"Prey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... merciless slaveholder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by the slave. I would leave him to imagine himself surrounded by myriads of invisible tormentors, ever ready to snatch from his infernal grasp his trembling prey. Let him be left to feel his way in the dark; let darkness commensurate with his crime hover over him; and let him feel that at every step he takes, in pursuit of the flying bondman, he is running the frightful risk of having his hot brains dashed out by an invisible agency. Let us render ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... Germans with his right near Plock on the Vistula, his centre behind the Bzura, and his left stretching out towards Lodz. The Germans attacked all along the line on 18 November, but Ruszky's left seemed to afford the easiest prey; it had no natural line of defence, and Hindenburg's devastation during his retreat in October made the arrival of reinforcements from Ivanov farther south unlikely. Nevertheless Mackensen's most impetuous drive was against Ruszky's centre across the causeway at Piontek; it promised a dramatic ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... of its predecessor. Before the final crash had ceased to reverberate we sat down with a thump, resigning ourselves to the prospect of doing double justice to the joint. But the orchestra was not so lightly to be cheated of its prey. True, we held out as long as possible while the Russian Hymn began to unfold its majestic length, and Helen actually managed to convey a considerable piece of saddle of mutton to her mouth while she was in the very act of rising. That joint, however, was soon but a memory of anticipation, and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... of waking me. These brutes swarm in every part of Syria, and there were many of them even in the midst of the void sands, that would seem to give such poor promise of food. I can hardly tell what prey they could be hoping for, unless it were that they might find now and then the carcass of some camel that had died on the journey. They do not marshal themselves into great packs like the wild dogs of Eastern cities, but follow their prey in families, like the ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... public life the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey. - ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... while his hands held his rosary, his eyes were fixed upon the walls where was depicted the Dance of Death. In terrible repetition, the artist had aimed at depicting every rank or class in life as alike the prey of the grisly phantom. Triple-crowned pope, scarlet-hatted cardinal, mitred prelate, priests, monks, and friars of every degree; emperors, kings, princes, nobles, knights, squires, yeomen, every sort of trade, soldiers of all kinds, beggars, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... settler, others have already decided that it affords great advantages in the way of shelter from the fierce winds, from the burning rays of a summer sun, and from the too-curious eyes of hawks and other birds of prey. ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... net, many a happy night had I gone forth with the Butterfly Man a-hunting for such as we might find of our chosen prey. Armed now with nothing more nor less formidable than the black rosary upon which my hand shut tightly, I, Armand De Rance, priest and gentleman, walked forth with Slippy McGee in those hours when deep sleep falls upon the spirit of man, for to aid and encourage and abet and ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... for a living. They gave no thought to the cruelty of their traps or the suffering their operations occasioned, It is not strange, then, that such men saw no harm in their actions, for they considered all game fair prey. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... fell slowly upon the streets of the little village, Renwick found himself a prey to renewed apprehensions as to Marishka. Had her presence and his in the rose garden been discovered by one of the Archduke's retainers? And was she now a prisoner in the castle where a few hours ago she had been so free a guest? She ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... like some other little boys, very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures for mere sport. Some people say that boys cannot help it; that it is nature, and only a proof that we are all originally descended from beasts of prey. But whether it is nature or not, little boys can help it, and must help it. For if they have naughty, low, mischievous tricks in their nature, as monkeys have, that is no reason why they should give way to those tricks like monkeys, who know no better. And therefore ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... already alluded to. As it has been stated, in river-steamers and ponderous rams the South was fairly well supplied; but what was really needed were ocean-going ships, to break the rigid blockade that was slowly starving the Confederacy into submission,—swift cruisers to prey on the commerce of the enemy, and powerful line-of-battle ships, which, by successfully coping with the vessels of the United States on the high seas, should secure for the Confederacy recognition, and possibly assistance, from the great ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... tempted; He must be divine to resist it. And to make His victory the more complete, He had His flesh put to the sorest test. After a fast of forty days, when His long pent-up hunger rushed upon Him as a lion upon its prey, Satan approached and exhausted his strength to overcome Him. Not only did He give Satan this advantage, such as he had never had nor needed over men, but He even went out of the flesh, into the citadel of which Satan held the keys, and came out a triumphant conqueror. ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... Englishmen conversing on board, orders given, and the yo-hoing of invisible sailors, trimming the yards of the ship to the fitful airs. This last, of course, was decisive. Such sounds are not heard on a man-of-war. She was a merchant ship: she would be an easy prey. And Manuel, in a state of exaltation at his venturesome bravery, had pulled back inshore, to rally all the boats round his own, and lead them to certain plunder. They would soon find out, he declaimed, what it was to have at their head their own valiant Manuel, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... special craving for blood and outrage than he from the South has special tenderness or pity. It is, very simply, the German, from one end of his country to the other, who stands revealed as a beast of prey which the firm will of our planet finally repudiates. We have here no wretched slaves dragged along by a tyrant king who alone is responsible. Nations have the government which they deserve, or rather, the government which they have is truly no more than the magnified and ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... boy. All the newes this day is, that the Dutch are, with twenty-two sayle of ships of warr, crewsing up and down about Ostend; at which we are alarmed. My Lord Sandwich is come back into the Downes with only eight sayle, which is or may be a prey to the Dutch, if they knew our weakness and inability to set ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... glorifies With restless fire the gold that spheres it round, And marks you children of our God, whose lives He guards with the awful jealousy of love. And even me that generous love has spared, - Me, trustless knight and miserable man, - Sad prey of dark and mutinous thoughts that tempt My sick soul into perjury and death - Since His great love had pity on my pain, Has spared to lead these blameless warriors safe Into the desert from the blazing ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... a Turkish proverb that the Devil tempts the Idle man, but the Idle man tempts the Devil. I remember, says Hilliard, "a satirical poem, in which the Devil is represented as fishing for men, and adapting his bait to the tastes and temperaments of his prey; but the idlers were the easiest victims, for they ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... he sat in the healthy grime of the garden soil, his mind a prey to the poison of glittering promises, till suddenly a human fell upon him with an absurd French shriek and bore him away to the lap of comfort and a ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... made up the flock. We have then the image of the poor sheep that has lost its way, struggling through briars and thorns, getting out of them with its fleece all torn and hanging in strips dangling at its heels, or of it as lacerated by the beasts of the field to whom it is a prey. If we take the metaphor, as seems more probably to be intended, as applying not so much to the individuals as to the flock, then it comes to mean 'torn asunder,' 'thrown apart,' and gives us the notion of anarchic confusion ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... been following one who had made him believe that he had light to guide his steps; he had gone with him out of the beaten path; and they were pressing on together, when Irrgeist suddenly lost sight of him in the darkness; and whether it was that he had fallen into a pit, or become the prey of some evil beast, Irrgeist knew not; only, he found that he was more alone than ever, and near to some great peril. Poor Irrgeist sprang aside with all his force, thinking only of the danger which he feared; but, feeling his feet slipping under him, he turned, and saw that he had got upon the ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... gave to man in griefs and vexations. The predatory birds he thought were made equally in vain. He was tired all out with their felon ravages. He judged at last that wolves and foxes, and the blackbirds, and birds of prey, ought to be exterminated. Nothing now could so benefit the town, as a war of extermination, He could not raise a perfect crop of corn; he could not enjoy his ox-heart cherries; he could not raise a full brood of chickens, nor keep what were raised; he could not ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... to her tormentor, in whose thoughts there dwelt now little recollection of the vengeful character of his purpose. For a second her wrists were released; then she felt his arms going round her as the coils of a snake go round its prey. With a sudden reassertion of self, with a panting gasp of horror, she tore herself free. An oath broke from him as he sprang after her. Then the unexpected happened. Above his head something bright flashed up, then down. There ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... passed Maenalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycaeus, together with Cyllene.[44] After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night. I gave a signal that a God had come, and the people ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... kills them every one, despite the many charms and talismans hung round my wife's bed. Every day since the birth, these children have come to say the Shemang and the ninety-first psalm. And to-night the elders are coming to watch and study all night. But I fear they will not cheat Lilith of her prey. Therefore am I not in the humor ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Chinese, from the remotest antiquity, have employed the cormorant, a bird of the pelican family, for fishing on the coast: rings are fixed round the bird's neck to prevent him from swallowing his prey and fishing for himself. In the lowest degree of civilization, the sagacity of man is displayed in the stratagems of hunting and fishing: nations who probably never had any communication with each other furnish the most striking analogies ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... my detractors, returning them blow for blow, and endeavoring to confound them by methods learned in their own base school. How deeply I regret that you were not at my side to turn me from this path! It is now too late. The passions will not brook delay. They are impatient, and demand their prey with cries and with the convulsive eagerness of a fierce moral thirst. I have succumbed. I cannot forget what you so often said to me, that anger may be called the worst of the passions, since, suddenly transforming the character, it engenders all the others, and lends to each ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... "he would not catch much prey that way. There are three other ways out of the valley. That winding path you see there leads up to Santona. That road on the other side leads out on to the plain, and thence to Vittoria; while the footpath over the brow opposite ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... the morning. Rodney readily agreed and the following morning they went up the creek several miles to a place where the stream broadened out into a small pond. Its shores were lined with lily pads under which the pickerel lay in wait for their prey, motionless as sticks, which ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... some hours. The sun glared fiercely upon her, and dazzled her eyes as she opened them—she cast them on the blue wave close by her, and beheld a large shark motionless by the side of the raft, waiting for his prey. Recoiling from the edge, she started up. She turned round and beheld the raft vacant, and the truth flashed on her. "Oh! Philip, Philip!" cried she, "then it is true and you are gone for ever! I thought it was only a dream: I recollect all now. Yes—all—all!" And Amine sank down again ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... wished him miles away. The draperies were now slightly parted and into the room filtered the grave, languorous accents of the new tone-poem. Her eyes were fixed by Rentgen's. His expression changed; with nostrils dilated like a hunter scenting prey, his rather inert, cold features became transfigured; he was the man who listened, the cruel judge who sentenced. And she hoped, also the kind friend who would consider the youth and inexperience of the culprit. To the morbidly acute hearing of the woman, the music had a ring of hollow ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... there was a shriek of horror, for a couple of sharks, excited by the sight of prey standing so near the edge of the waves that ran over the natural pier, made a swoop down upon the young officer, who in his hurry and excitement let loose the ring of rope he had snatched from Rogers, and it was seen to descend ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... to him fast upon each other, and they are numerous about winter fires in the Highland glens. He could fancy almost that he saw the plaided spectre by the bedside, arms akimbo, smiling ghastly, waiting till his prey was done with earthly conversation. It was horrible to be the only one in that chamber to know of the terrific presence that had entered at the door, and the boy's mouth parched with old, remote, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... he was the determined, eager, confident prospector, never for an instant prey to even the suggestion of a doubt that he would not shortly be rich. Whether he washed the golden specks from the sand of a sage-brush plain, or sought the mother-ledge of some wandering golden child, or dug with his pick to follow a ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... comte did very right," said the steward, rubbing his hands; "but he must not stop short half-way. The field-keeper of the district who allows the country-people to prey upon the meadows and rob the harvests ought to be changed. Monsieur le comte should have himself chosen mayor, and appoint one of his old soldiers, who would have the courage to carry out his orders, in place of Vaudoyer. A great land-owner should be master in his ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... no brother there) Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery,[by] Their various arms that glitter in the air! What gallant War-hounds rouse them from their lair, And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey! All join the chase, but few the triumph share;[63] The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, And Havoc scarce for joy can number ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... bread and butter. They have as little shame as repentance. Their only regrets are that they have been ruined by the police or forced to spend a few barren years in the State prison. And about them hover always detective and police-captain, ill-omened birds of prey, who feed upon the underworld. There is nothing more remarkable in this drama of theft and hunger than the perfect understanding which unites the criminal lamb and the wolfish upholder of the law. The grafter looks to his opponent for protection, and looks ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... his soul become the prey of the tempter. But from the first, in the scorn of Faust for this poor fiend and all he has to bestow, we read the failure of the plot. Faust may sign a hundred such bonds in his blood with little fear. He knows well enough that a spirit such as his can ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... lassos in their hands, each selected their animal, and started in pursuit. It seemed as if in an instant the creature knew it was hunted, for it would move from place to place, and then start on a run, endeavoring to elude its pursuers; but the horseman, never for a moment losing sight of his prey, galloped on, turning this way and that as the creature did, until near enough, and then the lasso sped through the air coiling round and round the poor animal's legs, generally throwing him on his knees. Then ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... to add to his losses and disbursements, that of a valuable ship and crew. I wish that the present delay offered some, period less distant than the lassitude of an avaricious enemy to watch for prey. Perhaps you may be able to put me on some more expeditious mode of passage than the one under which I am acquiescing at present. I shall be much pleased to adopt any such, which may come recommended from you, without regard to personal risk or trouble. In the meantime, any intelligence ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... were successively established by the superior freedom and virtue of their citizens; and it was only when the institutions, which were the source of this freedom and virtue, were no longer reverenced and enforced, that each in its turn became the prey of a ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... she haud frae ye till ye had merried her than? Dinna tell me she didna lay hersel oot to mak a prey o' ye!" ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... wretches! When the storm Is once entangled in this strait of ours, It rages like some savage beast of prey, Struggling against its cage's iron bars! Howling, it seeks an outlet—all in vain; For the rocks hedge it round on every side, Walling the narrow gorge ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... "The prey ought to be taken from the lion somehow, if it please God," returned the old man solemnly. "The poor young lady keeps up as well as she can before her mother; but Jane do say there's a power o' crying done ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Drysdale, and the latter, much as he liked Sander's company, would have preferred it at any time than on an idle morning just at the beginning of term, when the gentlemen tradesmen, who look upon undergraduates in general, and gentlemen-commoners in particular, as their lawful prey, are in the habit of calling ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... of the Greek nationality did not depend on any efforts of the Greeks themselves. They were indeed no longer capable of effort, but lay passive under the hand of the Turk, like the paralysed quarry of some beast of prey. Their fate was conditional upon the development of the Ottoman state, and, as the two centuries drew to a close, that state entered upon a phase of ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... bows bent, their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: 29. Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it. 30. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... seen your strong young limbs, And heard your laughter loud and gay, And in your voices she has caught The echo of a far-off day, When man was closer to the earth; And she has marked you for her prey. ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... these mortifications and the severeness of his industry, he appears to have become a prey to extraordinary visions and imaginations. Among the rest, the devil visited him in his cell, and, thrusting his head in at the window, disturbed the saint with obscene and blasphemous speeches, and the most frightful contortions of the features of his countenance. Dunstan ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... described. All their insignificance did not prevent their being an element of the greatest power to those who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion. They were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey. Wars by land there were none, none at least by which power was acquired; we have the usual border contests, but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we hear nothing among the Hellenes. There was no ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... great a name for himself by his two voyages round the globe that he was granted a commission by Prince George of Denmark to sail as a privateer in the St. George, to prey on French and Spanish ships, the terms being: "No purchase, no pay." Sailing as his consort was the Cinque Ports, whose master was Alexander Selkirk, the original of Robinson Crusoe. This voyage, fully recounted in Dampier's book, is a long tale of adventure, ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... however, that his fall would be a death-blow to his army, he spurred upon him, and wounded him severely with his scimetar. Before he could repeat his blow, Theodomir led up a body of Christian cavaliers to the rescue, and Taric was parted from his prey by the tumult of the fight. The prince sank to the earth, covered with wounds, and exhausted by the loss of blood. A faithful page drew him from under the hoofs of the horses, and, aided by a veteran soldier, an ancient ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... enterprises, had put the young Irishman in the way of securing a biography of the Hebrew premier, whom he provided with such an absurd travesty of likeness, and the "ole clo' merchant" was so impressed by the resolution and dexterity of the celebrated statesman, that he became, from that moment, the prey of a consuming ambition whose direction ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... exclude the nobility from all office and all dignity was obvious, at half a glance. My spirit was ulcerated at this; I saw approaching the complete re-establishment of the bastards; my heart was cleft in twain, to see the Regent at the heels of his unworthy minister. He was a prey to the interest, the avarice, the folly, of this miserable wretch, and no remedy possible. Whatever experience I might have had of the astonishing weakness of M. le Duc d'Orleans, it had passed all bounds when I saw him with my own eyes make Dubois prime minister, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and is repelled (wagon-chaos ever harder to keep plugged); finally perceives himself to be beaten; that the wagon-chaos has got unplugged (fancy it!)—and that he, Ziethen, must retreat; back foremost if possible. He did retreat, fighting all the way to Troppau; and the Convoy is a ruin and a prey. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... earlier day, to an austerer, perhaps to a better one, and it may be that in "that woman," as he called Caesar, his clearer vision discerned beneath the plumage of the peacock, the beak and talons of the bird of prey. For they were there, and needed only a vote of the senate to batten on nations of which the senate had never heard. Loan him an army, and "that woman" was to give geography such a twist that today whoso says ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... surface. He took a keen delight in the sport, and when a fish was negotiating the bait he always purred loudly in anticipation of the feast in prospect. The trout landed and the line re-cast, he would seize his prey, and with stealthy gait slink off with his prize, leaving the old farmer to discover his loss when he might. Together Jack and Peter roamed over the meadow lands, and the poultry-run was an object of great interest to them. Together ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... kneeling upon his breast, had placed his hands upon his throat—when the glare of many torches penetrating through the hole that gave light in the day, disturbed him;—he instantly rose, and, leaving his prey, rushed through the door, and in a moment the crashing of the brandies, as he broke through the wood, was no longer heard. The storm was now still; and Aubrey, incapable of moving, was soon heard by those without. They entered; the light of their ...
— The Vampyre; A Tale • John William Polidori
... rules and advertised themselves as teachers of scientific voice production. The great body of vocal students, anxious to learn to sing in the shortest possible time, having no way of telling the genuine from the spurious except by trying it, fell an easy prey, and the amount of vocal damage and disaster visited upon singers in the name of science is ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... He was a prey to dread and yet he did not hurry. Larry, driving the pack-train, drew on ahead and passed out of sight in a green bend of the brook. At length Neale saw a column of blue smoke curling up above the trees, and that sight ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... prey, noise, whip, rattling, wheel, horse, chariot, day, darkness, gloominess, clouds, darkness, morning, mountain, people, ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... the ominous night-bird of Error, Scared by a sudden irruption of day, Flap his maleficent wings, and in terror Flit to the wilderness, dropping his prey. Then should we, growing in strength and in sweetness, Fusing to one indivisible soul, Dazzle the world with a splendid completeness, Mightily ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... Government proved, however, unable to check the rising strength of the Boxers and appeared to be a prey to internal dissensions. In the unequal contest the antiforeign influences soon gained the ascendancy under the leadership of Prince Tuan. Organized armies of Boxers, with which the Imperial forces affiliated, held the country between Peking and the coast, penetrated ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... whales are beaten—by narwhals and men, And other mere pigmies. 'Tis said, now and then, E'en sword-fish can compass their ruin, By stabbing together—in Cassius's way With Caesar. Leviathan, dead, is a prey To ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... the preliminary stage were a Manchester policeman named Seth Bromley, who had been one of the van escort on the day of the rescue, and the degraded and infamous crown spy, Corridon. The former—eager as a beagle on the scent to run down the prey before him—left the table amidst murmurs of derision and indignation evoked by his over-eagerness on his direct examination, and his "fencing" and evasion on cross-examination. The spy Corridon was produced "to prove the existence of the Fenian conspiracy." Little notice was taken of ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird, which seems to have escaped observation, and that is, that it takes its stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the ground, but returning still to the same stand ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... warm and his strength has lasted, but when the arrow has overcome him, the savage jackals devour him in the shady glades of the forest. Then heaven sends a fierce lion thither, whereon the jackals fly in terror and the lion robs them of their prey—even so did Trojans many and brave gather round crafty Ulysses, but the hero stood at bay and kept them off with his spear. Ajax then came up with his shield before him like a wall, and stood hard by, whereon the Trojans fled in all ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... began to throw the dead overboard to clear their encumbered decks, and a strange horror was added to the scene, for shoals of sharks that had followed the fleets to pick up anything thrown overboard now swarmed around them, lashing the water into foam as they struggled for their human prey. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... a marvellous ring!" he said, And pointed to the sexton's gnarled old hand Spread on the black oak-table like the claw Of some great bird of prey. "A ruby worth The ransom of a queen!" The fire leapt up! The sexton stared at him; Then stretched his hand out, with its blue-black nails, Full in the light, a grim earth-coloured hand, But bare as ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... give you up: I will write to you once a quarter, just to keep up a connexion that grace may catch at, if it ever proposes to visit you. This is my plan, for I have little or nothing to tell you. The ministers only cut one another's throats instead of ours. They growl over their prey like two curs over a bone, which neither can determine to quit; and the whelps in opposition are not strong enough to beat either way, though like the species, they will probably hunt the one that shall ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... wretched poverty, gaunt pain, and loathsome disease were pulling down their victims. Out there, in the blackness, hideous licentiousness, beastly passion, debasing pleasure were stalking their prey. Out there, murderers of souls were lying in wait; robbers of hearts were creeping stealthily; slayers of purity were watching; killers of innocence were lurking. To the woman at the window, that night, the twinkling lights of the city were ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... No one can deny that some flash may dart from our eyes which represents objects to us—which objects are reflected in our eyes, and leave their traces there. It is known that animals which prowl by night have a piercing sight, to enable them to discern their prey and carry it off; that the animal spirit which is in the eye, and which may be shed from it, is of the nature of fire, and consequently lucid. It may happen that the eyes being closed during sleep, this spirit heated by the eyelids becomes inflamed, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... troop drew nearer to Lens, the noise of the cannon sounded louder. The prince kept his gaze fixed in the direction of the sound with the steadfastness of a bird of prey. One would have said that his gaze could pierce the branches of trees which limited his horizon. From time to time his nostrils dilated as if eager for the smell of powder, and he ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... haversack to be drawn upon in such a convenient manner the Troutlet was not obliged to take food through his mouth or to think about hustling around in search of a living. This was very fortunate, for the stream was full of hungry beasts of prey who would be very likely to gobble him up quick the first time he went abroad; and, besides, his frail little body was still so weak and delicate that he could not bear the light of day. So, instead of swimming away to seek his fortune, ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... retires from the beach into deeper water. It is then caught in boats with nets, made now of galvanized wire, which resists the action of the sea-water and is a great improvement upon the old twine net. In feeding, the shrimp grasps its minute prey by the short rake-like appendages between the legs proper and the tail, and passes it along up to its claws, and then to the mouth. These appendages serve also as a brush when the shrimp makes its toilet. To do this it stands as high as it can on the tips of its long legs, and bends ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... hundred men. They shewed him also the Jaw-bone with which Samson did such mighty feats. They shewed him moreover the Sling and Stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath; and the Sword also with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the day that he shall rise up to the prey. They shewed him besides many excellent things, with which Christian was much delighted. This done, they went to ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... concealed in my waist. No doubt he was already asleep yonder in the shadows, but this night was only the beginning. The opposition he had met would prove a spur to endeavor, and the desire to win me a stronger incentive than ever. He may have been indifferent, careless before—deeming me easy prey—but from now on I meant to lead him a ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... influence of its rightful owner has something to do with the good character of the interesting young birds that we see plashing about in the marshes, and trying to catch fish or frogs with something of their parents' skill. Then, again, the zowia shelters the descendants of the holy man, who prey upon passers in the name of Allah ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... saw a fortnight ago, curled up into a delicious hairy ball, I should ask nothing better; I would have eaten her then, but unluckily her husband was lying beside her, and one knows that foxes, great and small, run like the wind. Really it seems as if there was not a living creature left for me to prey upon but a wolf, and, as the proverb says: "One wolf does not bite another." However, let us see what this village can produce. I am as hungry ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... let loose on their prey, this brutal, lawless mob with uncontrolled cruelty let loose the strings of their pent-up passion. They kept these men on the ground and dealt with them shamefully. Duke was being dragged along by his belt, and the crowd beat him sorely ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... shaking off of the daze had come amazement at finding herself married. In the same circumstances a man would have been incapacitated for action; Craig, who had been so reckless, so headlong a few minutes before, was now timid, irresolute, prey to alarms. But women, beneath the pose which man's resolute apotheosis of woman as the embodiment of unreasoning imagination has enforced upon them, are rarely so imaginative that the practical is wholly obscured. Margaret was accepting the situation, was ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... slaveholders a second law of nature, and, when excited even by their equals, their hot blood brooks neither restraint nor delay; gratification is the first thought—prudence generally comes too late, and the slaves see their masters fall a prey to each other, the victims of those very passions which have been engendered and infuriated by the practice of arbitrary rule over them. Surely it need not be added, that those who thus tread down their equals, must trample as in a wine-press their defenceless vassals. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... spreading pools glistening in the sunshine, with the dragon-flies glancing here and there upon their gauzy wings which rustled and thrilled as they darted and turned in their wonderful flight, chasing their unfortunate winged prey. Every now and then a beautiful swallow-tail butterfly, plentiful once in these regions, flitted by, inviting pursuit where pursuit was impossible; while from the waving beds of giant grass which rose from the water and now began to show their empurpled heads, came the chattering ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... Donatists, converted many schismatics in Istria and the neighboring provinces; and reformed many grievous abuses in Gaul, whence he banished simony, which had almost universally infected that church. A great part of Italy was become a prey to the Lombards,[31] who were partly Arians, partly idolaters. St. Gregory often stopped the fury of their arms, and checked their oppressions of the people: by his zeal he also brought over many to the Catholic faith, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... doubtless even a little here—in spite of my seeing the track, to the next bend, so temptingly clear. I should like to note for instance, for my own satisfaction (though no fellow, thank God, was ever less a prey to the ignoble fear of inconsistency) that poor Mother's impugnment of my acquisition of Lorraine didn't in the least disconcert me. I did pick Lorraine—then a little bleating stray lamb collared with a blue ribbon and a tinkling silver bell—out ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... not so this cave of Gibraltar, for, judging from its appearance, there is not the slightest reason for supposing that it ever served for aught else than a den for foul night birds, reptiles, and beasts of prey. It has been stated by some to have been used in the days of paganism as a temple to the god Hercules, who, according to the ancient tradition, raised the singular mass of crags now called Gibraltar, and the mountain which confronts it on the African shores, as columns which should say to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... wandered through the island; and the Nymphs of the land started the wild goats, that my company might have food to eat. Thereupon we took our bows and our spears from the ships, and shot at the goats; and the gods gave us plenty of prey. Twelve ships I had in my company, and each ship had nine goats for its share, and my ...
— The Story Of The Odyssey • The Rev. Alfred J. Church
... carrying the orders of his chief. Captains Comba, Williams, Browning, and Sanno, used their Springfields with telling effect and put many a bullet where it would do the most good. Lieutenant Jacobs was as swift as an eagle in search of his prey, and, with a revolver in each hand, dashed hither and thither hunting out the murderers from their hiding-places and ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... inward eye. My vices and errours, all the faults and misdeeds of my life, every wretched moment of my temporal existence gathered round me as it were with the cries and croaking of fierce hungry birds of prey. O these sins how hugely and gigantically they swelled out! How horrible it was to see their consequences unfolding themselves far, far away in the realms of the future! how they took root and grew ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... which were in agony from contact with the metal wheel. The three leaped; and the launch's stern dipped perilously under the tremendous influx of weight; the flaming oil alongside licked ravenously at their smaller and nearer prey. ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... pop-corn so much! I could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket.' The youth laughed, but for the sake of 'making a trade' set down his basket and took the 'enfant terrible.' There was an instant attack upon his hair, which was so long and straggling as to prove an easy prey to the enemy." ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... and as he passed Raeside saw who it was. Then the joke of it struck him, he called Barney back, and the two of them sat down in the tunnel and laughed till they were sore. The boss never found them, and I can imagine how angry he was when he went back with his reinforcements and found his prey gone. That night the boys told us the joke they had played ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... days are swifter than a runner: They flee away, they have seen no good; They glide along like papyrus-boats, Like the eagle swooping upon its prey. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... while her face might be likened to the evening sky when the afterglow is catching the clouds. From point to point the flush catches, cloud after cloud is lighted up, until under the whole heaven there is one crimson glow. Dolly was not much given to blushing, she was not at all wont to be a prey to shyness; what had come over her now? When Lawrence St. Leger had talked to her on this very same subject, she had been able to answer him with scarcely a rise of colour in her cheeks; with a ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... and wobble him—at that precise moment his conscience flares into function, and so finishes his business. First he sees difficulty, then he sees the danger, then he sees wrong. The result is that he slinks off in trepidation, and another vampire is baffled of her prey. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... evidently just caught, into which the wild-cat had just sunk her teeth when the approach of the boy was heard. At first Wilbur could not understand why she had not sprung into the woods with her prey at the first distant twig-snapping which would betoken his approach. But as he looked more closely he saw that this was precisely what the cat had tried to do, but that in the jerk the rabbit had been caught and partly impaled on a tree root that projected ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... no squid. Never again in all my life have I dived for squid. Perhaps we were five fathoms down and exploring the face of the reefwall for lurking places of our prey, when it happened. I had found a likely lair and just proved it empty, when I felt or sensed the nearness of something inimical. I turned. There it was, alongside of me, and no mere fish-shark. Fully a dozen ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... loquacity peculiarly flippant and teazing because scandal, routs, finery, fans, china, lovers, lap-dogs, or squirrels, are her constant themes. Her amusements, like those of a magpie, are only hopping over the same spots, prying into the same corners, and devouring the same species of prey. The simple and beautiful delineations of nature, in her countenance, gestures and whole deportment, are habitually arranged, distorted, or concealed, by the affected adoption of whatever grimace or deformity is ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... according to the measure of that power, strive to be like fond mothers to the thousands who cry "We have no dear mother—our mother is in heaven—is dead—and we know not what is right or what is wrong!" Help and pity them. Rescue them from that heart-breaking loneliness and sorrow that prey incessantly on the feelings of ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... times he resolved to return and kill her, and a thousand times he relented, for he loved her as madly as ever and could not carry out his resolve. A prey to alternate fits of remorse and hatred, and tortured constantly by the knowledge of an unrequited love, the soul of Don Felipe Ramirez suffered the torments of the damned. His unconquerable love for Chiquita devoured him, gnawed constantly at his heart, and he cursed her—cursed ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... to Ragusa was not entirely free from excitement, for the indigenous Mussulman had less avidity for prey he saw going into the trap, Mostar, than for that which he saw escaping, and we had to face small predatory detachments of bashi-bazouks raiding in the country we passed through, who looked at us with eyes of fire, and muttered in no doubtful language, interpreted by my colleague of "Le ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... rats and mice are fond of the juicy stalks of the berries when they are nearly ripe, and they nibble at them until the berries fall. The long-haired black rat is the greatest of these pests. Cats are kept on each plantation to prey upon the animal pests; but, unfortunately, the natives are very fond of cats—not as pets, but as articles of food. This feline appetite on the part of the workmen causes the owner to keep a vigilant watch over his cat family, and to severely ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... were still smoking by the river-side; the grass around them was trampled down by men and horses, and strewn with all the litter of a camp. Our departure had been a gathering signal to the birds and beasts of prey; Shaw assured me that literally dozens of wolves were prowling about the smoldering fires, while multitudes were roaming over the prairie around; they all fled as he approached, some running over the sand-beds and some over the grassy plains. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... subtle details of the crime. It was arranged that Murdock was to commit the ghastly deed, and for this purpose he was sent down quietly to Brent disguised as a journeyman the day before Cressley went to the Hall. The men had thought that Cressley would prove an easy prey, but they distrusted me from the first. Their relief was great when they discovered that I could not accompany Cressley to the Hall. And had he spent the first night there, the murder would have been committed; but his nervous terrors inducing ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... among the most vivid of the war, has described these lairs, littered with straw and the debris of food, isolated from each other, and each containing its grim and formidable occupant. 'The eyries of birds of prey' is the phrase with which he brings them home to us. In these, with nothing visible but their peering eyes and the barrels of their rifles, the Boer marksmen crouched, and munched their biltong and their mealies as the day broke upon the morning of the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the masters of the chase Arranged the huntsmen, high and low. While banners streamed, and ox-tails flew, We sought the prey ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... name of a young woman of the Parisian world, under the Restoration. She had been brought up at Ecouen, where she had received the practical counsels of Mme. Campan. Mistress of Charles Grandet before his father's death. Towards the close of 1819, a prey to suspicion, she must needs sacrifice her happiness for the time being, so she made a weary journey with her husband into Scotland. She made her lover effeminate and materialistic, advising with him about everything. He returned from the Indies ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... every spring and autumn, to descend its waters nearly to the sea in quest of game. The Eskimos, who, coming from the mysterious north, were in the habit of ascending it a short way during open water in pursuit of their peculiar prey, ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... caught; both were very small; the one malacopterygious, and resembling the pike, would remain at times motionless at the bottom, or dart at its prey; the other belonged to the perches, and had an oblong compressed body, and three dark stripes perpendicular to its length; this would hover through the water, and nibble at the bait. Silurus and Gristes were ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... been looted. Trees grow outward from the upper windows, and, in the cracks of masonry and marble floors, a tropic vegetation has sprung up. Moss covers the mosaics, and the carved woodwork has become the prey of ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... caution slowly subside as its hunger grew and as she always fled from it? The thought came to her that such a menace would follow one day after day; that it would wait and wait; that in the end it knew its time would come when sleep or exhaustion broke down its prey's guard. Then ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... upon themselves and others. Some out of that insatiable desire of filthy lucre, to be enriched, care not how they come by it per fas et nefas, hook or crook, so they have it. And others when they have with riot and prodigality embezzled their estates, to recover themselves, make a prey of the church, robbing it, as [2039]Julian the apostate did, spoil parsons of their revenues (in keeping half back, [2040]as a great man amongst us observes:) "and that maintenance on which they should live:" by means whereof, barbarism is increased, and a great decay of Christian professors: ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... safety the maddened half-breed had ceased to care. No warning cried from the stage could have done aught but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and doubtful, he turned his back upon his prey. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... and again he became a prey to his moral terror of the half-breed raider. He drew out his revolver and opened the chamber. The weapon was loaded. Then he turned to old John who was ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... look'd upon nothing transitory worth their Concern; and having their Thoughts always employ'd on Meditations of a future Happiness, neglected every thing on Earth but their Duty; and for this Reason, they often became a Prey to Knaves, who slipp'd no Opportunity of spoiling them, knowing their Lenity such, that, if detected, they should not be prosecuted. I have been assured, that a Priest being told, such a Farmer had stole away a great many Tithe Sheafs, the good ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... there be divers fishes that cast their spawn on flags or stones, and then leave it uncovered, and exposed to become a prey and be devoured by vermin or other fishes. But other fishes, as namely the Barbel, take such care for the preservation of their seed, that, unlike to the Cock, or the Cuckoo, they mutually labour, both the spawner and the melter, to cover their spawn with sand, or watch it, or hide ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... explains to the chorus the joyful cause of the sacrifice which she orders; and the herald Talthybius immediately makes his appearance, who, as an eye-witness, relates the drama of the conquered and plundered city, consigned as a prey to the flames, the joy of the victors, and the glory of their leader. With reluctance, as if unwilling to check their congratulatory prayers, he recounts to them the subsequent misfortunes of the Greeks, their dispersion, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... they cooked and ate the vulture, and it is probable that they devoured that meal with fully as much eagerness and satisfaction as the ravenous bird itself ever devoured its prey. It was but a light breakfast, however. After being skinned, the bird was divided into ten portions, and every man cooked his own as he thought fit, but each did not receive above three mouthfuls. Nevertheless it strengthened them enough to enable them to return to the ship, where ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... fool: In being out of office, I am out of danger; Where, if I were a justice, besides the trouble, I might, or out of wilfulness, or error, Run myself finely into a praemunire: And so become a prey to the informer. No, I'll have none of't: 'tis enough I keep Greedy at my devotion: so he serve My purposes, let him hang, or damn, I care not; ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... and press from the rear and solidify, but in the narrow fissure the policeman stands motionless, with only some such slight stir of his extended hands as a cat imparts to her "conscious tail" when she waits to spring upon her prey. ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... molest. Unhappy Luke! he trusts a treacherous clue! Behind the cliff the lurking robber stood; No friendly moon his giant shadow threw Athwart the road, to save the Pilgrim's blood; On as he went a vesper-hymn he sang, The hymn, that nightly sooth'd him to repose. Fierce on his harmless prey the ruffian sprang! The Pilgrim bleeds to death, his eye-lids close. Yet his meek spirit knew no vengeful care, But, dying, for his ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Boggs, more frequently addressed as 'Procrastination Boggs', "you are getting your metaphors dreadfully mixed. It is a four-legged beast of prey that bears its victim away to ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... stories that Janet told to her minister in the days before the Carnegies came home, as well as afterwards, and so she prepared him to be an easier prey to a ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... the grave before me. The last of five, I hoped he would survive me; but consumption is a terrible thing; it took my husband first, then, in quick succession, my other children, and now Harry, my darling, my youngest, is the last prey." ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Schiller took counsel freely of Shakspere, whose name had now become for young Germany the symbol of all things great in dramatic writing. The first soliloquy of Franz Moor reminds one at once of Edmund in 'Lear', though there is none of the kind of borrowing which makes easy prey for the philologist. Both villains covet the wealth and station of a preferred brother; both make use of a specious obstetrical argument and both operate with forged letters. In general, however, the portrait of Franz was more influenced ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... the Hon. Melville Jocelyn on deck, and without his wife, recalled her to business. It is a peculiarity of female diplomatists that they fear none save their own sex. Men they regard as their natural prey: in women they see rival hunters using their own weapons. The Countess smiled a slowly-kindling smile up to him, set her brother adrift, and delicately linked ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... custom, the corpse of Jesus ought to have remained suspended in order to become the prey of birds.[1] According to the Jewish law, it would have been removed in the evening, and deposited in the place of infamy set apart for the burial of those who were executed.[2] If Jesus had had for disciples only his poor Galileans, timid and ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... mouthpiece fell back, as the head of a snake, among the silken coils of the tube at his feet. Instantly, on feeling the grasping hand empty, his majesty, with more alacrity than I would have expected, darted forward with outstretched claws, as a hawk on his prey, and seizing the glittering thing returned it to his lips with a look of evident relief. It was habit, of course, for we were not exactly the men to plunder him of his toy, but there was a fierceness about the whole action that spoke of the real ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... swallow stopt as he hunted the bee, [1] The snake slipt under a spray, The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, And stared, with his foot on the prey, And the nightingale thought, "I have sung many songs, But never a one so gay, For he sings of what the world will be When ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... he screamed, already raving; and then Old Hucks ran in just in time to prevent the madman from throttling West, for his fingers were even then twined around Bob's throat. There was a desperate struggle, and I remember that, scared as I was, I joined Thomas in trying to pull Thompson off his prey. But suddenly old Will threw up his arms and toppled backward, still raving like a demon, but unable to move his body from the waist downward. West helped us to put him in bed, and said he was paralyzed, which afterward ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... great empty abysses of my inner being, stifled by longing for the unknown, consumed with the thirst for the infinite, prostrate before the ineffable. I also am torn sometimes by this blind passion for life, these desperate struggles for happiness, though more often I am a prey to complete exhaustion and taciturn despair. What is the reason of it all? Doubt—doubt of one's self, of thought, of men, and of life—doubt which enervates the will and weakens all our powers, which makes us forget God and neglect prayer and duty—that restless and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Indian-like in their stealth. Bending low to avoid the rustling branches, he crept on, silently and swiftly. He no longer followed the tracks. He had turned off, meaning to come up with his quarry against the wind. At every opening in the bush he paused, his keen eyes alert for a sign of his prey. But the leafless branches of the scrub, faintly tinged with the signs of coming spring, alone confronted him; only that, and the noise of breaking ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... turned to the new-comer. Antipater halted as he came ashore, looking in surprise at the tribune. He seized a lance, and, crouching as he ran, with sly feet approached the Roman officer. He was like the cat nearing its prey. Vergilius, now seeming unmindful of his pursuer, walked in the direction of the cohort. Swiftly, stealthily, the prince came near, intending to plunge his lance into the back of the young tribune. Suddenly there rose an outcry among the soldiers. Vergilius turned; the ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... free. Yes, she has gone from the land of the slave; The hand of oppression must rest in the grave. The blood hounds have missed the scent of her way, The hunter is rifled and foiled of his prey. ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... heating has its virtues. On those cold days in Winnipeg we lived in a world that knew not draughts. It was almost a solemn joy to sit in a bath, and to feel that though half of one was in hot water, the other half was also comfortable and not the prey of every devilish current of icy air such as sports itself in those damp refrigerators, the British bathrooms. Naturally, since we are staying in a Canadian hotel of the up-to-date kind, a bathroom was attached ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if possible, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... of great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a prey to hypochondria. She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once before in boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and board for a year; for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... a contrite mood and questioned, would have told. Such times generally came when she was preparing for one of her walks. At these moments her adventure had a way of suddenly losing its glamour and appearing as a shabby and underhand performance. Before she saw Mayer she often hesitated, a prey to a chill distaste, sometimes even questioning her love for him. After she saw him things were different. She came away filled with a bridling vanity, feeling herself a siren, a queen of men. Helen of Troy, seeing brave blood spilled for her possession, was not more satisfied of her worth than ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner |
