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More "Wren" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... used as a fortress in the Civil Wars, and was considerably battered. The first Duke of Devonshire about the year 1700 rebuilt the mansion, employing the chief architects, artists, designers, and wood-carvers of his time, among them Sir Christopher Wren. In the grounds, not far from the bridge over the Derwent, is the "Bower of Mary Queen of Scots." There is a small, clear lake almost concealed by foliage, in the centre of which is a tower, and on the top a grass-grown garden, where are also several fine trees. Here, under guard, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... drawing-room in five minutes, hair brushed, hands washed, collar straight. She went up to Miss Wren to be introduced to her, and then sat down in a corner by the window with a book. Miss Wren was very deaf, and her deafness had the effect, as she could not in the least hear her own voice, of making her shout out her observations in a very loud tone, sometimes rather embarrassing ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... pillars, except that their thickness is rather out of proportion to their height. The highest point of the whole, as given before, is 1500 feet above the ground, while it is 2800 feet above the sea-level. Could I be buried at Mount Olga, I should certainly borrow Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph, Circumspice si monumentum requiris. To the eastward from here, as mentioned in my first expedition, and not very far off, lay another strange and singular-looking mound, similar perhaps to this. Beyond that, and still further to the east, and a very long way off, was another ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... loftiness and beauty, and till now the subject of censure, even among Protestants, from that inscription of which the Papists always complained, was the offspring of this period, and realized one of those decorations which Wren had lavished upon his air-drawn Babylon. This lofty column was ordered by the Commons, in commemoration of the extinction of the great fire and the rebuilding of the city: it stands on the site of the old church of St. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... it was that a man must walk about with somebody on Commemoration week, and that it was a comfort to do so with ladies who wore their bonnets upon their heads, instead of, like most of those he met, remind him of what Cock Robin said to Jenny Wren in that ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... rose; and over them the beautiful fold of her full eyebrow on the eyelid like a bending upper heaven. Those winter mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly. The earth is still, as if awaiting. A wren warbles, and flits through the lank drenched brambles; hill-side opens green; elsewhere is mist, everywhere expectancy. They bear the veiled sun like a sangreal aloft to the wavy marble flooring ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eye and ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds that haunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping to its new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed creeper moving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a silent and jealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards other things and forces ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sweeter than by day; The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attuned; and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many things by season, seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection! Peace, there, the moon sleeps with Endymion And would not be awaked." (Music ceases and ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... squalor of almsgiving. The mutilated victims of the egotism and the fatuity of kings were imprisoned there together under the rules and regulations of charity, the cruellest of all rules and regulations. And all was done meanly—that is, all that interested George. Christopher Wren, who was building St. Paul's and fighting libels and slanders at a salary of two hundred a year, came down to Greenwich and for years worked immortally for nothing amid material difficulties that never ceased to multiply; and he too was beaten by the ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... of woman,' said the Prince; 'I came forth from my mother's agony, helpless as a wren, like other nurselings. This, which you forgot, I have still faithfully remembered. Is it not one of your English poets, that looked abroad upon the earth and saw vast circumvallations, innumerable troops manoeuvring, warships ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... spread their geometric webs. Being rich in spiders, it was a favourite hunting-ground of those insect desperadoes, the mason-wasps, that flew about loudly buzzing in their splendid gold and scarlet uniform. There were also many little shy birds here, and my favourite was the wren, for in its appearance and its scolding, jerky, gesticulating ways it is precisely like our house-wren, though it has a richer and more powerful song than the English bird. On the other side of the hedge was the potrero, or paddock, where a milch-cow with two or three horses were kept. The ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... Painting," where he informs us that the "duchess quarrelled with Sir John, and went to law with him; but though he proved to be in the right, or rather because he proved to be in the right, she employed Sir Christopher Wren to build the house in St. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens as soon as in the hamlet of this remarkably self-possessed little maid. Her manner was exceptional; but, if we must lose the curtsey, and the rural little ones cease to mimic that pretty drooping motion of the nightingale, the kitty wren, and wheatear, cannot our village pastors and masters teach them some less startling and offensive form of salutation than the loud "Hullo!" with which they are accustomed to greet the ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... some place in London to discuss philosophical and scientific subjects for mental advancement. In 1648, owing to the political disturbances of the time, some of the members of these meetings removed to Oxford, among them Boyle, Wallis, and Wren, where the meetings were continued, as were also the meetings of those left in London. In 1662, however, when the political situation bad become more settled, these two bodies of men were united under a charter from ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... amphitheatre? Who erects an edifice after the style of the Thermae? But all artists copy the Parthenon. That, and not the colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears in the capitals of Europe, and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Christopher Wren. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... on the table, and also some proofs. They were part of Our Mutual Friend, which was then appearing in monthly numbers; and on that morning a proof of one of the illustrations had arrived from Mr. Marcus Stone. It was the one in which 'Miss Wren fixes her idea.' I was then about sixteen or seventeen, and Dickens said, 'You are setting out in life; mind you always fix your idea.' He asked me what I was going to be, and I said a farmer. He said, 'Better be that than an author or poet;' and after I had had two glasses ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... The little wren is very small, The humming-bee is less; The ladybird is least of all, And beautiful in dress. The pelican she loves her young, The stork its parent loves; The woodcock's bill is very long, And innocent are doves. ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... and ministers of religion generally, have particularly distinguished themselves in our country's history. Amongst them we find the names of Drake and Nelson, celebrated in naval heroism; of Wollaston, Young, Playfair, and Bell, in science; of Wren, Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, in art; of Thurlow and Campbell, in law; and of Addison, Thomson, Goldsmith, Coleridge, and Tennyson, in literature. Lord Hardinge, Colonel Edwardes, and Major Hodson, so honourably known in Indian warfare, were also the sons of clergymen. Indeed, the empire of England ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... was a mother wren; and he was not long in discovering that she had built a nest under the tin pan that the giant wore ...
— The Tale of Old Mr. Crow • Arthur Scott Bailey
... of an approving conscience to the vain honours of the world—also were connected with the place. I remember being shown a bush in which the conventicle preacher used to hide himself when the enemy, in the shape of the myrmidons of Bishop Wren, of Norwich, were at his heels. That furious prelate, as many of us know, drove upwards of three thousand persons to seek their bread in a foreign land. Indeed, to such an extent did he carry out his persecuting system, that the trade and manufactures of the country materially suffered in consequence. ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... of these Lectures, it has very often pained us, and that excessively, to hear from unthinking, inexperienced men— bachelors of course—that every woman, no matter how divinely composed, has in her ichor-flowing veins one drop—"no bigger than a wren's eye"—of Caudle; that Eve herself may now and then have been guilty of a lecture, murmuring it balmily amongst the rose-leaves. It may be so; still, be it our pride never to believe ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... "If a wren can cling To a spray a-swing In a mad May wind, and sing, and sing, As if she'd burst for joy; Why cannot I, Contented lie, In His quiet arms, beneath His sky, Unmoved ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... murder me, Of choke your sovereign with puddle-water? Gur. No, but wash your face, and shave away your beard, Lest you be known, and so be rescued. Mat. Why strive you thus? your labour is in vain. K. Edw. The wren may strive against the lion's strength, But all in vain: so vainly do I strive To seek for mercy at a tyrant's hand. [They wash him with puddle-water, and shave his beard away. Immortal powers, that know the painful cares That wait upon my poor distressed soul, O, level all your looks ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... landscape, that 'Poussin' to a French ear conveyed the idea of 'chicken,' or of the young of birds in general. (Is it from 'pousser,' as if they were a kind of budding of bird?) Everybody seems to agree in feeling that this is a kind of wren among the dabchicks. Bewick's name, 'Little Gallinule,' meaning of course, if he knew it, the twice-over little Gallina;—and here again the question occurs to me about its voice. Is it a twice-over little crow, called ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... for themselves. You have seen what wonderful swinging baskets the Oriole makes for his baby-cradle? Well, it was the Magpie who taught him how, and he was the prize pupil, to be sure. But some of the birds were not like him, nor like the patient little Wren. Some of them were lazy and stupid and envious of Mother Magpie's cosy nest, which was already finished, while theirs ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... he told them of birds as well as beasts, and three of these I will mention here because they are very pleasant to listen to. One was of St. Malo and the wren. The wren, the smallest of all birds, laid an egg in the hood which St. Malo had hung up on a branch while he was working in the field, and the blessed man was so gentle and loving that he would not disturb the bird, but left his hood hanging ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... the quail, there are some eccentrics, such as Jenny wren, which have despised their tails, and there are specialists also which require them for other purposes than flying. The woodpecker's tail is quite useless as a rudder, for he is a woodman and has altered and adapted ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... had heard something of the fabulous tale of the wren sitting upon the eagle's wing, and he had applied it to a linnet. Cibber's familiar style, however, was better than that which Whitehead has assumed. GRAND nonsense is insupportable. Whitehead is but a little man to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... with both the ear and the eye. Here is a case in point. For many days, while strolling about in quest of bird lore, I heard a quaint little song in the bushy clumps, and that, too, in some of the most out-of-the-way places. "It is nothing but the house wren," I muttered to myself, I know not how often. "It isn't worth while to look for it when there are new birds to be found. Still, it's singular," I continued, "that the house wren should dwell in such secluded places. It would seem that his name is a misnomer—at least, in a good many instances." ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... thinkers in force and homely matter, the men who are bringing the globe up towards the Creator's imagination and purpose; and on this mission the leaders of mechanic art would go side by side with Shakespeare and Milton, Angelo and Wren, ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... that crooked talk! Mary Lyon is nae bit silly Jenny Wren to be whistled off the waa' wi' ony siccan talk. Dinna tell me that a lawvier body doesna ken what 'harbouring rogues and vagabonds' means—the innocent lamb that he is—and him reading the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... Artificers. (7) From the operative masons of the Middle Ages. (8) From the Rosicrucians of the sixteenth century. (9) From Oliver Cromwell. (10) From Prince Charles Stuart for political purposes. (11) From Sir Christopher Wren, at the building of St. Paul's. (12) From Dr. Desaguliers ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... descends to the base satisfaction of animals which merely meet in obedience to an instinct, and separate as soon as the instinct has been served. Birds understand love better than all animals, except man. Who has not thought with admiration of the weaver-birds, and of our own native wren? But the rooms that were offered to us corresponded in no wise with those that we had imagined the doors of the beautiful galleries would lead us into. The French words chambre meublee will convey an idea of the rooms we were shown into; for do not the words evoke a high bed pushed into ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... you a story about the wren. There was once a farmer who was seeking a servant, and the wren met him and said: "What are ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... local name for Chelsea Hospital, a home for old and disabled soldiers. It was founded by Charles II and the buildings were designed by Wren.) ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... are not the only visitors whose society our friends enjoy. The swallows gracefully skim through the air, and greet them with their merry voices. The wren often favours them with one of his sweetest melodies, and the blue-bird flies around the corner to sing a song on the walnut-tree. He has a curious little nest of his own, hidden away under the eaves. The cat-birds, of course, are always near, as they live ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... pretty girl whose features were neatly cut out on somewhat the same design, and whose eyes and hair were of the same neutral brown. She had a waist of painful slenderness, and she reminded Mary of a charming wren. Behind her came another girl, older and of a different type, with hair yellow as a gold ring, round eyes of opaque, turquoise blue, without expression, and complexion of incredible pink and white. Her lips, too, were extremely pink, and her brows and ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... ever see her before? You have heard Mr. Wren sing, haven't you? Oh, how he sings! I think house-wrens are such dear, dear birds. We always put up boxes and cans and such things for them, for we like to have them around, and they can build their nests in quite small places. ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... why this fuss! Ah, my brave Vitellius, I am never sure your stringers May not string you other singers, May not tire of lark and wren And attempt to sell you men. Please forgive me, but I've made Certain songs ... ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... heard thy strains And echo 'midst my native plains Been sooth'd by Pity's lute; There first the wren thy myrtles shed On gentlest Otway's infant head— To him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... tiles of old design. In his time it was called Tudor House, but when the Rev. H. R. Haweis (d. 1901) came to live here, he resumed the older name of Queen's House. It is supposed to have been built by Wren, and the rooms are beautifully proportioned, panelled, and ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... to have the books carefully inspected, and compared with Smith's catalogue, now found to be inadequate. Many of the manuscripts were reported to be in a state of decay, the place where they were kept not being suitable. In 1706, Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to fit up the study for public use, but he declared that Cotton House was in a ruinous condition; and in consequence of his report, in the following year, another Act of Parliament decreed that to increase the public utility of the library, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the rhodora, the club-moss, the blooming clover, not of the hibiscus and the asphodel. He knows the bumblebee, the blackbird, the bat and the wren. He illustrates his high thought by common things out of our plain New England life: the meeting of the church, the Sunday-School, the dancing-school, a huckleberry party, the boys and girls hastening home from school, the youth in the shop beginning an unconscious courtship with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... found by the alpine lakes and brooks on the mountains of the West. It is a modest-appearing bird, about the size of a thrush, and wears a plain dress of slaty blue. This dress is finished with a tail-piece somewhat like that of the wren, though it is not upturned so much. The bird seems to love cascades, and often nests by one. It also shows its fondness for water by often flying along the brook, following every bend and break made by the stream, keeping close to the ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... over the green seas of wheat, unlading priceless colours on the broad dandelion disks, bartering these things for honey and pollen. Slowly tacking aslant, the pollen ship hums in the south wind. The little brown wren finds her way through the great thicket of hawthorn. How does she know her path, hidden by a thousand thousand leaves? Tangled and crushed together by their own growth, a crown of thorns hangs over the thrush's nest; thorns for the mother, hope for the young. Is there a crown of ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... wandered in at the Gleason cottage. A movable sprinkler was playing busily on the front lawn and, observing that the surrounding sod was well soaked, with lazy deliberation he shifted it to a new quarter. As he approached the house a mother wren flitted away before his face, and at the new suggestion he stood peering up at the angle under the eaves for the nest that he knew was near about. Once, standing there with the hot afternoon sun beating down upon him, he whistled in imitation of ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... and I would not deny that the element of struggle and self-contradiction, represented by that cross, has a necessary place at a certain evolutionary stage. But surely the cross is the lower development and the sphere the higher. After all it is easy enough to see what is really wrong with Wren's architectural arrangement." ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... hour; that is, they carried the juices of it to their cells. The humming-bird alone can reach the bottom of the nectary of the honeysuckle; but even here the instinct of the bee is seen. The small birds, such as the wren, make an incision on the outside, near the bottom of the flower, and extract a part of the juices. The bee takes advantage of this opening, and avails itself of what is left. The scent of bees is so acute, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... The tricke of that voyce, I do well remember: Is't not the King? Lear. I, euery inch a King. When I do stare, see how the Subiect quakes. I pardon that mans life. What was thy cause? Adultery? thou shalt not dye: dye for Adultery? No, the Wren goes too't, and the small gilded Fly Do's letcher in my sight. Let Copulation thriue: For Glousters bastard Son was kinder to his Father, Then my Daughters got 'tweene the lawfull sheets. Too't Luxury pell-mell, for I lacke Souldiers. Behold yond simpring Dame, whose face ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... robin cam' to the wren's nest, And keekit in, and keekit in: 'O weel's me on your auld pow! Wad ye be in, wad ye be in? Ye' se ne'er get leave to lie without, And I within, and I within, As lang 's I hae an auld clout, To row ye in, to row ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... beggar, And Jenny Wren's a bride, And larks hang singing, singing, singing, Over the wheat-fields wide, 10 And anchored lilies ride, And the pendulum spider Swings from ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... tone. On stepping into the kitchen and seeing the provision that had been made for a repast, he did indeed intimate his intention of assisting at the ceremony in the language of the time-honored wren who cried "I helps" as she let a drop of water fall into the sea. At this moment the clergyman from the chapel-of-ease on the Raise arrived at the Moss, and Matthew prepared to put his precept ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Viscountess Castlewood, my lord's mother, and beg her to remove the young nobleman from a college where he declined to learn, and where he only did harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner-party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... to give the public a specimen of his abilities in another kind, and succeeded with the greatest applause; which was his Observations on Monsieur de Serbiere's Voyage into England, written to Dr. Wren, professor of astronomy in Oxford; printed in octavo, in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... books are reference books, and many thousands more. I think it will be found a good plan in the library to keep reference books (viz., those which are likely to be in frequent use) in a separate case—perhaps a revolving case—and in no library should this section be neglected. Mr. Walter Wren, the well-known coach, once lectured on 'What is Education?' and in his lecture he made the ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... of this disaster to the ferry came slowly, as when one smooths out a crumpled map. In the great stillness I heard a wren twittering in the reeds along the bank, and I noted a green grasshopper, caught in the current, ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... after the first moulting, these birds produce peculiar trilling notes, identical with those with which in April the cock bird salutes his mate, and they may also be seen in the remarkable fluttering flight characteristic of many birds in the pairing season. The grey wood wren begins to sing before the first moulting, but sings more powerfully during and after moulting, right on into the month of October, singing like a full-grown bird. At the same time this bird twists the body from side to side, and moves the tail to and fro; it quarrels also ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... came, how kind they all were! indeed, though it was a busy season with every bird, each anxious to finish its work, yet I heard an old Rook one day ask little Jenny Wren 'if he should help her,' as he met her trying to drag a large wisp of straw with ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... seemed like a rainbow in the heavens, the base of which appeared to rise in the centre of Africa, and the other extremity seemed to stoop into great Britain. A most noble bridge indeed, and a piece of masonry that has outdone Sir Christopher Wren. Wonderful must it have been to form so tremendous an arch, especially as the artists had certain difficulties to labour against which they could not have in the formation of any other arch in the world—I mean, the attraction ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... life! It adds a new touch of interest to the forbidding cactus to know that the cactus wren builds her nest between its leaves. The spines probably serve to protect the bird from her enemies. But are they not also a menace to her and to her young? But this "procreant cradle" of a bird in the arms of the fanged desert growth softens ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... flutter 'mid the branches, and my heart Leaps with the life in that full chirp that breathes; The brown, full-breasted sparrow with a dart Is at my feet amid the swaying wreaths Of grass and clover; trooping blackbirds come With haughty step; the oriole, wren and jay Revel amid the cool, green moss in play, Then off in clouds of music; while the drum Of scarlet-crested woodpecker from yon Old Druid-haunting oak sends toppling down A ruined memory of ages past; O life and death—how ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... expected in a minute to see the grass move, when the bird turned aside and entered the tufts and wild parsley by the hedge. Thence the call has come without a moment's pause, "crake, crake," till the thick hedge seems filled with it. Tits have visited the apple tree over my head, a wren has sung in the willow, or rather on a dead branch projecting lower down than the leafy boughs, and a robin across under the elms in the opposite hedge. Elms are a favourite tree of robins—not the upper branches, but those that grow down the trunk, and are the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs, the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... does not include Hank Jardine, for Hank was out of New York; but the others—Shanklyn, the actor; Wren, the newspaper-man; Bryce, Johnson, Willis, Appleton, and the rest—sensed impending change in the air, and were uneasy, like cattle before a thunder-storm. The fact that the visits of Mrs. Porter and Ruth to inquire after George, now of daily occurrence, took ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... then is the hypothesis of Dr. Milner towards the settlement of the controverted origin of the pointed or English style of architecture. It is, probably, the most reasonable of all solutions. Sir Christopher Wren's account of a Saracenic origin was vague and unsupported; and Warburton's deduction from groves and interlacing boughs, though ingeniously illustrated by the late Sir James Hall, has more prettiness than probability. Dr. Milner's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... never without them, but I never saw a bird perch on Thuja occidentalis or Juniperus sabina, although the thick foliage of these latter trees affords birds a better shelter than the loose leafage of other trees. Not even a wren ever finds its way to one of them. Perhaps the scent of the Thuja and the Juniperus is offensive to them. I have spoiled one of my meadows by cutting away the bushes. It formerly bore grass four ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... The golden-crested wren may be taken by striking the bough upon which it is sitting, sharply, with a stone or stick. The timid bird immediately drops to the ground, and generally dead. As their skins are tender, those who want them for stuffing will find this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... great trees, the solemn Buddhas, and the crowds of cheerful worshippers. I walked down the empty nave and came under the dome. Then something happened—the thing that always happens when one comes into touch with the work of a genius. And Wren's dome proves that he was that. I sat down, and the organ began to play; or rather, the dome began to sing. And down the stream of music floated in fragments visions of my journey—Indians nude like bronzes, blue-coated Chinese, white robes ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... lay the foundation of fifteen generations of Kami, whose birth seems to have been essential to the "making of the land," though their names afford no clue to the functions discharged by them. From over sea, seated in a gourd and wearing a robe of wren's feathers, there comes a pigmy, Sukuna Hikona, who proves to be one of fifteen hundred children begotten by the Kami of the original trinity. Skilled in the arts of healing sickness and averting calamities from men or animals, this pigmy renders invaluable aid to the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the office, Christy. I've made it as fit for me as the nest for the wren. I'll spend a few more years here, and then I'll go out on pension. I won't live in the town, I've seen a place in the country I'd like, and the people will be leaving it ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... I have not spoken—the western towers. These were built as far as the roof by Abbot Islip, who witnessed the erection of Henry VII.'s Chapel. Two hundred and thirty years afterwards Sir Christopher Wren restored Islip's work, and designed the upper portions. The edifice is not yet complete, as the square central tower requires a lofty spire ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... reasoned about it. "The birds can fly, an' why can't I? Must we give in," says he, with a grin, "That the bluebird an' phoebe Are smarter'n we be? Jest fold our hands an' see the swaller An' blackbird an' catbird beat us holler? Does the little, chatterin', sassy wren, No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men? Jest show me that! Ur prove't the bat Hez got more brains than's in my hat, An' I'll back down, an' not till then!" He argued further, "Nur I can't see What's the use o' wings ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Worcester) was made Rector. The church was rebuilt by Wren in 1686 "in a neat, plain manner." The ancient tower remained, and was recased in 1704. The building is large, light, and airy, and is in the florid, handsome style we are accustomed to associate with Wren. ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... Courtise master of the May Flower, and Walter Wren were appointed to deliuer the same a land at 3 or 4 houses to bee conueid to the foresayd towne, and so went with six men in the boate, and rowed to the shore as neere as they might, for setting the boate on ground, for the sea ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... Of yonder silent colonnade, Over against the slates that hold Marie in lines of slender gold, A token wrought by fictive fingers, A garland, last year's offering, lingers, Hung out of reach, and facing north. And lo! thereout a wren flies forth, And Gertrude, straining on toetips, Just touches with her prayerful lips The warm home which a bird unskilled In grief and hope ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... the world; that there was such a superstitious, idolatrous, bloody people in the world. Wherefore the people that shall be born, that shall live to serve God in these happy days, they shall see Antichrist only in its ruins; they shall, like the sparrows, the little robins, and the wren, sit and sing, and chirrup one to another, while their eyes behold this dead hawk. 'Here [shall they say] did once the lion dwell; and there was once a dragon inhabited: here did they live that were the murderers of the saints; and there another, that did used to set ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... English Nightingale': "What do you think of me? Do I sing by rote? Or by note? Have I a parrot's echo-throat? Oh no! I caught my strains From Nature's freshest veins. . . . . . "He A match for me! No more than a wren or a chickadee! Mine is the voice of the young and strong, Mine the soul of the brave and free!" This self-appreciation is confirmed by the greatest authority on birds, Audubon: "There is probably no bird in the world that possesses all the musical qualifications of ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... Jenny Wren calls the best time in the day and night,' said the person of the house. Her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but she had long ago chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... wild and lovely. The Toast was silver-cake, with Veerie wine. Pirlaps himself, although he was toastmaster, responded to a Toast called "Sara's Questions—Bless Their Hearts!" and his Toast was chocolate-cake, with Wren wine. The Snoodle was too young to make a speech, but they had taught him to respond to a simple little Toast, "On Being Older than Snoodles," and it was very charming to hear him lisp, "How do you ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... no mean antagonists. Then, too, the one with the cudgel wielded it skillfully. Time and again Jimsy avoided a heavy blow which, if successful, must have injured him seriously. The girls, screaming, rushed off, carrying "the Wren," as the woman called her, with them. They dashed at top speed back to the spot where the aeroplanes had been ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... very eminent painters or sculptors, though foreign artists, such as Rubens and Van Dyck, were welcomed there. Among architects the most famous was Sir Christopher Wren, who did much to popularize the Renaissance style of building. [31] A great fire which destroyed most of old London during the reign of Charles II gave Wren an opportunity to rebuild about fifty parish churches, as well as ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... draw or prick their names therein, and veneficiously mischief their persons, they broke the shell, as Dalecampius hath observed." This is what Sir Thomas Browne tells us about eggshells. And Dr. Wren adds, "Least they [the witches] perchance might use them for boates to sayle in by night." But I, who have no fear of witches, would not break them,—rather use them, try what an untold variety of forms we may make out of this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... brown house cuddling like a wren's nest on the edge of the longest and deepest of the tide-water coves that cut through Riverton had but four rooms in all,—the kitchen tacked to the back porch, after the fashion of South Carolina kitchens, the shed room in ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... gold-finch, or any other bird whatsoever. All is silent and solitary. The poor birds are destroyed, or driven for refuge, into other countries, by the savage persecution of the people, who spare no pains to kill, and catch them for their own subsistence. Scarce a sparrow, red-breast, tomtit, or wren, can 'scape the guns and snares of those indefatigable fowlers. Even the noblesse make parties to go a la chasse, a-hunting; that is, to kill those little birds, which they ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... this century following that dreary period, suffering alike from the silence of Cowper and the song of Hayley. You may accept the fact as natural, that Zwingli and Luther, without knowing each other, preached the same reformed gospel; that Newton, and Hooke, and Halley, and Wren arrived independently of each other at the great law of the diminution of gravity with the square of the distance; that Leverrier and Adams felt their hands meeting, as it were, as they stretched them into the outer darkness beyond the orbit of Uranus, in search of the dim, unseen ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Robinson loved was the little house wren. This bird was exceedingly tame and friendly. It was a very sweet and strong singer. It loved to make its nest in or near his shelter. There it would build and rear its young, within reach of his hands, while its throat was always ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... Puritan as he was, was always, and not least in his final Puritan phase, a supreme artist. Poetry has been by far our greatest artistic achievement and he is by far our greatest poetic artist. No artist in any other field, no Inigo Jones or Wren, no Purcell, no Reynolds or Turner, holds such unquestioned eminence in any other art as he in his. If {17} the world asks us where to look for the genius of England, so far as it has ever been expressed on paper, we point, of course, unhesitatingly to Shakspeare. But Shakspeare ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... the builders had made from what I could remember of seven years before. Then there had still been left great open spaces where there should have been none; now it was a city once more; and even the Cathedral shewed its walls and a few roofs above the houses. The steeples too of Sir Christopher Wren's new churches pricked everywhere; though I saw later that there was yet much building to be done, both in these and in many of the greater houses. My man James rode with me; (for I had been careful not to form too great intimacies ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the Giant, when a set of double teeth of enormous size flew up out of the ground and caught Ricardo by the throat! In vain he strove to separate the teeth, when the crow, stooping from the heavens, became the Princess Jaqueline, and changed Dick into a wren—a tiny bird, so small that he easily flew out of the jaws of the Giant and winged his way to a tree, ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... art—architecture, painting, and sculpture—begins to take on that absurd air of being out of it which has since become the unfailing characteristic of an exhibition of home-made arts and crafts. In the seventeenth century we again got into touch with the movement and the genius of Inigo Jones and Wren gave us some admirable architecture. In the eighteenth we produced two painters of note, Blake and Crome, both of whom suffered desperately from their deplorable surroundings. What was interesting in Constable and ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... do to get here by dinner-time. Excuse me, Mam'zelle Wren; they're the clothes of an ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... goldfinch. We love the mellow notes of the woodthrush, and of the veery, the clear, rollicking outpourings of the bobolink, the musical love song of the brown thrasher, the cheerful scolding of the wren. We are fond of the birds who busy themselves taking the insects out from among our grain and from off our fruit trees. We can only understand the value of the bird to nature when he is valuable to us. ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... mortally hate these birds, to this day, calling them the Devil's servants, and killing them wherever they catch them; they teach their Children to thrust them full of thorns: you will see sometimes on holidays, a whole parish running like mad men from hedge to hedge a wren-hunting. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... reality of her own great room in its fresh bareness. At the foot of her big carved bed, the broad window open to its utmost seemed to bring all out-of-doors within the room. A squirrel whisked his tail across the sill as he scurried in and out of the branches of the window-oak where a grosbeak and a wren chatted sociably. The sunshine through the leafy boughs lighted the bare floor and rested on the great writing table in the center of the room and on the high dark dresser. Catherine's gaze, following the light, rested at last ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... several of the most popular of the creations of Dickens, notably, The Marchioness, Little Nell, Jenny Wren, and Florence Dombey, and it is hoped that in this presentation as simple stories of girlhood, their classic form and beauty may arouse in the young people of our day a new interest in the novels ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... reference, chapter and verse, was given immediately by Mr. COMYNS CARR, who, on the spot received his reward, and went away rejoicing. We regret that there are no second and third prizes, otherwise Messrs. WALTER WREN and VAN ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... that oysters are really he and she, and that Bishop Sprat, when he gravely proposed the study of oyster-beds as a pursuit worthy of the sages who, under the guidance of his co-Bishop, Wilkins, and Sir Christopher Wren, were laying the foundation stones of the Royal Society, was not so far wrong when he discriminated between lady and gentleman oysters. The worthy suggester, it is true, knew no better than to separate them according to the color of their beards; as great a fallacy, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... fulfilment of their wishes. Weeks and months rolled on; the old house had been repaired and beautified. Mr. Cramp, Sarah's law agent and 'man of business,' advised her to let the house, of which she occupied about as much as a wren could fill of the nest of an eagle; and, strangely enough, finding that the house of her childhood was to let, she took it, removing thither all the furniture which her father made her promise never to part with. The ceiling of ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... assisting stranded conversation. Not so the Renaissance architecture. Raised at once into all the magnificence of which it was capable by Michael Angelo, then taken up by men of real intellect and imagination, such as Scamozzi, Sansovino, Inigo Jones, and Wren, it is impossible to estimate the extent of its influence on the European mind; and that the more, because few persons are concerned with painting, and, of those few, the larger number regard it with slight attention; but ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived more than ninety years, not for himself, but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... young trees grew too dense to permit the snow to enter. From here another hazard of flight was manifest, for he could see now that the face of the country outside on the level was spread as with a tablecloth, its white surface undisturbed, ready for the impress of so light an object as a hopping wren. To make his way across it would be to drag his bonds behind him, plainly asking the world to pull him back. Obviously there must be a more tactical retreat, and without more ado he followed the river's course, keeping ever, ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... twisting high, Breathe fixed 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
... a snare for an artist's feet lay in those few words? How could Trenholme realize that "a pair of iron gates" would prove to be an almost perfect example of Christopher Wren's genius as a designer of wrought iron? Trenholme's eyes sparkled when he beheld this prize, with its acanthus leaves and roses beaten out with wonderful freedom and beauty of curve. A careful drawing was the result. Another result, uncounted by him, but of singular ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... worthy of note, that Cromwell's fellow-trustees, the Bishop of Ely (who was the celebrated Matthew Wren), Fuller the Dean, and Wigmore the Archdeacon, were all severely handled ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... likely to visit this feast during January are the flicker, crow, purple finch, song sparrow, white-breasted nuthatch, snow-flake; American crossbill, white-throated sparrow, tree sparrow, junco, winter wren, golden-crowned kinglet, brown creeper, and even the solitary robin. The sparrow hawk and the sharp-shinned hawk may visit the vicinity to feed upon the other feeders. On the first of January I saw a sparrow hawk sitting on the spire of a church in the heart of ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... events of the day was the sight of the winter wren, the first time he had been seen this winter. He was working among the stumps of trees at the brink of the river, under the ice which had been left clinging to the trees when the high water receded. There was no mistaking his beautiful coat of cinnamon brown, his pert ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... Garrick's Drury Lane, in which Lamb saw his first play, was that built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1674. It lasted, with certain alterations, including a new face by the brothers Adam, nearly 120 years. The seating capacity of this theatre was modest. In 1794 a new Drury Lane Theatre, the third, was opened—too large for comfortable ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... no residential parrot, though cockatoos are plentiful; no scrub turkey though the megapode scampers in all directions in the jungle; no common black crow, nor butcher bird, though other shrikes (the magpie for instance) come and go; no wren, no finch, no lark? Scrub turkeys (TALLEGALLA LATHAMI), mound builders like the megapode, are plentiful all along the coast, at certain seasons visiting the scrub which margins the opposite beach, but they ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... stairs, and entered the crypt, as it is called, under the church. There were many grand tombs there. Nelson's occupies the centre, and is a fine work. But what impressed me most was the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren himself; a simple tablet marks his tomb, with this inscription, which is repeated ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... weather is stormy, yet the fellow makes love between the showers in a barefaced way. That old fool of a tanner knows it, and has no more right feeling than if he were a boy. Aha, my Robin, fine robin as you are, I shall catch you piping with your Jenny Wren tonight!" The lieutenant shared the popular ignorance of simplest ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... starling will display the red That lights his wings; The wren will know the sweet things said By him who swings And ducks and dips his crested head And sings ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... in Drury Lane, where Killigrew acted in the days of Charles II. is famous for the number of times it has been rebuilt. The first house had been destroyed in 1674; and the one in which Garrick acted was built by Sir Christopher Wren and opened with a prologue by Dryden. In 1793 this was rebuilt. In 1809 it was burnt to the ground; and on its re-opening the Committee advertised a prize for a prologue, which was supposed to be tried for by ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... travelled longer than the Wandering Jew; she has journeyed farther than the swallow; she is older than the cathedral of Prague, yet younger than the little egg of the golden-crested wren; she has multiplied more upon the earth than the crimson strawberry in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be desired when one may, when he dines or designs, touch elbows with such choice spirits as Ictinus, Michael Angelo, Vitruvius, Vignola, Piranesi, San Gallo, Bramante, Christopher Wren, Inigo Jones, Charles Bulfinch, Viollet le Duc, Gamier Freres (N.B.—There is only one of him), and ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 08, August 1895 - Fragments of Greek Detail • Various
... experience, as with the cow-pox, has often laid the basis of medical treatment. Certain it is that it is extremely pleasant and grateful to breathe the sweet fragrance of the fir deep in the woods, listening to the soft caressing sound of the wind that passes high overhead. The willow-wren sings, but his voice and that of the wind seem to give emphasis to the holy and meditative silence. The mystery of nature and life hover about the columned temple of the forest. The secret is always behind a tree, as of old time ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... them takes on a dim and shadowy grandeur, very unlike what we see when we look within into our familiar and commonplace selves. Nor do Englishmen often plume themselves on their aesthetic or imaginative gifts. The achievements of Wren, or Purcell, or Keats may arouse in them admiration and pride, but never a sense of kinship. When they recognize themselves in the national literature, it is not Hamlet, or Lear, or Clarissa, or Ravenswood that holds up ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... Osney abbey, by whose deep note at the hour of nine in the evening the students are summoned to their respective colleges. The upper part of the tower displays in the bracketed canopies and carved enrichments the skilful hand of Sir Christopher Wren, whose fame was much enhanced by the erection of the gorgeous turrets which project on each side of the gateway.{1} Not caring to endure a closer attack of the togati, who had now approached me, I crossed and entered the great quadrangle, or, according ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... supported by the sovereign, there arose in England some men of superior genius, who were more than sufficient to cast the balance, and who drew on themselves and on their native country the regard and attention of Europe. Besides Wilkins, Wren, Wallis, eminent mathematicians, Hooke, an accurate observer by microscopes, and Sydenham, the restorer of true physic, there flourished during this period a Boyle and a Newton; men who trod with cautious, and therefore ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... by Charles II. (according to tradition on the suggestion of Nell Gwynne), and opened in 1694. The hospital itself accommodates upwards of 500 men, but a system of out-pensioning was found necessary from the outset, and now relieves large numbers throughout the empire. The picturesque building by Wren stands in extensive grounds, which include the former Ranelagh Gardens. A theological college (King James's) formerly occupied the site; it was founded in 1610 and was intended to be of great size, but the scheme was unsuccessful, and only a small part of the buildings was erected. In ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... the harvesters tossing their sheaves; The robin darts out from his bower of leaves; The wren peereth forth from the moss-covered eaves; And the rain-spattered urchin now gladly perceives That the beautiful bow bendeth over ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... trouble briefly to tell me, whether you believe that the plainer head and less bright colours of female chaffinch, the less red on the head and less clean colours of female goldfinch, the much less red on the breast of the female bullfinch, the paler crest of golden-crested wren, etc., have been acquired by them for protection? I cannot think so, any more than I can that the considerable differences between female and male house-sparrow, or much greater brightness of male Parus caeruleus (both of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... pleasant hush all about. The bubbling ecstasy of a bobolink floated above the grasses of a meadow, and near at hand a wren hopped about in the alders and chirped dozy notes. Peace and restfulness brooded. The man at the brook leaned low and thrust his head into the water and then rose and shook the drops from his thick thatch of brown hair. He did it with a sort ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... of Norway where the goldcrest is rarely seen the same story, omitting the part about the sun and the burnt crest, is told of the common wren, who is said to have broken off his tail in his great fall. And to this is applied the moral: "Proud and ambitious people sometimes ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... lighting a fire, which he had never seen there before. There were all his boyish treasures, his bows and arrows, his collection of birds' wings, his wonderful weapons and contrivances, from his fire-balloon down to the wren's-egg, all just as he left them, their good condition attesting the care that Mrs. Drew had ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the gravel walk, plucking a flower as he went, passed across the road and into the pasture, pausing a moment as he closed the gate leading into it, to greet a passing neighbor, Armour Wren, who lived on an adjoining plantation. Mr. Wren was in an open carriage with his son James, a lad of thirteen. When he had driven some two hundred yards from the point of meeting, Mr. Wren said to his son: "I forgot to tell ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... darting with a low, complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffled as if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted and attitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a moment between the showers, and indulged in a short, but spirited, rehearsal under a large leaf in the grape-arbor; the King-Bird advised me of his proximity, as he went by on his mincing flight; and the Chimney-Swallows have been crying the child's riddle of "Chippy, chippy, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... and the wren, We cannot harken these For dreadful thunder of the guns That echoes overseas; And evermore our vision turns To those who follow far The bright white light of Liberty Through the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... come it was gone, and we could see it ahead of us beating and lashing the hot sands. Clouds of earthy steam rose enveloping us, but as these cleared away the air was as cool and pure and sweet as in a New England orchard in May. On a bush by the trail a tiny wren appeared and burst into song like a vivacious firecracker. Rock squirrels darted here and there, and tiny cactus flowers opened their sleepy eyes and poured out fragrance. And then, by and by, it was evening and we were truly ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... interesting to note that the church at Madras was built during a period when in London a great many churches were being built—or rebuilt—after the Great Fire. Church-building was in vogue, with the distinguished Sir Christopher Wren as the builder in chief; and it is not unlikely that what was being done so energetically in London was one of the influences that inspired Mr. Streynsham Master to be so earnest over a scheme for building a church ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... dots and lines. Such merry conceits as one found there! A mouse bringing the tail it had lost in some cruel trap, a dor-bug with a shade over its eyes, an invalid butterfly carried in a tiny litter by long-legged spiders, a fat frog with gouty feet hopping upon crutches, Jenny Wren sobbing in a nice handkerchief, as she brought dear dead Cock Robin to be restored to life. Rabbits, lambs, cats, calves, and turtles, all came trooping up to be healed by the benevolent little maid who welcomed ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... were, over a case; and thus, even as one can imagine that a beetle creeping over the floor of St. Paul's, would detect minute flaws and fissures invisible to the eye of Sir Christopher Wren himself, spied out defects which much nobler optics would have overlooked. To come to plain matter-of-fact, however, I have beside me the original opinion written by Mr. Lynx; and shall treat the reader to a taste of it—giving him sufficient to enable him to appreciate the very ticklish position ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... The black-throated babbler or wren-babbler. This is another small bird. Its general hue is olive brown. The throat is black, as is the head, but ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... when he arranges his thoughts under the eaves of his mind. To step into the Art world is to step out of the beaten path of British dreams. Shakespeare is still king, not Rossetti, nor yet Christopher Wren. Moreover, it was the book-reading colonial who led our rebellion against the very royalty that founded the Academy. The public-speaking American wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was not the work of the painting or cathedral-building ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Sir Christopher Wren is reputed to have been carried away by the influence of the Louis XIV art. It was in that King's reign, too, that Charles Boule perfected his veneers of tortoiseshell and fine brass work. Buhl cabinets, fancy ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... to set one aside, which the testator declared on his death-bed was null and void; who refused to come and keep house for a childless old man, who would have treated her in every respect as an honored guest; who flew off like a fussy little wren, when her affluent cousin offered to provide for her; and who, last of all, rejects one of nature's noblemen—the best match in the city—the deuce knows for what; I consider non compos mentis, and quite unable ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... looking full of thought and starting into life and action. Spent an hour looking over the books of prints in the library—Fanny particularly pleased with a Houbracken: Harriet with Daniel's Indian Antiquities: my father with Sir Christopher Wren's and Inigo Jones's designs. After dinner Richard Ruxton came in, and said my aunt and uncle had thoughts of coming up to see the balloon. In the evening at Astley's. The second day to see the elephant: how I pitied this noble animal, cooped up under the command of a scarcely human creature, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... degradation. And then the Renaissance of pagan types, from which the Gothic had derived its being by a rational development, was by the revivalists of those days hotch-potched into a more or less homogeneous mass, which even the genius of Wren could leave but ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... fly | | swift, but soon got tired, and | highest was to be the king of | | were passed by others of | all. Well, just as they were on | | stronger wing. But the eagle | the hinges of being off, what | | went up beyond them all, and | does the little rogue of a wren | | was ready to claim the victory, | do but hop up and perch himself | | when the gray linnet, a very | unbeknown on the eagle's tail. So | | small bird, flew from the | they flew and flew ever so high, | | eagle's back, where it had | till the eagle was miles above | | perched unperceived, and, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... the long silence that followed and the distant voices that flashed across it now and then—the call of the mire drum in the marshes and the songs of the winter wren and the swamp robin. It was a ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... launched by the appointment of the following committees: Finance, Mrs. J. A. Fouilhoux, Mrs. Elliott Corbet, Dr. Florence Manion; literature, Mrs. Louise Trullinger, Mrs. A. E. Clark, Miss Emma Wold, Miss Blanche Wren; ways and means, Dr. Florence Brown Cassiday, Mrs. Caroline Hepburn, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Southern lady suspected her of literary gifts; the architect walked with her through the woods to the rustic shelter where the Vicomte had kissed her hand, and told her that he now comprehended the feelings of Christopher Wren when he conceived St. Paul's Cathedral, of Michael Angelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Even the serious young lawyer succumbed, though not without a struggle. When he had first seen Miss Leffingwell, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... but, being a matter of fact kind of man—out of the region of romance, fantastical notions, enrapturing imagery, nicely coloured imagination, clever lying and cleverer deception, beautiful green fields, clear running rivulets, the singing of the wood songster, bullfinch, and wren, in the midst of woodbine, sweetbriar, and roses—with an eye to observe, a heart to feel, and a hand ready to help, I am led to contemplate, aye, and to find out if possible, the remedy, though my friends say it is impossible—just ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... all this bleat about the Middle Ages," Gilbert exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you, Roger, talking like that fat papist, Belloc. One 'ud think to hear you talking that no one ever did shoddy work until the nineteenth century, but Christopher Wren let a lot of shoddy stuff into St. Paul's Cathedral. There were fraudulent contractors then, and jerry-builders, just as there are now, and there probably always will be people who give a bad return for ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... had been occupied with the same subject. Sir Christopher Wren had many years before endeavored to explain the planetary motions "by the composition of a descent toward the sun, and an impressed motion; but he at length gave it over, not finding the means of doing it." In ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... a wren as you are—less so, in fact, if you go on maintaining that preposterous fiction ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... of the past and, it is to be hoped, of future greatness by those who, in taking their walks abroad, find themselves within the confines of the parish of St. Bride's, with its church built by Wren shortly after the great fire, and its queer pointed steeple, like a series of superimposed tabourets overtopped with a ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... in my bosom is black as a sloe! I heed not cuckoo, nor wren, nor swallow: Like a flying leaf in the sky's blue hollow The heart in my breast is, ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... Christopher Wren's intellect wrought out the plan for St. Paul's Cathedral. But all impotent to realize themselves, these plans, lying in the King's council chamber grew yellow with age and thick with dust. One day a great heart stood forth before the people of London, pointing them to ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Haining, that I would go out for 6d. an hour. Although she disliked that way of putting it, it was really on that basis that I had made my beginning when I reached the age of 17. In the meantime I had taught my younger sister Mary (afterwards Mrs. W. J. Wren) all I knew, and in the columns of The South Australian I wrote an occasional letter or a few verses. Through Mr. George Tinline we made the acquaintance of Mrs. Samuel Stephens her brother, Thomas Hudson Beare, and his family, who had all come out in the Duke of York, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... so conspicuous from without is the portion least used within. When it was designed by Christopher Wren, the general belief was that such buildings should be lofty, that the observer might be raised toward the heavenly bodies whose motions he was to watch. More modern science has taught its disciples better; and in Greenwich—which is an eminently practical Observatory—the working ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... scented danger. Twenty yards ahead a wren was perched on the topmost twig of a thorn-bush, chattering and scolding furiously. Now, there is no bird which gives prompter warning of an intruder than the wren. Whether the intruder be two-legged, man or boy, or four-legged, stoat, weasel, or pole-cat, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... blue skies; The hills are giant waves of glistering snow; Rare and northern fowl, now strangely tame to see, With ruffling plumage cluster on the bough, And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like, the wren Hides in the new-cut hedge; and all things now Fear starving Winter more ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to prevent witch-craft [to keep the fairies out]; for lest witches should draw or prick their names therein, and veneficiously mischief their persons, they broke the shell, as Dalecampius hath observed." This is what Sir Thomas Browne tells us about eggshells. And Dr. Wren adds, "Least they [the witches] perchance might use them for boates to sayle in by night." But I, who have no fear of witches, would not break them,—rather use them, try what an untold variety of forms we may make out of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... themselves. You have seen what wonderful swinging baskets the Oriole makes for his baby-cradle? Well, it was the Magpie who taught him how, and he was the prize pupil, to be sure. But some of the birds were not like him, nor like the patient little Wren. Some of them were lazy and stupid and envious of Mother Magpie's cosy nest, which was already finished, while theirs was yet ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Blue-wren And his dainty little hen— Though she hasn't got a trace of blue upon her; But she's pleasing, and she's pretty, And she sings a cheerful ditty; While her husband is ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... Front Court to the staircase of the Octagon Room (the original entrance to the Observatory as erected by Sir Christopher Wren), a small porch-shelter has been often desired. I proposed to fix there a fan-roof of quadrantal form, covering the upper flat stone of the external steps.—On a critical examination of the micrometer-screws of the Transit Circle it was found that the corrections, which range from ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... the Earl of St. Alban's was elected grand master, who appointed Mr. (afterwards Sir Christopher) Wren his deputy; which office he held until 1685, when he was himself appointed to the grand chair. During his deputy-ship he erected many noble buildings, particularly the cathedral of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... weedy waterway he had floated on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a lady's. Developing waterways. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... building,—as big, nearly, as all out of doors,—and so forgot that it was a consecrated place of worship. The sky is the dome of a greater cathedral than St. Paul's, and built by a greater architect than Sir Christopher Wren, and yet we wear ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Yang-tse-kiang; the Southern lady suspected her of literary gifts; the architect walked with her through the woods to the rustic shelter where the Vicomte had kissed her hand, and told her that he now comprehended the feelings of Christopher Wren when he conceived St. Paul's Cathedral, of Michael Angelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Even the serious young lawyer succumbed, though not without a struggle. When he had first seen Miss Leffingwell, he confessed, he had thought her frivolous. He had done her an injustice, and wished ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... soon got tired, and | highest was to be the king of | | were passed by others of | all. Well, just as they were on | | stronger wing. But the eagle | the hinges of being off, what | | went up beyond them all, and | does the little rogue of a wren | | was ready to claim the victory, | do but hop up and perch himself | | when the gray linnet, a very | unbeknown on the eagle's tail. So | | small bird, flew from the | they flew and flew ever so high, | | eagle's ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... and also some proofs. They were part of Our Mutual Friend, which was then appearing in monthly numbers; and on that morning a proof of one of the illustrations had arrived from Mr. Marcus Stone. It was the one in which 'Miss Wren fixes her idea.' I was then about sixteen or seventeen, and Dickens said, 'You are setting out in life; mind you always fix your idea.' He asked me what I was going to be, and I said a farmer. He said, 'Better be that than an author or poet;' and after I had had two ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... not to say boisterous, will sometimes soliloquize, or seem to soliloquize, in the faintest of undertones. The formless autumnal warble of the song sparrow is familiar to every one. And in this connection I remember, and am not likely ever to forget, a winter wren who favored me with what I thought the most bewitching bit of vocalism to which I had ever listened. He was in the bushes close at my side, in the Franconia Notch, and delivered his whole song, with all ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... inhabited by Charles II. and James II. King William resided much at Hampton Court; he pulled down great part of the old palace, which then consisted of five quadrangles, and employed Sir Christopher Wren to build on its site the Fountain Court, or State Apartments. In July, 1689, the Duke of Gloucester, son of the Princess, afterwards Queen Anne, was born here. The Queen sojourned at Hampton occasionally, as did her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... kin see the trouble o' the PRESUNT, I kin see— Kindo' like my sight wuz double-all the things that UST to be; And the flutter o' the robin and the teeter o' the wren Sets the willer-branches bobbin' ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... civilized people always imagine in the equatorial forest—the song that will set you dreaming while you are basking under palm trees—the actual traveller will find the greatest disappointment of all in that respect. With one or two exceptions, such as the Troglodytes fuscus, a small brown wren which emits sweet musical notes, most birds of the Amazon have grating voices and harsh piercing whistles, or monotonous deep repetitions of two or three funereal notes which are more apt to drive you insane than to fascinate you. Among the most unmusical ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... [on] any account that he should fix himself in this rainy part of England, yet perhaps we may have the happiness of meeting all together for a few weeks. We have lately built in our little rocky orchard, a little circular Hut, lined with moss, like a wren's nest, and coated on the outside with heath, that stands most charmingly, with several views from the different sides of it, of the Lake, the Valley, and the Church—sadly spoiled, however, lately by being white-washed. The little retreat ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... toward the sky. A tiny brown wren sang canticles of rapture in the thicket. A great light came into the priest's face—a sun-ray from the east, far ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... low, complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffled as if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted and attitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a moment between the showers, and indulged in a short, but spirited, rehearsal under a large leaf in the grape-arbor; the King-Bird advised me of his proximity, as he went by on his mincing flight; and the Chimney-Swallows have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... churchyard. Her husband returned to sea. I did invite her to go to dinner with me and my wife to-day. After all this to my Lord, who lay a-bed till eleven o'clock, it being almost five before he went to bed, they supped so late last night with the King. This morning I saw poor Bishop Wren ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... case the granddaddy longlegs doesn't tickle the baby with his long cow-pointing leg and make her laugh so she gets the hiccoughs, I'll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily and the brown wren. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... into supper soon," growled the voice of the cook, Jake Wren, from the doorway of the engineer's mess tent, ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... Crow, the Woodpecker, The Wren and the Eagle, The Blackbird and Swallow, The Jackdaw and Starling, And the wonderful Peacock; The Lapwing and Peewit, The bold Yellowhammer, The bad Willy-wagtail, The Raven so awful, And the Cock with his Hens; Stone-checker, Hedge-sparrow, ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... of a mystery, and after a time the Doctor, with a sigh, abandoned his effort to break through the boy's sullen shyness. Still Jim was the first at the chopping block when Annie wanted wood, and when the task took on something of the charm of Tom Sawyer's fence by reason of a winter wren, so tame from overfeeding that he perched himself now and then upon the handle of the ax, Jim fell back with resentment and resigned the ax to Marty Fay who spat upon his hands, doubled up his fists, sparred, in an excess of good spirits, with an invisible antagonist, and thereafter made ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... ran as it were a shiver through his bones, and he knew that the time was come. He looked at Roderick, who slept wearily on his bed, and it seemed to him as though suddenly a small and shadowy thing, like a bird, leapt from the boy's mouth and on to the bed; it was like a wren, only white, with dusky spots upon it; and the priest held his breath: for now he knew that the soul was out of the body, and that unless it could return uninjured into the limbs of the child, nothing could avail the boy; and then he said quietly in his heart to God that if He so willed He should ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the young of birds which build in concealed or inclosed places, like the woodpeckers, the house wren, the high-hole, the oriole, is in marked contrast to the silence of the fledglings of most birds that build open and exposed nests. The young of the sparrows,—unless the social sparrow be an exception,—warblers, fly-catchers, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... once foh Mrs. Shelton wen a little wren kept trying ter git in de house an I kep a shosin hit arway wen he got in somehow jes as soon as hit did Mrs. Shelton called me en I had a telegram from Chicago my neice war dead. She by dat I nos dat am bad luck. I dont like ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Our future generations must still tower proudly above the common herd in every respect; I want no plaything for a wife, but a woman, such as you yourself were in youth—tall, dignified and handsome. My heart goes forth to no gold-crested wren but to a really royal maiden.—Of what use to waste words! Paula, the noble daughter of a glorious father, is my choice. It came upon me just now like a revelation; I ask your blessing on my union ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unbroken line toward the skies, their slender branches forming a dark network overhead, and their lofty proportions lessening in the distance, until lost in the solemn gloom beyond. A religious silence prevailed, broken only by the occasional chirp of the wren, or the soft pattering of some smaller ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... this bleat about the Middle Ages," Gilbert exclaimed. "I'm surprised to hear you, Roger, talking like that fat papist, Belloc. One 'ud think to hear you talking that no one ever did shoddy work until the nineteenth century, but Christopher Wren let a lot of shoddy stuff into St. Paul's Cathedral. There were fraudulent contractors then, and jerry-builders, just as there are now, and there probably always will be people who give a bad ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... chosen haunt of the winter wren. This is the only place and these the only woods in which I find him in this vicinity. His voice fills these dim aisles, as if aided by some marvelous sounding-board. Indeed, his song is very strong for so small a bird, and unites in a remarkable degree brilliancy ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... As if a silver chime of bells had pealed! The frozen songs within the breast Of silent birds that hid in leafless woods, Melt into rippling floods Of gladness unrepressed. Now oriole and blue-bird, thrush and lark, Warbler and wren and vireo, Confuse their music; for the living spark Of Love has touched the fuel of desire, And every heart leaps up in singing fire. It seems as if the land Were breathing deep beneath the sun's caress, Trembling with ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... were a Robin, A Robin or a little Wren, everywhere to go; Through forest, field, or garden, And ask no leave or pardon, Till winter comes with icy thumbs To ruffle ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... centuries had passed from the creation of Magdalen Tower that the central gateway into Christ Church was surmounted by the well-known Tom Tower, erected by Sir Christopher Wren to hold "Great Tom", a mighty bell which once belonged to Osney Abbey. This was the first of the domes to rear its head. But it was not long left solitary. Seventy years afterwards the great dome of the Radcliffe Camera rose up in the space between All Souls and Brasenose colleges, and was ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... funereal tone. On stepping into the kitchen and seeing the provision that had been made for a repast, he did indeed intimate his intention of assisting at the ceremony in the language of the time-honored wren who cried "I helps" as she let a drop of water fall into the sea. At this moment the clergyman from the chapel-of-ease on the Raise arrived at the Moss, and Matthew prepared to put his precept ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... are parts of the original Nottingham House still standing, probably the south side of the courtyard, where the brick is of a deeper shade than the rest. King William's taste in the matter of architecture knew no deviation; his model was Versailles, and as he had commissioned Wren to transform the Tudor building of Hampton into a palace resembling Versailles, so he directed him to repeat the experiment here. The long, low red walls, with their neat exactitude, speak still of William's ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... house where food can be had and lodging; whereas such is the noble desolation of our magnificent country that in many a direction for a thousand miles I will engage that a dog shall not find shelter from a snow-storm, nor a wren find an apology for breakfast."] miles— northwards for six hundred; and the sympathy of our Lombard Street friends at parting is exalted a hundredfold by a sort of visionary sympathy with the yet slumbering sympathies which in so vast a succession ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... fight the cattle-tick, which is our curse; and the preservation of birds, concerning which he was rabid. His liking for birds began with Miss Sally Ruth's pigeons and the friendly birds in our garden. And as he learned to know them his love for them grew. I have seen him daily visit a wren's nest without once alarming the little black-eyed mother. I have heard him give the red-bird's call, and heard that loveliest of all birds answer him. And I have seen the impudent jays, within reach of his hand, swear at him unabashed ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... of the pretty but gaudy parrot tribe, our most beautiful birds may be said to be the wren (Malurus longicaudus, Gould), the grosbeak (Estrelda bella, Lath.), the king-fisher (Alcyone Diemenensis, Gould), the diamond birds (Pardalotus species), and the satin fly-catcher (Myiagra ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... to run his grass rope, yard by yard, through his hands, searching carefully for any flaw. A canyon wren made the air sweet above him, while the morning sun began to wink and blink against the shadows which still lay against the face of the guardian cliffs. Kirby glanced at his watch and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... Not since Wren's Dome has whispered with man's prayer Have angels leaned to wonder out of Heaven At such uprush of intercession given, Here where to-day one soul two nations share, And with accord send up thro' ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... untended park, daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eye and ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds that haunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping to its new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed creeper moving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a silent and jealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards other things and forces in ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... published "Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer" (London, 1661), which was often reprinted and is still of some value, and a companion volume "Collection of Articles, Canons," etc. (London, 1684). Last but not least to be mentioned is the "Increpatio Barjesu" (London, 1660) of Matthew Wren, who was successively Bishop of Hereford, Norwich and Ely. It is a volume of polemical interpretations of Scripture, in reply to the Racovian catechism—a copy of which was in the Library—written during the author's ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... No persons shall catch, kill, injure, pursue or have in his possession either dead or alive, or purchase, expose for sale, transport or ship to a port within or without the state a turtle or mourning dove, sparrow, nuthatch, warbler, flicker, vireo, wren, American robin, catbird, tanager, bobolink, blue jay, oriole, grosbeck or redbird, creeper, redstart, waxwing, woodpecker, humming bird, killdeer, swallow, blue bird, blackbird, meadow lark, bunting, ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... an opinion as to the exact size of the above, as compared with the Golden-crested Wren, I should much like to ascertain where I am likely to meet with a faithful specimen of the latter? The Myrtle Bee is about half the size of the common Wren, certainly not larger: and I always took it for granted, the bird derived its name ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... gipsies were no mean antagonists. Then, too, the one with the cudgel wielded it skillfully. Time and again Jimsy avoided a heavy blow which, if successful, must have injured him seriously. The girls, screaming, rushed off, carrying "the Wren," as the woman called her, with them. They dashed at top speed back to the spot where the aeroplanes had been left, ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... travellers, that he might feast on the Salmon which in striving to ascend the cataract had been thrown on the stony beach! Now the weary travellers are resting on the bank of a brawling brook, along which they are delighted to see the lively Dipper frisking wren-like from stone to stone. On the stunted bushes above them some curious Jays are chattering, and as my friends are looking upon the gay and restless birds, they are involuntarily led to extend their gaze to the green slope beneath the more distant crags, where they ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... would like to exchange specimens with any one. I would like very much to have some birds' eggs from the North. I send a list of eggs which have all been found in the Georgia woods: jaybird, cat-bird, sap-sucker, thrush (two kinds), redbird, bluebird, wren (different kinds), mocking-bird, woodpecker, partridge, bee-martin, and several kinds of sparrows. Any of these I would like ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the St. John's Hospitallers had their house at Kilmainham, and the lands belonging to the Order lay about either side of the stream. The Hospice is now the Old Man's House—an Asylum for Disabled Soldiers, designed by Sir Christopher Wren—and possesses one of the finest halls in Europe. The lands have been built over at Inchicore, and on the other side of the river formed into the Phoenix Park, containing close on two thousand acres, and bounded by a circumference of seven miles. The Park contains the lodges ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... surely seemed a shame, but no one really was to blame; and this year all the birds around (I heard it from a wren) will put their mail most carefully safe in a holeproof hollow tree. And every crow is going to be a ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... a pleasant hush all about. The bubbling ecstasy of a bobolink floated above the grasses of a meadow, and near at hand a wren hopped about in the alders and chirped dozy notes. Peace and restfulness brooded. The man at the brook leaned low and thrust his head into the water and then rose and shook the drops from his thick thatch of brown hair. He did it with a sort ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... maid courtesied respectfully, while she replied, "My lady, it would ill become me to make free with such as you, but I have many small causes of trouble, which, even if you did hear, you could not comprehend. The brown wren would not go for counsel to the gay parrot, however wise and great the parrot might be, but seek advice from another brown wren, because it would understand and feel exactly the cares and troubles ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... good Baron, Has been but comfortless; and yet that place, When the tempestuous wind first drove us hither, Felt warm as a wren's nest. You'd better turn And under covert rest till break of day, Or till the storm abate. (To MARMADUKE aside.) He has restored you. No doubt you have been nobly entertained? But soft!—how came he forth? The Night-mare Conscience Has driven him ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... temples on the Nile; but it is a more difficult feat, even for a German professor, to prove the archaic structure of old Aryavarta a foreshadowing of the genius of the late lamented Sir Christopher Wren! The outcome of this paleographic spoliation is that there is not a tittle left for India to call her own. Even medicine is due to the same Hellenic influence. We are told—this once by Roth—that "only a comparison of the principles of Indian with those of Greek medicine ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... this is connected with what you would see if you went to St. Paul's, or what you would feel if you touched its walls; it is further connected with what other people see and feel, with services and the Dean and Chapter and Sir Christopher Wren. These things are not mere thoughts of yours, but your thought stands in a relation to them of which you are more or less aware. The awareness of this relation is a further thought, and constitutes your feeling that the original thought had an "object." But in pure imagination you ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... Chelsea Hospital, a home for old and disabled soldiers. It was founded by Charles II and the buildings were designed by Wren.) ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... still preserved. They are of simple well-proportioned architecture, of a distinctive type, less luxuriant, massive, and exuberant than those across the river in Pennsylvania, although both evidently derived from the Christopher Wren school. The old Jersey homes seem to reflect with great exactness the simple feeling of the people and to be one expression of the spirit ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... spot. In the autumn, when the leaves, dressed in their gayest dress, were bidding farewell to the sunshine and the wind and each other, hundreds of robin-redbreasts—"God's birds"—hopped like little flames about the ground, and in a hollow tree near the cottage door a pretty red-brown wren and his mate had found shelter for a long time, and reared several broods. As for the saucy, chattering, busy, fearless sparrows, they had feather-lined nests wherever a sparrow's nest could be placed, and that is almost everywhere—on the pump, behind ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... adjoining to that of the late Mr. West's intimate and highly-valued friend, Dr. Newton, formerly Bishop of Bristol, and Dean of St. Paul's, the brick-work of whose grave forms one side of Mr. West's; thus uniting their remains in the silent tomb. Sir Christopher Wren, the great architect, lies interred close by, as well as those eminent artists, the late Mr. ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... can be no doubt that the term was used at first contemptuously, and in derision, by those who were ambitious to imitate and revive the Grecian orders of architecture, after the revival of classical literature. But, without citing many authorities, such as Christopher Wren, and others, who lent their aid in depreciating the old mediaeval style, which they termed Gothic, as synonymous with every thing that was barbarous and rude, it may be sufficient to refer to the celebrated Treatise of Sir Henry Wotton, entitled The Elements of Architecture, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... lost the character which his homely wish impressed upon it, and it is especially sweet and commendable because of its relation to the good Victoria's childhood. One does not forget "great Anna's" drinking tea there in the Orangery so nobly designed for her by Wren, but the plain old palace is dearest because Victoria spent so many of her early days in it, and received there the awful summons literally to rise from her dreams and come and be queen of the mightiest realm under the sun. No such ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... to lay its hand on Olive; the spell of the past was already losing power; the sense that it had all been a dream grew stronger every minute. In a few hours she would re-enter the little house close under the shadow of that old Wren church, which reminded her somehow of childhood, and her austere father with his chiselled face. The meeting with her husband! How go through that! And to-night! But she did not care to contemplate to-night. And all those to-morrows ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Ypres Inn, by Wring-wren Lane, Old John of Gaunt would dine: He scarce had opened an oyster or twain, Or drunk one flagon of wine, When, all along the Vintry Ward, He heard the trumpets blow, And a voice that roared—"If thou love thy lord, Tell John of Gaunt ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... universal study, or perpetual college of divinity, philosophy, languages and other good arts and sciences." Blair sailed back to Virginia with the charter of the college, some money, a plan for the main building drawn by Christopher Wren, and for himself the office ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... Giant, when a set of double teeth of enormous size flew up out of the ground and caught Ricardo by the throat! In vain he strove to separate the teeth, when the crow, stooping from the heavens, became the Princess Jaqueline, and changed Dick into a wren—a tiny bird, so small that he easily flew out of the jaws of the Giant and winged his way to a tree, ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... mental picture of them takes on a dim and shadowy grandeur, very unlike what we see when we look within into our familiar and commonplace selves. Nor do Englishmen often plume themselves on their aesthetic or imaginative gifts. The achievements of Wren, or Purcell, or Keats may arouse in them admiration and pride, but never a sense of kinship. When they recognize themselves in the national literature, it is not Hamlet, or Lear, or Clarissa, or Ravenswood ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... and immediately after the first moulting, these birds produce peculiar trilling notes, identical with those with which in April the cock bird salutes his mate, and they may also be seen in the remarkable fluttering flight characteristic of many birds in the pairing season. The grey wood wren begins to sing before the first moulting, but sings more powerfully during and after moulting, right on into the month of October, singing like a full-grown bird. At the same time this bird twists the body from side to side, and moves the tail to and fro; it quarrels also with birds ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... to your grace. K. Edw. Traitors, away! what, will you murder me, Of choke your sovereign with puddle-water? Gur. No, but wash your face, and shave away your beard, Lest you be known, and so be rescued. Mat. Why strive you thus? your labour is in vain. K. Edw. The wren may strive against the lion's strength, But all in vain: so vainly do I strive To seek for mercy at a tyrant's hand. [They wash him with puddle-water, and shave his beard away. Immortal powers, that know the painful cares That wait upon my poor distressed soul, O, level ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... glimmers in the shade Of yonder silent colonnade, Over against the slates that hold Marie in lines of slender gold, A token wrought by fictive fingers, A garland, last year's offering, lingers, Hung out of reach, and facing north. And lo! thereout a wren flies forth, And Gertrude, straining on toetips, Just touches with her prayerful lips The warm home which a bird unskilled In grief and hope ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... them. He also spent a good deal of his time in studying rare and expensive works on architecture—the use of which he could not elsewhere procure— at the libraries of the Antiquarian Society and the British Museum. There he perused the various editions of Vitruvius and Palladio, as well as Wren's 'Parentalia.' He found a rich store of ancient architectural remains in the British Museum, which he studied with great care: antiquities from Athens, Baalbec, Palmyra, and Herculaneum; "so that," he says, "what with the information I was before possessed of, and that which I ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... hens may be an instance, compared to other hens: and, doubtless, there is a kind of small Trout, which will never thrive to be big; that breeds very many more than others do, that be of a larger size: which you may rasher believe, if you consider that the little wren end titmouse will have twenty young ones at a time, when, usually, the noble hawk, or the musical thrassel or blackbird, exceed not ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... various times other birds peculiarly of the North. Loons alternately calling and uttering their maniac laughter; purple finches or some of the pine sparrows warbling high and clear; the winter wren, whose rapturous ravings never fail to strike the attention of the dullest passer; all these are exclusively Northern voices, and each expresses some phase or mood of the Silent Places. But none symbolizes as do the three. And when first you ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and turning right and left on the story above. It is said that after the year eighteen hundred the quality of this decoration sensibly declined; it was soon replaced by more prosaic forms, and now the tools no longer exist that can make it. Sir Christopher Wren and Inigo Jones would have admired it. America, excepting in New York City, escaped the false rococo taste of ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... a berry here and there on the holly, 'blushing in its natural coral' through the delicate tracery, still a stray hip or haw for the birds, who abound here always. The poor birds, how tame they are, how sadly tame! There is the beautiful and rare crested wren, 'that shadow of a bird,' as White of Selborne calls it, perched in the middle of the hedge, nestling as it were amongst the cold bare boughs, seeking, poor pretty thing, for the warmth it will not find. And there, farther on, just under the bank, by the slender runlet, which still trickles ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... through the leaves upon the narrow oblong of the pupils of a spotty-eyed cat going stealthily under the comb of the hedge, with her stomach wired in, and her spinal column fluted, to look like a wrinkled blackthorn snag. But still worse is it for that poor thrush, or lintie, or robin, or warbler-wren, if he flutters in his bosom when he spies that cat, and sets up his feathers, and begins to hop about, making a sad little chirp to his mate, and appealing to the sky to protect ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... fellow makes love between the showers in a barefaced way. That old fool of a tanner knows it, and has no more right feeling than if he were a boy. Aha, my Robin, fine robin as you are, I shall catch you piping with your Jenny Wren tonight!" The lieutenant shared the popular ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... roofs!" said Hazel. "The nicest thing in 'Mutual Friend' is Jenny Wren up on the Jew's roof, being dead. It seems like getting up over the world, and leaving it all covered up and ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... a brown wren. "Her cheek was full and rosy and her song loud. This one sitteth all ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson
... a great many churches, nearly all built by one man, Sir Christopher Wren, a very clever man. But you will say, 'Why do people want churches in the City? Didn't you say that everyone went away to their own houses at night and on Sundays? Isn't ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... any step was taken towards the accomplishing of her favourite design. But it should seem that, as soon as her husband had lost her, he began to reproach himself for having neglected her wishes. No time was lost. A plan was furnished by Wren; and soon an edifice, surpassing that asylum which the magnificent Lewis had provided for his soldiers, rose on the margin of the Thames. Whoever reads the inscription which runs round the frieze of the hall will ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... birds, to this day, calling them the Devil's servants, and killing them wherever they catch them; they teach their Children to thrust them full of thorns: you will see sometimes on holidays, a whole parish running like mad men from hedge to hedge a wren-hunting. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... bear heard a bird singing so beautifully that he said, "Brother wolf, what bird is it that sings so well?" "That is the King of birds," said the wolf, "before whom we must bow down." It was, however, in reality the willow-wren (Zaunknig). "If that's the case," said the bear, "I should very much like to see his royal palace; come, take me thither." "That is not done quite as you seem to think," said the wolf; "you must wait until ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... but laugh, much as he disapproved. Patricia fluttered and, as a wren might have done, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... proportion to their height. The highest point of the whole, as given before, is 1500 feet above the ground, while it is 2800 feet above the sea-level. Could I be buried at Mount Olga, I should certainly borrow Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph, Circumspice si monumentum requiris. To the eastward from here, as mentioned in my first expedition, and not very far off, lay another strange and singular-looking mound, similar perhaps to ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... expect to get a patent. Maybe he means to make old Peaceful so deucedly sick of the thing that he'll sell out cheap rather than fight the thing to a finish. Because this can be appealed, and taken up and up, and reopened because of some technical error—oh, as Jenny Wren says in—in—" ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... mentioned are not the only visitors whose society our friends enjoy. The swallows gracefully skim through the air, and greet them with their merry voices. The wren often favours them with one of his sweetest melodies, and the blue-bird flies around the corner to sing a song on the walnut-tree. He has a curious little nest of his own, hidden away under the eaves. The cat-birds, of course, are always near, as they live in ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... of rain, as it darted across a field to avoid the windings of a brook. I also became a specialist at finding their nests. Birds are so conservative! They are at your mercy, if you care to study their habits. The golden-crested wren builds a nest which is almost invisible; once you have mastered the trick, no gold-crest is safe. I am sorry, now, for all those plundered gold-crests' eggs. And the rarer ones—the grey shrike, that buzzard of the cliff (the most perilous scramble ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... 'mid the branches, and my heart Leaps with the life in that full chirp that breathes; The brown, full-breasted sparrow with a dart Is at my feet amid the swaying wreaths Of grass and clover; trooping blackbirds come With haughty step; the oriole, wren and jay Revel amid the cool, green moss in play, Then off in clouds of music; while the drum Of scarlet-crested woodpecker from yon Old Druid-haunting oak sends toppling down A ruined memory of ages past; O life and death—how ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... of birds most choyce, To doe her best shall straine her voyce; And to this bird to make a Set, The Mauis, Merle, and Robinet; The Larke, the Lennet, and the Thrush, That make a Quier of euery Bush. But for still musicke, we will keepe The Wren, and Titmouse, which to sleepe 110 Shall sing the Bride, when shee's alone The rest into their chambers gone. And like those vpon Ropes that walke On Gossimer, from staulke to staulke, The tripping Fayry tricks shall play The euening ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... coppice, where fairies dwell, Where the wren and the red-breast build; Along the green lanes, through dingle and dell, O'er bracken and brake, and moss-covered fell, Where the ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... woman,' said the Prince; 'I came forth from my mother's agony, helpless as a wren, like other nurselings. This, which you forgot, I have still faithfully remembered. Is it not one of your English poets, that looked abroad upon the earth and saw vast circumvallations, innumerable troops manoeuvring, warships at sea and a great dust of battles on shore; and ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... on the farm that didn't dislike Miss Kitty Cat. And there was only one bird family that didn't live in dread of her. That was the Wren family. And they had a good reason for ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... And Jenny Wren's a bride, And larks hang singing, singing, singing, Over the wheat-fields wide, 10 And anchored lilies ride, And the pendulum spider Swings from side ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... gone, and we could see it ahead of us beating and lashing the hot sands. Clouds of earthy steam rose enveloping us, but as these cleared away the air was as cool and pure and sweet as in a New England orchard in May. On a bush by the trail a tiny wren appeared and burst into song like a vivacious firecracker. Rock squirrels darted here and there, and tiny cactus flowers opened their sleepy eyes and poured out fragrance. And then, by and by, it was evening and we were truly in ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... deal about English birds as they appear in books. I know the lark of Shakespeare and Shelley and the Ettrick Shepherd; I know the nightingale of Milton and Keats; I know Wordsworth's cuckoo; I know mavis and merle singing in the merry green wood of the old ballads; I know Jenny Wren and Cock Robin of the nursery books. Therefore I had always much desired to hear the birds in real life; and the opportunity offered in June, 1910, when I spent two or three weeks in England. As I could snatch but a few hours from a very exciting round of pleasures and duties, it was necessary ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... manifest, for he could see now that the face of the country outside on the level was spread as with a tablecloth, its white surface undisturbed, ready for the impress of so light an object as a hopping wren. To make his way across it would be to drag his bonds behind him, plainly asking the world to pull him back. Obviously there must be a more tactical retreat, and without more ado he followed the river's course, keeping ever, as he could, in the shelter of the younger ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... buffoon-bird, is never found north of 46 deg. N. latitude in the summer. This bird pours forth all sorts of notes in a short space of time, without any apparent order. The thrush, the wren, the jay, and the robin are imitated in as short a time as it ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and starting into life and action. Spent an hour looking over the books of prints in the library—Fanny particularly pleased with a Houbracken: Harriet with Daniel's Indian Antiquities: my father with Sir Christopher Wren's and Inigo Jones's designs. After dinner Richard Ruxton came in, and said my aunt and uncle had thoughts of coming up to see the balloon. In the evening at Astley's. The second day to see the elephant: how I pitied this ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... that is, they carried the juices of it to their cells. The humming-bird alone can reach the bottom of the nectary of the honeysuckle; but even here the instinct of the bee is seen. The small birds, such as the wren, make an incision on the outside, near the bottom of the flower, and extract a part of the juices. The bee takes advantage of this opening, and avails itself of what is left. The scent of bees is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... belongs to the large cycle of tales in which is represented a war between the winged creatures of the air and the four-footed beasts. In these stories, as Grimm says in his notes to No. 102, "The Willow-Wren and the Bear," "the leading idea is the cunning of the small creatures triumphing over the large ones .... The willow-wren is the ruler, for the saga accepts the least as king as readily as the greatest." For the bibliography of the cycle ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... above them in all directions, Before them, glittering white in the sunlight, rose the pinnacles of the magnificent fane of Saint Paul's, with its lofty dome—just then verging towards completion, to the satisfaction of its talented architect, Sir Christopher Wren—while beyond could be seen, winding on through meadows and green fields, and then amidst the houses and stores of London and Westminster, the city and the borough, the blue stream of the Thames, covered with numerous ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Teeth. It is observable, that Fowls, for the most part, lay a greater number of Eggs than Birds, even many more than they can sit upon at one time. I have known about thirty Eggs lay'd by one common Poultry-Hen, but it is seldom that any Bird lays more than five or six, except the Wren, and the Tom-tit, and the Pigeon not more than two. Again, the Poultry, contrary to others of the winged Race, are armed with Spurs; and it is observable, that the Cocks of the common Poultry distinguish themselves from diurnal Fowls, by crowing or singing in the Night, as the Nightingale ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... electricity, of all nature, combined for good, the results of the intellectual activity of the inventors of the steam engine will be fully seen. Then no monument will be required to keep green the memory of Watt, Corliss, or any other of these great men, but it will be said of them, as of Sir Christopher Wren in the epitaph in St. Paul's: "Seek you a monument, look about you!" Every wreath of steam rising to the heavens from factory, mill or workshop will be a reminder of Hero of Alexandria, every mine will possess a memorial ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... in Hunt to the end. It was mainly through him that Hunt came to Pisa in June, 1822, to join with Byron in 'The Liberal'. But he doubted whether the alliance between the "wren and the eagle" could continue ('Life of Shelley', vol. ii. p. 519). Keats, on the other hand, lost his faith in Hunt. In a letter to Haydon (May, 1817), ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... had also come across a most remarkable nest, that of the golden-crested wren. "My old friend, the Rook, tells me," said the Blackbird, "that this wren is the very smallest of our birds. He certainly is a great beauty with his crown of golden feathers. His nest is in yonder yew-tree. It seems large for a bird of his ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... living creatures, that can, by any process, be enabled to perceive moral and intellectual truths, are characterized by similar peculiarities of organization. They may differ from each other widely, but they still belong to the same class. An eagle and a wren are very unlike each other; but no one would hesitate to pronounce that they were both birds: so it is with the almost endless varieties of the monkey tribe. We all know that beasts, however sagacious, are incapable of abstract ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... in the evergreens up by the stone house, but he failed to report to me here at "The Nest." The female redstart, however, came several times to the gravel walk below me, evidently looking for material to begin her nest. And the wren, the irrepressible house wren, was and is in evidence every few minutes, busy carrying nesting-material into the box on the corner of the veranda. How intense and emphatic she is! And the male, how he throbs and palpitates with song! ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... fresh air"—a suggestive picture. What thoughts must have been travelling through his mind, undisturbed by external things! How many of the passers knew that they flitted past the greatest glory of the age of Newton, Locke, and Wren? For one who would reverence the author of "Paradise Lost," there were probably twenty who would have been ready with a curse for the apologist of the killing of the King. In-doors he was seen by Dr. Wright, in Richardson's time ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... Mr. Armstrong for the sweet smile," exclaimed, the negro. "If you know how good it make me feel here, (laying his hand on his heart) you would smile pretty often. I can remember when the wren wasn't merrier than you, and you laughed almost as much as this fool Felix." At the recollection of those happy days, poor Felix pressed his hands upon his eyes, and tried to hide the tears, that in spite of his efforts stole through the fingers. "But," continued he, "I hope in the name ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... cling To the honeysuckles' hearts; In and out at the open window The twittering house-wren darts, And the ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... Whitewashing Julia, proves that it is possible, without incurring disaster, to keep a secret throughout a play, and never reveal it at all. More accurately, what Mr. Jones does is to pretend that there is some explanation of Mrs. Julia Wren's relations with the Duke of Savona, other than the simple explanation that she was his mistress, and to keep us waiting for this "whitewashing" disclosure, when in fact he has nothing of the sort up his sleeve, and the plain truth is precisely ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... although opportunities for displaying their genius have been rare. This the fate and fortune of two Englishmen attest. Without the fire of London we might not have shown the world one of the greatest architects, in Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN; had not a St. Paul's been required by the nation he would have found no opportunity of displaying the magnificence of his genius, which even then was mutilated, as the original model bears witness to the world. That great occasion served this noble architect to multiply ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... told them of birds as well as beasts, and three of these I will mention here because they are very pleasant to listen to. One was of St. Malo and the wren. The wren, the smallest of all birds, laid an egg in the hood which St. Malo had hung up on a branch while he was working in the field, and the blessed man was so gentle and loving that he would not disturb the bird, but left his hood hanging on the tree till the ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... can He who smiles on all Hear the wren with sorrows small, Hear the small bird's grief and care, Hear the woes that ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... for beauty, they felt sure; no such fishing anywhere, they believed; in fact, everything the country boy could wish for was to their hand. Collect?—I should think they did: eggs, from those of the birds of prey to the tiny dot of the golden-crested wren; butterflies and moths, from the Purple Emperors that were netted as they hovered over the tops of the scrub oaks, and hawk-moths that darted through the garden, the only level place about the bottom of the glen. Fishing too—the artist who came down ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... what a snare for an artist's feet lay in those few words? How could Trenholme realize that "a pair of iron gates" would prove to be an almost perfect example of Christopher Wren's genius as a designer of wrought iron? Trenholme's eyes sparkled when he beheld this prize, with its acanthus leaves and roses beaten out with wonderful freedom and beauty of curve. A careful drawing was the result. Another result, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... business buildings within and without are structurally English, and the familiar Scotch accent sounds everywhere; but the illusion is most complete in St. John's Church, that very charming, cool, white and comfortable sanctuary, in the manner of Wren, and in St. Andrew's too. Secluded here, the world shut off, one might as well be in some urban conventicle at home on a sunny August day, as in the glamorous East. St. John's particularly I shall remember: its light, its ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... Billy Silver had fallen out over a question of space. It was Silver's opinion that Wren's nest ought to have been built a foot or two further to the left. He stated baldly that he had not room to breathe, and requested the red-headed one to ease off a point or so in the direction of his next-door neighbour. Wren had refused, and, after a few moments' ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... parts of Norway where the goldcrest is rarely seen the same story, omitting the part about the sun and the burnt crest, is told of the common wren, who is said to have broken off his tail in his great fall. And to this is applied the moral: "Proud and ambitious people sometimes meet with ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... often laid the basis of medical treatment. Certain it is that it is extremely pleasant and grateful to breathe the sweet fragrance of the fir deep in the woods, listening to the soft caressing sound of the wind that passes high overhead. The willow-wren sings, but his voice and that of the wind seem to give emphasis to the holy and meditative silence. The mystery of nature and life hover about the columned temple of the forest. The secret is always behind a tree, as of old time it was always behind the pillar of the temple. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... The wren is very small, but she cried even more eagerly than the others, "Let us choose the bird that flies highest," for she said to herself, "They think the owl is wise, but I am wiser than he, and I know ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... woman laid the newspaper gently down by her husband's elbow, and looked at him with a certain air of grandeur and strength. The instinct that arouses the mother wren to peck at the schoolboy's hand at her nest was strong in this subdued little ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... straight as though she had given him the right to stop cringing and talk like a man. What on earth, she wondered, could have forced the man to such humility? It made her shrink as one might on seeing an eagle cower before a wren. As for Perris, his resentment was in no wise abated by her friendliness. She had given him some moments of torture and the memory of that abasement would haunt him many a day. He mutely vowed that she should pay for it, and went ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... of wind and tide That make and mean disaster, And balk 'em, too, the Wren and me, Off on the Old Man's Pastur'. Day out and in the blackfish there Go wabbling out and under, And nights we watch the coasters creep From light to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to see various other curious places in and near these two great towers. One of these places was called the model room, where there is a very large model of a plan for a church which Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul's, first designed. By most good judges, it is thought to be a better design than the one which was finally adopted. There were, besides this, various other curious models and old relics in ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott
... Wild Chipmunks Respond to Man's Protection An Opossum Feigning Death Migration of the Golden Plover. (Map) Remarkable Village Nests of the Sociable Weaver Bird Spotted Bower-Bird, at Work on Its Unfinished Bower Hawk-Proof Nest of a Cactus Wren A Peace Conference With an Arizona Rattlesnake Work Elephant Dragging a Hewn Timber The Wrestling Bear, "Christian," and His Partner Adult Bears at Play Primitive Penguins on the Antarctic Continent, Unafraid of Man Richard W. Rock and His Buffalo ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with flowers and leaves do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Call to this funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole To rear her hillocks that shall keep ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... held may be the superstition which represents him as the medium through which mankind are warned of approaching death. {165} Before the death of a person, a robin is believed, in many instances, to tap thrice at the window of the room in which he or she may be. The wren is also a bird which superstition protects from injury; but it is by no means treated with such reverence as the robin. The praises of both are sung in the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... flowers for garlands. Gloomy caves appear, surrounded by hawthorn and holly that "outdares cold winter's ire," and sheltering old hermits, skilled in simples and the secret power of herbs. Sometimes the poet describes a choir where the tiny wren sings the treble, Robin Redbreast the mean, the thrush the tenor, and the nightingale the counter-tenor, while droning bees fill in the bass; and shows us fairy haunts and customs with a delicacy only equaled by ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... robin and the oriole, The linnet and the wren— When shall I see their fairyships, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... lights of blue and faint fresh rose; and over them the beautiful fold of her full eyebrow on the eyelid like a bending upper heaven. Those winter mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly. The earth is still, as if awaiting. A wren warbles, and flits through the lank drenched brambles; hill-side opens green; elsewhere is mist, everywhere expectancy. They bear the veiled sun like a sangreal aloft to the wavy marble flooring ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with prudence and sobriety. Nutcracker Lodge was a hole in a sturdy old chestnut overhanging a shady dell, and was held to be as respectably kept an establishment as there was in the whole forest. Even Miss Jenny Wren, the greatest gossip of the neighbourhood, never found anything to criticise in its arrangements; and old Parson Too-whit, a venerable owl who inhabited a branch somewhat more exalted, as became his profession, was in the habit of saving himself much trouble in ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... include Hank Jardine, for Hank was out of New York; but the others—Shanklyn, the actor; Wren, the newspaper-man; Bryce, Johnson, Willis, Appleton, and the rest—sensed impending change in the air, and were uneasy, like cattle before a thunder-storm. The fact that the visits of Mrs. Porter and Ruth to inquire after George, now ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... witchery," as if they appreciated their charming home, while nearby, a cardinal appeared like an arrow of flame from the bow of some unseen archer, and whistled several variations that rang through all the woodland. The house wren was fairly bubbling over with music and his rippling notes seemed to express the exuberance of life in all Nature; while the serene song of the woodthrush floated from far, dim forest depths—fit prelude ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
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