"Parrot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... agitated yelp of their Gallic neighbours. They could not be quiet if they wanted to, for heavy sleigh-bells (unique decorations for a bulldog) hang about their necks, and jangle merrily at every step. In the courtyard lives a colony of birds. One virulent parrot which shrieks its inarticulate wrath from morning until night, but which does—be it remembered to its credit—go to sleep at sundown; three paroquets; two cockatoos of ineffable shrillness, and a cageful of canaries and captive finches. ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... putrid substances, and picking out the eyes of young animals, is borrowed from the vultures. From the scansorial or climbing order it takes the faculty of picking the ground, and discovering its food when hidden from the eye, while the parrot family gives it the taste for vegetable food, and furnishes it with great cunning, sagacity, and powers of imitation, even to counterfeiting the human voice. Next come the order of waders, who impart their quota to the perfection of the crow by giving it great powers of flight, and perfect ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... doubt, I think, that the bird in the hand of Christ figured the soul, or the spiritual as opposed to the material. But, in the later pictures, the original meaning being lost, birds became mere ornamental accessories, or playthings. Sometimes it is a parrot from the East, sometimes a partridge (the partridge is frequent in the Venetian pictures): sometimes a goldfinch, as in Raphael's Madonna del Cardellino. In a Madonna by Guercino, the Mother holds a bird perched on her hand, and the Child, with a most naive ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... and set in a pair of goggle-like projections of horn, peered this way and that, as if suspecting the neighborhood of a foe. His gigantic snout—horned, cased in horn, and hooked like the beak of a parrot—he lifted high, sniffing the heavy air. Then, as if to end his doubts by either drawing or daunting off the unknown enemy, he opened his grotesquely awful mouth and roared. The huge sound that exploded from his throat was something between the ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... out of Andrews's weakness for parrots. He had bought a parrot from a sailor, who told him that the best way to teach it to speak was to hang the cage in a well and repeat the words or phrases to it at 3 A.M. in the morning, so as to secure the greatest freedom from disturbance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... should be used to check in the smallest degree the diversities of representation which, according to the differences of individual character, must ever prevail in the conceptions which we form and which we preach of this Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want no parrot-like repetition of a certain set of phrases embodied, however great may be their meanings, in every sermon. And I would that the people to whom those truths are true would make more allowance than they sometimes do for the differences to which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... big chestnut-tree," replied the spoiled brat, as he gave, in spite of his mother's commands, live flies to the parrot, which seemed keenly to relish such fare. Madame de Villefort stretched out her hand to ring, intending to direct her waiting-maid to the spot where she would find Valentine, when the young lady herself entered the apartment. She ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was solved: Joko, Alice's parrot, having secretly stolen from his quarters, sat on the rung of a chair and played the ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... Indian corn and roots in the cinders. They then gathered a few large fresh leaves off the trees, tore the roasted ape into several pieces with their hands, and placing a large portion of it, as well as a parrot, Indian corn, and some roots upon the leaves, put it before me. My appetite was tremendous, seeing that I had tasted nothing since the morning. I therefore immediately fell to on the roasted monkey, which I found superlatively delicious: ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Sung, one Hwan Tuy, held the roads against him, accusing him of "a proud air and many desires; an insinuating habit and a wild will." From this time on he was subject to persecution. The "insinuating habit" reminds one of an old parrot-cry one has heard: "She hypnotizes them." He turned westward from this opposition, and visited one state, and then another; in neither was there any disposition to use him. He had found no more likely material than Duke Ling of Wei, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... without thinking, "That is my Knight of the Faggot." When the King heard this he tore his beard, seeing that the bean of the cake, the prize in the lottery, had fallen to an ugly lout, the very sight of whom he could not endure, with a shaggy head, owl's eyes, a parrot's nose, a deer's mouth, and legs bare and bandy. Then, heaving a deep sigh, he said, "What can that jade of a daughter of mine have seen to make her take a fancy to this ogre, or strike up a dance with this hairy-foot? Ah, vile, false creature, who has cast so ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is up-stairs and down-stairs; his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, Fie upon this ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... photographs and knit woolen mats and such things around. I was going to sit down but just as I got near the chair,—it was rather dark, you see,—something said 'Hello!' and there was a horrid great parrot sitting on the back of the chair. I jumped ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... versed in politics for a lad of his age, and could discuss glibly the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. He denounced the seditious doings in Annapolis and Boston Town with an air of easy familiarity, for Philip had the memory of a parrot, and 'twas easy to perceive whence his knowledge sprang. But when my fine master spoke disparagingly of the tradesmen as at the bottom of the trouble, my grandfather's patience came ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... steel could have performed such a feat, or that which made Dennis Ryer, of the crew of Engine No. 36, famous three years ago. That was on Seventh Avenue at One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street. A flat was on fire, and the tenants had fled; but one, a woman, bethought herself of her parrot, and went back for it, to find escape by the stairs cut off when she again attempted to reach the street. With the parrot-cage, she appeared at the top-floor window, framed in smoke, calling for help. Again there was no ladder to reach. There were neighbors on the roof with ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... the Anstice drawing-room lay in its being no drawing-room at all, but just a living-room, reflecting the taste and habits of the people who occupied it. Jim's parrot usurped the window, where he chattered in the sun all day, and flew about at his will, much to the injury of the curtains. Between the windows and the white casing of the mahogany door, stood an old desk strewn with papers in some confusion; for Professor Anstice was ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... policy than that of simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. The suggestion that Socialism means a compulsory 'share out' may be rightly dismissed as an idle scare. The most bitter opponent of Socialism must at least admit that there is a stronger argument to be met than that implied by the parrot-cry of 'spoliation.' Socialism has, at any rate, so far advanced as to be allowed the ordinary courtesies of debate. We may oppose it tooth and nail, but we must confront argument with argument ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... her age I guess, Thirteen summers, or something less; Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair, Lips that lover has never kissed; Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the little maid. On her hand a parrot green Sits ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... from her or to shun conversing with her. Her dogs are her greatest interest and amusement, and she has at least forty of various kinds. She is delighted when anybody gives her a dog, or a monkey, or a parrot, of all of which she has a vast number; it is impossible to offend her or annoy her more than by ill-using any of her dogs, and if she were to see anybody beat or kick any one of them she would never forgive it. She has always lived on good terms with the Royal ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Great Mountain, a name given to one of the early French governors, and continued to be used generally for the French as long as they held Canada. The story means a parrot probably.] ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... his gratitude had either taken a different turn, or remained as quiescent as that of others whom I have obliged more materially. I at first accepted the creatures, conceiving them, in my ignorance, to be some sort of blue and green parrot, which, though I do not admire their noise, might scream and yell at their pleasure if hung up in the hall among the armour. But your emu, it seems, stands six feet high on his stocking soles, and is little better than a kind of cassowary or ostrich. Hang them! they might [eat] up my ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... The door by which they entered was concealed from the inner and smaller room by the jutting wall of the outer room, in which stood a huge writing-table loaded with letters, pamphlets and manuscripts. Between the two windows of the inner room was a cage in which a large, grey parrot was clambering, using both beak and claws to assist him in his slow ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... window-sill, and fried them on the atelier stove, and put them back in the window on a little plate all garnished with carrots. She swore vengeance and called in the police, but to no avail. One day they fished up the parrot in its cage, and the green bird that screamed and squawked continually met a speedy and painless death and went off to the taxidermist. Then the cage was lowered in its place with the door left ajar, and the old woman ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... irresponsible being I ever saw, reckless about the horses, reckless about himself, without any manners or any obvious sense of right and propriety. In his mouth this musical tongue becomes as harsh as the speech of a cocatoo or parrot. His manner is familiar. He rides up to me, pokes his head under my hat, and says, interrogatively, "Cold!" by which I understand that the poor boy is shivering himself. In eating he plunges his hand into my bowl of fowl, or snatches half my biscuit. Yet I daresay he means well, and I am thoroughly ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... of birds, the prince, too, petted A sparrow, which delightfully coquetted. These rivals, both of unripe feather, One day were frolicking together: As oft befalls such little folks, A quarrel follow'd from their jokes. The sparrow, quite uncircumspect, Was by the parrot sadly peck'd; With drooping wing and bloody head, His master pick'd him up for dead, And, being quite too wroth to bear it, In heat of passion kill'd his parrot. When this sad piece of news he heard, Distracted was the parent bird. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... and wished. As they loosened hands again a shrill cry above their heads made them all look up—it was a parrot flying low across the garden, its brilliant plumage shining in the evening sunlight like jewels. "It's my parrot!" Mollie exclaimed, "it met me by the ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... of the rich man clutched the folded paper as the claws of a parrot cling to the bars of his cage. He let his sable coat slip into the hands of a servant; he turned ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... rules, that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils in Drawing by telling them in the fullest detail (either in his own person or by means of a diagram) what lines and strokes they are to make. And it is because the Christian has thought to "save his soul alive" by reciting with parrot-like accuracy the formulae of his creeds and catechisms, that the teacher of to-day thinks to educate his pupils in History and Geography by making them repeat from memory a series of definitions, dates, events, ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... darling!" Cynthia whispered; "there is a beautiful red-and-green parrot down-stairs in a great cage that shines like gold, and you shall have him for your own, and he can talk. You shall have him for your very own, sweetheart. Oh, you darling! ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... lavish expenditure. The walks and trees were straight and formal, the flowers that bloomed here and there, large and gaudy. A parrot hung in a gilded cage against a column of the piazza. No wild songsters fluttered in the trees, or were on the wing. Hills shut the place in and gave it a narrow, restricted appearance, and the sky overhead was hard and brazen. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... an old yarn about a parrot in a mining camp. A magician was giving a performance at the camp, and after every trick the miners would say, "I wonder what he's going to do next?" One of them was smoking, a spark fell in a keg of powder, and blew the camp away from that place. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... parrot. Mandleco turned east, then south, then south-by-east, like a compass on a binge; he looked as if he wanted to roar, but his voice came out as a frantic bleat: "Why, this is crazy! Goddam it, it's crazy! Do you realize what this will—" He confronted Arnold wildly. "What the hell ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... like a light in a dark house — her eyes were those of a deer, her curls like female snakes, her eyebrows like a bow, her nose like a parrot's, her teeth like a string of pearls, her lips like the red gourds, her neck like a pigeon's, her waist like a leopard's, her hands and feet like a soft lotus, her face like the moon, with the gait of a goose, and the voice ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... there was an inn kept by one Desteffanis and his wife, where I stayed nearly a month, and was made very comfortable. Last year, however, Jones and I found it closed, but did very well at the Hotel Toscani. At the Hotel Desteffanis there used to be a parrot which lived about loose and had no cage, but did exactly what it liked. Its name was Lorrito. It was a very human bird; I saw it eat some bread and milk from its tin one day and then sidle along a pole to a place where there was a towel hanging. It took ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Cancellieri, at first maintained the authenticity of the Vision, by alleging that similar revelations have not been unusual!—the Cavaliere Gherardi Rossi attacked the whole as the crude legend of a boy who was only made the instrument of the monks, and was either a liar or a parrot! We may express our astonishment that, at the present day, a subject of mere literary inquiry should have been involved with "the faith of the Roman church." Cancellieri becomes at length submissive to the lively attacks of Rossi; and the editor gravely adds his "conclusion," ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... pronunciation of the Ootlashoots. Their words have all a remarkably guttural sound, and there is nothing which seems to represent the tone of their speaking more exactly than the clucking of a fowl or the noise of a parrot. This peculiarity renders their voices scarcely audible, except at a short distance; and, when many of them are talking, forms a strange confusion of sounds. The common conversation that we overheard consisted of low, guttural sounds, occasionally broken by a low word or two, after ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... pillars of white metal; and there is a perpetual shifting of foliage color, from yellow- green to orange, from reddish-green to purple, from emerald-green to black-green. But the background color, the dominant tone, is like the plumage of a green parrot. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... tall and slender, with a long face, and high, sharp features, his nose curving like a parrot's beak over a heavy dark mustache. His face was pale and his skin had the clear look of a man who never is exposed to the sun. But his eyes were the objects that attracted my gaze. They were bright as steel points and looked out from under ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... Parrett's boys say a Parrett's boy ought to be the head of the school! Gentlemen, parrots aren't always to be trusted, even when they show signs of intelligence! (Cheers and laughter.) Don't you believe all a parrot tells you about parrots. (Laughter.) I prefer the arguments of the gentleman who moved the amendment. He says he doesn't think Mr Riddell is fit to be captain. (Cheers.) I agree with him—(tremendous Parrett's cheers, and consternation of schoolhouse)—I don't ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... short absence, curiously I scanned His mien and person, nor was free, in sooth, 95 From disappointment, not to find some change In look and air, from that new region brought, As if from Fairy-land. Much I questioned him; And every word he uttered, on my ears Fell flatter than a caged parrot's note, 100 That answers unexpectedly awry, And mocks the prompter's listening. Marvellous things Had vanity (quick Spirit that appears Almost as deeply seated and as strong In a Child's heart as fear itself) conceived 105 For my enjoyment. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... bird?" Romer asked, getting up to look at a strange, shiny, abnormal-looking parrot on a twig that ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... the words parrot fashion and his feet obeyed the instructions automatically. The thirty paces ended so near the edge of crumbling rock that it fell away beneath his toe leaving some two inches over nothing. Had a man walked here without directions, he certainly would have ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... be studied, using the same order and general method of treatment: pigeon, cat, canary, guinea pig, white mouse, raccoon, squirrel, parrot. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... a parrot market in every port, however, and this is a popular place of resort. Here are cool trees and drinking stands, or booths, where cocoanut milk and ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... be in no way difficult. Mr. Hardman will take Mr. Parrot's ledgers; and, as you will only have to copy the storekeeper's issues into the books, five minutes will show you the form in which they ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... A parrot that belonged to a lady recognised a black servant after three years' absence. Another bird was so fierce that no one in the house liked to touch it, but it would allow a lady visitor to handle it with impunity. It was at last given away, as its ill temper seemed incurable. ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... said I?" his uncle exclaimed gayly. "What cares a prefect of Rome for the scratching hens of Lorium? As for me, most noble Prefect, I am but a man from whom neither power nor philosophy can take my natural affections"; and, as the parrot swinging over the door-way croaked out his "Salve!" (Welcome!), arm-in-arm uncle ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... brought in first some dry biscuits in deep tin boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have been made for a parrot's beak, and soldered into metal cases for a voyage round the world. Next she fetched some little gray linen doilies, folded square, those tea-napkins which in thrifty families never get washed. A third time she came in with the sugar basin and cups; then she departed to heat the water. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... with a dog and a cat. Veta, Max and I with all the baggage, a parrot 'Tommy' and two small birds in separate cages. I tried to look out for all three and froze my fingers off holding one cage and another that I wrapped up in my shawl. And so we started off in immediate danger of upsetting ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... d'Oberkirk, I. 56.—Description of the puff au sentiment of the Duchesse de Chartres (de Goncourt, 311): "In the background is a woman seated in a chair and holding an infant, which represents the Duc de Valois and his nurse. On the right is a parrot pecking at a cherry, and on the left a little Negro, the duchess's two pets: the whole is intermingled with locks of hair of all the relations of Mme. de Chartres, the hair of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... such as conscience, morality and religion. There are two sides to them, the physical and the hyper-physical or metaphysical. And here it may not be amiss to offer a suggestion that one should mistrust that parrot cry so often heard from men who speak most confidently about that which they know least, that metaphysic is synonymous with unreality, or in plainer words, moonshine. A very little reflection will be sufficient to satisfy us that without the aid of conceptions higher than those ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... nail, hung like rags. The staircases having fallen in, doors opened on vacancy. The interiors of rooms could be perceived with their papers in strips. In some instances dainty objects had remained in them quite intact. Frederick noticed a timepiece, a parrot-stick, and some engravings. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... between Homo and Pithecus is the anatomist's difficulty," yet no impartial judge can doubt that the roots, as it were, of those great faculties which confer on Man his immeasurable superiority above all other animate things are traceable far down into the animate world. The dog, the cat, and the parrot, return love for our love and hatred for our hatred. They are capable of shame and of sorrow, and though they may have no logic nor conscious ratiocination, no one who has watched their ways can doubt that they possess that power of rational cerebration which evolves reasonable ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... the same, at a little broker's shop down in the most poverty-stricken part of Coleby. It had been bought by the broker at a sale in company with a parrot, a cockatoo, and a canary, all being the property of a lady lately deceased. The canary died before he reached home, and the parrot and cockatoo, on the strength of being able to screech and say a few words, soon found owners, but the squirrel, being shabby-looking, hung ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... when we halted upon the outskirts of the dark forest. Hardly a ray of the hot sun penetrated the woods; all was gloomy and silent. Occasionally a parrot upon the borders of the forest uttered a shrill scream, and then spreading its gaudy wings sought shelter upon the bough of a tall tree, from whence it could watch our ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... part of the trunks, in order to collect their sweet sap. He also wove a sort of palisade of creepers round several thick stakes, in which we could sleep without fear of surprise. In a hole near the top of one of the palm-trees, Lucien spied out a parrot's nest, and had taken possession of two young birds, red, green, and yellow in color, which seemed to adapt themselves wonderfully to the attentions lavished upon them ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... of which is usually not connected with Park. To Peter, or rather to Fr. Pierre, belong also Parr, Parry and Perry, though Parry is generally Welsh (Chapter VI). The dims. Parrott, Perrott, etc., were sometimes nicknames, the etymology being the same, for our word parrot is from Fr. pierrot. To the freedom with which this sound is spelt, e.g. in Herd, Heard, Hird, Hurd, we also owe Purkiss for ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... and a great parrot was visible on the branch of a sumach, which stretched over the railings of the low wall of the pagoda garden. "O you appropriate bird,-you surely ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my music, and that I owe to Tedder and Vincent— everything I've learned since, I've learned by sheer cuteness, from novels, the papers, the theatres, and by keeping my ears open like a cunning little parrot. [Softly.] Ha, ha! That's what I ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... week, too, she inspected her hats, foot-wear, furs; dusted the three rows of books, emptied and cleaned the globe in which a solitary goldfish swam, goggling his eyes in the sunshine, and scrubbed the porcelain perching pole on which her parrot sat all day in the bathroom window making limited observations in French, Spanish, and English, and splitting red peppers and dried watermelon seeds with his heavy curved beak. He was a gorgeous bird, with crimson ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... true. To listen to Charteris on the subject, one might have thought that he considered the matter rather amusing than otherwise. This, however, was simply due to the fact that he treated everything flippantly in conversation. But, like the parrot, he thought the more. The actual casus belli had been trivial. At least the mere spectator would have considered it trivial. It had happened after this fashion. Charteris was a member of the School ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... great resemblance to them, may be added logicians and sophisters, fellows that talk as much by rote as a parrot; who shall run down a whole gossiping of old women, nay, silence the very noise of a belfry, with louder clappers than those of the steeple; and if their unappeasable clamorousness were their only fault it would admit of some excuse; but they ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... followed as chief mourners, and old nurse and Peggy put on their black hoods which they had when Jane Thompson died, and went with us, and we had the kitchen table-cloth for a pall, with the old black wrapper put over it which used to cover the parrot's cage; but we did not read anything, for that would not have been right, as you know. After all, he was but a dog. Father, however, to please us, wrote the following epitaph, which I very carefully transcribed and affixed over ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... Prince, the parrot, was a proud and happy bird; he was proud of his gorgeous red and green feathers, of his ability to say 'Pretty Poll' and 'How do?' and, above all, of his fine gilded cage, which stood ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... when I was a child a green parrot got out of its cage in one of the rich people's houses and wandered about the town for a whole month, flying from one garden to another, homeless and lonely. And Maria Victorovna reminded me of ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... again at a profit," said she. "You could turn it into a building estate" (parrot-cry caught from himself or from Emanuel), "and later on we could ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet I ought not ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... very glad to see that story of Colonel Gregg in No. 19, for he was one of our ancestors. We have a parrot from the Isle of Pines, which seems to be a very smart bird. I would like to know if there is any particular way by which we ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and, according to practice, we rested. Every Sunday throughout the journey I read Divine Service, and, except making the daily observations, only work absolutely necessary was done. Whenever possible, we rested on Sunday, taking, if we could, a pigeon, a parrot, or such other game as might come in our way as special fare. Sunday's dinner was an institution for which, even in those inhospitable wilds, we had a great respect. This day, the 19th, ascertained, by meridian altitude of the sun, that we were in latitude 27 degrees 40 minutes 6 seconds ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... was coming in. They were looking at a picture of Cecil's just returned from being mounted as a screen. It was a group of brilliant autumn leaves—the gorgeous maple, with its capricious hues, an arrow-shaped leaf, half red, half green, like a parrot's feather, contrasting with another "spotted like the pard," and then one blood-red. The collecting of them had been an interest to the children in their daily walks, and Cecil had ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... rooms, one opening into the other. The latter was a kitchen, the former the sleeping-room. Hermione looked quietly round it, and her eyes fell at once upon a large green parrot, which was sitting at the end of the board on which, supported by trestles of iron, the huge bed of Maddalena and her husband was laid. At present this bed was rolled up, and in consequence towered to a considerable ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... I hope, have lap-dogs, and some monkeys; but they are unsatisfactory companions. Many useful offices are performed by men of scarlet, to which neither dog nor monkey has adequate abilities. A parrot, indeed, is as fine as a colonel, and, if he has been much used to good company, is not wholly without conversation; but a parrot, after all, is a poor little creature, and has neither sword nor shoulder-knot, can neither ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... was a sort of elder sister to her, and the only authority in the house was the grandmother. She ordered the servants, and her daughter paid her the same timid reverence as in the time of her short frocks. Frau Marker seldom opened her lips except to eat, or to answer her mother in a parrot-like sort of echo. Frau Brohl's energetic spirit stirred even in these narrow boundaries. She did not feel at home in Berlin; she met no one she knew in the streets, and in fact knew no one, and this feeling of being among strangers, as if at some out-of-the-way fair, made her so ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... August 18, 1838, advertises "the negress Mary, aged nineteen, has a scar on her face, walks parrot-toed, and is pregnant." ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... another caught fire the trees danced round in giant shadows, as though they were doing a death-dance for their limbs on the funeral pyre. The silence was a complete blank except when a flapping of wings beat the air where some bird changed its night perch, or a parrot squawked hoarsely for a moment, causing a fluttering of smaller wings that soon ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... for idiots, and there is much joy when after many years of persevering effort some devoted person succeeds in teaching these beings, whose mentality is far inferior to that of a monkey, to repeat a few words like a parrot, to scribble some words on paper, or to repeat a prayer mechanically with their ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... he left as many as two hundred pictures, rendered him extremely popular. Besides his favourite subjects, such as 'The Family Jollification,' 'The Feast of the Bean King,' 'Game of Skittles,' he has pictures in a slightly higher atmosphere, such as 'A Pastor Visiting a Young Girl,' 'The Parrot,' 'Schoolmaster with Unmanageable Boys,' 'The Pursuit of Alchemy.' Among the latter a good example is 'The Music Master' in the ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... pointed south they came nearer and nearer, until, flying directly overhead, they cast a shadow as if a cloud had passed over the sun. The sky was black with them. Noiseless on the wing, there was something ominous in the sea-parrot's silence during the quarter of an hour in which they flew steadfastly over the island on their course. Ellen watched them with an interest divided between ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... The blind man thereupon points his cane at some player, who must take the opposite end of the cane in his hand. The blind man then commands him to make a noise like some animal, such as a cat, dog, cow, sheep, lion, donkey, duck, parrot. From this the blind man tries to guess the name of the player. If the guess be correct, they change places. If wrong, the game is repeated ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... bread and baked beans, if their preferences may be judged from those of a colossal specimen in the care of an American family living on the islands. The observer who contributes this fact to science is able to report the case of a parrot- fish, on the same premises, so exactly like a large brown and purple cockatoo that, seeing such a cockatoo later on dry land, it was with a sense of something like cruelty in its exile from its native ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... who lived in New York City owned a pet parrot and a large house cat. The parrot was just as full of mischief as could be. One day the cat and parrot had a quarrel. I think the cat had upset Polly's food, or something of that kind. However, they seemed all right again. An ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various
... is this?" cried the Archivarius angrily into the bushes. Then a huge gray parrot came fluttering out, and perched itself beside the Archivarius on a myrtle-bough; and looking at him with an uncommon earnestness and gravity through a pair of spectacles that stuck on his hooked bill, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... descent. His ancestors came from Ireland at an early day and settled first in Pennsylvania, and later in Ohio. When Mother's great-grandfather and his cousin came over from Ireland and landed in New York, they heard a parrot talking. It said, "A beggar and a clodhopper; a beggar and a clodhopper." They had never heard of a parrot before. The great-grandfather said to his cousin, "Pat, Pat, what kind of a world have we got into? Aven the burds of the woods ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... was repeating his words like a parrot, but she seemed to be speaking, moving as in a dream. Captain Goritz came closer and examined her face in the dim light ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... memory, that, without learning, she could tell in what chapter any text of scripture was contained: on account of this singular property, one Gregory Basset, a rank papist, said she was deranged, and talked as a parrot, wild without meaning. At length, having tried every manner without effect to make her nominally a catholic, they condemned her. After this, one exhorted her to leave her opinions, and go home to her family, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... behind the snowy spray of the fountain, reappear again on the other side, and then vanish in the bushes. I felt as though I had been left alone in the world and were about to be lost forever; I listened for some bird or other creature, and was happy to hear the shriek of a parrot and the hissing of the fountain through the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... stop inflammation. The sun rose high in the heavens. Not a sound was heard except the wild cry of the eagle or kite, blending with the song of the thrush and the mocking-bird, interrupted every now and then by the impudent observation of a stray parrot and the ominous rattle of a huge snake as it wound its way among the leaves. Every moment I expected to hear the grunts and cries of the redskins, as with tomahawk in hand they came eagerly searching about for me. I durst not move to look around. They might come talking carelessly, ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... England the parrot of the sun, is very remarkable: he can erect at pleasure a fine radiated circle of tartan feathers quite round the back of his head from jaw to jaw. The fore-part of his head is white; his back, tail and wings green; and his ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... learning things by rote, and reciting them parrot-like in the schoolroom, rested on the truth that a thing merely read or heard, and never verbally reproduced, contracts the weakest possible adhesion in the mind. Verbal recitation or reproduction is thus a highly important kind ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... picked out the letters and words which compose that classic till I could read it for myself. Earlier than that, "Robinson Crusoe" had been read aloud to me, in an abbreviated form, no doubt. I remember the pictures of Robinson finding the footstep in the sand, and a dance of cannibals, and the parrot. But, somehow, I have never read "Robinson" since: it is a ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... fishing was forbidden on board the Halbrane, and our daily bill of fare profited by the boatswain's trawling lines, to the extreme satisfaction of stomachs weary of salt meat. Our lines brought us goby, salmon, cod, mackerel, conger, mullet, and parrot-fish. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... flask, was the ink-bag distended, with its deep dark sepia—the identical pigment sold under that name in our colour shops, and so extensively used in landscape drawing by the limner. I then dissected and laid open the circular or ring-like brain that surrounds the creature's parrot-like beak, as if its thinking part had no other vocation than simply to take care of the mouth and its pertinents—almost the sole employment, however, of not a few brains of a considerably higher order. I next laid open the huge eyes. They were curious ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... "I have only blank walls before my windows. On the side of the street a pug dog has been barking for an hour, a parrot screaming, and a parroqueet imitating the chirp of sparrows. On the side of the yard the washerwomen are singing, and another parroqueet cries incessantly, 'Shoulder arrms!' How ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... be, yes, ma'am. And at home it is yet. 'Round here I've learned to be like a barroom poll-parrot, ready to answer to most everything. There!" as the door closed after her; "now we can be more private. Set down, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... know the standard of the faith even of the members of the Bonaparte family. Two days before this Christian circle at Madame Napoleon's, Madame de Chateaureine, with three other ladies, visited the Princesse Borghese. Not seeing a favourite parrot they had often previously admired, they inquired what was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in teaching them to recite what they do not understand! whilst, seated on benches, all in their best array, the mammas listen with astonishment to the parrot-like prattle, uttered in solemn cadences, with all the pomp of ignorance and folly. Such exhibitions only serve to strike the spreading fibres of vanity through the whole mind; for they neither teach children to speak fluently, nor behave gracefully. So far from ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... There was nobody i' t' kitchen, but t' spinnin'-wheel were all meshed to bits and there were a smell o' burnin' wool. They went all ower t' house, but they could see nowt o' Throp nor o' Throp's wife, nor o' Throp's wife's chintz-cat that shoo called Nimrod, nor yet o' Throp's parrot that he'd taught to whistle Pop goes t' Weazel. They lated 'em ower t' moors an' along t' beck boddom, but 'twere all for nowt, an' nobody i' Cohen-eead iver set een ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... and alarmed until she saw a big, green parrot in a cage. And the bird was screeching to the limit of its capacity. Mrs. Hobbs could hear it! Should Dorothy throw a mat from the porch ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... his companions rode up to the chief gateway, a grand circular archway, with all the noble though grotesque mouldings, zigzag and cable, dog-tooth and parrot-beak, visages human and diabolic, wherewith the Norman builders loved to surround their doorways. The doors were of solid oak, heavily guarded with iron, and from a little wicket in the midst peered out a cowled head, and instantly ensued ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... There was a parrot in a corner of the dining-room, and, when prayers were over, Mrs. ——— praised it very highly for having been so silent; it being Poll's habit, probably, to break in upon the sacred exercises with unseemly interjections ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... discordant, I peered through the branches of the forest to catch a glimpse of what I had searched for through many hundred miles of wilderness since my boyhood, but what had so far eluded my eager eyes. I felt certain these strange cries must come from the Carolina Parrot, or Parakeet (Conurus Carolinensis), which, though once numerous in all the country west of the Alleghanies as far north as the southern shores of the Great Lakes, has so rapidly diminished in number since 1825, that we find it only as an occasional inhabitant ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... alien coasts, above, Where silver ripples break the stream's Long blue, from some roof-sheltering grove A hidden parrot scolds and screams. ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... by the attraction of antagonism, the fair, gentle, intellectual peasant boy adored the dark, fiery, imperious young patrician who loved, petted, and patronized him only as if he had been a wonderfully learned pig or very accomplished parrot! Bee knew this; but the pure love of her sweet spirit was incapable of jealousy, and when she saw that Ishmael loved Claudia best, she herself saw reason in that for esteeming her cousin higher than she had ever done before! If Ishmael loved Claudia so much, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of our world means lower wages or less of the necessities and luxuries for all the people, and especially for the farmer. You know that it is habit with us of Wall Street to gloat over the doctrine of the 'System,' which the people parrot among themselves, the doctrine that the people at large are not affected by our gambling, because they, the people, having no surplus to gamble with, never come into Wall Street. And yet, knowing all this, you never thought, with all your wisdom and cynicism, ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... purple and fine linen, like the Queen o' Rome,—not that I don't like singin', but the contrary, quite the reverse; but with me it'd be a squawk and nothin' else; and fine feathers may make fine birds for what I care, more like a poll-parrot than a nightingale, and they say you must stick thorns into 'em to make 'em sing; but I guess it'll be t' other way, and my singin'll ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... declaration, certainly, for a young gentleman, and one that he had not, and was never likely to have, the opportunity of proving the truth of. Harry was soon joined by the young ladies, whom the noise of the parrot-house had nearly deafened, and a general resolution was put, and carried by the whole party, Mabel herself not excepted, that fine plumage did not at all make amends for ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... burnished a spur viciously. "Old pleeceman—old son of a—" he retorted with a spiteful grin. "W'y, my old Kissiwasti here knows more abaht drill'n wot you do." He indicated a rather disreputable-looking gray parrot, preening itself in a cage which stood upon ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... for fine rain; and the drip, drip, drip of heavy dew-drops from the broad banana-leaves sounded like a sharp shower. At this hour the birds are wide awake and hungry; a hundred unknown songsters warble their native wood-notes wild. The bush resounds with the shriek of the parrot and the cooing of the ringdove, which reminds me of the Ku-ku-ku (Where, oh, where?) of Umar-i-Khayyam. Its rival is the tsil-fui-fui-fui, or 'hair grown,' meaning that his locks are too long and there is no one ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... petticoat, a cloak, and a gown. I went into the woods and built me a kirk, And all the birds of the air, they helped me to work. The hawk with his long claws pulled down the stone, The dove with her rough bill brought me them home. The parrot was the clergyman, the peacock was the clerk, The bullfinch played the ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... a dead skunk if I didn't offer him ten dollars and a box of cigars fer the bunch; and him jest settin' there laughin' like a plumb fool and tellin' me I didn't need to worry, they'd all vote Republican fer nothin'! Talked like a parrot: 'Vote a Republican! Republican eternal!' Republican! Faugh, he don't know no more why he's a Republican than a yeller dog'd know! I went around to-night, when he was out, thought mebbe I could fix it ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... them were barbed. Their clubs are made of the casuarina, and are powerful weapons. The hand part is indented, and has a small knob, by which the firmness of the grasp is much assisted; and the heavy end is usually carved with some device: One had the form of a parrot's head, with a ruff round the neck; and ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... to many a reputation. It is a habit fostered by club life—as, no doubt, it is fostered in the life of the drawing-room, for neither sex is exempt—to sacrifice the repute of one's absent acquaintance with a light heart, not in malice, but more as a parrot bites the finger that feeds it, in sport, or even in affection. If we backbite our friends, we give them free permission to backbite us, or we know that they do it, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. The biting may not be very severe, and, as a ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... evolution theories, as taken, not from any occult source, but from the ordinary scientific manual accessible to all—from the hypothesis of the latest variation in the habits of species—say, the acquisition of carnivorous habits by the New Zealand parrot, for instance—to the farthest glimpses backwards into Space and Eternity afforded by the "Fire Mist" doctrine, it will be apparent that they all rest on one basis. That basis is, that the impulse once given to a hypothetical Unit ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... met with a very old man and woman, and some little children; they were sitting under a tree by the water-side, and neither party saw the other till they were close together: The Indians showed signs of fear, but did not attempt to run away. The man happened to have nothing to give them but a parrot that he had shot; this he offered, but they refused to accept it, withdrawing themselves from his hand, either through fear or aversion. His stay with them was but short, for he saw several canoes near the beach fishing, and being ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... our exploded caisson. Well, all the satisfaction we got out of the affair, was that "We found out, what the enemy had over there," and we did not stir up that hornet's nest again. Occasionally, they would plug at us, but we would lie low and not reply. One of their 24-lb. rifled parrot shells ricochetted over from the front one day with out exploding. Some of the men got it unscrewed the percussion fuse from its point and poured out a lot of powder, then dug out some more with a sharp stick, until they thought it was about empty. Then private Dan Kelly, ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... strange-colored wings,—migration had begun. Now, if the bird-student wishes not to go mad with problems she cannot solve, she will be wise to fold her camp-stool and return to the haunts of the squawking English sparrow and the tireless canary, the loud-voiced parrot, and ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... fish—groper, the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with fibre, the binding being made impervious to water by ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... sub-prefect was nominated, the Baron de Larsonniere, ex-consul in America, who, besides his wife, had his sister-in-law and her three grown daughters with him. They were often seen on their lawn, dressed in loose blouses, and they had a parrot and a negro servant. Madame Aubain received a call, which she returned promptly. As soon as she caught sight of them, Felicite would run and notify her mistress. But only one thing was capable of arousing her: a letter ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... man, you are a comedian by instinct, and will probably live to be an ornament to the theatrical profession; but it is my duty to repress premature manifestations of your genius. Parrot, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... next door, they're quiet enough; but they have a parrot, and he's in the room just across from this, and he chatters so often that it is sometimes very annoying. Look over, ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... responded John Herlihy, weightily; but something in his cool eyes, grey and wise as a parrot's, impelled Larry, in his new-born sense ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... possessed of great beauty. Beholding the Apsara in those woods, the illustrious Rishi Vyasa, O Yudhishthira, became suddenly smitten with desire. The Apsara (Ghritachi), seeing the Rishi's heart troubled by desire, transformed herself into a she-parrot and came to that spot. Although he beheld the Apsara disguised in another form, the desire that had arisen in the Rishi's heart (without disappearing) spread itself over every part of his body. Summoning all his patience, the ascetic endeavoured to suppress that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... startlingly like the cries of children and the moans of pain, the sparkling orbs and tortuous stealthiness of the snake; and the hints at metempsychosis are obvious. Standing face to face with a tiger, an anaconda, a wild cat, a monkey, a gazelle, a parrot, a dove, we alternately shudder with horror and yearn with sympathy, now expecting to see the latent devils throw off their disguise and start forth in their own demoniac figures, now waiting for the metamorphosing ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... decorated with feathers of lively colours, and having the majestic appearance of a fighting parrot, no sooner understood (he understood English perfectly) that the ship was 'The Beauty,' Capt. Boldheart, than he fell upon his face on the deck, and could not be persuaded to rise until the captain had lifted ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... This custom of frightening the cattle and making them run is called dhor jagana or bichkana, that is, to wake up or terrify the cattle. Its meaning is obscure, but it is said to preserve the cattle from disease during the year. In Raipur the women make an image of a parrot in clay at the Diwali and place it on a pole and go round to the different houses, singing and dancing round the pole, and receiving presents of rice and money. They praise the parrot as the bird who carries messages from a lover to ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... her dress is yellow, can't you see, man? You've got no sense of colour," said the candid Bertie. "I believe you'd just as soon be a green parrot with a red head ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... horrible parrot. Benis insists on keeping it. Some soldier friend of his left it to him. A really terrible bird. And its language is disgraceful. It doesn't know anything but slang. Not even 'Polly wants a cracker.' You'll hardly believe me, but it says, ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... avaricious, certainly not. But he was not a hermit of the holiest kind. He began to save money and acquire stock. He had not been long on the hill before he owned a horse, two dogs, a cat, a native bear, a magpie, and a parrot, and he paid nothing for any of them except the horse. One day he met Mr. McCarthy talking to Bob Atkins, a station hand, who had a horse to sell—a filly, rising three. McCarthy was a good judge of horses, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... to this ridiculous scene, Mrs. Waddel's grey parrot, who was not the least important personage in her establishment, having been presented to her by her sailor son, fraternised with the prostrate lad, and echoed his laughter in ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... parrot, ma'am? Have ye never a parrot to keep ye free and give ye laughter every hour? Buy my parrot, lady. Just from the Gold Coast. He'll talk ye Spanish, Flemish or good city tongue. Buy my parrot at ten crowns, and so cheap, lady!" So spoke the ear-ringed sailor, who might ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... tail on the piazza floor, but there was no other answer to the call. "Caroline!" The insistent voice rang louder; it was a very determined voice. A sleepy Angora cat scowled reprovingly at its violence; a gray and pink parrot mimicked its hortatory note, but after that the midsummer silence settled down again. Only the bees droned heavily among the heavy ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... They are not political adventurers who are eager to remodel the world by rule-of-thumb, who are proposing to make the infinite complexities of scientific civilisation and the multitudinous phenomena of great cities conform to a few barbarous formulas which any moderately intelligent parrot could repeat in ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... Marianne, who was a very little girl, began presently to nod and smile in return, persuaded that a lady who smiled so much, could not be ill-natured. Besides, Mrs. Theresa's parlour door was sometimes left more than half open, to afford a view of a green parrot. Marianne sometimes passed very slowly by this door. One morning it was left quite wide open, when she stopped to say "Pretty Poll"; and immediately Mrs. Tattle begged she would do her the honour to walk in and see "Pretty Poll," at the same time taking the liberty to offer her ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... parrot, who had been half asleep in the corner, awoke on Lady Castlefort's pronouncing, in an elevated tone, "All, all!" and conceiving himself in some way called upon, answered, "Poll! Poll! bit o'sugar Poll!" ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... you won't bore me with that brat while I am here," he exclaimed, "chattering aphorisms like a parrot. I can't stand ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... an imported Malaga jackass," he said between his teeth, "I'd have you know that I'm related on my mother's side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and where I come from we aren't accustomed to being ridden over roughshod by any parrot-mouthed, pig-headed mule in a pop-gun pea-shooter ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... with greater effect the principal subject within. The angel and the Holy Virgin are clothed in flowing white drapery, but the wings of the angel glitter with a play of soft and brilliant colour, imitating those of the green parrot. The heads are noble and well painted; the furniture of the room is executed with great truth, as well as the view through the arcade which forms the background of the Virgin's chamber, into the streets of a town, one of which we recognize ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... also eight-inch columbiads, rifled forty-two pounders, and Brook guns to throw flat-headed projectiles (General Ripley told me that these Brook guns, about which so much is said, differ but little from the Blakely cannon); also there are parrot guns and Dahlgrens; in fact, a general assortment of every species of ordnance except Whitworths and Armstrongs. But the best gun in the fort is a fine new eleven-inch gun, which had just been fished up from the wreck of the Keokuk; the sister gun from the ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... we looked a little closer at the ogre as he stood With his great red eyeballs glowing like two torches in a wood, And his mighty speckled belly and his dreadful clutching claws And his nose—a horny parrot's beak, his whiskers and his jaws; Yet he seemed so sympathetic, and we saw two tears descend, As he murmured, "I'm so ugly, but I've lost my dearest friend! I tell you most lymphatic'ly, I've yearnings in my soul,"— ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... grey parrot had called "Clarissa" a dozen times at least, and was listening with his cunning head on one side for footsteps on the stairs. Breakfast was ready; an urn, shaped something like a sepulchral monument, was steaming on the table, and near it stood an old china ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... of the back, indicated with silver cord, are each filled with a different design. Beginning at the top, these are: a rose, a parrot with a red fruit, a double rose, a lion, and a lily. The edges ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport
... outrage on religion. The members of the tribunal demanded "who the boy was with the bleeding nose?" and "why were halberdiers admitted?" Veronese replied that they were the sort of servants a rich and magnificent host would have about him. He was then asked why he had introduced the buffoon with a parrot on his hand. He replied that he really thought only Christ and His Apostles were present, but that when he had a little space over, he adorned it with imaginary figures. This defence of the vast and crowded canvas did not commend itself, and he was asked if he really thought that at the Last ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... the night, I felt assured, from the general character of the vessel and her manoeuvres, that I should soon encounter the rebel steamer Alabama. Being able to work but four guns on the side of the Hatteras—two short 32 pounders, one 30 pounder rifled Parrot gun, and one 20 pounder rifled gun,—I concluded to close with her that my guns might be effective, ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... leaves. I have been looking for several minutes at a tree, in which were scores of small green parrots, making an incessant noise, without being able to distinguish one; and I recollect once in Australia firing at what I thought was a solitary "green leek" parrot amongst a bunch of leaves, and to my astonishment five "green leeks" fell to the ground, the whole bunch of apparent leaves having been composed of them. The bills of even the smallest parrots must, however, be very useful to them to guard the entrances to their nests ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... as he sat in her theatre box Between the acts, "What beastly weather! How like a parrot the lover talks— And the lady is tame, and the villain stalks— I hope ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... abhor the light, But here in this their latest tract Your parrot Press by oversight Has deviated into fact; If not (at present) strictly true, It shows a sound anticipation Born of the fear that's father ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... less rude than the hut itself. One of the bed places was occupied by a sleepy, not bad-looking young fellow, clad in greasy red shirt, greasy breeches and boots, and whose shabby plated spurs were tangled in the dirty blankets. He was lying on his back, playing with a beautiful little parrot. Opposite him, sitting up in his bunk, was another young fellow, with a singularly coarse, repulsive countenance, long yellow hair, half-way down his back, clothed like the other in greasy breeches. This last one was puffing at a short black pipe, in an affected way, making far more noise ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... her eyes were interested, her face more alert than usual, her very poise more alive. She had found a new interest in life, like keeping a parrot, or learning bridge, or getting religion. It was what they had always tried to ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... in a harsh, croaking voice, 'One eye!' Thereupon two or three queer people poked their heads out of the coach window. There was one old woman with false teeth, in an unpleasant state of decay, and a voice like a parrot. 'One eye!' she shrieked, as she gazed on me with an eye as stony as the coachman. A pale, simpering miss smirked in my face, and cried, 'One eye!' and a military gentleman, with a ghastly frown, hissed forth the same words. I should have scrutinized the queer coach and the queer people closer, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... parrot, called in England the parrot of the sun, is very remarkable: he can erect at pleasure a fine radiated circle of tartan feathers quite round the back of his head from jaw to jaw. The fore-part of his head is ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... soup. Each arm of this savage animal with its double row of button-like suction discs closed upon any object brought within reach with a grip nothing could escape. The Indians tell me that devil-fish live mostly on crabs, mussels, and clams, the shells of which they easily crunch with their strong, parrot-like beaks. That was a wild, stormy, rainy night. How the rain soaked us in ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... wish my—Mr. Vandersee—would come!" panted Mrs. Goring. "What can I say to you, Captain? I understand, perfectly, your emotions. Yet I can only repeat what seems to you a parrot cry, that Miss Sheldon shall not suffer one jot at Leyden's hands, except the suffering that must come with disillusionment. I say it again, and I swear it by the God that shall kill me if ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Just listen to that crack; he'll make them think he's going to take up a collection for the foreign missions. You can't get seventeen cents. It's been worked to death. Come off, come off your perch, you poll parrot! Come off! Well you ought to be studying your primer instead of preaching; you don't know as ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... crane to hoist up, and the captain the bale of goods to be hoisted. He carried his hands behind his back, with two fingers twisted together; and his chief difficulty appeared to be to reduce his own stride to the parrot march of the captain. His features were sharp and lean as was his body, and wore every appearance of a ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... keep a cat-bird in captivity, as it soon pines and dies; or it would certainly be preferred to a parrot, on account of its far superior talent of imitation. Lejoillie refrained from killing any of our amusing friends, who remained watching us all the ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston |
