gray hair; of the kind known as a "goatee" that sprouted from his lower rip. For the rest of the boys noticed that Mr. Barr was gifted with a ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... that is my affair. Talk it over between yourselves, my boys, and for that matter the business will be settled by the day after to-morrow. I will go round to speak to this Fraisier; for Dr. Poulain tells him everything that goes on in the house, and it is a great bother to keep that scarecrow quiet." ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... its familiar place; the apple tree was too small to support or hide a climber; the only shed stood open and obviously empty; there was no sound save the droning of summer flies and the occasional flutter of a bird unfamiliar enough to be surprised by the scarecrow in the field; there was scarcely a shadow save a few blue lines that fell from the thin tree; every detail was picked out by the brilliant day light as if in a microscope. The girl described the scene later, with all the passionate realism ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... soft enough, it would have a nameless horror, far more killing than a stony fall. The women stand about frowsy and unkempt, with wild Irish eyes, all wearing the shawl as a hood, many in picturesque tatters, like the cast-off rags of a scarecrow, rags and flesh alike unwashed and of evil odour. The children look healthy and strong, though some of them are almost in puris naturalibus. Their faces are washed once a week; one of them said so, but the statement lacks confirmation, and is opposed to the evidence of the senses. Scenes like ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... back to the door-sill, at the entrance to the orchard. He took a quick aim, pointing his gun a little in the air, in the direction of the cherry tree which overhung the spring. He fired. A hoarse cry rang from the tree; and the scarecrow which had been straddling the main branch for a month past came tumbling to the ground, only to jump up at once and make off as fast as its legs could ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... shore clothes, which, with grease, coal-dust, tar, salt-water, and the rents made by the fight with Monkey, were (as the boatswain said) "not fit for a 'spectable scarecrow to wear of a Sunday," were exchanged for a blue flannel shirt and a pair of trim white canvas trousers. A neat black silk handkerchief was knotted around his neck, and his battered "stiff-rim" replaced by ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... did for me, too. Not so directly, perhaps, but with the same result. Emma McChesney, you've made—actually made, molded, shaped, and turned out two men. You're the greatest sculptor that ever lived. You could make a scarecrow in a field get up and achieve. Everywhere one sees women over-wrought, over-stimulated, eager, tense. When there appears one who has herself in leash, balanced, tolerant, poised, sane, composed, she restores your faith in things. You lean on her, spiritually. I know I need you more than you need ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... pecking, flitting, Round the cherries on the tree. Ware the scarecrow, grimly sitting, Crouched for silly things, like thee! Nurse hath plenty such in ambush. 'Touch not, for it ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! I'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... wanted him to speak. My conceit in expecting him to speak the moment he got a chance WAS absurd. He has begun to be very polite and formal. That's always the way with men when they want to back out of anything. He came out to look us over, and me in particular; he made himself into a scarecrow just because I looked like one, and now will go home and laugh it all over with his city friends. Oh, why did he come and spoil my day? Even he said it WAS my day, and he has done a mean thing in spoiling it. Well, he may not carry as much self-complacency back to town as he ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... my mare with laughter, though well I knew the screeching scarecrow up the pole would have me drawn and quartered for that day's work. I whipped the hounds off in the end, took 'em by road to Fermoy that same evening and boxed 'em to my brother-in-law in Carlow. 'Twas fortunate I did, for my kennels were burnt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... me be only hoarse, since now (Heaven and my soul bear record of my vow) I my desires screw from thee and direct Them and my thoughts to that sublime respect And conscience unto priesthood. 'Tis not need (The scarecrow unto mankind) that doth breed Wiser conclusions in me, since I know I've more to bear my charge than way to go; Or had I not, I'd stop the spreading itch Of craving more: so in conceit be rich; But 'tis the God of nature who ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... strolled unconcernedly away. Then, as though he had changed his mind, he walked round the clump, in ever narrowing circles, gradually closing on his prey. Meanwhile, the hare, her attention wholly diverted by the improvised scarecrow, remained motionless, baffled by the artifice. Suddenly she felt the touch of the man's hand. The poacher had thrown himself down on the tuft, hoping to clutch the hare before she could move. But in endeavouring to look away from the spot, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... your being disquieted about W. Thomson. Tell George from me not to sit upon you with his mathematics. When I threatened your tropical cooling views with the facts of the physicists, you snubbed me and the facts sweetly, over and over again; and now, because a scarecrow of xy has been raised on the selfsame facts, you boo-boo. Take another dose of Huxley's penultimate G. S. Address, and send George back to college. (383/2. Huxley's Anniversary Address to the Geological Society, 1869 ("Collected ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... cried, "I can't leave you in this dreadful place! You look like a ghost, and a scarecrow, too! I want you to go and get some decent clothes and ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... down and buy her winter coal, and she hasn't bought any clothes for ten years. Some one gives her an ex-dress and Mary does her best to make it over, but she never looks much more enticing than a scarecrow in the result. ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... mouth, or I'll tear you apart!" he threatened. "You're a liar, an' you know it. Sharp told me about you settin' the Toltec on Betty. I know the rest. I know you tried to make a monkey out of my dad, you damned old ossified scarecrow! If you open your trap again, I'll just naturally pulverize you! I reckon that's all I've ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... you think a fellow is—a scarecrow? All hat and clothes and no feeling, no inside, no brain to make fancies for himself? No!" he went on violently. "Never in his life will he go again into that room ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... he holds communion when a boy with Murtagh, the scarecrow of an Irish academy, he associates in after life with Francis Ardry, a rich and talented young Irish gentleman about town. If he accepts an invitation from Mr. Petulengro to his tent, he has no objection to go home with a rich genius to dinner; who then will say that he prizes a thing or a person ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... wash of the dark tide, he could not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession or not. "What business is it of Maurice's?" he said to himself. "Does he think every one that looks at his scarecrow of a daughter—" But there he had need to acknowledge to himself his injustice to Miss Frarnie, a modest maiden who had more cause to complain of him than he of her, since he had done his best to please her, and her only fault lay in being pleased so easily. She was pleased with ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... look a perfect scarecrow. Do you think that you can find me something? I really don't know what I should have done if I had not had my greatcoat, for I could never have ventured to walk through the street from the little inn where I put up my horse, if I could not have ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... that soon a half-dozen plutocrats will have all the money there is in the world, and then the rest of the people will all starve. It reminds me of the old farmer who set up such an outrageous looking scarecrow in his field that the crows not only let his present corn alone, but they actually brought back in their terrible fright all the corn they had stolen in the previous ten years. Are we craven crows to be scared ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... scarecrow who's stuffed with straw, and the other a woodman made out of tin. They haven't any appetites inside of 'em, you see; so they never ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... with long ungainly strides, his coat-tails flapping like a scarecrow's. The coat, in fact, was a cast-off one of Mr. Wesley's, narrow in the chest, short in the sleeves, but inordinately full in the skirts. The Rector had found and taken Johnny from the Charity School at Wroote to help him with the maps and drawings for his great work, the Dissertationes in ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... man who begged for a pennyworth of muddy ale was first of all a brilliant soldier, then a brilliant lawyer, then a brilliant historian. His doctor's degree—he was Doctor of Laws—was gained by fair hard work. Think of that, and then look at my picture of the sodden, filthy scarecrow! Yes; that man began my education, and had I only gone straight on I should not be loafing about The Chequers. You ask how he could have anything to do with my education? Well, long ago I was a little bookworm, living in a lonely country house, and I had the run of some good shelves. I was ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... do you take me for? A scarecrow, to keep people away from the house? That fine husband of yours, I'll have you know, is my husband's brother. You expect me to shut the door in his face and spit fire at him when he comes around? But, after all, what do I care?... I don't want to be quarreling all the time, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... fit to be ridicul'd out of the World before others were infected by the example. So that the best Fate which a Lady thus knowing, and singular, could expect, would be that hardly escaping Calumny, she should be in Town the Jest of the Would-be-Witts; tho wonder of Fools, and a Scarecrow to keep from her House many honest People who are to be pitty'd for having no more Wit than they have, because it is not their own Fault that they have no more. But in the Country she would, probably, fare still worse; for there her understanding of the Christian Religion ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... has taken the moral and social features of Walsh's delusions from the commiserating point of view, which makes ridicule out of place, has been obliged to treat Walsh as Scott's Alan Fairford treated his client Peter Peebles; namely, keep the scarecrow out of court while the case was argued. My plan requires me to bring him in: and when he comes in at the door, pity and sympathy fly out at the window. Let the reader remember that he was not an ignoramus in mathematics: he might have won his spurs if he could have first served as ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Faithful Story of the Astonishing Adventure Undertaken by the Tin Woodman, assisted by Woot the Wanderer, the Scarecrow of Oz, and ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... coward for a father, a scarecrow, a butt for a gang of miners' boys! This, this was her father! Why, even crippled old Jim, the wood-chopper, seen in retrospect and haloed by copper-colored dreams of romantic rehabilitation—even Jim ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... The Scarecrow Skitter Farmerettes Fancy Popcorn Waltz Orchard One-step Pumpkin Pie Walk Red ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... limited proportions enveloped in the squire's ample toggery—(who more than makes up in breadth all he wants in height,)—only fancy me so attired and where could you look for a more complete personification of a living scarecrow?" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... near Brussels, I encountered a cart of faggots, drawn by a hound so lean that stroking him might have hurt a dainty hand. I was shocked—angry, till I noticed his fellow beast of burden pushing the cart from behind. Such a scarecrow of an old woman! There was little to choose between them. I walked with them a little way. She lived near Waterloo. All day she gathered wood in the great forest, and starting at three o'clock each morning, the two lean creatures between them dragged the cart nine miles to Brussels, returning ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... pesky thing on your head, making you look so like a scarecrow, do you?" he said gently, as with a jerk he broke the strings and then threw the ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... "ef I must tell the treuth, them are breeches come off of a scarecrow. It stands to reason that none of us could ever have worn 'em. This here's the way I got 'em. My husband bought Mr. Crane's piece that jined on to ourn, and I made him throw in the scarecrow, cause I meant to have a rag party; and I reckon that you'll get a good many strips out on ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... &c. 243; squalor &c. (uncleanness) 653. forbidding countenance, vinegar aspect, hanging look, wry face, "spretae injuria formae" [Vergil]. [person who is ugly] eyesore, object, witch, hag, figure, sight, fright; monster; dog[coll.], woofer[coll.], pig[coll.]; octopus, specter, scarecrow, harridan|!, satyr|!, toad, monkey, baboon, Caliban, Aesop[obs3], "monstrum horrendum informe ingens cui lumen ademptum" [Latin][Vergil]. V. be ugly &c. adj.; look ill, grin horribly a ghastly smile, make faces. render ugly &c. adj.; deface; disfigure, defigure|; distort &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... not see the slightest chance of the course of Colonel Everard's true love being obstructed, without attempting a remedy. She had a peculiar favour for Markham herself; and, moreover, he was, according to her phrase, as handsome and personable a young man as was in Oxfordshire; and this Scottish scarecrow was no more to be compared to him than chalk was to cheese. And yet she allowed that Master Girnigy had a wonderfully well-oiled tongue, and that such gallants were not to be despised. What was to be done?—she had no facts to offer, only vague ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... ages predominates; and in some the Wife of Bath, in whose character Chaucer has been equally minute and exact; because she is also a scourge and a blight. I shall say no more of her, nor expose what Chaucer has left hidden; let the young reader study what he has said of her: it is useful as a scarecrow. There are of such characters born too many for the peace of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... last words had a sound of eloquent conclusion—and Mr. Ricardo nodded and took breath. He was like a scarecrow image that had been stuck up by a freakish joker in a London street. The respectability that still clung to him made him the more ludicrous. His clothes were the ruined cast-offs of a middle-class tradesman, and ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... so that we hear the words of welcome repeated again and again, growing fainter and fainter as the sound of the voice travels from cliff to cliff. The performer is delighted with a few soldi, and the jaded scarecrow of a horse seems pleased with his momentary halt. Iterum altiora petimus; by degrees we reach the airy platform upon which Ravello stands, and finally alight at the comfortable old inn so long associated with the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the Shaggy Man, and the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman, and Dorothy, and Ozma and all ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... you the better for that." A cluster of fine lines appeared at the corners of the Governor's laughing eyes. "But, once for all, you must get rid of your false impressions of me, and see me as a fact, not as a kind of social scarecrow. First of all, you think I am an extremist—well, I am not. I am merely a man of facts. I see the world as it is and you see it as you wish it to be—that is the difference between us. I have lived with realities; I know actual conditions—and you know only what you have ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... ten minutes' talk or an exchange of glances. He was the more dangerous in that he was far from bold, but seemed to woo in spite of himself, and with a soft and pleading eye. Ragged as he was, and many a scarecrow is in that respect more comfortably furnished, even on board he was not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with laughing. I'm 'Old Crow' now, and nothing else. My real name's Jenkins; but if you or any one else were to ask for Isaac Jenkins, there's not a soul in these parts as'd know as such a man ever lived. No; they call me 'Old Crow.' Maybe 'cos I look summat like a scarecrow. But I cannot rightly tell. It's my name, howsever, and you must call me ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... however, the misleading features of the statistical scarecrow were revealed — but, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... afternoon. The woods about the field to the northward were full of birds, and the young leaves scarcely hid the solemn shapes of a company of crows that patiently attended the corn-planting. Two of the men had finished their hoeing, and were busy with the construction of a scarecrow; they knelt in the furrows, chuckling, and looking over some forlorn, discarded garments. It was a time-honored custom to make the scarecrow resemble one of the poor-house family; and this year they intended ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett |
