"Feather" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... superior or inferior faculties, and must make use of them, such as they are, to become inferior cooks or countesses or superior ditto, as the case may be. But there are always plenty of one's own kind, whichever it is, to consort with. Birds of a feather, you know. You need not be ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Richelieu, he was embarked without being fastened to the cross-bar, and he was given a paddle. Fresh to the work, Radisson made a labor of his oar. The Iroquois took the paddle and taught him how to give the light, deft, feather strokes of the Indian canoeman. On the river they met another band of warriors, and the prisoner was compelled to show himself a trophy of victory and to sing songs for his captors. That evening the united bands kindled an enormous ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... drill and their harbour gunnery had been of no service when sails had to be trimmed and broadsides fired on the heave of an Atlantic swell. Let one of their frigates get to sea and have a couple of years' free run in which the crew might learn their duties, and then it would be a feather in the cap of a British officer if with a ship of equal force he ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... toward Elsie when her brother Horace was not by, reproving, exhorting, or directing her; and was very proud of being usually taken by strangers for the elder of the two. Some day she would not think that a feather in her cap. ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... tenements in Isleworth for life, then to his son John and his heirs; to his son William, 12d.; to his son Ralph, 12d.; to his daughter, Elizabeth King, L20 after his wife's death; to his son William's son William, 2s. 6d.; to his daughter Elizabeth, a feather bed; to his daughter Sara, 12d.; to his daughter Robina, 12d.; if John died without heirs, the tenements to go to his sons Ralph and William. His wife Elizabeth executrix; his friend, Mr. William Dance, and ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... scavengers of the water-fowl. The often repeated description of the stately palm and other noble tropical plants, then birds, and lastly man, taking possession of the coral islets as soon as formed, in the Pacific, is probably not correct; I fear it destroys the poetry of this story, that feather and dirt-feeding and parasitic insects and spiders should be the first inhabitants of newly formed ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... bright lookout ahead. The emu will run from human beings, especially from blacks. It is not, however, afraid either of horses or drays. It greatly resembles, in size and shape, the ostrich; but its colour is of a uniform brownish-black with feather-like hairs in lieu of feathers, and it has no wings, but its legs being very strong it can run at a rapid rate. As its head reaches seven feet or more from the ground it can obtain a wide view over ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... fabled egg from thee obtains its gold; Thou sett'st the mind from critic bondage loose, Where male and female cacklers, young and old, Birds of a feather, ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... a tiny figure became visible, so small that Toinette had to kneel and stoop her head to see it plainly. The figure was that of an odd little man. He wore a garb of green bright and glancing as the scales of a beetle. In his mite of a hand was a cap, out of which stuck a long pointed feather. Two specks of tears stood on his cheeks and he fixed on Toinette a glance so sharp and so sad that it made her feel sorry and frightened and confused all ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... a lowering of him. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to it, "Let up on me—it ain't too late yet—I'll paddle ashore at the first light and tell." I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a light, and sort of singing to myself. By and by one ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... blue-bottle colored cloth, and a cunning little red waistcoat so short that it hardly came below his chin. The village tailor had made the sleeves so tight that he could not put his little arms together. And how proud he was! He had a round hat with a black and gold buckle and a peacock's feather protruding jauntily from a tuft of Guinea-hen's feathers. A bunch of flowers larger than his head covered his shoulder, and ribbons floated down to his feet. The hemp-beater, who was also the village barber ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... all times, was this Cavalier, an optimist he, from the curling feather in his broad-brimmed beaver hat, to the spurs at his heels. Handsome, gay, and debonair was he, with lips up-curving to a smile beneath his moustachio, and a quizzical light in his grey eyes, very like that in Bellew's own. Moreover he wore the knowing, waggish air of one well ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... household. It was she who washed the dishes, and scrubbed down the stairs, and polished the floors in my lady's chamber and in those of the two pert misses, her daughters; and while the latter slept on good feather beds in elegant rooms, furnished with full-length looking-glasses, their sister lay in a wretched garret on an old straw mattress. Yet the poor thing bore this ill treatment very meekly, and did not dare complain to her father, who thought so much of his wife that ...
— Cinderella • Henry W. Hewet
... once fine estate, Is almost lost, the encumbrance is so great. Ladies may smile—are they not in the plot? The bounds of nature have not they forgot? Were they design'd to be, when put together, Made up, like shuttlecocks, of cork and feather? Their pale-faced grandmammas appeared with grace When dawning blushes rose upon the face; No blushes now their once-loved station seek; The foe is in possession of the cheek! No heads of old, too high in ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... something goes wrong, upsetting all prearranged plans, and making life seem miserable—that true courage of a sort, comradeship, good-fellowship and real grit are best shown. And, to the credit of the outdoor girls be it said that, now they had taken the "plunge" none of them showed the white feather. They were brave under any circumstances and this very bravery strengthened their ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... feather. Hers was a nature which expanded in the limelight; crowded audiences inspired her to outdo herself instead of "fussing" her as they did Oh-Pshaw. She could hardly wait ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... patches of cultivation were visible—rice, fruit, and cotton—the latter looking rather unpromising. The destroyers of their rice were the monkeys. There are several varieties of fine large pigeons here, and in abundance. They are beautiful in feather and fat. A common variety has a green back and golden tail. This must be a paradise for monkeys, so abundant is their food in the forests, almost every tree bearing a fruit or nut of some sort. These French officers had heard and believed that we sunk or burned every ship we took, with all ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... forethought to the dogs, to rely upon what has made many a small man great, the good star. I addressed my companions in a set speech, advising a mount without delay." [157] The End of Time, having shown the white feather, was left behind, but the rest courageously consented to accompany their leader. "At 10 a.m. on the 2nd January," says Burton, "all the villagers assembled, and recited the Fatihah, consoling us with the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the treacherous buckwheat, but he held her arm in a strong grasp against which the weight of her slim figure seemed but as a feather blown against a wall. The life of the plains had bred in Beulah admiration for physical strength, and she acknowledged his firm grip with an admiring glance. Then they set about their task, but the sober-eyed ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... Christ! St. Peter and St. Paul! Ferdinand and Isabella, and St. George and the Dragon, and all the rest! And ires dire glories in excellence, and deuces tecum vademecum Christ Jesu, and birds of a feather, and now I lay me down to sleep, and a child is born for you to keep—Amen! ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... forked stings at the end! The teeth of the Gorgons were terribly long tusks, their hands were made of brass, and their bodies were all over scales, which, if not iron, were something as hard and impenetrable. They had wings, too, and exceedingly splendid ones, I can assure you, for every feather in them was pure, bright, glittering, burnished gold; and they looked very dazzling, no doubt, when the Gorgons were ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... and Collard; music-stool and Canterbury; chimney and pier-glasses; mirror; ormolu time-piece; alabaster and wax figures and shades; china; Brussels carpets and rugs; fenders and fire-irons; curtains and cornices; Venetian blinds; mahogany four-post, French, and camp bedsteads; feather beds; hair mattresses; mahogany chests of drawers; dressing-glasses; wash and dressing-tables; patent shower-bath; bed and table-linen; dinner and tea-ware; warming-pans, &c., would be exposed to ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... know. She said she had put her name down provisionally. If she does, I expect she'll astonish us all. She can jump most beautifully—she's as light as a feather." ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... "that contra haereticos etiam vere dictos (ne dum falso et calumniose sic traductos) there is neither sentence of death nor other corporal punishment, so that in order to attract to himself a great following of birds of the name feather he publishes to all the world that here in this country one can live and die a heretic, unpunished, without being ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... marshy wastes, when a curious animal crossed our path, a zorillo, or epatl, as the Indians call it, and which Bouffon mentions under the generic name of moufftes. It looks like a brown and white fox, with an enormous tail, which it holds up like a great feather in the air. It is known not only for the beauty of its skin, but for the horrible and pestilential odour with which it defends itself when attacked, and which poisons the air for miles around. Notwithstanding the warnings of the mozos as to its peculiar mode of defence, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... of rest, blue sailings on melodious seas, alternated with the anguish. He became a leaf on the air, a feather on a current, a straw on the tide, the spray of the wave spinning itself to sunshine as the wave toppled over into gulfs ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... that they'd corner you and beat you to death with feather-dusters," he lamented. "And the only thing I can say will make matters worse instead of better. I have it pretty straight that Gryson has been fired—shooed out of town, and ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... childish disaster. I had been making strenuous efforts to pull the tail out of the cat that I might use it for a feather duster. My desire was supreme logic. I could not understand objection; the cat resisted for certain utilitarian reasons of its own and my mother through humane sympathy. I had been scratched and spanked in addition: it was the first storm centre that I remember. I had been punished but not subdued. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... With a jerk of the head, Mrs. Tinneray indicated a dashing blue feather seen through a distant saloon window. "This one's got it all; hair ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a sash of green satin looped through another glittering buckle at the side of the waist, with long ends loosely knotted together at the knee. I must tie her fair hair with a silver ribbon, and pin upon her curls a large hat of reseda green with a golden-brown ostrich feather drooping behind. I warned mademoiselle that there was a tiny fire burning in the salon. Even with the fire-screen in front of it there would still be a little light upon the floor, and the glittering buckles on her feet would betray her, even if the rustle of her ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... on my way through the country-side selling what maids most love—a bit of ribbon, a tie, a good serviceable apron, a feather for the hat, and many a pretty gown; but on my way from the village I met a friend from my own part of the country, which is not in this county, but two counties up north, who tells me that my wife is lying dangerously ill. If I wish ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... blaze together. What if Olga took the lead, not in this particular or in that, but attempted to constitute herself supreme in the affairs of Riseholme? It was all very well for her to be a brilliant bird of passage just for a couple of days, and drop so to speak, "a moulted feather, a eagle's feather" on Lucia's party, thereby causing it to shine out from all previous festivities, making it the Hightumest affair that had ever happened, but it was a totally different matter to contemplate her permanent residence here. It seemed ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... get there all right. That station could not be so very much farther on and she simply had to succeed. It was not that the "story" would be a feather in her own cap, nor yet was it the success of her paper which was at stake; not even the restoration of her father to his place in the financial world—not even that was the main result that hung in the balance. But ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... for dere fowls is always de best fed in course; and when we ab more nor we wants for you and me, den I take 'em to market and sell 'em; and if dey will steal 'em arter dat, Missus, we must try ticklin'; dere is nuffin' like it. It makes de down fly like a feather-bed. It makes niggars wery sarcy to see white tief punished tree times as much as dey is; dat are a fac, Missus. A poor white man can't work, and in course he steal. Well, his time bein' no airthly use, dey gib him six month pensiontary; and niggar, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... highest miracle!"—"Oh, from the depths of my heart I give thanks to God for that miracle!" she exclaims, and confused at her own fervour catches herself back, only to proceed further, with the candour of an angel: "Your pardon, if I hardly know what I am about! I move as if in a dream, and am feather-brained as a child, given over, hand-bound, in thrall to a miraculous power! Hardly do I recognise myself; oh, do you help me to solve the enigma of my heart!" Not only with the candour of an angel, but the simplicity of very high rank, accepting the prerogative of her station to step forward ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... existence in her hands, crushed it, and thrown it away. Hope had soberly said to herself, just before, that death would be better than life for her young sister. Yet now it moved her beyond endurance to see that fair form troubled, even while unconscious, by a feather's weight of pain; and all the lifelong habit of tenderness resumed in a moment ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... large dwellings, many towns, and fine canoes. What struck Padre Ascension most strongly was their temple, of which he says: "There was in the temple a large level court, and about this a circle surrounded by feather work of different colors taken from various birds which I understand had been sacrificed to their idols. Within this circle was the figure of a demon painted in color after the manner of the Indians of New Spain. On its sides were figures of the sun ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... according to his fancy, selected the one who came nearest in dress, or in personal appearance, to his preconceptions of that mysterious agent. Not a word was uttered, not a whisper; hardly a robe was heard to rustle, or a feather ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... head from side to side, craning her neck a little—examining (if I must confess it) the effect of a new hat. It was a very stunning hat—if a man's opinion hath any pertinence; it was beyond doubt very complicated. There was an upward-springing black brim; there was a downward-sweeping black feather; there was a defiant white aigrette not unlike the Shah of Persia's; there were glints ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... friendship has not proved immortal; so, now let us see how long you can hold spite—SIEVES!" Then he affected to start. "What is this? I spy a rational creature out on yonder balcony. I hasten to join him. 'Birds of a feather, you know;" and with that he went out to his favorite, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... thought her as a feather, As the plume upon his head-gear; Cleared the tangled pathway for her, Bent aside the swaying branches, Made at night a lodge of branches, And a bed with boughs of hemlock, And a fire before the doorway With the dry cones ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... be the leader of the band. He had a feather in his bonnet, and I saw a steel corslet gleam under his cloak, when some one held up a lanthorn to examine me the better. His trunk-hose were striped with black, white, and green—the livery as I learned afterwards of Monsieur ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... great square to greet the rising of the Sun. They were dressed in their gayest apparel, and the Indian lords vied with each other in the display of costly ornaments and jewels on their persons, while canopies of gaudy feather-work and richly tinted stuffs, borne by the attendants over their heads, gave to the great square, and the streets that emptied into it, the appearance of being spread over with one vast and magnificent awning. Eagerly they watched the coming of their deity, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... gesture of impatience. "It's a case of birds of a feather. London has always been the central home of anarchy under various big surnames. What does the Commissioner understand ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... door, but finding nothing there, believed that it was a spirit, and returning to her prayers, vowed, poor lady, to make a pilgrimage to St. Maria Zell, in Styria, if the Holy Virgin's intercessions obtained their success, and till the pilgrimage could be made, "to forego every Saturday night my feather bed!" After another false alarm at a supposed noise at the maidens' door, she ventured into the vault to see how her companions were getting on, when she found they had filed away all the locks, except that of the case containing the crown, and this they were obliged to burn, in spite of their ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... encased in top-boots, almost dragging along the ground, though he managed, by a succession of sudden jerks, to lift them up so as to avoid the numerous inequalities of the way. His odd appearance was increased by his wearing a broad-brimmed hat and feather, and a long-waisted coat, part of an old court-suit. When he came to the door of the house, all he did was to stand upright, and to let his steed pass from under him. He threw the bridle to Surly Grind, who took it in his mouth, and lying down ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and Buz Ffolliot had each recognised and admired that quality in him, and it is possible that he had vaguely discerned a kindred reticence in these feather-brained boys. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... houses, and as there was one man to a family, generally, he was put in the villager's room of honor, with a tall porcelain stove in the corner, a feather bed under him and another on top. Each man had a soldier servant who looked after his boots and luggage, kept him supplied with cigars and cigarettes from the Quartier commissariat—for a paternal government included even tobacco!—and whack his heels ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... as nothing exactly like them is known. The feather prayer-plumes of some of the Western Indians are used for like purposes, but these are offered directly to the Great Spirit, and not to intermediaries. "Inao, briefly described, are pieces of whittled willow ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... fairy touched her with the wand. Her clothes fell in a heap. The big shoes dropped off. There was a shimmery pink silk frock with lace and ribbons and the daintiest pink kid slippers with diamond buckles and pink silk stockings with lovely clocks. She went dancing around the kitchen light as a feather, her eyes shining, her cheeks like roses, her lips full of smiles. She was ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... first time I ever entered the presence of that man. The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;' I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be semi- officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous a boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, all fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took a furtive glance at me out of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that. Well,I have seen you,to come to personalities,I have seen you, for instance, wearing a hat and feather. I have good reason to remember it; for the play of that feather used to gratify and irritate me, both at once, beyond what was on the whole easy to bear. The hat suited the feather, and the feather became the hat; and hat and feather were precisely suited to you. Your purpose, or "views," in ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... |The maid of honor was Miss Katherine Abrahams, | |wearing blue satin trimmed with silver. She carried | |a double shower bouquet of tea roses and lilies of | |the valley, and a yellow ostrich feather fan, the | |gift of the bride. | | | |The bridesmaids, Miss Estelle Freeman, Miss Tillie | |Greenhouse, Miss Estelle Sacks and Miss Leonore | |Printz, were dressed in frocks of different pastel | |shades, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... in. I was standing by the bank, and something from behind picked me up like a feather and hurled me in. I heard nothing, and I saw nothing. But I know what ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... liked to look at scared me every time I saw it. It was a big, tall lady dressed in yellow and she had a feather fan. ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... pretense of doing anything useful and because his father was rich doing nothing in reality but waste himself in vicious practices, was in her mind. What must have the engineer believed of her all this while when he knew Sorenson's true nature and infamous record? Did he suppose her a light-headed feather, indifferent to everything except that her husband should be rich? Very likely. There were plenty of girls of that type. He naturally would suppose ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... the burial of Katrina Potgieter's baby, which died of drinking water after a surfeit of dried peaches, the old lady was in great feather. Never were her reminiscences so ghoulish and terrifying, and never did she hurl her weighty moralities over so wide a scope. Eventually she lapsed into criticism, and announced that the art of dying ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... you as you pass under; they lie on the ground in pocketfuls. Specks of brilliant scarlet dot the grass like some bright berries blown from the bushes; but on stooping to pick them, they are found to be the heads of a fungus. Near by lies a black magpie's feather, spotted with ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... distant salutation, coldly and gravely returned, from Gertrude Chattesworth, to whom Mr. Beauchamp, whom she remembered at the Stafford's dinner, addicted himself a good deal. That demigod appeared in a white surtout, with a crimson cape, a French waistcoat, his hair en papillote, a feather in his hat, a couteau de chasse by his side, with a small cane hanging to his button, and a pair of Italian greyhounds at his heels; and he must have impressed Tresham prodigiously; for I observe no other instance in which he has noted down costume so carefully. Little Puddock, too, was ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... close stable and back in their own free paddocks. They took the hills at a swift, effortless trot, and on the down slopes broke into a hand-gallop; light-hearted, but conscious all the time of the hand on the reins, that was as steel, yet light as a feather upon a tender mouth. They danced merrily to one side when they met a motor or a hawker's van with flapping cover; when the buggy rattled over a bridge they plainly regarded the drumming of their own hoofs as the last trump, and fled wildly for a few hundred ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... was the Sultana is clear from her fragments of dress, and the symbolic character of her every ornament, crescent earrings, heron-feather, and the blue campaca enamelled in a bracelet. This poor woman, I have thought, may have been the victim of some unbounded fit of imperial passion, incurred by some domestic crime, real or imagined, which may have been pardoned in a day had not death ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... will go along; it'd be a big feather in our cap, fellers, if we'd be the ones to bring ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... spoils of life, I propose to have a seat at the banquet and to propose toasts and to be toasted!" Faust of a sudden left his gloomy, cobwebby laboratory, flung a fine cloak over his shoulders, stuck a dandy feather in his cap, buckled on a rapier, and began roistering with the best of us. We sneered and smiled at first, let us be frank and admit it. We did not think much of this new buck. We had little fear that the professor, even if he took off his spectacles and slippers ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... Sayeth, prayeth Mona's mother, To the slender-throated swallow On her nest of sticks and clay; For her sad eyes needs must follow Down the misty, mint-sweet hollow, Where the ruby colors play With the gold, and with the gray. "Yet, my little Lady-feather, You do well to sit and sing," Crieth, sigheth Mona's mother. "If you would, you could no other. Can the leaf fail with the spring? Can the tendril stay from twining When the sap begins to run? Or the dew-drop keep from shining With her body full o' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... scissors he cut off all the feathers from the tail and from the head to the shoulders, and all those on the neck. So much less for the enemy's beak, he used to say. Then he extended the cock's wings, and cut each feather, one after another, to a point, and thus the wings were furnished with darts. So much for the enemy's eyes, he would say. Then he scraped its claws with a penknife, sharpened its nails, fitted it with spurs of sharp steel, spat on its head, spat on its neck, anointed it with ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... and glancing of the leaves; sometimes she sat beside a stream, and as her thoughts paused, threw flowers or pebbles into the waters, watching how those swam and these sank; or she would set afloat boats formed of bark of trees or leaves, with a feather for a sail, and intensely watch the navigation of her craft among the rapids and shallows of the brook. Meanwhile her active fancy wove a thousand combinations; she dreamt "of moving accidents by flood ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... wife and little children were fetched with many tears from the tileyard, and the priest came with the Holy Death Sacrament. But the prayers and viaticum saved Martin. Still, for many months he had a frightful illness, and even in March he was so weak you could have knocked him down with a feather. Niederberg was immediately taken into custody, and was sentenced to sit in Bruneck Castle till St. John the Baptist's Day, fully six months, to pay the doctor's bill, and two hundred gulden to Martin; but the latter sum, being an evil-minded youth, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... which, after all, is not wrinkled and withered eld; and she was not a soured woman; she radiated health and sweetness; she had loved once in her life, very dearly. Romance touched her with his golden feather and, in the most sensible and the most unreprehensible way in the world, she fell ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... fellow who resorted to it in summer because it was right on the fishing-grounds, and he was getting unable any longer to face the long row to and from his house in the harbour. Nowhere in the world is the old adage concerning the birds of a feather truer than on this coast. The poorer and lonelier a man is, the greater is the certainty that some other poor and lonely person will seek the shelter of their poverty. Thus it had ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... north-eastern portion of the American continent. Cabot saw them dressed in skins like the ancient Britons, but painted with red ochre instead of blue woad. Cartier, the pioneer of Canadian adventure, who visited the island in 1534, speaks of their stature and their feather ornaments. Hayes says in one place: "In the south parts we found no inhabitants, which by all likelihood have abandoned these coasts, the same being so much frequented by Christians. But in the north are savages altogether harmless." Whitbourne, forty years ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... and feather of Archaeopteryx, from Solenhofen, and tail of living bird for comparison. A. Caudal vertebrae of Archaeopteryx macrura, Owen; with impression of tail- feathers; one-fifth natural size. B. Two caudal vertebrae of same; natural size. C. Single feather, found ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... so bad o' Sunday, when you're lyin' at your ease, To watch the kites a-wheelin' round them feather-'eaded trees, For although there ain't no women, yet there ain't no barrick-yards, So the orficers goes shootin' an' the men they plays ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... companion muttering as he went; and when, in passing through a thicket of hawthorn and honeysuckle, we started from its perch a linnet that had been filling the air with its melody, I could hear him exclaim, in a subdued tone of voice, "Bonny, bonny birdie! why hasten frae me?—I wadna skaith a feather o' yer wing." He turned round to me, and I could see that his eyes ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... politicians of the North, put the Church in the North upon the defensive by demanding toleration, if not actual adoption. The issue was made in trying to foist upon the whole Church a slave holding Episcopacy. This last act was the feather, if such it might be called, that broke ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... Or separately charactered, Of little beast and little bird. The fields are mashed by sheep, the roads Make the worst going, the best the woods Where dead leaves upward and downward scatter. Few care for the mixture of earth and water, Twig, leaf, flint, thorn, Straw, feather, all that men scorn, Pounded up and sodden by flood, Condemned ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... manhood, he had thrust himself into the very jaws of its enemies. There was no mistake in the matter. His character, his standing, his Revolutionary services, were all well known; but they were known to no purpose; they weighed not one feather against party pretensions. It cost no pains to remove him; it cost no compunction to wring his aged heart with this retribution from his country for his services, his zeal, and his fidelity. Sir, you will bear witness,[1] that, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Prior had laid before her. It worried her a good deal. There were so many obstacles to its satisfactory fulfilment. She wished he had not been so pleasantly vague regarding his own feelings in the matter. Of course, it was a feather-brained scheme from start to finish, and yet in a fashion it attracted her. He was so splendidly safe, so absolutely reliable; she needed just such a protector. And yet—and ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... them both in preparation for departure. Sally had replaced the little feather boa about her neck and one of her gloves, which she had taken off when he gave her the coffee, she was buttoning at ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... is my individual self, the god who builds the machine and then makes his gay excursion of seventy years within it. Now we are talking at the moment about the machine. For the moment we are the bicycle, and not the feather-brained cyclist. So that all we can do is to define the cyclist in terms of ourself. A bicycle could say: Here, upon my leather saddle, rests a strange and animated force, which I call the force of gravity, as being the one great force which controls my universe. And yet, on second thoughts, ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... brain. Bound about her sable locks was as it were a chaplet of fire; her right hand held a double-edged sword of most strange workmanship, for the one edge was of keen steel, and the other as it were the strip of a peacock's feather; on the face of the air about her were phantoms of winged horses, and of racking-wheels: and from her glossy shoulders waved and quivered large dazzling wings of iridescent colours, most glorious to ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... good-natured young man; but he soon went off to Cambridge; and with the rest, or some of them, I continued to wage war for nearly a year. And yet, for a word spoken with kindness, I would have resigned the peacock's feather in my cap as the merest of baubles. Undoubtedly, praise sounded sweet in my ears also. But that was nothing by comparison with what stood on the other side. I detested distinctions that were connected with mortification ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... by nature, and only her curiosity, not her fears, had been excited by the events of the last three days, and she curled herself up with delight in the soft, warm feather bed. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... With his hair all crisp and curly, In the springtime bright and early A-tripping o'er the meadow he is seen. Through all the bright June weather, Like a jolly little tramp, He wanders o'er the hillside, down the road; Around his yellow feather, Thy gypsy fireflies camp; His companions are the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... in Peter Askew's time. The low room had been cleverly painted and a casement commanding a view of the dale replaced the original narrow windows. Specimens of ancient Indian pottery stood on the sideboard, and there were curtains of embroidered silk, feather-flowers, and silverwork that Kit had brought from Spanish America. The things gave the lonely farmstead an exotic touch, but they implied the command of money and ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... valanced, canopied, gilded bed, decorated with down sacks in chintz covers to keep her warm, high pillows set up as a background for her, and a little pillow for every bone which might make a dint in the feather bed. Another such piece of furniture was not to be found in the Territory. It and her ebony chairs, her claw-footed tables, her harp and dower chest, had come with her from France. The harp alone she had already given ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the greatest advantage there," Rachel could not help exclaiming, as at that moment Elizabeth Keith smiled at them, as she floated past, her airy white draperies looped with scarlet ribbons; her dark hair turned back and fastened by a snood of the same, an eagle's feather clasped in it by a large emerald, a memory of her father's ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... get you on board, where our captain and his good wife will look after you, the better," exclaimed the mate, as he offered to carry us to the boat. I begged that Abela might be brought with us. He lifted me up in his arms as if I had been a feather, and others followed, with Maud and Abela. Mr Norton had scarcely strength to reach the boat. I explained that Tofa was a chief's son, and that having rendered us great service, I begged that he might ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... away to the south uprose A little feather of snow-white smoke, And we knew that the iron ship of our foes Was steadily steering its course To try the force Of our ribs ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... in early spring, high up in the branches of her tree, and how she had watched it day after day flying back and forth in the forest, its yellow breast flashing among the green leaves. It had a long golden bill, and its tail was black as jet; and its wings were the softest gray in the world with a feather of jet in either one. Its song was the clearest, the highest, the purest of all the bird songs in the forest. It was a wonderful bird, and she wanted ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... earth again. This is due to the attraction of the earth and the stone for each other. It has been proved experimentally that if a stone and a weight are let fall from a height of 16 feet, they would reach the earth in one second of time. Again, a feather, or cork, or even a piece of iron would take exactly the same time falling through the same space, provided that the feather or cork could be screened from the resistance of ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... to where Starlight an' Hawkins was enjoyin' their evenin' meal, an' I was mortal proud of the condition they was in. I reckon the' wasn't another pair in the territory 'at could 'a' covered their ante that day, an' it was a feather in Uncle Happy's ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. On the front of his cap was embroidered in gold letters, Viva La Liberta; and on one side of it was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant, as well as a warlike appearance. He wore no mask, saying that it was not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he drew universal attention.' Cradock (Memoirs, i. 217) ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... read aloud by Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller of England, while the rest, grouped behind her, bent forward listening with attentive faces—a pretty picture. Among the gifts which she received during the afternoon session were a canoe full of flowers from 'one of the girls' with a poem; a handsome feather boa from Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Sperry of California; a cup made from the wood of the floor under the table on which the Declaration of Independence was signed, presented in the name of Mrs. General Geddes; a bouquet of red roses from Prof. Theodosia Ammons of Colorado Agricultural ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... demanded," said he, "that I should re-write, if I could not understand their —— nonsense and put their halting lines into proper form." "I was so appalled," said he, "when they set upon me with their 'ipics and their ipecacs,' that you might have knocked me down with a feather, sir. It was insupportable, and I fled away into France." As he went on, waxing drolly furious at the recollection of various editorial scenes, I could not help remembering Mr. Yellowplush's recommendation, thus characteristically expressed: "Take my advice, honrabble ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... though I flatter myself it was not observed. The bodily feeling which most resembles this unpleasing hallucination is the giddy state which follows profuse bleeding, when one feels as if walking on feather-beds and could not find a secure footing. I think the stomach has something to do with it. I drank several glasses of wine, but these only augmented the disorder. I did not find the in vino veritas of the philosophers. Something of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... thin, and pointed, seemed to express but the one passion of his soul—its gratification of revenge. His expansive brow was now contracted and stern, rendered more so perhaps by the lack of hair about the temples; he wore a black velvet cap, circled coronet-wise with large diamonds from which a white feather drooped to his shoulder. There was a slight, scarcely visible, sneer resting on his features that morning, called forth perhaps by his internal scorn of the noble with whom he had deigned a secret conference; ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... by the modern Liberals of France, has its chief cultivation nowadays among the wits of the old 'regime.' They pick up its light weapons on the battle-field on which their fathers perished, and re-feather against the 'canaille' the shafts which had ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... its chief attraction; and when painful experience had convinced the regular customers of the Bunner Sisters of Ann Eliza's lack of millinery skill they began to lose faith in her ability to curl a feather or even "freshen up" a bunch of flowers. The time came when Ann Eliza had almost made up her mind to speak to the lady with puffed sleeves, who had always looked at her so kindly, and had once ordered ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... for my own satisfaction: the man who gets her, and doesn't marry her, will ultimately experience a biting from that same worm which will make our lacerations resemble the agreeable tickling of a feather. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... umbrella, clothes, and three cricket bats (but he died soon after); William Lambert, almost the greatest of Surrey hitters, and the first player who ever made two centuries in the same match, died at 72; Lumpy Stevens, who won L100 for Lord Tankerville by hitting a feather once in four balls, and lies in Walton churchyard, was 84; John Small, who saved his life by playing his violin to a ferocious bull, to the "admiration and perfect satisfaction of the mischievous beast," ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself, with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath; a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the head and representative of a community, which owed its origin ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... oak washstand 2 mattresses, 2 feather beds, 1 bolster 2 pillows, madras spread 1 box cot, 1 mattress, straw pillow 2 chairs, 2 towel racks Bureau cover, pen cushion, etc. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... swelling crest And followed with acclaims, A cause of wonder in the West, And crowing by the Thames. For England, glorying in the sight, Greets Boy and Bird together; Whilst watching with serene delight That big, black, falling feather! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... picked up an eagle's feather in his walk; and he now pointed with it to the tiny cove in which Erlingsen's farm might be seen, looking no bigger than an infant's toy, and said, "Do you leave an enemy there, or ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... of gaudy feather to the trout "fly" he was making, before he answered. "Surely to goodness, they'll nivver be that! Sibbald Hallam, my uncle, was a varry thick Churchman when he went to th' Carolinas—but he married a foreigner; she had plenty o' brass, and acres o' land, but I never ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... and wrong and honor were likely to be of his own fashioning—one in whom it would be dangerous to trust too implicitly. Yet he was a striking and a handsome figure, and his dress gave him distinction. A scarlet feather was in his hat, and he wore a scarlet cloak which the weather had stained. A heavy knife was stuck in his belt, and it was obvious that his companions treated him ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... than among any of the inhabitants of Europe, for they powder not only their heads but their beards too. Their heads however were decorated with more showy ornaments, for I observed that most of them had, just above one ear, stuck a feather, which appeared to have been taken from the tail of the common dunghill cock; so that these gentlemen are not without poultry for their table. They were armed with spears, and long sticks or poles, like the quarter-staff; but we did not see any ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather! Down along the rocky shore Some make their home, They live on crispy pancakes Of yellow tide-foam; Some in the reeds Of the black mountain lake, With frogs for their ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... had journeyed far and wide and traversed many seas and deserts and was wont to relate wondrous tales of his travels. He was once cast upon an island, where he abode a long while and returning thence to his native country, brought with him the quill of the wing-feather of a young roe, whilst yet unhatched and in the egg; and this quill was big enough to hold a skinful of water, for it is said that the length of the young roe's wing, when it comes forth of the egg, is a thousand fathoms. The folk marvelled ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... with two rows of narrow black velvet; a pointed belt encircled her waist, and the body of her dress was a mass of puffs, with narrow black velvet between. On her head was a pink wreath, with long ribbon ends hanging down her back; and tied fast to her wrist was a pink feather fan with gold sticks. In fact, Miss Isabella looked rather as if she were going to a party than coming down to dinner; but the children thought the pink silk so charming, that she must wear it, whether ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... as she waved the big ostrich feather that served her as fan. "It's all very well in its way, but some men get stifled with their money-bags, just as Owen is. Their wealth is so great that its very heaviness presses out all their good qualities and ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... called for the defence, but nothing I had to say was of any good. I felt that; and being keen to serve March's interest if I could with truth, put such a strain on me to be careful of each word that you could have knocked me down with a feather after I was released. When my evidence was read over (they always do that to every witness before he leaves the court) it seemed to me I'd given the most rotten answers every time; but I couldn't have made them any better ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... little children are to be delivered and protected after their deliverance, and trained that if the Lord tarry and life's fierce battle has to be fought—and for them it may be very fierce—all that will be attempted against them shall fall harmless at their feet like arrows turned to feather-down; then some of us must be strong to meet the powers that will combat every inch of the field with us, and some of us must learn deeper things than we know yet about the ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... own. He had undertaken certain work at Belton which required his presence, and he would go down and do his work as though nothing had occurred to disturb him. To remain away because of this misfortune would be to show the white feather. It would be unmanly. All this he recognized as the pictures he had painted faded away from their canvases. As to Captain Aylmer himself, he hoped that he might never be called upon to meet him. He still hoped that, even as he was resolutely cramming his shirts into his portmanteau before ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... o'clock the following day, pretty well fagged by the sun by day, and a crowded cabin by night; lemon-juice and iced-water (without sugar) kept us alive. But for this delightful recipe, feather fans, and eau de Cologne, I think we should have failed altogether; the thermometer stood ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... horizontal bands of blue (top), red (triple width), and blue; the red band is edged in yellow; centered in the red band is a large black and white shield covering two spears and a staff decorated with feather tassels, ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... they never possessed or which have been secretly removed just before the fire. Usually they have a fraudulent set of books, too, to back up their claim; and we have to keep a close watch all the time for birds of that feather." ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... fitted to Destruction[a]. He intimately knows our Frame[b], and our Circumstances; he sees the Weakness of the unformed Mind; how forcibly the volatile Spirits are struck with a thousand new amusing Objects around it, and born away as a Feather before the Wind; and, on the other hand, how, when Distempers seize it, the feeble Powers are over-born in a Moment, and render'd incapable of any Degree of Application and Attention. And, Lord, wilt thou open thine Eyes on such a one, to bring it ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... dews upon my forehead light:— From off the oars, perchance, as feather'd spray, They drop, while some fair skiff bends on her way Across the ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... mingled with oatemeale, and this is all his good cheere, and he thinketh himselfe well, and daintily fedde therewith, and so sitteth downe by his fire, and vpon the hard ground, rosteth as it were his wearie sides thus daintily stuffed: the hard ground is his feather bed, and some blocke or stone his pillow: and as for his horse, he is as it were a chamberfellow with his master, faring both alike. How iustly may this barbarous, and rude Russe condemne the daintinesse and nicenesse ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... using the darker rays of sunlight which penetrate into shady parts of the pool. So it comes to pass that its cells divide the work. Those of the feathery threads make the food, while others, growing on short stalks on the shafts of the feather, make and ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... in a terrible manner at the burning of the Charity Bazaar in the Rue Jean Goujon, when the nerves of the luxurious gentlemen present, debilitated by close intimacy with the haute cocotterie in and out of society, betrayed them, and they displayed the white feather of vice by fighting their own way out, not only leaving the ladies to their fate, but actually beating them back with their sticks and trampling on them in their frantic efforts to save themselves, as many a bruised white arm or shoulder ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... three-fourths of the land has been burnt over since the white man came. The resultant loss of all forms of life may be imagined, especially when we remember that the fire often burns up the very soil itself, leaving nothing but rocks and black desolation. Still, there is plenty of fur and feather worth preserving. But nothing can save it unless conservation replaces ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... "Venice, Her Spirit," in the Pescaria; Miss Gould to lie down on her bed and recover from lunch; the curate to take the air and photographs for his magic lantern lectures to be delivered in the parish-room at home; and Mrs. Johnson to find a feather broom. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... air of great respect, by the shoulders, as he sat, shook him in cadence with the thumping of the drum. They then placed two girls close beside him, as his wives; while, at the same time, an old chief tied a painted feather in his hair. These proceedings so scandalized him, that, pretending to be ill, he broke off the ceremony; but they continued to sing all night with so much zeal, that several of them were reduced to a ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... Then this boy is of the outlaws of Sherwood?" Her thin lips parted over her white teeth in an evil doubt, as she asked her father: "How do you know that the arrow was winged with a peacock's feather? Did you see ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick |
