"Four-footed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some little voice pleaded, and some little heart would be so near broken at any slight that my wife and I resigned ourselves to live in a menagerie, the more so as we were obliged to confess a lurking weakness towards these four-footed children ourselves. ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... whispered Dilly. "I sha'n't feel so strange there as I do with folks. I guess if the four-footed creatur's can stan' it, I can. Pretty darlin'!" she added, stopping before a heifer who had ceased eating and was looking about her with a mild and dignified gaze. Dilly eagerly sought out a stick, and began to scratch ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... tree-toad, turtle or snake was to be found on the long stretching areas of its lifeless shores. Not a chipmunk, prairie-dog, coyote, rat, mouse, porcupine, fox, bear, mountain-lion, badger, deer, antelope or other four-footed creature ran over its new-born surfaces. The sun shone unhindered; the rain beat with pitiless fury; the winds swept unhampered; the snows piled up undeterred over the whole plateau and canyon country. It was plateau and canyon, canyon and plateau; red rock, gray rock, creamy rock, yellow, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... in the shape of a knock at the door—the door leading to the kitchen-stairs. It was but the scratch of one fingernail on the wood. Tiny as the sound was, it did not have to be repeated before Estelle ran to open. A small four-footed person entered, the bigness of a baby's muff and the whiteness of a marquis's powdered wig. Estelle caught him up from the floor and with a coo of affection, "What um doing in the kitchen, little rogums?" set him ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... complimentary?" flung back Mollie, laughing. "You can compare yourself to a four-footed dog, Grace, but please ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... it would be wise?" he asked Lady Valerie Alvarath. The Queen of three rooms and one four-footed subject had already decreed that Lady Valerie should be the Space Viking Prince's girl on the planet of Marduk. "If it got out, these People's Welfare lunatics would pick it up and twist it into evidence of some kind of ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... destroyed. He bade him bury in Sepharvaim, the city of the sun, all the ancient, mediaeval, and modern records, and build a ship and embark in it with his kindred and his nearest friends. He was also to take food and drink into the ship, and pairs of all creatures winged and four-footed. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... to the sensations we feel." We need not wonder that this theory has failed to convince the unmetaphysical common-sense of people that a stone post is merely a stubborn thought, and that the bite of a dog is nothing but an acquaintance with a pugnacious, four-footed conception. When a man falls downstairs it is not easy to convince him that his thought simply tumbles along an inclined series of perceptions and comes to a conclusion that breaks his head; least of all, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... a single narrow window, and by a lamp that was always burning, had the air of a garret. All the four-footed furniture comported itself as though it had but three legs—the whitewashed walls had for their only ornament the following quatrain in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... out the other way an' it's just fists, it don't hurt to remember how Trevors put out Scotty Webb last year in Rocky Bend. Four-footed style, striking with his ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... not very long before Charlie learned that the four-footed beast thus vaguely referred to was a polite term which the big boys at Randlebury used to designate ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... superscription" on the gold, silver, and copper that passes through our hands daily, which we almost forget to identify with the likeness of the young Queen. About this time also commenced the royal patronage of Landseer, which resulted later in many a family group, in which numerous four-footed favourites had their place. At the exhibition of Landseer's works after his death, the sight of these groups recalled to elderly men and women who had been his early neighbours, the days when a goodly cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, with their grooms, on horseback, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... depends upon the manner of its life. A bird lives in trees or the air, looking down at the prowling cat or up at the hawk hovering in the clear sky; so it does not keep ears, and its nose is of no account. But what four-footed thing can see like a bird? The squirrel also lives in the trees, and its ears are frivolously decorated with tufts of hair. You will not find many beasts that can afford to prostitute their ears to ornamental purposes. ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... appears, must go on all through creation. We eat ducks, turkeys, and chickens, though we don't swallow them whole, feathers and all. Our four-footed friends, less civilized, take things with more directness and simplicity, and chew each other up without ceremony, or swallow each other alive. Of these unceremonious ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... stone, we made a hiding-place. Jones was extremely cautious to arrange the bunches in natural positions. "A Rocky Mountain Big Horn is the only four-footed beast," he said, "that has a better eye than a wild horse. A cougar has an eye, too; he's used to lying high up on the cliffs and looking down for his quarry so as to stalk it at night; but even a cougar has to take second to a mustang when it ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... with the ruts worn by the rain, and the tearing up of the ground by the passage of heavy ordnance, it would be a difficult matter indeed to select any particular line of march and call it a road. Travellers ordinarily engage mules for the journey; we sailors scorn any such four-footed assistance, though the next time we voyage this way it will be as well to remember that ankle boots are preferable to "pursers' crabs." As we advance, the sun's rays are beginning to get unpleasantly warm, whilst the sand most persistently ignores all the known laws of gravity, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... could not have been more awake. The noise was slight; only a small fragment of rock had fallen and the echoes of its journey were lost almost at once; it was the beginning of the sound that he was thinking of—the noise had not started right. He thought of the four-footed prowlers of the night and as a cause eliminated them one after another. He thought of his horse below—it was not where such a sound could start. But always slow to imagine a mystery when a reason could be assigned, Laramie, lying prone, was brought back every time to his first instinctive ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... to speak of the last class in that great group—the Mammalia, so called because they feed their young, not as birds do, with insects or grain, but with milk. They are chiefly "four-footed beasts of the earth," and are covered with hair or fur. In this class extremes meet; we find the great elephant and the playful little squirrel, the kingly lion and the timid mouse which is said to have set him free when snared in ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... a rare old philosopher—a sort of four-footed Diogenes. He was discerning in his friendships, somewhat aggressive and splenetic to his equals; intolerant of cats, whom he hunted like vermin, and rather disdainfully condescending to the small dogs of Milnthorpe. Jumbles always accompanied ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... recognition. When we say, 'The hawk is on the top of the tree,' and 'the hawk is above the top of the tree,' we mean one and the same thing.—The 'light,' therefore, is nothing else but the most glorious and luminous highest Person. Him who in the former passage is called four-footed, we know to have an extraordinarily beautiful shape and colour—(cp., e.g., 'I know that great Person of sunlike colour beyond the darkness' (Svet. Up. III, 9))—, and as hence his brilliancy also must be extraordinary, he is, in the text under discussion, quite appropriately ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the absence of his four-footed companion, was to return to the cottage; but the risk in so doing was extreme, and as he felt certain his guide would take care of the dog, and that he should get it at some future day, he resolved to pursue his journey. Meantime the night became darker and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Tahiti, from what I hear, has seen better days," commented the Queensland doctor. "All over the world the primitive people endowed this humble form of animal—the serpentine—with a cunning and supernatural power surpassing that of the four-footed creatures. I think it was because in the cradle of the human family there were so many hurts from the bites of snakes and sea-eels—they couldn't guard against them—that man salved his wounds by crediting his enemy ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... is hard to match in any other tree. It is hard to think of these as of the vegetable world. I suspect them of standing immobile only at their will and of being capable of trooping up hill and over into some other pasture should they see fit, as readily as the woodchucks would, or any other four-footed denizens of ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... the name of Dr Duncan is associated with the discovery of footprints of four-footed animals in the New Red-Sandstone. He made this curious geological discovery in a quarry at Corncocklemuir, about fifteen miles distant from his parochial manse. In 1823, he received the degree of D.D. from the University of St Andrews. In 1839, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... "I dunno's I be. What's the use o' shootin' down four-footed creatur's? T'other ones'll ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... eagerness kept tightly rigged The cordage of his body, till his nerves Loosed on a sudden. He yelled, "What do we here, High up among bleak winds, always afraid Of murder from the wolves? I will be man No more; the grey four-footed fellows have The good meats of the world, and the best lodging, Forest and weald." And then he wolfish howled, And hurled off towards the snarling and the baying. And now his soul wears the strength and fury Of a huge dun-pelted wolf; he's the wolves' king; And the fiends have ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... present, however, no confirmation can be obtained of the startling rumor that The Spectator has been purchased by the proprietors of The Kennel Gazette, and will henceforth be devoted to the interests of our four-footed friends, the supplements being ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... all the skin rubbed off my knees," said the mate, nodding at Brace. "Nature never meant me to go along like a four-footed beast." ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... and as usual stopped at noon for rest and food for themselves and their four-footed friends. In the afternoon they set forth again, and travelled until they reached Iceville, a considerable village situated high upon one of the table-lands of the Blue Ridge. In this town there were three taverns. Farmer Howe and his daughter put up at the ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... power and becomes a flat, horned, toad-like creature, horrid-looking and harmless, of the color of the soil; and the curio dealer will give you two bits for it, to stuff. Men have their season on the mesa as much as plants and four-footed things, and one is not like to meet them out of their time. For example, at the time of rodeos, which is perhaps April, one meets free riding vaqueros who need no trails and can find cattle where to the layman no cattle exist. As early as February ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... been complaining that Tammuz and his tribe had been destroying his crops, and wished them punished. The knight had ridden over to see, and came back doubtful. He said to the cottager that it did not seem to him like the work of a spiteful neighbor. Was it not possible that some four-footed creature had ravaged the crops? The cottager did not believe that it was. He was sure it was Tammuz. Neither knew that a lean black-haired peasant, lying along close to the limb of a great beech tree, had heard every word of the conversation and also witnessed the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... gone through on this particular Sunday without anything remarkable happening. It was at the end of the psalm which preceded the sermon that Sanders Elshioner, who sat near the door, lowered his head until it was no higher than the pews, and in that attitude, looking almost like a four-footed animal, slipped out of the church. In their eagerness to be at the sermon many of the congregation did not notice him, and those who did put the matter by in their minds for future investigation. Sam'l, however, could not take it so coolly. From his seat in the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... every word well expressed the character and habitual pose of mind of the singer, whose views of earthly matters were as different from the views of ordinary working mortals as those of a bird, as he flits and perches and sings, must be from those of the four-footed ox who plods. The "sobriam ebrietatem spiritus" was with him first constitutional, as a child of sunny skies, and then cultivated by every employment and duty of the religious and artistic career to which from childhood he had devoted himself. If ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... distance accurately enough, and beneath the shock the officer was hurled to the ground. He attempted to fight off his four-footed assailant, but he was no match for ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... feet farther, some four-footed animal suddenly leaped to the edge of the bank, sniffed, and disappeared noiselessly. So taut were his nerves strung that the Sergeant sank upon his knees, releasing one hand to grip his revolver, before he realized the cause of alarm—some ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... to his mistress. The Watatuga, a small species of dragon-fly, is also invoked, together with the bat, which, according to a Cherokee myth, once took sides with the birds in a great ball contest with the four-footed animals, and won the victory for the birds by reason of his superior skill in dodging. This myth explains also why birds, and no quadrupeds, are invoked by the shaman to the aid of his friends. In accordance ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... resembled a bundle of old rope-yarn; but a more faithful or attached creature I never saw. The captain was not a little jealous of Oscar's friendship for me. I was the only person the dog had ever deigned to notice, and his master regarded it as an act of treason on the part of his four-footed favourite. When my arms were tired with nursing, I had only to lay my baby on my cloak on deck, and tell Oscar to watch her, and the good dog would lie down by her, and suffer her to tangle his long curls in her little ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... follow her. She opened a door, and conducted them into a large saloon of wonderful structure. It was a dome of the most agreeable form, supported by a hundred pillars of marble, white as alabaster. The bases and chapiters of the pillars were adorned with four-footed beasts, and birds of various sorts, gilded. The carpet of this noble saloon consisted of one piece of cloth of gold, embroidered with bunches of roses in red and white silk; and the dome painted in the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... was an exceptionally clever dog, who from his earliest youth had been taught to live with different kinds of animals. "Together they went through a series of gymnastic exercises on pleasant afternoons, and their four-footed friends came from far and near to witness the performance. The essentials of the game were that the badger, roaring and shaking his head like a wild boar, should charge upon the dog, as it stood about fifteen paces off, and strike him in ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... thrashed the knights out of every semblance of dignity, tore the canopy into shreds, and led off the white horse in triumph. Law followed blows; the cost of a dozen horses was wasted on the lawyers; in the end the monks won, and the people of Chene had to restore the four-footed prize to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... forced to the dreadful alternative of choosing between the birds and the quadrupeds, again, the most of us would probably decide against the birds. If the four-footed beasts should disappear from the earth, it would be a much greater disaster than the destruction of the fishes. A much larger fraction of the food supply would be lost; while many of these animals contribute ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... that at least please the eye. Lizards make their home beneath them, and many a yellowthroat, taking advantage of the plant's foul odor, gladly puts up with it herself and builds her nest in the hollow of the cabbage as a protection for her eggs and young from four-footed enemies. Cattle let the plant alone because of the stinging acrid juices secreted by it, although such tender, fresh, bright foliage must be especially tempting, like the hellebore's, after a dry winter diet. Sometimes tiny insects are found drowned ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... of talk she sometimes thought she heard a distressed sound in the hall. The buzz of tongues covered it up,—then again she heard it,—and she was sure at last that it was the voice of a dog. Never came an appeal in vain from any four-footed creature to Fleda's heart. All the rest being busy with their own affairs, she quietly got up and opened the door and looked out, and finding that she was right went softly into the hall. In one corner lay her cousin Rossitur's beautiful black pointer, which ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... the peculiarities of the crocodile: During the winter months they eat nothing; they are four-footed, and live indifferently on land or in the water. The female lays and hatches her eggs ashore, passing the greater portion of the day on dry land, but at night retiring to the river, the water of which is ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Malays was followed by the construction of a large bathing-place for the men, which being carefully stockaded round with stout bamboos, allowed the free flow of the river-water, without the addition of any four-footed creatures, in the shape of crocodiles, which were far too common to be pleasant, especially where lower down the river the salt water mingled with the fresh. In fact, it was dangerous there for a hand to be dragged in the water ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... thorough-breds, dawdling about, talking to one another, or taking a canter over the turf, just to settle themselves in the saddle; that would be a sight to make old Vernor look a little better pleased than he did last night, sing out for his boots and buckskins, and clap his leg over the first four-footed beast that came in his way, even if it should happen to be the ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... most subjects did not exclude zoology, and he was able to tell her numberless little details of the ways and habits of beasts that Hal rejoiced to hear, because she loved all four-footed things. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... conferred or received. Further, I maintain that there was a distinction between what MR. NICHOLS calls "the Livery Collar of SS.," and the said knightly golden Collar of SS., as marked and broad as is the difference between the Collar of the Garter and the collar of that four-footed dignitary which bore ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... stairs, and through the alley into the street which led toward the City Hall. Fido looked inquiringly into his master's face to see what could be the reason that he walked so quietly along this morning, instead of, as heretofore, racing and chasing his four-footed little comrade from block to block. But Ned was swallowing several lumps in his throat, and had ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that the times of sorrow are the times when a Christian may have the most of the presence and strength of God. 'In the days of famine they shall be satisfied,' and up among the most barren cliffs, where there is not a bite for any four-footed creature, they shall find springing grass and watered pastures. Our prophet puts the same thought, under a kindred though somewhat different metaphor, in another place in this book, where he says, 'I will open ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... Edward arose betimes, and in a morning walk around the house and its vicinity came suddenly upon a small court in front of the dog-kennel, where his friend Davie was employed about his four-footed charge. One quick glance of his eye recognised Waverley, when, instantly turning his back, as if he had not observed him, he began to sing part of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... wife in Pohja, and endeavours with Wainamoinen's help to recover the mystic sampo. On the voyage, the Runoia makes a harp out of the bones of a monstrous fish, so strange a harp that none may play it but himself. When he played, all four-footed things came about him, and the white birds dropped down 'like a storm of snow.' The maidens of the sun and the moon paused in their weaving, and the golden thread fell from their hands. The Ancient One of the sea-water listened, and the nymphs of the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... to the deck-house, this being his quickest mode of reaching the roof of that structure; and from thence, as he knew, he would of course be able to see right into the long-boat as well as inspect its four-footed tenants. ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... while Brian was confiding his grievances to his four-footed companions in the barn, Betty Jo was expressing herself in ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... of the northern Rocky Mountains attack every four-footed beast to be found where they live. They are far from contenting themselves with hunting deer and snapping up the pigs and sheep of the farm. When the weather gets cold and food scarce they band together in small parties, perhaps of four or five individuals, and then assail ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Being the appellation of the Great Hare. Some, again, call him Michabou, and others Atahocan. Most of them hold the opinion that he was born upon the waters, together with his whole court, entirely composed of four-footed animals, like himself; that he formed the earth of a grain of sand, which he took from the bottom of the ocean; and that he created man of the bodies of the dead animals. There are, likewise, some who mention a god of the waters, who opposed the designs of the Great ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... little wild things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own musing, I found always, always, that you were in them—I cannot tell you how, but you were, Madelon. There was a meaning of you in every bird-call and flutter of wings and race of wild four-footed things across the open. Every white alder-bush in the spring raised you up anew before me to madden me with vain longing, and every red sumach in the fall. When I have sat here alone every book I have opened has had in it a meaning of you which the writer knew not of. You are in all my forethoughts ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... divinity, Rawlinson relates an instructive myth. "According to one legend Thoth once wrote a wonderful book, full of wisdom and science, containing in it everything relating to the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the four-footed beasts of the mountains. The man who knew a single page of the work could charm the heaven, the earth, the great abyss, the mountains and the seas. This marvellous composition he inclosed in a box of gold, which ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... had been ordered to reach their destination at that hour, and, though the air was so cold, the heat-drops rolled off their foreheads as they walked, they were so frightened at being late. But the porters would not budge a foot quicker than they chose, and as they were not poor four-footed carriers their employers dared not thrash them, though most willingly would they have ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... bottom, and placing it upon the roof of their house, spread it about in a thick coating, not with their tails, but with their forefeet, where it soon freezes into so solid a mass that it protects the inmates from the attacks of both the severest winter weather and the most savage of four-footed enemies. So strong indeed does the roof then become that even a moose could stand upon it without it giving way. While some writers doubt that beavers plaster the outside of their house with mud, I wish to add that I have not only examined their houses before and after the plastering ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... away, fed and watered his pony and tenderly rubbed down every inch of his beautiful black skin. He forgot the ache in his new-found love and the strength which had come into his boy's soul from the sense of kinship with Nature which this beautiful dumb four-footed friend had brought him. No man could be friendless or forsaken who possessed the love of a horse. His horse knew and loved him. He said it in a hundred ways. His wide, deep, lustrous eyes, shining ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... and was accomplished at the cost of tremendous exertion. Time after time Johnny broke trail, then returned and urged the huskies forward to the end of his tracks. When he lost the path he sought it out, laboriously hoisted the sledge back into place, and coaxed his four-footed helpers to renewed effort. He was drenched with perspiration, his inner garments were steaming, his outer ones were frozen into a coat of armor; when he paused he chilled rapidly. His vision was untrustworthy, also, and he felt snow blindness coming on. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... all without scales; and may for excellency of meat, be compared to any fish of greatest value and largest size. They be usually full of eggs or spawn, all the months of summer; for they breed often, as 'tis observed mice and many of the smaller four-footed creatures of the earth do and as those, so these come quickly to their full growth and perfection. And it is needful that they breed both often and numerously; for they be, besides other accidents of ruin, both a prey and baits for other fish. ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... statement as given in the Boston Journal of Nov. 23. To opponents of the claims made by Spiritualists, the account may bear greater weight than if made by a Spiritualist paper. Take note that the Journal says, "an almost entire human skeleton," and not the bones of a large dog or of any four-footed animal. ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... morning he began to ask after Farmer Weathersky. 'No! she never heard tell of him, but she ruled over all the four-footed beasts; perhaps some of them might know him.' So she played them all home with a pipe she had, and asked them all, but there wasn't one of them who ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... thought pursued by Elinor, during this morning stroll, we shall not attempt to follow; but that she was fully aware of the importance of the decision was evident, by the unusual absence of manner, which seemed to have struck even her four-footed friend Bruno. She had, indeed, made an important discovery lately, one which was startling, and even painful to her. She found that there are moments in life, when each individual is called upon to think and to act alone. It is a truth which most of us are forced to feel, as we go ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... and for a while to retain, the narrow and winding path that led to the river-side. But it was originally no more than a track, by which the cattle belonging to the cottage went down to their watering-place, and by these four-footed passengers it had ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... other hand, what a calamity if the infection, wide-spread, incurable, and swift as the wind in its course, should attack the too-numerous sheep! And who knows what mysterious, unheard-of retributions that revengeful deity Nature may not be meditating in her secret heart for the loss of her wild four-footed children slain by settlers, and the spoiling of ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... contempt. One, for instance, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard; and so on, throughout all the fish of the sea and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. In some of the shell-fish even, gods were supposed to be present. A man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular god he would consider it death to ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... supplied with a tin catch such as is described on page 88 in order to hold the lid in place after it has fallen. No matter from which end the bait is approached it is no sooner touched than both ends fall and "bunny" is prisoner. Like many other of our four-footed game, the rabbit manifests a peculiar liking for salt and may be regularly attracted to a given spot by its aid. A salted cotton string is sometimes extended several yards from the trap for the purpose of leading them to it, but this seems a needless precaution, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... before the Romans marched past, and before the antique and recordless barbarians fished and hunted here and wondered who he might be, and were probably afraid of him; and before primeval man himself, just emerged from his four-footed estate, stepped out upon this plain, first sample of his race, a thousand centuries ago, and cast a glad eye up there, judging he had found a brother human being and consequently something to kill; and before ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... knew no obstacles; from scaffold to scaffold, from haymow to haymow, she leaped defiant. She pulled out the hay from under the very noses of the astonished cows, to see if, perchance, some inexperienced pullet might there have deposited her golden treasure. With all four-footed beasts she was on the best of terms. The matronly and lazy old sheep she unceremoniously hustled aside, to administer consolation and caresses to the timid, quaking lamb in the corner behind. Without saddle or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... journeyings to and fro, the Bob Lincolns met many enemies, and these enemies wrought sad havoc in their ranks. When they were flying in the air, the hawks and the eagles would swoop upon them and kill them. If they sat upon the ground, the weazels and the minks, the wildcats and other four-footed prowlers, would pounce upon them and devour them. Even the Red Men, with their feathered arrows, would shoot them. So many of them were killed that they began to fear that soon none of their family ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... river-gods, or "water-fathers," were real four-footed dragons identified with the dragon-kings of Chinese myth, but at the same time were strictly homologous with the Naga ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... him; and, for some minutes, the novelist looked down into the brown eyes of his four-footed companion who seemed so to understand. Still fondling the dog,—without looking at the artist,—the older man continued, "You will have your things moved over in the morning, I suppose? Or, will we lunch ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... could see the two mules browsing peacefully side by side, Manuelito still lashed to the back of one of them. Two young Indians stood guard over him and their four-footed captives; but even these fellows were by no means forgotten, for every now and then Pike could see their friends running back to them with something to eat and, after exchanging a word or two, hurrying again to ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... meanness enough to do an act of cruelty and injustice, to gratify the rancour of a capricious woman — Heark ye, Mrs Tabitha Bramble, I will now propose an alternative in my turn. Either discard your four-footed favourite, or give me leave to bid you eternally adieu — For I am determined that he and I shall live no longer under the same roof; and to dinner with what appetite you may' — Thunderstruck at this declaration, she sat ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Do ye want to make the earth quake beneath you that so many of you stand in a heap in one place? What fool among you is it would drag the whole lot of you down to perdition? Would that the heavens might fall upon you!—would that these houses might bury you!—would that ye might turn into four-footed beasts who can do nothing but bark! Lower your heads, ye wretched creatures, and go and hide yourselves behind your mud-walls! And let not a single cry be heard in your streets, for if you dare to come out of your holes, I swear by the shadow of Allah that I'll make a rubbish-heap ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... the animal he wished to come forth, they imitated him some days afterwards, and the result was that the deer escaped from the cave, and "then followed droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges." From their childish glee and tricksiness the animals appear to have suffered somewhat, for we are told (506. 100): "In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down like other animals, but, as a buck was running ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... out into the street and bent over the poor animal. Meg was "just crazy," her brothers said, about animals, and she was never afraid of any four-footed creature. Now, as she leaned over the little dog, he began to lick her hand with ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... and all express'd to the Life. As many Birds as you see, so many Kinds you see; especially if there be any scarce Ones, and remarkable upon any Account. For as for Geese, Hens, and Ducks, it is not worth While to draw them. Underneath are four-footed Creatures, or such Birds as live upon the Ground, after ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... earth, the Kilin, that strange beast which is the prince of all four-footed animals, and only appears when there is a great man on earth, sought the child and spat out a jade whereon was written: "Son of the Watercrystal you are destined to become an uncrowned king!" And Confucius ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... the point easily, for whenever we happened to look round the encampment during the afternoon, from the raised door-way of a kraal where we happened to be couched, we noticed the eyes of one or other of the four-footed guardians fixed intently on us. There were about twenty vans and tents in all; and each paid one shilling a week to the ground landlord. That money, with whatever else was required for food, was obtained ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... amphorae of clay, glass, or metal held in elegant woven baskets placed on four-footed pedestals made of a light, supple wood interlaced in ingenious fashion. The baskets contained seven sorts of wines: date wine, palm wine, and wine of the grape, white, red, and green wines, new ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... is not the only ant-eating quadruped of South Africa. There is another four-footed creature as fond of white ants as he; but this is an animal of very different appearance. It is a creature without hair; but instead, its body is covered all over with a regular coat of scales, each as large ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... herself orders to take daily exercise. If any of us needs a lesson in keeping well and beautiful, we can get that lesson from our little friends the birds. Every creature, wild and tame, winged and four-footed, takes the most scrupulous care of its physical condition. They clean, stretch, brush, polish, until every feather or hair, until every muscle and ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... believed a horse was infected by the spirit of his driver. My dear old four-footed military companions always seemed to perfectly comprehend my desires and intentions, and certainly my brother-in-law's horses entered into my own spirits on this particular afternoon. They stepped proudly, they arched their powerful necks handsomely, their feet seemed barely to touch the ground; ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... be of the brightest mauve and violet tints. Only that; ice and snow and rock for mile upon mile, until the tale of three hundred and fifty is told. No track or trace of bird, no sweet companionship of little furred, four-footed things, no blade of grass or smallest plant or flower, no sound but the roar of the riven ice, the groans of the ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... black young retriever dog—or rather an overgrown pup, a big, foolish, four-footed mate, who was always slobbering round them and lashing their legs with his heavy tail that swung round like a stock-whip. Most of his head was usually a red, idiotic, slobbering grin of appreciation of his own ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... who kept her carriage, as the extremes, so far as regards the instruments of conveyance. For a horseman can go where a wheel-carriage cannot find a track: and on the other hand, the traveller on foot can generally choose a more direct line of movement, than is practicable for the four-footed servant of man, encumbered with his ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... oyster-shell, which was kept in its place by a string at each side, fastened through a hole. He used no staff to help him along, though his body was nearly bent double, so that his face was constantly turned to the earth, like that of a four-footed creature. He ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... we view the lacteal product of these four-footed giants, we are fully warranted in ascribing to it not only extreme richness, but also ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... much;—they hate thee, man, because Thy Spirit less upholds them than it awes. The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo, And where he leads the duteous pack will follow; But not for love mistake their yelling cry; Their yelp for game is not an eulogy; Less faithful far than the four-footed pack, 560 A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back. Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure, Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure; The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last To stumble, kick—and now and then stick fast With his great Self and Rider in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and follow with their eyes the cloud of dust and the squadrons gleaming in brass. They, where the goal of their way lies nearest, bear through the brushwood in armed array. Forming in column, they advance noisily, and the horse hoof shakes the crumbling plain with four-footed trampling. There is a high grove by the cold river of Caere, widely revered in ancestral awe; sheltering hills shut it in all about and girdle the woodland with their dark firs. Rumour is that the old Pelasgians, who once long ago ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... slowly to the rug, uttering a low sound that was half growl, half whine. He was evidently perturbed about something, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort when his attention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other four-footed ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... girl, whose mind was properly balanced, could have considered it otherwise. Its owner was cheerful as the lark, industrious as the bee, thoughtful and provident as the ant, benevolent as!—well, I won't liken her to any of our four-footed friends; indeed, just at this moment, I must confess that no comparison occurs to me: but Aunt Mary loved her nieces, delighted to impart to them those stores of knowledge to which she was herself constantly adding, and which a very retentive memory enabled her to draw on for almost ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... taking for a wood turned out to be a dark round hillock. 'But where am I, then?' I repeated again aloud, standing still for the third time and looking inquiringly at my spot and tan English dog, Dianka by name, certainly the most intelligent of four-footed creatures. But the most intelligent of four-footed creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her weary eyes dejectedly, and gave me no sensible advice. I felt myself disgraced in her eyes and pushed desperately forward, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... we count bigness among four-footed wild-folk in Britain to-day. Probably he could stretch the tape to twenty-three inches, of which about sixteen consisted of very long, low body, with sturdy, bear-like, dumpy legs, the rest being ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... to our coasts. For this purpose he constructed a vessel which for its agility and lightness he aptly christened a cat. Nay, to this our day, gentlemen, all our coals from Newcastle are imported in nothing but cats. From thence it appears that it was not the whiskered four-footed, mouse-killing cat that was the source of the magistrate's wealth, but the coasting, sailing, coal-carrying cat; that, gentlemen, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... he himself wrestled, bending his knees, and praying to the Lord. And it was truly worthy of wonder that, alone in such a desert, he was neither cowed by the daemons who beset him, nor, while there were there so many four-footed and creeping beasts, was at all afraid of their fierceness: but, as is written, trusted in the Lord like the Mount Zion, having his reason unshaken and untost; so that the daemons rather fled, and the wild beasts, as is written, were ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."—"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." The various steps, in this course of moral degradation, are here represented ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... that she knew nothing about him, but that she ruled over all the four-footed beasts, and some of them might know him. So she gathered them all together by blowing a whistle which she had, and questioned them, but there was not one of them which knew ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... so abundant, especially at the capital, that every year during the three winter months you see at different places, intended for despatch thither, besides great piles of every sort of wildfowl, rows of four-footed game of a gunshot or two in length: the animals being all frozen and standing on their feet. Among other species you see three sundry kinds of bears ... and great abundance of other animals, as stags and deer of different sorts, boars, elks, hares, rabbits, squirrels, wild-cats, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... one of these four-footed wild folk—this tall form—that emerged from the dark fringe of the spruce forest to gaze down at the town. But he was none the less of the forest. Its mark was upon him; in the silence of his tread, the sinuous strength ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... motive force, its creation by water power looms into immense importance. The exhibition of its achievements to be seen in Washington today is amazing to the men whose vision of light and power was first with the tallow dip and four-footed beasts, and later with kerosene and steam. Electricity, created by our water falls, lights our cities and farm homes, draws our street cars and some railroad cars—pushes most of the machinery used in manufactories, to the great satisfaction and ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... very man to secure and increase this sort of custom. Of vast stature and extraordinary physical power, combined with a degree of animal spirits not often found in combination with such large proportions, he was at once a fit ruler over his four-footed subjects in the yard, a miscellaneous and most disorderly collection of cows, horses, pigs, and oxen, to say nothing of his own five boys, (for Jem was a widower,) each of whom, in striving to remedy, ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... promised to try to find the owner of the kitten, at the same time advising our hero either to tell Mrs. Walters the truth, or bring the little animal to his house, as his wife, he said, "had quite a fancy for four-footed pets." ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... I gathered the edifying assurance that this aspirant to the honours of literature in livery had been reminded of my humbler attempts in literature without a livery by the congenial music of certain four-footed fellow-critics and fellow-lodgers of his own in the neighbourhood of Hampstead Heath. Especially and most naturally had their native woodnotes wild recalled to the listening biped (whom partial nature had so far distinguished from the herd) the deep astonishment and the due disgust with ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... cats and amuse himself with barking at birds, and was consequently afraid to place Bill near him. One day, however, Bill was brought into the room, and placed on the ground, a watch being kept on Tom's movements. Bill appeared in no way alarmed at his four-footed companion, who, too, seemed not inclined to molest him. They looked at each other shyly at first, like two children when first introduced; but Bill hopping forward, Tom seemed pleased at the confidence shown ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... Patches was begun without further delay. Because Phil's time was so fully occupied with his four-footed pupils, the Dean himself became the stranger's teacher, and all sorts of odd jobs about the ranch, from cleaning the pig pen to weeding the garden, were the text books. The man balked at nothing. Indeed, he seemed to find a curious, grim satisfaction in accomplishing ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... in which they were, they entered into a spacious saloon of a marvellous structure. It was a dome of the most agreeable fashion, supported by a hundred pillars of marble, white as alabaster; the bases and chapiters of the pillars were adorned with four-footed beasts and birds of several sorts gilded. The foot-carpet of this noble parlour consisted of one piece of gold cloth, embroidered with garlands of roses in red and white silk; and the dome being painted in the same manner, after the Arabian form, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... millions of ages ago, the Lord only knows when, in swarms like bees to suit the zones of the earth,—while other some, the believers in the vestiges of creation, say man is the result of development,—from fire, dust, granite, grass, the creeping thing, bird, fish, four-footed beast, monkey. Yea, and some of these last philosophers are even now going to Africa to try to find men they have heard tell of, who still have tails and are jumping and climbing somewhere in the regions around the undiscovered ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... appears, sometimes covered with Runic inscriptions; and this inscribed serpent, later, is twined round or heaped at the foot of the peculiar Scandinavian-shaped cross, the type of conversion. The serpent was sometimes altered into the partial semblance of a four-footed animal, the body and tail being lengthened and twined, and sometimes split, to give a new turn to the pattern. (Fig. 3.) All these zoomorphic patterns, as well as the human figures seen in the Book of Kells, the missal at Lambeth, and the Lindisfarne Book ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... backwards—a passion, my dear, continued my father, addressing himself to my mother, which couples and equals wise men with fools, and makes us come out of our caverns and hiding-places more like satyrs and four-footed beasts ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... trim in September, had sprouted rows of sharp, horny points, and these grew with the growing cold, till the first snow had found him fully equipped with snow-shoes and icecreepers. The cold weather had driven away most of the hawks and owls, and made it impossible for his four-footed enemies to approach unseen, so that ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... their heads in a frenzy of excitement, was a spotted coach-dog—the truck squad's mascot. Blount was within a few feet of the farther sidewalk, and was well out of danger when the long truck slewed into the avenue. But at the passing instant the mascot dog, leaping and whirling like a four-footed dervish, sprang backward. Blount felt the catapulting shock of a yielding body between his shoulders, heard a yell from the truck-driver on his high seat, and went plunging headlong to the curb. After which he felt ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... prey of beastes, and by their fraud, they overthrow men. For when as they see a man, they lay open their breastes, and by the beauty thereof entice them to come neare to conference, and so having them within their compasse, they devoure and kill them." So much for four-footed beasts.[78] ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... around the fire, visit the horse line, see that their horses are securely tied, rub off from the fetlocks and legs such specks of mud as may have escaped the cleaning in the early evening, and if possible, smuggle their faithful four-footed friends a few ears of corn, or another ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... felt the sawdust under his feet again (I think Charles Reade sent him back to the ring), he remembered his late master with gratitude. To how many animals, and not only four-footed ones, was not Charles Reade generously kind, and to none of them more ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... the four-footed." Nacxitl appears to have been the name of Quetzalcoatl, in his position as lord of the merchants. Compare Sahagun, ubi ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... a four-footed Squeaker," said Mr. Pumblechook. "If you had been born such, would you have ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... dragged them up into the wooded elysium beside the tumbling creek of the canyon. When the storm gathered it was at a moment when the burros stood, still unloaded, and the mules attached to the two wagons still unhitched. They, the four-footed things, knew what the thunder and the darkness meant. They knew, somehow, that the upper canyon was no place for them, and, reasoning in the four-footed way, they exercised the limbs they had, obeying the orders of such brains as they owned, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... All four-footed animals can swim naturally in some fashion, but leopards can swim especially well. And the jaguar, who lives near the Amazon and other rivers, is a champion swimmer. He swims as easily as he climbs trees. So he eats fish as often as ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... could not have removed them, but the smaller animals were with comparatively little difficulty got on deck, and they descended with me into the boat. We added a few things that lay handy, and in a few minutes were laughingly driving our four-footed treasures on shore, to the extreme astonishment of the gannets, which seemed as though they would never cease to flap their wings, as their new associates were driven ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... the credit for a wise idea, arose and insisted that it would be ill in us to keep the strange white animal, which one of the men found upon the plateau. We knew that ye must have brought this, for in all our land we have no four-footed thing smaller than the useful burden-carrying asses ye have seen. Wherefore, the wisdom of the grey-beards being now complete, we sent the dumb girl and the white animal out with the soldier, and they have ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... his back, walked through the passage and out of the farther door, attended by the pig, who lovingly rubbed his snout against him. The stranger knelt down at one of the shattered windows of the chapel, his four-footed companion standing patiently by him, until the orison was over and the worshipers trooped out of the little chapel. Then the knowing pig trotted off to his own quarters, whilst one voice exclaimed, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... growl then at their own discretion, fly at the accidental stranger with open mouth, attack him singly, charge him en masse, and nothing but a stout bludgeon, wielded by a strong arm, can save the passenger from feeling that he is in the kingdom of his four-footed masters. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... but just finished his work in time; for the widow having been summoned to her guests in the Lust Haus, had left Vanslyperken alone, and the lieutenant thought this a good opportunity to look after his four-footed favourite, he came out into the yard, where he found Smallbones, and he had ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... the matter of sacrifices the Law had in view the poverty of the offerers; so that those who could not have a four-footed animal at their disposal, might at least offer a bird; and that he who could not have a bird might at least offer bread; and that if a man had not even bread he might offer flour or ears ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... insects and little shellfish from the mud by means of the sensitive tips and guttered edges of their bills. The mallard pair had few enemies to dread, their island being so far from shore that no four-footed marauder, not even the semi-amphibious mink himself, ever visited it. And the region was one too remote for the visits of the pot-hunter. In fact, there was only one foe against whom it behoved them to be on ceaseless guard. This was that bloodthirsty and tireless ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... was about four years old an event occurred in her life that seemed for a time to endanger the intimacy between the little girl and her four-footed friend, and caused Moses considerable anxiety. It was a rainy morning and she could not play under the trees as usual, so she took her little chair and climbed up to the window to see if the trees were lonesome ...
— The Children's Portion • Various |
