"Preen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you sit, lurching and half asleep. The boatmen shout one to another in nasal discords. Lazily you preen your great wings, eagle wings, built for the sky; ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... kiss'd the kiss: And the Bride, who came from her coach a Miss, As a Countess walk'd to her carriage— Whilst Hymen preen'd his plumes like a dove, And Cupid flutter'd his wings above, In the shape of a fly—as little a Love As ever look'd in at ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... more smothered tones, she was possibly quite as dirty as her lord, but being brown the dirt did not show. Her rags did, for a more disreputable bird I never saw, though she, too, washed and napped her wings, and dived and drenched herself before getting out on the bank to preen and ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... came Bertram Chester, visible over their garden wall as he toiled up the hen-coop sidewalk. The Judge returned to the house; Mattie Tiffany settled herself on the piazza with the preen and flutter of a female thing ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... boys, they are not in it! A woman will endure martyrdom with the expression of a seraph,—an extremely aggravating seraph. She looks after her soul as if it were the ultimate fact of the universe. She will trim and preen that ridiculous soul, though the heavens fall and the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... garden was its dovecote, formed of a large cider-barrel on a mast. The barrel was pierced with pigeon-holes, and fitted with ledges on which the birds stood to preen themselves. Mr Pinsent did not profess himself a fancier. His columbarium—a mixed collection of fantails and rocketers—had come to him by a side-wind of business, as offset against a bad debt; but it pleased him to sit on his terrace and watch the pretty creatures as they wheeled ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... flowers. In crystal flagons you detect the sheen of amber light (which may be sherry wine), whilst the ear is lulled with the sound of fountains dispensing perfumes as of Araby. In an alcove, chastely draped with violent violet velvet, the grey apes swing, and the peacocks preen, on fretted pillar and jewelled screen. Horologes, to chime the hours, and even the quarters, uprise from tables of ebony-and-mother-of-pearl. Cabinets from Ind and Venice, of filligree gold and silver, enclose complete sets of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates; whilst lamps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... edge of the water, so near that I could see every flirt of his wings, could almost count the big spots in his sides. Softly, calmly, with the purest joy he sang, pausing at the end of every few bars to preen and call. His song was the soul of serenity, of all that is spiritual. Accompanied by the lower, more continuous notes from among the trees, it rose, a clear, pure, wonderful soprano, lifting the whole ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... on thy bosom, Snowy sea-gulls preen thy wings, While perfumed sighs, from many a blossom, Float around the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of that kind these cargo captains were bound to preen themselves. They bought at frequent intervals, not at all like the ways of another group—not cargo captains—of whom one of our American warrant officers said: "You buy and buy and buy, and they drink and drink and drink. It comes time for them to buy, ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... the vultures: only to preen their black plumes with fetid beak; or, extending their broad wings, to shadow the sunbeam from their bodies. It is the hour of noon; and the sun, shining down from the zenith, permeates the atmosphere with his sultriest rays. The birds droop under the extreme ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... most in young birds," said another elderly hen, "is their appearance. Some of them do nothing all day but preen their feathers. Look at the over-studied arrangements of their wing flights, and the affected exactness of their tall feathers! One looks in vain for sweetness and simplicity in the ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley |
