"Nest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... next Summer, with more intensity than ever, for the Third, and, if possible, the last time. 'Storm their outposts there,' thinks Tottleben, 'especially Belgard, the chief outpost; girdle tighter and tighter the obstinate little crow's-nest of a Colberg, and have it ready for besieging in good time.' Tottleben did try upon the outposts, especially Belgard the chief one (January 18th, 1761), but without the least success at Belgard; with a severe reproof instead, Werner's people being broad awake: [Account of itt, Helden-Geschichte, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... dress the baby in the nest room, but when she heard Lucy and Kate call to each other, she laid the baby in his cot, and came to see what was the matter. The little girls each laid hold of her hand, and cried out, "O nurse! ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson
... were always full of travelers, and that they being hungry, there had sprung up, near by, the shops of butchers, bakers, charcoal dealers, and bird's nest sellers. Since these worthy men could not go naked, tailors, shoemakers and umbrella and fan dealers had settled there, and as they do not sleep in the open air, even in the Celestial Empire, carpenters, masons and thatchers congregated there. ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... dog Spot thought of the time when, as a puppy, he stuck his nose into a hornet's nest. His joyful bark changed suddenly to a shrill ki-yi of pain. And at the same time ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... year to unvaried brooding upon one vast misery; the neglected faculties revenge themselves by rusting, and will not respond when at length summoned. For months Ida's thoughts had gone round and round about one centre of anguish, like a wailing bird circling over a ravaged nest. The image of her mental state had been presented by an outward experience with which she became familiar. Waking long before daylight, she would lie with her eyes directed to the little barred window, and watch till there came the first glimmer of dawn. Even so was it ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... new family," Mr. Wright declared, "Simmons, unhook that second cage, and show him the nest. Look at that. Three of 'em. Hideous, ain't they? Simmons, you didn't chop that egg fine enough. Do you want to kill 'em all? A nigger has no more feeling ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... would consent to our marriage, even if she still remembered me amid the courtly splendour in which she moved. Judge then of my joy when Lorna returned in the spring to our farm, as glad as a bird to get back to its nest. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... believed that our opponents had the injustice to lay hold of these circumstances, at this critical moment, to give a death-blow to the cause of the abolition? They represented the committee, though it had existed before the French revolution, or the Rights of Man were heard of, as a nest of Jacobins; and they held up the cause, sacred as it was, and though it had the support of the minister, as affording an opportunity of meeting for the purpose of overthrowing the state. Their cry succeeded. The very book of the abridgment of the evidence was considered by many members ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... hard if you begin early. The very flowers are object lessons. The wonderful mystery of life is wrapped in one flower, with its stamens, pistils and ovaries. Every child knows how an egg came in the nest, and takes it as a matter of course; why not go one step farther with them and teach the wonder, the beauty, the holiness that surrounds maternity anywhere? Why, centuries ago the Romans honored, and taught their boys to honor, the women in whose safety was bound up the future ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... King neglected the exiles in Texas, but the Spanish King did not. He ordered a force sent from Mexico, to destroy the nest of invaders. When the Spanish soldiers arrived on the spot, not a human being was to be seen. The poor little fort was a ruin, and a few {278} skeletons were all that remained of its former inmates. The Indians in the neighborhood told a story of a band of warriors ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... more!" cried Emilius indignantly: "this is no good action; it is no action at all; it is nothing. When swallows and linnets feed on the crumbs that are thrown away from the waste of this meal, and carry them to their young in their nest, shall not I remember a poor brother, who needs my help? If I might follow my heart, ye would laugh and jeer at me, just as ye have laught and jeered at many others, who have gone forth into the wilderness that they might hear no more of this ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... hundred families are weeping where that bolt fell," said the peasant when I rejoined him, "for its blaze has blinded my mule at six leagues' distance." He was leading the animal by the bridle, as its sight was evidently affected. "Were the friars still in their nest above there," he continued, "I should say that this was their doing, for they are the cause of all the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... withdraws the pot to simmer a moment. From a knot in his kerchief he takes then a head of cloves, a piece of cinnamon or other spice, bahar, and braying these he casts their dust in after. Soon he pours out some hot drops to essay his coffee; if the taste be to his liking, making dexterously a nest of all the cups in his hand, with pleasant clattering, he is ready to pour out for all the company, and begins upon his right hand; and first, if such be present, to any considerable sheykh and principal persons. The fenjeyn kahwah is but four ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... you will see. There we lay, without a single feather, and not even a particle of down to cover us, our heads feeling far too large for our naked bodies. We had to be as patient as we could, down in our nest in an old rotten tree, till the down began to come; but it was three or four months before we were fairly covered with feathers. Somehow, being the youngest, my feathers were longer of coming than were the others; and when our mother was out of hearing, my brothers would laugh at me, and make ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... Henry a boy of nine, and William probably twelve or fourteen, they all three accompanied their father into Normandy, and were there in the fortress of Aquila, or Aigle, so called because there had been an eagle's nest in the oak-tree close to the site of the castle. Robert was in a discontented mood. The numerous occasions on which he had received the homage of the Normans made him fancy he ought to have the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a two-days journey into the country with Uchimura. We stayed at the house of a landowner who was one of his adherents. I found myself in a large room where two swallows were flitting, intent on building on a beam which yearly bore a nest. In this room stood a shrine containing the ancestral tablets. The daily offerings were no longer made, but Uchimura's counsel, unlike that of some zealots, was to preserve not only this shrine but the large family shrine in the courtyard. Near by was an ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... laid, (might it not have been thought?) for a hopeless eternity, in the dark ooze, the most despised, forgotten, and feeble of all earth's atoms; incapable of any use or change; not fit, down there in the diluvial darkness, so much as to help an earth wasp to build its nest, or feed the first fibre of a lichen; what would it have thought, had it been told that one day, knitted into a strength as of imperishable iron, rustless by the air, infusible by the flame, out of the substance of it, with its fellows, the axe of God ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... great service to me," he answered. "We shall work the case out independently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult over any mare's-nest which he may choose to construct. When you have dropped Miss Morstan I wish you to go on to No. 3 Pinchin Lane, down near the water's edge at Lambeth. The third house on the right-hand side is a bird-stuffer's: Sherman is the name. You will see a weasel holding a young rabbit in the window. Knock ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cities for they are black and noisy and full of those troublesome birds called English Sparrows. I take my pretty mate and out in the beautiful country we find a home. We build a nest of twigs, grass and hair, in a box that the farmer puts up ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... mile along the road in the wrong direction—into a nest of mid-night birds. A nice bunch o' beauties, too, hatching some Devil plot to ruin the poor sheepmen! A man in a white vest was there, who by the same token didn't belong; tho' A'm no so sure he was ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet 2. The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns 3. A Voice from ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... how this tyrant, doubt, torments my breast! My thoughts, like birds, who're frighten'd from their nest, Around the place where all was hush'd before, Flutter, and hardly nestle ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... are, without doubt, the most wonderful fish for their size that are common to our waters. They will live well in either fresh or salt water aquaria, building nests and raising their young under all discouragements. The male builds the nest for the female to lay her eggs in. The nest is composed of plants cemented together with a glue provided by the male, who also carries sand and small stones to the nest in his mouth, with which he anchors it. During the breeding season the male assumes the ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... understands him. What joy have you in life alone? Think of the joy of seeing a young couple begin life, just like two young birds in a little bird's nest! God put love into their hearts; can you stop them? No, neither you nor I can forbid! As well try to count the sands of the sea, as well try to stop the ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... bodily energy, her mind had gained a new activity. She wondered a little at it, not yet at the heart of her own mystery. Her thoughts reached forward into the future, busied themselves with details of the next twelve months, dwelt anxiously on questions of finance. The nest-building instinct was astir in her and she pondered on the house they were to build, how they must arrange something for a table, and maybe fashion armchairs of barrels and red flannel. Finally, in a last voluptuous flight of ecstasy, she saw herself riding into Sacramento ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... years a pair of storks built their nest annually in the park of the Castle Ruheleben, in Berlin. A few years ago one of the servants placed a ring, with the name of the place and date, on the leg of the male bird, in order to be certain that the same bird returned each year. Last spring the stork came back to its customary ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... that the nest's empty. They're pouring in like bees. Can you make out how many there are? I count ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... submitted with a good grace to the breaking in upon all her customs, and uttered no word of complaint when the breakfast table waited till eight, and sometimes nine o'clock, and the freshest eggs were taken from the nest, and the cream all skimmed from the pans to gratify the lady who came down very charming and pretty in her handsome cambric wrapper, with rosebuds in her hair. She had arrived the previous night, and while the rector was penning his letter she was holding Anna's ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... thee in their misty vest, The lightning glances harmless round thy brow; The loud-voiced thunder cannot shake thy nest, Or warring waves that idly chafe below; The storm above, the waters at thy feet— May rage and foam, they but ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... more of it at the time, though I often went into the field. It was a quiet and pretty place enough; full of thickets, as I have said, where the birds built unmolested—there was generally a goldfinch's nest there. ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his low cunning for brilliant leadership, upon the credulous half-breeds. Nevertheless, a large number of these settlers declared their readiness to march under Colonel Dennis, and disperse the nest of rebels at Fort Garry. I need hardly say that most of the Irish settlers were heart and soul with Riel. It was not that they had any particular grievance to resent, or any grievance at all for that matter. ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... going to make her feel," said Betty. "Just as it made me feel when I got here from the Cuckoo's Nest, and found this 'House Beautiful' of my dreams. And if she is the little dreamer that I was the best time will not be the arrival, but early candle-lighting time, when you are playing on your harp. I used to sit on a foot-stool at godmother's feet, so unutterably ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... wills about her. She had two other children older than Elinor: one, the eldest of all, married in India, a woman with many children of her own, practically altogether severed from the maternal nest; the other an adventurous son, who was generally understood to be at the ends of the earth, but seldom or never had any more definite address. This lady had naturally gone through many pangs and anxieties on behalf of ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... beds? So he turned round, and struck his sword upon the floor, and asked me whether I was one of them—'Who are you then?' and I—all my courage went away, and I answered, I was a poor rat-catcher. 'A rat-catcher, are you? Well then, Mr Rat-catcher, when you are killing rats, if you find a nest of young ones, don't you kill them too? Or do you leave them to grow, and become mischievous, eh?'—'I kill the young ones, of course,' replied I. 'Well, so do we Malignants whenever we find them.' I ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... silk-stockinged, short-skirted, starling-voiced young women with bare arms and regimental badges, who acted as secretaries to Deputy-Director-Generals, would consent to walk up four flights of creaking, uncarpeted stairs to the dusty sparrows' nest on the housetop that ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... "This nest which we have made to shelter us," he resumed, "brings to my mind what the Psalmist says about dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. Everyone who will, may there, like the swallow, ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... exit. The road-beds of this country are hard enough for anything; but a certain proportion of clay in their composition makes a slippery coating in rainy weather. I enter the village of Marienheim and observe the first stork's nest, built on top of a chimney, that I have yet seen in Europe, though I saw plenty of them afterward. The parent stork is perched solemnly over her youthful brood, which one would naturally think would get smoke-dried. A short distance ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Narcisse; and its pleasures! For instance, when a man as cunning, as adroit, as courageous as you are, is for a long time on the tracks of a nest of robbers; follows them from place to place—from house to house, with a good bloodhound like your servant Bras-Rouge, and he succeeds in getting them into a trap from which not one can escape, acknowledge, M. Narcisse, that ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... neither frequent nor sumptuous; "all the delicacies of the season" hardly found their way to her table; and in her bleak little nest, for it was now winter, a thin and scanty shawl but coldly did ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Lord, and let it be As something I have done for Thee! How sweet the air is! how fair the scene! I wish I had as lovely a green To paint my landscapes and my leaves! How the swallows twitter under the eaves! There, now, there is one in her nest; I can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast, And will sketch her thus, in her quiet nook, For the margin of ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... journal says, in the woods of Brazil is frequently found hanging from the branches the nest of a species of bee, formed of clay, and about two feet in diameter. It is more probable that these nests belong to some species of wasp, many of which construct hanging nests. One sort of these is very common in the northern ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... open to him to be generous;—but not now. And yet when this man spoke of his own loss, and reminded him of his wealth;—when Crinkett threw it in his teeth that by a happy chance he had feathered his nest with the spoils taken from the wretched man himself,—then he wished that it was in his power to give ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the author disturbed a hornet's nest. Dispassionate, but still entirely adverse is Professor Plate's review in the "Biologisches Zentralblatt," while the "Umschau" publishes two criticisms, one by Professor von Wagner, the other by Dr. ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... see, is a parallel case To the dinner that some weeks since took place. With the difference slight of fiend and man, It shows what a nest of Popish sinners That city must be, where the devil and Dan May thus drop in at quadrilles ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the utmost candor. Therefore the first engagement, if such it could be called, created a great sensation, among the aunts especially, and they were in as much of a flutter as a flock of maternal birds when their young begin to hop out of the nest. So at all hours the excellent ladies were seen excitedly nodding their caps together as they discussed the affair in all its bearings, without ever arriving at ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... ape-man foraged. A lofty nest yielded its fresh, warm harvest. Fruits, berries, and tender plantain found a place upon his menu in the order that he happened upon them, for he did not seek such foods. Meat, meat, meat! It was always meat that Tarzan ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nest of weeds and nettles, Lay a violet, half hidden; Hoping that his glance unbidden Yet might fall upon her petals. Though she lived alone, apart, Hope lay nestling at her heart, But, alas! the cruel awaking Set her little heart a-breaking, For he ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... was impossible to get our horses to approach the nest of reptiles, we got the inspector to hold them while Fred and myself advanced, revolvers in hand, to get a nearer view of the squirming monsters. They instantly arrayed themselves in a compact mass, and with flashing eyes and erect ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... immediately it has left the egg, trembles before the hawk hovering above in the air; such is also the reason why a duckling plunges into water as soon as it comes to a pond, and the same instinct impels a bird to leave its nest and trust itself to the air when ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... bunch of fluttering narrow ribbons that tied themselves into knots and became quiet along the yard. Captain Allistoun struggled, managed to stand up with his face near the deck, upon which men swung on the ends of ropes, like nest robbers upon a cliff. One of his feet was on somebody's chest; his face was purple; his lips moved. He yelled also; he yelled, bending down:—"No! No!" Mr. Baker, one leg over the binnacle-stand, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... Ma-jest-y without externals? Is Burke's analysis not right—"A Jest"? Ah, but a jest, at which the poor, oft pressed To their last heart-drop, laugh not, like court journals. The King needs coin, and, where he sowed no kernels, Wants the whole forest for his hawks to nest And breed in, and became an annual pest; In this the farmers show that ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... apparently upon a plateau near the top of a mountain. In this clearing there were a number of isolated trees, in each one of which, at about twenty feet above the ground, was a native hut, looking like a huge bird's nest. A small crowd of natives, including women and children, ran toward them shouting, and now for the first time the men of the returning party began to talk too. Some of them tied the legs of their prisoners again and sat them down on the ground, ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... be many kinds, and no kind at all for you. You be a fisher's daughter, and you must choose a husband of your own sort—none better, thank God! The robin would go to the eagle's nest, and a poor sad time it had there. Gentlemen marry gentlemen's daughters, Denas, and if they don't, all sides do ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... who had always laughed at the idea of obeying a little dumpling of a fellow like Kintar[o], flew up to her nest in a high fir tree. Kintar[o] watched to see where it was, and waited till she left it to go and seek for food. Then going up to the tree, he shook it with all his might, until the nest came tumbling down, and the two young squabs ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... attractions of no ordinary kind. The stem of E. Visnaga shown at Fig. 48 may be taken as an instance of this—apart from the cluster of star-like, bright yellow flowers seen nestling upon the top of their spine-protected dwelling, the whole suggesting a nest of young birds. This plant is indeed one of the most remarkable of the Echinocactuses, owing to the size and number of its spines—which are 3 in. long, almost as firm as steel, and are used by the Mexicans as toothpicks—and to the gigantic size and great weight of the stem. The ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... quite close to us, we must stand back to give them room. Chrysantheme all at once assumes a suitable air of gravity, and Yves bares his head, taking off the magpie's nest. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... pretty woman," said Mrs. Downe Wright with affected carelessness; "but what is better, she is out of a good nest. For my own part I place little value upon beauty now; commend me to principles. If a woman is without principles the less beauty she ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... my lawful captive; beats me to the earth, at once endangering my life, and, in mere human eyes, sullying mine honour; and under his protection, the Midianitish woman reaches, like a sea-eagle, the nest which she hath made in the wave-surrounded rocks, and remains there till gold, duly administered at Court, wipes out all memory of her crime, and baffles the vengeance due to the memory of the best and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... sparrow is saying. "I'm the king of all the birds in the creation. Everybody admires me, I build in the choicest apple-trees, and feed on the daintiest food. Farmers cut down their hay that I may make my nest, farmers' wives kill the fowls that I may find feathers to line it, and even the cows cast their coats to aid in the same good work. Why, you little puppies, don't you admire me also, you ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... money was owing for Perotte's nursing. The wife of Pierre Cambremer owed about one hundred francs to divers persons for the little girl,—linen, clothes, and what not,—and it so chanced that she had sewed a bit of Spanish gold into her mattress for a nest-egg toward paying off that money. It was wrapped in paper, and on the paper was written by her: 'For Perotte.' Jacquette Brouin had had a fine education; she could write like a clerk, and had taught her son to write ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... merely its continuation. There, indeed, was the lugger, under her foresail and mainsail, with the jigger brailed, coming down wing-and-wing, and glancing along the glittering sea like the duck sailing toward her nest. This time, however, the English ensign was flying at the end of the jigger yard, as if in triumph; and the little craft held her way nearer to the rocks, like one acquainted with the coast and fearing no danger. There was a manner of established confidence in the way in which she trusted herself ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... honour to his memory and to the genius of his biographer would have highly delighted him. To his own college he was so deeply attached that he would not have been displeased to learn that his editor had been nursed in that once famous 'nest of singing birds.' Of Boswell's pleasure I cannot doubt. How much he valued any tribute of respect from Oxford is shown by the absurd importance that he gave to a sermon which was preached before the University by an insignificant ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the two dark figures he had passed on Clay street where the killing had taken place. Perchance if he had stopped as he was minded, the tragedy might have been averted. Nobody seemed to know just how it came about. The thing was most unfortunate politically. King would stir up a hornet's nest of public opinion. Broderick reached his lodgings and at once retired. His sleep was fitful. He dreamed that Alice Windham and Sheriff Scannell were ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... the Presentment Sessions about a grant for paving or flagging the wretched street. I woke a nest of hornets. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... hawk soar because of your wisdom, And stretch her wings to the south wind? Does the eagle mount up at your bidding, And build her nest ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... goose that laid the golden egg getting off the nest, you'd hold the egg up to a candle to see if it ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... failed. You've succeeded in hunting him down to Mallard's. Well, I'd say your work's only just started. Maybe he's there right now. If we searched with a hundred men we couldn't exhaust that darn gopher nest. If we blocked every outlet we know and don't know, he could still sit tight and laff at us. No. We need to start right in again. So long as he's got the stuff, and hangs to ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... buzzing noise and sharpened sting of the great and terrible hornet. 'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer!' there is the sting (Isa 14:12). Thou that art exalted up to heaven shalt be thrust down to hell, though thou hast made 'thy nest among the stars,' from thence I will fetch thee down; there is a sting (Matt 11:23; Oba 4). To be pulled, for and through love to some vain lust, from the everlasting gates of glory, and caused to be swallowed up for it in the belly of hell, and made to lodge for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... would not expel them, or attempt any control of the Indians; and it became necessary to put a stop to their aggressions. Jackson commanded, and was the very man for such a work. He placed before the President the difficulties, but said he could and would break up this nest of freebooters, if he had authority from the President to enter the territory, and, if necessary, take possession of it. It would be an act of war to authorize this course, he knew; but he was prepared for the responsibility (he generally was.) "I do not ask for formal orders: simply say ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... the king inexorable. The strict laws of war in those days justified the barbarous practise of putting to death the garrison of a town captured under such circumstances. Calais had been for many years a nest of pirates, and vessels issuing from its port had been a scourge to the commerce of England and Flanders, and the king was fully determined to punish it severely. Sir Walter Manny interceded long and boldly, and represented to the king that none of his soldiers would willingly ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... we're here in our nest," said Shif'less Sol, "we'd better set still an' rest till they come up. I 'low we'll need all our strength an' ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... least, build their own nest, father. The cock-robin does not go to his parents, and the hen robin to her parents, and say, 'Give us all the straw you can, and put it down at the foot of our tree; but don't dare to peep into ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... certain that all the conditions for creative imagination are present here, since we have just shown that there is lack of abstraction? The author, who voluntarily limits his study to birds and the construction of their nests, maintains, against Wallace and others, that nest-building requires "the mysterious synthesis of representations." We might with equal reason bring the instances of other building animals (bees, wasps, white ants, the common ants, beavers, etc.). It is not unreasonable to attribute to them an anticipated ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... past; hates everything connected with it; hates the very name of Barton Holt. Never once has she mentioned it since her return. She never loved Archie; she cared no more for him than a bird that has dropped its young out of its nest. Besides, your plan is impossible. Marriage does not condone a sin. The power to rise and rectify the wrong lies in the woman. Lucy has not got it in her, and she never will have it. Part of it is her fault; a large part of it is mine. She has lived this lie all these years, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... public news: there was a longish day on Friday in our House, on a demand for money for the new bridge from the city. It was refused, and into the accompt of contempt, Dr. Hay(550) threw a good deal of abuse on the common council—a nest of hornets, that I do not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... intelligent Chicagoan, an American of Polish descent, is here representing Victor Lawson and the Chicago Daily News. He informs me that the Spy Nest is contemplating an attack on the Administration because of the taking away of Archibald's ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... nests of Foreign birds, that of the Taylor Bird deserves especial mention; the bird itself is a diminutive one, being little more than three inches long; it is an inhabitant of India. The nest is sometimes constructed of two leaves, one of them dead; the latter is fixed to the living one as it hangs upon the tree, by sewing both together in the manner of a pouch or purse; it is open at the top, and the cavity is filled with fine down; and, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... possible. They make me hold his head, and the bucket filled with crimson water. O Heaven!—I, who was the bride of God! They throw their bodies into the abyss of snow; but the vulture finds them; he lines his nest with their hair. I now see thee full of life; I shall see thee ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... were feeling inside the live body of the bird," he said, "it's so warm. They say a bird makes its nest round like a cup with pressing its breast on it. Then how did it make ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... man, and he sprung upon the detective, but he might as well have leaped head first at a hornet's nest. ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... the Savage cherished, But the Robins loved he best; O'er the grave where he has perished They shall thrive and build their nest. ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... the garden party," cried Polly, an inspiration seizing her. "Oh, Phronsie, now you must sit up; you can't think what plans we have for it." But Phronsie burrowed deeper in her nest. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... window in a way that brought more of her face into view, and though from where he sat Peter could have very little notion of the points of the nearing landscape, he knew by what he saw of her, that somewhere across the low runnels in the windy reeds she had caught sight of the "sea birds' nest." ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... does not ring any bells—because the morning newspaper is purchased for its comic strips, the bridge column, the crossword puzzle, and the latest dope on love-nest slayings, peccadilloes of the famous, the cheesecake photo of the inevitable actress-leaving-for-somewhere, and the full page photograph of the latest death-on-the-highway debacle. You look at the picture but you don't read the names in the caption, ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... she jumped right into the manger and she wiggled around in the straw until she made a little nest where she laid ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... disease, and that is the comparatively small permanent effects which it produces upon the joints in the way of crippling, or even stiffening. To gaze upon a rheumatic knee-joint, for instance, in the height of the attack,—swollen to the size of a hornet's nest, hot, red, throbbing with agony, and looking as if it were on the point of bursting,—one would almost despair of saving the joint, and the best one would feel entitled to expect would be a roughening of its surfaces and a permanent ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... fleet Carrier-Pigeons went out To invite all the birds to Sir Argus's Rout. The nest-loving Turtle-Dove sent an excuse; Dame Partlet lay in, as did good Mrs. Goose. The Turkey, poor soul! was confined to the rip;[1] For all her young brood had just fail'd with the pip. The Partridge ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... he could discover the secret of his mother's treason, as Lear would anatomize the heart of Regan to account for her ingratitude. In attacking it he is attacking her guilt, in its inferior forms and obscure disguises. It is the nest of her depravity, and the small vices are but hers in the shell, and the whole is a vast confederacy of evil. Here are no "superfluous activities," no desultory talk; Hamlet's preoccupation is one throughout. He alternates ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... easiest way to go. Oh, no! He chose the very steepest places to slide down. And as he went slipping down the steepest cliff of all he came upon something that gave him a great surprise. For he saw, built right in the crack of a ledge, a big bird's nest made of sticks. It was the biggest bird's nest Cuffy had ever seen; and in it were two great white eggs. They were the greatest white eggs ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the lower lands and the lake. The lights glowed more brightly as the darkness deepened, each lamp shining from some little nest, where men and women were busied with the small tasks and interests that made life. This was liberty! This was what he had a claim upon! All his instincts were civilized, domestic. He would not go back to the forest, to herd with wild ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... rupees for their personal expenses, and recommended to them not to incur any further disgrace, and that, if they did not think proper to act agreeable to her directions, they would do wrong. The ladies followed her advice, and about ten at night went back into the zenanah. The nest morning the Begum waited upon the mother of Sujah Dowlah, and related to her all the circumstances of the disturbances. The mother of Sujah Dowlah returned for answer, that, after there being no accounts kept of crores of revenues, she was not surprised ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... guns dey used to shoot us. We got de ole fashion muzzle loaders. You puts one ball in de muzzle and shove de powder down wid de ramrod. Den we went in and fit 'em, and 'twas like fightin' a wasp's nest. Dey kills a lot of our boys and we nearly wipes 'em out. Den we disarms de Cheyennes we captures, and turns dere guns in to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... at least, Darwin had pictured in his imagination the steps by which a "strange and odious instinct" may have been developed from comparatively innocent beginnings. He was referring to the ejection by the young cuckoo of its companions from the nest. "I can see no special difficulty in its having gradually acquired, during successive generations, the blind desire, the strength and structure necessary for the work of ejection." "The first step towards the acquisition of the proper instinct might have been mere unintentional restlessness ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... triumph, true communion with God is bound to no mechanical order, and may begin with gazing on God, and realizing the mysteries of beauty in His secret place, ere it drops to earth. The lark sings as it descends from the "privacy of glorious light" to its nest in the stony furrows as sweetly, though more plaintively, than whilst it circles upwards to the sky. It is perhaps a nobler effect of faith to begin with God and hymn the victory as if already won, than to begin with trouble and to call for deliverance. ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... Their three spears were three pointed piercers. Their three swords were three griding gashers,—Gles, and Glessic, and Gleisad.) Clust the son of Clustfeinad; (though he were buried seven cubits beneath the earth, he would hear the ant fifty miles off rise from her nest in the norning). Medyr the son of Methredydd; (from Belli Wic he ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... fallen seaward, and the nest lies in the water; my wife and pretty children are in it; I fear that it will float away. Therefore all day and all night I must dip ...
— Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children • Flora J. Cooke
... be that amount short," protested Melville for the twentieth time. "We simply can't be. I have not paid one bill that the managing board has not first O.K.-ed. You know how carefully we have estimated our expenses each month. We have kept a nest-egg in the bank, too, all the time, in case we did get stuck. I can't understand it. We haven't branched out into any wild schemes. Of course, after the party we did make those presents to the school; but we looked over the ground and made sure that we ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... giganteum), often reaches a diameter of thirty to forty centimetres. The earth stars (Geaster) have a double covering to the spore fruit, the outer one splitting at maturity into strips (Fig. 49, B). Another pretty and common form is the little birds'-nest fungus (Cyathus), growing on rotten wood or soil containing much decaying vegetable matter ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... the knight repairs For counsel in his law affairs, And found him mounted in his pew, With books and money placed for shew, Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay, And for his false, opinion pay: To whom the knight, with comely grace, Put off his hat to put his case, Which he as proudly entertain'd As the other courteously strain'd; And to assure him 'twas not that He looked for, bid ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... larvae develop into adults; but before this final stage an intermediate existence is reached, at which time they attach themselves to the mucous lining and bore into it, presumably for the purpose of making a nest in which later to lay their eggs. The burrowing parasite causes a great loss of blood, and it is on account of the resulting anaemia that the poor whites show always such incapacity, indifference, and apparent laziness. That this disease is of importance in considering ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... the world's comforter, with weary gait His day's hot task hath ended in the west; The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 'tis very late; The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest, 532 And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light Do summon us to part, ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... your glove was an odorous sachet of blisses! The breath of your fan was a breeze from Cathay! And the rose at your throat was a nest of spilled kisses!— And the music!—in fancy I hear it to-day, As I sit here, confessing Our secret, and blessing My rival who found ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... how strong she was, she got up and hobbled about to make the tea. He had not the heart to stop her; she did not want to die,—why should she? the world was a great, warm, beautiful nest for the little cripple,—why need he show her the cold without? He saw her at last go near the door where old Yare sat outside, then heard her breathless cry, and a sob. A moment after the old man came into the room, carrying her, and, laying her down on the settee, chafed ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... his final hopes, for which, in reliance on some old predictions, he professed to be sustaining himself. For when he was yet but very young, and lived in the country, he caught in the skirt of his garment an eagle's nest, as it was falling, in which were seven young ones, which his parents seeing and much admiring, consulted the augurs about it, who told them that he should become the greatest man in the world, and that the fates had decreed he should seven times be possessed of the supreme power and authority. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... odd phenomena for which the high latitudes are so remarkable. On July 30, the fine weather continuing, everybody was correspondingly elate and merry when both Herald and Wrangel islands were sighted from the "cro'-nest" and, as they were neared, apparently free from ice. This illusion, however, was soon dispelled. On approaching the land strong tide rips were encountered, and finally the ice, the drift of which was shown by the drop of a ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... those of which Burke speaks, that had nothing to do with the sovereign personally. They were slowly removed, the judicial and diplomatic charges being transferred on the accession of William IV.] The royal household was a gigantic nest of costly jobbery and purposeless profusion. It retained all "the cumbrous charge of a Gothic establishment," though all its usage and accommodation had "shrunk into the polished littleness of modern elegance." The outlay was enormous. The expenditure ...
— Burke • John Morley
... and fear. Oh! you weak, unfeeling cuss, To get them in this shocking muss; How their pocket-books will rue it! J.F.B., how could you do it? Are you putting for the West, Did you take French leave for Brest, Have you feathered well your nest, Do you sweetly take your rest; Say, whom do you like the best— COOK, or JENKS, or FULLERTON? Would you, JOSH, believe it true, At the moment, sir, when you Waited for that verdict blue, O'er the wires ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... the palace tower was my lonely hermit cell, my only companions being a nest of wasps. In the unrelieved darkness of the night I slept there alone. Sometimes a wasp or two would drop off the nest on to my bed, and if perchance I happened to roll on one, the meeting was unpleasing to the wasp and keenly discomforting ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... man the Knight repairs For council in his law-affairs And found him mounted in his pew, With books and money plac'd for shew, Like nest-eggs to make clients lay, 625 And for his false opinion pay To whom the knight, with comely grace, Put off his hat to put his case Which he as proudly entertain'd As th' other courteously strain'd; 630 ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... villain, Rob," answered the Bailie; "and ye will be hanged, that will be seen and heard tell o'; but I'se ne'er be the ill bird and foul my nest, set apart strong necessity and the skreigh of duty, which no man should hear and be inobedient. And wha the deevil's this?" he continued, turning to me—"Some gillravager that ye hae listed, I daur say. He looks as if he had a bauld heart to the highway, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hope she hasn't caught the plague from the Jansen woman; but that doesn't account for everybody running about with their hands full, like ants in a broken nest, especially as it is not the time of year when women turn all the furniture upside down and throw the curtains out of the windows in the pretence that they are cleaning them. However, we are quiet here for a while, so ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... flown since those happy hours spent together in our dear nest. Jesus has visited us, and has found us worthy to be tried in the crucible of suffering. God has said that on the last day "He will wipe away all tears from our eyes,"[2] and no doubt the more tears there are to dry, the greater will ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... was nobody about to answer questions. My host and I, Rashid as well, were fast asleep indoors. Inquirers looked around them on the ground, and then up at the shuttered house and then at the surrounding olive trees, in one of which they finally espied a nest of bedding on which reclined a blue-robed man asleep. It was the cook, Amin, who slept there for fresh air. The firing of the night before had ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... off Longacre Square among quite a nest of fakers. A queue of automobiles before the place testified, however, to the prosperity of Madame Cassandra, as they entered the bronze grilled plate glass door and turned on the first floor toward the home of the Adept. Constance had an uncomfortable ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... how the apple-tree went to sleep! Its fluttering leaves were so tired of play!— Like frolicsome children when dusk grows deep, And mother says "Come!" and they gladly creep To knee and to nest at the ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... The nest day Doctor Burdett called, and his grave manner and apparent disinclination to encourage any hope, confirmed the hopeless impression ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... was quite taken aback by Mrs. Thrale saying:—"But they were not drowned?" It stirred up a wasps' nest of perplexities. A moment later, she saw that it was a question, not a statement. She herself had only said the letter was forged, not that it contained a lie. How could she vouch for the falsehood of the letter ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Such was the nest that the Reverend Orme built by the sweat of his brow to harbor his little family, which, at the beginning of this history, consisted of himself; Ann Leighton, his wife; and Mammy, black as the ace of spades without, ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... giant of the forest. Where now are seen the gay retreats of luxury—villas half buried in twilight bowers, whence the amorous flute oft breathes the sighings of some city swain—there the fish-hawk built his solitary nest, on some dry tree that overlooked his watery domain. The timid deer fed undisturbed along those shores now hallowed by the lover's moonlight walk, and printed by the slender foot of beauty; and a savage solitude ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and made her way east to the square, and thence to the top floor of the studio building to which Collier Pratt had taken his little daughter on the memorable occasion when he had plucked her from her warm nest of blankets and led her, sleepy and shivering, into the cold of the night. She had been at some pains to secure the address without taking Nancy into ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... Cochin-china hen was sitting too, and"—Daisy paused to give full weight to the importance of the crime, and opened her eyes very wide, "and—I changed 'em! I carried the goose and put her on the hen's nest, and she forsook it, and the hen forsook hers, and the eggs were all addled! Mother was angry! She said it wasn't the eggs she minded so much as the disobedience. Was yours ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... off in a body to attack a floating feather. Ulrich sat up and watched them, the little rogues, the little foolish, helpless things, that called for so much care. A mother thrush twittered above his head. Ulrich rose and creeping on tiptoe, peeped into the nest. But the mother bird, casting one glance towards him, went on with her work. Whoever was afraid of Ulrich the wheelwright! The tiny murmuring insects buzzed to and fro about his feet. An old man, passing to his evening rest, ...
— The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl • Jerome K. Jerome
... border men on such occasions, and one after another dropped off, until all were stretched on the skins but the master of the place. He remained up two hours later, ruminating on the state of things; when, perceiving that the night was wearing on, he also found a nest, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... time that I was in Buenos Ayres a very pleasant young English civil engineer begged me to visit the family with whom he was boarding, assuring me that I should find the most amusing nest of cranks there. These people had come originally from the Pacific Coast, I cannot recall whether from Bolivia or Ecuador. As their revolutionary tendencies and their constant efforts to overthrow the ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... staff. With all the bulk of its great wealth and prestige, it swept down upon Bell and his little bodyguard. It trampled upon Bell's patent with as little concern as an elephant can have when he tramples upon an ant's nest. To the complete bewilderment of Bell, it coolly announced that it had "the only original telephone," and that it was ready to supply "superior telephones with all the latest improvements made by the original inventors—Dolbear, Gray, ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... however, the owner in question had been robbed of all he possessed, and the pearl itself would certainly have gone too, if it had not been accidentally hidden where only the bird could have found it. One day the bird was killed, the treasure was found in its nest, and the owner was restored to a state of affluence, of which, if the pearl had not originally been lost, he must have despaired till the end ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... there are trials ahead of you, my darling, and I wish I could shield you from them, but it seems impossible, and I can only leave you in God's hands praying continually for you. You say you love me nest to your mother. All I ask is, that you will allow no one else, no new friend, to take my place. When I see you again, years hence, I shall hope to hear you repeat those words, 'next to my mother.' Far away in the midst of Hindustan my thoughts and hopes will travel back and centre in my white dove. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... other matters of domestic economy he was completely passive, and at the mercy of his housekeeper—the same buxom dame whom his father had long since bequeathed to his charge, and who, if fame did her no injustice, had feathered her nest pretty ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... nor was there much subsequent debate. The Duke of Buckingham made a speech against us, in which he mistook every point, and gave me a great disposition to follow him; but I knew if I did I should have a whole hornet's nest upon me, and I wished to keep Durham and Radnor in check, or answer them. Had I spoken the debate would have lasted three hours more. As it was we got away by nine. On the division we had 62 to 47. Not brilliant. Our case was excellent. I had feared it would be indifferent. The Chancellor ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... asked if his companions had ever heard how Newt Bodler, a wit famous in Wayne County, once broke up a negro funeral with a hornets' nest. The idlers nodded a smiling affirmative as they watched the cortege go past. They had all heard it. But Mr. Tomwit would not be denied. He sallied forth into humorous reminiscence. Another loafer contributed an anecdote of how he had tied ropes to a dead negro so as to make the corpse ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... fledd; some feard, and well it fayned; One, that would wiser seeme then all the rest, Warnd him not touch, for yet perhaps remaynd Some lingring life within his hollow brest, Or in his wombe might lurke some hidden nest Of many Dragonettes, his fruitfull seede: Another saide, that in his eyes did rest Yet sparckling fyre, and badd thereof take heed; Another said, he saw ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... to do it stirred up a hornets' nest. Punch of the first week in January, 1884, derides the 'Bitter Cry of Bumbledom' against Dilke and Mr. Hugh Owen, [Footnote: Years after Sir Hugh Owen, G.C.B., wrote to Dilke: 'I shall always remember that I owed my first ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... down in great agitation). Hear them not, thou avenger in heaven! How can I avert it? Art thou to blame, great God, if thy engines, pestilence, and famine, and floods, overwhelm the just with the unjust? Who can stay the flame, which is kindled to destroy the hornet's nest, from extending to the blessed harvest? Oh! fie on the slaughter of women, and children, and the sick! How this deed weighs me down! It has poisoned my fairest achievements! There he stands, poor fool, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Just as they were offering a sacrifice to the gods, in order to start out to the war with their good will, a great miracle happened. A fearful snake crept from under the altar and climbed a tree in which there was a sparrow's nest nearly hidden by the leaves. There were eight young sparrows in the nest, nine birds with the mother. The snake devoured the fluttering little birds, around which the mother circled as if ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... could she be happy now that she had of her own free will put away the love of her life? She called and beckoned to all the thoughts that the green world shut out, and they came at her call, fluttering black wings to hide the sights and sounds of field and wood and green garden, and making their nest in her heart. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... your wings against the thing that is and must be? What else matters? With all my sins and faults my land is yours—a land of sunshine, eternal harvests, and everlasting song, old-fashioned and provincial perhaps, but kind and hospitable. Around its humblest cottage song birds live and mate and nest and never leave. The winged ones of your own cold fields have heard their call, and the sky to-night will echo with their chatter as they hurry southward. Elsie, my own, I too have called—come; ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... on me they left me, and retired to the hall. In a few minutes the roc appeared, and bore me off to the top of the mountain in his huge claws as lightly as if I had been a feather, for this great white bird is so strong that he has been known to carry even an elephant to his nest ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... wanders careless while Summer is green, The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen; When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed, The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... fall, strewing the ground with spiny indestructible weapons. There are many varieties of chollas and all are decorative. The tree cholla grows from seven to ten feet in height, a splendid showy feature of the desert slopes, and the home, fortress, and sure defense for all the birds who can find nest-room ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... crooked finger of the sea hooked into the land. It was clear as glass in the bright morning. The open sea was directly beyond the crook of the finger, barred out by a nest of needlepointed rocks. On this morning, with the sea motionless, they stood up like the teeth of a harrow, but in heavy weather I imagined that the waves covered them. To the eye they were not the height of a man above the level water; they glistened in the ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... "nest of singing birds" because such songs as the following are not unusual in the work ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... about the vegetable garden. At the age when little girls in the cities were dressing and undressing their dolls, Wanda was taming a palpitating heart in some little fury [Transcriber's note: furry?] breast or leaning breathlessly, like a small mother bird herself, over a nest in the grass watching eagerly for the tender bills to peck and chip their way ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... top of tree, or abbey-tow'r. When Spring her wasted form retrieves, And gives your little roof its leaves, May you (a happy lover) find A kindred partner to your mind: And when, amid the tangled spray, The sun shall shoot a parting ray, May all within your mossy nest Be safe, be merry, and ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... tried to make pleasant, that there is, after all, no fool like an old fool—about women. This insinuation had made Mr. Tapster very angry, and straightway he had engaged a respectable cook-housekeeper, and, although he had soon become aware that the woman was feathering her own nest,—James Tapster, as you will have divined ere now, was fond of good workaday phrases,—yet she had a pleasant, respectful manner, and kept rough order among the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... plants, some of which cling like ivy to the trunk, and others climbing to the topmost boughs, fall thence in grey silky garlands, or, like the tillandsia, adorn them with hundreds of pink and white flowers; among these, many an ant and bee had fixed his nest, and every thing was teeming with ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... he is a good, honourable, high-minded man; somewhat obstinate, and somewhat vain; but actuated by the best intentions. He has thrust himself into a hornet's nest. In vain he now plaintively complains that he has made Paris impregnable, that he cannot make sorties without field artillery, and that he is neither responsible for the capitulation of Metz, nor the rout the other day at Bourget. What, then, say his opponents with ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... return of Fiery Wind, the boys of the village were to attack a hornet's nest. This is one of the ways of training their sons to warfare. One of the old warriors had seen a hornet's nest in the woods, and he returned to the village, and with the chief assembled all the boys in the village. The chief ordered the boys to take off all their clothes, and gave them each a ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... departed thence, and came to this towne of Shamaki the 11. of the same: [Sidenote: Presents to the King Obdolowcan.] and the 17. day following, we presented vnto Abdollocan the king of this countrey, one timber of Sables, one tunne or nest of siluer cups parsill gilt, three Morses teeth, 4. Arshines of scarlet, 3. pieces of karseis, with ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... ever saw. It is octagonal, with a peaked roof, each octagon filled with a spacious window, and it sits perched in complete isolation on top of an elevation that commands leagues of valley and city and retreating ranges of distant blue hills. It is a cosy nest, with just room in it for a sofa and a table and three or four chairs—and when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lightning flashes above the hills beyond, and the rain beats upon the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it! It ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... am the wrong sort of man to be even a temporary dweller in this nest of intrigue. I do not understand it at all. I do not understand any of you. I only know that I owe you and those other gentlemen a very considerable debt, and I have been solemnly warned against you by the young lady whom I met at the Cafe de Paris. I have been assured that association ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... capers, olives, twenty bottles of arrayan, and four quintales of white wax. Moreover, the Febrers resident on the island and not members of the Order of Malta, embarked in the squadron with two hundred Majorcan gentlemen, eager to conquer Algiers, that nest of pirates. The three hundred galleys sailed out of the bay, their pennants streaming, accompanied by salutes discharged from cannons and bombards, cheered by the multitude crowded upon the walls. Never had the Emperor gathered ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... know that it was I that put you up to it, and any assistance I can give you in it you may reckon on. Although not a magistrate, as you are, maybe I'm just as fond of justice as yourself. Of coorse I'll attend you to-night, and show you the devil's nest in which Sol Donnel and his blessed babe of a niece, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Nick, and laughed at her softly. "I'm the happiest man on earth. I shall go Home now without a pang, and so will you. We have got to feather the nest, you know. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... up-stream, a family was encamped, putting up a permanent home, making a reckless inroad among the cottonwoods which grew along the river on their land. Across the stream, which was fordable there, a young man and his younger wife, with the saddle-marks of the city on them, had their white nest. Agnes could hear the bride singing early in the morning, when the sun came up and poured its melted gold over that hopeful scene, with never a ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... house to show people over; his wife comes in sometimes to open the downstairs windows; the ones upstairs are never shut. So you perceive we shall be fairly free from interruption at the top of this tower, especially when I tell you that it finishes in a room as sound-proof as old Carlyle's crow's-nest ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... must first of all escape out of this hornets' nest, to which I led you. My honour is engaged. I said but now we were as poor as Job; and behold! not many miles from here I have a house of my own to which I will conduct you. Otto the Prince being down, we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moon had left the sky, A birdling sought my Indian nest And folded, oh so lovingly! Her tiny wings upon ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... nights when Rosalind and Orlando wandered out of Arden into a New England moonlight; when flitting Ariel forsook Prospero's isle to make his nest in Wellesley's bowering rhododendrons—in blossom time he is always hovering there, a winged bloom, for eyes that are not holden. Those were the nights when Puck came dancing up from Tupelo with Titania's fairy rout a-twinkle at his heels; when the great Hindu ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... cried Farnsworth, gaily, and taking the little hand he held it lightly clasped in his own. "And I thank you, lady, for those kind words! Now, you can look at the moon just a minute longer, and then you must fly, little bird, to your nest in ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... At home in a beloved mother's house. A man visits many gay places where people enjoy themselves: finds himself at times in glorious palaces; builds himself a nest, and rears a house of his own:—but even then some sweet enchantment overcomes his heart when he steps over the threshold of that quiet dwelling where a loving mother's guardian hand has protected every souvenir of his childhood,—so ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai |
