"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ngurn's names for the mysterious deity. Also at times was he called The Loud Shouter, The God- Voiced, The Bird-Throated, The One with the Throat Sweet as the Throat of the Honey-Bird, The ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... variation was 6 deg.40'E. by the azimuth, and the next morning at ten it was, by amplitude, 5 deg.48'E.; at three in the afternoon, the variation, by amplitude, was 7 deg.40'E. This day we saw a tropic bird. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... and her other guests were forced to do the talking, for Bertha had not only warned Mart against reminiscence, but had determined to keep a tight hold on her own tongue; and though she listened with the alertness of a bird, she answered only in curt phrase, making "yes" and "no" do their full duty. She perceived that the people round her were of intellectual companionship to the Crego and Congdon circles, and these young men, so easy and graceful ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... country, the king, the army, but the most impossible monstrosities are seriously enumerated, with the political conditions of which they are supposed to be the signs. For instance:—"If a woman give birth to a child with lion's ears, a mighty king will rule the land ... with a bird's beak, there will be peace in the land.... If a queen give birth to a child with a lion's face, the king will have no rival ... if to a snake, the king will be mighty.... If a mare give birth to a foal with a lion's mane, the lord of the land will annihilate his enemies ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... her arms and sobbing convulsively. Eric stood motionless by the fire, because he could not trust himself to move. Her shoulders, which he had always admired for their line and wonderful whiteness, rose in quick jerks and subsided with a quiver; she shook with the abandonment of a bird in its death-spasm. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... we'd roll over again. 'Where beest now, dear Joe, under or top?' she'd scream again. By George, 'twas through her I was took! And then when we got up in hall she sware that the cock pheasant was one of her rearing, when 'twas not your bird at all, Joe; 'twas Squire Brown's bird—that's whose 'twas—one that we'd picked off as we passed his wood, an hour afore. It did hurt my feelings to be so wronged!... ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... cannot be so readily dealt with as those relating to well-established facts. Among thoroughly paradoxical ideas respecting comets, however, may be mentioned one whose author is a mathematician of well-deserved repute—Professor Tait's 'Sea-Bird Theory' of Comets' Tails. According to this theory, the rapid formation of long tails and the rapid changes of their position may be explained on the same principle that we explain the rapid change of appearance of a flight of sea-birds, when, from having been in a position where the eye looks athwart ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... so?" cried Karlsefin energetically, glancing round among the trees. "Come, clear yourself in this matter. See you yonder little bird on the topmost branch of that birch-tree that overhangs the stream? It is a plain object, well defined against the sky. ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bohemian women began to dance, not in the least with the movements that had shocked Mrs. Hardcastle in the Alexandrian troupe on the ship, but a foolish valsing, while the shoulders rose and fell and quivered like the flapping wings of some bird. The shoulders seemed the talented part, not the ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... have your lordship thus unwisely amorous. I myself have not loved a lady, and pursued her with a great deal of under-age protestation, whom some three or four gallants that have enjoyed would with all their hearts have been glad to have been rid of. 'Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out. Away, away, my lord. [Exit Brachiano ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... into the garden, where Philip was waiting for her. He and she also had something to talk about that morning, and why did Fluff go out, and play those bewitching airs softly to herself on the guitar? And why did she sing in that wild-bird voice of hers? and why did Philip pause now and then in his walk, as though he was listening—which indeed he was, for it would be difficult for any one to shut their ears to such light and harmonious sounds. Frances hated herself for ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... Arabella flung the toy far among the orchard trees, and with shrieks the four small figures disappeared. Miss Arabella darted around to the front porch in a panic, and carried her parrot into the comparative safety of the house. Fortunately the noise had scared the bird into silence. But if those four wild things should once get into her garden, she reflected, what ever ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... greatest difficulties was in the control of their caballada (horse-herd), without which the journey could not be made. In a country they do not know, horses frighten themselves by night in the most incredible manner. To stampede them, it is enough for them to discover a coyote or fox. The flight of a bird, the dust flung by the wind-any of these are capable of terrifying them and causing them to run many leagues, precipitating themselves over barrancas and precipices, without any human effort availing to restrain them. Afterwards it costs ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... the middle of the bog, comes a plaintive cry like the call of some night-bird. It is answered half a mile away, in the direction of Donaghmore, and then again there is silence. But it is no bird-call, Honor knows; and she raises her face from her lover's breast with a little ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... I'll look her up every Sunday. I'll dine with her if she asks me on week-days; but I'm not going to stay with her in the house she has taken. I like to be a free bird of the wild when I'm on my holidays. The local inn, which is called the Imperial Hotel, and owned by a man named Doyle, is the place for me. I've taken ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... hand was stroking the sleek side of the huge animal, and the little bird-song in the tree close by added much to his enjoyment, and, sitting erect, he chirped in reply a sweet little song that he had learned at the poorhouse from the birds. This peaceful condition, however, was too good to last. In a very short time he heard the voice of his mother asking him ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... air seemed, as his chest heaved with grateful joy! He threw out his arms like a bird stretching its wings to fly, then he clasped his hands over his brow, and at last, as if a second time pursued, rushed out of the court-yard into the street. The passers-by looked after him, shaking their heads, and he certainly presented a singular spectacle, for the dress ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... country bred, and, lifting high his feet to clear bramble trailer and fallen twig, he walked by feeling instead of sight. The beck moaned a little more loudly, and there was a heavy astringent odor of damp earth and decaying leaves. When beast and bird were still again it seemed as if Nature, worn out by the productive effort of summer, were sinking under solemn ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... deference she spoke when good feeling dictated it. Or again, there was her manner with the people who, by the very respect with which they inspired her, gave her encouragement to speak without false restraint; such as Mr. Bird, the art critic, a grizzle-headed man with whom she sat for a quarter of an hour this evening, looking her very brightest and talking in her happiest vein, yet showing all the time her gratitude for what she learnt ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... right, Sam; he's a bad bird, Hourigan; so I think the best thing to do is to tie ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... why sit we mute, Now that each bird saluteth the spring? Tie up the slackened strings of thy lute, Never may'st thou want matter ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of his mouth before a mountain bird, something like our jackdaw, but smaller and of a bluer black, flew out of the hollow mouth of one of the statues, and with a hearty chuckle perched on the ground at his feet, attracted doubtless by the scraps of food that were lying about. With the fearlessness of birds in that ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... lay a long, slender boat, shaped like a canoe, but much larger, stouter, stronger, and far swifter, when the wind filled its sails and carried it like a bird skimming ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... he flapped his wings and barked like a dog with pure delight, and added as fast as his bird's tongue could speak, ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... custom chill, there kinder fate bereave: For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows! And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows! We seek to make the moment's angel guest The household dweller at a human hearth; We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest Was never found ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to find that the whole place had been gutted by the latter's executors. In 1721 he got a transit instrument, and in 1726 a mural quadrant by Graham. His successor in 1742, Bradley, replaced this by a fine brass quadrant, eight feet radius, by Bird; and Bradley's zenith sector was purchased for the observatory. An instrument like this, specially designed for zenith stars, is capable of greater rigidity than a more universal instrument; and there is no trouble with refraction in the zenith. For these ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... made! It fell upon a small table, whose load of vases and bric-a-brac was totally wrecked. It also smashed a chair and very nearly hit the bird-cage. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... forward through the swift, swirling water, keeping nearly in the center of the broad stream, the white spray flung high by her churning wheel and sparkling like diamonds in the sunshine. Lightly loaded, a mere chip on the mighty current, she seemed to fly like a bird, impelled not only by the force of her engines, but swept irresistibly on by the grasp of the waters. We were already skirting the willow-clad islands, green and dense with foliage to the river's edge; and beyond these could gain tantalizing glimpses of the mouth ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... a summer bird; He in our chimneys, when the weather Is fine and warm, may then be heard Chirping his notes for ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... descend to the deck, when, as nine out of every ten sailors will, he paused to take a last, long, comprehensive look round the horizon. There was not a sail of any sort in sight from the deck, not even so much as the glancing of a bird's wing against the warm, tender, grey tones of the horizon to arrest one's wandering glances; but this was apparently not the case from the superior altitude of the main-royal yard, for presently I observed a change in the attitude of the man up there from ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... coasts. One of the most extraordinary and persistent myths of medieval natural history, dating back to the 12th century at least, was the cause of transferring to these organisms the name of the barnack or bernacle goose (Bernicla branta). This bird is a winter visitor to Britain, and its Arctic nesting-places being then unknown, it was fabled to originate within the shell-like fruit of a tree growing by the sea-shore. In some variants of the story this shell is said to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... Other works of his are The Tunning (brewing) of Elynor Rummynge, a coarsely humorous picture of low life, and the tender and fanciful Death of Philip Sparrow, the lament of a young lady over her pet bird killed ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... way by tales and songs. The road lay along a sandy uneven soil highly impregnated with salt, the track being worn down by the footsteps of caravans. In these dreary regions no sound either of insect or of bird was heard. After they left Mourzouk, the eye was relieved at great distances, by the sight of small towns, situated in the oases, or watered valleys, the lofty palm-trees of which served to guide them. But these became gradually ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... following the unicolored banks of a salt lake. The great saline stretch shone pale-blue, under the rising sun. The legs of our five mehara cast on it their moving shadows of a darker blue. For a moment the only inhabitant of these solitudes, a bird, a kind of indeterminate heron, rose and hung in the air, as if suspended from a thread, only to sink back to rest as soon as we ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... hearing in the Lords, or Peel holding forth to the Commons (where the Irish members are already obstructive); we squeeze in at the Haymarket to listen to Jenny Lind, or we run down the river to Greenwich Fair, and visit "Mr. Richardson, his show." Many years after, in the "Bird's Eye Views of Society," which appeared in the early numbers of the "Cornhill Magazine," Mr. Doyle returned to this attractive theme. But the later designs were more elaborate, and not equally fortunate. They bear the same relationship ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... fought for him, leading him again and again to seek to enter a monastery, and finally actually to take orders? Abelard was a sufficiently tempestuous and irregular lover, yet he was a priest, and not a musician. Can we then blame harmony and melody for the humming-bird "amours" of the Abbe Liszt,—for the many women he made material love to from his early youth,—for the very dubious honesty of his bearing toward the Comtesse d'Agoult and the Princess Wittgenstein, with whom he debated the formalities of marriage without hesitating ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... illusions; still believed in the sincerity of fashionable acquaintances, in the fidelity of histrionic mistresses, in the disinterestedness of mankind in general, or at least of that portion of it with which he habitually associated. The bird had left half its feathers with the fowler, but was as willing as ever to run again into the snare. And at Paris snares were plentiful, well-baited and carefully ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... protruded, the ice appeared to be peeled off, for in those spots the sun's rays had melted it, though only at mid-day and on the south. All streams and waterfalls slumbered in silence under the snowy blanket. A chill silence reigned over the whole valley. Not a bird was to be seen, not even a snow bunting, only two ravens which kept flying from farmhouse to farmhouse, and even their cawing had a ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... bird, so you are caught again, eh? I was most infernally afraid you had got away in earnest; I was, by ——! But we'll soon fix you now, so that you won't run away ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... are shot from every leaf, And the whole landscape droops in sultriness. With languid tread, I drag myself along Across the wilting fields. Around my steps Spring myriad grasshoppers, their cheerful notes Loud in my ear. The ground bird whirs away, Then drops again, and groups of butterflies Spotting the path, upflicker as I come. At length I catch the sparkles of the brook In its deep thickets, whose refreshing green Soothes my strained eyesight. The cool shadows fall Like balm upon me from the boughs o'erhead. My coming strikes ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the old bird taught the young bird how to fly—very needlessly—for in this matter of flying, Nature gives her own lessons thoroughly; and the ducklings will take the water, even though the maternal hen warn them against the perfidious element never ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... waves;— There, all alone, she loves to sing, Watching the silver sea-mew's wing. In crowded halls, my spirit flies To wait upon her; and wasting sighs Consume my nights; where'er I turn For her I pant, for her I burn, Who, like some timid, graceful bird, Shrinks from my glance and fears my word. I faint; my glow of youth is gone; Sleepless at night and sick at morn, My strength departs; I droop, I fade, Yet think upon that lonely maid, And pity her, the while I pine That she should spurn a love like mine This, Madoc took the harp ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... as I spoke, like the hapless bird fascinated by the glance of the serpent, and could scarcely restrain myself from clambering on board and rushing among ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... At every sound on the stairs Madame started like a frightened bird. That infamous Laporte usually paid his visits at about eight o'clock in the evening, and after it became quite dark, Madame sat at the tiny window, and I felt that she was counting the minutes which still lay between her and the dreaded presence ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... often too forget Whose hand it is that many a time has set A radiant soul in an unlovely form, A fair white bird caged in ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... already strained to the snapping-point by the lack of action and the expectancy. Suddenly there appeared a thin dark line on the horizon which moved rapidly towards us, looking not unlike a huge running bird with immense outstretched wings. We looked through our field glasses; there could be no doubt,—it was Russian cavalry, swooping down upon us with incredible impetus and swiftness. I quickly glanced at our colonel. He stared ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... to find the much desired food, The eagle towards the sky spreads out his wings And warns of his approach both bird and beast, The third flight bringing him upon the prey. And the fierce lion roaring from his lair Spreads horror all around and mortal fear; And all wild beasts, admonished and forewarned, Fly to the caves and cheat his cruel jaw. The whale, ere he the dumb Protean herd Hungry pursues, sends ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... and four times tried to seize him, but could not fasten his talons in the hardened hide. At the fourth attempt Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nayezgani allowed Eagle to take hold of his suit in the front, whereupon the bird carried him up and up, and from a tremendous height dropped him upon the sharp rocks. Though unhurt, to deceive Eagle he tore open the piece of intestine, allowing the blood to gush out upon the rock. Itsa ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... went round so that there should be no panic or alarm, and of a sudden every officer was gone. Goodwood of nineteen fourteen and a July so perfect with sunlight and summer that it seemed some bird at last must break the silence of the famed beech-grove! All the world went to it. The motor-cars and the coaches streamed up over Duncton Hill and wound down the Midhurst Road to pleasant Charlton, with its cottages and gardens of flowers. Martin ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... In this way they are kept under domestication and accustomed to the presence of men, but occasionally they stray away and disappear. The safer way is to keep a native boy or man constantly with each herd of ostriches, and the herder is held responsible for the loss of any bird. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... case, I begged Pokino to send Maula away out of my camp. Pokino said he could not do this, as it was by the king's order he was appointed; but he put Maula in the background, laughing at the way he had "let the bird fly out of his hands," and settled that N'yamgundu should be my guide. I then gave him a wire, and he gave me three large sheets of mbugu, which he said I should require, as there were so many water-courses ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... falling back from him like wings, his skull-cap slightly awry, two red spots on either wrinkled cheek, and every feature of the sharp brown face alive with the joy of his long-past vengeance, he was like some strange perching bird. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Moments to arrive at the office on the following morning was Master Maloney. This sounds like the beginning of a "Plod and Punctuality," or "How Great Fortunes have been Made" story; but, as a matter of fact, Master Maloney was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighbourhood, rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed to be at the office at nine o'clock. It was a point of honour with him, a sort of daily declaration of independence, ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... weaker still, the other had begun to grow stronger. When the tide of the night began to ebb, the tide of the day began to How; and now the sun was rushing to the horizon, borne upon its foaming billows. And ever as he came, Photogen revived. At last the sun shot up into the air, like a bird from the hand of the Father of Lights. Nycteris gave a cry of pain, and hid her ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... hae I rov'd by bonny Doon, To see the rose and woodbine twine; And ilka bird sang o' its luve, And fondly sae ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... obscurity; one of them was accompanied by what seemed a flight of small startled birds crossing the road ahead of them. A second larger and more sustained flight showed his astonished eyes that they were white, and each bird an enormous flake of SNOW! For an instant the air was filled with these disks, shreds, patches,—two or three clinging together,—like the downfall shaken from a tree, striking the leather roof and sides with a dull thud, spattering the road ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... Rambler[728], against the notion that the brute creation is endowed with the faculty of reason: 'birds build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build.' GOLDSMITH. 'Yet we see if you take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay again.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that is because at first she has full time and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention she is pressed to lay, and must therefore make her nest quickly, and consequently it ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... sugar, Miss Waring," recommended Nap. "He's remarkably guileless. With a little patience and subtlety on your part he'll soon come and feed out of your hand. After that, a little feminine persuasion is all that is required to entice the pretty bird into the cage. He's quite a fine specimen; such a lot of gold about him, too! It would be a pity to let him escape. There are not many of his sort, I ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... was me. Me go out to kill bird for make dinner, two days back, an' see the moose in one place where hims no can escape but by one way— narrow way, tree feets, not more, wide. Hims look to me—me's look to him. Then me climb up side of rocks so hims no touch me, but must pass below me quite near. Then me yell—horbuble ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... excepting Isabella, would rival in public acceptance her Juliet, Viola, or Rosalind, was not to be expected: it was too much a passive condition—delicate and elusive—and too little an active effort. She woke into life the sleeping spirit of a rather repellant drama, and was "alone the Arabian bird." ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... special messenger, the Humming-Bird, comes darting to our oriel, my Orient. As I sat sewing, his sudden, unexpected whirr made me look up. How did he know that the very first Japan-pear-bud opened this morning? Flower and bird came ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... its shoulders. Then, drawing a long stick of sealing-wax from his pocket, he held it well before the Captain's ruddy face. The wax splattered and melted. The Doctor applied it to the cut with deft fingers, and with a strange condescension of manner in one so proud. My heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little; and on a sudden BLUENOSE raised his dripping hands, and in a quavering kind ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... plight, whistles and shouts for his people, and imprecations on their tardiness, until Stephen was near enough to show that the hawk had been recovered, and then he joyfully called out, "Ha! hast thou got her? Why, flat-caps as ye are, ye put all my fellows to shame! How now, thou errant bird, dost know thy master, or take him for a mud wall? Kite that thou art, to have led me such a dance! And what's your name, my brave lads? Ye must have ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... on, and Twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale. She all night long her amorous descant sung: Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... a small workman's room, with a fire burning, and the window wide open. There were tea-things on the table; a canary bird singing loudly in a cage beside the window; and a suit of man's clothes with a clean shirt hanging over ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the approach of the Earl Douglas, who rode through the town with a troop of only thirty horse, but all of whom were knights and gentlemen of the first consequence. Men's eyes followed this dreaded peer as they pursue the flight of an eagle through the clouds, unable to ken the course of the bird of Jove yet silent, attentive, and as earnest in observing him as if they could guess the object for which he sweeps through the firmament; He rode slowly through the city, and passed out at the northern ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... This curious bird is of the order Picae, or Pies, and of the genus Buceros, consisting of birds of rather large size, and distinguished by the disproportionate forms of their beaks, which are often still further remarkable for some kind of large prominence on the upper mandible. The most conspicuous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... and hills, rocks and wild goats for refuge, and high trees for nesting; and though you know neither how to spin nor to weave, He gives both you and your children all the garments you need. Whence much must the Creator love you, Who confers so many blessings. Therefore take care, my small bird sisters, never to be ungrateful, but always ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... and from Heaven knows where—as a bird comes from a bush—a little grey man came quickly among them all, carrying spread open before him a book almost as big as himself. Handing it up to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it requires much more evidence to establish an exception to one of the more general empirical laws than to the more special ones. We should not have any difficulty in believing that there might be a new Kind of crow; or a new kind of bird resembling a crow in the properties hitherto considered distinctive of that Kind. But it would require stronger proof to convince us of the existence of a Kind of crow having properties at variance with any generally recognized universal ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... had some people staying in the house, the line might equally belong to one of these guests. Not a footstep was to be heard on any of the paths. Somewhere in one of the tall trees, making a stage in its height, an invisible bird, desperately attempting to make the day seem shorter, was exploring with a long, continuous note the solitude that pressed it on every side, but it received at once so unanimous an answer, so powerful a repercussion of silence and of immobility that, one would have said, it had arrested for all ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... garden; the kitten sprang after the rotating object, which spun round and round, as politics are wont to do. This childish scene recalled Raphael to himself. He would have gone on reading, and felt for the sheet he no longer possessed. Joyous laughter rang out like the song of a bird, one peal leading ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... least to suggest such understanding, to show interest in their affairs and to let them believe that really you think it needful for everybody to know how to saddle a horse correctly, or to distinguish the German bird-dog from the English setter at a thousand paces. What is aimed at is not personal respect for the judge, but for the judge's function, which the witness identifies with the judge's person. If he has such respect, he will find it worth the trouble to help us out, to ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... one couldn't have any more. One would be like Laura. Poor Laura! Now if she were in that tree"—Isabel's ideas were becoming slightly confused—"it would be natural for her to be melancholy—only if she were a bird she wouldn't care, she would fly off with some one else and leave Major Clowes, and all the other birds would come and peck him to death. They manage these things better in bird land." Isabel's eyes shut but ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... difficult to keep one's feet, to say nothing of hearing anyone speak. There was a heavy sea running, and each approaching wave looked big enough to engulf the vessel, but as the mass of moving water reached the bow, the ship rose on it, light and graceful as a bird, shook off the flying spray as a cat shakes her fur after an unwelcome bath, and again drove forward as steady and with as little perceptible motion as a railway train. Shirley was a fairly good sailor and this kind of weather did not bother her in the least, but ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... it has been a great pleasure to us to bring in game for all. Faye rides Bettie now altogether, so I was on Pete yesterday. We had quite a number of chickens, but thought we would like to get two or three more; therefore, when we saw a small covey fly over by some bushes, and that one bird went beyond and dropped on the other side, Faye told me to go on a little, and watch that bird if it rose again when he shot at the others. It is our habit usually for me to hold Faye's horse when he dismounts to hunt, but that time he was some distance ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... nursery "guard" which protected Robin from annihilation by fire, and the whisper, whisper of their voices had only emphasized the quiet. And, with every moment that went by, the lit-up tower had seemed more like a symbol to Dion. Then at last the cuckoo-clock had chimed and the wooden bird, with trembling tail, ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... rushing noise in the air, but could see nothing; by and by, a large eagle dropped, as if from the air, on the otter's carcass. He drew his bow, and the arrow passed through under both his wings. The bird made a convulsive flight upwards with such force, that the heavy carcass (which was nearly as big as a moose) was borne up several feet. Fortunately, both claws were fastened deeply into the meat, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... however, he would not have been the typical New England poet that he is. In the present volume there is little of it. It is more purely objective than any of its forerunners, and is full of the most charming rural pictures and glimpses, in which every sight and sound, every flower, bird, and tree, is neighborly and homely. He ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... thought allied to a wide knowledge of war, of divining the intention of his adversary and the state of his moral. His power of drawing inferences, often from seemingly unimportant trifles, was akin to that of the hunter of his native backwoods, to whom the rustle of a twig, the note of a bird, a track upon the sand, speak more clearly than written characters. His estimate of the demoralisation of the Federal army after Bull Run, and of the ease with which Washington might have been captured, was absolutely correct. In the middle of May, 1862, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... wonderment at the strange world into which I was about to plunge. All landmarks were gone, nothing but silver and gray left of nature's brilliant tints, not even so much shadow as an artist might use to accentuate a bird's wing in crayon—no heaven above, no earth beneath. The interior of a raised biscuit could not have been more densely uniform than the atmosphere. It seemed as if the world had slipped its moorings and drifted off its course into companionless ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... assume the role of genuine lyric poets, but they cannot play it without detection. It is literally true that natural lyrists like Sappho, Burns, Goethe, Heine, "sing as the bird sings." Once endowed with the lyric temperament and the command of technique, their cry of love or longing, of grief or patriotism, is the inevitable resultant from a real situation or desire. Sometimes, like ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... hour Of guilty pride and power Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell. Then the fields were heaped with dead, Then the streams with gore were red, And every bird of prey, and every beast, From wood and cavern ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the god of heaven sent down his daughter in the form of the bird Turi, a species of snipe, Charadrius fulvus. She flew about, but could find no resting-place, nothing but ocean. She returned to the heavens, but was again sent down by Tangaloa to search for ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... sketch, a labour of love from the busy hands in New Zealand, which had stolen a few hours from their many tasks to send Dr. May the presentment of his namesake grandson. Little Dickie stood before them, a true son of the humming-bird sprite, delicately limbed and featured, and with elastic springiness, visible even in the pencilled outline. The dancing dark eyes were all Meta's, though the sturdy clasp of the hands, and the curl that hung over the brow, brought back the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... atmosphere of his youth.[524] A very pleasant volume-full is Norine, the title-piece of which is full at once of Cevenol scenery and Parisian contrast, of love, and, at least, preparations for feasting; of sketches of that "Institute" life which comes nearest to our collegiate one; and of pleasant bird-worship. But M. Fabre should have told us whether the bishop actually received and appreciated[525] the dinner of Truscas trout and Faugeres wine (alas! this is a blank in my fairly extensive wine-list), and the miscellaneous maigre cookery of the excellent Prudence, and the splendid casket ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... such thing, Art," replied the other; "for that matter, he may be a great deal blacker; but still I'd advise you to have nothing to say to Toal—he's a bad graft, egg and bird; but what civility did ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... sage-leaves should be very finely chopped. Many cooks do not parboil the onions in the manner just stated, but merely use them raw. The stuffing then, however, is not nearly so mild, and, to many tastes, its strong flavour would be very objectionable. When made for goose, a portion of the liver of the bird, simmered for a few minutes and very finely minced, is frequently added to this stuffing; and where economy is studied, the egg may ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... very ugly with his purple skin and bristles for whiskers; he looks like a wild boar with the eyes of a bird of prey. But he'll make the finest chief-justice of a provincial court. Now don't be uneasy! in ten minutes he shall be singing to you Isabelle's air in the fourth act of Robert le Diable: 'At thy feet I kneel'—you ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... had gone at last little Max came in and stood by Mabel, with his mouth gaping like a young bird's for chance fragments of dessert. Mark was grateful to him, too, for diverting her attention from himself. He grew more and more silent as the long Black Forest clock by the shining porcelain stove ticked slowly on towards the hour. It was time to go, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... beat on the hearts that are bleeding with pain! And many who stare at the close-shut hearse Envy the dead within,—or, worse, Turn away with a keener zest To grapple and revel and sin with the rest! While far apart in a bower of green, Unheeded, unseen, A warbling bird on the topmost bough Merrily pipes to the Poet below, Asking an answer as gay, I trow! But he hears the surging waves without,— The heartless jeer, and the wild, wild shout: The ceaseless clamor, the cruel ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... give my godchild, Cicely Horner,[Footnote: The present Hon. Mrs. George Lambton.], the bird-brooch Burne Jones designed, and the Sintram Arthur [Footnote: The Right Hon. Arthur Balfour.], gave me. I leave my best friend, Frances, my grey enamel and diamond bracelet, my first edition of Wilhelm Meister, with the music folded up in it, and my Burne Jones ''spression' ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... could not go yet; she must wait until all danger of discovery was over—stand there breathless while her husband forgot her and her agony in peaceful sleep. They were both silent for a time, then Elsie began to shiver again, like some young bird lost from ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... helpers, machinists, motor fitters, plumbers' mates, switchboard attendants, tool-grinders, wiremen. Last, a welcome was promised to men above average intelligence whose education at school had reached what is called the Fifth Standard. When an aeroplane glides down to earth as easily as a bird, and comes to rest, a chance onlooker would hardly guess what a world of intricate labour and pains has gone to the attainment of that beautiful simplicity. It is the workshop which gives safety in flight; and because the workshop needs highly skilled men, whose services are in demand, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... the pupils what is to come, i.e., stimulate interest by giving a bird's-eye view of the movement before it ...
— A Guide to Methods and Observation in History - Studies in High School Observation • Calvin Olin Davis
... as he came gingerly down the tree. "It is what we call 'Espiritu Santa,' the 'Holy Spirit' flower. See, it is like a white bird." ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... give you an imitation of that popular and favourite songster, the Thrush—better known to some of you, I daresay, as the Throstle, or Mavis! (He gives the Thrush—which somehow doesn't "go.") I shall next endeavour to represent that celebrated and tuneful singing-bird—the Sky-lark. (He does it, but the Lark doesn't quite come off.) I shall next try to give you those two sweet singers, the Male and Female Canary—the gentleman in the stalls with the yellow 'air will represent the female bird on this occasion, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... makes the game-laws and then pays the hotel men to serve 'em game out o' season an' reason? Them's the men to ketch; them's the men that set the poor men to vi'latin' the law. Folks here 'ain't got no money to buy powder 'n' shot for to shoot nothin'. But when them Saratogy men offers two dollars a bird for pa'tridge out o' season, what d'ye ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... cloudy sky grew clearer and clearer; chamber within chamber seemed to open in heaven. One felt one might at last find something lighter than light. In the fullness of this silent effulgence all things collected their colours again: the gray trunks turned silver, and the drab gravel gold. One bird fluttered like a loosened leaf from one tree to another, and his brown feathers were brushed ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... was at the hour of sunset that they came to the foot of the mountain. There was in that place no sign of life,—neither token of water, nor trace of plant, nor shadow of flying bird,— nothing but desolation rising to desolation. And the summit was ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Leviathan in the words, "Will he make a pact with thee?" The promise, like the wind, is unknown in nature and is the first mark of man. Referring only to human civilization, it may be said with seriousness that in the beginning was the Word. The vow is to the man what the song is to the bird or the bark to the dog; his voice, whereby he is known. Just as a man who cannot keep an appointment is not fit to fight a duel, so the man who cannot keep an appointment with himself is not sane enough even for suicide. It is not easy to mention anything on which ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Respond to each one of a list of disconnected words by saying the first word suggested by it. Use the following list: city, war, bird, potato, day, ocean, insect, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... terrible voice that he brought some loose stones rattling down upon the road so close to us that my head, as well as his own, nearly paid the penalty for thus exasperating the peaceful night. This was either the effect of vibration or of the sudden movement of some bird or other creature that he had startled far ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the close of the great naval engagement of the 17th of September, 1894, a hawk alighted on the fighting-mast of the Japanese cruiser Takachiho, and suffered itself to be taken and fed. After much petting, this bird of good omen was presented to the Emperor. Falconry was a great feudal sport in Japan, and hawks were finely trained. The hawk is now likely to become, more than ever before in Japan, a ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... that will lay golden eggs. Fifteen guineas a day, my son; that's the size of the egg which that beneficent bird will drop into your palm every twenty-four hours. Deduct the ladies' hotel expenses—say three guineas a day; expenses for yourself and car we'll call two guineas more (of course I pay my own way), that leaves ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... must mount the steep of noon: and he heard the morning hymn of thankfulness to Heaven from the mountains, and the valleys, and the islands of the sea; the prayer of man and woman, the praise of lisping tongues, the hum of insect joy upon the air, the sheep-bell tinkling in the distance, the wild bird's carol, and the lowing kine, the mute minstrelsy of rising dews, and that stilly scarce-heard universal melody of wakeful plants and trees, hastening to turn their spring-buds to the light—this was the anthem he, the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... a young lady of temperament is a difficult thing to picture. The bird may feel it as he soars, on a bright August morning, high above amber cliffs jutting out into indigo seas; the novelist may feel it when the four walls of his room magically disappear and the profound secrets of the universe are on the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... auctioneer at once knocked down the watch to me and took my money. The speed of it dazed me, and I stumbled along the street like a fool. What was the game? I held the glittering watch in my hand and gazed at it like a hypnotized bird. I came to another pawnshop and went in. "What will you give me on this watch?" I asked. The pawnbroker glanced at it and said he couldn't give ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... eyes into the head of a minikin hound. Furred fingers worked precious metals into invisible filigree for the collarpiece of a dancing doll. Metallic feathers were thrust with clockwork precision into the wings of a skeleton bird no longer than my fingernail. The nose of the hound wabbled and sniffed, the bird's wings quivered, the eyes of the little ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... much like the cry of a human being," said the master, peering out, "but it couldn't have been. It must have been the wind, or a night-bird." ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... you wives of men, To match your wit against the Maker's will, And for your benefit to lower the stamp Of His fair image, which He set at first Upon man's goodly frame; ye do not well To treat his likeness even as ye treat The bird and beast ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... such as an undertaker's from a cooper's. What makes the street so interesting is that you can look in and see everything going on. I forgot to mention the most interesting street thing I've seen, a bird catcher with a long limed pole like a bamboo fishing rod, a basket with a valve door to put them in and some other utensils. I didn't see him catch ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... of interest in nothing," she complained to Mrs. Puffer. "She don't eat enough for a bird. The doctor, he says there ain't nothing the matter with her as he can find out, but she's just ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... clipping from a Los Angeles newspaper telling of the prophet's arriving there. He takes the front page with the captivating headline: "Women Didn't Think Till They Put On Corsets". The interview tells about his mysteriousness, his aloofness, his bird-like-diet, and his personal beauty. "Despite his seventy-three years, Ha'nish evidences no sign of age. His keen blue eyes showed no sign of wavering. There were no wrinkles on his face, and his walk was that of ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... do much of the scavenger-work of the city—walked directly between us, eyeing each of us with his red round eyes in a manner so ludicrous that we all broke forth in a fit of laughter that lasted for several minutes, while the ungainly bird stalked away with much the stolid air of one who has seen something ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... picture, or a pleasing play, To watch her make her toilet. She would stand, And turn her head first this, and then that way, Trying effect of ribbon, bow or band. Then she would pick up something else, and curve Her lovely neck, with cunning, bird-like grace, And watch the mirror while she put it on, With such a sweetly grave and thoughtful face; And then to view it all would sway and swerve Her lithe young body, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
