"Donkey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'im—for he was reelly annoyed—"I'll teach you to defile what you can't comprebend! When my regiment's in a state o' mutiny, I'll do myself the honour of informing you personally. You particularly ignorant and very narsty little man," he says, "you're no better than a dhobi's donkey! If there wasn't dirty linen to wash, you'd starve," he says, "and why I haven't drowned you will be the lastin' regret of ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... in the first blush of youth; although in a few years they will tamely acquiesce in their existence, and knowingly profit by their complications. Yet all this while he suffered many indignant pangs. And once, when he put on his boots, like any other unripe donkey, to run away from home, it was his best consolation that he was now, at a single plunge, to free himself from the responsibility of this wealth that was not his, and do battle equally against his fellows in the warfare ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as if my senses had been washed with water. After I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the hill; and just as I, mounting along with it, had got back again, from the head downwards, into the thin golden sunshine, I saw in front of me a donkey tied to a tree. Now, I have a certain liking for donkeys, principally, I believe, because of the delightful things that Sterne has written of them. But this was not after the pattern of the ass at Lyons. He was of a white colour, that seemed to fit him rather for rare festal occasions ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... already gone to rest. She looked over her knees at him with round, sad eyes; while beside her in a cot slept her small daughter. A candle burned on the mantelpiece and served to illuminate one or two faded pictures; a daguerreotype of Phoebe as a child sitting on a donkey, and an ancient silhouette of Miller Lyddon, cut for him on his visit to the Great Exhibition. In a frame beneath these appeared the photograph of little Will who had died ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... a donkey going down the road The other day; a boy was on his back, Who on the long-eared quadruped bestowed, With a stout cudgel, many a hearty thwack; But lazier and lazier grew the beast, Until he dwindled to a step so slow That I felt sure 'twould take him, at the least, Full half-an-hour ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... immortality which Science denies Cannot be admitted by those who are wise, For if we give up and concede Immortality, There's nothing to check its wide Universality. The toad-stool and thistle, the donkey and bear Must live on forever,—the Lord knows where. I tell you, dear sir, that Science must wake up And grapple these spooks to crush them, and break up This world of delusion of Phil. D's and D.D's, Who are all in the dark, as dear Huxley agrees, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... a soft-hearted donkey, Harry, lad," retorted Bob. "Settle the whole lot if you can, boy; it'll only be so many skulking cut-throats the less in the world. My idee is that every one of them chaps as we can finish off is one honest man's life saved; so give 'em another of them shells, my ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... the well-marked road which runs out to the Mission from the town he encountered Costantin, the missionary's servant, driving a donkey burdened with two jars of water up towards the house. Costantin remarked upon his finery, and asked where he was going. He showed an amiable inclination to stop and talk. But Iskender hurried on, merely explaining that he was going to be a great ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... hats, on a form on one side of a door, and four ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a door, and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a boy's legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy's body I suppose on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running away. What are ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... white charger, and waving aloft a sword of monstrous length. One unacquainted with the subject, however, would sooner have taken it for a big baboon, geared up in a cocked hat and high military boots, with a mowing-scythe in his hand, and astraddle of a rearing donkey heavily coated with feathers instead of hair. The old gentleman's spectacles seemed to twinkle as he ran his eye over the slate; and after making out two or three rather savage-looking s's, as many long-legged p's, a squat h or two, a big bottle-bellied ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... open cart—full of dead bodies—stopping before the door of a house, from which one more dead body was added to the funeral pile. That was the year of the great cholera epidemic. And again, I remember hearing bells early, very early, in the morning. We knew what that was. It was the donkey-man coming round to sell the donkeys' milk at the front door, quite ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... relish. "And it's all my invention, and I'm as proud of it as a cat would be of nine tails. When I've got things a little more ship-shape, Micky's going to put it on the market for me. It wants a man behind all these sort of things you know. I can do all the donkey work, but I've got no head for business. I never know the difference between a loss and a profit. It was partly over this that I quarrelled with my people—they said it was low-down to make face cream and sell it—they're awful snobs! So I just cleared off ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... failed; at last he bethought him that he would try the skill of young Jackson, who had succeeded in making some alterations and improvements in the hand-organ of the parish church. He accordingly brought it to the lad's house in a donkey cart, and in a short time the instrument was repaired, and played over its old tunes again, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... me amidst a thistle-bed in my own village green! I remember it. Well, what did he say had become of the donkey?" ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... greatest stories ever written is Ellis' Pigsispigs Butler's fable of the contented little donkey that went round and round in the mill and thought he was traveling far. But that donkey was blind and had no ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of the multitudes of pigeons that haunt the squares of the city, a dead pigeon is as rare to see as a dead donkey on the mainland. It is a pious opinion that no Venetian ever kills a pigeon, and apparently they never die; but the fact that they do not increase so rapidly as to become a nuisance instead of a pleasure, lends some color to the suspicion that pigeon pies ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... circled with bangles of glass and silver. In the short hours before the darkness, we would encounter all the types of men which go to make up Indian country life—the red-slippered banker jogging on his pony beneath a white umbrella, the vendor of palm-wine urging a donkey almost lost beneath the swollen skins, barefooted ryots with silent feet and strident tongues, crowds of boys and children driving buffaloes and cows, all coming homeward from ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... minutes she had risen from cabin-boy to skipper, via ordinary seaman, A.B., bo'sun and various grades of mate. My rank, which had at the outset been that of admiral, as speedily declined, until I was merely the donkey-engine greaser, whose duties appeared to include that of helmsman (Betty is not yet an adept with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 • Various
... with a trip on "donkey-back" to Nebi Samwil, Emmaus, Abu Ghosh, and Ain Kairim. Our party was small this time, being composed of Mr. Jennings, Mr. Smith, the writer, and a "donkey-boy" to care for the three animals we ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... voudou-vet Villiam struggles in the net! By the power and intent Of the charm his strength is spent! By the virtue in each rag Blessed by the Inspired Hag He will be a willing victim Limp as if a donkey kicked him! By this awful incantation ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... apparatus in England consisting of a cigar-shaped car, to which was attached on each side frames five feet square, containing each twenty-five superposed planes of stretched and varnished linen eighteen inches wide, and only two inches apart, thus reminding one of a Spanish donkey with panniers. The whole weighed two hundred and forty pounds. This was tested by being mounted on a flat car behind a locomotive going 40 miles an hour. When towed by a line fifteen feet long the apparatus rose only a little from the ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... with fagots for his fire, Forth issued from the wood, and stood aghast To see the ponderous body of the friar Standing where he had left his donkey last. Trembling he stood, and dared not venture nigher, But stared, and gaped, and crossed himself full fast; For, being credulous and of little wit, He thought it was some ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... become rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine estimate of his finances could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount; and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... of the company, marched up to the window and peeped in. 'Well, Donkey,' said Chanticleer, 'what do you see?' 'What do I see?' replied the ass. 'Why, I see a table spread with all kinds of good things, and robbers sitting round it making merry.' 'That would be a noble lodging for us,' said the cock. 'Yes,' said the ass, 'if ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... the Lord knows what in London, Paris, and Berlin, and act as a sort of super in his branch offices. Great Scott! Does he think a man is going to waste five years of his life in Europe at a time when twenty-four hours here at home might make a man! He's a donkey if he thinks that, and I'd have given him credit for ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... and you know that quite well. I was a little donkey. I had only just put my hair up and I thought it a fine thing to be engaged. Not that that lasted long. Dear old Jim soon repented, and ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... large Eastern cities are spacious buildings, and the scene presented within them when some caravan stops overnight, or several parties of travelers meet there, is picturesque in the extreme. Everybody wears bright-colored garments and everybody is armed, and the grunt of the camel and bray of the donkey make night, if not musical, certainly most melancholy to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... said he on the eve of my departure, "I too have the nostalgia of green fields and the smell of hay and manure and the fresh earth after rain. I have at last an inspiration. As this confounded ankle will not let me walk, I shall hire a donkey and let him take me whither he will. Narcisse shall ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... he cried. "You think I'll humour you as the Baron does. But I won't—no, you shall see that I won't!" And gripping his walking-stick firmly in his hand, he belaboured the Baron's mare as if she had been a donkey. ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... necessity of getting into the shafts himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to London - a somewhat exhausting pull of thirty miles. That he did not venture to ask again for money; but that if I would have the goodness TO LEAVE HIM OUT A DONKEY, he would call for ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... The donkey engine on the Ida's fore-deck clanked and snorted. Down in the hold the sweating sailors toiled. Packing-cases, great and small, huge bales and brass-studded trunks were hoisted high, swung clear of the ship's bulwarks and lowered, with much rattling of chains and gear, into ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... be so nice!' I exclaimed. 'Willie would enjoy it so much! But see, uncle, there are some children with a donkey coming this way.' ...
— Bluff Crag - or, A Good Word Costs Nothing • Mrs. George Cupples
... for the woods on a Thursday taking with us eight guides, a donkey and a considerable quantity of provisions. As the protection was insufficient, the bread, salt, pepper, etc., were soon ruined. The salt pork was saved. At the end of three or four days we sent the donkey and three men back to Lake Pleasant. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... it would be so," said his brother lieutenant. "The fellows here, among the military, have got an idea that you refused to fight Maguire; and I believe that donkey, Bolton, has been setting the story afloat. I should ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... hadn't ben sich a darned donkey," said Zac, in a tone of vexation, "I might have got at 'em before an' saved them all these hours of extra starvation. Ef I'd only yelled back when I fust heerd the voice! Who knows but that some of 'em hev died in the ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... Pao Yen (Ho-gen): "What is Buddha?" "You are Hwui Chao," replied the master. The same question was put to Sheu Shan (Shu-zan), Chi Man (Chi-mon), and Teu Tsz (To-shi), the first of whom answered: "A bride mounts on a donkey and her mother-in-law drives it;" and the second: "He goes barefooted, his sandals being worn out;" while the third rose from his chair and stood still without saying a word. Chwen Hih (Fu-kiu) explains this point in unequivocal terms: "Night after night I sleep with Buddha, ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... seemed to have no natural power over a pen, but in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into corners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd to see what old letters Charley's young hand had made, they so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and tottering, it so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert at other things and had as nimble little fingers as ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... laughed heartily at him, and seated himself on the table, with his feet on the side of the ship, affirming that he was not afraid, and was as contented and happy as ever—the truth being, not that the young donkey was a bit more brave than the other two, but that he had not the sense to know the danger he was in, and that not a seaman on board but saw that the next moment might be his last. Tourniquet had not ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... beach the first thing our party saw was the burly figure of Coleman seated on his "donkey" by the ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... soon began to inspire the performer above. Her small dancers in a twinkling turned into a gambolling elephant, then to a pair of swallows. A moment after they were flower and butterfly, then a jigging donkey, then harlequin and columbine again. With each fantastic change the tune quickened and the dance grew wilder. At length, tired out, the woman spread her hands out wide against the ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... exalted enthusiasm. I alone had scrutinized her grimacings, and stripped away the thin rind that sufficed to conceal her real nature from the world; her trickery no longer deceived me; I had sounded the depths of that feline nature. I blushed for her when some donkey or other flattered and complimented her. And yet I loved her through it all! I hoped that her snows would melt with the warmth of a poet's love. If I could only have made her feel all the greatness that lies in devotion, then I should have ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Garden or Billingsgate You of a morn must not be late, But your donkey drive at a slashing rate, And first be if you can. From short pipe you must your bacca blow And if your donkey will not go, To lick him you must not be slow But ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... perfectly barren. The sides of the hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun. Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons, but redoubtable in ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... old man on whom the inertia of death was plain, came across the frontiers of their little town, they met them with the convenient stones of their rocky streets, with their savage, stark-ribbed dogs, with offal from kitchen heap and donkey stall and with ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... a long silence, out of which Barry said tempestuously, "It will break her heart if anything comes between us. I'm not saying that because am a conceited donkey. But she is such a constant ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... this characteristic the Austen nature possessed yet another—spread over many members of the family—namely, an enthusiastic love of sport. The boys hunted from an early age, in a scrambling sort of way, upon any pony or donkey that they could procure, or, in default of such luxuries, on foot; perhaps beginning the day with an early breakfast in the kitchen. A wonderful story is told, on good authority, of a piece of amateur horse-dealing ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... charter jackasses. Captain Balbo was not at home on this stubborn craft. All went well on the plains below; but when they reached the steep path up the mountain side the captain could not hold his seat. His fat body would continually slip down on the flanks of the donkey, who would begin to practice as though he wanted to kick a hole in the sky. Three times the captain was unseated but finally he struck a plan of holding on to the donkey's tail and in this manner was towed up the mountain. The magnificent sight ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... immediately applied these words to himself and Dulcinea, and nothing that Sancho could say had power to cheer his spirits. Moreover, the boys of the village, having seen them, raised a shout, and came laughing about them, saying, "Oh, law! here is Gaffer Sancho Panza's donkey as fine as a lady, and Don Quixote's beast thinner than ever!" The barber and the curate then came upon the scene and saw their old friend, and went with him ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and I can't say I felt very warm to the place, and certainly it didn't look very warm to me. 'What's to come next?' I said to Harry. 'Well,' he said, 'we must make inquiries.' That was all easy enough to say, but who were we to make inquiries of? The only living thing about was an old donkey who had strayed on to the heath, and was trying to get a mouthful of something off a bare patch or two; and as we came up he stared at us as though he thought that we were bigger donkeys than he was for coming to such a place at such a time. It wasn't much use looking about, ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... being absent on a journey; but though my appetite was that of a convalescent, I am sure I did not enliven the meal for myself by my usual humorous observations: to the officer, for example, that I was doubtful whether the beef was camel, or the mutton was donkey. Ali seemed rather surprised, especially when I asked him, abruptly, who it was that sang so ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... were glad; most of all when their nurse took them into the country, where they could run on the grass and pick flowers. There they used often to see poor little hovels of houses, with gardens, and a donkey and chickens in the yard, and children playing; and they used to say they wished their father and mother were poor, and lived in a house like that, and kept a donkey. And then the nurse would tell them they were silly children; that it was a fine thing ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... pony is not a very useful animal in our conditions; no doubt a good, tough, stubbed donkey would be worth all their tribe when it came down to hard work; but we cannot all be hard-working donkeys, and some of us may be toys and playthings without too great reproach. I gazed after the broken, refluent wave of these amiable creatures, with the vague toleration here formulated, but I was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for an enemy to be adrift in a powerless hulk. Sea enough to suit any purpose out there. And wind! From where he stood in the lee of the donkey-engine house, to the water's edge was a full hundred feet, and yet even so, whenever he stepped out into the open, it was only to be drenched with spray. And out there in the blackness, twenty miles offshore, it would be blowing good; out there on the edge of that bank, in the hollow of ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... moment, about 4 A.M., the engine-room became the center of interest, but in spite of every effort the water still gained. Lashly and Williams, up to their necks in rushing water, stuck gamely to the work of clearing suctions, and for a time, with donkey engine and bilge pump sucking, it looked as if the water might be got under. But the hope was short-lived; five minutes of pumping invariably led to the same result—a general choking ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... was not the wisdom of Morano, for anger had clouded his judgment. And a faint song came yet from the donkey-drivers, wavering over ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... In carriages, in donkey carts, upon horseback, in sledges, on skates, upon foot-men, women, and children, gentle and simple, Protestants, Catholics, Gomarites, Armenians, anabaptists, country squires in buff and bandaleer, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... he was a planter from Georgia, that some years since the prisoner visited his plantation with a show, and that while there he discovered an old worthless donkey belonging to the planter, and bought him for five dollars. The next year the witness visited Iranistan, the country seat of the prisoner, and, while walking about the grounds, his old donkey, recognizing his former master, brayed; 'whereupon,' ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... with pain, and said nothing. But that which hurt him most was the compassion of a dull fool of a donkey, who assured him with great gravity that he saw nothing at all to laugh ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Cantie, cheerful. Carline, old woman. Cauld, cold. Chalmer, chamber. Claes, clothes. Clamjamfry, crowd. Clavers, idle talk. Cock-laird. See Bonnet-laird. Collieshangie, turmoil. Crack, to converse. Cuist, cast. Cuddy, donkey. Cutty, jade, also used ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ursus preferred Homo to a donkey. He would have felt repugnance to having his hut drawn by an ass; he thought too highly of the ass for that. Moreover he had observed that the ass, a four-legged thinker little understood by men, has a habit of cocking his ears ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... of an ass. Carpaccio has not spared the monks: he makes their terror utterly absurd in the presence of so puzzled and gentle a man-eater. In the next picture, the death of the saint, we see the lion again, asleep on the right, and the donkey quietly grazing at the back. As an impressive picture of the death of a good man it can hardly be called successful; but how could it be, coming immediately after the comic Jerome whom we have just seen? Carpaccio's mischief was a little too ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... seeming to matter whether you remembered them or not, and which just because it did not matter you were able to remember so much more easily. He could have listened for ever to the story of the lupinseeds that rattled in their pods when the donkey was trotting with the boy Christ and His mother and St. Joseph far away from cruel Herod into Egypt and how the noise of the rattling seeds nearly betrayed their flight and how the plant was cursed for evermore and made as hungry as a wolf. And the story of how the robin tried ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... came back, fortified perhaps by reflection, and more certainly by a nigger who walked behind him with a spear. You've seen the donkey boys in Cairo make the donkeys trot?... This time I put my trust in the Colt forty-five; and looked the god over, as he came reluctantly nearer and ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... yourself riding on a donkey, you will visit foreign lands and make many explorations into places ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... would probably answer, "Have I not told you, 'Babylon is fallen'?" If his attention was called to the fact that the members of a prominent church, in a novel entertainment, displayed the likeness of a donkey, minus the tail, while the members one by one were blindfolded, and, amid the uproarous laughter of the crowd assembled, were given the detached part to see who could place it the nearest where it belonged, he would say with double emphasis, ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... its practice continued largely in the hands of charlatans, and down to a very recent period the name "barber-surgeon" was a survival of this. In such surgery, the application of various ordures relieved fractures; the touch of the hangman cured sprains; the breath of a donkey expelled poison; friction with a dead ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... employed by the people are the pony carriage or surrey, the saddle horse, the ox-cart and the foot. The beast of burden is either the donkey or the pony. These animals are employed to carry goods in packs over the trails, in ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... off wire rigging, wire ropes and wire hawsers, chain cables and chains, donkey engines, steam winches and connexions, steam cranes and connexions; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... that a good case can be made out for an author's doing as I suppose Mr. Allen to have done; indeed I am not sure that both science and religion would not gain if every one rode his neighbour's theory, as at a donkey-race, and the least plausible were held to win; but surely, as things stand, a writer by the mere fact of publishing a book professes to be giving a bona fide opinion. The analogy of the bar does ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... something like it, I must still freely own that I should approach my Parliamentary debate with infinite fear and trembling if it were so unskilfully served up for my breakfast. Ever since the time when the old man and his son took their donkey home, which were the old Greek days, I believe, and probably ever since the time when the donkey went into the ark—perhaps he did not like his accommodation there—but certainly from that time downwards, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... of such persons we must "improve a ceremonial nicety into a substantial duty," else we shall see a cultivated scholar confused before a set of giggling girls, and a man who is all Wisdom, valor and learning, playing the donkey at an evening party. If he lack the inferior arts of polite behavior, who will take the trouble to discover a Sir ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... at him and saw that Jantje meant what he said. He was growing sulky, and the worst dispositioned donkey in the world is far, far easier to deal with than a sulky Hottentot. She must either give up the project or go with the man. Well, she was equally guilty one way or the other, and being almost callous about detection, she might as well go. She had no power left to make fresh plans. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... look altogether. The reins were twisted rope, the wheels uneven. It went jolting along in such a careless, jolly way, as if it would not care in the least, should it go to pieces any minute just there in the road. The donkey that drew it was bony and blind of one eye; but he winked the other knowingly at you, to ask if you saw the joke of the thing. Even the voice of the owner of the establishment, chirruping some idle song, as I told you, was one of the cheeriest sounds you ever heard. Joel, up at the barn, forgot ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... taking a horn I don't hint That he swigs either rum, gin, or whiskey; It's we who drink in his din worse than gin, His strains that attempt to be frisky, But are grievously sad.—A donkey, I add, Is as musical, braying in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... but smoke was coming up thick and fast all around it. A half-dozen men were around a donkey-engine that stood a little forward of the hatch, and others were pulling at hose. The captain was rushing here and there, giving orders. I did not hear anything he said. No one said anything to us. Rectus asked one of the men something, as he ran past him, but the ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... Lord Cardinal's fool was a privileged person, and no one laid a hand on him, though his blood being up, he would, spite of his gay attire, have enjoyed a fight on equal terms. His quadruped donkey was brought up to him amid general applause, but when he looked round for Ambrose, the boy ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... slanting sunshine. And whether you look up or down, there is always a picture in the dark frame against the bright background—a woman in a scarlet kerchief with a water-vessel of antique form, or a ragged brown boy leading a ragged brown donkey, or a soldier in gay uniform striking a light for his pipe. As soon as you leave the live part of the town, with the few little caffes and shops, and the esplanades whence the thrice-lovely landscape unfolds beneath your gaze, you wander among quiet little paved piazzas with a bit ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... trusted to the protection of the merchants of Daraou, found that he had made a great mistake in so doing. They sought every means of plundering him, chased him out of their company, and forced him to seek refuge with the guides and donkey-drivers, who cordially welcomed him. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... airily. "Outside. There isn't much room here. Like R. L. S. sleeping out with his donkey I shall discover a new ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... time I was sitting in poor Robert Lambert's whitewashed attic, listening to the sparrows that were twittering under the eaves. When I had left the cottage I had walked down country roads, meeting nothing but a donkey-cart and two tramps. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... been tuk for granted; as the donkey said ven his dam called him a hass"—whispered, rather loudly, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... with their touchy, barbed-wire reputations, and have come to regard it and cause it to be regarded as their private property. The discovery having been made that rhyme is not a paddock for this or that race-horse, but a common, where every colt, pony, and donkey can range at will; a vast irruption into that once-privileged inclosure has taken place. The study of ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... drawn by one horse. A Milo of Crotona in the valley, his fame had spread throughout the department, where all sorts of foolish stories were current about him, as about all celebrities. It was told how he had once carried a poor woman and her donkey and her basket on his back to market; how he had been known to eat a whole ox and drink the fourth of a hogshead of wine in one day, etc. Gentle as a marriageable girl, Socquard, who was a stout, short man, with a placid face, broad shoulders, and a deep chest, where his lungs played like the bellows ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... in mind a surprise for the manager, but was not quite ready to tell of his surprise yet. All during the winter the lad had been working with a donkey that he had picked up near Edmeston. His training of the animal had been absolutely in secret, so that none of his school fellows, save Phil, knew anything ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... surprised at your difficulty in authenticating matter-of-fact. I find this in recalling what I have heard, and the authority on which I have heard anything. As to the donkey tale, I believe you are right. Mr. Redhead and Dr. Ramsbotham, his son-in-law, are no strangers to me. Each of them has a ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... human being for their nightly meal, and one or two amusing incidents occurred to relieve the tension from which our nerves were beginning to suffer. On one occasion an enterprising bunniah (Indian trader) was riding along on his donkey late one night, when suddenly a lion sprang out on him knocking over both man and beast. The donkey was badly wounded, and the lion was just about to seize the trader, when in some way or other his claws became entangled in a rope by which two empty oil tins were strung across the donkey's ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... climbing a little hill which leads to a ruin, when I heard a little voice cry, 'Hello! it's Clive! Hooray, Clive,' and an ass came down the incline with a little pair of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey's back, and there was little Alfred grinning with all ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... there and back, cab, 1 horse, 8frs.; 2 horses, 12 frs., with hr. rest; by coach, 2 horses, for the day, 20 frs. Or from San Remo by rail to Arma, whence omnibus to Taggia, 10 sous. Donkey from Taggia to Lampedusa, 2frs. The best place for refreshments in Taggia is the Albergo d'Italia, formerly the palace of the Marquis Spinola. The stream Taggia or Argentina is crossed by a long curved bridge of unequal arches. From the east end of this bridge a steep road leads up to the ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... about as much as the old gray donkey is a robin redbreast. No! you are a nuisance, and ought to live up in the air in a balloon by yourself. You have ruined my garden; and whenever I beg you to stop, you answer me with ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... its own capacities. It is pathetic to think of the mediaeval students poring over a single ill-translated sentence of Porphyry, endeavoring to extract from its clauses whole systems of logical science, and torturing their brains about puzzles more idle than the dilemma of Buridan's donkey, while all the time, at Constantinople and at Seville, in Greek and Arabic, Plato and Aristotle were alive, but sleeping, awaiting only the call of the Renaissance to bid them speak with voice intelligible to the modern mind. It is no less pathetic to watch tide after tide of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown hue, but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can reach, that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way through amongst them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or Ireland, it might pass without remark for some enormous drained bog, on which the exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots and rudiments of the branches are, in many ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... heels to kick him; alone in the immensity of Castile, and as happy as a king may be, rode a young man on a May morning, singing to himself a wailing, winding chant in the minor which, as it had no end, may well have had no beginning. He only paused in it to look before him between his donkey's ears; and then—"Arre, burra, hijo de perra!"—he would drive his heels into the animal's rump. In a few minutes the song went spearing aloft again ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... you'll fall on his neck, and weep, and say, 'Oh! yes, I loved you always.' Very pretty! Seriously, youngster—don't make a donkey of yourself! As long as it pays him to cut you, he will cut you, and when it pays him better to be friends, he'll want to be friends. Don't make yourself too cheap. You're better than a dirty halfpenny, to be played pitch and ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... a bread-seller, whose fancy loaves and cakes are made in rings and strung upon wands which project from the rim of a basket; or on a tray of wicker-work or queer little donkey-cart are piled the flat ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... don't happen here once in five years," said he to me. "But the old codger who is dead, though a queer dick was a noted personage in these parts, and not a man, woman or child, who could find a horse, mule or donkey, but what availed himself of the privilege. Even the doctor's spavined mare was pressed into service, though she halts on one leg and stops to get her breath half a dozen times in going up one short hill. You will have to wait for ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... by whoever should look from the town, and there was peremptory occasion for haste. Scott had counted on forcing the journey into a little over an hour, but he was not prepared for the eccentricities of a pack adjusted on a donkey's back by an amateur. There is no art in the world more arbitrary than that of tying a package on a beast. It must be done just so, with just such a hitch and such an adjustment of the burden, or one's rope ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... is my own kind mamma!" exclaimed Sidney, clapping his hands. "Not on a donkey, you know!—a pony. The man down the street, there, lets ponies. I must have the white pony with the long tail. But, I say, mamma, don't tell Philip, pray don't; he ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... little later at Newark, N. J. Each marcher wore a picturesque long brown woolen cape. The little yellow wagon with the good horse "Meg," driven by Miss Elizabeth Freeman, was joined at Philadelphia by Miss Marguerite Geist, with a little cart and donkey, and she helped distribute the suffrage ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... a memorable meal; the latter producing the last bottles of wine and spirits that had been specially sent up to them from Maritzburg. And on that and the following day there were sports—lemon- cutting, tent pegging, races for the cavalry; athletic sports, tugs-of- war, mule and donkey races for the infantry. The drums and fifes played national airs, and the sailors bore their full share in the fun. As time went on the preparations for the next move advanced. None were more pleased at the prospect of active work again than the Colonial Volunteers, who had several times entreated ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... should think they belonged to the later half of the last century, and here, one would say, sculpture touches the ground; at least, it is not easy to see how cheap exaggeration can sink an art more deeply. The only things that at all pleased me were a smiling donkey and an ecstatic cow in the Nativity chapel. Those who are not allured by the prospect of seeing perhaps the very worst that can be done in its own line, need not be at the pains of climbing up to Vispertimenen. ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... a lady came along, riding a little donkey. These donkeys have amused me so much since I have been here! At several places on the outskirts of the city they have them standing, all girt up with saddles covered with white cloth, for ladies to ride on. One gets out of London ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of a woolly donkey which carried Oswald's portmanteau when he trekked, and a hairy dog which provided him with company ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... Jack went once more and hired himself to a cattle-keeper, who gave him a donkey for his trouble. Although Jack was very strong, he found some difficulty in hoisting the donkey on his shoulders, but at last he accomplished it and began walking slowly home with his prize. Now it happened that in ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... wonder it was Lory niver saw it till Jack had him raked from flank to shoulder—just stood and took it without a blink, like a donkey ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... if ye carry me, don't I carry the barrel of whiskey, an' isn't that fair and aiquil?' It is differently told in one of the old Latin jest books, where a certain Piero, pitying his weary jackass, which bore a heavy plough, took the latter on his own shoulders, and mounting the donkey, said: 'Nune procedere poteris, non enim tu sed ego aratrum fero,'—'Now you may go along, for not you but I now bear the plough.' Not a few of the jokes given to modern Irishmen originated centuries ago in other countries than theirs. The reader may recall the advice given by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... don't. But if a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on, why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... hubbub had stopped, two men out of our eight, who had never forgiven him for laughing at their rowing, picked him up and carried him out of the room. In a minute Dennison, with the purple cap on his head, was sitting on the donkey, and a procession had started to St. Cuthbert's. When we got back to college we succeeded in taking possession of the porter who answered our knocks, and in getting both the moke and Dennison into the quad. I was so engaged with the porter that I did not see whether ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... down the hill at a pace that almost justified the Vicar's objection to him. He gave a desperate shy in the hollow at sight of a shaggy donkey, with a swollen appearance about the head, suggestive, to the equine mind, of hobgoblins. Convulsed at this appalling spectre. Titmouse stood on end for a second or two, and then tore violently off, swinging his carriage behind ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... solemnly engaged in smoking his pipe. He observed the dog following us, and was astonished at it, as something new and extraordinary; and rising, and making out of the way, he cried out, 'May his father be accursed! Is that a dog or a fox?'" Again, in Damascus, should a worn-out horse, donkey, or camel die in the streets, in a few hours the dogs have devoured it; and the powerful rays of the sun dry up all corrupt matter. Mr Graham tells us that the dogs of Damascus are brown, blackish, or of an ash colour, and that he saw no white ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Lieutenant," observed the Captain, after a moment's inspection of the figures. "While I enter it in the log, you haul the line aboard. To do so, I need hardly remind you, is a task involving care and patience. In spite of all our gallant little donkey engine can do, it's a six hours job at least. Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer had better give orders for firing up, so that we may be ready to start as soon as you're through. It's now close on to four bells, and with your permission I shall turn in. Let ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... Indian Jungle at the Colinderies!... I do think it's a pity they couldn't get something more like a mule than this wooden thing! Why, it's quite flat, and it's ears are only leather, nailed on!... You can't tell, my dear; it may be a peculiar breed out there—cross between a towel-horse and a donkey-engine, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... to the 'shaving' scene which was being enacted, and roared with laughter. "Excuse me, dear, I ca'n't help it!" he said as soon as he could speak. "You are such an utter donkey! Kiss ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... the meantime, did his day's work contentedly, had a quick eye for all trouble, and in such cases was sure to give overweight, or even to let the heavy penny or two fall accidentally into the purchase. His donkey had something the same expression of patient good-humored receptivity. The children climbed over the barrow and even on the donkey's back, and though Widgeon made great feint of driving them off with a very stubby whip, they knew ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... carried him in to his mother. She held him in her arms until noon, and then he died and she laid him in the prophet's chamber. Perhaps the heat of the harvest time had been too great for one so young. Did the mother cry out and call her husband? No, she called for a servant and a donkey, and rode as fast as she could to Mount Carmel where Elisha was. His servant saw her coming, and Elisha sent him to meet her and ask if it was well with her and her husband and ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... over to Harrington and tried to pilot him to a seat. Then he held the other's head and shut his eyes, while he wondered if there was ever such a donkey on the face of the earth as he, Reginald Pell, to do all that he had ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... 48, and again 64 and 35. Like the present-day almanacs of his race, his age is shifty and uncertain. Hamed's ride occurred "a long time ago"—that hazy, half-obliterated mark on life's calendar. Pious Mohammedan that he is, he undertook a pilgrimage to Medina. To that holy orgy he rode on a donkey. So miraculous was the chief event of the journey that it is due to Hamed that his own uncoloured version ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... blows were like, having been the involuntary recipient of some of them. Some, do I say? I had received more than a dilatory donkey on the road ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... will you please buy me a donkey?" said little Ella Clark to her father, as she ran to meet him. "Well," said her father, "if you will promise to be a very good girl, and give your sister May a share of the rides, I will get one in the ...
— Baby Chatterbox • Anonymous
... the town. Their Maker chooses but a few With power of pleasing to imbue; Where wisely leave it we, the mass, Unlike a certain fabled Ass, That thought to gain his master's blessing By jumping on him and caressing. "What!" said the Donkey in his heart; "Ought it to be that Puppy's part To lead his useless life In full companionship With master and his wife, While I must bear the whip? What doth the Cur a kiss to draw Forsooth, he only gives his paw! If that is all there needs ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... luck came his way. For while he and Dick were glancing about them in search of a suitable spot upon which to camp for the night, an animal suddenly made its appearance in the open, not more than fifty yards away, and Earle instantly flung up his rifle and shot it. It was as big as a donkey and resembled a hare in every respect, except that it had ears shaped like those of a mouse, while its coat was of short hair instead of fur. It was entirely new to Earle, and he was much gratified at securing it, as ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... thieves, pursuing their profession, Had of a donkey got possession, Whereon a strife arose, Which went from words to blows. The question was, to sell, or not to sell; But while our sturdy champions fought it well, Another thief, who chanced to pass, With ready ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... young cantiniere, or woman sutler, of the Twenty-sixth regiment, who after Busaco rushed unhurt through the English outposts in order to alleviate the sufferings of the captured general of her brigade, and who returned on her donkey through the lines without having suffered an insult, reflects equal credit on the unselfish daring of the French, which she typified, and on the pure-minded gallantry of the English. The same writer's narrative of the French deserters ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... case of the old man and the donkey. If discarnate spirits don't trouble about the personal affairs of those on earth, the "Cui Bono" argument is hurled at them. If they do, they are ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... sort of wreckage, or lumber float. There is a small hole in the bow, just above the water line, and several of the seams have been opened. Captain Barforth is having the hole closed up and has started up the donkey pump to keep the water low in the hold. He says he thinks we can make one of the ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... you mark that? again thought Captain Delano, walking the poop. What a donkey I was. This kind gentleman who here sends me his kind compliments, he, but ten minutes ago, dark-lantern in had, was dodging round some old grind-stone in the hold, sharpening a hatchet for me, I thought. Well, well; these long calms have a morbid effect on the mind, I've ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... defiling over the sand before the unconquerable thing they perhaps thought that they had conquered. At last the footsteps died away. There was a silence. Then, coming down from the Great Pyramid, surely I heard the light patter of a donkey's feet. They went to the Sphinx and ceased. The silence was profound. And I remembered the legend that Mary, Joseph, and the Holy Child once halted here on their long journey, and that Mary laid ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... denying it. A donkey emerged from the wood, hung with tassels and bells, carrying in its panniers two little girls, whose parents toiled behind, goad in hand. The woods had become shrubberies, through which peeped the thatched roofs of rustic summerhouses, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... when the Prince's interest in the scene was commencing to flag, and he was thinking of returning to his tent, the rearmost divisions of the pilgrims entered the Valley. They were composed of footmen and donkey-riders, for whom the speed of the advance bodies had been too great. High-capped Persians, and Turks whose turbans were reduced to faded fezes, marched in the van, followed closely by a rabble of Takruris, ragged, moneyless, living upon meat of abandoned animals. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Portrait, annoyed at being next to SIDNEY COOPER'S, R A., "Be it ever so humble, &c.," representing head of a jackass, and some sheepish sheep, is evidently saying to itself, "Hang the Hanging Committee! They show me as next door to a donkey." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... make surer another time, you stupid donkey! You've all but killed me!" panted the victim, wiping ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Cairo itself was through rows of tall wooden or brick structures, along streets traveled by everything from the latest European cars to plodding donkey carts. The people were dressed in a variety of costumes, from suits and dresses that would have been suitable in New York, to traditional Arab dress with flowing robes and the cloth headdress that is held ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... when he grows up. He practices riding on Tonto, the donkey, now, and he has had his own lasso since he ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... and, in contemplating the aspect from his bedroom window, Mr. Pickwick was attracted by a game cock in the stable yard, who, "deprived of every spark of his accustomed animation, balanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner." Then Mr. Pickwick discovered "a donkey, moping with drooping head under the narrow roof of an outhouse, who appeared from his meditative and miserable countenance to be contemplating suicide." In the breakfast-room there was very little conversation; even Mr. Bob Sawyer "felt the influence of the weather ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... made real property when authority so ordains. Because there was once a man with a donkey who met a ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... get up directly, as the proprietor of the dogs was still snoring, and if they lost no time they might get a good deal in advance both of him and the conjuror, who was talking in his sleep, and from what he could be heard to say, appeared to be balancing a donkey in his dreams. She started from her bed without delay, and roused the old man with so much expedition that they were both ready as soon as Short himself, to that gentleman's ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... compliments which were paid me, and over those who whispered round me, without paying them to me. And you are proud of them, you make a parade of them, you take them out for drives in your break in the Bois de Boulogne, and you give them donkey rides at Montmorency. You take them to theatrical matinees so that you may be seen in the midst of them, so that people may say: 'What a kind father,' and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the results never reflected much credit upon my educational powers. As for writing—it was a trying business to Charley, in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop and splash, and sidle into corners, like a saddle donkey. It was very odd to see what old letters Charley's young hands had made. They, so shrivelled and tottering; it, so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert at other things, and had as nimble little fingers as ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser |
