"Feathery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the right, ran the long line of his own dwelling, continued by the five-foot board fence separating his garden from Mr. Edwards's. This stood up gauntly white until near the orchard, where it was completely hidden by the high, feathery stalks of the asparagus-bed, by a row of great sunflowers, now heavy and bent with their disk-like seed-pods, and by a clump of lilac bushes. As his eye traveled along the white expanse, he gave a quick start, and ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... all seasons, but autumn offers some charming variations. The brilliant scarlet berries of the mountain ash or red thorn mingled with the deep, rich green of feathery asparagus, make a delicious color symphony ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous
... curious pale silvery gray, and pale, pure-white hair rising in what looked like a feathery crest. The eyes were long and slanting, the forehead high and narrow, the nose delicately thin and chiseled with long vertically slit nostrils, the ears long, pointed and lobeless. The mouth looked almost human, though the chin was abnormally pointed. The hands would almost have passed ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... spring, if we go to the woods, we find traces of the vow of the sun-god. The trees are budding in buds of rosy hue, the willow branches are decked with silvery catkins powdered with gold. The larches, like slender dryads, wear a feathery garb of tender green, and under the trees of the woods the primroses look up, like fallen stars. Along the woodland path we go, treading on fragrant pine-needles and on the beech leaves of last ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Lake Erie's broad expanse One bright midsummer day, The gallant steamer Ocean Queen Swept proudly on her way. Bright faces clustered on the deck, Or, leaning o'er the side, Watched carelessly the feathery foam That flecked ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... was some loose flesh under the jaws. The nose was thick and pudgy, wide in the nostrils, like a lion's. The predatory are not invariably hawk-nosed. The eyes were blue—in repose, a warm blue—and there were feathery wrinkles at the corners which suggested that the toll-taker could laugh occasionally. The lips were straight and thin, the chin square—stubborn rather than relentless. A lonely man who was ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... of the shimmering haze that veiled the mystic eastern space came a big black horse bearing a rider. Swinging wide, to avoid the feathery dust that lay at the base of a huge sand dune, the black horse loped, making no sound, and seeming to glide forward without effort. Like a somber, gigantic ghost the animal moved, heroic of mold, embodying the spirit of ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the name of the blessed and happy country, campagna felite. The orange trees were covered with sweet white blossoms, the cherries laden with ruby fruit, the olives with young emerald leaves, the pomegranate feathery with red bells; the wild mulberry, the evergreen laurel, all the strong budding vegetation, needing no help from man to flourish in this spot privileged by Nature, made one great garden, here and there interrupted ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... (2) its congealing point, (3) its crystallization. The odor can be judged only after long experience. A good oil should congeal well in five minutes at a temperature of 54.5 deg. Fahr.; fraudulent additions lower the congealing point. The crystals of rose-stearoptene are light, feathery, shining plates, filling the whole liquid. Almost the only material used for artificially heightening the apparent proportion of stearoptene is said to be spermaceti, which is easily recognizable from its liability to settle down in a solid cake, and from its melting ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... in sight, and was between Kettle Island and the main, when a slight dampness in the air caused me to turn my face to the eastward, and I saw coming in from the sea, preceded by an advance guard of feathery mist, a dense bank of fog. It swept in, blotting out sea, shore, everything but the view a few feet around the boat. Fortunately knowing the place, and guided by the sound of the surf, I soon neared the wet, brown rocks at the inner edge of Kettle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... As the feathery snows Fall frequent on some wintry day, when Jove Hath risen to shed them on the race of man, And show his arrowy stores; he lulls the wind Then shakes them down continual, covering thick Mountain tops, promontories, flowery meads, And cultured valleys ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... cheerless gray, and rivulets of water trickled from the drooping vegetation. Mosses and ferns, revived by the superabundance of moisture had sprung up on the decaying trunks and branches of the uprooted trees, pushing their feathery leaflets through the blanket of creepers and forming a dense, soggy layer cold and clammy to the touch and treacherous underfoot. But Suma knew her domicile well and passed rapidly and surefootedly ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... sheltered bay, into which flowed a little creek of pure, sparkling water, overshadowed by great, low-branching cotton-woods and tall, feathery silver spruce trees. ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... give 'em a volley?" murmured "Swabs," gazing at the feathery puffs of smoke on the distant hillside, which looked so innocent, but each of which might mean death to the spectator. No order, however, was given to fire, and the command, "Right turn—forward!" put the marksman and his comrades ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... and that branch which has thrust itself among them, which you take for a dark copper-coloured fern, so finely divided are its glossy leaves. It is really a Mimosa—Bois Mulatre, {139d} as they call it here. What a contrast again, the huge feathery fronds of the Cocorite palms which stretch right away hither over our heads, twenty and thirty feet in length. And what is that spot of crimson flame hanging in the darkest spot of all from an under-bough of that low weeping tree? A flower-head of the Rosa ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... pure, and exhilarating. The fir trees and shrubs gave out a delicious perfume, and their waving tops seemed to beckon us on. The sky was deep blue, with here and there a feathery cloud gliding lazily over its surface. The bright sunlight made our hearts bound and filled our bodies with vigour, and as we stood there on the edge of the unknown and silent world we had come so far to see, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... periods of the sheepman's year are the lambing- and shearing-seasons. The first begins early in March, when the little mesquite-trees are of a feathery greenness and the brown gramma and mesquite grass are beginning to freshen, and lasts about six weeks. It is an exacting time for the conscientious proprietor. He says good-by to his cottage, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... steadily all night, piling up softly and silently the great white mounds, covering up unsightly objects, laying the downiest of coverlids upon the dull old world until it was hardly recognizable. Every ledge, every branch and tiny twig held its feathery burden, or shook it softly upon the white mass covering the ground. Hardly a breath of air stirred, and the fir trees looked as though St. Nick had visited them in the night to dress a tree for every little ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... my hands in my big muff and my face to the stern, making the tiniest occasional sniff as the mountains of my home faded away in the sunlight, which was now tipping the hilltops with a feathery crest, when my cabin was darkened by somebody who ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... our eyes Be barred that happiness, might we but hear The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes, Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock Count the night-watches to his feathery dames, 'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering, In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. But, Oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister! 350 Where may she wander now, whither betake her From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles? ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... panels alternating with circles, the centres of these panels being varied reds and greens; the framework surrounds four large panels of Pavonazzo d'Italie, each in six slabs. This is a beautiful marble of feathery purple grey veinings on a creamy white ground. This central part is flanked on each side by a broad band of the same Pavonazzo, which separates it from the large side panels of a bold design of squares of red, green and cream placed diagonally, interlaced by white bands; upon these panels stand ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... in Mrs General's voice, varnish in Mrs General's touch, an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs General's figure. Mrs General's dreams ought to have been varnished—if she had any—lying asleep in the arms of the good Saint Bernard, with the feathery snow falling on ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... the wind they stood, sharp and brittle as of virgin ore—not trees of earth, but the glorified forests of All-Father Odin's paradise, the celestial city of Asgaard. No living forms of vegetation are so lovely. Tropical palms, the tree-ferns of Penang, the lotus of Indian rivers, the feathery bamboo, the arrowy areca—what are they beside these marvellous growths of winter, these shining sprays of pearl, ivory and opal, gleaming in the soft orange light of the ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... like coal, and the bark is admirable for tanning. In places their long suckers, growing downwards to the stream, resembled a cordwainer's walk set on end. A bush of yellow-flowered hibiscus clothes the banks that are less level; and, higher still, grows a tall and beautiful mimosa with feathery web and pendent pods of brightest green and yellow. Then came the brabs and palms, fan-, cocoa-, oil-, and bamboo-, with their trunks turned to nurseries of epiphytes and air-plants. The parasites are clematis and a host ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled farm-lands, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... any ladder we could get up there. I was intent on getting the eggs, and thought of no other thing that might chance: so I spread a soft fall below, and with a long pole I broke the floor of the nest. Then with a sudden stir of horror I saw soft things falling along with the clay, tiny and feathery. Two were killed by the breakage that fell with them, but one was quite alive and unhurt. I gathered up the remnants of the nest and set it with the young one in it by the loft window where the parent-birds might see, making clumsy strivings of pity to quiet my conscience. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... the light of the kindling morn increased. The pale-faced stars fled one by one, And hid in the vast from the rising sun. From woods and waters and welkin soon Fled the hovering mists of the vanished moon. The young robins chirped in their feathery beds, The loon's song shrilled like a winding horn, And the green hills lifted their dewy heads To greet the god of the rising morn. She reached the rim of the rolling prairie— The boundless ocean of solitude; She hid in ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... cabbage-leaf was no novelty to him; he had often watched the red, coral-like veins in the glossy green of the beet; the long, waving leaf of the maize, with the silky tassels of its ears, were beautiful in his eyes; and so were the rich, white heads of the cauliflower, delicate as carved ivory, the feathery tuft of the carrot, the purple fruit of the egg-plant, and the brilliant scarlet tomato. He came nearer than most Christians, out of Weathersfield, to sympathy with the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... rose-colored buds and leaves; and the dog-wood, robed in the white of its own pure blossoms. Thencomes the sudden rain-storm; and the birds fly to and fro, and shriek. Where do they hide themselves in such storms? at what firesides dry their feathery cloaks? At the fireside of the great, hospitable sun, to-morrow, not before;—they must sit in wet garments ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... an extra amount of yelling from the bettos, took us to a suburb of little hills and valleys, where red camellias and feathery bamboo against backgrounds of cryptomeria contrast with the grey monotone of British winters, and, alighting at a farm road too rough for a carriage, we passed through fields and hedgerows to an erection which looks too insignificant for such solemn use. Don't expect any ghastly details. A longish ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... then, to see the minister's hands; they seemed to be here, there, and everywhere, and to pounce upon those little fluffy balls with unerring aim, and presently, there they were, Joel lifting the bar when bidden, in the coop, "peeping" away and huddling up to the dear gray feathery nest. The chickens who hadn't run out came up, as if wanting to hear the story, and what it was like to be ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze, and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... misty hair, that fine Undine-like mien,[13] Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest call;— Ah, dear old homestead! count it to thy fame That thither many times the Painter came;— 230 One elm yet bears his name, a feathery tree ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... feet, they cut the halters which held the horses fast, and then, withdrawing a slight distance, began throwing snowballs at them. These feathery missiles fell among and struck against them, until, to escape the mimic bombardment they moved out the wood altogether, where they were taken charge by the others who were waiting. All this was accomplished without attracting the ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... of the river, the desert crouched like a lion who flings back his head with a shake of yellow mane, before he stoops to drink. And in the midst of the stream rose Elephantine Island, with its crown of feathery palms, its breastwork of Roman ruins (a medal of fame for the kings it gave to Egypt) and its undying lullaby sung by the cataract, among ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... there were Red Indians in England—and there had been. The word brought back memories of last summer holidays and everyone groaned; they thought of the white house with the beautiful tangled garden—late roses, asters, marigold, sweet mignonette, and feathery asparagus—of the wilderness which someone had once meant to make into an orchard, but which was now, as Father said, 'five acres of thistles haunted by the ghosts of baby cherry-trees'. They thought of the view across the valley, where the lime-kilns looked like Aladdin's palaces in the sunshine, ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... lightning the birch, moving fastest of all, shot upward its slender stem. Even the feathery brown reeds had pierced their way through the clouds, and the birds sang and sang, and on the grass that fluttered to and fro like a streaming ribbon perched the grasshopper, while cockchafers hummed and bees buzzed. All was music ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... for comparison to the confused novice, the true Solomon's Seal and the so-called false species—quite as honest a plant—usually grow near each other. Grace of line, rather than beauty of blossom, gives them both their chief charm. But the feathery plume of greenish-white blossoms that crowns the false Solomon's Seal's somewhat zig-zagged stem is very different from the small, greenish, bell-shaped flowers, usually nodding in pairs along the stem, under the leaves, from the axils of the true Solomon's Seal. Later in summer, when ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... morning service, and Patty laid down her book with a sigh and went and stood by the open window. The outside world was a shimmering green and yellow, the trees showed a feathery fringe against the sky, and the breeze was redolent of ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... music, varied by some stirring martial air; the Mexican moon has risen, and now that the sunset colours pale, vies with the lamps of the well-lit promenade to illumine a happy but simple scene. Its rays shine through the feathery boughs of the palms, and glisten on the broad, elegant leaves of the platanos—which grow even in the upland valleys—whilst the scent of orange-blossoms falls softly through the balmy air, as in ceaseless promenade fair maidens and chatting youths, with coquetry and stolen glance, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... region lined with the rich green of live-oak and water-elm. A richly mottled rattlesnake lay coiled beneath a pale green clump of prickly pear in the foreground. A third of the canvas was ultramarine and lake white—the typical Western sky and the flying clouds, rainless and feathery. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... after year the mellow brown carpet of reddish straw deepened, forming a soft safe nidus for the seeds that sprang up and now gratefully embroidered it with masses of golden rod, starry white asters, and tall, feathery spikes of some velvety purple bloom, which looked royal by the side of a cluster of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... to 4 feet; second week of July; flowers, very numerous, dull white, borne in large compound heads, having a soft, feathery appearance. ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... wafted the sweet scented odors from the flower-decked fields, with their carpets of green. All nature seemed smiling, for was it not its mating season? What was all the chattering going on in the trees and the songs in the bushes, but the feathery tribe making love to each other. It seemed as if on this day all Nature was singing one grand anthem with ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... grossly unfair than that which says the birds of Africa have no song. The yellow weaver birds sing most beautifully, as they fly from the feathery tops of the avenue of coconut palms that line the road to the clump ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... away up an unfrequented staircase to the empty apartments, which seemed to be too high even for the lovers of High Art. On the western side they were shady and cool, and, leaning from one of the windows, Psyche watched the feathery tree-tops ruffled by the balmy wind, that brought spring odors from the hills, lying green and sunny far away. Silence and solitude were such pleasant companions that the girl forgot herself, till a shrill whistle disturbed ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... under the feathery branches of tall tamarisk trees, smoking their water-pipes, after the sunset meal. It ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... glycerin, he left the newspaper men and struck away alone. He kept on all night and passed Chico bridge early next morning. Before sun-rise he noticed a tree that was strange and wonderful. It was full of what appeared to be large white clusters of feathery-like blossoms, which swayed to and fro as though alive, yet not a breath of air was stirring. His wonder at the beautiful spectacle was so great, that he ceased moving the paddle and drifted with the current toward the snowy looking tree. When opposite, he saw it was a roost for some sort of ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... feathery palm-trees rise, And the date grows ripe under sunny skies? Or midst the green islands of glittering seas, Where fragrant forests perfume the breeze, And strange, bright birds, on starry wings, Bear the rich hues of all glorious things?" ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... and perch on her window-sills, and thence, by trains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shining cherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngsters used to sit entranced with delight as they gamboled and waved their feathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations of gingerbread and bits of seedcake with as good a relish as any child ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in masks and Nell Gwyn dresses and men in King Charles knee-breeches and long curled hair, and the second time a bunch of people and creatures just wild: all sorts and colors of clothes, humans with hoofs for feet and antennae springing from their foreheads, furry and feathery things that had more arms than two and in one case that many heads—as if they were dressed up in our Tempest, Peer Gynt and Insect People costumes and ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... the afternoon there was always the wondrous opalescent haze of August, filling every distance. There was always his garden—there were the great trees, with the light sifting through high spaces of feathery green; there were the flowers, the birds, the bees, the butterflies, with their colour, and their fragrance, and their music; there was his tinkling fountain, in its nimbus of prismatic spray; there was the swift, symbolic Aco. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... represent, has offered to renew its confidence, but it has failed to restore ours. No amount of commission whatever, will tempt us to affront the awful majesty of Lynch, or to expose ourselves to the tar-and-feathery tortures which he prepares for those who blaspheme the Republic. We have ordered our buggy for the Home Circuit, and propose, by a course of deliberate mastication, and unlimited freedom of speech, to repair the damage which our digestion, and we fear our temper, has sustained during ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... unsightly skeletons of weeds, were all incased in ice and touched by the magic wand of beauty. The mountain-tops, however, surpassed all other objects in the transfigured world, for upon them a heavy mist had rested and frozen, clothing every branch and spray with a feathery frost-work of crystals, which, in the sun-lighted distance, was like a great shock of silver hair. There were drawbacks, however, to this marvellous scene. There were not a few branches already broken from the trees, and Mr. Clifford said that if the wind rose the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... by fleecy down—soft and white as it used to be when I first saw it on the hills of New England. No wind had moved it; it lay as it fell, like a white mantle thrown lightly over the world. Great feathery flakes filled the air and gently descended upon the earth, like that beautiful Spirit that made the plains of Judea bright two thousand years ago. It seemed a fitting emblem of that nature which covered the unloveliness of the world by His own beauty, and changed the ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... and Rudolph went to buy a dog, and returned with an amiable shaggy monster quite as tall as the latter—white and tan, with a smile upon his lips, and a fine feathery tail, which little Helwis fell at once to stroking. This eligible member of the family received the name of Olaf, and was clearly made to understand that he must tolerate anything from the children, and ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... lines of tea-shrubs, well hoed, and showing the bare earth beneath; the pollard mulberries; the plots of cotton and maize and wheat and yam and clover; the little brown and green tiled cottages with spreading recurbed eaves, the clumps of feathery bamboo, or of sugar-canes; ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... swept off his feet by this torrent of uncommon and mystical language, and passing a moist hand through his feathery hair. He was not entirely ignorant, of course, of the alleged use of sound in the various systems of so-called magic that have influenced the minds of imaginative men during the history of the world. He had heard, ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... dust and ashes, and the ranks of charred trunks cast only thin strips of shade, while a scorching sun poured down an almost intolerable heat into the deep valley. The ground was ankle-deep in dust and charcoal, and, as they floundered through it, feathery ash rose in clouds. Their clothing grew crusted with it, and it worked through and irritated their heated skin; while every now and then one of them was compelled to stop and splutter. Their throats, as Grenfell remarked, certainly felt very ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... After passing the first obstacle, we floated into one of those long deep pools which lend a peculiar charm to the Dronne. Usually covered in summer with white or yellow lilies—seldom the two species together—these and other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths show their scalloped or feathery forms with perfect distinctness far below the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... of the terrestrial crew, Who teaches Greek, Latin, and likewise Hebrew; He has taught Captain Dampier, the first in the race, Swirling his hat with a feathery grace, Cookson the marshal, and Willoughby, of size, Making minor serjeant-majors in ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... came tripping across the field. The youngest laughed when they saw the dandelions and kissed them with delight. The older children made wreaths and dainty chains of them. They picked carefully those that had gone to seed, and tried to blow the feathery down off with one ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... however, with the Indian in the lead. There was no trail; the hills were steep; in places they were forced to unload the sled and hoist their outfit by means of ropes, and as they mounted higher the snow deepened. It lay like loose sand, only lighter; it shoved ahead of the sled in a feathery mass; the dogs wallowed in it and were unable to pull, hence the greater part of the work devolved upon the men. Once above the foothills and into the range proper, the going became more level, but ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... rears his bold form, And bares a brave breast to the lightning and storm, While palm, bay, and laurel, in classical glee, Chase tulip, magnolia, and fragrant fringe-tree; And sturdy horse-chestnut for centuries hath given Its feathery ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... child at play, Like a living ocean-child, Through the feathery spray she cleaves her way To the billows' music wild; The sea is her wide-spread pleasure ground, And the waves around her leap, As with joyous bound, to their mystic sound, She dances o'er ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of the insects in the winter are prophetic,—from the delicate cocoon of some infinitesimal feathery thing which hangs upon the dry, starry calyx of the aster, to the large brown-paper parcel which hides in peasant garb the costly beauty of some gorgeous moth. But the hints of birds are retrospective. In each tree of this pasture, the very pasture where last spring we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... garden, and the long straight path under the wall, where every day for many years she had walked, spring and summer, autumn and winter; days of rain, days of sun, days of boisterous wind, days of white feathery snow—all the days through which she had passed, on her way from childhood to womanhood. Best of all, she had loved the garden and her favourite path in spring, when vague hopes like dreams stirred in her blood, when it ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in pretty names, call the bee-bird;[1] that bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days over the sweetest flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small tube of the jessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossoms of the geranium, whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast; that insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest; always, even when feeding, self-poised, and self-supported, and whose wings in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so lulling, so musical. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... shape, and form occurs. This grand group recedes in a gentle sweep from the coast far inland, where it terminates in a high conical mountain, overtopping the entire mass of pinnacles which cluster around it. The whole is well clothed with trees of that feathery and graceful foliage peculiar to the spruce and larch, and interspersed with huge round clumps of evergreens, with alternations of long glades and great open patches of lawn covered with rich grass of that bright emerald green peculiar to California. This woodland scene, viewed of an early morning, ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... succeeding one another like the waves of the sea. The first impression is one of barrenness. The forest vanishes, and in its place are long grassy slopes, broken here and there by scattered pines and lower down by dense growths of the graceful, feathery bamboo. But this lack of trees is more fancied than real, for as one proceeds down any of the valleys he meets with side canyons, where the tropical jungle still holds sway, while many a mountain side is covered with a dense undergrowth of shrubs, plants, and vines. It seems ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... all lacy blue with lilac, and misty white with lemonade bush, and lovely gold with monkey flower, and purple with lupin, and painted blood red with broad strokes of Indian paint brush, and beautifully lighted with feathery flames from Our Lord's Candles, and perfumy as altar ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... it could not be said, there was seen to be a serpent of flame swiftly stealing along the Elevated's track. A tiny frill of fire, under a feathery cloud of smoke, ran down the wooden ties; sharp crackling sounds were heard; and a moment later the frame roof of the raised depot burst into light. One would hardly have thought that there was here sufficient fuel to jeopardize greatly the stout ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... went short of food, for the fishers and the farm people, and even the pitmen, took care to give her shelter and enough to eat. She was mostly bare-headed, but in September, when the cotton-grass grew feathery, she liked to make herself a head-dress out of the grey plumes. When her Sunday hat, as she called it, was on, she was fond of putting the red fronds of the dying bracken into her belt, and with those adornments ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... into the solitary night. Was he not alone? Then phantasms came as on a flood. He was in a kind of euthanasy. The pain of his foot had ceased. He saw the Paradise by Sardis and its bending feathery palms; he heard the tinkling of the Lydian harps, and Roxana singing of the magic Oxus, and the rose valleys of Eran. Next Roxana became Hermione. He was standing at her side on the knoll of Colonus, and watching the sun sink ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... its colors as variegated as a rose garden. Seaweed and kelp wave to us as we pass, long-stemmed sea grasses moving by the action of the waves, like a feather boa worn by some sea nymph, twist and turn like a thing alive; tall, feathery plumes, as white as snow, or as green as emerald, toss to and fro, and make obeisance to old Neptune. Sea onions, with stems thirty feet long, and bulbous air-filled sacks, reach out their long snaky arms, like an octopus, ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... marsh and lake there was here a thousand years ago. Yes, in detail, exactly the same things were seen then that may yet be beheld. The reeds had the same height, and bore the same kind of long leaves and bluish-brown feathery plumes that they bear now; the birch stood there, with its white bark and its fine loosely-hanging leaves, just as now; and as regards the living creatures that dwelt here—why, the fly wore its gauzy dress of the same cut that it wears now; and the favourite colours of the stork ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... the beach by a winding road at the foot of the dividing hills. A stream of water, collected from many ravines, finds its way by a similar opening to a ledge of rock in the neighborhood, and, falling over in feathery spray, has given the name of Cascade to this part of the island. Off this bay, on the morning of the 21st of June, 1842, the brig Governor Philip was sailing, having brought stores for the use of the penal establishment. It was one of those bright mornings which this hemisphere alone knows, ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... The feathery white moon never let the sky grow dark; all night the chestnut blossoms were white in the green; dim was the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... five in the evening the hilly character of the country gave place to that of a wide-stretching level plain, thickly overgrown with long rank grass, with occasional isolated clumps of bush, and here and there a tall feathery palm, or a grove of wild plantains or bamboo. The faint grey glimmer of the sea appeared on the utmost verge of the distant horizon, and certain huge shapeless irregularities in the extreme distance gradually revealed themselves as the colossal remains of what ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... kiss, O'er the mountains he is gane; And with him is a' my bliss, Nought but griefs with me remain. Spare my luve, ye winds that blaw, Plashy sleets and beating rain! Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw, Drifting o'er the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... it rose sufficiently in front to show the face within. But the highway itself was not there; it had been left behind some hours earlier. The buggy was moving at a quiet jog along a "neighborhood road," with unploughed fields on the right and a darkling woods pasture on the left. By the feathery softness and paleness of the sweet-smelling foliage you might have guessed it was not far from the middle of April, one way or another; and, by certain allusions to Pittsburg Landing as a place of conspicuous note, you might have known that Shiloh had been fought. There was that feeling ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... and perfect do not slice them, but serve them whole; wipe or brush off the feathery coating, arrange them neatly on the fruit-dish, and decorate them with fresh green leaves ...
— Breakfast Dainties • Thomas J. Murrey
... chant!—Ho, I call to thee, son Born to Latona, Dispenser of boding, on gold-gleaming throne Midmost of earth who art sitting:—thine ears shall be pierced with my moan! Thy Delos doth hate thee, thy bay-boughs abhor thee, By the palm-tree of feathery frondage that rose Where in sacred travail Latona bore thee In Zeus's garden close." [Footnote: Euripid. Ion, 885.—Translated by A. ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... material things we sometimes see the working of this law. There is a gorgeous sunset. Come out of the dingy house, and gaze on the scene. The western sky is ablaze with purple and crimson and gold. The radiant clouds stretch out in feathery, fantastic forms, like angels' wings; or pile themselves up in solid blocks of glory, like celestial mountains; or shape themselves into golden bars, like heaven's ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... studio gate are vacant lots labelled with their prices and appeals to the passer to buy them. Still their prices are high enough to mark the thoroughfare as one out of the common, and it is further distinguished by two rows of lofty eucalyptus trees. These have a real feathery beauty, and are perhaps a factor in the seemingly exorbitant prices demanded for the choice bungalow and home sites they shade. Save for a casual pioneer bungalow or two, there are no buildings to attract the notice until one reaches ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... date-palms, rising up tall and slender, vying in gracefulness with the tapering minarets of the mosques, and with their feathery foliage mingling with and overtopping the white stone buildings, lends a charm to Alexandria that is found wanting in Constantinople —albeit the Osmanli capital presents by far the more lovely appearance ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... there remained only a universal hum, allied to silence. Right before Robin's eyes was an uncovered cart. There the torches blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like day, and there, in tar-and-feathery dignity, sat ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Feathery Pets, and How they Live. Stories of Animals, Fishes and Birds for the Little Folks. Edited by Laura E. Richards. Illustrated with nearly 250 wood engravings, all original in design, and engraved by George T. Andrew. ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... cold gray sky of the morning!-and, through the partially frosted window-panes, I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm. A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air, and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. These are ...
— Snow Flakes (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... whited salt-peter was gwine gobern de world all your own way, didn't you? Heave me down in de wault to sleep long o' de rats, didn't you? Ah, ha! where you sleep las' night—and where you gwine to sleep to-night? Not in your feathery bed, dat's sartain! Send me 'cross de seas, to lib long ob de barbariums in de Stingy Islands, didn't you? Oh, ho! where you gwine be sent 'cross de seas? Not on a party ob pleasure, dat sartain, too! Ebber ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the world. It is four hundred and thirteen feet high. It still looms in my memory with undiminished grandeur. I can still see the trees and bushes growing smaller and smaller as I followed them up its huge slant with my eye, till they became a feathery fringe on the distant summit. This symmetrical Pyramid of Cheops—this solid mountain of stone reared by the patient hands of men—this mighty tomb of a forgotten monarch—dwarfs my cherished mountain. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... forward. He swung madly to dodge a soaring tower. He swept upward a little to avoid a flying bridge. The ship was travelling with an enormous speed, and the golden walls of the city flashed past below them and they sped away across feathery jungle. ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... are taken up with the production of flower-seeds or bulbs, with acres and acres of calla-lilies, roses, carnations, and violets. The tall pampas-grass, with its long feathery plumes, gives a profitable crop. Indeed, one can scarcely name a fruit, flower, or tree that will not thrive and grow to perfection in our mild climate ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... broad silver girdle with figures upon it, such as the Finns use. Her bodice was of tar-brown skin, and beneath her stay-laces, which seemed to be of green sea-grass, was a foam-white chemise, like the feathery breast of a sea-bird. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... is no curse on you. The Temple of the Monkey was either a coincidence or a part of the trick; the trick was the trick of a white man. There is only one weapon that will bring blood with that mere feathery touch: a razor held by a white man. There is one way of making a common room full of invisible, overpowering poison: turning on the gas—the crime of a white man. And there is only one kind of club that can be thrown out of a window, turn ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Vera Cruz before the heat of the day begins. We passed over a dreary district, generally too dry for anything but cactus and acacias, but now and then, when a little water was to be found, displaying clumps of bamboos with their elegant feathery tufts. Then the railway took us through the dismal downs, with their swamps and sand-hills, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... showing to me the rest of the party lying down as I was, and involuntarily attempting to shield their heads with their hands, while all around the lofty palm-trees were yielding to the gale, which was tearing their feathery heads into fragments. Every instant I expected some of the trees to ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... drawn soo-oo-ook; the clucking whip-poor-wills, that chanted from the bare flat pasture rocks; the chickadees that came into the orchard and about the great loose farm woodpile, in February, with their odd little minor refrain of cic-a-da-da-da-da, mere feathery mites of ceaseless activity that somehow did not freeze, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... village below was not far off, but they could see nothing of it, buried as it was in the river-valley and behind a green arras of beech leaves: in every other direction, far as the eye could see, leagues of feathery pale grass besprinkled with blue and yellow flowers went away in ribbed undulations, occasionally rolling up into a crest on which a company of fir trees hung like men on march. The sun was pale and smudged, the sky veiled: on its silken pallor floated, ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... the air are good," she thought, watching the sun-rays pierce the purple hearts of a passion-flower, the shadows move across the deep brown water, the radiant butterfly alight upon a lily, the scarlet-throated birds dart in and out through the yellow feathery blossoms of the limes. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... cloudy one afternoon, and Harry had been standing by the window watching the street cars. Suddenly the air grew thick, and he could scarcely see the houses opposite. Something white and feathery fell slowly down and rested on the window ledge. Then it disappeared. But more and more of the little flakes came, until there was quite a ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... through his nostrils, that he was far from the works of men. Food he could not think of while every bone and muscle in his great body ached from weariness. By the edge of the rock was a sandy hollow, over which a feathery shrub drooped three or four of its graceful branches at a height of three feet from the ground. Finn eyed this inviting spot steadily for two or three minutes, while his aching sides continued to heave, and his long tongue to sway from one side of his jaws. Then he stepped cautiously into ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... England, lead down to a valley of rice fields bright with the emerald green of the young crops. To the right and to the left rise knolls of fantastic shape, crowned with a profusion of Cryptomerias, Scotch firs and other cone-bearing trees, and fringed with thickets of feathery bamboos, bending their stems gracefully to the light summer breeze. Wherever there is a spot shadier and pleasanter to look upon than the rest, there may be seen the red portal of a shrine which the simple piety of the country folk has raised to Inari Sama, the patron god of farming, or ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... hanging on like bull terriers. They did this repeatedly; once one of the males dashed in and separated them, by giving one of the females a sharp tweak and blow. Then the males were at it again, their blue plumage mixing with the green grass and ruffled by the ruddy soil. What a soft, feathery, ineffectual battle it seemed in both cases!—no sound, no blood, no flying feathers, just a sudden mixing up and general disarray of blue wings and tails and ruddy breasts, there on the ground; assault but no visible wounds; thrust ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the plighted pair, And join paternal with maternal care; The married birds with nice selection cull Soft thistle-down, gray moss, and scattered wool, Line the secluded nest with feathery rings, Meet with fond bills, and woo with fluttering wings. Week after week, regardless of her food, The incumbent Linnet warms her future brood; Each spotted egg with ivory lips she turns, Day after day with ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... sickly pup or a grieving-eyed mother dog whose babies had been taken away from her. Such tiny creatures, even the mother dogs— those little Blenheim spaniels! Snub-nosed, round-headed with long silky flopping ears, soft curly coats and feathery tails. Felice liked the yellow and white ones, and always reached for them, but her grandfather coolly "weeded them out," as Zeb expressed it, because the Trenton ideal was a white dog ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... coign of vantage, he was, as well as his blinking eyes would allow, gazing out over the rails at the fast-falling flakes of feathery snow that were quickly covering up the metals and permanent way with a mantle of white; when, all at once, without a "by your leave," or seeing or hearing anyone approach, his attention was summarily brought back to the present by the strange announcement ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... them by a squat, wide-limbed cedar. Then the wind went ripping off through the tree-tops, exacting its toll of flying twigs and leaving in its wake a brief, hushed calm. Through the still air fell scattering flakes of snow, big and unbroken and feathery. King's eyes were filled with concern; his face was ominous like the face of the world ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... could be seen glimmering among the ancient olive trees, the Storm-cloud walked with them; early in the morning, when the gray-blue of mountain and sky was framed like star sapphires in the silver of gnarled trunks and feathery branches; or else early in the evening, when the moon-dawn had come. The cows were supposed to chaperon Mademoiselle Nathalie Verando, who was by blood more Signorina than Mademoiselle; but they countenanced several flirtations which were observed by the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... before; the street lamps burned more brightly, the air was more transparent, the carriages rumbled with a deeper note, and with the fresh, light, frosty air a feeling stirred in the soul akin to the white, youthful, feathery snow. "Against my will an unknown force," hummed the medical student in his agreeable tenor, "has led ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Miss Wetherby rescued her pillow shams, and with the other, forcibly removed the dog which had lost no time in following his master into the feathery nest. Then she abruptly left the room; she could not trust ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... confronted us with no sound or sign of life. Above, and at this close distance blotting out half the sky over our heads, towered the huge cone of Lakalatcha with scarred and blackened flanks. It was in one of its querulous moods. The feathery white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, fantastic shapes, no longer capped the crater; its place had been usurped by thick, dark fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about. In the fading light I marked ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the farm was composed of a dozen century-old oaks, a sprinkling of feathery pepper-trees, and many clumps of brilliant-blossomed cacti. The veranda and outbuildings were heavily hung with creepers, and great barrels of begonias and geraniums stood about. Within a few hundred yards of the house, the green and glowing cultivation stopped as abruptly as the edges of an oasis ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... that is that I know it is the last country as ever I shall see in this world. I had a dream last night, and I dreamed that I saw my old father with a kind of night-shirt on him, something like these folks wear when they want to be in particular full-dress, and a bit of that feathery grass in his hand, which he may have gathered on the way, for I saw lots of it yesterday about three hundred yards from the mouth of ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... of discovery. The time might have been so advantageously employed in paddling down the river, and, for Eva's sake, I was doubly anxious to be off. I was almost despairing of his return, when the long feathery leaves of the shrubs near me were pushed aside, and, breathing with haste, Kalong appeared. In an instant he perceived how matters stood, and, making a sign to me to take my seat in the canoe, he stepped in after me, and, seizing a paddle, shoved her head off from the bank. He then began to ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... the tall, dry reeds. The blackbirds and starlings perched upon the willows seemed swollen into feathery balls, the fur started on the backs of hares, and a four-horse wain could travel in safety over swamps where at any other time a schoolboy dared not set ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... have few plants of more interest than this; its beautiful feathery bloom is but little inferior to the plumage of the celebrated Bird of Paradise. It is frequently worn in the head-dress ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... lights a glowing yellow, shot with feathery dashes of ruddy orange; yellow to green, and then the gray of the high starlit vault. But the stars are dimming, whimpering under their loss of power. Their archenemy of day is approaching, and they must shrink away and hide till the fiery path of the monarch of the universe ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... purely white or brilliant with colour; roses in their perfection of bloom; flowers of forms she had never figured to herself, shaded by wondrous trees, the exquisite weeping deodara, the delicate mimosa, the scaly Himalaya pines, the feathery gigantic ferns ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ensign spread to welcome the newcomers from a civilised land. At their distance from the shore it was impossible to make out the individual trees, but there seemed to be clumps of noble pines some distance in, and the valleys were made ornamental with some kind of feathery growth. ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... first snow of the season started in a fall of light, feathery flakes, which gradually resolved themselves into fine, hard particles that were hurled and buffeted about by the blasts of a ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... out a quarry from among the carrion crew. It was curious to see the efforts of the two birds to get above each other; one to make the fatal swoop, the other to avoid it. Now they crossed athwart a bright feathery cloud, and now they were against the clear blue sky. I confess, being no sportsman, I was more interested for the poor bird that was striving for its life, than for the hawk that was playing the part ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... some distinct features of the landscape. Conspicuous on every hillside are the groves 'where the mango apples grow,' their mass of dense rounded foliage looking not unlike our maples, and giving a pleasant sense of home to the northern sojourner. The feathery bamboo, most gigantic of grasses, runs in plumy lines across the country. Around the negro cottages, here and there, rise groups of the cocoanut palms, giving, more than anything else, a tropical character to the landscape. On a distant eminence may perhaps be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... wand of living light, She touched the feathery snow; And on it, radiant from her cheek, There streamed a sunny glow. Forth from the tiny, crystal flake, The pearly petals came; The stem sprang up—there waved a flower,— The SNOW-DROP ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... those forms of ape and ibis inside the Egyptian caverns—serve to illustrate the shapes and idolatries of human conceit. At any rate, there is no doubt of the essential nobility of that man who pours into life the honest vigor of his toil, over those who compose this feathery foam of fashion that sweeps along Broadway; who consider the insignia of honor to consist in wealth and indolence; and who, ignoring the family history, paint coats of arms to cover up the leather ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... range; with varied skill Thy muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing, Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle, To that hoar pile which still its ruins shows; In whose small vaults a pygmy folk is found, Whose ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... gurgling along. The dell itself is an irregular piece of broken ground, in some parts very deep, intersected by two or three high banks of equal irregularity, now abrupt and bare, and rocklike, now crowned with tufts of the feathery willow or magnificent old thorns. Everywhere the earth is covered by short, fine turf, mixed with mosses, soft, beautiful, and various, and embossed with the speckled leaves and lilac flowers of the arum, the paler blossoms ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... was not at all dreamlike, but perfectly clear and solid-looking in the candle-light. He saw the hairy body, and the short feathery antennae, the jointed legs, even a place where the down was rubbed from the wing. He suddenly felt angry with himself for being afraid of ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... perhaps still more like a string of chestnut-colored scales threaded through the centre. Waving to and fro in the summer breeze, as I afterward saw them, intertwined with the graceful tendrils of the beautiful passion-flower with its rare feathery chalice of purple and gold, and flanked on every side by ferns of exquisite symmetry, reflecting their dainty fringes in the clear waters, the tout ensemble is one of radiant loveliness, seemingly too fair to be hidden ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various |
