"Feather" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... housemaid in strong hysterics and her best clothes. That was why the best hat was found, later on, to be completely ruined, and why the best blue dress was never quite itself again. And as they were burning bits of the feather dusting-brush as nearly under Eliza's nose as they could guess, a sudden spurt of flame and a horrible smell, as the flame died between the quick hands of Gerald, showed but too plainly that Eliza's feather boa ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... or praise, or trust Some clod like those that here we spurn; Some thing that sprang like thee from dust, And shall like thee to dust return? Dost thou rate statesmen, heroes, wits, At one sear leaf, or wandering feather? Behold the black, damp narrow pits, Where they and thou must ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to Ivor," she said, petulantly. "I've had enough of camping out. It's all very well in its way for a week but when they begin to talk about cutting your throat and all that, it ceases to be a joke and becomes a wee bit uncomfortable. I want my feather bed. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... severe one, came in the afternoon. Before it was fairly upon them, Lucy, herself pale with terror, had collected her children in a darkened room and seated them all on a feather-bed, where they remained during the storm, half stifled by the heat, the little ones clinging to their mother, hiding their heads in her lap ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... Onoah was simply dressed, consulting the season and his journey. He had a single eagle's feather attached to the scalp-lock, and wore a belt of wampum of more than usual value, beneath which he had thrust his knife and tomahawk; a light, figured and fringed hunting-shirt of cotton covered his body, while leggings of deerskin, with a plain ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... souls which vice's moody mists most blind, Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove; And they who thee, poor idle Virtue! love, Ply like a feather toss'd by ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... "but suppose we could? Suppose there came a night when it was just dark enough to hide us, and yet light enough to show us the track? Wouldn't it be a feather in our caps if we could ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... bedrooms, and the proprietor proudly announced that as many as sixty couples had danced here at once; there must have been some hearty bumps during the process. There are three bedrooms tucked away in recesses at the rear. It was my lot to sleep in a feather bed under a mountain of patchwork quilts with never a care for Jack Frost sitting on the window ledge outside. But, oh! what a difference in the morning, when I must climb out of that nice, warm nest to ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... Jim shamelessly turned feather. "Oh, no," he cried. "I'm very ill. I'm not able to go to Lynn. Besides, my time isn't up ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... yesterday Edward looked at the wind and decided that if Donald was not in the Thames then, he would have no chance of being here this week. We had not been here an hour when in he walked in high feather and gave me more reasons than I can remember for leaving his ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... narrated the plans he had adopted, and was adopting, for the benefit of all who became Chartists. He anticipated great results from his scheme of labour palaces—denied the propriety of being placed in the election returns as a feather in the quill of Whiggery—was an earnest advocate for the amelioration of Ireland, and still willing and determined to agitate for their cause. He would go to parliament, and record his first motion for 'The people's charter, and no surrender.' ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the committeemen, and several I'd never laid eyes on before. Well, there in a corner, looking like a hired mourner at a nigger funeral, sat that fellow Higginson. You could have knocked me flat with a pin feather. I'm as sure as I stand here that it was he who worked up that mob for Ryan, and the whole dirty scheme—and then coming around with his tongue in his cheek to inquire after the victim! Can ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I'll be tickled to death not to; just like I'd swallowed an ostrich feather. Back to ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... we ever have heard Uttered by bat or beast or bird— Hide or fin or scale or feather— Jabber it quickly and all together! Excellent! Wonderful! Once again! Now we are talking just like men. Let's pretend we are ... never mind, Brother, thy tail hangs down behind! This is ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... and plaintive chant to Kiwassa, sung by women and floating to us from the woods beyond the hollow. The singing grew nearer, and the rustling of the leaves beneath many feet more loud and deep; then all noise ceased, and Opechancanough entered the hollow alone. An eagle feather was thrust through his scalp lock; over his naked breast, that was neither painted nor pricked into strange figures, hung a triple row of pearls; his mantle was woven of bluebird feathers, as soft and sleek ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... any event, the proverb was attested that birds of a feather make strange bedfellows. There was a dispute concerning some petit larceny—some slight discrepancy, we will imagine, since all this is pure romance, in ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... condition, with a bodice of the time of Elizabeth, and a petticoat of that of Victoria. Sir Walter Raleigh wore the old felt hat belonging to his dressing-room, and pathetically appealed to the spectators to imagine it adorned with a white feather and jewelled clasp. ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... examining the weapons as they went, they ran down into a dry gully, to follow which would bring them unperceived almost as directly to the cabin as by the regular trail. As noiselessly as possible, the boys ran up the gully trail, their hearts beating high with expectation. It would be a big feather in their caps if they could only have a gray wolf's skin to show their elders ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... ought to be packed on a hoss. I weigh two hundred and thirty, son, and it busts the back of a horse in the mountains. Now, you ain't a flyweight yourself, and El Sangre takes you along like you was a feather." ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... pride to a piece of naked folly. I flew at his throat, and since I had stood on a little eminence, the force of my assault toppled him over. My victory lasted scarcely a minute. He flung me from him like a feather, then picked me up and laid on to me with the flat ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... green tent over their heads. The sunlight that came through was green, as if you were in a house made of green glass. All up the slender stems of these tall tree-ferns were the most beautiful little plants, and many stems were twined, from the earth to their feather-like fronds, with tender creeping ferns—the fronds of which were so fine and close, that it seemed as if the tree-fern were wrapped up in a lovely little fern coat. Even crumbling dead trees, and decaying ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... night in the room that Lancy occupies, at the head of the stairs, and, do you know, I never enter it but I feel cold shivers running up my back as I think of that night. You see, Mrs. McDonald's feather-beds are wonderful for size; they are her pride and joy; but we were not used to them, so, during the night, we rolled over too near the front of the bed, when suddenly out we both went, and the feather-bed fell out on top of us! I ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... don't intend to try. I have been sight-seeing all the afternoon, interviewing cathedrals, and walls, and rows, and places, until I give you my word you might knock me down with a feather. If you have anything preying on your mind—and I see you have—out with it. Suspense ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... with Colonel Fremont. He saw one solitary warrior separate from the rest. Spurring upon the savage at the distance of not ten paces he endeavored to shoot him, when his gun missed fire. He was now apparently at the mercy of the Indian, who had already with sinewy arm, drawn an arrow to the feather to pierce the body ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... over the neck, sleeves tight-fitting, waist narrow. All this is perfection, and the chief who can array himself in this ancient garb struts out of the fort the envy and admiration of all beholders. Sometimes the tall felt chimney-pot is graced by a large feather which has done duty in the turban of a dowager thirty years ago in England. The addition of a little gold tinsel to the coat collar is of considerable consequence, but the presence of a nether garment is not at all requisite to the completeness of the general get-up. For this most ridiculous-looking ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... away and presently returned, followed by a lady Loon wearing huge, puffed-up rubber skirts. Also she had a purple feather fastened to a wart on the top of her head, and around her waist was a sash of fibre-like vines, dried and ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... ill to banish hope and let the mind Drift like a feather. I have had my share Of what the world calls trial. Once a fire Came in the darkness, when the city lay In a still sea of slumber, stretching out Great lurid arms which stained the firmament; And ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... interest; and as to trying him on the tack of delicacy—"imposition on an unprotected woman,—degrading dependence on her exertions," and so forth—I knew the thick skin and indomitable self-conceit of the cannonier would repel such feather-shafts without feeling them, or that the utmost effect I could expect to produce would be to get myself into a quarrel with the redoubtable native of the Netherlands, a predicament in which, as a man of peace, I was by no means anxious to find ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... one of the largest hotels at Rome waiting for her husband to come in. The day was so balmy and genial that it was almost impossible for Hilda to believe that the time of year was early February. Dressed in dark-green velvet, with a creamy feather boa lying by her side, Hilda sat amidst all her unaccustomed surroundings, her eyes looking straight down the lofty room and her thoughts far away. The bride was thinking of her English home—she was an intensely happy bride—she loved her husband devotedly—she looked ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a signal for every boy to pretend to write a love letter to every girl. Jack could get nothing better than a feather from the Indian headpiece that hung on the wall. This he dipped in Belle's shoe dressing, and wrote a note on the back of Cora's best piece of sheet music. Walter sat on the floor poking his whittled stick into the dead embers in the ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... eminence. In Berlin you have both—the absolute monarch and the military class of ambitious soldiers and their fighting machine. Behind these men walks the Napoleonic ambition all the time, just as in the United States we lie down every night in George Washington's feather-bed of ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... is made of money," repeated Poppy, "and L17 10s. would be no more than a feather's weight to her. All the same, I can't make out what you're driving at, ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... in positions of great peril from whizzing shot and bursting shell, but was never harmed during these dangerous visits. On one occasion, she was probably by reason of her black hat and feather, mistaken for an officer, as she for a moment carelessly showed the upper part of her person, from a slight eminence near the rifle pits, and was fired at by one of the enemy's sharp-shooters. The ball lodged ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... droop—and, thank heaven, I have never been absolutely deprived of that alternative in Mr. Saltram's company. I saw, however—I hasten to declare it—that compared to this specimen their other phoenixes had been birds of inconsiderable feather, and I afterwards took credit to myself for not having even in primal bewilderments made a mistake about the essence of the man. He had an incomparable gift; I never was blind to it—it dazzles me still. It dazzles me perhaps even more in remembrance than ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... with your hair nicely shaved, except a little which was caught up into a knot like a cock's comb, on top to hold an eagle's feather," said the laughing Anne. "How elegantly you must have looked after having made your toilette, preparatory to wooing some Indian Princess, with your face beautifully painted in all the colors of the rainbow, only handsomer. How I should have liked to see ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... ye fall among thieves, my precious,—that is a Scripture phrase, if ye will hae ane—the bauldest of them will ken a scart o' my guse feather. And now awa wi' ye—and stick to Argyle; if onybody can do the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... R.N., of the Mantelpiece; adored by all his crew. They had feather-beds, warm slippers, hot-water cans, brown Windsor soap, and a valet to every four, for Captain Reece said, "It is my duty to make my men happy, and I will." Captain Reece had a daughter, ten female cousins, a niece and a ma, six ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... straight-grained ash was split and split until it yielded enough pieces. These were shaved down to one fourth of an inch thick, round, smooth, and perfectly straight. Each was notched deeply at one end; three pieces of split goose feather were lashed on the notched end, and three different kinds of arrows were made. All were alike in shaft and in feathering, but differed in the head. First, the target arrows: these were merely sharpened, and the points hardened by roasting to a brown ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... policemen, they never are when needed. The officers were at a loss how to get Palmer into his bed. Dr. Frost was fidgeting around in a nervous manner, when suddenly with a muffled "damn" and a few other qualifying adjectives, he stooped down, and took the man in his arms like a baby,—he was no feather either,— and staggered down the ward with him, put him in bed, and undressed him. A low murmur of approval came from the patients. Dr. Frost got very red and as soon as he had finished undressing Palmer, hurriedly left ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... of Life we walked together, I and my darling, unafraid; And lighter than any linnet's feather The burdens of Being on us weighed. And Love's sweet miracles o'er us threw Mantles of joy outlasting Time, And up from the rosy morrows grew A sound that seemed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... the Indian, at the same time touching a red feather in his black hair. "Me look for papoose. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's • Laura Lee Hope
... irritation coincides with sensation to produce the same catenations of motion, as in inflammatory fevers, they are excited with still greater energy than by the irritation alone. So when children expect to be tickled in play, by a feather lightly passed over the lips, or by gently vellicating the soles of their feet, laughter is most vehemently excited; though they can stimulate these parts with their own fingers unmoved. Here the pleasureable idea of playfulness coincides ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... their bellies on the top of a steep rock, just over the vessel, peeping with their heads over the hill. As soon as we discover'd them, we made motions to them to come down; they then rose up, and put on their heads white feather'd caps; we then hoisted a white sheet for an ensign: At this they made a noise, pronouncing Orza, Orza, which we took for a signal to come ashore. We would not suffer above two men to go ashore, and those disarm'd, lest we should put them in fear. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... Harrison, and tried to enlist him in their favor by repeating how well James had been treated, and how happy he was in slavery. Friend Harrison replied, in his ironical way, "O, I know very well that slaves sleep on feather beds, while their master's children sleep on straw; that they eat white bread, and their master's children eat brown. But enclose ten acres with a high wall, plant it with Lombardy poplars and the most beautiful shrubbery, build a magnificent castle in the midst of it, give thee pen, ink, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... his friends declared that he might have been high up in office long since if he would have taken the trouble to work. He was a welcome guest at the houses of the very best people, and was a friend of whom any one might be proud. It had for two years been a feather in the cap of Phineas that he knew Laurence Fitzgibbon. And yet people said that Laurence Fitzgibbon had nothing of his own, and men wondered how he lived. He was the youngest son of Lord Claddagh, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. "Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence," he muttered, as he seated himself in ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... One large feather decked the brow of the chief; which with his nose, was tinged with yellow ochre. Having presented the boy to me, he next advanced with much formality towards the camp, having Tackijally on his right, the boy walking between, and rather in advance of both, ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... only at a late period that the Italians gave their attention to this kind of composition. In the eighteenth century we find only two specimens of romance, "The Congress of Citera," by Algarotti, of which Voltaire said that it was written with a feather drawn from the wings of love; and the "Roman Nights," by Alexander Verri (1741-1816). In his romance he introduces the shades of celebrated Romans, particularly of Cicero, and an ingenious comparison of ancient and modern ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... now no pains, Leans o'er the boat's advancing end; And aided by her lord reclaims, The present of her feather'd friend. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... not reach you. I wrote, but knew that they might not. There is the smoke from Mother Binning's cot." He stood still to watch the mounting feather. "I remember when first I saw that, a six-year-old, climbing the glen with my father, carried on his shoulder when I was tired. I thought it was a hut in a fairy-tale.... ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... life with good patrimonies; but he, my father, at the time he became associated with them, was the only one, as I say, who, to use a phrase I have heard myself from his lips concerning them, had got a feather to fly with. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... you," replied Mrs. Murray. "If you feel yourself fit, you are the best person in the world for it. You would be a brand saved from the burning, and it will be a great feather in Mr. Hazard's cap to convert you into a strong church-woman. He could then afford to laugh at Mrs. Dyer, and all the parish would ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... stumbled as he walked. Othello mislays his handkerchief, and there remains nothing for him but death. Hamlet gets hold of the wrong foil, and the rest is silence. Edmund's runner is a moment too late at the prison, and the feather will not move at Cordelia's lips. Salisbury a moment too late at the tower, and Arthur lies on the stones dead. Goneril and Iago have on the whole, in this world, Shakespere sees, much of their own way, though they come to a bad end. It is a pin that Death pierces the king's fortress ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... There, there, girl, I don't blame any of you for feathering your nest." He was flushed now and above the soft collar, his face had relaxed into a not easily controllable smile. "Feather your nest, girl; you got the looks to do it. It's a far cry from Flamm Avenue to where a classy girl like you can land herself if she steers right. And I wish it to you, girl; ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... warfare on bird and beast. It is a growing evil, and threatens the total extinction of sport in some districts. I can remember when nearly every tank was good for a few brace of mallard, duck, or teal, where never a feather is now to be seen, save the ubiquitous paddy-bird. Jungles, where a pig was a certain find, only now contain a measly jackal, and not always that; and cover in which partridge, quail, and sometimes even florican were numerous, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... at seeing Paul look so brisk and joyous, "our young cock is in full feather; last night he ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... a Tuscan Sonnet And many humming birds were fastened on it. Caught in a net of delicate creamy crepe The dainty captives lay there dead together; No dart of slender bill, no fragile shape Fluttering, no stir of radiant feather; Alicia looked so calm, I wondered whether She cared if birds were killed to trim her bonnet. Her hand fell lightly on my hand; And I fancied that a stain of death Like that which doomed the Lady of ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... and went upstairs with my candle directly, before they came in. It appeared to my childish fancy, as I ascended to the bedroom where I had been imprisoned, that they brought a cold blast of air into the house which blew away the old familiar feeling like a feather. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... But little did I t'ink of it till I saw the movables on the ground, some burnt, and some broke, and other some as good as new. It would be convanient to have one feather bed in the ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the park was made angry by a boy throwing a feather boa up into the air outside the cage. The condor raised himself from the ground, and hurled himself against the heavy wire netting so that the whole, big cage shook. And the breeze caused by the flapping wings blew off the hats of several spectators. ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... bosoms, and looked as if they were attired at a very small expense. Only the general—the captain-general (Pooch, they told us, was his name: I know not how 'tis written in Spanish)—was well got up, with a smart hat, a real feather, huge stars glittering on his portly chest, and tights and boots of the first order. Presently, after a good deal of trumpeting, the little men marched off the place, Pooch and his staff coming into the very inn in which ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that he had not felt very well for a day or two back, and all at once a kind of shiver took him, till he lay fourteen days perfectly insensible, and could eat nothing but a little pounded ice—and his wife- -a small woman, too—used to lift him back and forth between the bed and sofa like a feather, and the neighbors did not know half the time whether he was dead or alive. This history, from which not the smallest particular or the least significant symptom of the case was omitted, occupied an hour in recital, and was told, as it seemed, for the entertainment ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... fishermen of Spain, Portugal, and France, in the costumes of the sixteenth century. Soon a circle formed round one commanding figure—a man of noble presence, wearing the richly slashed and laced doublet, velvet cloak, trunk-hose, and gay hat and feather which constituted the dress of gentlemen in the days of Queen Elizabeth. This was no other than Sir Humphrey Gilbert, one of the gallant knights of Devonshire. He unrolled a parchment scroll, and proceeded to read the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... are keen; they have heard a feather fall in the storm; now they hear a soft-voiced thrush. Wingenund thunders to his people, to his friends, to the chiefs of other tribes: 'Do not bury the hatchet!' The young White Father's tongue runs smooth like the gliding brook; it sings as the ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... a strange procession met their eyes unawares, coming down the zig-zag path that led from the hills to the shore of the lagoon, where their huts were situated. At its head marched two men—tall, straight, and supple—wearing huge feather masks over their faces, and beating tom-toms, decorated with long strings of shiny cowries. After them, in order, came a sort of hollow square of chiefs or warriors, surrounding with fan-palms a central ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... days were back. I don't see how that inventor or his inventions ever helped us workers. Dad was right about him. He said an inventor wouldn't do nothing for workers. He said it would be better to tar and feather that telegraph operator. I guess ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... the beholder, or to become objects of human interest and affection. The kingbird is the best dressed member of the family, but he is a braggart; and, though always snubbing his neighbors, is an arrant coward, and shows the white feather at the slightest display of pluck in his antagonist. I have seen him turn tail to a swallow, and have known the little pewee in question to whip him beautifully. From the great-crested to the little green flycatcher, their ways and general habits are the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... would;—and her shelves kept always dusted down; they could see her way of doing that, as they happened in at different times, when she whisked about, lightly and nicely, behind and between her jars and boxes and parcels with the little feather duster that she kept hanging over her table where she made her change and sat at ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... a certain still and steely watchfulness. In the August afternoon, Jeb Stuart, feather in hat, around his horse's neck a garland of purple ironweed and yarrow, rode into the lines and spoke for ten minutes with General Jackson, then spurred away to the Warrenton turnpike. Almost immediately Ewell's ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... show all the world that he was the rightful successor to the throne:—When Dagara died, and he, Nnanaji, and Rogero, were the only three sons left in line of succession to the crown, a small mystic drum of diminutive size was placed before them by the officers of state. It was only feather weight in reality, but, being loaded with charms, became so heavy to those who were not entitled to the crown, that no one could lift it but the one person whom the spirits were inclined towards as the rightful ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Harris, when I stood in the railways office that morning with my bundle on my arm and one patten in my hand, you might have knocked me down with a feather, far less porkmangers which was a lumping against me, continual and sewere all round. I was drove about like a brute animal and almost worritted into fits, when a gentleman with a large shirt-collar and a hook nose, and a eye like one of Mr. Sweedlepipes's hawks, and long locks ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... being of herculean size and strength, sly, and possessing an upper lip so large that when it is thrown back it completely covers the demon's face. The Bungisngis can lift a huge animal as easily as if it were a feather. ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... Bavarian peasants,—an institution got up for the purpose of frightening the women and children, and keeping them in order. While the ordinary dances are going on, there suddenly stalks forth "an ugly apparition in the shape of a man, wearing a feather mantle on his back, reaching from the arm-pits down to the mid-thighs, zebra-painted on his breast and legs with black stripes, bear-skin shako on his head, and his arms stretched out at full length along a staff passing behind his neck. Accoutred ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... said, saluting. "I know it would be a feather in your cap if you could land these fugitives, and I have come to ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... patience and perseverance when they expect to accomplish something of great importance to their interests. The same is true if they expect to gratify their vanity. In hair dressing or tattooing they submit to very irksome restraint prolonged through a long time. Also in feather work, partly useful and partly ornamental, they assorted feathers piece by piece, and enlaced the feathers in the meshes of their hats and caps, or fastened them into scepters with pitch. They could make houses, etc., with their axes only by long-continued industry.[231] South American ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... But this gentleness, this abominable solicitude, this brainless worship of an idiot, persistent, sickly, horribly physical, I cannot endure. What does it want of me? What would it demand of me? It nestles to me. It leans against me. I feel its touch, like the touch of a feather, trembling about my heart, as if it sought to number my pulsations, to find out the inmost secrets of my impulses and desires. No privacy is left to me." He sprang up excitedly. "I cannot withdraw," he cried, "I cannot be alone, untouched, unworshipped, unwatched ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... 'Well, I am, and I'm not.' And if you send her a note, imploring a straight answer to a direct question, the answer comes back: 'Yes AND no.' Miss Champion used to say she would like to take her up by the scruff of her feather boa, and shake her, asking at intervals: 'Shall I stop?' so as to wring from Mrs. Do-and-don't a definite ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... streets were all of mosaic, thousands of little stones being packed together like corn on a cob. Over this the heavy sledge was drawn by the bullocks while a small boy ran ahead through the narrow streets to clear the way— He had a feather duster made of horse's tail as a badge of authority and he yelled some strange cry at the empty streets and closed houses. Another little boy in a striped jersey ran beside and assured us he was a guide. It was like a page out of a fairy story. ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... that spread Barren and desert, all things drooped in sickness; And I, with palsy stricken, lay in pains! Vainly my hands shook feather-like with fever; Methought my feet were nailed upon the ground; The river, wide and wild; and far beyond, As far as eyes could see, the other bank Revelled in lusty growth and endless mirth With leafy slopes and forests ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... uncle's in high feather with the government party," said Sir Harry, "and that he only votes against them as a ruse de guerre, as the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the blacks, who seemed to be a chief by the big rings he wore in his nose and ears, and the long feather stuck on the top of his head, came forward, waving a green bough, and then, putting out his hand, took mine, which he rubbed on his flat nose. It was a sign that he wished to be friends; and by this time, as I ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... pile, no matter how many dead dogs, cats, and donkeys in a village street, no matter how unspeakable the offal, it all vanishes as completely as though it had been burned. Not a piece of bone, not a single chicken feather remains. The natives have no fear of the hyena; a small child armed with a stick can put to flight a dozen of them. They are the lowest of cowards, and will flee ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... So she plucked a feather from Koorookh and laid the quill downward, letting it drop. Then said she, 'Now for the awakening ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for trial. Great 'citement 'bout it, over de whole county. Court house packed dat day. Solicitor rise and say: 'Please your honor, de 'fendant, Lindsey, put in a plea of guilty.' You might have heard a breast feather of a chicken fall, so very still was de people in dere, though de niggers and 'publicans was a grinning wid joy. Then Judge Mackey 'low: 'Let de 'fendant stand up.' Wid a solemn face and a solemn talk, him wound up wid: 'Derefore, de court sentence you to de State ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... of the Corks," both men and women, all went to see a grand series of Spanish dances at the theatre, got up for their delectation and amusement. No band of enthusiastic pilgrims ever started in such high feather to see a dramatic and terpsichorean feast as did we. There was an expression of mystery and expectancy on every face. Mary Garden and all she does would be a mere flea bite to what we should see of pure and simple naughtiness. But alack and alas for our blasted hopes and the human weakness ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... We have this day had a splendid sight of ostriches—eleven feeding in a troop near us, quietly like so many sheep—eccentric birds of their species, showing no tendency to scud away. Perhaps I shall never see so many again together. They were all black, with maybe a white feather or ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... travelled towards the east, and the second went to the west, both making fun of poor Dummling, who was obliged to stay where his feather had fallen. Then Dummling, sitting down and feeling rather miserable after his brothers had gone, looked about him, and noticed that near to where his feather lay was a trap-door. On lifting this up he perceived a flight of steps, ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... my way through the country-side selling what maids most love—a bit of ribbon, a tie, a good serviceable apron, a feather for the hat, and many a pretty gown; but on my way from the village I met a friend from my own part of the country, which is not in this county, but two counties up north, who tells me that my wife is lying dangerously ill. If I wish to see her alive I must needs travel ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the rest of the way. After arriving, we girls went by ourselves into one of Mrs. Sampson's sloping chambers, where there was a low bedstead, and a thick feather-bed covered with a patchwork-quilt of the "Job's Trouble" pattern, a small, dim looking-glass surmounted by a bunch of "sparrow-grass," and an unpainted floor ornamented with home-made rugs which were embroidered with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... horizontal bands of blue (top), red (triple width), and blue; the red band is edged in yellow; centered in the red band is a large black and white shield covering two spears and a staff decorated with feather ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... hated. Sometimes she floated above, as a still, unobservant angel, her gaze turned upward, dreaming along, careless as a white summer cloud, across the blue. If she looked down on the scene below, it was only that the beholder might see that she saw and did not care—that not a feather of her outspread pinions would quiver at the sight. Sometimes she would stand in the crowd, as if she had been copied there from another picture, and had nothing to do with this one, nor any right to be in it at all. Or when the red blood was trickling drop by drop from ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... a creeping cove the wave unshocked Lays itself calm and wide, Over a stream two birds of glancing feather Do woo each other, carolling together. Both alike, they glide together Side by side; Both alike, they sing together, Arching blue-glossed ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... feminine inconsistency, a decided return to the world of fashion and conventionality apparently just as she was effectually excluded from it. She had not only discarded her white dress as a concession to the practical evidence of the surrounding winter, but she had also brought out a feather hat and sable muff which had once graced a fashionable suburb of Boston. Even Falkner had exchanged his slouch hat and picturesque serape for a beaver overcoat and fur cap of Hale's which had been pressed upon ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... prudence of conforming in one's costume to the native habits. After the first feeling of awkwardness is over, nothing can be better adapted to the Polar Winter than the Lapp dress. I walked about at first with the sensation of having each foot in the middle of a large feather bed, but my blood preserved its natural warmth even after sitting for hours in an open pulk. The boellinger, fastened around the thighs by drawing-strings of reindeer sinew, are so covered by the poesk that one becomes, for ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Creatures has its different Notions of Beauty, and that each of them is most affected with the Beauties of its own Kind. This is no where more remarkable than in Birds of the same Shape and Proportion, where we often see the Male determined in his Courtship by the single Grain or Tincture of a Feather, and never discovering any Charms but in ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... daughter Matilda, whom, as she was now a widow, he married to the eldest son of the Count of Anjou, GEOFFREY, surnamed PLANTAGENET, from a custom he had of wearing a sprig of flowering broom (called Genet in French) in his cap for a feather. As one false man usually makes many, and as a false King, in particular, is pretty certain to make a false Court, the Barons took the oath about the succession of Matilda (and her children after her), twice over, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... burned his banners and his eagles—his poor eagles, ever victorious, who cried 'Forward' in the battles, and had flown the length and breadth of Europe, they were saved the infamy of belonging to the enemy: all the treasures of England couldn't get her a tail-feather of them. No more eagles—the rest is well known. The Red Man went over to the Bourbons, like the scoundrel that he is. France is crushed; the soldier is nothing; they deprive him of his dues; they discharge him to make room for broken-down nobles—ah, 'tis pitiable! They seized ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... to was to pick feathers. 'The heap of feathers that you see here,' said she, 'you must get finished before I come home in the evening, otherwise you shall be set to harder work.' He started to the feathers, and picked and picked until there was only a single feather left that had not passed through his hands. But then there came a whirlwind and sent all the feathers flying, and swept them along the floor into a heap, where they lay as if they were trampled together. He had now to begin all his work over again, but by this time it only ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... triangle, Set three mussel-pearls of purple, Smooth and polished with much rubbing. To an arrow of witch-hazel, New, and fashioned very slender, Set the shark's tooth, long and narrow, With its pearl-inlaid triangle. From the wing of living heron Pluck one feather, white and trusty; With this feather wing the arrow, That it swerve not as it flyeth. Fashioned thus with care and caution, Let no mortal eye gaze on it; Tell no mortal of your purpose; Secretly at sunset place it In ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... of canoeing which rewarded the white men for their faith in their disreputable henchman. Charley played with the light craft in the great volume of stream as a feather might yield to a gentle breeze. The canoe sidled in to the shore through a threatening shoal of rocky outcrop, and the first stage of the ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... had had his martial plaid wrapped around him, and had worn a Scottish cap with a feather in it and a long ribbon hanging down his back, with his claymore girded to his side, I wouldn't have been surprised; for this is Scotland, and that would have been like the pictures I have seen of Highlanders. But to see a man with the upper half of him dressed like a clerk in a dry ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... busy part of the nation are not more busy about Whig and Tory; than these idle-fellows of the feather, about Mr. Tickell's and my translation. I (like the Tories) have the town in general, that is, the mob on my side; but it is usual with the smaller part to make up in industry, what they want in number; and that is the case with the little senate of Cato. However, if our ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... length of his rooms to and fro, staring down at his bare feet, his arms hugging his sides tightly. He would dream of Father Beron sitting at the end of a long black table, behind which, in a row, appeared the heads, shoulders, and epaulettes of the military members, nibbling the feather of a quill pen, and listening with weary and impatient scorn to the protestations of some prisoner calling heaven to witness of his innocence, till he burst out, "What's the use of wasting time over that miserable nonsense! Let me take him outside for a while." And Father Beron would ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... in beating their feather antagonists off by the aid of clubs which they wielded with vigor; and after the eagles learned that no harm was intended to their young by these bold navigators of the upper air currents, they came to have more respect for the strange winged thing that came humming up ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... murdering my fellowman to get his property," Hugo answered, so soberly that it did not seem to his comrades that he was joking this time. Pilzer's snarling exclamation of "White feather!" came in the midst of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... man has come, post haste, from the plantations above Paspahegh. Three days ago, Morgan, the trader, was decoyed into the woods by that Paspahegh fool and bully, Nemattanow, whom they call Jack of the Feather, and there murdered. Yesterday, out of sheer bravado, the Indian turned up at Morgan's house, and Morgan's men shot him down. They buried the dog, and thought no more of it. Three hours ago, Chanco the Christian went to the commander and ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... And now—the frivolous, feather-headed little wife, whom he had held so cheap and wronged so lightly, urging her folly as almost a justification of the wrong, she too—She appalled him with the terrific eternity of her love. Was it possible that this feeling, which he had despised as the blind craving ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... makes me sick. Papa doesn't want me to stay for good. And no wonder. Shall I go back? I hate to show a white feather. ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... traveller on commercial morality may well be held as a feather-weight in the balance. Such as mine is, it is gathered mainly from the tone of casual conversation, from which I should conclude that a considerable proportion of Americans read a well-known proverb as "All's fair in love or business." Men—I will not say of a high character and ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... corners of Agricola's pillow, the great Grandissime family were ignorant of how they could have come there. Let us examine these terrible engines of mischief. In one corner was an acorn drilled through with two holes at right angles to each other, a small feather run through each hole; in the second a joint of cornstalk with a cavity scooped from the middle, the pith left intact at the ends, and the space filled with parings from that small callous spot near the knee of the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... still vigorous in spite of fatigue and suffering, closed round Marguerite's poor, weary body, and lifted her as gently as if she had been a feather. ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... than a match for three Englishmen, did he chance to meet them. Men called him an outlaw, but we thought little of that; most of the brave men on our side had been outlawed at one time or another, and it did them little ill: indeed, it was aye thought to be rather a feather in ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... as the Mexicans, the Crows, or the Eastern Indians do; they think that the natural grace and beauty of the animal are such that anything gaudy would break its harmony; the only mark of distinction they put upon their steeds (and the chiefs only can do so) is a rich feather or two, or three quills of the eagle, fixed to the rosette of the bridle, below the left ear; and as a Shoshone treats his horse as a friend, always petting him, cleaning him, never forcing or abusing him, the animal is always in excellent ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... overwhelming conclusion of the story. If to the reader, as to the bystanders, that scene brings one unbroken pain, it is not so with Lear himself. His shattered mind passes from the first transports of hope and despair, as he bends over Cordelia's body and holds the feather to her lips, into an absolute forgetfulness of the cause of these transports. This continues so long as he can converse with Kent; becomes an almost complete vacancy; and is disturbed only to yield, as his eyes suddenly fall again on his child's corpse, to an agony which at once ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... on page 81 purporting to show the undersigned leaping head first into a German feather-bed does the undersigned a cruel injustice. He has a prettier figure than that—oh, ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... lace. One velvet end was slightly long and concealed a wire which lifted one side of the brim a trifle, beneath which was fastened a smashing big, pale-pink velvet rose. There was an ostrich plume even longer than the other, broader, blacker, as wonderful a feather as ever dropped from the plumage of a lordly bird. Mrs. Jardine shook the hat in such a way as to set the feather lifting and waving after the confinement of the box. With slender, sure fingers she set the bow and lace ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... escaped had its silver lips opened as if in a broad grin of derision, reveling in the plight of the chamois. The guide's hand was at once firm and gentle, his stride bold, yet easy. His rakish hat, with its aggressive red feather, towered a full head ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... if you are caught there you are caught in the brambles, and won't get out without damage. John Ploughman feels a cold sweat at the thought of getting into the hands of lawyers. He does not mind going to Jericho, but he dreads the gentlemen on the road, for they seldom leave a feather upon any goose ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... Burton, "but payer d'audace, [156] and, throwing all forethought to the dogs, to rely upon what has made many a small man great, the good star. I addressed my companions in a set speech, advising a mount without delay." [157] The End of Time, having shown the white feather, was left behind, but the rest courageously consented to accompany their leader. "At 10 a.m. on the 2nd January," says Burton, "all the villagers assembled, and recited the Fatihah, consoling us with the information ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... ornithology is a first-rate pursuit for men, but a bad one for cats. I suspect that she studies the birds with greater care than I do; for now I can get all I want of a bird and let him remain in the bush, but Silly Sally is a thorough-going ornithologist; she must engage in all the feather-splittings that the ornithologists do, and she isn't satisfied until she has thoroughly dissected and digested her material, and has all the dry bones ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... brisk little man, clad in brindle jeans of ancient cut, resplendent with brass buttons. Two small piercing eyes, deep-set beside a hawk's-beak nose, twinkled from under the rim of his brown straw hat, whose crown was defiantly surmounted by a cock's feather. But he was exceedingly jolly withal, and welcomed the Yankees with pompous good-humor, despatching a sergeant for a jug of applejack, which was doubtless as inexpensive to the major as his other hospitality. Having been a prisoner at Chicago, he prided himself on his ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... a wind? Tap... tap... Night pads upon the snow with moccasined feet... and it is still... so still... an eagle's feather might fall like a stone. Could there have been a storm... mad-tossing golden mane on the neck of the wind... tearing up the sky... loose-flapping like a tent ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... said nothing of all this, only telling of her visit to Mrs. Shelley, who had received her kindly, and to the tomb of Shakespeare, whose painted effigy she especially derided. "It looks indeed like a man who would cut his wife off with an old feather-bed and a teakettle," was one of her characteristic remarks, I remember; but there was a little postscript that told the whole story of her life, on a separate scrap of paper meant only for my eye I clearly saw, and committed instantly ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... is indeed carried farther among these people than among any of the inhabitants of Europe, for they powder not only their heads but their beards too. Their heads however were decorated with more showy ornaments, for I observed that most of them had, just above one ear, stuck a feather, which appeared to have been taken from the tail of the common dunghill cock; so that these gentlemen are not without poultry for their table. They were armed with spears, and long sticks or poles, like the quarter-staff; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... personal beauty sacrificed! his body clad in dark and sombre vestment, his manner natural and plain, his unadorned appearance; his circumspection as he looked upon the earth in walking! "He who ought to have had held over him the feather-shade," they said, "whose hands should grasp 'the reins of the flying dragon,' see how he walks in daylight on the dusty road! holding his alms-dish, going to beg! Gifted enough to tread down every enemy, lovely enough to gladden woman's heart, with glittering ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... morning Andrea called at the Engineering Offices. He wore his Italian shooting-dress; an eagle's feather ornamented his hat, and a gun and a knapsack were slung across his shoulder. His face and his ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... her own. He had undertaken certain work at Belton which required his presence, and he would go down and do his work as though nothing had occurred to disturb him. To remain away because of this misfortune would be to show the white feather. It would be unmanly. All this he recognized as the pictures he had painted faded away from their canvases. As to Captain Aylmer himself, he hoped that he might never be called upon to meet him. He still hoped that, even ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... are prone to drop to sleep and breathe with a low death rattle, like the exhaust of a bath tub, it would be a good plan to tie up your head in a feather bed and then insert the whole thing in the linen closet; or, if you cannot secure that, you might stick it out of the window and get it knocked off against a tunnel. The stockholders of the road might get mad about it, but you could do it in such a way that they wouldn't ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... to this place that when between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and eighty strange boys have been put into your cottages and homes, there has not arisen a single difficulty for the whole year? I say it is quite as much a feather in your caps as in ours. I am proud of it—very proud of it. (Applause.) I would also refer to the extensive power which lies in a great school. It is quite true that some few years hence, these boys whom you have looked on with interest will be ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... are French beds. The one great advantage that our new system possesses over the old is, indeed, the sleeping accommodation. The 'skimpy' mattress, the sheet that used to come untucked through shortness, leaving the feet tickled by the blanket, and the thin, limp thing that called itself a feather bed, are only to be ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... hosts bade their visitors be seated, and they ranged themselves around the fire, one at each of the cardinal points. Each held an arrow made of the cliff rose (Cowania mexicana) in his extended right hand. The head of the arrow was of stone, the fletching of eagle feathers, and the "breath feather" of the downy plume of the Tsenáhale (the Harpy of Navajo mythology). As they held the arrows they ejaculated, "ai', ai', ai', ai'," as they who dance the kátso-yisçà u do in the ceremonies to this day, and after the fourth ai' each one swallowed his arrow, head foremost, until ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory is Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat and feather, or a bare feather without a hat; before another, a Presidential chair, or a tidewaiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter what. To us, dangling there over our heads, they seem junkets dropped out of the seventh heaven, sops ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... also throw to the surface men who had neither genius nor force, but who were as wild and dangerous as their betters. No one, surely, could have been prepared to meet in the person of the minister of a great nation such a feather-headed ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... other hand, were in high feather, and their boasts went up and down the river to add to our discomfiture. Among all classes of them we became aware of a growing insubordination. We were beaten, and they were losing respect for us. With the loss of respect, contempt began to arise. Charley began to be ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... earnestness and life seems to inspire them to greater effort, and their playing gains in vigor and precision. "Not too much fire, gentlemen." This is the slow movement, and she gently represses their enthusiasm. The feather like touch, the airy delicacy of her own playing, spurs them on to unwonted care and restraint. At the end comes another long cadenza, that for soft, whispering tones, sweetness, grace, and vanishing lightness, is almost ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... that? Why tell me this stuff? Of course I can guess as well as you that it's a feather-bed, since I see a flock of geese in the yard ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... candle from his pocket, Levi greased the running parts of the machine, hoisted the gate, and away went the saw as briskly as a bee after its years of rest in the attic, to the intense delight of Bessie, who was quite ready to vote another feather for the cap of the hero. A piece of board was adjusted on the carriage, and the saw began to whisk, whisk, whisk through it, when a series of yells in the direction of the road attracted the attention of ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... the Zulu—I always called him a Zulu, though he was not really one—"great swelling words fit to fill the mouth of a man. Thou art right, my father Incubu. Listen! what is life? It is a feather, it is the seed of the grass, blown hither and thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... since," said the captain, pointing complacently to his own composition with the feather end of his pen, "I had the honor of suggesting a pious fraud on Mrs. Lecount. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... at length; a simple operation in which I exhibited—I believe that is the medical term—a strong solution of caustic applied with a feather. ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... had made no slightest move, realizing that a feather's weight might snap the gambler's nervous tension and bring the involuntary twitch that would put him out swifter than a ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... night when we arrived at the house in Knigstrasse. I expected to find all quiet there, my uncle in bed as was his custom, and Martha giving her last touches with the feather brush. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... explain how matters stood, and in a few more everything was ready. The coach-box was strapped on the komatik. The bearskin rug and a feather bed were lashed inside it, with all the restoratives loving care could think of, and with the music of the wild barking of the dogs echoing from the mountain and valley, the sledge went whirling back over the crisp snow—the team no less excited than Malcolm himself at this ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... their good-natured "joshing" of Tom, they, quite as much as he, were eager for excitement and adventure. In the fullest sense they were "birds of a feather." In earlier and ruder days they would have been soldiers of fortune, cutting their ways through unknown forests, facing without flinching savage beasts and equally savage men, looking ever for ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... "Whether they take me for a gineral or an old woman, it won't much matter, for they'll find that an old woman can fight as well as many a gineral. Let thim come on as fierce as they may, I'll not be after showin' the white feather." ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... squarely at the blue monstrosity's hideous face. Arlok made no attempt to dodge. The heavy revolver struck him high on the forehead, then rebounded harmlessly to the floor. Arlok paid no more attention to the blow than a man would to the casual touch of a wind-blown feather. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... see no reason," said Major Proctor smoothly, "you are going to leave, Shelton. You are going to leave in one hour. If you delay a minute later, we will come with friends who will know how to handle you. We will come in an hour with a tar pot and a feather mattress." ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... Pollard came in and stood with her elbow resting on the showcase as she flirted a small feather duster. She had just released her hair from curl paper, and it hung in golden ringlets over her forehead. Her face was ripe and red, like a well-sunned peach, and the firm curves of her bosom swelled the gathers of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow |
