"Feline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a sort of relish in torturing her, which resembled the feline cruelty of a wild beast playing with its prey. "Ah! it was a delightful letter, that; what a pity it was that I was out of Paris that night, and never received it till, alas! it was too late to rush to your side. You remember how it was, do you not? Your husband was lying ill at your hotel; ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... domiciliary railings, whence it me-ai-ouwed to him, through all the vowels of pussy's vocabulary, a Christmas compliment— with, probably, a curse tacked on to the tail of it, or that "phoo! phoo! phiz!" meant nothing. But the feline expletives were all thrown away; for Catch was only "full of fun and with nobody to play with him," like Peter Mooney's goose, and had only chased pussy in the natural exuberance of his spirits, having no "hard feelings" towards her, or any desire, I know, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... said was later evidenced; for when Thomas Cathcart Blake entered the front door of his residence that night and started up the stairs, he was met by an excited feline, followed by three equally excited children. And the cat, on seeing him, its cosmogony disrupted to such an extent that it felt itself no longer able to distinguish friend from foe, tried to turn back with the result that its first pursuer ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... proverb 'a cat may look at a king' and adopt the realistic view that the king's being is independent of the cat's witnessing. This assumption, which amounts to saying that it need make no essential difference to the royal object whether the feline subject cognizes him or not, that the cat may look away from him or may even be annihilated, and the king remain unchanged,—this assumption, I say, is considered by my ingenious colleague to lead to the ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Miss Berber suddenly appeared in the tent, dressed wonderfully in white panne, with a barbaric mottle of black and white civet-skins flung over one shoulder, and a tight-drawn cap of the fur, apparently held in place by the great claws of some feline mounted in heavy gold. She wore circles of fretted gold in her ears, and carried a tall ebony stick with a gold handle, Louis Quatorze fashion. From her huge civet muff a gold purse dangled. She looked at once more conventional and more dynamic than Mary had seen her, and ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... the clear space to Persimmon Sneed. He was a little, slim, wiry man, with light, sleek hair, pink cheeks, high cheek-bones, and a bony but blunt nose. He had a light eye, gray, shallow, but inscrutable, and there was something feline in his aspect and glance, at once smooth and caressing ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... was also white, ending with black rings; the overpart of her dress, yellow like burnished gold, very lissome and soft, had the characteristic blotches in the form of rosettes, which distinguish the panther from every other feline species. ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... woman, greedy for gold, was selling her lover's secrets before the breath was out of his body. Peter turned in his cushioned seat to look at her. Without doubt, she was beautiful to one who understood, beautiful in a strange, colorless, feline fashion, the beauty of soft limbs, soft movements, a caressing voice, with always the promise beyond of more than the actual words. Her eyes now were closed, her face was a little weary. Did she really rest, Peter wondered? He watched ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her the tripod of Delphi. Eye her not askance if she seldom sing directly of religion: the bird gives glory to God though it sings only of its innocent loves. Suspicion creates its own cause; distrust begets reason for distrust. This beautiful, wild, feline Poetry, wild because left to range the wilds, restore to the hearth of your charity, shelter under the rafter of your Faith; discipline her to the sweet restraints of your household, feed her with the meat from your table, soften ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... me," she said, and she bent forward over him—a gliding feline movement infinitely sinuous ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... tired of seeing babies born to people who don't know how to bring them up. I am tired of folks who smile continuously. I am tired of amiable fools and the platitudes of unintelligent saints. I am tired of mediocrity. I am tired of cats, both human and feline. I am tired of being a soldier and marching with the advance guard. I am tired of girls who giggle and of boys who swear. I am tired of married women who think it charming to be a little giddy, and of married men ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... upward at the ends and looked a little thicker, giving an exaggerated impression of wetness. Hastings thought of some small, feline animal, creeping, anticipating ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... too, without letting Barty know. I did not like the man—he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade me that no other treatment was ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... have a feline tenacity of life; once more, a "fatal error." But Mr. Gladstone has forgotten an excellent rule of controversy; say what is true, of course, but mind that it is decently probable. Now it is not decently probable, hardly indeed conceivable, that any one who has read Josephus, or any other ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... different from the fierce glare seen in the eyes of many of our animals, especially the feline race, which seems to enlarge the eyes to enormous orbs of brilliant light. In the Martians it is simply a colourless, soft, and liquid glow which has a different effect on eyes of different colours; but it is ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... a look at Mademoiselle Habert,—one of those glances which pass from old maid to old maid, feline and cruel. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... that they tried the walnut trick again, and Jim was eager to see the "circus." But the cat remembered; she drove her teeth deep into Hall's hand and fought with a feline fury that is always terrifying. Jim was gazing in big-eyed silence, when Hall, enraged, thrust the cat into the leg of a boot and growled, "I'll fix yer biting," and held her teeth to the grindstone till the body in ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... quick feline pounces, he placed the slipper upon the blood mark on the sill. It exactly corresponded. He smiled ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... whole human grandmother inside it, would find it easy to wrap itself up in bedclothes, or whether, seeing that even walnut shells subject cats to such extreme discomfort, top-boots would not be even more intolerable to the most faithful of feline retainers. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... struck me as something not of this earth it is not a mere figure of speech. I vividly recall the feeling, for example, with which I greeted the first cat I saw on American soil. It was on the Hoboken pier, while the steerage passengers were being marched to the ferry. A large, black, well-fed feline stood in a corner, eying the crowd of new-comers. The sight of it gave me a thrill of joy. "Look! there is a cat!" I said to Gitelson. And in my heart I added, "Just like those at home!" For the moment the little animal ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... with Miss Wilson in the study, correcting examination papers, heard in the distance a cry like that of a cat in distress. She ran to the door and listened. Presently there arose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding again. It was a true feline screech, impossible to localize; but it was interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling, coming unmistakably from a room on the floor beneath, in which, at that hour, the older girls ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... gasp of terror and ran back to the chair—like a frightened feline creature, swift and silent—and sank into it, still gasping, her whole body shaken now as with fever, her teeth chattering, her ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... imitate Nature very closely, but Nature herself plays many a trick upon our credulity in matters of this kind. Upon a woman who owns no higher motive than low and selfish cunning she bestows the musical tones of a seraph, as she sheathes the sharp claws of all her feline progeny in cases of softest fur. Rosamond Vincy is not the only example which might be furnished, either in or out of print, in proof that a low, soft voice, that excellent thing in woman, may have a wrongly persuasive accent, luring to disappointment and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... to drown poor Kitty!" exclaimed the indignant Hannah, rushing into the yard and endeavoring to snatch her feline favorite—an attempt ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... afraid. She found out also that they could neither run swiftly nor walk silently, and they could be approached easily even by a tiger that cracked a twig with every step. It simplified the problem of living immensely; and just as any other feline would have done, she took the line of least resistance. If there had been plenty of carrion in the jungle, Nahara might never have hunted men. But the kites and the jackals looked after the carrion; and they were much swifter and keener-eyed than ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... invaded that Eden of straw The evilest Feline that ever you saw! She pounced on that cricket with rare promptitude And she tucked him away where he'd do the most good; And then, reaching down to the nethermost house, She deftly expiscated little Miss Mouse! And, as for ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... Till, of their neighbourhood, Another sparrow came to greet Old Ratto grave and Saucy Pete. Between the birds a quarrel rose, And Ratto took his side. "A pretty stranger, with such blows To beat our friend!" he cried. "A neighbour's sparrow eating ours! Not so, by all the feline powers." And quick the stranger he devours. "Now, truly," saith Sir Cat, "I know how sparrows taste by that. Exquisite, tender, delicate!" This thought soon seal'd the other's fate.— But hence what moral can I bring? For, lacking that important thing, A fable lacks its finishing: I seem to see ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... is just what our artist cannot bring himself to do. He must have that touch of nature, and of humour, which makes the whole world kin. He must introduce the quarrelling cat and dog into the office scene between West and Goodchild, or the feline visitant whose apparition through the chimney disturbs Thomas Idle's unhallowed slumbers; he must accentuate the gormandising guests in the Sheriff's banquet, and the humours of the crowd even in a Tyburn execution. And in ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... feline voice soon pounded flail-like into her consciousness, scattering her thoughts ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the ring were the Moorish hound—a creature full of feline grace and suppleness, with silky drop-over ears and a tufted tail—an exceptionally fine cross-bred collie, the Stone bulldog, a Dandie Dinmont, and a Welsh terrier, the last extraordinarily small, bright, shapely, and game. The slogi had apparently been most carefully trained ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... leave, I did thank Hon'ble Sir CHETWYND CUMMERBUND profusely for so discreetly retaining its feline contents within the generous bag of his mouth, whereat he clapped my back very cordially, advising me to abstain for the future from a super-abundance of frills, since the character of a diligent legal native student was a precious lily that needed no princely gilding, and adding that he was ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... Zooelogy at Columbia, on having these facts told him this morning, said he thought it unlikely that Cat Number Two was the same individual as Cat Number One, though the story of Androcles and the lion, if true, would indicate that animals of the feline species sometimes remember and reciprocate a kindness. "Why, then," said the doctor, solemnly closing one eye, "may we not suppose that a cat would have the will and the ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... uncorrected by physical deficiencies. Not that she was astonishingly beautiful, but she was tall and just good-looking enough to allow her to consider herself a beauty. Her chief attraction was her form, which, if somewhat flat-chested, had a feline flexibility rarer and more seductive than she imagined. She was content to believe that nature had fashioned her to play the part in life which, she knew, was hers of right. Her name, even, was most appropriate—dignified. Ida should be queen-like, stately; the oval of her face should ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... full-grown species will chiefly determine the preservation of a species now become ill-suited to its habitat, or rather with a better place opened to it in the economy of Nature. It would not matter to the full-grown cat whether in its young state it was more or less eminently feline, so that it become so when full-grown. No doubt most variation, (not depending on habits of life of individual) depends on early change{161} and we must suspect that at whatever time of life the alteration ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... at play? Well, and what sort of treatment do they sometimes get from the older folks? Now and then you hear a growl, or see a spat. But, generally, the "old ones" know better. The little frolicsome creatures are indulged. Nature seems to teach these canine and feline parents that their progeny must and will have sport. I have, indeed, as I have said, heard the ominous growl and the warning spat or spit, but what good has it done? Why, the growl seems only to ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... deer that they were running after, and as I had observed a path through the canes, I leaped upon my saddle, and followed the chase, wondering what it could be, as, had the animal been any of the smaller feline species, it would have kept to the briars, where dogs have never ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... after I had seen the Martians, described in the foregoing paragraph, that I was shown two cat-like animals, which at the time of my vision were engaged in playing about the feet of a Martian. They did not exactly resemble cats, but were more feline than canine. They were about the size of a large Airedale, and of a dark, reddish-brown color with deep black stripes, similar to the markings of our tigers. They were very playful and cavorted about just ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... type of these adventuresses, elegant, mature, and still beautiful. Charming feline creatures, you feel that they are vicious to the marrow of their bones. You find them very amusing when you visit them; they give card-parties; they have dances and suppers; in short, they offer you all the pleasures of ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... Robespierre is not wanting, now when the brunt of battle is past; in a stealthy way the seagreen man sits there, his feline eyes excellent in the twilight. Also understand this other, a single fact worth many: that Marat is not only there, but has a seat of honour assigned him, a tribune particuliere. How changed for Marat; lifted from his dark cellar into this luminous 'peculiar tribune!' All dogs have ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... concierge's cat, on whom Sir Charles would call before paying his respects upstairs. At another house a cat named Pouf was held in great honour by him, and his feelings were deeply wounded when, with feline capriciousness, it turned, on Paul Hervieu's entrance, to bestow all its blandishments on the writer. His love of cats was as well known to his French as to his English friends, Emile Ollivier writes in 1891 from La Moutte: ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... on the second floor; up stealthily by the Tinkletons' abode on the third; up past the fire-escape Italian garden of little Mrs. Persimmon on the fourth; up past the windows of the disagreeable Garraways' kitchen below mine, and then, with the easy grace of a feline, zip! he silently landed within reach of my hand on my own little iron veranda, and craning his neck to one side, peered in through the open window and listened intently ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... expelled him from her presence like a schoolboy. Naturally he had been annoyed and offended—stung even into the rudeness of abandoning her in a summer-house to an entire stranger. How could you possibly wonder (unless feline) that he, great unsocial at best, had thereafter ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... hardly necessary to say that there are no lions in America. The Spaniards must accordingly have given this name to the cougar, now called the panther by the North Americans, a very inferior species of the feline race.—E.] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Mr. Angora were bitterly jealous of each other, and a rupture was imminent. Under the circumstances, Mr. Cashmere, while assuring everybody of his whole-hearted support, had a private reservation of judgment to be finally settled by the directional feline saltation. ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... slim-flanked crew with a feline sort of grace about them; terse of speech, quick of eye, engine-wise, and, generally, nursing a boil just above the collar of their soft shirt. Not vicious. Not even tough. Rather bored, though they didn't ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... being welcome she was scarcely tolerated, and she reminded one of a stray cat that comes to a dwelling and seeks to maintain existence there in a lurking, deprecatory manner. Her kindred recognized this feline trait, for they were accustomed to remark, "She's ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... till he reached the quarter of the city inhabited by the descendants of the feline race; and as he had never before been in that part of the town, he was at first utterly confounded by the discordant cries. Instead, too, of the order prevailing in the canine portions, the inhabitants seemed to take delight in the wildest gymnastic demonstrations, and certainly ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... Shirley's bullet, and the painful dressing. At the station-house, and his arraignment before the magistrate at Night Court, where he saw some other familiar faces of his fellow gangsters—now rounded up on the same charges—he still maintained that feline silence. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... and under, and everywhere. But if he sat down soon, he got up sooner. If there is one thing that a house cat should be taught, it is to sleep elsewhere than on the top stair. When he fell and struck the sleeping cat there was a crisis. He took in the situation at once. An occasional disengaged feline toe nail, and a squall, told him in burning words that, while his title to the seat was contested, it would be impolitic to wait for a commission of unbiased judges to decide which was entitled to it. His opponent was armed, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... seemed somewhat like a lioness before, striding and chafing in her regal rage, she is again, it must be confessed, a little like one now, but presenting a different aspect of the great feline, a sort of cruelty, a need to torment before sacrificing. "What would King Mark say if I were to slay his best servant, the most faithful of his retainers, who won for him crown and land? Does it seem to you such a paltry ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... on the turf the woman, still alone with her thoughts, suddenly moved. She unclasped her long hands from about her knees, stretched her limbs and body with feline grace, then slowly raised her head and extended her arms with open, curving fingers, as if to gather to her all the glory and overwhelming sanity of the morning. This was a gesture not to be mistaken: it was a gesture of freedom, the movement ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... I understand his habits changed. From being a tolerably cheerful companion, he became a wretched hypochondriac; all his energies being directed to the avoiding a contact with any of the feline race. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... frankness, messire," continued the male ghost, "but you cannot have moved widely in noble company if you are indeed unable to distinguish between members of the feline species and of the ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... at the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. The trials within this class are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... the youngest of the feline family, degenerates not in ferocity from the elder branches of her house, and though inferior in strength, is equal in fierceness to the noble tiger himself, when a little mouse, whom it hath long tormented in sport, escapes from her clutches ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... say as much for "the curs of low degree," that just at the same hour begin to prowl up and down St. Giles's, and to and fro in it, seeking what they may devour, with the fear of the Alderman of Cripplegate Within before their eyes. The feline kind, however, have reason to think themselves in more danger at the first round of the watering cart, for we have often rescued an unsuspicious tortoise-shell from the felonious designs of a skin-dealer, who was about to lay violent hands on unoffending ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... instant's encounter his eyes cleared to triumph and gayety, and he smiled—a smile curiously feline, ironic, for all its intended ingratiation—a conqueror's smile, winged to reassure ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... stairway was empty, for both I and my charge were with La Marmotte, and the Italian ran upstairs with a footfall as light as that of a cat. On reaching the landing he stopped for a second, glanced around him, with the same feline caution that marked all his movements, and then, creeping forward on tiptoe, went along a corridor leading to ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... naked under her transparent dress of gauze, which fell in straight folds as far as the gold bracelets on her slender wrists, with languor in her rich voice, and something undulating and feline in the rhythmical swing of her wrist and hips. Tatia Caroly was singing one of those sweet Creole songs which call up some far distant fairy-like country, and unknown caresses, for which the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... exhibiting in Regent-street; but as we have not yet left our card with their feline excellencies, we cannot wink at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... without the change involving the alteration of all the rest. Darwinism affirms on the contrary, that there was no express construction concerned in the matter; but that among the multitudinous variations of the Feline stock, many of which died out from want of power to resist opposing influences, some, the cats, were better fitted to catch mice than others, whence they throve and persisted, in proportion to the advantage over their fellows thus offered ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... time. Such singing, and then dancing and frolicking, and such a feline softness in all their gaiety. None of the German or Saxon bullying, and barking and showing of teeth; in no wise a game of dogs, which always ends in a fight; but a truly kittenish play, with sharp claws safely tucked out of sight behind the very softest paws, and a rich, gentle curve of motion, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... of some envelopes lying on the round marble-topped table in the middle of the hall. She seized one of them with a wonderfully quick, almost feline, movement and tore it open, saying to us, "Excuse me, I must . . . Do go into the dining-room. Captain ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... not answer but walked over to the table and began the work of investigation. Mr. Linden came too. "If you are to make feline discoveries, I must stand by ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... if the gulf were bridged! What late, What all undreamed-of hurdle-winners Might blossom from a natural hate Of forming parts of feline dinners? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... Everyone is so kind and considerate to me now in my old age that I plead for the others, the less fortunate ones of my species—and I also pray that all who read these simple annals of my life will find it in their hearts to remember their faithful feline friends and never under any circumstances be tempted ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... and so the weeks passed. To earn something seemed but a slowly approaching necessity, and the weeks grew to months. He was never idle, for his tastes were strong, and he had delight in his pen; but so sensitive was his social skin, partly from the licking of his aunt's dry, feline tongue, that he shrunk from submitting anything he wrote to Harold Sullivan, who, a man of firmer and more world-capable stuff than he, would at least have shown him how things which the author saw and judged from the inner side of the web, must appear ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... it, then. Miss Arthur seems to me to be feline, rather than vulpine, though." Bending forward, the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... operation of the Reading Club. As far as I can judge, it is a great institution for the discussion of apples and chestnuts, but is quite innocent of the pleasures of literature. It, however, brings the young people together, and promotes sociability and conversation. Our feline companions are flourishing. Young Baxter is growing in gracefulness and favour, and gives cat-like evidences of future worth. He possesses the fashionable colour of 'moonlight on the water,' apparently a dingy hue of the kitchen, and is strictly ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... and set, moved with a noiseless, feline, padding step towards the prone victim. A gleam of apprehension shot into Julius Fraithorn's great dark eyes, reopening now to consciousness. They fixed themselves, with an instinct born of that sudden thrill of fear, upon the lightly-closed ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... made another forward movement, slowly, not lifting his foot, but sliding it along the rug to its new position.... Then immovability.... Then another feline approach. Step after step, with that tense ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... now trips people up on the stairs of the old mansion which President Madison and his wife, Dolly, occupied, at the corner of Eighteenth Street and New York Avenue, after the White House was burned by the British. That, indeed, is altogether another story; but the feline spook of the Capitol possesses attributes much more remarkable, inasmuch as it has the appearance of an ordinary pussy when first seen, and presently swells up to the size of an elephant before the eyes of ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... the cat with indescribable terror; and she leapt back. The blast of a trumpet, the smash of a pile of crockery, or a pistol-shot fired by her ear would not have dismayed the feline to such an extent. All her ornithological ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... natural kindness, her pretentious exaggeration was exalted enthusiasm. I alone had scrutinized her grimacings, and stripped away the thin rind that sufficed to conceal her real nature from the world; her trickery no longer deceived me; I had sounded the depths of that feline nature. I blushed for her when some donkey or other flattered and complimented her. And yet I loved her through it all! I hoped that her snows would melt with the warmth of a poet's love. If I could only have made her feel all the greatness that lies in devotion, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... It was not, however, till the year 1819 that he first came to live at Sutton. His earliest recollection was, as he used to tell us, playing on the terrace with the great ginger- coloured tom-cat, "King George." We always supposed this feline magnifico to have derived from some stock imported by the first Sir Henry when he was Master of the Household to George III. As my readers will see, King George's successor, in the true "mode" of his race, sits ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... to see what you shall see?" cried the stout individual, riding astride on the cask. "Make ready, then. One, two, three;" and by some contrivance or other, he suddenly caused the head of the cask to fall out to the ground, when a chorus of mews and feline shrieks and cries as if long pent up burst forth, followed by an avalanche of cats with labels fixed to their tails; who, gazing for a moment at the assemblage, dashed frantically forward, some in one direction, some in another, blinded by the light suddenly let in on their ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... Sevres, or Venetian glass. Whichever side of the question we may assume, as the most popular, or the most right, the feelings of so large and respectable a minority are to be consulted, that it behooves the critic or reviewer to move cautiously, and, imitating the actions of a certain feline household reformer, to show ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... cropping out again. There was always something feline about y'u. I remember when y'u were a boy y'u liked to torment wild animals y'u ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... of sulphur amid black powder, of burned stuffs and calcined earth which roams in sheets about the country, all the menagerie is let loose and gives battle. Bellowings, roarings, growlings, strange and savage; feline caterwaulings that fiercely rend your ears and search your belly, or the long-drawn piercing hoot like the siren of a ship in distress. At times, even, something like shouts cross each other in the air-currents, with curious variation of tone that make the sound ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... four o'clock now, and the dinner was almost ready. Aunt Barbara had dropped her knitting upon the floor, where the ball was at once claimed as the lawful prey of Tabby, who rolled, and kicked, and tangled the yarn in a perfect abandon of feline delight. Mrs. Van Buren having exhausted herself, if not her topic, sat rocking quietly, and occasionally giving little sniffs of inquiry as to whether the tomatoes were really burned or not. If they were, there were still the silver-skinned ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... solemnity had imparted itself to the man's mood. In the spiritual, as in the material world, are signs and presages of night. Rarely meeting her look, and whenever he did so conscious of the indefinable dread with which, despite their feline beauty, her eyes always affected him, Jenner Brading listened in silence to the story told by Irene Marlowe. In deference to the reader's possible prejudice against the artless method of an unpractised historian the author ventures ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... does not suffer less. Yet one walks toward it, barefooted, on the heated pavement, heedless of the heat. The motives which led Boleslas to choose the French novelist as the one from whom to obtain his information, demonstrated that the feline character of his physiognomy was not deceptive. He understood Dorsenne much better than Dorsenne understood him. He knew him to be nervous, on the one hand, and perspicacious on the other. If there was an intrigue between Maitland and Madame ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... like the jaguarete of Paraguay, and the real tiger of Asia, does not flee from man when it is dared to close combat, and when not intimidated by the number of its assailants. Naturalists at present admit that Buffon was entirely mistaken with respect to the greatest of the feline race of America. What Buffon says of the cowardice of tigers of the new continent, relates to the small ocelots.* (* Felis pardalis, Linn., or the chibiguazu of Azara, different from the Tlateo-Ocelotl, or tiger-cat of the Aztecs.) At the Orinoco, the real jaguar ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... There is something feline about this combination of perfect patience with quiet persistence—a combination which the Jesuits on a larger scale have turned into the characteristic of their order. It is especially remarkable when it breaks ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... other, and the children gamesome. It is true; they are as noble as the lion of the desert, and as gentle and as playful as the fireside cat. Our traveller observes all this;[81] and seems to forget that from the humblest to the highest of the feline tribe, from the cat to the lion, the most wanton and tyrannical cruelty alternates with qualities more engaging or more elevated. Other barbarous tribes also have their innocent aspects—from the Scythians in the classical poets and historians down ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... before you, and not the defense!" observed the judge of the sickly face angrily and loudly. By Andrey's expression the mother perceived that he wanted to tease them. His mustache quivered. A cunning, feline smirk familiar to her lighted up his eyes. He stroked his head with his long ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... pathos in the case of Mrs. Alderling, which I certainly did not experience in Alderling's. Temperamentally he was less fitted to undergo the rigors of their seclusion than she was; in his liking to talk, he needed an audience and a variety of listening, and she, in her somewhat feline calm, could not have been troubled by any such need. You can be silent to yourself, but you cannot very well be loquacious, without danger of having the devil for a listener, if the old saying is true. Yet still, I felt ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... in her honour immense festivals were there held. Her name is found in the beginning of the pyramid times; but her main period of popularity was that of the Shishaks who ruled from Bubastis, and in the later times images of her were very frequent as amulets. It is possible from the name that this feline goddess, whose foreign origin is acknowledged, was the female form of the god Bes, who is dressed in a lion's skin, and also came in from the east (see ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... wrong," he concluded thoughtfully, "but I have a hunch this little plastic feline is going to be more trouble than the liveliest real cat ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... When the vigilant feline quadruped, frequently observed in the abodes of man, is absent, the common domestic animal of the genus mus may indulge in various relaxations ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... hound, deer hound, fox hound, otter hound; harrier, beagle, spaniel, pointer, setter, retriever; Newfoundland; water dog, water spaniel; pug, poodle; turnspit; terrier; fox terrier, Skye terrier; Dandie Dinmont; collie. [cats—generally] feline, puss, pussy; grimalkin^; gib cat, tom cat. [wild mammals] fox, Reynard, vixen, stag, deer, hart, buck, doe, roe; caribou, coyote, elk, moose, musk ox, sambar^. [birds] bird; poultry, fowl, cock, hen, chicken, chanticleer, partlet^, rooster, dunghill cock, barn door fowl; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sometimes fatal to stout plethoric people; oddly enough, cats are unable to endure it: at villages 13,000 feet above the sea, Dr. Tschudi says that they cannot live. Numerous trials have been made with these unhappy feline barometers, and the creatures have been found to die in frightful convulsions. The symptoms of the puna are giddiness, dimness of sight and hearing, headache, fainting-fits, blood from mouth, eyes, nose, lips, and a feeling like sea-sickness. Nothing but time ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... unsullied word of honour, that you very strongly remind me of that historical character. You are a pair of Whittingtons, gents, without the cat; which is a most agreeable and blessed exception to me, for I am not attached to the feline species. My name is Tigg; ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... faded engraving which was over the mantel, and which represented a banquet held by one of the ancient English kings. With glassy eyes she stared at this picture representing the joys of living. She did not notice that Borgert had followed her with his feline step. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... days of stress and passion Feline charms are out of fashion, And the cult of Pasht is coldly looked upon; But cat-lovers may take solace From the words of ROBERT WALLACE, Who's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... its inhuman owners and left to this terrible fate. Indignation burned within the man as he realized the plight of the unhappy animal, and remembering Tabitha's plea for a pet, he carried the scrawny feline home to the child, feeling assured of its welcome there. But unfortunately the cat was as black as a coal, without a white hair on its body; its tail had a very perceptible crook in it which refused to be ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... noticed that the fox-terrier always knew its feline friend in the dark, and was always able to distinguish it from other cats. These, when they appeared, were always ferociously charged and driven away; and one day, in its eagerness to get at a strange cat, the dog nearly hurt its little companion. It happened in ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... maiden never lent presence to tilt or tourney without hearing a chronicle of her virtues go round the lists, shouted by wheezy heralds and taken up by roaring swashbucklers! Perdition overpower such ostentatious wooers! Marry! shall I shoot the amorous feline who nightly iterates his love songs on my roof, and yet withhold my trigger finger from yonder pranksome gallant? Go to! Here is an orange left of last week's repast. Decay hath overtaken it,—it possesseth neither savor nor cleanliness. Ha! cleverly thrown! A hit—a palpable hit! Peradventure ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... were natural to her, excused herself, went to her room, and cried half the night. It was not the shame of having been forcibly kissed that sickened her of herself, but the unforgettable, unforgivable fact that toward the last of that furious kissing she had found a certain low feline pleasure in the kisses. She wished that she might die, or, infinitely better, that she had ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... I fell victim to their feline charm. The children were pets, but you didn't feel like patting the adults on their big grinning heads. Personally I didn't like the one I knew best. He was called—well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist, ambassador, contact man, or whatever ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... them. This arrangement we have already encountered in undoubted Assyrian monuments (see Figs. 8, 29, and 123). If we turn the plaque, we find ourselves face to face with the beast. His skull is depressed, his features hideous, his grinning jaws wrinkled like those of a lion or panther. His feline character is enforced by his ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... point Huguette, who had been following the narrative with a feline ferocity, caught up a wine-jug and made to throw it at the poet's head, but was dexterously disarmed by Guy Tabarie before the vessel had time to quit her fingers. Sulkily she plumped herself down on her stool again, while Villon, quite unconscious ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... at short intervals. At last the demand is too much for the poor agonized mother—she takes refuge in silencing unworthy, and to which one feels her gentleness must be forced. "Hark! The cat will get you, Letty! See that cat?" And the feline horror in nameless form, evoked in an awe-inspiring whisper, controls the little creature, who murmurs, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... room. Mr. Walcott, on the contrary, made the entire circuit of the room, his hands carelessly clasped behind him, his head thrown well back, his every step characterized by a graceful, undulatory motion, like the movements of the feline tribe. ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... but she herself spoke of herself as a 'good fellow,' who had no patience with ceremony of any sort; it was in those words that she characterised herself to Sanin. And at the same time this 'good fellow' walked by his side with feline grace, slightly bending towards him, and peeping into his face; and this 'good fellow' walked in the form of a young feminine creature, full of the tormenting, fiery, soft and seductive charm, of which—for the undoing of us poor weak sinful men—only Slav ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev |
