"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "'De jay-bird hunt de sparrer-nes', All by de light of de moon. De bee-martin sail all 'roun', All by de light of de moon. De squirrel he holler from de top of de tree; Mr. Mole he stay in de groun', Oh, yes! Mr. Mole ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... night, in the bright dawn of a tropical morning, when my comrades were yet asleep, when every sound was hushed, except the little lap-lap of the ripples against the sides of the boat, and the distant twitter of the sea-bird on the reef. And when that vision crosses my mind, I am free to confess I desire to be back in the boat again. So that, if I share with those strange persons to whose asserted, but still hypothetical existence I have referred, the want of appreciation of forms of culture other than the ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... on his worldly wisdom, Carli Wappinger never allowed himself to be caught by any trick of feminine finesse. On the present occasion he stood stock-still and silent, eying Diane as a bird eyes a trap before hopping into it. Though he knew her as a friend to Dorothea and himself, he knew her as a subtle friend, hiding under her sympathy many of those kindly devices which experience keeps to foil the young. He did not complain of her ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... they do it. Lord Brougham's definition{90}. Origin partly habit, but the amount necessarily unknown, partly selection. Young pointers pointing stones and sheep—tumbling pigeons—sheep{91} going back to place where born. Instinct aided by reason, as in the taylor-bird{92}. Taught by parents, cows choosing food, birds singing. Instincts vary in wild state (birds get wilder) often lost{93}; more perfect,—nest without roof. These facts [only clear way] show how incomprehensibly brain has power ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... A sweet story, introducing bird and insect life, and conveying more truth and instruction to children, than can be found in ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... be prepared to tear off a mask before we understand the most of our fellows, for society and all of life is permeated with disguise. Now and then one seeks to appear worse than he is, hates fuss and praise, but this rare bird (to use slang and Latin in one phrase) is the exception that proves the rule that men on the whole try to appear better than they are. Rarely does a man say, "I am after profit and nothing else," although ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... botanical name of Viscum, or "sticky," because of its glutinous juices. The Mistletoe contains mucilage, sugar, a fixed oil, resin, an odorous principle, some tannin, and various salts. Its most interesting constituent is the "viscin," or bird glue, which is mainly developed by fermentation, and becomes a yellowish, sticky, resinous mass, such as can be used with success as ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... opposite the Captain's had been the mate's, and behind it was the mess cabin. Here the greater part of crockery and glass was shattered on the floor. An overturned bird-cage with a dead canary in it lay under ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... complying with the habit of imperial and princely personages in former days, enrolled himself, cross-bow in hand, among the competitors. Greater still was the enthusiasm, when the conqueror of Lepanto brought down the bird, and was proclaimed king of the year, amid the tumultuous hilarity of the crowd. According to custom, the captains of the guild suspended a golden popinjay around the neck of his Highness, and placing themselves in procession, followed him to the great church. Thence, after the customary religious ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... whole street and shut off a possible glimpse of the lake. Away on the other side of it was a meadow where in spring-time the larks soared and sang, and beyond it the lake and the woods where the mocking bird and the bee made music. But here in Willow Lane was neither sound nor sight ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... gay; though but a shepherdess, she is as witty as a princess, and as coquettish as the most finished flirt that ever lived. Nothing can equal her excellent vision. Her heart yearns for everything her gaze embraces. She is like a bird, which, always warbling, at one moment skims the ground, at the next rises fluttering in pursuit of a butterfly, then rests itself upon the topmost branch of a tree, where it defies the bird-catchers either to come ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... eyelashes were like the finest willow twigs that grow in the marshes by the Yang-tse-Kiang; her cheeks were fairer than poppies; and when she bathed in the Hoang Ho, her body seemed transparent. Her brow was finer than the most polished jade; while she seemed to walk, like a winged bird, without weight, her hair floating in a cloud. Indeed, she was the most beautiful creature that ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... here without being willing to undergo a course of cure, we shall at once expel him from our state with the order not to return.'[38] Words could not be plainer than these. Yet, in spite of them, such was the allurement of the cage for this clipped singing-bird, that Tasso went obediently back to Ferrara. Possibly he had not read the letter written by a greater poet on a similar occasion: 'This is not the way of coming home, my father! Yet if you or others find ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... stood with their eyes upon the strange cloud and a heaviness upon their hearts. They crept into the churches where the trembling people were blessed and shriven by the trembling priests. Outside no bird flew, and there came no rustling from the woods, nor any of the homely sounds of Nature. All was still, and nothing moved, save only the great cloud which rolled up and onward, with fold on fold from the black horizon. To the west was the light summer sky, to the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said he, and caught her hand that trembled in his like a bird. "Olivia!—oh, God, the name is like a song—je t'aime! je t'aime! Olivia, I ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... were out upon the roof, and enjoying a wonderful bird's-eye view of Templeton and the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... which the transmutation of species had been brought about. The changes have been wrought, he said, through the unceasing efforts of each organism to meet the needs imposed upon it by its environment. Constant striving means the constant use of certain organs. Thus a bird running by the seashore is constantly tempted to wade deeper and deeper in pursuit of food; its incessant efforts tend to develop its legs, in accordance with the observed principle that the use of any organ tends to strengthen and develop it. But such slightly increased development of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... in the garden. There was a full September moon. I stood beside the bird-bath and put a forefinger in it. I could hear Breck breathing hard beside me. I was sure he had broken his pledge and ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... hour later Nejdanov sat by his side on the broad leather-cushioned seat of his comfortable old carriage. The little coachman on the box kept on whistling in wonderfully pleasant bird-like notes; three piebald horses, with plaited manes and tails, flew like the wind over the smooth even road; and already enveloped in the first shadows of the night (it was exactly ten o'clock when they started), trees, bushes, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... croaking into your ear like a bird of ill omen, when you have to throw yourself heart and soul into that concert to-morrow," she said contritely. "I wonder why that Ancient Mariner way of seeking relief from one's troubles by pouring them into another ear is such a universal trait? You ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... should be called "A bird of Homeric song," appears so harsh to modern ears, that an emendation of the text has been proposed: but surely the learning of the ancients had been long ago obliterated, had every man thought himself at liberty to corrupt ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... time Gilbert had attended to his patients, and was returning along the old corduroy road, the night had long fallen. The bird chorus of the swamp had died away, and only the sweet note of the little screech-owl awoke the echoes of the dark woods. Now and then a gleam of spectral light through the trees showed where lay the waters of the Drowned ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... words could more perfectly express the relationship which this bit of sunrise has established between us—devotion, loyalty, telepathic communication without publicity. I am sure you are belittling yourself. ... you are a game bird,— good, you understand, but with a tang, a something wild in flavor, a touch of the woods and mountain flowers and hidden dells in bosky places, and wanderings and sweet revolt ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... some bird who could call 'Snowball' I would get them to call for the lost pussy," thought ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... of this their mighty and all-powerful deity was on the top of Mount Olympus, that high and lofty mountain between Thessaly and Macedon, whose summit, wrapt in clouds and mist, was hidden from mortal view. It was supposed that this mysterious region, which even a bird could not reach, extended beyond the clouds right into Aether, the realm of the immortal gods. The poets describe this ethereal atmosphere as bright, glistening, and refreshing, exercising a peculiar, gladdening influence over the minds and hearts of those ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... pistols cocked, quiet as possible. Rajah brought up the rear, and in this formation we marched along, alert for danger. At times the rustle of a bush in the breeze put us on our guard, and we crouched down with muscles tense and pistols raised; or the flutter of a bird over our heads, or the shrilling of an insect, or the creak of a tree sounded an alarm which would delay us. But Rajah's sense of hearing was very keen, and whenever we stopped from such sounds he would grin at us and push on ahead. We trusted a great deal to his woodcraft, for ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... jumped—I really did. Him so tidy 'n' goin' out on the porch half a dozen times a day to brush up the seeds under the bird-cage—'n' wantin' you! I couldn't believe my ears at first, 'n' he talked quite a while, 'n' I did n't hear a word he said. 'N' then, when I did find my tongue, I jus' sat right down 'n' did my duty by him. Mrs. Lathrop, you know 's well 's I do how fond I am o' you; but you know, ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... Die"—Sharper, or Bladder, Rabbit, Turtle, and Monster; likewise of the coming of a mighty flood on which swam the Turtle and a water-fowl in whose bill was the earth atom, from which presently the world began to grow, Turtle supporting the bird on his great back, which was hard like rock. The rest of the myth, that deals with the rising and setting of the sun, Singing Stream could not tell her daughter, as the old Sioux chiefs did not think it wise to let their women folk know too much about matters of theology. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... ferry-boat, in May, 1871, I arrived in Little Rock a stranger to every inhabitant. It was on a Sunday morning. The air refreshing, the sun not yet fervent, a cloudless sky canopied the city; the carol of the canary and mocking bird from treetop and cage was all that entered a peaceful, restful quiet that bespoke a well-governed city. The chiming church bells that soon after summoned worshipers seemed to bid me welcome. The high and humble, in their ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... London, this evening, produce such a scene? The gardens no doubt will be glorious, but the groundwork is also God's; but why say I that in particular? All is his; the very notes that warble through so many guilty throats are his creation; all the art of man cannot add to their number. Sweet bird, thy notes are innocent, O how sweet. Lovely trees—ye who stand erect, and ye who weep and wave; I wish no brighter scene. The shadows lengthen fast, so do yours and mine, my sovereign;* a few, a very few anniversaries, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... which no mortal foot has trod, far as the confines of the unknown ocean, breathes the spirit of the eternal Creator; and every atom to which he has given existence finds favour in his sight. Ah, how often at that time has the flight of a bird, soaring above my head, inspired me with the desire of being transported to the shores of the immeasurable waters, there to quaff the pleasures of life from the foaming goblet of the Infinite, and to partake, if but for a moment even, with the confined ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... bloodthirsty, cruel fox? Oh, dear no! She was no fool. One often hears of the cunning of the fox. Wait and see what a fool he is compared with a mother-partridge. Elated at the prize so suddenly within his reach, the fox turned with a dash and caught—at least, no, he didn't quite catch the bird; she flopped by chance just a foot out of reach. He followed with another jump and would have seized her this time surely, but somehow a sapling came just between, and the partridge dragged herself awkwardly away and ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... bird has flown; only the woman remains." They were at the table now, and she absently plucked ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... BIOLOGICAL SURVEY maintains game, mammal, and bird reservations, including among others the Montana National Bison Range, the winter elk refuge in Wyoming, the Sully's Hill National Game Preserve in South Dakota, and the Aleutian Islands Reservation in Alaska. ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... what Uncle Roy calls a turkey for one," laughed Lura. She turned in her chair towards where her bird had been strutting on the window-sill, and added, in surprise, "Why, what has ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... in the field, there was a mother bird and three young birds. The little mother bird, there in the quiet clover field, had never heard such a loud ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... He had never opened his mouth in the House of Lords and had never sat in the House of Commons. The political world knew him not at all. He had a house in town, but very rarely lived there. Early Park, in the parish of Bird, had been his residence since he first came to the title forty years ago, and had been the scene of all his labours. He was a nobleman possessed of a moderate fortune, and, as men said of him, of a moderate intellect. He had married early ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Viviparum, viviparous bistort, rises about a foot high, with a beautiful spike of flowers, which are succeeded by buds or bulbs, which fall off and take root. There is a bulb, frequently seen on birch-trees, like a bird's nest, which seems to be a similar attempt of nature, to produce another tree; which falling off might take root ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... seems to know much about them, yet," he replied, and seemed disinclined to pursue the subject. A robin with a worm in its bill was hopping across the grass; he whistled softly, the bird stopped, cocking its head and regarding them. Suddenly, in conflict with her desire to remain indefinitely talking with this strange man, Janet felt an intense impulse to leave. She could bear the conversation no longer, she might burst into tears—such was the extraordinary effect ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bird migration, the resounding golunk, golunk, of the wild goose, the shrill klil-la-la of the swift and wary brant, the affectionate qu-a-a-rr-k, quack of the Mallard drake and his mate, with the strange, inimitable ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... that mellows and softens the distance, and brings out sharply the lights and shadows of the foreground, and the artist must follow her if he would succeed. It is nature who warbles softly in the love notes of the bird, and who elevates the soul by the roar of the cataract and the pealing of the thunder. To her the musician and the poet listen, and imitate the great teacher. It is nature who, in the structure of the leaf or in the avenue of the lofty limes, teaches the architect how ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... hae I rov'd by bonny Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine; And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And fondly ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... have the rock in his pocket, and he just lent it to me to throw at a bird right above the window. It was a nice round one, and he brought it from home to see if he could kill anything. It most killed the minister, and the rock is a little bluggy. Isn't it, Jimmy? He's got it in his ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... duplicates of one another. They may not all be of the same size; but they are all composed of protoplasm, and the protoplasm of plants cannot be distinguished from that of animals by any physical or chemical tests known to modern science. The protoplasm in the brain of a bird is the same as that in its toes; and no metaphysical subtilties about heredity have ever explained why the one does a different work from the other. The plain fact is that different cells, composed of identical protoplasm ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... it was a wooden bird, the popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now he said that there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body; and he was very proud. "Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.* Plump! here ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... having great power; and the earth was enlightened by his glory. And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, She is fallen: Babylon the great is fallen, and is become a dwelling of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird, for all the nations have drunk of the wine of the fury of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... Hark! the lonely bird of night Stays its notes of sadness; Early birds, that hail the light, Soon shall wake to gladness. Philomel's concluding lay Bids us follow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... abstractedly to tear a small piece of paper into tiny fragments. When she had reduced it to the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces out of her silk lap and again collected them in the pink hollow of her little hand, kneeling down on the scrupulously well-swept carpet to peck up with a bird-like action of her thumb and forefinger an escaped atom here and there. These and the contents of her hand she poured into the chilly cavity of a sepulchral-looking alabaster vase that stood on the ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... night he heard a voice more sweet than the sighs of the bird of passion, or than the warbling phoenix. No words seemed adequate, he felt, to describe the beauty of this song. Walking out from his cabin, he found that the music came from a junk not very far distant from ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... without precaution, on the fatal conjugal pillow. Then—as if for the first time since her marriage she found herself free in thought and action—she looked at the things around her, stretching out her neck with little darting motions like those of a bird in its cage. Seeing her thus, it was easy to divine that she had once been all gaiety and light-heartedness, but that fate had suddenly mown down her hopes, and changed her ingenuous ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... constantly sending him on mischievous errands. In a word, the young man was enlarging at great length upon the character of the wicked Manito, when he was interrupted by being darted upon by a hungry-eyed bird, ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... bird I ever caught," said Meshach Milburn, "that did not learn to trust me. Your comparison does not, therefore, discourage me. And you have already sung for me, the saddest ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the indefinite article to each of the following nouns: age, error, idea, omen, urn, arch, bird, cage, dream, empire, farm, grain, horse, idol, jay, king, lady, man, novice, opinion, pony, quail, raven, sample, trade, uncle, vessel, window, youth, zone, whirlwind, union, onion, unit, eagle, house, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... big bird-cherry, whereof many boughs hung low down laden with fruit: his belly rejoiced at the sight, and he caught hold of a bough, and fell to plucking and eating. But whiles he was amidst of this, he heard suddenly, close anigh him, a strange noise of roaring and braying, not very great, but exceeding ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... a lot of light. She could see the bird's-wing brilliance of his hair, the faint bluish bloom about his lips, that showed he had not shaved since morning, the radiance of his eyes and the flush on his cheeks that had come of his enjoyed ride through the cold moony air. ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... heads doubtingly, as if questioning the policy of the advice. Mr. Scranton, however, to whom all looked with great solicitation, speaks up, and affirms the advice to be the wiser course, as a bird in the hand is worth two in ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... "poor, nasty, brutish, and short". To live like an animal is to rely upon one's own quite naked equipment and efforts, and not to mind getting wet or cold or scratching one's bare legs in the underbrush. One would have to eat his roots and seeds quite raw, and gnaw a bird as a cat does. To get the feel of uncivilized life, let us recall how savages with the comparatively advanced degree of culture reached by our native Indian tribes may fall to when really hungry. In the ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... the fragments of men that we have amongst us to-day,—the physical joy in existence of the western hunter, the intellectual keenness of the man of science, the love of Nature of the artist or poet, the love for each little bird and insect of the naturalist, the justice of a Washington, the love for God and man of a Florence Nightingale, and then we gain some glimpses of the men of the future whom God has willed shall possess the planet at last. For assuredly the race is safe, though nations or individuals ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... I get it through prayer and reading, and especially at the Holy Communion. I have made it a rule to carry my sins there every Sunday, and have often come away from that holy sacrament feeling as happy and free as a bird." My friend looked surprised, but did not dispute this part of my experience. He contented himself by asking me quietly, "And how long does your peace last?" This question made me think. I said, "I suppose, not a week, for I have to do the same thing every Sunday." He replied, "I thought ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... gravel-path; a novice entered the arbour, and placed a bowl of bread and milk by the Abbot. The latter started, as though he had been recalled from far away, and exclaimed, "Leave me in peace!" The novice remained standing, frightened and troubled. Then a little bird, which had been sitting in the arbour, struck up its song. The Abbot looked up, his countenance cleared, he cast a glance on the bowl of milk which he eagerly seized, and was in the act of raising it to his mouth, but, as he noticed the youth's troubled aspect, he stopped. "Forgive my anger," ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... the middle of the bog, comes a plaintive cry like the call of some night-bird. It is answered half a mile away, in the direction of Donaghmore, and then again there is silence. But it is no bird-call, Honor knows; and she raises her face from her lover's breast with a little sigh ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... often talked about it," said Will seriously. "It seems cruel to catch and kill things; but they are always catching and killing others, and every bird and fish you see here is as cruel as can be. There goes a cormorant; he'll be swimming and diving all day long catching fish, so will the shags; and all those beautiful grey-and-white gulls you can see on the rock there, live upon the fish they catch on ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... Rural Bird Life; Essays on Ornithology, with Instructions for Preserving Objects relating to that Science. By CHARLES DIXON. With Coloured Frontispiece and 44 Woodcuts by G. ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... mountains you put on stout boots and coarse frocks and go a-fishing; but Saratoga never "lets up,"—if I may be pardoned the phrase. Consequently you see much of crinoline and little of character. You have to get at the human nature just as Thoreau used to get at bird-nature and fish-nature and turtle-nature, by sitting perfectly still in one place and waiting patiently till it comes out. You see more of the reality of people in a single day's tramp than in twenty days of guarded monotone. Now I cannot conceive of any reason why ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his home "Halcyon House," and what a suitable and lovely name for one in his business, and one who had settled here after his service in the Revolution. For the halcyon was a fabled bird, whose nest floated upon the sea. It had the power of charming winds and waves, hence, "halcyon days" are days of tranquillity and peace. He had married Rebecca Loundes, the daughter of Christopher Loundes, of Bladensburg. They had several children. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... of her that he carried somewhere in that pointed head of his. She was exalted quite beyond herself. Things that had been chilled under the grind came to life in her that winter, with the breath of Bouchalka's adoration. Then, if ever in her life, she heard the bird sing on the branch outside her window; and she wished she were younger, lovelier, freer. She wished there were no Poppas, no Horace, no Garnets. She longed to be only the bewitching ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... the woods are quiet, and you've heard Night creep along the hedges. Never go Where tangled foliage shrouds the crying bird, And the remote winds sigh, ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... These ceremonies greatly fluttered those doves the young MacStingers, who were not only unable at such times to find any resting-place for the soles of their feet, but generally came in for a good deal of pecking from the maternal bird during ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... nothing of the cow but her eyes, shining like balls of fire through the dark tunnel, between the walls, through which I passed to where she stood. When I entered the streets I found them well lighted up. My heart was gladdened to know there was another chance for my escape. No bird ever let out of a cage felt more like flying, than ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... stone the prince stepped to the open doorway of the tent. As he stood there holding it in the open palm of his hand, a bird suddenly swooped down, picked the stone up in its beak and flew away ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... more afraid. If only the squirrel would come back and play with him, he would not be afraid. He was on the point of giving up the beautiful crimson toadstool and turning back home, when he saw a little gray bird hopping amid the lower limbs of a spruce in among the shadows. "Tsic-a-dee-dee!" whistled the little gray bird, blithely and reassuringly. At once the shadows and the stillness lost their terrors. The Kid squeezed boldly through the fence and started ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a honest brown. Still, though I'm mad to 'ear 'em play, and sometimes join the dance, I often wish one music gave the other kind a chance. The orgin might have two days, and the cornet take a third, While the pipe-man tried o' Thursdays 'ow to imitate a bird. But they allus comes together, singin' playin' as they meet With their pipes and 'orns and orgins in the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... which you are bidden may be a paradise full of other angels! But I would as soon sit down before the grating and look at the hooded brother, while the executioner slipped the noose over my head to strangle me, as to go to any place on a bidding delivered by a fellow with such a jail-bird's head. It is as round as a bullet and as yellow as cheese. He has eyes like a turtle's and teeth like ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance of life and grace. The mother prepared the work under her daughter's direction; for Desiree, though she was still a mere girl, was endowed with exquisite taste, with a fairy-like power of invention, and no one could, insert two pearl eyes ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... heavy good nature and much simpering, for they also had an eye to a comely young man; but the cunning Lydia they kissed and embraced, and called "dear" with much zeal. Mrs. Vrain, on her part, darted from one to the other like a bird, pecking the red apples of their cheeks, and cast an arch glance at Lucian to see if he admired her talent for manoeuvering. Then cake and wine, port and sherry, were produced in the style of early Victorian hospitality, from which epoch Mrs. Pegall ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... in the conversation for some minutes; at last the young Indian said, "A little bird sang in my ear, and it said, 'The white man's child is not dead; it wandered about in the woods and was lost, and the Indian found him, and took him to his wigwam in ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... resolved to destroy humanity by means of a deluge, and also every kind of living thing that the air and waters produce and support, both beast and bird: but thou shalt have shelter, with thy sons, when the 1300 dark waters, the black floods of death, destroy mankind, the vile sinners. Begin to build thee a ship, a mighty sea-house, in which thou shalt give a place of refuge to many a one and a safe home to every species on earth, 1305 after thine ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... present he used to be respectful but easy, solemn yet self-possessed. When the sovereign bade him receive visitors his countenance changed, and his legs appeared to bend. Bowing to those beside him, he straightened his robes in front and behind, hastening forward with his elbows extended like a bird's wings. When the guest had retired he used to report to the prince, saying, "The guest does not any more look back." When he entered the palace gate he seemed to stoop as though it were not high enough for him. Ascending the dais, lifting up his robes with ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... state! Around him throng the feather'd rout; Friends must be served, and some must out: Each thinks his own the best pretension; This asks a place, and that a pension. The nightingale was set aside: A forward daw his room supplied.[14] This bird (says he), for business fit Has both sagacity and wit. With all his turns, and shifts, and tricks, He's docile, and at nothing sticks. Then with his neighbours, one so free At all times will connive at me. The hawk had due distinction shown, For parts and talents like his own. Thousands of hireling ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... so I should fear that the tendencies of temperament are only temporarily imprisoned, and not radically cured; after all, it fits in with the Darwinian theory. The bird of paradise, condemned to live in a country of marshes, cannot hope to become a heron. The most he can hope is that, by meditating on the advantages which a heron would enjoy, and by pressing the same consideration on his offspring, the time may come ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... promised the Duchess of Kendall, his mistress, that, if possible, he would pay her a visit after death. Accordingly, a large raven flew into the window of her villa at Isleworth. She believed it to be his soul, and treated it ever after with all respect and tenderness, till either she or the bird died. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... enriched the music with graceful variations, earthly gladness throbbing through the rhythm of each. In such brilliant quivering notes some great singer might strive to find a voice for her love, her melodies fluttered as a bird flutters about her mate. There were moments when she seemed to leap back into the past, to dally there now with laughter, now with tears. Her changing moods, as it were, ran riot. She was like a woman excited and happy over her ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the heifer dead and bleeding fresh And sees fast by a butcher with an axe But will suspect 't was he that made the slaughter? Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest But may imagine how the bird was dead, Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak? Even ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... they have none. No genial fount, no graceful tree, rise with their pleasant company. Never a beast or bird is there, in that hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the jackal's felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... A small bird chased by another wheeled in through the southern window and back again into free air. Finally, the two settled down upon the parapet of the little shallow balcony which was there to have their disagreement out, and they talked it over with a great deal of noise and many threatening gestures ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... tire was flat and a young man who was smartly attired in gray was smacking gloved hands together and cursing the lumps of a jail-bird-built road and the guilty negligence of a garage-man who had forgotten to put a lift-jack back into the kit. Two women stood beside the car and looked upon the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... longed for; other lips, kinder and more true, should have set their seal on her accomplished womanhood. She knew that this that was offered was a perilous and sharp-edged thing, a bright sheath that held a sword for her heart, and yet that heart sang exultantly as it fluttered like a wild bird against the bars of its cage. It sang of youth and life and joy that cares not for ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... are enough to drive one mad when they're in love," she said once to the Raven-mother. "The bird sings his prettiest songs to his mate and finds the nicest things to tell her; but men, with the exception of a few, who immediately print their pretty phrases, talk miserable rubbish. It positively makes my hair stand on end when I think that they used to do exactly ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... was entirely bewildered. There sat the young King, under a canopy of state, five steps away, with his head bent down and aside, speaking with a sort of human bird of paradise—a duke, maybe. Hendon observed to himself that it was hard enough to be sentenced to death in the full vigour of life, without having this peculiarly public humiliation added. He wished the King would hurry about it—some of the gaudy people near by were becoming ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the smile of God, who gave you the power of being happy, is on your happiness; and that your heavenly Father no more grudges harmless pleasure to you, than He grudges it to the gnat which dances in the sunbeam, or the bird which sings upon the bough. For He is The Father,—and what greater delight to a father than to see his children happy, if only, while they are happy, they ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... pounds upon each foot, and the staggering load of the helmet, the thing was out of reason. I laughed aloud in my tomb; and to prove to Bob how far he was astray, I gave a little impulse from my toes. Up I soared like a bird, my companion soaring at my side. As high as to the stone, and then higher, I pursued my impotent and empty flight. Even when the strong arm of Bob had checked my shoulders, my heels continued their ascent; so that I blew out side-ways like an autumn leaf, and must be hauled in, hand over hand, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... auspices out of the state, who, by creating plebeian consuls, takes them away from the patricians who alone can hold them? They may now mock at religion. For what else is it, if the chickens do not feed? if they come out too slowly from the coop? if a bird chaunt an unfavourable note? These are trifling: but by not despising these trifling matters, our ancestors have raised this state to the highest eminence. Now, as if we had no need of the favour of the gods, we violate all religious ceremonies. Wherefore let pontiffs, augurs, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... rejoined Mr. Gusher, smiling; "I am zure I shall be so happy wiz you. Wiz you to zay so many good zings to me, my heart shall be in ze paradise." Here Mr. Gusher made a bow, and pressed his hand to his heart. "Wiz you for ze bird of zat paradise, oh, I shall be ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... kiss the place to make it well. The Master of Mar no doubt would cry too for sympathy, and the old gentleman take up his big book and move off to seek a quieter place for study. On another occasion, when the little King tried to get a sparrow from his companion and crushed the bird in the struggle, Buchanan rated him as himself a bird out of a bloody nest. He was an old man and alone in the world, indifferent to future favours from a king whose reign he would probably not live to see, and ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... The bird.—Images of birds are numerous and vary greatly in size and elaboration. They are usually represented with expanded wings and tails, the under side of the body being finished for show. The back is left concave and rough, as when cast, and is supplied with a ring for suspension ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... for gloves, dear," he said, his hot breath on her cheek; and with throbbing, eager hands he drew one off. He kissed the soft fingers and felt them, flutter like a captured bird. A moment later he put his arm about her and drew her head down to his shoulder. She resisted feebly, turning from him once or twice, and then allowed him to kiss her ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... fool's cap when he was not playing truant. With his schoolmates he was good friends. If he was seldom out of mischief, he was seldom out of temper. He could beat any boy at a foot race (without shoes); he knew the notes and nests of every bird that sang, and whatever an old pocket-knife is capable of, that John Broom could and would do with it ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... our city? Is there anyone who does not know the scoundrel? Go to the brokers, and they will tell you many he has thrown out of house and home by fraud and hunted out of the city. Have you ever seen how a bird-catcher lures the birds into his net—how he whistles to them? That's the way this John gets the people into his traps. To-day he will act as if altogether stupid. To-morrow he is suddenly shrewd, and understands the business well. Then he is ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... I must say I felt inclined to laugh the first time I heard one boy tell another to put salt on a bird's tail by way of catching it. Now, however, word comes, all the way from California, that there is a lake there, called "Deep Spring Lake," whose waters are very salt; and that during certain conditions of the weather the water-fowl ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... stuff and substance of his own towards the thing he loves. It implies, by a mysterious vibration of reciprocity, an indescribable response to his love from the "soul" of the tree, the plant, and the earth. Let an animal enter upon the scene, or a bird, or a windblown butterfly, or a flickering flight of midges or gnats, their small bodies illumined by the sun. These new comers he also loves; and is obscurely conscious that between their "souls" and his own there ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest. He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of getting ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... an Indian prince on the ornamented seat, and the Spirit of the East in the howdah, of his elephant, an Arab shiek on his Arabian horse, a negro slave bearing fruit on his head, an Egyptian on a camel carrying a Mohammedan standard, an Arab falconer with a bird, a Buddhist priest, or Lama, from Thibet, bearing his symbol of authority, a Mohammedan with his crescent, a second negro slave and ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... religion, and it is not surprising that he should so often appear as the first of created beings. His orb itself, or later the god in youthful human form, might be pictured as emerging from a lotus on the primaeval waters, or from a marsh-bird's egg, a conception which influenced the later Phoenician cosmogeny. The Scarabaeus, or great dung-feeding beetle of Egypt, rolling the ball before it in which it lays its eggs, is an obvious theme for the early myth-maker. And it was natural ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... peered from every window. Then, as ye stood in the doorways, ye would lift up your children in your arms, and pointing to him, exclaim: "See, that is Egmont, he who towers above the rest! 'Tis from bird that ye must look for better times than those your poor fathers have known." Let not your children inquire at some future day, "Where is he? Where are the better times ye promised us?"—Thus we waste the time in ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... excursions. I wish I might have gone to school to Agassiz just to get my eyes opened. If I had, I'd probably assign to my pupils such subjects as the evolution of a snowflake, the travels of a sunbeam, the mechanism of a bird's wing, the history of a dewdrop, the changes in a blade of grass, and the evolution of a grain of sand. If I could only take them away from books for a month or so, they'd probably be able to read the books to better advantage when they came back. I'd like to take ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... "Tseng," and in the latter as "Kak-ki." It is referred to in a book we have quoted in the body of this work, viz., that written by "Godinho de Eredia" in 1613, reproduced by M. Leon Janssen in 1882. It is called there bere-bere, which in the Malay language signifies a "sheep," or a "bird which buries its eggs in the sand," and is not now known by the Malays under that name, as far as we can gather, as a "disease." Godinho de Eredia says that the Malays cured it by the use of a wine made ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... hermit. Though subject, by divine dispensation, to spells of fervour and apathy, like a singing bird, it is at first quite unconcerned about its own conditions or maintenance. To acquire a notion of such matters, or an interest in them, it would have to lose its hearty simplicity and begin to reflect; it would have to forget the present with its instant joys in order laboriously to conceive ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... say, That euer 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's Birth is celebrated, The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long; And then, say they, no Spirit dares walk abroad: The nights are wholsom, then no Planets strike, No Fairy takes, nor Witch hath pow'r to charm; So hallow'd and so gracious ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... before Ogrechild found a husband, because all suitors were afraid of their mother-in-law to be. But Ogrechild finally married one of her brother's subordinates. She could draw the strongest bow, and strike the tiniest bird at a distance of a hundred paces. Her arrow never fell to earth without having scored a hit. When her husband went out to battle she always accompanied him, and that he finally became a general was largely due to her. Leopard was already ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various |
