"Tail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a long way, he wath in very bad condition, he wath lame and pretty well blind. He went round as if he wath a theeking for a child he know'd; and then he comed to me, and thood on hith two fore-legth, weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith tail and died. Thquire, that dog ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... brigantine's company as one of those suspicious logs stirred into reptilian life. A great, warty snout jutted upwards, with a swift half-turn towards the intruder, and the yellow water was swept into a furious whirlpool as the saurian secured leverage to turn by a convulsion of his powerful tail. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... up courage, and in another half hour they were successful; Roy seated on the donkey's back, and Dudley holding firmly to her tail. ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... King's house, to see "Horace;" this the third day of its acting—a silly tragedy; but Lacy hath made a farce of several dances—between each act, one: but his words are but silly, and invention not extraordinary, as to the dances; only some Dutchmen come out of the mouth and tail of a Hamburgh sow. Thence, not much pleased with the play, set them at home in the Strand; and my wife and I home, and there to do a little business at the Office, and so home to supper and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... persevered, But all to noa avail, It swallow'd all th' mait it could get, An wod ha swallow'd th' pail; But Billy tuk gooid care to stand O'th' tother side o'th' rail; But fat it didn't gain as mich As what 'ud greeas its tail. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... clad in coats of mail, Shone with a most attractive lustre; Strong claws, long limbs, a longer tail— They pinned their faith to bulk and bluster; They laid their eggs in every land And hid them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... it gave me great fright; I thought it was a serious matter. But I warrant you frighten even Schott's men, for you look wild enough, especially on holy days with your skipping gait! But it is very improper for such a soldier to smear himself with civet. You want to be a regular silk tail, and you think that if only you manage to please the girls, it is all right. If you were only as taking a fellow as I am, I should not be so provoked. You have so many loves that it would take you a month ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... their eyes melting at you, and they thinking you're the champion hero of the world.... And all the fiddlers fiddling the finest of dance music: hornpipes like 'The Birds among the Trees' and 'The Green Fields of America'; reels like 'The Swallow-tail Coat' and 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley'; slip-jigs would make a cripple agile as a hare.... And you go asleep with no mate to wake you in a blow, but the sound of an old piper crooning to you as a cummer croons. And the birds will wake you with their ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... the Death of Saint Louis, having been submitted to the Cardinal-Archbishop, had been refused by His Eminence, because of the unseemly expression on the face of Philippe the Bold who was laughing as he watched the saintly King, his father, dying on a bed of straw. Montalent could not make head or tail of it; he was furious, and wanted to take proceedings against the Cardinal-Archbishop. His painting was returned to him; he unpacked it, gazed at it in gloomy silence, and suddenly shouted: 'It's true—Philippe the Bold ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... that wild birds make their strongest appeal to the human mind; in fact, the words "birds" and "spring" seem almost synonymous, so accustomed are we to associate one with the other. All the wild riotous singing, all the brave flashing of wings and tail, all the mad dashing in and out among the thickets or soaring upward above the tree-tops, are impelled by the perfectly natural instinct of mating and rearing young. And where, pray, dwells the soul so poor that it does not thrill in response to the appeals of the ardent lover, even if ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... the Citizen Corps, in their blue tail coats with white facings, run here and there, and with their long swords are in the way both of themselves ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... a fool—and he often is—he is the first of fools!" said the Princess. "No ape—no baboon hanging by its tail to a tree—looks such a fool as a man-fool. For a man-fool has had all the opportunities of education and learning bestowed upon him; this great universe, with its daily lessons of the natural and the supernatural, is his book laid open ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... and brought up wine, Terry heigho, &c. First come in was a nimble bee, Heigho, &c. With his fiddle upon his knee, Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a creeping snail, Heigho, &c. With his bagpipes under his tail, Terry heigho, &c. Next came in was a neighbour's pig, Heigho, &c. 'Pray, good people, will ye play us a jig?' Terry heigho, &c. Next come in was a neighbour's hen, Heigho, &c. Took the fiddler by the wing, Terry ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... ugly at first, Julian. When I heard Faulkner's deposition I could see no way out of it whatever. I could not suppose that a dying man would lie, and, absolutely sure of your innocence as I was, could make neither head nor tail of the matter. Is this the mansion? You certainly have ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... the pouring rain at his Airedale, who was pulling at his trouser leg with sharp, determined jerks. The dog looked far more like a seal than a terrier, his hair dripping water at every point, while a cascade streamed from his tail. The boy was every whit as wet. Here and there, through the slanting lines of rain, could be seen the smoky gleams of camp-fires, around which, shivering, gathered the hundreds of people who had been rendered homeless by the ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... was born in the year 95, and was thus five years younger than Caesar and eleven years younger than Cicero. He was the great-grandson, as was said above, of the stern rugged censor who hated Greek, preferred the teaching of the plough-tail and the Twelve Tables to the philosophy of Aristotle, disbelieved in progress, and held by the maxims of his father—the last, he of the Romans of the old type. The young Marcus affected to take his ancestor for a pattern. He resembled him as nearly as a modern Anglican ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... customs, manner, and behavior—according to the experience of various religious, who agree that they are not of the pure race of the Indians, but mestizos as above stated. And even in five clans of Mangyanes who are said to exist in the island of Mindoro, there is one which has a little tail, as do the monkeys; and many religious who have assured me of it, as witnesses. In Valer, on the coast opposite us, a woman was found not long ago who had a long tail, as was told me by the present missionary; and he was unable ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... on your tail and carry it that way," said Little Black Sambo. "So I could," said the Tiger. "Give it to me, and I won't eat you this time." So he got poor Little Black Sambo's beautiful Green Umbrella, and went away saying, "Now I'm the ...
— The Story of Little Black Sambo, and The Story of Little Black Mingo • Helen Bannerman
... irrational fear; it is of little use then to array our advantages against our disadvantages, our blessings against our sufferings, as Michael Finsbury did with such small effect in The Wrong Box; our only chance is to turn tail altogether, and try to set some other dominant instinct at work; while we remember, we shall continue to suffer; our best chance lies in forgetting, and we can only do that by calling some ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... live again! I read my own books, think my own thoughts. I belong to myself. No one says, 'What's the matter?' 'Where are you going?' 'What makes you grave—or gay?' I sit and chat with my 'odd-fish.' I go to all kinds of meetings and discuss all kinds of 'isms, and have no tag-tail constantly asking 'Why?' 'Why?' or 'Tell me!' It's the little things that grind. The next time I try to help a young girl, I'll not risk losing my influence with her by taking her into my house. Do you know, Dave, I sometimes feel that Mary ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... grinds lentils in the quirn, the squirrel is sitting with his tail up and with his wee hands he's picking up the broken grains of lentils and crunching them. ...
— The Post Office • Rabindranath Tagore
... with this mild diversion. About an hour after daybreak, I came upon a barn upon which the legend "Post Office Savings Bank" was inscribed. A big Newfoundland dog lay on the threshold, and although he wagged his tail in a not unfriendly manner, he did not seem disposed to take any special notice of me. There was a passage between the barn and some stables at the back and I went down to prospect the latter. What luck if there had been a horse for me there! ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... Lucilla's air, spirited when she defended, soft when she grieved, was quite irresistible; so she gained her point, and felt restored to herself by the exercise of power, and by making her wonted impression. Since one little dog had wagged his little tail, she no longer doubted 'If I be I;' yet this only rendered her more nervously desirous of obtaining the like recognition from the other, and she positively wearied after one of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rigged with a weight underslung to keep it upright, and a tin can, painted white, set on a short spar in one end of the keg. A light line was attached to a bridle, and the mark lowered over the stern, where it rode, bobbing in the tail of the schooner's wake, thirty fathoms from the taffrail where the ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... Master Squeers, who, coming to his father's assistance, harassed the enemy in the rear—moved not, hand or foot; but Mrs Squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of her partner's coat, and endeavoured to drag him from his infuriated adversary; while Miss Squeers, who had been peeping through the keyhole in expectation of a very different scene, darted in at the very beginning of the attack, and after launching ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... wobbly, bovine infants were carefully inspected. After supper they sat down before the fire, very tired, but the nearest happy they had been in a year. The dogs were lying about them, and the thump, thump of first one tail and then another told the story of canine content, while the kittens walked over ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... to his kennel, sees his master in the distance, a slight motion of the tail indicates his but faint hope that he is about to be let out. A much more decided wagging of the tail, passing by and by into lateral undulations of the body, follows his master's nearer approach. When ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... which Monsieur and Madame Giraud were ensconced. Somewhat agitated by a slight flutter behind the folds, which made him fancy, on the sudden panic, that Rosalie was creeping that way, the epicier made an abrupt pirouette, and the hook on which the curtains were suspended caught his left coat-tail, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but just as he was leaving the house, a cabriolet, beautifully painted, of a brilliant green colour picked out with a somewhat cream-coloured white, and drawn by a showy Holstein horse of tawny tint, with a flowing and milk-white tail and mane, and caparisoned in harness almost as precious as Mr. Levison's sideboard, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... all was over was Fergus aware of the escapes he had had. A bullet had cut away an ornament from his headdress, one of his reins had been severed at a distance of an inch or two from his hand, a bullet had pierced the tail of his coatee and buried itself in the cantle of his saddle, and the iron guard of his claymore had been pierced. However, on his return to the king after carrying a despatch, he was able to curb his own excitement and that of his horse, and to make the formal military salute ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... now, and a moment later he came into sight on a moonlit part of the path. The children could see that it was a big, shaggy white dog, who wagged his tail in greeting as he walked ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... imitation of the nurses, it was so pleasant to assume the air of one who walked with David daily, when to my chagrin I saw Mary approaching with quick stealthy steps, and already so near me that flight would have been ignominy. Porthos, of whom she had hold, bounded toward me, waving his traitorous tail, but she slowed on seeing that I had observed her. She had run me down ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... the look, you might expect in those of a bound woman who sees a child at the stake just before the fire is lighted—immeasurable pain, pity, appeal. I tried the water, unconsciously; it was all right. I stepped into the gangway and glanced back. Our tail-lights were "in" and the white light of the switch flashed safely there, and we had backed in any way. I glanced ahead. The switch light was white, the target showed main line plainly, for my headlight shone on it full and clear. What could be the ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... Such a law "is a barbarous souvenir to make the country remember its bloody dealings with its black brother." "Though slavery is dead, its spirit yet lives; 'the serpent's head is crushed, but his tail still writhes, and sometimes it lashes out spitefully.'" We who are engaged in teaching in Orange Park are glad that the American Missionary Association is to test, and is already testing, the validity of this law. ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 1, January, 1896 • Various
... rump of young Beef, as it comes from the Butcher, and take out all the bones, excepting the tip of it towards the tail that is all fat, which you cannot take out, without spoiling or defacing or breaking it. But take out all the thick bones towards the Chine, and the thick Sinews, that are on the outer sides of the flesh; (which will never become tender with boiling) so that ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... frowned, with conscious effort; but that was only because he knew, in his own soul, how loyally he loved the under-dog, let justice go as it might. Then there was Eli Pike, occupying himself in pulling a rein from beneath the horse's tail. These two hated warfare, and were nervously conscious that, should they fail in firmness, Ebenezer would deal with them. Mary went swiftly up to the wagon, and laid one hand ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... learn the cause of the barking, and he sees a man, fat and tall, with nine heads and he carries many kinds of cakes. The man says, "Now take these cakes, and if you do not make Sangasang for my mistress, at the river, you shall die. You must find a rooster with long tail and spurs; you must mix its blood with rice and put it in the river at dawn when ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... rudiment—the vermiform appendage of the caecum—which is not only useless, but is sometimes a cause of disease and death in man; yet in many vegetable feeding animals it is very long, and even in the orang-utan it is of considerable length and convoluted. So, man possesses rudimentary bones of a tail concealed beneath the skin, and, in some rare cases, this forms a ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... light. Shaken by our steady persistence in our story, and astounded by our want of respect, the defection of his follower utterly cowed him. After staring wildly about him for a moment, he fairly turned tail, and sat down on an old box by the door, where with his hands on his knees, he looked out before him with such an expression of chap-fallen bewilderment as nearly discovered our plot by throwing us into ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... comes in the Lion's heart, Denebola, the tip of his tail; While, between them in order, Merak and Dubhe, the pointers, Point to ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... investigated while even the buttons were probed to make certain they concealed nothing of a dangerous nature. In a few minutes they discovered my silent companion, the tiny camera, which I had deftly removed from its secret hiding-place to a tail pocket in my coat, as I did not wish to have it found in its hiding-place, which would have been far more incriminating. I had done this while coming down the steps to the cells. Also I had extracted the exposed film and had placed this in a spot where it was absolutely ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... as he spoke, and, bringing round his tail, he gently brushed away a falling tear. Unfortunately for him, TIM HEALY present. TIM jumped up, and fell upon his ancient chief, flouting his counsel, and repudiating his right to leadership. Effect upon Brer FOX something like that which followed on the flight of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... the insolence of attendants, and OEdipus kills Laius. The brother of Laius, Creon, succeeds to the throne of Thebes. The country around is vexed with a terrible monster, with the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a lion, called the Sphinx, who has learned from the Muses a riddle, which she proposed to the Thebans, and on every failure to resolve it one of them was devoured. But no person can solve the riddle. The king offers his crown and his sister Jocasta, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... like a furnace, and straight as a rail from tail to muzzle. Black and white with sweat, he jerked along at a terrible toppling stagger. Only those vice-like legs and hands plucking, plucking, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... honour of their ancestors and make offerings of halwa [36] to them and place lamps and scent on their tombs. They swear by the pig and abstain from eating its flesh. The dog is considered an unclean animal and its tail, ears and tongue are especially defiling. If the hair of a dog falls on the ground they cannot pray in that place because the souls of the prophets cannot come there. To see a dog flapping its ears is a bad omen, and a person starting on a journey should postpone his departure. They esteem ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... is broken before long by a peculiar and suggestive cry. We do not hear it yet ourselves, but Stalker, our black cat and familiar, has caught the well-known accents, and with a characteristic crooning noise, and a stiff, perpendicular erection of tail, he sidles towards the door, demanding, as plainly as possible, to be let out. Yes, it is the cats-meat man. 'Ca' me-e-et—me-yet—me-e-yet!' fills the morning air, and arouses exactly thirty responsive feline voices—for there is a cat to every house—and points ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... wearing a dog collar of nickel and red leather, issued from the coat-room and picked her way across the floor. Evidently she was in a mood of the most ingratiating friendliness, and as one after another of the departing traders spoke to her, raised her tail in the air and arched her back against the legs of the empty chairs. The janitor put in an appearance, lowering the tall colored windows with a long rod. A noise of hammering and the scrape of saws began to issue from ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... later, breathing hard from his exertion. "Maybe the loco driver'll whistle for brakes." He laughed with a pleasant, half humorous chuckle. "If that happens, why—why I guess the train'll be chasing back on its tracks to pick up its lost tail." ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... saw he attracted attention in the street. He wanted to fight all the other animals, and attacked everything from a horse to a milk-pan. It was when I was giving him a bath that I noticed that his tail was beginning to bunch out at the end and his under-jaw was growing pointed. Then the awful thought came to me—it was not a dog, but a lion! This was a dreadful moment, for I loved him, and he was fond of me, and I could not part with him. He grew and grew—his body ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... newspapers mention her being at Cheltenham. "There are so many stars and comets thrown out of their orbits, and whirling about the world at present, that a little star like Madame Bonaparte attracts but slight attention, even though she draw after her so sparkling a tail as the Wiggins family." In another letter he exclaims: "The world is surely topsy-turvy, and its inhabitants shaken out of place: emperors and kings, statesmen and philosophers, Bonaparte, Alexander, Johnson, and the Wigginses, all strolling about the ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... do eat fish," Ethan remarked, as they walked along together; "I've seen a big buck 'coon snatch one out of the water. Some people say they bob the end of their striped tail on the surface as they sit on a log, and in that way lure a fish close in. As I never saw such a thing you'll have to take the story with a grain ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... was, surely enough, a mile and a half away, now a large black body showing above the waves, and leaving a track of dazzling white as its great tail beat the water ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... or moderate sized salmon, season it with salt, pepper, and powdered mace rubbed on it both outside and in. Skewer it with the tail turned round and put to the mouth. Lay it on a stand or trivet in a deep dish or pan, and stick it over with bits of butter rolled in flour. Put it into the oven, and baste it occasionally, while ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... enraged man, "explain! in the place where I come from our jokes don't need to be explained. You ring-tail gibbering ape, come out here on the sidewalk, and ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... to the attention shown him by the important person. Every attention shown him by an important person put him into such an ecstasy as may be observed in a fawning little dog when its master pats it, strokes it, and scratches under its ears. It wags its tail, shrinks, wriggles, and, straightening its ears, madly runs in a circle. Maslenikoff was ready to do the same thing. He did not notice the grave expression on Nekhludoff's face, nor hear what he was saying, but irresistibly dragged him into ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... power. There were some stunted bushes a little out of his track, and he made for them, hoping to find water. In this he was disappointed; so taking a sparing pull at his water-bottle, he crawled under one of them, seeking its shade. There was a slight rustle, and a snake rose on its tail, and darted at him with its forked tongue, but, just ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... also by the Star [kappa], of the fourth Magnitude, in the right wing of the Swan; and by the Star [omicron], of the fifth Magnitude, in the left hand of Cepheus, rightly delineated; and by the Stars in the tail of the South-Fish; and is at right angles with the Colurus AEquinoctiorum found above: and so it hath all the characters, of the ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... Comet must stop, if only they understand spoken language,—and among others, the engineman of Comet will understand it; and Comet will not run into that wreck of worlds which gives the order,—with the nucleus of hot iron and his tail of five hundred tons of coal.—So, of the signals which fog-bells can give, attached to light-houses. How excellent to have them proclaim through the darkness, "I am Wall"! Or of signals for steamship-engineers. When our friends were ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... by Bruce, who, with his friends, had instantly sprung at the ropes, and cut them in half a dozen places, while the great heavy horses, frightened out of their propriety, turned tail and bolted away at a ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... clown did! The familiar way in which he spoke to Mr. Brooks! The practical jokes that he played on him! Then in trotted old Diamond to join in the fun, and here was a chance for the clown to take a lesson in riding. He mounted by climbing up the tail, and then he rode sitting with his back to the horse's head. He tried standing upright whilst Diamond was galloping, but could not keep his balance, and fell forward with his arms clasped tightly round the animal's neck. In the end Diamond, growing ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... year. I have know the social sparrow, or "hairbird" to build under a shed, in a tuft of hay that hung down, through the loose flooring, from the mow above. It usually contents itself with half a dozen stalks of dry grass and a few long hair from a cow's tail loosely arranged on the branch of an apple-tree. The rough-winged swallow builds in the wall and in old stone-heaps, and I have seen the robin build in similar localities. Others have found its nest in old, abandoned wells. The house wren will build ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... of selling my hair at first, but as I went along I kept thinking what I could do, and feeling as if I'd like to dive into some of the rich stores and help myself. In a barber's window I saw tails of hair with the prices marked, and one black tail, not so thick as mine, was forty dollars. It came to me all of a sudden that I had one thing to make money out of, and without stopping to think, I walked in, asked if they bought hair, and what they would ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... had faced, however, equalled this present incident. The black panther, its gleaming eyes fixed upon the stalled motor car and the young folk in it, crouched for only a moment, with lashing tail ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... Pomeranian Giallo within fondling distance, the poet, seated in his arm-chair, fired comments upon everything. Giallo's opinion was asked on all subjects, and Landor said of him that an approving wag of his tail was worth all the praise of all the "Quarterlies ". It was Giallo who led ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... joke at the good effects of matrimony—praised a cat couchant, worked in worsted by the venerable hand of the eldest matron—offered to procure her a real cat of the true Persian breed, black ears four inches long, with a tail like a squirrel's; and then slid, all at once, into the unauthorized invitation of the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the frightened pony lay coiled a gigantic rattlesnake, its ugly head and tail raised and its rattles singing ominously. Two more steps and the pony ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... good, transplanting them, it may be, into the sun, and to punish here the wicked with the demons that have allured them; then the globe of the earth will begin to burn and will be perhaps a comet. This fire will last for aeons upon aeons. The tail of the comet is intended by the smoke which will rise incessantly, according to the Apocalypse, and this fire will be hell, or the second[134] death whereof Holy Scripture speaks. But at last hell will ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... for the last three days he had attempted to get out of his harness at the bottom of the hill, there was no hair at all. But he had a good-looking eye; he had good sound feet; good bone, though his tail was hardly up to Cocker. Most of it, no doubt, was now part and parcel ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... the sword of the Duke of Savoy and the proud monarch of France? Why were the Presbyterians chased like the partridge over the highlands of Scotland—the Methodists pumped, and stoned, and pelted with rotten eggs—the Quakers incarcerated in filthy prisons, beaten, whipped at the cart's tail, banished and hung? Because they dared to speak the truth, to break the unrighteous laws of their country, and chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, "not accepting deliverance," even under the gallows. Why were Luther and Calvin persecuted ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... creditor. He is a man of figures; he lives by the point of his pen; in his house even the cat learns two letters and a half. He is a versatile creature, and where there are no tigers he will become a shikari; but he is no more to be trusted than a crow or a snake without a tail. One of the failings sometimes imputed to the educated Indian is attacked in the saying, "Drinking comes to a Kayasth with his ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... monsters,—each "as large as a calf, with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body, over the head and between the legs, ending like that of a fish." Such is the account which the worthy Jesuit gives of these manitous, or Indian gods. [Footnote: The rock where these ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... the silent negro who was driving the buggy hailed an opaque body somewhere ahead of them in the gloom. In response to his cry, it turned upon them a luminous disc which regarded them like a malignant eye out of the unfathomable night. As they came closer, John saw that it was the tail-light of an immense automobile, larger and more magnificent than any he had ever seen. Its body was of gleaming metal richer than nickel and lighter than silver, and the hubs of the wheels were studded with iridescent geometric figures of green and yellow—John ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... and of their own private foes, dancing the while and singing in a measured strain. But the Hellenes were much vexed to think that their foes had only been rendered bolder, while the Hellenes who had formed part of the expedition had turned tail and fled, in spite of their numbers; a thing which had not happened previously during the whole expedition. So Xenophon called a meeting of the Hellenes and spoke as follows: "Soldiers, do not in any wise be cast down ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... waddlers took, one was a hopeless slip, and the spectacle presented by the unhappy birds in their effort to get along at a good round pace was ludicrous beyond resistance. They sprawled and fell, they staggered up again with indignant wagging of head and tail, they rushed forward only to slip more desperately; now one leg failed them, now the other, now both at once. And all the time they kept up a cackle of annoyance; they looked about them with foolish eyes of amazement and indignation; they wondered, doubtless, what ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... the plough-tail, I wonder, this mute inglorious heir-at-law? or shall I find an heiress with brawny arms meekly churning butter? or shall I discover the last of the Meynells taking his rest in some lonely churchyard, not to be awakened by earthly voice proclaiming the tidings ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... sticking to it. The way to catch a pigeon is to put salt on his tail, you know," answered Dory, laughing. "She is beginning to play her game now. If she had gone to the north-west, instead of to the west, I might believe she had given it up; and I should be ready to head the ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... streak over the eye are brownish-white; the fore neck and breast are reddish-brown; the flanks and vent black, with white tips to the feathers; the coverts of the wings are dark chestnut-brown, and the tail-feathers and quills dusky, without any margins; the legs are dull brown, and the irides dark red. This species is very common, during the summer, through all the latitudes of the United States, keeping ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... Daddy Jake, "he usen fur ter see in de daytime des same ez he do now in de night; an' one time he wuz in his kitchen er cookin' uv his dinner, wen hyear come de Peafowl er struttin' by. Well, in dem days de Peafowl he nuber had none er dem eyes on his tail wat he got now; his tail wuz des ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... all seated at the supper-table, which was now decorated with flowers, with baskets of fruit, with plates of bonbons, and with favors in the form of dolls tricked out like little ladies of the Renaissance. The servants wore tail-coats and white-cotton gloves. Leonello and Leonardo, Lina and Laura, even Antonio, had on the evening-dress appropriate to the twentieth century. But my brain reeled indeed when I saw Fiammetta, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... said Daragh, pushing her back into her seat. "The lights will be on again in two flips of a dead lamb's tail!" ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... he, "that you are now a man of parts, as they say, I can quite see. You seem to have read a powerful lot of things that do not come our way up here. But let us understand each other. I cannot make head or tail of these far-fetched new-fangle notions you, somehow or other, have fallen in love with—your James Fox, your Wilberforce, your Adam Smith, they may be very fine fellows, but to my humble thinking they're but ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... ugly curs at evening made Their hideous wail, Mutely thy musing eye surveyed Bright themes for thought around displayed, Perched on thy tail. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... while her father was still alive. She had seen there a panther, and the wicked, graceful, writhing body of the beast had frightened her more than the bulk of the elephant or the roaring of the lion. This great cat, crouching close to the snow, its tail sweeping from side to side, all its muscles knotted for another spring, struck Ruth dumb ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... part in water, part upon the land; Or, as where dwells the greedy German boor, The beaver settles watching for his prey; So on the rim, that fenc'd the sand with rock, Sat perch'd the fiend of evil. In the void Glancing, his tail upturn'd its venomous fork, With sting like scorpion's arm'd. Then thus my guide: "Now need our way must turn few steps apart, Far as to that ill beast, who ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... three dozen hard-shell crabs for twenty-five minutes. Let them cool, then remove the top shell and tail; quarter the remainder, and pick out the meat carefully with a nut-picker or kitchen fork. The large claws should not be forgotten, for they contain a dainty morsel; the fat that adheres to the top shell should not be overlooked. Cut up an amount of celery equal in ...
— Fifty Salads • Thomas Jefferson Murrey
... cook them. Then Mark called the cat, saying, "Come, Mrs. Cat, come and look at your dinner." Down came the cat, with the table cloth still on her shoulders, tasted the first and last fish, smacked her lips, flourished her whiskers and tail, and cried, "Catipal! How many kinds you have caught! I must make a catalogue of them;" and then, to Mark's great amazement, she took the carving knife and cut off one of her paws, and handed it to him, saying, "Take this cat's paw: when you feel ill, weary, or are growing old, touch this ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... his chance, darted from his herd and down the valley. A vaquero started after him; but Reinaldo, anxious to display his skill in horsemanship, and being still mounted, called to the vaquero to stop, dashed after the animal, caught it by its tail, spurred his horse ahead, let go the tail at the right moment, and, amidst shouts of "Coliar!" "Coliar!" the bull was ignominiously rolled in the dust, then meekly preceded Reinaldo back ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... strength of all, to land it, although it was floating on the water. They saw (and told me of it) a monster of incredible size, the largest that I have ever seen there, or heard of. The animal measured, from its shoulders to the tip of its tail, five brazas, [29] and from the shoulders to the mouth one braza—making its total length six brazas; and across the breast alone measured ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... had plenty of food and rest, the old woman plucked a feather out of its tail, and set the man in the feather's place, and then the bird flew away with him, but they did not get to ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... older," he answered. "My book shows more than two pints last month, and my journey was costly. To make both ends meet I shall have to wriggle," he added jestingly, "like the snake that tries to get its tail in its mouth." He cut open a packet, discovering that a friend had sent him some conserve of red roses from Amsterdam. "Now am I armed against fever," he said blithely. Then, with a remembrance, "Pray take some up to our poor Signore. I had ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... pulled down sufficiently low to suit his dogship, he marched sedately through, and, with a hardly perceptible lateral movement of his tail, walked on down the road. Putting up the rails carefully, the negro ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... but the glances of a congregation focussed between her shoulder-blades seemed to burn her back, and the thought of the concentration of so many minds upon her distracted her own. She could think of no definite prayer. Was this God's tabernacle? or the market-place, and she at the tail of a cart? And was she not Hugh Chiltern's wife, entitled to his seat in the place of worship of his fathers? She rose from her knees, and her eyes fell on the softly glowing colours of a stained-glass window: In memoriam—Alicia Reyburn Chiltern. Hugh's mother, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the soldiers attend, and where most of the pews on the main floor are held by officers and their families. We entered the church fifteen minutes before the hour appointed,—four o'clock. An elderly usher in a fine suit, with swallow-tail coat and a decoration on his breast, politely gave us liberty to choose our seats, as the invitations were not numerous and the church is large. A few persons, mostly ladies, were there before us, and had already taken the best ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... trees, then had attacked the fences and whatever wooden structures they came across, and now they seemed ready to devour one another. It was a frequent occurrence to see one of them throw himself upon another and tear out great tufts from his mane or tail, which he would grind between his teeth, slavering meanwhile at the mouth profusely. But it was at night that they became most terrible, as if they were visited by visions of terror in the darkness. They collected in droves, and, attracted by the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... loaning him a powerful flashlight and a hand lantern, which Baker ridiculed but accepted. It was only after Baker's tail-light had disappeared in the thick mist that Fenwick remembered he still had the crystal cube in his ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... indeed, thank you, Mr. Rogers.' He was dressed in a black tail-coat, with a green tie neatly knotted into a spotless turn-down collar. He glanced round him for a chair, one hand already in his ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... wary. At last I worked within fair eyesight of them, and knowing the stupid desire they have to look close at anything that may be strange to them, I took to myself a clever plan. Lying on my back as though I were dead, I held my tail straight up, and let the wind blow it back and forth. The big-eyed Eaters-of-Grass asked one another: 'What is this new thing? Is it a plant or an animal?' That is the way they talked, I am sure, for they are like wolf-pups, quite silly. Well, ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... and thinking of the coming daughter, and wondering whether she must die by snake-bite or fire—unborn—with her unhappy mother. For the fallen lamp had burst, the oil had caught fire, and the fire gave no light by which she could see what was beneath her foot—head, body, or tail of the lashing, squirming snake—as the flame flickered, rose and fell, burnt blue, swayed, roared in the draught of the door—did anything but give a light by which she could see as she bent over awkwardly, still gripping the shelf, one ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... said that there is only one in existence in the whole world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are told that this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant golden plumage around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a purple colour; except the tail, which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a roseate hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a tuft of feathers. The first Roman who described this bird... was the senator Manilius.... He tells us that no person has ever ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... been two fatal duels that evening. A tubeman from a rim ship had challenged a space miner to settle a difference with those vicious whips made from the tail casings of Flangoid flying lizards, an encounter which left both men in ribbons, one dead, one dying. And a scarred, ex-space marine had blaster-flamed one of the Star-and-Comet dealers into ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... between Posa Buena and Taylor's ranch. But where is Struve, the hardier ruffian of the two? He ain't been seen since they broke out. He sure never reached Ft. Lincoln. My notion is that he dropped off the train in the darkness about Casa Grande, then rolled his tail for the Mal Pais country. Your eyes are asking whys mighty loud, my friend; and my answer is that there's a man up there mebbe who has got to hide Struve if he shows up. That's only a guess, but it looks good to me. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... called on every side: "Little Roseblossom is my sweetheart!" Now Hyacinth was vexed, and again he could not help laughing from the bottom of his heart when the lizard would come sliding up, seat himself on a warm stone, wag his little tail, and sing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Dymond ran before him, in the slender, innocent movement of her hips under her thin tunic, in the absurd flap-flapping of the door-knocker plat on her shoulders, in the glances flicked at him by the tail of her eye as she wheeled from him in the endless pursuit and capture and approach and flight, as she was parted, was flung from him and returned to him in the windings of the Maze. He found it to perfection in the pressure of each other's arms as the Maze wed them and whirled ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... a garret-room in a wretchedly ruinous condition. The plaster had come away in several places, and through between the laths in one spot hung the tail of a great rat. In a dark corner lay a man dying. A woman sat by his side, with her eyes fixed, not on his face, though she held his hand in hers, but on the open door, where in the gloom you could ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... his disgrace had been the ground, Though no true evidence of guilt, his mail And plate, are dragged in due dishonour round, Suspended at the shameful waggon's tail. The wain is stopt, and to the trumpet's sound, Heralds, in front of a tribunal's pale, His shame, before his eyes, amid the crowd, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... rose-bush, and was being dragged down the bank by the terrified bird, which made for the water as its only chance of escape. In less disadvantageous circumstances the weasel would have made short work of his victim; but as he only had the bird by the tail, the prospects of the combatants were equalized. It was the tug-of-war being played with a life as the stakes. "If I do not reach the water," was the argument that went on in the heaving little breast of the one, "I am a dead bird." "If this water-hen," reasoned the other, "reaches the burn, ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... long ago was that?-Twelve years ago. That statement which he read gave the tenantry to understand that he was to become their fish-merchant, or the man they were to deliver their fish to; and that they were all bound to give him every tail of their fish from end to end of the season, as long as they held their land under him. If they did not do that, they knew the consequences: they would be ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... was arranged, not altogether to the satisfaction of the hostess, who would have preferred to have walked also. However, there was nothing to be done, and so they were whizzed off, while with the tail of her eye Cecilia Cricklander perceived that Lord Freynault had been displaced from Cora's side and was now stalking behind the ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... constant. I lay down to sleep, and woke again with an unblunted sense of my surroundings. I was never weary of calling up the image of that narrow causeway, on which I had my dwelling, lying coiled like a serpent, tail to mouth, in the outrageous ocean, and I was never weary of passing—a mere quarter-deck parade—from the one side to the other, from the shady, habitable shores of the lagoon to the blinding desert and uproarious breakers of the opposite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you know," he added reflectively. "But then we have no salt, so I doubt if you'd keep; and if we set your hide in the sun, I reckon the writing would shrivel up so that all the courts of law in London could not make head or tail of it." ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. But, while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display—stretching out for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the side away from the sun—an immense luminous train called its tail. This train extends back into that part of space from which the comet is moving. Thus the sun at one and the same time is drawing the comet toward itself and driving off from the comet in an opposite direction minute particles or atoms which, instead of obeying the ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... suspense, for the Pope himself is always in suspense, like Mahound's coffin hung between heaven and earth—always in suspense, like the scales, till the weight of Germany or the gold of England brings one of them down to the dust—always in suspense, like the tail of the horologe—to and fro—tick-tack—we make the time, we keep the time, ay, and we serve the time; for I have heard say that if you boxed the Pope's ears with a purse, you might stagger him, but he would pocket the purse. No saying of mine—Jocelyn of Salisbury. ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... walking cautiously. Suddenly a Red Indian in full war paint rushes towards him. Joe turns tail and flies. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... Street, with an air of conscious virtue, trotted the cause of all the trouble—a handsome, red-brown field spaniel. Robert Goddard, a lover of dogs, snapped his fingers and whistled, but Misery paid not the slightest attention to his blandishments. Wagging his tail frantically, he tore up to Nancy, ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... and crawls upon the nearest. I have observed it with the magnifier. Having explored the green globe, its new world, it begins to sink a well perpendicularly into the sphere. I have often seen it halfway in, wriggling its tail in the effort to work the quicker. In a short time the grub disappears and is at home. The point of entry, minute, but always easily recognizable by its brown coloration on the pale green background of the ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... and waiting for the duke to make the next move. Mayenne kept a nonplussed silence. The situation was indeed somewhat awkward. He could not come forward without encountering an agile opponent, whose exceeding skill with the sword was probably known to him. He could not turn tail, had his dignity allowed the course, without exposing himself to be spitted. He was in the predicament of the goat on the bridge. Yet was he gaping at us less in fear, I think, than in bewilderment. This Ferou, as I learned later, was one of his right-hand men, years-long ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the Captain drew near the notice-boards. Rumour stalked abroad and loudly proclaimed that the lot had fallen upon Doe. That young cricketer was walking with me at the tail of the procession, very nervous but fairly confident. As for me, my heart was fluttering, and there was ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... 29th, Ann Coombs, a female convict, received fifty lashes at the cart's tail, for defrauding Thomas Jones, of some provisions: this punishment, however, did not deter her from committing crimes of a similar nature; for the very next day she was detected stealing two ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... cobrar to recover, collect money. cobre m. copper. cocina kitchen. cocinero cook. codicioso covetous. cofradia confraternity. coger to catch, lay hold of, take up. cohonestar to give an honest appearance to. cola tail. colegio school. colera anger. colgadura hanging, tapestry. colgar to hang. colmar to overwhelm, heap up. colocacion f. situation, employment. colocar to collocate, place. colonia colony. colono colonist, settler, farmer. colorado ruddy. colorar to ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... latter a close congener of the whitefish, but finer in flavour and very fat. Indeed, the best fed dogs we had seen were those summering here. The lake, where we struck it, was literally covered with pin-tail ducks and teal; but it is not a good moose country, and consequently the food supply of the ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... from all lands. The most beautiful of all the palms is the Traveler's tree from Madagascar. It is a palm the fronds of which grow up like a regular fan. At a little distance it looks like a peacock's tail spread to the full extent. It is so light, graceful and feathery that it satisfies the eye as no other palm does. Of other palms there are legion, from the Mountain Cabbage palm of the West Indies to endless varieties from Malay, Madagascar ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... and not being able to tell him, Jesus fell to wondering how it was he had forgotten his dogs. At that moment one of the puppies cried to be let down: see how well he follows, Jesus said, but hardly were the words past his lips than the puppy turned tail, and Jesus had to chase him very nearly back to Bethany before he allowed himself to be overtaken and picked up again. The way is long, Joseph cried, more than seven hours to the city of Jericho, and if these chases happen again we shall be overtaken by the ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... ready, the gentleman desired his servant to take the cushion and put it into the sledge designed for himself and the Lady of Kottenner. The man took it on his shoulders, hiding it under an old ox-hide, with the tail hanging down, to the laughter of all beholders. Helen further records the trying to get some breakfast in the market-place and finding nothing but herrings, also the going to mass, and the care she took not to sit upon the holy crown, though she had to sit ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... land. His only covering was a girdle around his loins, made of skins of wild beasts which he had killed. His only token of authority among those that he led was a pair of epaulettes, made of the tail of a fox, and tied to his shoulder by a cord. Brought from the coast of Africa, when only fifteen years of age, to the island of Cuba, he was smuggled from thence into Virginia. He had been two years ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... I had driven out (being still enfeebled with fever) to King's Post, to see the tail-end of the Boer waggons disappear. On returning I found all the world running for all they were worth to the lower end of the High-street and shouting wildly. The cause was soon evident. Riding up ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... weeks ago," began Dan'l, "that I see John Lummox over at Palmyra, where he'd bin visitin'. He was drivin' a hoss, the beautifulest critter—for color—I ever saw. It was yaller, with mane and tail a kinder golden, like the hair o' them British Blondes that was ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... button, Uncle Joe, blindfolded, pursuing the prettiest girl at the frolic, brought roars of laughter from everyone but Aunt Betsy. Lin, sitting on a crock endeavoring to pass a linen thread through the eye of a cambric needle; Uncle Jack, blindfolded trying to pin the tail on the proper place on the paper donkey stuck against the wall. When he stuck the pin in the keyhole of the parlor door the laughter shook the sash in ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... of them in the new Pocket-book heading. It is called by the long name "Ichthyosaurus"—a Greek term meaning "fish-reptile." This animal was a huge creature something like a crocodile, with four paddles and a tail, and its native element was water. It had a large head with big eyes, and its jaws were well filled with terrible teeth. It possessed features in common with fishes as well as with reptiles, and hence its ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... fact that she, who had been the pet of a princess, was now being ridden by an ordinary commoner. At all events, she had made up her mind to get rid of the commoner without further ceremony. Putting her fine ears back and dilating her nostrils, she suddenly gave a snort and a whisk with her tail, and up went her heels toward the eternal stars—that is, if there had been any stars visible just then. Everybody's heart stuck in his throat; for fleet-footed racers were speeding round and round, and the fellow ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... tiger to the fox: "Let us run a race from the top of the world to the bottom of the world, and he who wins it shall be lord of the world!" The fox agreed, and off the tiger bounded, but without noticing that the fox had caught hold of his tail so as to get pulled along by him. Just as the tiger was about to reach the other end, he suddenly whisked round, in order to jeer at the fox, whom he believed to be far behind. But this motion exactly threw the fox safely on to the far end, so ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... Emphatically, count me out. For the reason, that he kin git jist enuff Republikins, percisely, and no more, to fill the offisis, and they will be uv sich a character ez will do the Dimokrisy no credit. I won't be tail to no kite. We are willin to play kite; but tail, never! Ef we boost Androo Johnson, Androo Johnson must boost us. Does he think we kin carry sich a load ez he is for nothin? Nary. Ef we hev a consoomin desire to git along without offisis, we are doin very well ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... human beings, to deceive whom they take new forms at times. A couple of blacks may be hunting—one will be after honey, another after opossums. The one after opossums will go to a tree, see an opossum, chop into the tree, seize the opossum by the tail as usual. He cannot move him. He'll seize him by the hind legs, still he cannot move him. Then he will hear a voice say, 'Leave him alone, you ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... Spenser imitates Ovid and Homer in this description of Juno's chariot. The peacock was sacred to the goddess, who transferred to its tail the hundred eyes of the monster Argus. See Ovid's ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... spots, the pupil of the eye encircled with gold—a curious animal, that the current of the Amazon had drawn to the sea, for they inhabit fresh waters—tuberculated streaks, with pointed snouts, and a long loose tail, armed with a long jagged sting; little sharks, a yard long, grey and whitish skin, and several rows of teeth, bent back, that are generally known by the name of pantouffles; vespertilios, a kind of red isosceles triangle, half a yard long, to which pectorals are attached by fleshy ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... and he is not much more than an eagle. And he hath a crest of feathers upon his head greater than the peacock hath. And his neck is yellow, after the color of an orial, that is a stone well shining. And his beak is colored blue, and his wings are of purple color, and his tail is yellow and red. And he is a full fair bird to look upon against the sun; for he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... what he'd always answer back—and a lot of crazy stuff about staying away from the sea—stuff I couldn't make head or tail to. I thought he must ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... the highest rapture, then return into the house and cast a quick and attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a couple of buck horns, or little forks. His hunting dog, understanding the intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment in his power express his readiness to accompany ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... agreeable bandinage with one lady, and then approach another one with the short, mincing steps usually affected by young-old dandies who are fluttering around the fair. As he turned, not without dexterity, to right and left, he kept one leg slightly dragging behind the other, like a short tail or comma. This trick the ladies particularly admired. In short, they not only discovered in him a host of recommendations and attractions, but also began to see in his face a sort of grand, Mars-like, military expression—a thing which, as we know, never fails ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... amongst other stories related this. He said he once rode away with an officer's horse, who had just bought it with an intent to ride him up to London; he carried the creature into the West, and having made such alterations in his mane and tail as he thought proper, sold him there to a parson for thirteen guineas, which was about seven less than the horse was worth. But knowing the doctor had another church about eight miles from the parish in which he lived, and that there was a little stable at one angle ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... would almost make one imagine he understood the meaning of his master's words, and that his honest nature despised the flattering encomiums he passes upon his pink belly and legs, his broad chest, his ring-tail, and his tulip ears!—Absurdities, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... called it, she felt as if she should scream, till he turned the old horse and took the back track. She was wild to get home, and kept hurrying him, and wanting him to whip the horse; but the old horse merely wagged his tail, and declined to go faster than a walk, and this was the only thing that enabled her ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells |
