"Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to spread his meals out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to wash the food down, and he returned to the middle of the cage, where he proceeded ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of perches and nesting-places may be left to the reader's judgment. The goldfinches will want some slender twigs close to the roof, and a swinging perch, such as in Fig. 9, as they love to get up as high as possible, and look down contemptuously on everybody else. The canaries will like another swing (Fig. 10) suspended from a stout perch above by a small swivel and chain, and placed in the front near the wires, where they can be swung to ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... be a crazy pot-boy'd lodge him in the shebeen where he works by day, so you'd have a right to come on, young fellow, till you see my little houseen, a perch off on the ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... post, she slept. The other children looked up and said to each other, "Look at Hatt, she's done gone off agin!" Tired of their present play ground they trooped off in another direction, but the girl slept on heavily, never losing her hold on the post, or her seat on her perch. Behold here, in the stupid little negro girl, the future deliverer of hundreds of her people; the spy and scout of the Union armies; the devoted hospital nurse; the protector of hunted fugitives; the eloquent speaker in public meetings; the cunning ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... He had fallen asleep on a bench in the sunny courtyard and his dream had carried him back to the forest. He sat rubbing his eyes and only half-awake, the sun kissing his hair into a halo against the old grey wall. A falcon near fretted restlessly on her perch, and a hound asleep by the fountain rose, and, slowly stretching its great limbs, came ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... rouses himself from time to time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a twittering sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching for the big eyes to turn upon her, and chirping some pretty response for every solemn utterance of the wise old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... potestate, La somma sapienza e'l primo amore. Dinanzi a me non fur cose create Se non eterne, ed io eterno duro: Lasciate ogni speranza voi che'ntrate. Queste parole di colore oscuro Vid'io scritte al sommo d'una porta; Perch'io: maestro, il senso lor m'e duro. Ed egli a me, come persona accorta: Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospetto, Ogni vilta convien che qui sia morta. Noi sem venuti al luogo ov'io t'ho detto Che vederai ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... he muttered, 'but 'twere pity thou wert knocked off the perch before seeing a little more of the sweet and sour of this world—though, faith, if thou hast the usual luck of it, the best way were to leave thee to the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... then old Sport he hangs around, so solemn-like an' still, His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?" The old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum! But I am so perlite an' 'tend so earnestly to biz, That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!" But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... in danger of falling out of this tree," he sneered aloud. "He doesn't know that I can handle myself in a tree as well as he can." As he spoke, Master Robin all but tumbled off his perch. But he caught himself just in time, then looked around hastily to see if ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... premises was a fine stream of water, varying from three to seven yards in width. It was supplied with dace, trout, roach, and perch. Its plaintive, monotonous murmur sometimes impressed the mind with sadness. This was soon dispelled, however, by the twittering, the glee, and the sweet notes of the birds, that hopped from spray to spray, or quietly perched themselves ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... at her uncertainly. "Come round in your own way," he said at last. "I don't want to hurry you. I suppose every bird has its own way of dropping from a perch." ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... the perch. You spend five thousand a year provided for you by a husband that you only see on Sundays. We'd all be ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... perch, Eugene," he said, "and tell us how you came to drive Count Vassilan's taxi, and ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... himself to remain there on his precarious perch; indeed, only that he did not wish to seem to be interfering with Jack's plans Joel certainly would have ventured across the window sill. Unable to beep silent any longer, he ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic, And then fairly hooted, as if he should say: "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... eye, and an excellent fowling-piece, to bring down the black gentleman from his lofty perch. I have heard that you, Mr. Hurdlestone, are accounted a capital shot, far before your cousin Godfrey. I wish you would just give me ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... indulgences, or that mankind expect from elevated genius an uniformity of greatness, and watch its degradation with malicious wonder; like him who, having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, should lament that she ever descended to a perch. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... given to him to pose on," said Mr. Doremus. "However, I must say for the gentleman,—though I've only seen him dripping wet, and shaking himself like a big dog,—he didn't give me the impression of being the sort of chap to say 'thank you' for the perch." ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the words with the suddenness of a monkey swinging off a bough, leaving behind him a silence so marked that the fall of an unripe apple from the tree immediately above them caused Columbus to start and jump from his perch ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... end of the seat, swung high on its gilded spring, danced the dome-topped cage of her canary. Presently she raised her face to him. He was traveling tirelessly from perch to cage-floor, from floor to trapeze again. His wings were half lifted from his little body—the bright yellow of her own hair. It was as if he were ready for flight. His round black eyes were constantly turned toward the world beyond the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... and we pursued this programme. Like birds seeking a new nesting-place we flitted hither and thither, alighting wheresoever the perch seemed inviting. We alighted in many places, but in most of them we tarried but briefly. It was not that the apartments were inattractive—they were almost irresistible, some of them, but even hasty reflection convinced ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to understand, too, for it was not long after this that Hippity-Hop, Jan and Cheepsie ate out of the same dish. At times the bird would perch on the dog's head and sing to them all. Jan always sat as still as he could, until the song ended and Cheepsie had flown over to the captain's shoulder. Often the old man took his violin from the corner, and ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... by the gate, and from my perch on the back of the off-wheeler, I smiled down on her with boyish self-assurance. The idea of my tumbling into the water! The idea of my drowning even did I meet with so ludicrous a mishap! But I was accustomed to my mother's anxious care, for as an only child ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... cry, the quarry sought every shelter possible; but within an hour of striking the scent, the pack came to bay in the encinal. On coming up with the hounds, we found the animal was a large catamount. A single shot brought him from his perch in a scraggy oak, and the first chase of the day was over. The pelt was ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... boy picked up a young sparrow, which he brought home. His father put it in a big cage, and in course of time it became thoroughly domesticated. It used to fly about the garden and perch upon the heads and hands of the family. After a while it would venture upon an oak and carry on a very voluble conversation with its fellows who also patronised the tree. It soon grew as impudent and pugnacious ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... on remarkably well. The country soft; not likely to shoe them for a time; appear in good condition; bullocks tender-necked. Rather a strange circumstance occurred while staying here. A pelican, in an attempt to swallow a perch about a foot long by about five inches in diameter or twelve inches in circumference, was choked after getting it halfway down his throat, and found in the morning quite fresh and the tail of the fish out of its mouth. A considerable quantity of clover or trefoil on this lake; and ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... sleepy cocks at Dubechnia were crowing, and the corncrakes were trilling in the meadow; it was very, very early.... My wife and I walked down to the pool and drew up the bow-net that Stiepan had put out in our presence the day before. There was one large perch in it and a crayfish ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... by the arm and went out, having entirely confounded her mother-in-law, who meant to have wished her children good-morning, and then have left them to their embarrassment. But victory seemed to perch upon Fanny's standards ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... urged him to give up the wild life he was leading, return East, and find another calling. This was precisely what Will himself had in mind, and persuasion was not needed. In his reply he asked that the wedding-day be set, and then he handed Trotter his resignation from the lofty perch of a stage-driver. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... the king of the pack fasten in her skirt, and she knew that she was being pulled out of her perch when, through the woods came Ted and Bud and Ben, and the rest of her friends, yelling like mad and amid a perfect fusillade of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... him now: all narrow jealousies Are silent; and we see him as he moved, How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise, With what sublime repression of himself, And in what limits, and how tenderly; Not swaying to this faction or to that; Not making his high place the lawless perch Of winged ambitions, nor a vantage-ground For pleasure; but through all this tract of years Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, Before a thousand peering littlenesses, In that fierce light which beats upon a throne, And blackens every ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... point where he might have halted to make sure of his scent. He was circling on the trail of the stallion, with cunning intent of ambush. The end of this slow, careful stalk of the lion, as told in his tracks, came upon the edge of a knoll where he had crouched to watch and wait. From this perch he had made a magnificent spring—Slone estimating it to be forty feet—but he had missed the stallion. There were Wildfire's tracks again, slow and short, and then deep and sharp where in the impetus of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... the Great Supper also is fish, which may be of any sort and served in any way—in our case it was a perch-like variety of dainty pan-fish, fresh from the Rhone. A third course of fish sometimes is served, but the third course usually is snails cooked in a rich brown sauce strongly flavoured with garlic. The Provencal snails, which feed in a gourmet fashion upon vine-leaves, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... leaped down from her high perch, and was now taking a drink from a little sparkling mountain rill ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... you, as with a sword, from all the dear little safe things that have made up your life in the past. She glanced from the helmet which the airman held toward her to the monoplane spread-eagling on the ground. I saw her big eyes dilate as they fixed themselves anxiously on the passenger's perch, to which the honoured guest must climb, above the conductor's seat, crawling through the wire stays, or whatever you call them, which were like a spider's web inviting a fly. Diana turned pale. Even her lips were white. The ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... being liable to this last construction, men seem to have thought that the species should follow; consequently, the regular plurals of some very common names of fishes are scarcely known at all. Hence some grammarians affirm, that salmon, mackerel, herring, perch, tench, and several others, are alike in both numbers, and ought never to be used in the plural form. I am not so fond of honouring these anomalies. Usage is here as unsettled, as it is arbitrary; and, if the expression of plurality is to be limited to either ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... celebrated for its oratorical talents among all the neighbors, had gradually become the terror of the nearest. Hung out on the balcony, it made a pulpit of its perch and spouted interminable harangues from morning to night. It had learned certain parliamentary topics from some political friends of the mistress, and was very strong on the sugar question. It knew all the actress's repertory by heart, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Iago's part by much so well as Clun used to do; nor another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor, indeed, Burt doing the Moor's so well as I once thought he did. Thence home, and just at Holborn Conduit the bolt broke, that holds the fore-wheels to the perch, and so the horses went away with them, and left the coachman and us; but being near our coachmaker's, and we staying in a little ironmonger's shop, we were presently supplied with another, and so home, and there to my letters at the office, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... opening was left, so as to relieve the pressure when the water began to rise. Some few hundred yards further up were a chain of water-holes, some of which were deep, and in all of which, as I knew by experience, were plenty of fish—bream, perch, and a species of grayling. As soon as the dam was complete, the whole mob, except some "gins" and children, who were stationed to watch the opening before mentioned, sprang into the water, carrying with them ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... an idle wing; The snake sunned all his jewels in the beam With deadly fangs in sheath; the shrike let pass The nestling finch; the emerald halcyons Sate dreaming while the fishes played beneath, Nor hawked the merops, though the butterflies— Crimson and blue and amber-flitted thick Around his perch; the Spirit of our Lord Lay potent upon man and bird and beast, Even while he mused under that Bodhi-tree, Glorified with the Conquest gained for all And lightened by ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... them with him. He was in his shirt-sleeves again, and his sanguine person seemed to radiate the heat with which he suffered. He did not go out to lunch, but had it brought to him in his office, where Corey saw him eating it before he left his own desk to go out and perch on a swinging seat before the long counter of a down-town restaurant. He observed that all the others lunched at twelve, and he resolved to anticipate his usual hour. When he returned, the pretty girl who had been ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... scenery of Pulcher must have been regularly painted, since the birds are said to have attempted to perch on the tiles (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 4, 23; Val. Max. ii. 4, 6). Hitherto the machinery for thunder had consisted in the shaking of nails and stones in a copper kettle; Pulcher first produced a better thunder by rolling stones, which was thenceforth named "Claudian thunder" (Festus, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... tranquillity. The rivulet Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice In its own being. Softly tread the marge, Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren That dips her bill in water. The cool wind, That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee. Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass Ungreeted, and ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... rapidity, hands, eyes, and mouth were bound once more; the parson was led down-stairs, out into the wet night, and back to his seat in the carriage. The masked man took his place beside him. John Jones mounted to the driver's perch, and they were ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... She made them perch about her in a great circle, some on the lower branches of the trees, some on the bushes, and some on the ground among the grass and flowers. And where each bird perched, there it was to build its nest. Then Mother Magpie found clay and bits ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... sounds, which might be mistaken by the wayfarer for the cries of hawks and crows, or the bleating of the mountain flocks. After they had reconnoitred the neighborhood, and finished their singular discourse, they descended from their airy perch, and returned to their prisoners. The captain posted three of them at three naked sides of the mountain, while he remained to guard us with what appeared his ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... cheered the boy orator, and hauled him from his perch with such hearty thumps that he feared they ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... upon the liver of Prometheus. There was likewise the sacred ibis of Egypt, and one of the Stymphalides which Hercules shot in his sixth labor. Shelley's skylark, Bryant's water-fowl, and a pigeon from the belfry of the Old South Church, preserved by N. P. Willis, were placed on the same perch. I could not but shudder on beholding Coleridge's albatross, transfixed with the Ancient Mariner's crossbow shaft. Beside this bird of awful poesy stood a gray goose of ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... an eagle's, and close to the knees, for legs he had none. His royal robes were not above half a yard long, and trailed one-third part upon the ground. His head was as big as a peck, and his nose long enough for twelve birds to perch on. His beard was bushy enough for a canary's nest, and his ears reached a foot above his head.—Comtesse D'Aulnoy, Fairy Tales ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Executive Mansion." He ran constantly in and out of his father's office, interrupting his gravest labors. Mr. Lincoln was never too busy to hear him, or to answer his bright, rapid, imperfect speech, for he was not able to speak plainly until he was nearly grown. "He would perch upon his father's knee, and sometimes even on his shoulder, while the most weighty conferences were going on. Sometimes, escaping from the domestic authorities, he would take refuge in that sanctuary for the whole evening, ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... was a large number of places for him to choose from. So one night, when everything was still and silent, and even the chattering parrots were asleep on one leg, the monkey stole down softly from his perch, and washed off the honey and the leaves, and came out from his bath in his own proper skin. On his way to breakfast he met a rabbit, and ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Clement was determined to wait no longer. He would go to the Abbey at once, and ascertain the cause of Margaret's delay. He rang the bell, went into the park, and ran along the avenue to the perch. Lights were shining in Mr. Dunbar's windows, but the great ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... heroes, jungle prowlers 'mid them stray, On their brow and mailed bosoms heedless perch ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... flash of his oars in the sunlight that dazzled her so! She would swim to him through the crystal water, and he would stretch out his hands to her, and she would go up to him like a bird from the sea, and perch upon the stern. He would scold her a little for swimming out so far, but what of that? She liked being ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... true," announced a Monkey on a Stick, as he climbed up to the top of his perch and looked over the top of a Noah's Ark. "I don't see the Sawdust Doll anywhere, nor the White Rocking Horse, nor the Lamb on Wheels. It isn't any of our former friends who have come back to ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... for pet pigeons, and the birds used to come at his call, perch on his shoulder and take dainty ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... back they brought three little sunfish, two perch, and one funny-looking fish with horns, which Frank said ...
— Uncle Robert's Geography (Uncle Robert's Visit, V.3) • Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm
... from perch to spray, They sport along the meads; In social bliss together stray, Where ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... light a match, and maybe you'll hit it by accident!" Assuming with an innocent look that I had spoken seriously, he took me at my word, jumped off his perch, lit a match and peered all round him. Then I got "real" angry, and told him De Cosson Bey kept a professional torture chamber, and that I would have him ground to sausage meat if he trifled with me another moment. Well knowing the impotence ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... your perch off, und gone took a fall to yournseluf!" cried Hans, in disgust. "You gif ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... then lost himself in one of those meditative moods which ravish and elevate the soul, soothe it, and comfort it. His reverie had no doubt lasted a long time. Night fell. Whether he meant to come down from his perch, or whether he made some ill-judged movement, believing himself to be on the floor—the event did not allow of his remembering exactly the cause of his accident—he fell, his head struck a footstool, he lost consciousness and lay motionless during a space of time of ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... vext No war-field to find; The speech she knew well Of the wild feather'd kind, And thus she bespake him Who bears the brown bill, So proud as he perch'd on The peak of ...
— The Nightingale, the Valkyrie and Raven - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... the Golden Blackbird standing on a wooden perch, but as stiff and rigid as if he was dead. And beside the beautiful cage ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... his eyes with his hand, scrutinized the small, melancholy figure, and then, hopping from his perch, sped toward him with a nimble and ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... in the sunshine, ruffling up his feathers until he is twice his real size. The light partly blinds him, but toss him into the air and he will fly without difficulty and select with ease a secluded perch. The instant he alights a wonderful transformation comes over him. He stiffens, draws himself as high as possible, and compresses his feathers until he seems naught but the slender, broken stump of some bough,—ragged topped (thanks to his "horns"), gray and lichened. It is little short of a miracle ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... Though Sir Hubert is delighted to see her, the mention of dinner throws him into a state of great perplexity, as he has nothing in the house which they can make a meal of. Going out of doors, "he espies his hawk upon the perch, which he seizes, and finding it very fat, judges it might make a dish not unworthy of such a lady. Without further thought, then, he pulls his head off, and gives it to a girl to dress and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... perch on these Your most unworthy Father's knees, And try and tell him—Can you? Are Punch and Judy bits of wood? Does Dolly boast of ancient blood, Or is it ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... live had thrown to the ground. The outlines of Pauline's dress, hanging from a cheval glass, appeared like a shadowy ghost. Her dainty shoes had been left at a distance from the bed. A nightingale came to perch upon the sill; its trills repeated over again, and the sounds of its wings suddenly shaken out ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... and seems very happy and contented, swinging there on his perch. He likes to be talked to, and can answer very plain. If you say to him, "How do you do, Poll?" he will answer you, "Quite well, thank you, and how are you?" Poll is quite a companion, he is ...
— Child-Land - Picture-Pages for the Little Ones • Oscar Pletsch
... seized by an officer and dragged off his perch, and choked into silence—surrounded meanwhile by a crowd of indignantly protesting citizens. It was quite clear by this time that the crowd had come to hear Samuel's speech, and was angry at being balked. There ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... and Yankee had fairly ensconced themselves on their perch, the latter looked carefully round to make sure that no one was in the way, and then he tuned the valve, which let on a full ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... long narrow buckboard looked small for Barb, who cautiously clambered into the seat and gingerly distributed his bulk upon it. Laramie had taken the reins from McAlpin; he passed them to Barb who, as he squared himself so as not to fall off his slender perch, was huskily demanding when Laramie and Kate would be out. At the last minute, Kate insisted on and was given, a good-by kiss. She and Jim promised to go out next day. Barb spoke to the horses. They jumped half-way out of the barn. ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... but a backbone—a shad! She's about the shape of a single rose vase! Damn her! Damn Lotta Munn and Daisy Snow, yes and May Young! They think they can charm my Bill off his perch with their revolting artistic propaganda, and their schools ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... dog. The biggest of these amiable companions had to take their chance of seeing what they could through the forest of human legs; but every one that was portable was snugly lodged in the bend of an elbow, and from this safe perch scores and scores of small serious muzzles, blunt or sharp, smooth or woolly, brown or grey or white or black or brindled, looked out on the scene with the quiet awareness of the Paris dog. It was certainly a good sign that they had ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... not fall, and after a moment or two, he proceeded carefully to pick his steps along the ledge. The ball had touched him, grazing his cheek, and cutting through the light whiskers that he wore; but he had not felt it, though the blow had nearly knocked him from his perch. And then four or five shots were fired from the rocks into the mouth of the cavern. The man's arm had been seen, and indeed one or two declared that they had traced the dim outline of his figure. But no sound was ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... and his eyebrows fixed at the perch of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to torment thy friend? Nay, if thou wilt listen at all, child, to me, that am thine elder, happier thereby wilt thou be, and some day thou wilt thank me. Build one nest in one tree, where no fierce snake can come; for now thou dost perch on one branch to-day, and on another to-morrow, always seeking what is new. And if a stranger see and praise thy pretty face, instantly to him thou art more than a friend of three years' standing, while him that loved thee ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... never see them in a concert-room without heartily wishing they and their tatooer might tumble, helter-skelter, from their topmost perch into the very lowest depth, if there be one lower than another, of the orchestra; and thereby sustain such a compound fracture, attended by loss of substance, as should put it out of their power, for that night at least, to torture our fastidious ears. Being of a melancholy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... therefore no option but to pass the night well above the jungle perils in the suapattah hut, like a cockatoo screeching defiance at a cat from the safety of its perch; and to which safety you climb almost flat on your face by means of a rocking, slender bamboo ladder, and with about as much grace as ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... From their perch on this rocky wall these great birds would soar away, looking like a cloud in the sky, to seize a reindeer from a passing herd and bring it to their young. Or, again, they would circle out with a noise like thunder from their ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... the husband and wife from each other. Cora full of fresh young life joined in the conversation every instant, telling her father how they used to get the eggs of the sea birds and the honey from the wild bees' nest, and how they caught the sea perch from off the rocks, and how she found a jar of gold coins near the Vikings' tomb, which her mama said were pesos, and all about the fibula which ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... bird is in her manner. There's something tranquilly alert in her manner that's like a bird; like a bird that lingers on its perch, looking at you over its shoulder, if you come up behind. That trick of the heavily lifted, half lifted eyelids,—I wonder if it's a trick. The long lashes can't be; she can't make them curl up at the edges. Blood,—Lurella Blood. And she wants to know." ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... Reaching his perch again, Jack cast his despairing eyes toward the fatal hill. It was now clear of smoke, and there wasn't a regiment left on it. His heart leaped for an instant, the next it was lead, for the ranks that had disappeared were down on the brow of the hill—in the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... made the man's heart ache. What wouldn't he give for an hour of Roger once more—or Belle—or Lightfoot! Anything—even one of the old plantation mules would do if he could only perch her up on its back and take her into Richmond like a lady and not like the daughter of poor white trash, tramping, poverty stricken, along a ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... all five to instantly get out of the car and lift the latch on the gate. The girl never budged from her perch, but permitted the visitors to swing her back as ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Richmond. That, no doubt, would be a great advantage, but the loss of a recognized seat of government, with its diplomatic and other traditions, would have been of vastly more fatal consequence to us than the capture of their provisional perch in Virginia would have been to the Rebel authorities. It would have brought foreign recognition to the Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the scale against us. So long as we held Washington, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... no one said a word. Then Blacky the Crow leaned down from his perch in the Big Hickory-tree and looked very hard at Little Joe as ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... home or a camp, the Grand Canon for a spectacle. I have spoken of the robin I saw in Yosemite Valley. Think how forlorn and out of place a robin would seem in the Grand Canon! What would he do there? There is no turf for him to inspect, and there are no trees for him to perch on. I should as soon expect to find him amid the pyramids of Egypt, or amid the ruins of Karnak. The bluebird was in the Yosemite also, and the ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... in pyjamas accosted me, and the thread of the other's talk was lost. When I moved off to dress he had already left his perch among the sand bags. I climbed the ladder, and had my coffee. Soon after came the scurry to stations. We were coming into the bay in the glory of that morning under hangings of amber and rose and feathery grey. The four-inch gun's crew were in their places. ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle, flung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel—flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race, They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unqueuched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the livery ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... about the rubber tree with its white, milk-like sap, and everyone seemed interested in the great bales of dried raw rubber, while questions, opinions, and discussions were many regarding this little known raw product. Even the great scarlet and blue macaw, from his high perch overhead, joined in with wild screeches when the crowds got ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... door of the closet, gave a low whistle, and stood listening. A moment after, I heard, or seemed to hear, a soft whir of wings, and, looking up, saw a white dove perch for an instant on the top of the shelves over the portrait, thence drop to Mr. Raven's shoulder, and lay her head against his cheek. Only by the motions of their two heads could I tell that they were talking ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... have turkeys and geese this summer. I lost several of my best fowls, not by the hawk but a horrid beast of the same nature as our polecat, called here a scunck; it is far more destructive in its nature than either fox or the hawk, for he comes like a thief in the night and invades the perch, leaving headless mementos of his barbarity and ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... long summer evenings about sundown to fish, and on Sundays an hour or two to sail quietly without fishing-rod or gun when the lake was calm. Therefore we gradually learned something about its inhabitants,—pickerel, sunfish, black bass, perch, shiners, pumpkin-seeds, ducks, loons, turtles, muskrats, etc. We saw the sunfishes making their nests in little openings in the rushes where the water was only a few feet deep, ploughing up and shoving away the soft gray ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... and incontinently remarking: "Time alone can disclose what may be the end of this frivolity and talk!" After the flowery season of summer was gone, and the black time of winter was come, thorns took the station of the Rose, and the raven the perch of the Nightingale. The storms of autumn raged in fury, and the foliage of the grove was shed upon the ground. The cheek of the leaf was turned yellow, and the breath of the wind was chill and blasting. The gathering cloud poured down hailstones, like pearls, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... third day of his fasting By the lake he sat and pondered, By the still, transparent water; Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping, Scattering drops like beads of wampum, Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa, Like a sunbeam in the water, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, And the herring, Okahahwis, And the Shawgashee, the crawfish! "Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, "Must our lives ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... these are very cleverly executed. Huge conventional trees grow from a green strip of earth carrying every variety of leaf and flower done in many stitches. The individual leaf or flower is often very beautiful. On the bank below, small deer and lions disport themselves, and birds twice their size perch on the branches (plate 84).[611] But even where the work is finest, the incongruities are too annoying. The modern excuse for it, "that it is quaint," does not reconcile us to its extravagant effect. To be quaint in art is, as I have said before, to be funny without intending it; and these curtains ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... declared Mona. "It was awful for you to perch on one toe for a hundred million mile ride! And I reclined at ease on a Roman trident, or whatever you call it!" "Tripod, you mean," said Adele, laughing, "or is ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... over the little promenade place, and running about the floor of the saloon; and then the Goldfields gave a lurch and a shiver, and settled down in the mud, with a foot-and-a-half of dirty water downstairs, and nothing but the roof left us to perch upon. ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... broke off the elder man, anxiously, from his perch on the stepladder, "would you put the rifle over ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... in the most rigorous exercise of all our lawful and proper powers, contending against Treason, Rebellion, and the public Enemies, and, whether in public life or in private station, supporting the arms of the Union, until its Cause shall conquer, until final victory shall perch upon its standard, or the Rebel foe will yield a dutiful, rightful, and unconditional submission. And, impressed with the conviction that an Army of reserve ought, until the War shall end, to be constantly kept ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... the old fishing hole lies," laughed the stranger, pleasantly. "Quite a collection too—black bass, perch, 'slickers,' as we used to call the pickerel, and even some big fat sunfish. Many a happy hour have I spent just as you've been doing. And I'll never forget how fine those same fish tasted after I'd cleaned them myself ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... closely. plumb, perpendicular. prize, to value. plum, a fruit. pray, to supplicate. place, site; spot. prey, a spoil. plaice, a fish. pore, a small opening. please, to gratify. pour, to cause to flow. pleas, excuses. poll, the head. bell, a sounding vessel. pole, a rod; a perch. ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... of all who knew her, save her father and Myra Longman, Tessibel was full of eccentric traits; for who but Tess would feel the "mollygrubs," as Ben Letts had said, at the wriggling of the agonized perch and pickerel, as they flopped painfully upon the sands; or who but Tess would mind the squeaking of the mother-bird calling for her own. It was something of this "mollygrub" feeling that hastened her dirt-caked feet, as she rounded the mud cellar near her father's hut, ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... following day was spent "resting in the centre of the Sea of Marmara." That was their favourite preening perch between operations, because it gave them a chance to tidy the boat and bathe, and they were a cleanly people both in their methods and their persons. When they boarded a craft and found nothing of consequence they "parted with many expressions of ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... arrived in London, at the palace, when the King was at his dinner. The butlers and lackeys wanted to keep them out, but the merry monarch gave orders to let them in at once. He made the owl perch over the mantel piece, but told Puck to stand upon the dinner table and walk over the tablecloth. The pepper box was put away, so that he should not sneeze and the King carefully removed the mustard pot, ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept, that he would perch outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great skill, all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his best, for his former master sent his duty with him, 'and if I wished the bird to come out very strong, would I be so good as to show him a drunken ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Street with a rush, the figure of their chief swaying over them on his high perch, while their shouting was drowned in the louder roar of greeting from the crowd, into which they plunged as a diver into the water, swirls and eddies of people marking the wake. A moment later a section of the roof ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... figure of a tiny child in the organ loft. Was it possible, they asked themselves, that a child could produce such beautiful music? They remained rooted to the spot, till Wolfgang happened to see them and crept meekly down from his perch. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... made her downright speech, Nan looked down from her lofty perch, and held out her ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... unusual melodiousness, these days, (last of April and first of May) from the blackbirds; indeed all sorts of birds, darting, whistling, hopping or perch'd on trees. Never before have I seen, heard, or been in the midst of, and got so flooded and saturated with them and their performances, as this current month. Such oceans, such successions of them. Let me make a list of those I ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way at all points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly disappearing in the engulfing slush, her smeared face further distorted with the contortions of whimpering wonder, while from their perch on the pigsty roof the three children looked down with the cold unpitying detachment of ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... across and over, spinning a web through which God himself—hush, don't think of God! How firm the stitches are! You must be proud of your darning. Let nothing disturb her. Let the light fall gently, and the clouds show an inner vest of the first green leaf. Let the sparrow perch on the twig and shake the raindrop hanging to the twig's elbow.... Why look up? Was it a sound, a thought? Oh, heavens! Back again to the thing you did, the plate glass with the violet loops? But Hilda will come. Ignominies, humiliations, oh! Close ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... each perch upon the trees! The family estates of those in official positions will fade! The gold and silver of the rich and honoured will be scattered! those who will have conferred benefit will, even in death, find the means of escape! ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... it seems I cannot pray— For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife. Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest May fall, flit, fly, perch—crouch in the bowery breast Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;— Moveless there sit through all the burning day, And on my heart at night a fresh ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald |
