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Stray   Listen
noun
Stray  n.  
1.
Any domestic animal that has an inclosure, or its proper place and company, and wanders at large, or is lost; an estray. Used also figuratively. "Seeing him wander about, I took him up for a stray."
2.
The act of wandering or going astray. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books



... stray dog came to the house; and John gave him a part of his dinner. The dog liked the attention so well, that he staid near the house, and would not be driven off. Every day John gave him what ...
— The Nursery, March 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various

... answered Mother Ceres. "The sea nymphs are good creatures, and will never lead you into any harm. But you must take care not to stray away from them, nor go wandering about the fields by yourself. Young girls, without their mothers to take care of them, are very apt to get ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... wealth of rare delight. Far pathways of surprise, In color's frumenty bedight, Lead off from avenues of day Through miles of pageantries: And from the starry chancels of the night And the inscrutable farther skies, Beyond where trackless comets stray, Outspreads a world in thought's array. And lo! the heart's true voices sing From the exulting reverent breast, And lips proclaim, with adoration blessed, Glad ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls

... nook and cranny of the room where they sat at breakfast. It lighted up the polished surfaces of old mahogany, woke forgotten gleams from the worn old silver, and summoned stray bits of iridescence from the prisms that hung from the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... forest. At times there could be seen, in the little clearings, animals darting along. There were numbers of monkeys, an occasional herd of buffaloes were observed, sometimes a solitary stray elephant was noted, and as for birds, there were thousands of them. It was like living over a ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... the station called Sybaris, and on and on by the sea-shore, the sound of breakers often audible. From time to time I discerned black mountain masses against a patch of grey sky, or caught a glimpse of blanching wave, or felt my fancy thrill as a stray gleam from the engine fire revealed for a moment another trackless wood. Often the hollow rumbling of the train told me that we were crossing a bridge; the stream beneath it bore, perhaps, a name in legend or in history. A wind was rising; at the dim little stations I heard it moan and ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... room, the two authors following in her wake like porpoises behind a liner. Roland went to his bureau, unlocked it and took out a bundle of documents. He let his fingers stray lovingly among the fire insurance policies which energetic Mr. Montague had been at such pains to secure ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... seen a stray cat or something," said Mrs. Brown and went back in the house. Bowser continued to whine and tug at his chain for a few minutes. Then he gave it up and, growling deep in his throat, turned to eat his dinner. But there wasn't any dinner! It had disappeared, pan and all! Bowser ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess

... wealthier classes were sold to the populace. Over the doorways of these flesh markets might be read "Haec runt munera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo profuderunt." Men stood in archways and narrow passages lying in wait for whatever stray dogs still remained at large, noosed them, strangled them, and like savage beasts of prey tore them to pieces and devoured them alive. And it sometimes happened, too, that the equally hungry dog proved the more successful in the foul encounter, and fed upon the man. A lady visiting the Duchess ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... he named "Lazy" (papa always wears gray to match his hair and eyes) and he would carry him around on his shoulder, it was a mighty pretty sight! the gray cat sound asleep against papa's gray coat and hair. The names that he has given our different cats, are realy remarkably funny, they are namely Stray Kit, Abner, Motley, Fraeulein, Lazy, Bufalo Bill, Cleveland, Sour Mash, and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... us to know wherefore and on what grounds his doctrine seemed to him, Herdegen, sounder and loftier than that of Aristotle, concerning whom he had learned much erewhile in Nuremberg. And whereas I was moved to fear lest these works of the heathen should tempt him to stray from the true faith, my soul found comfort when he proved to us that so glorious a lamp of the Church as Saint Augustine had followed them on many points. Also Herdegen had written out many verses of Homer's great song from a precious written book, and had learned to master them well ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... at last returned to the dovecot, you stray girl!" said Ninny Moulin, folding his arms, and looking at Rose-Pompon with comic seriousness. "And where may you have been, I pray? For three days the naughty little bird has left ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... for it, therefore, but for Johnstone to return at daybreak to the house of Mr. Gordon, where he had spent the previous night. At daybreak, however, he was roused by a fearful disturbance in the courtyard below, occasioned by the quarrels of some stray soldiers. For a moment he thought death was certain, but the soldiers had no suspicion of his presence in the house, and as soon as they had settled their affairs took themselves ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... indulgence. I was so close to her that none of the details of her face escaped me; I could distinguish, almost in spite of myself, even a little quiver of her left eyebrow, tickled every now and again by a stray tress of her ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... aged revolutionist, from whom this fact was derived, stated that he had lain many a Sunday, with a loaded rifle, in the woods near the judge's farm lines, to see if he would not, when coming out to salt his sheep, stray over his limits. But the old fellow, he said, was always too wary for him.] The actors in the outrage, who comprised nearly all the leading members of the British party in that part of the Grants lying east of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... Presently he with the pistols, followed by the rest flourishing their bodkins, entered the wood and were soon lost to view. They did not stay long; probably anticipating some inhospitable ambush were they to stray any distance up ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... pushing back her stray curls): "Why, is my hair very untidy? It is the first time it has ever been up; and, when I was 'thrown from my horse,' as the papers call it, all the hair- ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... to interest her. The furniture was poor and old, but neat and clean, as anything under the care of pale Rachel was sure to be. Then Sybil looked about to try to find some stray pamphlet or book, that she might read. But she found nothing but a treatise on tanning and an old almanac until, happening to look behind the glass on the chest of drawers in the inner room, she discovered a small volume which she took to be the New Testament. She drew it from its hiding-place ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... that time his thoughts seemed to stray from this last journey back to that which we had taken in the autumn. 'It is worth while,' he said, 'to have seen Aosta. I am glad to have done it. It is not often at my age that one can get so much pleasure ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... pearls display * Chamomile-buds or rimey spray Her tresses stray as night let down * And shames her light ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... and then sometimes she would lay her head caressingly down on his shoulder; and though at such times Dolly could willingly have broken her heart in weeping, she let Mr. Copley see nothing but smiles, and suffered scarce so much as a stray sigh to come to ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... had been nothing but a stray bit of sea-fog driving up from the coast, for the other side of the hills, I remembered, dipped their chalk cliffs straight into the sea, and strange lost winds must often come a-wandering this way with the sharp changes of temperature about sunset. None the less, it was disconcerting ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... manner. His clothes were no longer congressional, but those of a respectable man, neat and decent. His shirts no longer protruded in the wrong places, nor were his shirt-collars frayed or soiled. His hair did not stray over his eyes, ears, and coat, like that of a Scotch terrier, but had got itself cut. Having overheard Mrs. Lee express on one occasion her opinion of people who did not take a cold bath every morning, he had thought it best to adopt this reform, although he would not have ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... had any ears I would have pricked them up at this, for I was very fond of fowl, and I never got any at the Morrises', unless it might be a stray ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... during the spawning season. The male of the smooth-tailed stickleback (G. leiurus) performs the duties of a nurse with exemplary care and vigilance during a long time, and is continually employed in gently leading back the young to the nest, when they stray too far. He courageously drives away all enemies including the females of his own species. It would indeed be no small relief to the male, if the female, after depositing her eggs, were immediately devoured by some ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... risk of seeming to stray very far from my subject, I want at this point to say something about rest, the greatly desired state that all busy workers are seeking, with such ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... smooth, the trip consumed but thirteen hours, and we arrived at Bennett Lake late at night. Hoisting my bed and luggage to my shoulder, I went up on the side-hill like a stray dog, and made my bed down on the sand beside a cart, near a shack. The wind, cold and damp, swept over the mountains with a roar. I was afraid the owners of the cart might discover me there, and order me to seek a bed elsewhere. Dogs ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... tribe the Clematideae, the Clematis montana, which is closely covering a wall of ten feet high, and at least twenty in width, thence throwing out its branches, extending itself over the adjacent wall of the house, and occasionally sending a stray shoot or two to adorn my neighbour's garden. Now, how do those slight, long stems, which stretch, some of them twenty or thirty feet from the parent stalk, support and arrange themselves so as to preserve a neat and ornamental appearance without my ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... was young June even London sky and air were wonderful. Stray breaths of fragrance came and went. The green of the trees in the Gardens was light and fresh and in the bedded-out curves and stars and circles there were more flowers every hour, so that it seemed as if blooming things with scents ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... mirror, adjusted her cap, put back a stray lock of hair, and opened the door. But she stopped, looking at the ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... forfeit their control. The cats not only destroy birds, but they break the peace. The caterwauling at night will not be permitted in well-governed communities any more than the shooting of fire-arms or vicious talking will be allowed: all night-roaming cats should be gathered in, just as stray dogs and tramps are ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... hidden behind the comedy. Nedda remains outwardly calm and mockingly she names innocent Arlequin as the one who had dined with her. Then Bajazzo begins by reminding her, how he found her in the street a poor waif and stray, whom he nursed, petted and loved, and Nedda remaining cold, his wrath rises to fury and he wildly curses her, shrieking "the name, I will know his name!" But Nedda, though false is no traitress. "Should ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... is pensive, perhaps, as all contemplative persons must be; especially when, as in him, "a great heart is the household fire of a grand intellect" (to quote his own words), because he sees and sympathizes with all human suffering. He has always seemed to me, in his remote moods, like a stray Seraph, who had experienced in his own life no evil, but by the intention of a divine intellect, saw and sorrowed over ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... incomparable scenic effect. Once in its midst, you are encompassed by an imponderable mirror. It reflects the rocks, the mountains, the stray mimosa trees, and reproduces by inverted mirage every prominent object of the extended landscape. It has the blue of polished platinum, and lies like a motionless sea, stretching away from the craggy bluffs. Sometimes during the noonday heat it ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital in advance of the tidings of their ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... and inquiries proved wholly vain; yet the sturdy parson urged his poor, heaving nag forward, until he had come to the little gatehouse which thrust itself quite across the high road at some six miles' distance from Bolton Church. No stray boy had passed that day. Thereupon the parson turned, and, after retracing his way for two miles or more, struck into a cross-road which led westward. There were the same fruitless inquiries here at the scattered houses, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... God! that made all creature, How art Thou now become so puir, That on the hay and stray will lie, Among the asses, oxen, ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... tropic, temperate, nor arctic. Fauna had it none, for it produced nothing that could sustain life. Flora it knew not, for the little trees, with their perennial fortune of brilliant brown-tinted leaves, monopolised vegetable life, and slew all comers. It seemed like some stray tract of another planet, where the condition of living things was different. There was a strange sense of having been thrown up—thrown up, as it were, into mid-heaven, there to hang for ever—neither this world nor the world ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... brandy-and-water would bring him round. The second glass would make him the fondest husband living; but the third would restore to him the memory of all his wrongs, and give him courage against his wife or all the world,—even to the detriment of the furniture around him, should a stray poker chance to meet his hand. All these peculiarities of his character were not, however, known to Cradell; and when our friend saw him enter the drawing-room with his wife on ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... Saxony, Kilian in Bavaria, Fursey in Peronne, and in far Tarentum the traveller will find more than one trace of the reformer of that city—the Irishman, St. Cathaldus. We cannot suppose that any man will stray from Stackallen, or Maynooth at least, without keeping this purpose in mind, nor would it misbecome a divine from that Trinity College of which Ussher was ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... distance, no living animal crept across the blazing surface of the desert. Occasionally a distant mirage attracted the eye, making the dead reality even more horrible by its semblance to water, yet never tempting them to stray aside. After the first mile conversation ceased, the men riding grimly, silently forward, intent only on covering all the distance possible. Late that night they camped at the water-hole, sleeping as best they ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... ride down with Mr. Matthew and show him where to put our wheat, Mother?" asked Polly as she snuggled up to her mother, who was pinning a stray pink into ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... to tell that after they had lived there for a long time a stranger happened to stray in their vicinity, who proved to be a Hopituh, and said that he lived in the south. After some stay he left and was accompanied by a party of the "Horn," who were to visit the land occupied by their kindred Hopituh and return with an account of them; but they never came back. After waiting a ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... ride, this time in pursuit of stray horses,—the horses, he found, were always straying,—that he had an adventure of a more serious and decidedly lurid sort. The horses had led him a pace through the Bad Lands westward out over the prairie, and night overtook him not far from ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... do not know to seek for it." Have we not here "as in a glass darkly" a parable propounded three hundred years later in another clime and by a greater Teacher, who called Himself the Way of Righteousness, through whom the lost could be found? But I stray from my point. Righteousness, according to Mencius, is a straight and narrow path which a man ought to take to ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... shoulder, and, the afternoon being sultry, from time to time dipped her arms in the water and, taking them out again, amused herself by watching the bright drops race down to her rosy fingertips. The sport was good, apparently, for she laughed and flung back her head so that the stray locks of hair might not spoil her sight of it. On either side of this lowest step there was a margin of smooth level grass, and, being unable as she sat to bathe both arms at once, presently she moved on to the grass and lay ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... course everything had been carefully gathered in lest rain might fall in the night. The trail-ropes of our animals were looked to: we did not fear their being stolen, but horses on their first few days' journey are easily "stampeded," and will sometimes stray home again. This would have been a great misfortune, but most of us were old travellers, and every caution was observed in securing against such a result. There was no guard kept, though we knew the time would come when that would be a ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... it yet with your hands. It's so frightened still it might scratch you. Here, Cricket, take it in the table-cloth, there. Better give it something to eat. It's a stray cat, and probably half starved, and that's why it tried to eat tomato cans, like ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow

... October which carried the heights of Douaumont and took six thousand prisoners. He was there at the recapture of the Fort de Vaux which the Germans evacuated in the first week of November. In the last rush up the slope, where he had fought long ago, a stray shell, an inscrutable messenger of fate, coming from far away, no one knows whence, caught him and ripped him horribly ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... return I can commence the Armenian Testament, and whilst I am editing that, I may be acquiring much vulgar Chinese from some unemployed Lascar or stray Cantonman whom I may pick up upon the wharves; and then—to China. I have no more to say, for were I to pen twenty pages, and I have time enough for so doing, I could communicate nothing which would make my views more clear. Many thanks to you for enclosing the letter ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... placed his electric lantern on a cask in such a way as to send the light right up to the loft. Seeing nothing suspicious, nothing but an arsenal of old pickaxes, rakes, and disused scythes, he attributed what had happened so some animal, to some stray cat; and, to make sure, he walked quickly to the ladder ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... where we would be exposed. On getting to the first street my guide galloped ahead to show the way, and as the French were not on the lookout for anything of the kind at these dangerous points, only a few stray shots were drawn by the lieutenant, but when I followed, they were fully up to what was going on, and let fly a volley every time they saw me in the open. Fortunately, however, in their excitement they overshot, but when I drew rein alongside of my guide under protection of the bluff ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... touching the snow with the point of the short iron-shod stick I held in my hand, the toboggan span round the curve with the delicious clean cut of a skate. It seemed only a moment, and already I was approaching the critical part of my journey. The stray oil-lights of the village street began to waver irregularly here and there beneath me. I saw the black gap in the houses through which I must go. I listened for the creaking runners of the great Valtelline ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... or kids assail, Stray'd from their dams, by careless shepherds left Upon the mountain scatter'd; these they see, And tear at once their unresisting prey; So on the Trojans fell the Greeks; in rout Disastrous they, unmann'd by terror, fled. Great Ajax still, unwearied, long'd ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... twilight. The count again put his horse to a gallop and quickly descended the hill which hid Lancia from view. The wind affected his senses and whistled in his ears producing a sweet intoxication that dissipated the black clouds of his imagination. Along the muddy road he only met a stray herd of cattle with its driver, or a waggon drawn leisurely by oxen, in which the carter carelessly slept at the bottom. But before turning a corner he thought he heard the distant sound of wheels and bells. It was the coach that ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... congregation is entrusted, is considered as the shepherd of a flock, as the teacher of a school, as the father of a family. As a shepherd tending not his own sheep but those of his master, he is answerable for those that stray, and that lose themselves by straying. But no man can be answerable for losses which he has not power to prevent, or for vagrancy which he has not ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... fascinating in Mr. Rennell Rodd's last volume, The Unknown Madonna and Other Poems. Mr. Rodd looks at life with all the charming optimism of a young man, though he is quite conscious of the fact that a stray note of melancholy, here and there, has an artistic as well as a popular value; he has a keen sense of the pleasurableness of colour, and his verse is distinguished by a certain refinement and purity of outline; though not passionate he can play very prettily with the words of passion, and his emotions ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... came to the surface again they were both so eager to get to the shore that each let go, and they swam as quickly as they could to opposite sides. Chadozee could not get any further, so he clung to a stray root, still keeping a close watch of the bear, who was forced to do the same. There they both hung, regarding each other with looks ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... fearfully hot. The hills are rugged and grand, but wholly barren; not a sign of vegetation, and the vertical rays of a tropical sun beating upon them. The whole place is comprised in a drive around the hills of some three or four miles, beyond which the inhabitants cannot stray without the risk of being seized by the Arabs. I cannot conceive a more dreary spot to dwell in, though the Governor assured me that the troops are healthy. He received me very civilly, and insisted that ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... a breath of air; fowl and beast sought the shade; everything silent; the great Bush slept. In the west a stray cloud or two that had been hanging ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... the king. The coming of the discalced Augustinians (Recollects) has been a useful check on the other branch of that order, especially on its arrogant provincial, Lorenzo de Leon—of whose unlawful acts Guiral complains, and demands an investigation. He has obliged the stray Indians about Manila to return to their native places; and he asks that those who are retained for the service of the religious orders shall be kept within the allotted number, and that the friars be compelled to pay these servants ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... his horse, and got down. He fastened his eyes on the girl's. A strange look passed between them—he had never seen her before, but she had seen him often, and when he was gone had helped the housekeeper with his rooms. She had carried away with her a stray glove of his. Of course it sounds droll, and they said of her when all came out that it was wicked; but evil is according to a man's own heart, and the girl had hid this glove as she hid whatever was in her soul—hid it even ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... deacon reared him on the homestead. When a yearling he used to come regularly to the back door and there receive crusts of bread, crumbs of cake, and other delicacies, the free gifts of the children to their pet. He was the most wonderful colt that ever was—as docile as the house dog. When stray poultry trespassed on the grounds, he would lay his little ears back, and putting his nose close to the ground, curling up his lips and showing his white teeth, drive the marauders from the premises with such a "scare," that they would refrain from their incursions for ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... debate on this important question kept us occupied for several minutes. We finally compromised by fishing down a few boxes from the platform and erecting a barricade of sorts to protect us against any stray kicks. ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... so, too, and they were glad when it was over. They went back to the house, leaving some of the cowboys on guard, to see that no stray sparks ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope

... Paullus bowed to him, "as bad a specimen of a young patrician, as one might see for many days, even if he searched for rascals, as the philosopher did for an honest man, by lanthorn's light at noon. He has been following our steps, by my head!—to pick up our stray words, and weave them into ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... thoroughness merely demanded a guard on the farther side of the river. Nevertheless, the enthusiastic fellows threw themselves into the game with the same spirit with which, twenty years before, they had faced the danger of a runaway by the tandem of rampant hall chairs. A stray Boer or two would have made an interesting diversion; but, even without the Boers, a night guard in the open possessed its ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... that's what he is," continued old Jacob aloud to himself. "And what's more, he's been and gone and forgot all about his own home, and all he wants is summat to eat. I'll take him and keep him, that's what I'll do: for he's a stray lamb, and belongs to him that finds him, like any other lamb I finds. I'll make him believe I'm his old dad; for he's little and will believe most anything you tells him. I'll learn him to do things about the house—to boil the kettle, and cook the wittels, and gather the firewood, and mend ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... us sit on the loggia, where it is cool. I am afraid the room is very untidy," he added, with the air of a hostess who apologizes for a stray thread on the drawing-room carpet. Miss Abbott picked her way to the chair. He sat near her, astride the parapet, with one foot in the loggia and the other dangling into the view. His face was in profile, and its beautiful contours drove artfully against the ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster

... they had been scalped; so they felt satisfied their animals were safe for a while anyhow. The men were taking in all the chances, however; both kept their eyes skinned, and whenever one of them saw a stray leg or head, he drew a bead on it and when he pulled the trigger, its owner tumbled over with a yell of rage ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... my Father, while I stray Far from my home on life's dark way, Oh, teach me from my heart to ...
— Adrift on an Ice-Pan • Wilfred T. Grenfell

... harsh words. Any lawyer will tell you that there are special statutes regarding cats. To retain a stray cat is not a tort or a misdemeanour. In the celebrated test-case of Wiggins v. Bluebody ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... it. There were few buildings then, north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers without a settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... applicant strictly obeyed, and found her hopes realized! Other supernatural answers were subsequently given by the saint to various applications of the neighboring peasantry, and stolen fowls and stray cattle were recovered by her indications. But the concourse of people at last grew so great that that the ecclesiastical authorities interfered in behalf of the sybil, whom they placed in safety and repose within the walls of a convent, prohibiting, at the same ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... Helles behind us to the top of Achi Baba. But for the constant booming of the guns and the plague of flies, these first days on Gallipoli were days of peace and happiness under a quiet, blue sky. Our men were hopeful, and a stray memorandum of mine of the 3rd August records that "P.H. Creagh bets Fawcus L1 that the Turks will be driven out of the Peninsula within a month." Our faith was ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... a five volume set entitled Victorian Novels of Oxbridge Life, Christopher Stray editor, Thoemmes, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... he came from it bearing an inky and much-thumbed catalogue. He fairly learned it by heart—not only the machines, from the tiny card press to the beautiful fifty-dollar self-inker beyond which his ambition did not stray, but also all the little accessories of the trade—the mallet, the patent quoins, the sticks, the type-cases, the composing stones, the roller moulds and compositions, the patent gauge-pins, the lead-cutters, the slugs. And page after page he ran over the type in all its sizes and in all its modifications ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... was one stray sheep of my flock that appeared in church for the first time on the morning of Christmas Day—Catherine Weir. She did not sit beside her father, but in the most shadowy corner of the church—near the organ loft, however. She could have seen her father if ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... rhymes left unrhymed in 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship.' You don't write so carelessly, not you, and the reward is that you haven't so much trouble in your new editions. I see your book advertised in a stray number of the 'Athenaeum' lent to me by Mr. Tennyson—Frederick. He lent it to me because I wanted to see the article on the new poet, Alexander Smith, who appears so applauded everywhere. He has the poet's stuff ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... winter and attracted almost instantly the respectful attention of the citizens. Not because she was a strikingly beautiful woman, for a student of statues might find some faults in her features, but because out of the shy, violet eyes a high, indomitable spirit occasionally gleamed and a stray flash from them, combined with her radiant freshness of complexion and perfect grace of figure and of carriage, would light up the common sordid streets of the common masculine mind and turn them, for the nonce, into vistas ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... tissue as that smoke which covered us there; so that my eye endured not to stay open[1] wherefore my sage and trusty Escort drew to my side and offered me his shoulder. Even as a blind man goes behind his guide, in order not to stray, and not to butt against anything that may hurt or perhaps kill him, I went along, through the bitter and foul air, listening to my Leader, who was ever saying, "Take care that thou be ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri

... children, where the promise of Spring abides continually, and the Sun is ever in their hearts. Ah, Rose of the world, dear Lily of the fields, you will return; like Spring you will come from that heaven where you are, and in every valley the flowers will run before you and the poppies will stray among the corn, and the proud gladiolus will bow its violet head; then on the hillside I shall hear again the silver laughter of the olives, and in the wide valleys I shall hear all the rivers running ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas Hoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the extent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the sixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of Harvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:—'Even Guicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out of request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green enough for queasy stomachs; but they must have seen ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... generally, was still at the head of the publishers in that line; but Henry Herringman, who had published Lord Broghill's Parthenissa, had begun to rival Moseley, and there were other caterers of amusing and humorous books. Publishers imply authors; and so in the London of the Protectorate, apart from stray survivors from among the wits of King Charles's reign, there were men of a younger sort, bred amid the more recent Puritan conditions, but with literary zests that were Bohemian rather than Puritan, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... Emilia was in her glory; the ice being once broken, officers were to her but like so many school-girls, and she rattled away to the admiral and the fleet captain and two or three lieutenants at once, while others hovered behind the circle of her immediate adorers, to pick up the stray shafts of what passed for wit. Other girls again drove two-in-hand, at the most, in the way of conversation; while those least gifted could only encounter one small Frenchman in some safe corner, and converse chiefly by smiles ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... These firs that cowered so timidly were trees that had been planted there; they were hardly higher than the heather, and only recognisable on account of their different colour. And, here and there, there was a stray grey boulder and a cross that the wind had carried to the side of it. And a calm lay over the whole in the pale midday autumn light as ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... wearing no sporran, but with a dagger bobbing about at his groin. I have never seen a man with surprise more sharply stamped on his visage than was betrayed by this one when he got close upon us and found two of a clan so unlikely to have stray members out for a careless airing ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... thoughtful-looking, careful girl, who was busy in every part of the room alternately, picking up all the little odds and ends which were left after any piece of work was completed—little bits of string, ends of tape or thread, stray nails, chips of wood, or pieces of paper. These, as soon as she had gathered them up, she put safely by, where she could find them again; and it is wonderful how often she was called upon by the workmen for some little scrap or another, just ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... the streets in the morning and gave every sign of extreme dissatisfaction. "What were these Prussian soldiers doing there? Had they come to spy out the land and the city in preparation for an invasion? Was there a stray prince or duke among them who wanted to marry the Grand Duchess? The music was over. These Kriegs-Herren had better go home at once—at once, did they understand?" Yes, they understood, and they went by the next train, which took them to Trier in ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke

... over the variety of baked meats and the refined sauces and dishes of fish. Of the riddles and drinking songs, of the Greek rhetoric and philosophy, which played so great a part in the originals, we meet only a stray trace now and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... of cavalry was seen riding down from the direction of the Old Town. The Turks took them to be the long-expected reinforcements from Sicily. They are seen to fall upon stray parties of Turks; they must be the advance guard of Philip's army. Pi[a]li in alarm runs to his galleys; the Turks who had all but carried the long-contested bastion pause in affright lest they be taken in ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... 'specially when the moon shine all night so we could see. It wouldn't do to have torch lights. They was 'bout all the kind of lights we had them days and if we made light, massa come to see what we're doin', and it be jus' too bad then for the stray Negro! ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... man;[52] Revive Arabian tales[53], and vainly hope To rival St. John, and his scholar, Pope;[54] Though metaphysicks spread the gloom of night, By reason's star he guides our aching sight; The bounds of knowledge marks; and points the way To pathless wastes, where wilder'd sages stray; Where, like a farthing linkboy, Jennings stands, And the dim torch drops from his feeble hands. Impressive truth, in splendid fiction drest,[55] Checks the vain wish, and calms the troubled breast; O'er the dark mind a light celestial ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay

... worth reading about. The history of her times rises and lives around her. In her vivid description we see the new rugged country, over which she travelled from end to end; in her accounts of current literature we pick up stray bits of information as to new authors and new words. "Playfulness," for instance, is one which she stigmatizes as "silly in sound and significance," and declares that she does not read the new novels "with the exception of Walter Scott's." More interesting still to most of us is to study over ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... doubtless he made which increased his love for wandering; and in 1769, nine years after his first trip, having heard from a stray Indian of a wonderful hunting-ground far to the west, he started out with this Indian and four other men to wander through ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... them under her left ear. Her small, bright eyes, slightly crossed, apparently saw two ways at once, for on her brief journey from the gate to the porch, she decapitated two withered geraniums on the right, and picked up a stray paper and some dead ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... I cannot blame thee, Who am myself attach'd with[430-4] weariness, To th' dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest. Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it No longer for my flatterer: he is drown'd Whom thus we stray to find; and the sea mocks Our frustrate[430-5] search on land. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... stock was raised in California in those days so long ago, and cattle were counted by the thousands and sheep by tens of thousands. Then the grizzly and cinnamon, or brown, bear feasted all the time on stray calves and yearlings. Every spring and fall the cattle, which had roamed almost wild in the pastures, were "rounded up" by the cowboys, or vaqueros. After the work of picking out each ranchero's stock and branding the young cattle was over, the vaqueros thought ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... Friend of my childhood, and Guide of my youth, Thou Father of mercies, and Fountain of truth;— Protect and direct me wherever I stray, And bless little Henry each hour in ...
— The Adventures of Little Bewildered Henry • Anonymous

... wandered some distance down the wash, cunningly twitching his trailing reins to one side, clear of his hoofs. While Lennon started to cache his packsaddle and the other discarded articles of his outfit, Carmena went after her would-be stray, limping and gingerly picking her steps when she saw that the young man's back was turned. After catching her pony she crouched down behind a corner of rock to unlace her boots. They came off ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... hundred years later, but monstrous and horrible to the contemporary north Italian infant, to whom nothing would seem more natural than that he should relieve the monotony of his guard by pitchforking a stray child up on his bayonet, and eating it uncooked. Nevertheless one girl of bad character, in whom an instinct of privilege with soldiers is already dawning, does peep in at the safest window for a moment, before a glance and a clink ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... OF LANCASHIRE" having long been out of print—stray copies commanding high prices—it has been determined to republish the whole in a more compact and less costly form. This, the fourth and the only complete edition, includes the First Series of twenty tales, published in two volumes (1829, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... mining jobber on a small scale. The solemn-looking, solid dwelling, standing in its own grounds, where every flower bush has its individual prop, where the lawn is trimmed with mathematical exactitude, and not one vagrant leaf is allowed to stray, speaks with a kind of brick-and-mortar eloquence of virtue that has never grasped the sublime fulness of the Scriptural text which saith: "The way of transgressors is hard!" That is the home of the middle-aged Churchman, whose feet from infancy have fallen amidst roses. He has never erred, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... is, and practisd in the Arts, By which the Wanton conquer heedless Hearts: Stubborn and loud she is; she hates her Home, Varying her Place and Form; she loves to roam; Now she's within, now in the Street does stray; Now at each Corner stands, and waits her Prey. The Youth she seiz'd; and laying now aside All Modesty, the Female's justest Pride, She said, with an Embrace, Here at my House Peace-offerings are, this Day I paid my ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... have to be on the lookout for wandering meteors or other stray heavenly bodies. But our instruments will give us timely warning of them. Now, I think we can leave the projectile to herself while I make sure that all the machinery is running smoothly. You boys may stay here if you like, though there isn't ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... off, anywhere, She wandered each day; And though Peter would swear, The lady would stray; And whenever he thought he had got her, She was ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells

... and he was just able to take in that she was the daughter of the proprietress, when she was upon him, and he heard her voice. She was addressing him. Something of red lips he saw and laughing white teeth, and stray wisps of fine dark hair about the temples; but all the rest was a dream in which his own emotion rose like a thick cloud before his eyes and prevented his seeing accurately, or knowing exactly what he ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... heathen myths, so far as these had not already been received by wide circles of Jews, (above all, certain Babylonian and Persian Myths), which in the case of that idea is not demonstrable. Besides, it is in point of method not permissible to stray so far when we have near at hand such a complete explanation as Isaiah VII. 14. Those who suppose that the reality of the Virgin birth must be held fast, must assume that a misunderstood prophecy has been here fulfilled (on the true meaning of the passage see ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... meditate a great while—he never did. His thoughts were disposed to stray from one subject to another; and from the little maiden, he found himself wondering whether Mr. Grant had finished searching for him in Albany, and whether Miss Fanny had "let the cat out of the bag" yet. Noddy was too tired and sleepy to think a great while about anything; and he turned into his ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... tent-like, stretching out from bush to bush. Through the tiny apertures in the patches of leaves, which were suggestive of fine lace, the light filtered like impalpable sunny dust. And from the vaulted roof hung stray branches, chandeliers, as it were, thick clusters suspended from green thread-like stems, armfuls of flowers that reached to the ground, athwart some rent in the leafy ceiling, which trailed around like a ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... scales, and "In a Cottage near a Wood" with other melodies. He took care not to go within sound of them, so that he had no conception of the avidity with which Gyp had mopped up all, and more than all, her governess could teach her. He was blind to the rapture with which she listened to any stray music that came its way to Mildenham—to carols in the Christmas dark, to certain hymns, and one special "Nunc Dimittis" in the village church, attended with a hopeless regularity; to the horn of the hunter far out in the quivering, dripping coverts; even to Markey's whistling, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the close of day, Paused on his country's farthest hills to view Those valleys sinking in the distant blue Where all the joys and hopes of childhood lay; So now across the years our thoughts will stray To those whose hearts were ever brave and true, Who gave the hope and faith from which we drew The strength to climb thus far upon our way. As he amid the rocks and twilight gray, Saw rocks and steeps transform to stairs, and knew He wandered not alone; so may we too See this, our tentless ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry

... realm. Law and order had been established in recognised courts and tribunals, the titles of property had been ascertained and secured, not without loss, no doubt, to many arrogant lords who had seized upon stray land without any lawful title, or on whom it had been illegally bestowed during the Albany reign—but to the general confidence and safety. And the condition of the people had no doubt improved in consequence. It is difficult to form any estimate of what this ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... Bruce admitted, "but I did stray out of the timber. Register, and I'll tell you all about it—maybe ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... were at home, but not at case, In this Garden of Eden. They spoke in mumbling tones, of which I could catch but stray phrases, though I listened eagerly. Presently the girl took up two dry sticks, and, using one as a drill between the palms of her hands, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... solitude of the forest, the gaiety of the court attracted him strongly; and, as her most gracious Majesty was disposed to smile upon him, he had said to Drake, "The sun shines, Frank; beshrew me if I stray out of the circle of its warm rays." To which the seaman replied, "God forgive thee, Wat, for dancing so much after a woman's heels. The sea—as I know full well—can be treacherous, but I serve a less fickle ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... heavens, doth endless worlds contain; Each day's a world where good or ill holds sway: For through life's spacious vistas as we stray Hour after hour we sow with varying grain. Sown even to the wayside, down the plane Of Time thus passes every flying day— Never, till Time's brief seasons fade away Into Eternity, to rise again. But 'neath the ripening rays of righteous fate, To blade and ear the seed grows silently, ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... sight. But this was curiously like all other early mornings in his consciousness, and he could not alienate himself from the wonted environment. He stood talking on every-day terms of idle speculation with the familiar policeman, about a stray parrot in the top of one of the trees, where it screamed and clawed at the dead branch to which it clung. Then he went carelessly indoors again as if he were secure of reading the reporter's story of it in that next day's paper which ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... a chair for her by the dying embers of the fire. I dare say I was to blame—shamefully to blame, if you like. I only wonder what you would have done in my place. On your word of honor as a man, would you have let that beautiful creature wander back to the shelter of the stone quarry like a stray dog? God help the woman who is foolish enough to trust and love you, if you ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... correction is often a method by which, when young people begin to stray into the paths of vice, they are deterred and brought back again into the road of virtue; yet when this is incautiously inflicted or done in a violent manner, it frequently excites worse thoughts than would otherwise probably have entered the breasts of young people thus ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... to stray far; crossing the foot-bridge over the Regent's Canal, she turned down a street which led by a circuit toward her abode. It skirted Primrose Hill for a few yards, and as she passed one of the gates admitting ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... allowed this child to come," said Mrs. Parlin, at the tea table; "but cousin Percy always picks up the stray babies, ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May

... An exploding revolver in No. 47 was quite likely to disturb the peaceful slumbers of the innocent occupant of No. 15, and every sound of quarrel in the thronged bar-room below caused the lodger to curl up in momentary expectation of a stray bullet coursing toward him through the floor. With this to trouble him, he could lie there and hear everything that occurred within and without. Every creak, stamp, and snore was faithfully reported; every curse, blow, snarl reechoed to his ears. ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... hunters entered the forest, and the notes of venerie became more faint and the shouts more distant. Then, for two or three hours, all was silent, save the sound of an occasional shot or the note of a stray hound, until the human stragglers began to reappear emerging from the forest, and in due time the great body of the hunt, and a gilded cart drawn by mules and carrying the prostrate forms of fallow-deer and roebuck. None of the ceremonies of the chase ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... He wrote on the cover "Reuben Hornby" and passed the book to me. "In this second book you will, in like manner, enter anything that you can learn about Walter Hornby, and, in the third book, data concerning John Hornby. As to the fourth book, you will keep that for stray facts connected with the case but not coming under either of the other headings. And now let us look at the product of ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... to the rowing-galley's benches had interest neither one way nor the other, and looked on the contest with dull concern, save when some stray missile found a billet amongst them. But a handful of the fighting men had scrambled desperately on board the galley after us, preferring any fate to a fiery death on the "Bear," and these had to be dealt with promptly. Three, with their fighting ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... being afraid that Giles might take advantage of the holiday to appear on the scene, and presently Aldonza was seated in the boat, making no more lamentations after she found that her fate was inevitable, but sitting silent, with downcast head, now and then brushing away a stray tear as it stole down under her ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... and tender words from Dickens. "No philosophy will bear these dreadful things, or make a moment's head against them, but the practical one of doing all the good we can, in thought and deed. While we can, God help us! ourselves stray from ourselves so easily; and there are all around us such frightful calamities besetting the world in which we live; nothing else will carry us through it. . . . What a comfort to reflect on what you tell me. Bulwer Lytton's conduct ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... done, but great works undone, Where scarce twenty knew his name. Why not, then, have earlier spoken, Written, bustled? Who's to blame 30 If your silence kept unbroken? "True, but there were sundry jottings, Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings, Certain first steps were achieved Already which (is that your meaning?) Had well borne out whoe'er believed In more to come!" But who goes gleaning Hedgeside chance-glades, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... morning. As we crawled out of the station, our kind military friends saluted, and wished us, a little ironically, a pleasant journey. When I was about to seek repose, Major White looked in, and said: "Sleep with your head away from the window, in case of a stray shot"; and then I turned down the light, and was soon ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... been known to shy at wheelbarrows. They tried to make him admit that the wheels would slip on the smooth rails, but he knew that they would bite without teeth. One of the committee said, "Suppose that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not that be a very awkward circumstance?" To which the countryman had a ready reply, "Very awkward—for the cow!" The opposition, which was largely animated by the existing ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... busy cooking supper on the sand. Negro sellers of fruit and fly-embroidered lumps of meat, or brilliant-coloured pottery, and cheap, bright stuffs, were rolling up their wares for the night, in red and purple rags or tattered matting. Beggars lingered, hoping for a stray dried date, or a coin before crawling off to secret dens; and two deformed dwarfs in enormous turbans and blue coats, claimed power as marabouts, chanting their own praises and the praises of ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Also see that the well has a roof, and, if possible, a lattice-work about it, that all leaves and flying dirt may be prevented from falling into it. You do not want your water to be a solution or tincture of dead leaves, dead frogs and insects, or stray mice or kittens; and this it must be, now and again, if not covered sufficiently to exclude such chances, though not the air, which must be given free access ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell

... disposition to jealousy; but this in him is more a virtue than a vice; for it springs entirely from affection, and has nothing mean or malicious in it, one instance will suffice to show how he expresses this feeling. One day a little stray dog attached himself to me and followed me home; I took him into the house and had him fed, intending to keep him until I could discover the owner. For this act of kindness the dog expressed thanks in the usual ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... crooked, dear; we shall have to take it down again.) I devise a Plan, therefore. I submit myself to fate; or, if you prefer it, I leave my future in the hands of Providence. I shall stroll out this morning, as soon as I've "cleaned myself," and embrace the first stray enterprise that offers. Our Bagdad teems with enchanted carpets. Let one but float my way, and, hi, presto, I seize it. I go where glory or a modest competence waits me. I snatch at the first offer, the first hint ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... from me vanity and lies,' Psa. 119. Every deviation from rectitude and truth is sin. Who that knows any thing of the corruption of the human heart, and its strange tendency to stray, to err, yea, even to pervert the plainest, simplest, and most obvious truths, but must see the propriety of his joining the psalmist, and crying out, Lord, remove far from me the way ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... well as their wonderful worldliness and their strange faith in the passing fashion of our politics. For instance, she speaks of Jingo Imperialism with a healthy English contempt; and she perceives stray and striking truths, and records them justly—as, for instance, the greater democracy of the Southern and Catholic countries of Europe. But in her dealings with social formulae here in England she is, it must frankly be said, a common mystagogue. She does not, like a decent demagogue, wish ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... and beach-negroes. This is a kind of open-air market where men and women sit in the shade, spinning, weaving, and selling fruits and vegetables with one incessant flux of tongue. Here, too, amongst the heaps, and intimately mixed with the naked infantry, stray small goats, pretty and deer-shaped, and gaunt pigs, sharp-snouted and long-legged ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton



Words linked to "Stray" :   err, sporadic, travel, isolated, gallivant, swan, strayer, domestic animal, rove, cast, jazz around, go, roam, divagate, tramp, locomote, range, roll, lost, domesticated animal, vagabond, digress, tell, gad, maunder



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