"Loon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of feeling awakened by any of the aquatic fowls is pre-eminently one of loneliness," says John Burroughs. "The Wood Duck (see July BIRDS) which you approach, starts from the pond or the marsh, the Loon neighing down out of the April sky, the Wild Goose, the Curlew, the Stork, the Bittern, the Sandpiper, etc., awaken quite a different train of emotions from those awakened by the land birds. They all have clinging to them some reminiscence ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... hear from home increased, until finally he learned from her brother, a soldier of the Eighteenth Ohio, that she was married. Strong, healthy, good-looking fellow that he was, this intelligence prostrated him completely, and made him crazy as a loon. He imagined that he was in hell, thought Dr. Seyes the devil, and so violent did he become that they had to ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... to your jests, you ill-favoured loon: I want no man's labour for nothing—there are some broad pieces to stop your mouth; and now, when saw ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... great flocks of Wild Geese coming down from the North, and they often rest on the mill pond; or a Loon may chance down the river, and ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... Terrill when he gets into a gang of highbinders, and goes into one of these rooms over here a ways. I waits a while for him, and then starts to look around a bit, and first I knows, I runs up against Porter here hunting for an ax, and crazy as a loon, saying as how you was murdered, and they had ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... far. The sun goes down. You build a fire and cook your meat, and then good tea and the tabac. It is ver' fine. You hear the loon crying on the water, or the last whistle of the heron up the pass. The lights in the sky come out and shine through a thin mist— there is nothing like that mist, it is so fine and soft. Allons. You are sleepy. You bless the good God. You stretch pine ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... anybody in but Hanner, and now he is dead she keeps that room shet up and locked, some say. I was at the funeral, and Grey, who was a boy, took on awful, and hung over the coffin ever so long. He was sick with fever after it, and everybody thought he'd die. He was crazy as a loon. I watched with him one night and he talked every thing you could think of, about a grave hid away somewhere—under his bed, he seemed to think—and made me go down on all fours to look for it. I suppose he was thinking of his grandfather ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... Philippa, dear, as we never could remember whether you were wedded under your maiden name or as Philippa Errand. Besides——' I was going to say that William, the White Groom (late the Sphynx), could show to her having been (as he once expressed it) as 'crazy as a loon,' but I remembered in time. William had, doubtless, long ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... what the Indian said to the missionary who had been talking to him of heaven. "Is it like the land of the musk-ox in summer, when the mist is on the lakes, and the loon cries very often?" These lakes are not charted, and the Indian heard the loon's call in his memory; but we could not better describe the delectable lands through which we have roamed. "When the mist is on the lakes and the ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... wonderful though, what men can do? You'll see; they'll be flying like birds, one of these days. That's what we little boys think, but we overhear old Nate Wells say to Tom Slaymaker, as we pass them: "Well, I d' know. I d' know 's these here b'loon ascensions is worth the money they cost the 'Sociation. I seen so many of 'em, they don't interest me nummore. 'Less, o' course, sumpun ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... which you may both hear and see on secluded lakes, is the loon or great northern diver. I first heard the wild cry of the loon, a lonesome and eerie sound, on Pine River Pond, a small lake in the foot-hills of the White Mountains. There I saw the great bird dive and disappear beneath the water ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... heavy trip-hammer at regular intervals, and it seemed possible that they were in the vicinity of a manufacturing town. There was a little light in the eastern horizon, and Puck suddenly exclaimed, "T'ere's anoder b'loon!" It was the full moon, instead, that rose majestically, and the fog seemed to be disappearing. Looking down, the professor thought he could see the land, and he allowed the balloon to slowly descend. By and by, they could all see that the ground was marked with white streaks and spots, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... cloudland or hang there, like frozen splashes, searching the Limberlost and the surrounding country for food. The boom of the bittern resounds all day, and above it the rasping scream of the blue heron, as he strikes terror to the hearts of frogdom; while the occasional cries of a lost loon, strayed from its flock in northern migration, fill the swamp with ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... our fight with Big Bear and his flight from Frenchman's Butte, where he had a strong and well-fortified position, Major Steele, with his mounted detachment, had made a rush to Loon Lake, where, in a rattling encounter during which Sergeant Fury was severely wounded, he completed the defeat of Big Bear. Two days or so afterwards our scouts crossed Gold Lake in birch canoes and secured ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... her lips to sing, Ripe red lips, soft sweet lips, Lips like the flower that the honey-bee sips, The birds in the grove were mute, The bittern forgot his toot, And the owl forbore his hoot, And the king-bird set his wing, And the woodpecker ceas'd his tap On the hollow beech, And the son of the loon on the neighbouring strand Gave over his idle screech, And fell to sleep in his ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of the grim old mountains that so stubbornly held their secret of what lay beyond, we had a good supper of trout and were happy, though through the gulch the creek roared defiance at us, and off in the night somewhere a loon would break out at intervals in derisive laughter. At the base of the mountains the narrow lake reflected a million stars, and in their kindly light the snow and ice patches on the slopes above us gleamed ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... again obeyed; but the tree replied, "It is the last time; I cannot get any higher." The waters continued to rise till they reached up to his chin, at which point they stood, and soon began to abate. Hope revived in his heart. He then cast his eyes around the illimitable expanse, and spied a loon. "Dive down, my brother," he said to him, "and fetch up some earth, so that I can make a new earth." The bird obeyed, but rose up to the surface a lifeless form. He then saw a muskrat. "Dive!" said he, ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... the names of places, which I confessed to the reader on an earlier page: Wayland—Patchin's Mills—Blood's Depot—Cohocton. And to north and south of our route were names such as Ossian, Stony Brook Glen, Loon Lake, Rough & Ready, Doly's Corners, and Neil Creek. I confess that there was a Perkinsville to go through—a beautiful spot, too, for which one felt that sort of aesthetic pity one feels for a beautiful girl married to a man, say, of the name ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... pay a thousand. We've had her better'n ten years—an' Mooney's crazy as a loon to ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... has had ought to die easier, Cinthy,' says I. 'It's pretty hard to have forty years' consumption, and then go off with a fever,' 'We can't question the Lord's doin's,' says Cinthy. But for all that, she wouldn't stay in the room to see him. He couldn't ketch his breath and he was as crazy as a loon. Lord, how he worried! All day, yesterday, he was a loadin' ship down to the shore. It would a' made your bones ache to hear him workin' so; and all night long he was a loadin', and a loadin.' Thinks I, won't there never be no end to this, for I felt ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... body of him shivered against the damp, cold shirt, which would come open in front because there was a button gone. The fog came in thicker and colder, and night with her strange noises moved slower and slower. There was an old loon out on the river, who would suddenly throw back his head and laugh for no reason at all. And once a great strange bird went rushing past, squeaking like a mouse; and once two bright eyes came, flashing out of the night and swung ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... like magic. "Jock, ye villain," exclaimed the voice from the interior, "are ye lying routing there, and a. young gentleman seeking the way to the Place? Get up, ye fause loon, [*Young fellow] and show him the way down the muckle loaning. —He'll show you the way, sir, and I'se warrant ye'll be weel put up; for they never turn awa naebody frae the door; and ye'll be come in the canny moment, I'm thinking, for the Laird's servant— ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... a guid enough thing at a pinch," said Maclachlan to Margaret, "guid enough to take a big loon like yon Donald ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Rae has given him a home here along with that first woman of Brother Tench's. The crazy loon has been bothering me all week to ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist Their halos, wavering thistledowns of light; The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright, Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... passed within a quarter of a mile but received a volley; not a loon that showed his distant head above water but went down under the fire of a platoon; and not a frightened duck darted overhead but heard the air behind him torn with whistling shot enough to have exterminated ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... William, Dance up and doon, Set to your partners, William, We'll play the tune! What! Wad ye stop the pipers? Nay, 'tis ower-soon! Dance, since ye're dancing, William, Dance, ye puir loon! Dance till ye're dizzy, William, Dance till ye swoon! Dance till ye're dead, my laddie! We play ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... walks out. The pigs didn't try to come in agin, you may depend, when they see'd me; they didn't like the curlin' tongs, as much as some folks do, and pigs' tails kinder curl naterally. But there was lawyer a-standin' up by the grove, lookin' as peeked and as forlorn, as an onmated loon. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... night rose late; and the air was chill as the sisters stood on a rock waiting until its rays should silver the placid waves. Overhead ran a strange, broad, coruscating band of magnetic light, meteors flashed down the sky, a solitary loon sent a wild, despairing cry athwart the lake, and for the first time did our travellers feel they were alone, eighteen hundred feet above the Hudson, far away from other human habitation. A truly feminine shudder ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... things. First, I passed through a beautiful country; the forest-trees were larger than any you have ever seen. Birds of all colors filled them, and their music was as loud as when our medicine men play for us to celebrate the scalp dance. The broad river was full of fish, and the loon screamed as she swam across the lakes. I had no difficulty in finding my way, for there was a road through this country. It seemed as if there must have been many travellers there, ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... round crazy as a loon, seeing three big lions with eyes like coals of fire stalking him night and day, and him always trying to dodge 'em. He says at last they came nearer and nearer until he stumbled and fell, and then he felt their hot breath on his cheek, and he knew nothing more until he finally realized that ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... from the ridge top, where some great bare pines stood in the moonlight. A loon called in its strange, unearthly note from the lakeshore. As Hawker turned the boat toward the dock, the flashing rays from the boat fell upon the head of the girl in the rear seat, and ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... Meshejemin, n. a currant, (fruit) Mahzahn, n. a thistle Mahjegooday, n. a petticoat Menekahnekah, adv. seedy Mejenahwayahdahkahmig, n. pity Mahmahdahwechegawenebun, it was a strange custom Menesenoo, n. a hero Mesquahsin, n. brick, which signifies, red stone Mesahowh, that is Moosay, n. a worm Moong, n. a loon Meene, n. a kind of fruit Mahjekewis, adj. the eldest Meskoodesemin, n. a bean Mategwahkezinekaid, n. a shoe-maker Menahwenahgowd, v. look pleasant Meneweyook, v. be fruitful Megeskun, n. a hook Mezesok, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... for a' it's sae auld. But there's mair than that in the love I ha' for Dunoon and all Scotland. The city's streets—aye, they're braw, whiles, and they've brocht me happiness and fun, and will again, I'm no dootin'. Still—oh, listen tae me whiles I speak o' the city and the glen! I'm a loon on that subject, ye'll be thinkin', maybe, but can I no mak' ye see, if ye're a city yin, hoo it is ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... make an extra long run and he paddled to Arkansas City without leaving the water, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles in thirty one hours, which was the longest continuous run he ever made up to that time. That night on the lonesome stretches of the river, he frequently started a loon from its resting place and it would fly off into the darkness with a wild, unearthly shriek, so ghostly in its echoing cadences that with a nervous start, Paul would glance around for that "dead man in ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... thee, while I live!" said Bjoern; "thou art a landless loon, a brawler, and an outlaw. Get thee ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... I didn't know yo' war dar!" gasped Jethro, dropping like a loon beneath the surface just in time ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... big German at last, "why your comrades call you 'the General.' You are right. You shall take whom you like, und if I say you are crazy as a loon, it makes ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... at Washington ain't goin' to be tickled pink when he gets the news an' knows we've grabbed Oswald by the heels with evidence aplenty to send him to Atlanta for a term o' years. This night flight promises to be the happiest ever for the pair o' us. I know I'm actin' like a loon, partner, but I jest can't help it—such bully occasions are too few an' far between in our line. An' now I wonder where we'll be sent for the next big ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... a e-a. To dive and then come up to take breath, as one does in swimming out to sea against the incoming breakers, or as one might do in escaping from a pursuer, or in avoiding detection, after the manner of a loon.] ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... desperation, as he strove to master an almost overwhelming impulse to turn and fly from the spot. "Crazy as a loon," thought the boy, with a shudder, "and I've got to take him clear to Fort Norman, alone!" "I'm a stump, I'm a stump," chanted the man, shrilly, and the boy saw that he had come to a rigid stand close ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... evening in October and the Winnebagos were having their Work Meeting at the Bradford house, as the guests of Dorothy Bradford, or "Hinpoha," as she was known in the Winnebago circle. Here were all the girls we left standing on the boat dock at Loon Lake, looking just the same as when we saw them last, a trifle less sunburned perhaps, but just as full of life and spirit. Scissors, needles and crochet hooks flew fast as the seven girls and their Guardian sat around the cheerful wood fire in the library. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... loon, Johnson!" And he was chewing his lip red. "I know, because it was me that found the old man laying on Back Water Flats yesterday morning—me! And she'd been with him in the boat, too, because he had a piece of her jacket tore off, tangled ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... pointing with his arrows at the blue, Clos'd wigwam curtains of the sleeping moon, Laugh'd with the noise of arching cataracts, And with the dove-like cooing of the woods, And with the shrill cry of the diving loon And with the wash of saltless, rounded seas, And mock'd the white moon of the Falling Leaves. "Esa! esa! shame upon you, Pale Face! "Shame upon you, moon of evil witches! "Have you kill'd the happy, laughing Summer? "Have you slain the mother of the Flowers "With your ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... a wild and lonely ride. Save the hid loon's mocking cry, Or marmot on the mountain side, The earth was silent as the sky. 1761 HAMLIN ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... was of Beaucaire, And abode in castle fair. None can move him to forget Dainty-fashioned Nicolette Whom his sire to him denies; And his mother sternly cries: "Out on thee! what wilt thou, loon? Nicolette is blithe and boon? Castaway from Carthage she! Bought of Paynim compayne! If with woman thou wilt mate, Take thee wife of high estate!" "Mother, I can else do ne'er! Nicolette is debonair; Her lithe form, her face, her bloom, Do the heart of ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... private buffoon is a light-hearted loon, If you listen to popular rumour; From morning to night he's so joyous and bright, And he bubbles with wit and good humour! He's so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse; Yet though people forgive ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... for more Buffalo. I had a presentiment that they would find none, so kept the camera and went off to the Lake a mile west, and there made drawings of some tracks, took photos, etc., and on the lake saw about twenty-five pairs of ducks, identified Whitewinged Scoter, Pintail, Green-winged Teal, and Loon. I also watched the manoeuvres of a courting Peetweet. He approached the only lady with his feathers up and his wings raised; she paid no heed (apparently), but I noticed that when he flew away she followed. I saw a large garter snake striped black and green, and with 2 rows ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... not at home; Anther had payd his gold away; Another call'd him thriftless loon, And bade him sharply ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... prating, loon, but tell me who he was, That I may brain the villain with my staff, That seeks Sir Walter's life! You miserable men, With minds more slavish than your slave's estate, Have you that noble bounty so forgot, Which ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Vere is Dutch of origin. For he will have it a weir to catch fish, when all the world doth know that Veritas is Latin for truth, and Vere cometh of that, or else of vir, as though it should say, one that is verily a man, and no base coward loon. And 'tis all foolishness for to say, as doth Mynheer, that the old Romans had no surnames like ours, but only the name of the family, such like as Cornelius or Julius, which ran more akin unto our Christian names. ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... what I am, ye loon; and every morning, when I say my prayers, I thank God for not being an Englishman. The Scotch are a much better and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the Snake Bird is the most wonderful of all the Ducks. Like the Loon it can disappear instantly and noiselessly, swim a long distance and reappear almost in an opposite direction to that in which naturally it would be supposed to go. And the ease with which, when alarmed, it will drop from ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... sub vert' re move' as sert' in ert' su perb' a do' a ver' in fer' ab surd' a loof' a vert' in sert' re cur' bal loon' con cern' in vert' de mur' buf foon' per vert' pre fer' dis turb' hal loo' a vail' re claim' dis play" be fall' a wait' ab stain' en tail' re call' de cay' ac quaint' ob tain' en thrall' de claim' af fray' con tain' ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... roof poor root toot loop loon soon food hoot boor rood noon coop hoop hoof coon loom loose moor boon sloop proof stoop troop stool spool boost noose sooth room boom croon moon mood roost shoot broom doom goose scoop tooth bloom brood gloom groom swoop swoon spoon moose ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... wounded, some men will look on a mortal wound, feel his life ebbing away, perfectly calm and without concern, and give his dying messages with the composure of an every day occurrence; while others, if the tip of the finger is touched, or his shin-bone grazed, will "yell like a hyena or holler like a loon," and raise such a rumpus as to alarm the whole army. I saw a man running out of battle once (an officer) at such a gait as only fright could give, and when I asked him if he was wounded, he replied, "Yes, my leg is broken in two places," when, as a matter of fact, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... meet a frind on th' sthreet an' he says: 'Come on over an see Harrigan jump off.' So whin th' la-ad is r-ready f'r to go out ivry body gathers in his room. 'Tis a fash'nable ivint, like th' Horse Show. Among those prisint is his mother. She's a frivolous ol' loon, this Marie Louisa, that was Napolyon's sicond wife, though between you an' me, Father Kelly has niver reconized her as such, th' Impror havin' a wife livin' that was as tough as they make thim. But annyhow she was there. She hadn't done much f'r her son, but she come to see him ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... along at a pretty good jog, when we heard some body hallooing after us, and we held up. Looking around, we saw a man running down from the house standing upon the side-hill, a little away from the road. May be you remember the house up there? Well, he was hallooing like a loon, and we waited till he came up. Soon as he got near enough to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and ill-mannered loon," Cuthbert said angrily. "Were you in any other presence I would chastise you as ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... "ow aye, there are waur things than hare soup and rabbit pie. Marget" (his wife) "is a great hand at the pie. Ye maun come ower some day and taste—you and your guidman. I will send ye word by that daft loon Davie." ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... keckling loon! Whaur's yer een for the tickit gillie?" The old paymaster jabbed indignant thumb over his shoulder to indicate the big clock on ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... loon flew over the hut, and, seeing the poor blind boy at the door, resolved to restore his eyesight. The bird perched on the roof and kept calling, "Quee moo! Quee moo!" which sounded to the lad like "Come here! ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... much; first to be cheated by a swindling loon, and then made game of by a flunkie; and, in my desperation, I determined to do some ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... pass that way. Another moment and they might have become curious about the stranger sitting at the hearth, when the woman hastily turned round, and struck him on the shoulder with the huge spoon she held in her hand. 'Lazy loon!' she cried. 'Have you no work to do? Off with you at once and see to your threshing.' The Danes only saw before them a common Swedish servant bullied by his mistress, and it never entered their heads to ask any questions; so ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... exposure to the sun and air, caused her at length to fall asleep. The last rosy light of the setting sun was dyeing the waters with a glowing tint when she awoke; a soft blue haze hung upon the trees; the kingfisher and dragon-fly, and a solitary loon, were the only busy things abroad on the river,—the first darting up and down from an upturned root, near the water's edge, feeding its younglings; the dragon-fly hawking with rapid whirring sound for insects; and the ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... fellow is mad!" said Lynde to himself, "as mad as a loon; everybody here is mad, or I've lost my senses. So you are building a marble ship?" he added aloud, good-naturedly. "When it is finished I trust you will get all the inhabitants of this town into it, and put to sea ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... clean. The tables, chairs, and benches were all homemade. On the floor were magnificent skins of wolf, bear, musk ox, and mountain goat. The walls were decorated with heads and horns of deer and mountain sheep, eagle's wings, and a beautiful breast of a loon, which Gwen had shot and of which she was very proud. At one end of the room a huge stone fireplace stood radiant in its summer decorations of ferns and grasses and wildflowers. At the other end a door opened into another room, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... strange lands. She said: 'Go and slay my enemies.' Tarhe went forth in his war paint and killed the braves who named her Smiling Moon. He came again to her and she said: 'Run swifter than the deer, be more cunning than the beaver, dive deeper than the loon.' ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... old loon, but mighty good-hearted," he said, "and I swear I don't know what we'd have done sometimes without him—especially Charley. She's going to be all broken up over this. I'll tell her, then I'll come down and ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... Shakespeare had more guts than all these damned frogs put together. 'Hang there like fruit my soul,'" he began quoting, in a musical rhetorical voice, flourishing his wine-glass. "The devil damn you black, you cream-faced loon!" he exclaimed as the wine washed over ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... his right mind when the Whipples offered, in so many words, to set him up in any business he wanted to name, and pay all expenses, and he spurned 'em like so much dirt beneath his heel. Acted like a crazy loon is what I say, and this Jack-of-all-trades is showing the strain. Mark my words, they'll both end their days ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... that sent the spray flying in every direction, and that might have been heard three-quarters of a mile away. His wife heard it, and paused in her work of felling a tree; the children heard it, and the neighbors heard it; and they all knew it meant business. The Beaver dived like a loon and swam for dear life, and he did not come to the surface again till he had reached the farther end of the pond and was out of sight behind a grassy point. There he stayed, now and then striking the water with his tail as a signal ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow today. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a 'prentice as I wunst had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor soul, he bin underground this many year. Well, as I were sayin', this 'prentice o' mine were allers bein' baited by the boys o' the grammar school. I done my best for him, spoke them boys fair an' soft, but, bless ya, 'twas no good; they baited him worse'n ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... received.[99] The Dutch minister, whose Christian name was Joshua, however, had a medal struck of Joshua stopping the sun in his course, inferring that this miracle was operated by his little republic. The medal itself is engraven in Van Loon's voluminous Histoire Medallique du Pays Bas, and in Marchand's Dictionnaire Historique, who labours to prove against twenty authors that the Dutch ambassador was not the inventor; it was not, however, unworthy of him, and it conveyed ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... strong, rough hand pass gently over his curls. "When she comes Ah'll send ye word by yon loon o' a weaver. It'll give him somethin' to do, an' the buddie's jist fair in want ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... "Assuredly the loon has lied unto you. Rejoiced should I be to see the unhappy youth, and to know that he yet lived. I but hold this place, faithful to his lord and mine, Edwy, King of ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... semi-savage, wandering about the gun-deck in his barbaric robe, seemed a being from some other sphere. His tastes were our abominations: ours his. Our creed he rejected: his we. We thought him a loon: he fancied us fools. Had the case been reversed; had we been Polynesians and he an American, our mutual opinion of each other would still have remained the same. A fact proving that neither was wrong, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... "You're crazy as a loon!" he confided cordially. "Great Scott! If you can work up a condition like this on coffee,—what would you do on," he hesitated grimly, "malted milk?" As unheralded as his amusement, gross irritability overtook ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... otter, stealing by thy moon, Through the fluttered heron, hears the cry of the loon; Motionless the setter in thy dawnlight gray Shows the happy hidden cove where ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... workin' there this week. So it disna belong tae neen o' the gair'ners, if it's there ye fund't," repeated Malcolm. "There's been nae work deen on that bed for the last fortnicht or mair. I was thinkin' o' sendin' a loon ower't wie a hoe in a day or twa. Ye see, wie the murrder it's been impossible tae get ony work done; apairt fay that we've been busy wie the fruit and ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... wrote rapidly. He had hardly touched the paper with the point of his twig when a low, wild peal of laughter broke out at a measureless distance away, and growing ever louder, seemed approaching ever nearer; a soulless, heartless, and unjoyous laugh, like that of the loon, solitary by the lakeside at midnight; a laugh which culminated in an unearthly shout close at hand, then died away by slow gradations, as if the accursed being that uttered it had withdrawn over the verge of the world ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... amused themselves by racing close to the shore, he swam ahead of them, but no further out. Rounding a wooded point that jutted out into the lake, he found, to his surprise, that he was facing Loon Island. He had no idea that he had come so far. The boys were not in sight, but their shouts and laughter assured him that they were all right, obeying his instructions; so he struck out toward the little island. A few vigorous strokes brought him to the shore—-he could almost have waded ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... foolish ways and words. I know what they all think; but I'll none of him! He had better try for Kezzie, who would jump down his throat as soon as look at him. She fair rails on me for not treating him well. Let her take him herself, the loutish loon!" ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... heart gone sour with jealousy, To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning.— Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had No notion how, and flung the clay aside.— O they were gaudy colours both! But now Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank, Fear of a loon that cried, End ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... his money, Mistress Dobie says, ye'd niver wish to see," was his estimate of the newcomer. "He was treatin' the fellows wi' drams a' roond, the nicht he cam'; he wes sae glad to be bock i' the auld place. He wes a loon o' fafteen when him an' his farther went an' to mak' their fortune in Ameriky, ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... bullets danced before them as they swept over the surface. All around the homeless shores the evergreen trees seemed to hunch their backs and crowd closer together in patient misery. Not a bird had the heart to sing; only the loon—storm-lover—laughed his crazy challenge to the elements, and mocked us with ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... defense of his son, but was silent in satisfaction at his wife's explanation: "'Lias ain't bad; he jes' ca'less. Sometimes he stays at home, but right sma't o' de time he stays down at"—she looked at her husband and hesitated—"at de colo'ed s'loon. We don't lak dat. It ain't no fitten place fu' him. But 'Lias ain't bad, he jes' ca'less, an' me an' de ol' man we 'membahs him in ouah pra'ahs, an' I jes' t'ought I'd ax you to 'membah him too, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... food," demanded Hazel. "It is of that we sing. Food, food! Isn't it good; a girl is a loon who can't eat what she could," sang Hazel, with more mirth ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... berried bushes; the scolding of the kingfisher as he gadded from one riven tree to another; the goblin laughter [Footnote: I borrow this most expressive phrase from my friend, Prof. Roberts, as vividly descriptive of the cry of the loon. John Burroughs applies the epithet "whinny," which is good; but it misses the sense of supernatural terror with which, to me, the cry of this bird in the moonlight is always associated.] of the stately loon, as he held his way across the wide stretch ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... This advantage, however, appears to have been counterbalanced partly by the strong family interests which made a kind of aristocracy among Scotch lawyers, and partly by the influence of politics and of Government patronage. Jeffrey was, comparatively speaking, a "kinless loon"; and, while he was steadily resolved not to put himself forward as a candidate for the Tory manna of which Dundas was the Moses, his filial reverence long prevented him from declaring himself a very violent Whig. Indeed, he gave an instance of this reverence ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... discovery of the South Pole. A book to be owned by older boys and girls who like true tales of adventure. "A Short History of Discovery From the Earliest Times to the Founding of the Colonies on the American Continent," written and done into colour by Hendrik Willem van Loon. ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... Paulina Karpovna's voice from the hall, "I am always grateful to you, but I do not wish to meet such a loon. If my husband were alive, no ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... and glitter, and the wild duck flutters Where beds of lilies blow: A loon his long, weird lamentation utters, And Echo ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... business isn't at the bottom of the matter at all," continued Dixon. "That proclamation in the post-office suggested an idea to some loon, who told Goble that this school needs looking after. I don't pretend to deny it. I say that every disunionist in it ought to be chucked out of the gate neck and heels; but it will take more men than that Committee of Safety and their paid spies ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... well go to live on the poor-farm! Aaron Boynton was a disrep'table hound; Lois Boynton is as crazy as a loon; the boy is a no-body's child, an' Ivory's no better than ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "Silly loon," said the queen, "I tell you I cannot! Choose something else, John; and I conjure you, dear John, give me ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... that sells his conscience and his vote.' — He discharged a third sarcasm at a person very gaily dressed, who had risen from small beginnings, and made a considerable fortune at play. — Filling his glass, and calling him by name, 'Lang life (said he), to the wylie loon that gangs a-field with a toom poke at his lunzie, and comes hame with a sackful of siller.' — All these toasts being received with loud bursts of applause, Mr Fraser called for pint glasses, and ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... went on to say that he knew beyond a doubt that the sensational account of Lincoln's insanity was untrue, and he quoted from the House journal to show how it was impossible that, as Lamon says, using Herndon's notes, "Lincoln went crazy as a loon, and did not attend the legislature in 1841-1842, for this reason;" or, as Herndon says, that he had to be watched constantly. According to the record taken from the journals of the House sent us by Mr. Thornton, and which ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... in arms the Moon? I counsel thee, from soul cast out the wish that dwells therein, * And cut that short which threatens thee with sore risk oversoon: An to such talk thou dare return, I bid thee to expect * Fro' me such awful penalty as suiteth froward loon: I swear by Him who moulded man from gout of clotted blood,[FN34] * Who lit the Sun to shine by day and lit for night the moon, An thou return to mention that thou spakest in thy pride, * Upon a cross of tree for ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... had prophesied truly. Heralded by that long cry of the loon, the dawn began to reveal itself in clearness of perspective and a certain indefinable stir in the still, shrouded spaces of the woods. Details began to appear where heretofore all had been mass. Pearl tints proclaimed the east, and presently ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... doog-win Nin dinaindoon—" "Loon's wing I thought it was In the distance shining. But it was my lover's paddle In the ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... loon is found in all the Northern States. It is a very awkward bird on land, but a graceful and rapid swimmer. It is a remarkable diver, and it is thought that no other feathered creature can dive so far beneath the ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... which they are ordinarily unknown. These birds have become exhausted during the storm of the night before, or have been injured by striking telephone or telegraph wires, an accident which often happens. Once I picked up a Loon after a stormy night. Apparently it had recovered its strength after a few hours' rest, but, as this bird can rise on the wing only from a body of water, over the surface of which it can paddle and flap for many rods, and as {78} there was ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... upon the shore, but did not exhibit any alarm when she saw the two young men. The ordinary young woman of the Shell People did not worry when away from land. She could swim like an otter and dive like a loon, and of wild beasts she had no fear when she was thus safely bestowed away from the death-harboring forest. The maiden on the rock ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... "Base loon!" cried the stranger, starting to his feet, "ye shall rue that blow." And he flung off his bonnet as ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... ain't gone in the s'loon. I tells the lady on our floor that my papa likes that she should lend her can und she says, 'He's welcome, all right.' Und I gives the can on a man what stands by the s'loon, und I says: 'My papa he has a sickness, und beer is healthy for him. On'y ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... while; and the balloons were wafted gently away, our little friend solemnly protesting, long after they were reduced to mere specks in the air, that he could still distinguish the white hat of Mr. Green. The gardens disgorged their multitudes, boys ran up and down screaming 'bal-loon;' and in all the crowded thoroughfares people rushed out of their shops into the middle of the road, and having stared up in the air at two little black objects till they almost dislocated their necks, walked slowly ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... trading loon Wad gar the water ca' his wheel, And drift his dyes and poisons doun ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... with them, and she was the wife of the tyhee (chief) giving the feast. The medicine man had a large bird with white breast, called the loon. While dancing he picked the white feathers and scattered them on the heads of the others. The other squaws were sitting on the ground in long rows in front of the canoes reaching to the water's edge, about ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... I had the loon that did it, Sworn I have as well as said it, Though a' the warld should forbid it, I wad gie his neck a thra': I never met wi' sic a turn As this sin' ever I was born, My Ewie, wi' the crookit horn, Silly Ewie, stown awa'; My Ewie wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various |
