"Nest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, occasionally, that business was rather dull, but his wife loved the old home, the children were comfortable and happy, and he himself, he thought, was getting rather old to start out on any new venture elsewhere; so Yorkbury seemed likely to be the family nest for life. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... remembered that he has always left one important fortress untaken behind him. That man's life does not surely read well whose benevolence has found no central home. It may have sent forth rays in various directions, but there should have been a warm focus of love—that home-nest which is formed round a good mans ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... related to Aubrey, we find this virtue mentioned: 'Sir Bennet Hoskins told me that his keeper at his parke at Morehampton, in Herefordshire, did for experiment's sake drive an iron naile thwart the hole of a woodpecker's nest, there being a tradition that the dam will bring some leafe to open it. He layed at the bottom of the tree a cleane sheet, and before many houres passed, the naile came out, and he found a leafe lying by it on the sheete. They say the Moonwort will ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... when I had no gold; Though then I wanted, yet I slept secure; My daily toil begat me night's repose, My night's repose made daylight fresh to me. But since I climbed the top bough of the tree And sought to build my nest among the clouds, Each gentle starry gale doth shake my bed, And makes me dread my downfall to the earth. But whither doth contemplation carry me? The way I seek to find, where pleasure dwells, Is hedged behind me that I cannot back, But needs ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... follow along, we'll be able to track them to their nest," George suggested, "and, still, I don't care about getting very far away from the shaft. We might get lost in these ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... Fernande was puffing in a Scotch plaid dress, of which her companions had laced the bodice as tight as they could, forcing up her full bust, that was continually heaving up and down. Raphaele, with a bonnet covered with feathers, so that it looked like a bird's nest, had on a lilac dress with gold spots on it, and there was something Oriental about it that suited her Jewish face. Rosa had on a pink skirt with largo flounces, and looked like a very fat child, an obese dwarf; while the two Pumps looked as if they had cut ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... laughed the giant, "that is a good joke! I'll pitch you into that raven's nest up there to teach you to make less ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... the cabin all had been what sailor's term "a hurrah's nest" ever since the gale began, the loose water knocking about the decks having washed all sorts of odds and ends together and kept us always wet; while the rolling of the vessel from side to side, like a pendulum, as she ran before the wind had smashed most ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... his complex political plans. As to the Alcalde—here was a possibility of another sort. That fellow might become useful. He should be cultivated. And at the same time warned against precipitate action, lest he scatter Rosendo's family into flight, and the graceful bird now dwelling in the rude nest escape the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... three hens sitting on their nests full of eggs, and she was counting the days until the three weeks of incubation should expire, and the little chicks break their shells. One of the hens proved a fickle biddy, and left her nest, much to the child's anger and disgust. But the others were faithful, and one morning Winnie came bounding in, saying she had heard the first "peep." I told her to be patient and leave the brood until the following ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... You must come down to the shore, and we will show you a clam's nest," she said, remembering that only yesterday she had discovered the nest of a kingfisher in an oak tree whose branches nearly touched the shore, and could point this out to ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... is called by the especial name of Thrace; its chief cities are Philippopolis, the ancient Eumolpias, and Beraea; both splendid cities. Next to this the province of the Balkan boasts of Hadrianople, which used to be called Uscudama, and Anchialos, both great cities. Nest comes Mysia, in which is Marcianopolis, so named from the sister of the emperor Trajan, also Dorostorus, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... Glencoe men and put them to the edge of the sword, the act would probably not have wanted apologists, and most certainly would not have wanted precedents. But the Master of Stair had strongly recommended a different mode of proceeding. If the least alarm were given, the nest of robbers would be found empty; and to hunt them down in so wild a region would, even with all the help that Breadalbane and Argyle could give, be a long and difficult business. "Better," he wrote, "not meddle ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... exceptions the violent and evil misgovernment of these turbulent princelings was a scandal to all Italy. They ruled by rapine and murder, and rendered Romagna little better than a nest of brigands. Their state of secession from the Holy See arose largely out of the nepotism practised by the last Popes—a nepotism writers are too prone to overlook when charging Alexander with the same abuse. Such Popes as Sixtus IV and Innocent ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Virginia and Maryland, against "scandalous imputation," entitled "Leah and Rachel; or, The Two Fruitful Sisters," by Mr John Hammond, London, considers the charges that Virginia "is an unhealthy place, a nest of rogues, abandoned women, dissolut and rookery persons; a place of intolerable labour, bad usage and hard diet"; and admits that "at the first settling, and for many years after, it deserved most of these aspersions, ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger
... for ever so long; ever since we went to the brick school together when we were girl and boy. And when I was a child my stepmother brought me over here once on an errand and Ivory showed me a humming-bird's nest in that lilac bush ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... taken place since the day on which destiny had torn the husband and wife from each other. Cora full of fresh young life joined in the conversation every instant, telling her father how they used to get the eggs of the sea birds and the honey from the wild bees' nest, and how they caught the sea perch from off the rocks, and how she found a jar of gold coins near the Vikings' tomb, which her mama said were pesos, and all about the fibula which she found ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... disdaining death, smiled in return and stooped over to look into the depths of that unspeakable box. Instead of starting back in alarm, she uttered a shrill little cry of delight, and dropping to her knees plunged both hands into the nest of wriggling horrors! ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... faithful servant has, very seasonably, arrived with packs and porte-manteaux. The garments in which you intended to make yourself brave for wedding-ceremonials at home, he has brought here to the house. A little dove no doubt directed him to the nest where his master slept. Come with me therefore to your chamber. Fitting it is we both attire ourselves splendidly, when a splendid deed is to be dared!" Walther without question places his hand, as if it held his whole confidence, in Sachs's. ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... most natural consultations of the newly married couple is the plan of their first house. How chatty and cheery a pair of newly mated birds appear, in counsel over their nest-building! This schoolmaster and mistress are home from their toil and care for the day, and are again devoting an evening to the scheme of their first dwelling. It is not a large or magnificent concern, but it has already been neatly draughted, carefully ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... then fill them with blanc-mange and set in a pan of sugar or flour, the open end up; place them in a cool place till hard; boil 1 pound sugar to a crack and spin it into quite long threads (see Spinning Sugar); with these threads form a nest a little smaller than the dish it is to be served in; dip each egg into warm water, wipe dry, break shells from about the blanc-mange and lay the artificial eggs in the nest. Another way is to make 1-1/2 quarts orange or wine jelly; cut the rind of 3 oranges into ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... too much with us, small and great: We are undone of chatter and on dit, Report, retort, rejoinder, repartee, Mole-hill and mare's nest, fiction up-to-date, Babble of booklets, bicker of debate, Aspect of A., and attitude of B.— A waste of words that drive us like a sea, Mere derelict ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... mostly by basket traps, but they are not experts either in this or in canoe management. Their chief sea- shore sport is hunting for the eggs of the turtles who lay in the sand from August to October. These eggs—about 200 in each nest— are about the size of a billiard-ball, with a leathery envelope, and are much valued for food, as are also the grubs of certain beetles got from the stems of the palm-trees, and the honey of the wild bees which ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... "war meeting" in the town-hall, over which Boone presided, one thrilling orator hinted that fire, if not the law, could "relieve a loyal community of the Copperhead's nest!" "It was an insult, as well as a menace, to have the patrician palace of disloyalty flaunting its grandeurs among a people loyal and devoted, whose sons and brothers were battling for the Union. Every rebel sympathizer driven from the North would strengthen the Union cause; ashes and salt sowed ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... pour remonter les batteaux, machines pour—a great many things which you would like to see I am sure over my father's shoulder. And my aunt would like to see the new staircase, and to see a kitcat view of a robin redbreast sitting on her nest in a sawpit, discovered by Lovell, and you would both like to pick Emmeline's fine strawberries round the crowded oval table after dinner, and to see my mother look so much better in ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in the battle of Northampton against the king. The king, coming to assault the town, "espied amongst his enemies' ensigns on the wall the ensign of the Abbey of Peterburgh, whereat he was so angry that he vowed to destroy the nest of such ill birds. But the town of Northampton being reduced, Abbot Robert, by mediation of friends to the king, saved both himself and church, but was forced to pay for his delinquency, to the king 300 marks, to the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... the day before were dropping their petals on the marble embroidery of the floor, pale camellias floated in the alabaster tazzas between the windows, haunting scents of the garden blew in on him with the breeze from the lake. Never had Streffy's little house seemed so like a nest of pleasures. Lansing laid the cigar boxes on a console and ran upstairs to collect his last possessions. When he came down again, his wife, her eyes brilliant with achievement, was seated in their borrowed chariot, the luggage cleverly stowed away, and Giulietta ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... thousand bending blades stoop to let me pass, When I sped barefooted through your crowding lines— Whisper to me gently in the language of the grass, How I watched the crows of night nest ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... absolute proofs of England's perfidious intentions of attacking the Orange Free State unawares, whilst all the time professing friendly relations and undertaking to respect the complete integrity of the Republican status of both States. What actually has transpired is that the whole thing was a mare's nest, simply and nothing more than military information under cover marked "secret," giving topographical and other details upon the Orange Free State—a proceeding which is carried out by all military authorities of any ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... legate," writes Lea, "were alike unequal to the task of discovering those who carefully shrouded themselves under the cloak of the most orthodox observance; and when by chance a nest of heretics was brought to light, the learning and skill of the average Ordinary failed to elicit a confession from those who professed the most entire accord with the teachings of Rome. In the absence of overt acts, it was difficult to reach the ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... level with the Ryukyu Islands on a gusty, glary day when the lookout's long-drawn-out cry floated down from the crow's-nest to those sailors who were engaged in a mock fight ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... been waiting three long years for his return, still firmly believes his promise, to come back when the robin-redbreast should build its nest. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... could not be put in execution but by a military force; to which Lord North answered, "I shall not hesitate to enforce a due obedience to the laws of this country." Another added, "You will never meet with proper obedience until you have destroyed that nest of locusts." Lord George Germain, speaking of revoking the Massachusetts charter, said, "Whoever wishes to preserve such charters, I wish him no worse than to govern such subjects." The act passed both houses without ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like wild birds, he had chosen this desert place to construct his nest. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... story, trumped up story, trumped up statement; thing devised by the enemy; canard; shave, sell, hum, traveler's tale, Canterbury tale, cock and bull story, fairy tale, fake; claptrap. press agent's yarn; puff, puffery (exaggeration) 549. myth, moonshine, bosh, all my eye and Betty Martin, mare's nest, farce. irony; half truth, white lie, pious fraud; mental reservation &c (concealment) 528. pretense, pretext; false plea &c 617; subterfuge, evasion, shift, shuffle, make-believe; sham &c (deception) 545. profession, empty words; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... onward and onward to the remorseless London! Rise up, rise up, O solitary tree with the green leaves on thy bough, and the deep rents in thy heart; and the ravens, dark birds of omen and sorrow, that build their nest amidst the leaves of the bough, and drop with noiseless plumes down through the hollow rents of the heart, or are heard, it may be in the growing shadows of twilight, calling ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Helen, recovering, in some measure, from her consternation, though her color came and went like the beacon's revolving flame. "I cannot see you at this unseasonable hour. There is a sick, a very sick person in the nest room with whom I am watching. I cannot ask you to come in. Besides," she added, with a dignity that enchanted the bold intruder, "if I cannot see you in my father's house, it is not proper that I see you at all." She drew back quickly, uttering a hasty "Good-night," and ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... and springtide sweet, Which evermore I long to see, bring back; Dislodge the snows and ice with genial hear; And clear my mind, so clouded o'er and black." As Philomel, or Progne, with the meat Returning, which her famished younglings lack, Mourns o'er an empty nest, or as the dove Laments himself at having ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... up all night at cards; why, then, sacrifice your health, comfort, purse, ease, everything, to the customs of a country, where your stay cannot be long? I would not, my Lord, reside in this country for all Sicily. I trust the war will soon be over, and deliver us from a nest of everything that is infamous, and that we may enjoy the smiles of our countrywomen. Your Lordship is a stranger to half that happens, or the talk it occasions; if you knew what your friends feel for you, I am sure you would cut ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... till the foot was released. He had landed upon a carpet of leaves which concealed a number of sharpened bamboo stakes bedded deep in the ground, point upward. Raking out the leaves with a stick, he uncovered a nest of sixteen spearheads smeared with ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... you feel like saying, "He is a genius," and at another, "He is a fool." You are mistaken in either case: he is a child; he is an eaglet that one moment beats the air with its wings, and the next moment falls back into the nest. ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... had picked up a gay feather that had floated down from a scarlet bird that sang in the tree-tops, and tore off silk from a cocoon. So, bit by bit, they gathered their treasures, until many a woodland and meadow creature and plant had had a share in the softness of a nest worthy of eight dear white eggs with reddish-brown spots upon them. It was such a soft nest, in fact, with such dear eggs in it, that Chick brooded there cosily himself part of the time, and was happy to bring food to his mate when she took ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... in fer stirrin' up no hornets' nest," went on the homeless youth. "I jess like ter lay around an' take it ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... supper was ready, the knaves numbered six in all; and, as they were armed to a man with huge Spanish knives, and made it clear that they resented my presence in their dull rustic fashion—every rustic is suspicious—I began to think that, unwittingly, I had put my head into a wasps' nest. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... wounded ground; And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darkened vest Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest: Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host, Here the bold peasant stormed the Dragon's nest; Still does he mark it with triumphant boast, And points to yonder cliffs, which oft ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... and I had rather be in a nest of rooks. I wonder if I shall be expected to ask my ploughmen to dinner! Every second man is a cousin, and the rest ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... or at least the next to the humblest, London house has some leafy breathing-place behind it where the birds may nest and sing, and our lodging in the street which was almost Belgravian was not without its tree and its feathered inmates. When the first really warm days came (and they came at the time appointed by the poets), the feathered hostess ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Adam and Milly. Should Milly come with them, or should they build a small house on the end of the farm nearest her mother? Adam did not care, so he married Milly speedily. Kate could not make up her mind. Milly had the inclination of a bird for a personal and private nest of her own. So spring came ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... think of leaping over it would have been preposterous. All retreat being cut off, M. Moriaz began to regret his audacity. Seized by a sudden agony of alarm, he began to ask himself if he was not condemned to end his days in this eagle's-nest; he thought with envy of the felicity of the inhabitants of the plains; he cast piteous glances at the implacable wall whose frowning visage seemed to reproach him with his imprudence. It seemed to him that the human mind never had devised anything ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... smoothed a coasting course down the hillside to the lake not a quarter of a mile from the Overlook. There was a nest of toboggans in one of the outhouses. Tobogganing afforded the nine young ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... the departure of the mail, the opinion prevalent was, the birds would be frozen to death. We were mistaken; for, in about one hundred and twenty hours, one of these birds, as verified by the lady to whom it had originally belonged, reached her house, and flew to the nest in which it had been hatched in the pigeon-house. It had, however, by some means or other, shaken itself clear of the packet entrusted to its charge. This marvellous flight of three thousand miles is the longest on record; but, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... finds a gable Where it may build its nest, The oxen know a stable For shelter, food and rest; Must then my Lord and Savior A homeless stranger be, Denied the simplest ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... I seldom met with a hut, but at the mouth of it was found an ant's nest, the dwelling of a tribe of insects about an inch in length, armed with a pair of forceps and a sting, which they applied, as many found to their cost, with a severity equal to a wound made by a knife. We conjectured, that these vermin ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... not," said I, "but he may be mocking the hope of the spring, and he may be mocking the hope in the heart of man. The song seems too sweet for a mock of any bird which has no thought beyond this year's nest." ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... Raggedy Andy replied, "for there was always a nest of mice down in the corner of the trunk. Cute little Mama and Daddy mice, and lots of little teeny weeny baby mice. And when the mama and daddy mice were away, I used to cuddle the ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... the natives of Guinea used to cut off their legs, and dry them, and sell them, of course they reached Europe without feet. So the people there got up a report that the bird lived always in the air, floated by, its light feathers; that it used its shoulders for its nest; that it rested only by hanging from a branch by its tail-filaments; that its food was morning dew; with other reports as droll as these. There are several kinds of Birds of Paradise, but the one in the cut is the most common, and is that of ...
— Charley's Museum - A Story for Young People • Unknown
... was unmarried as well as rich, that she was sociable (her letter answered for that) as well as single; and he had for a moment a whimsical vision of becoming a partner in so flourishing a firm. He ground his teeth a little as he thought of the contrasts of the human lot; this cushioned feminine nest made him feel unhoused and underfed. Such a mood, however, could only be momentary, for he was conscious at bottom of a bigger stomach than all the culture ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Bright's radiant delight at beholding the face of her foster sister, Mabel Allison, can be better imagined than described. Mabel and her mother had arrived three days before, and were to divide their month's stay in Oakdale between the Gibsons of Hawk's Nest, an estate several miles from Oakdale, and the Brights. Jessica's aunt, Mr. Bright's only sister, who had never married, now presided over the Bright household, with a grace and hospitality that gained for her not only the reputation of a delightful hostess, but the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... the rebels were driven off, dropping over the side into the water, without thinking as to the whereabouts of the boats so long as they got safely out of the hornet's nest they ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... was considered that Polly Toogood was not doing amiss. "I'll give you three hundred pounds, my boy, just to put a few sheets on the beds," said Toogood the father, "and when the old birds are both dead she'll have a thousand pounds out of the nest. That's the extent of Polly's fortune;—so now you know." Summerkin was, however, quite contented to have his own money settled on his darling Polly, and the whole thing was looked at with pleasant and propitious eyes by ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... graceful treatment of a young girl's imaginings, in her well-known poem, "The Romance of a Swan's Nest." ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... veery was singing in the woods close by, and she listened for a moment. "Hearken to that bird, now. A good-for-naught lad may have stolen his nest, or a cat filched his young, or his sons and daughters flown away and left him; but he'll sing, for all that. 'Tis a pity the rest of us ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... putting on its new spring dress of green leaves and tiny pink buds, which before long would open into sweet blossoms, and still later turn into ripe golden fruit, when a pair of Bobolinks came flying through the garden one fine morning house-hunting, or rather looking for a nice place to build a nest and go to housekeeping. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... enemy. We had to ford a donga closed in by barbed wire. When we got to the farm, we were told that the enemy had not been there, with the exception of a khaki who had lost his way. He had taken six eggs from a nest in a kraal and swallowed them greedily, and had then passed on to the garden without speaking a word to the harmless, ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... there is a drowned forest at the bottom of it. If you peer over the edge you can see the trees all growing upside down, and they say that at night there are also drowned stars in it. If so, Peter Pan sees them when he is sailing across the lake in the Thrush's Nest. A small part only of the Serpentine is in the Gardens, for soon it passes beneath a bridge to far away where the island is on which all the birds are born that become baby boys and girls. No one who is human, except Peter Pan (and he is only ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... he could not, would not withdraw. The man who had been for a moment as his father he could not cease to regard with devotion. At least he was a man with a divine soul. He might at least be somebody's father. Where love had found a moment's rest for the sole of its foot, there it must build its nest. ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... soft, and still, The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill, To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour, Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower; Or where the hermit hangs the straw-clad cell, Emerging gently from the leafy dell, By fancy plann'd; as once th' inventive maid Met the hoar sage amid the secret shade: Romantic spot ! from ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... thee!" Still Moses continued: "If Thou wilt not grant me this, let me at least live in this world like a bird that flies in the four directions of the world, and each day gathers its food from the ground, drinks water out of the streams, and at eve returns to its nest." But even this last prayer of his was denied, for God said, "Thou hast already ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious"; though it was written only in defence of theism in general. We quote from a report of E. P., in the Augsburger Allgem. Zeitung, Oct. 27, 1874, which is all at present at our command: "When the young bird, fluttering its wings on the edge of its mother's nest, launches forth for the first time, it finds the air which carries it, while a passage is opened for it. Instinct deceived the bird just as little as it deceives the multitude of large and small beings which only live in following its incitations. And should man alone, whom spiritual perfection ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... that all this costs so dear," said my friend, "but it is right that the nest be worthy of the bird; but why the devil do you compliment me upon curtains which are not paid for?—You make me remember, just at the time I am digesting lunch, that I still owe two thousand francs to a Turk ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... crow in the eagle's nest—was cordially with Great Britain in all efforts to injure the American Union. He had long cherished the design to establish a vassal empire in Mexico, and in our Civil War he saw his opportunity. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... saw her sitting on nest. Me went up and said to her, 'Give me some eggs, old girl.' She say 'Cluck.' I says, 'Cluck means yes, I suppose?' She say 'Cluck' again. Clear 'nuff that, so me take eggs, eat tree, bring six, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... may be said to be made up of fables, for the story tellers without hesitation label them as fictions. The last of these appears to be only a worked over incident of myth 56, in which the big bird Banog carries the hero to its nest, from which he escapes by holding to the wings of the young birds. It is possible that more of these fables are likewise incidents in tales prevalent among the Tinguian, but not heard by the writer. Whether or no this be true, it is certain that most of these stories are well ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... may say,' said his father, 'Dulce et, &c. is our motto. Didn't you know what a nest of heroes we have here to receive you? Let me introduce you to Captain Ernescliffe, of the Dorset Volunteer Rifle Corps; Private Thomas May, of the Cambridge University Corps; and Mr. Aubrey Spencer May, for whom ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in a tiny, cozy little house right down beneath a mushroom. The tiny, little house was made of cobwebs which Thumbkins had gathered from the bushes and weeds. These he had woven together with thistle-down, making the nicest little nest imaginable. ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... first of all,—even before the term time is over,—you all determine very solemnly what the great central business of the vacation shall be. Shall it be an archery club? Or will we build the Falcon's Nest in the buttonwood over on the Strail? Or shall it be some other ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... about the rest of the line," said the broker doggedly, sitting on the edge of the table, "wheat will go to sixty." He indicated the nest of balls with a movement of his chin. "Will ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... he whimsically told her when his day's work was done. Deftly twisting and intertwining the branches of tree and bush, he wove a canopy of living green that shadowed the curious nest and warded it snugly ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... articulation, would be clothed again with its flesh. Suppose my notions of astronomy allowed me to believe that the sun, sinking into the sea, was extinguished every evening, and that what appeared the next morning was his younger brother, hatched in a sun-producing nest to be found in the Eastern regions. My theory would have robbed yesterday's sun of its life and brightness; it would have asserted that during the night no sun existed anywhere; but it would have added the sun's qualities afresh to a matter that did not previously possess them, namely, to the imagined ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... would have made the Baptists happy with a half an acre, long since, and so, in his belief, scotched a hornet's nest. But he had never breathed any suggestion of the kind ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the schooner. He did not know much about ships, but she seemed to him a trim and strong craft, carrying, as he judged, about thirty men. A long eighteen-pound cannon was mounted in her stern, but that was to be expected in war, and was common in peace also when one sailed into that nest of pirates, the West Indies. The slaver carried pistol and dirk in his belt, and those of the crew whom he could see were sturdy, hardy men. ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was abundantly supplied with books, charts, instruments, etc. The ladies did not forget to bring knitting, crochet, and sewing work with them. "For we cannot be continually craning our necks out of our little nest, sightseeing," said Mrs. Jones. ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... though, that these folk of malice used to play on a small school-boy, new kicked out of his nest into the draughty, uncomfortable outer world, his unfledged skin still craving the feathers whereinto he was wont to nestle. The barrack-like school, the arid, cheerless class-rooms, drove him to Nature for redress; and, under ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here, Madam Mina's hypnotic power will surely help, and we shall find our way, all dark and unknown otherwise, after the first sunrise when we are near that fateful place. There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated." ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... world's comforter, with weary gait His day's hot task hath ended in the west; The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 'tis very late; The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest, 532 And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light Do summon us to part, and bid ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... outline; jerk, jerk, jerk, as if it were with the utmost difficulty he could keep even at that height. He scolds, and twitters, and chirps, and all at once sinks like a stone into the hedge and out of sight as a stone into a pond. It is a whitethroat; his nest is deep in the parsley and nettles. Presently he will go out to the island apple tree and back again in a minute or two; the pair of them are so fond of each other's affectionate company they ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... look at the children. They were all asleep in the room to the right of the stairs—the two little boys in one bed, the two little girls in the other, each pair huddled together against the cold, like dormice in a nest. Then she looked, conscience-stricken, at the untidiness of the room. She had bought the children a wonderful number of new clothes lately, and, the family being quite unused to such abundance, there was no place to keep them in. A new frock was flung down in a corner just as it had ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... forty centimetres. The earth stars (Geaster) have a double covering to the spore fruit, the outer one splitting at maturity into strips (Fig. 49, B). Another pretty and common form is the little birds'-nest fungus (Cyathus), growing on rotten wood or soil containing much decaying vegetable ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... to turn the laugh against his chief adversary and rival, George Bates of the Eagle, who proposed seeking for the lapwing's nest in hopes of a dainty dish of plovers' eggs; being too great a cockney to remember that in September the contents of the eggs were probably flying over the heather, as well able to shift for themselves ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... small yew, and exclaimed; for there, neatly set in the angle of the bough, was a brown cup with three blue eggs in it. I saw all this, and tried my best to get back to it; but I was not there. I saw it clearly—the late shower glittered on my coat and on the yew with the nest in it—but it was a scene remote as a memorable hour of a Surrey April of years ago. I could not approach; so I ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... foes in the forest jungle are the Bhowra or ground bees, which are more properly a kind of hornet. If by evil chance your elephant should tread on their mound-like nest, instantly an angry swarm of venomous and enraged hornets comes buzzing about your ears. Your only chance is to squat down, and envelope yourself completely in a blanket. Old sportsmen, shooting in ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... nest of a place in Leamington which I remember as one of the cosiest nooks in England. The ordinary stream of life does not run through this quiet little pool, and few of the inhabitants seem to be troubled ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... wherein the welfare of the mass is subordinated to party spirit; and in which each aspirant for place and power, well knowing that his chief ambition is to "feather his own nest" without any afterthought of patriotism, kicks down his struggling brother—likewise on the lookout for the loaves and fishes of office— ostracising him, if he doesn't put up ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... on lofty boughs to build Her humble nest, lies silent in the field; But if (the promise of a cloudless day) Aurora smiling bids her rise and play, Then straight she shows 'twas not for want of voice, Or power to climb, she made so low a choice; Singing she mounts; her airy wings are stretch'd ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... change in the fundamental attitudes. This change has taken place in response to changed conditions. Change in mores is something like change in the nest-building habits of certain birds, the swallows, for example. This change, like the change in bird habits, takes place without discussion—without clear consciousness—in response to changed conditions. Furthermore, changes in the mores, like ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... you seen the way I have built my nest? (O brave and tall is the Grand Seigneur!) I have trailed the East, I have searched the West, (O clear of eye is the Grand Seigneur!) From South and North I have brought the best: The feathers fine from an eagle's crest, The silken ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I, "this must be the secret." I knew that scarce a ship came in from any Chinese port but she carried somewhere, behind a bulkhead or in some cunning hollow of the beams, a nest of the valuable poison. Doubtless there was some such treasure on the Flying Scud. How much was it worth? We knew not; we were gambling in the dark. But Trent knew, and Bellairs; and we ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spirits, and others stuffed, all gathered and prepared by her own hands. Now she made an inkstand from the egg of a sea-gull and the body of a kingfisher; now she climbed to the top of a tree and brought down a crow's nest. She could walk miles upon miles with no fatigue. She grew up like a boy, which is only another way of saying that she grew up healthy and strong physically. Probably polite society was shocked at Dr. Hosmer's methods. Would that there were many such ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... tell her what their cursed Prophet said of women. Never mind whether he said it or not, sahib, for she will not know the truth of it, never having read the book. Only speak evil of all women, and so we shall come to Ali Higg's nest in ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... asp For foreign lineage. So the bird of Jove Turns his new fledglings to the rising sun And such as gaze upon the beams of day With eves unwavering, for the use of heaven He rears; but such as blink at Phoebus' rays Casts from the nest. Thus of unmixed descent The babe who, dreading not the serpent touch, Plays in his cradle with the deadly snake. Nor with their own immunity from harm Contented do they rest, but watch for guests Who need their help ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... of paper, by the smooth bit of board, by the rectangular block, by the brilliant quaint leaf. Look at the child that can scarcely keep himself erect, that can walk only with the greatest care—he sees a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it, and like the bird carries it to his nest. See him again, laboriously stooping and slowly going forward on the ground, under the eaves of the roof (the deep eaves of the Thuringian peasant house). The force of the rain has washed out of the sand smooth bright pebbles, and the ever-observing child gathers ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... in his half acted utterance, indicated that they took him for a scarecrow and therefore were not afraid of him. Even Mrs Catanach's cur had never offered him a bite in return for a caress. He could make a bird's nest, of any sort common in the neighbourhood, so as deceive the most cunning of the nest harrying youths of ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Canadian partridge is a species of grouse, larger than the English or French partridge. We refer our young readers to the finely arranged specimens in the British Museum, (open to the public,) where they may discover "Louis's partridge."] from her nest, and the eggs were soon transferred to Louis's straw hat, while a stone flung by the steady hand of Hector stunned the parent bird. The boys laughed exultingly as they displayed their prizes to the astonished Catharine, who, in spite of hunger, could not help regretting the death of the ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... it would not first be more prudent to consult with Lancelot. For I knew that with Captain Marmaduke the first thing he would do would be to accuse Jensen to his face, without taking any steps to countermine him, and then we should have the hornets' nest about our ears ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly, punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its nest year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year, for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think we both feel that the change is unnecessary, and just ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... and seemed to be absorbed in that occupation. He went away soon, promising to destroy the nest of vagabonds. Vaviloff looked after him and sighed, feeling as if he would like to shout some insult at the young man who was going with such firm steps toward the steep road, encumbered with its ditches and ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... up society and live for each other; you had proved it, and knew how hollow and false it was; but your children could not resign what they never had, nor ignore feelings which God had implanted within them. Nature has laws which must and will be obeyed. The swallow selects its mate, builds its nest, and occupies itself in nurturing its young. The heart must have something to love, and if it is restricted in its choice, it will bestow its affections not on what it would approve and select, but upon what it may chance to find; you are not singular in your ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... believed that our opponents had the injustice to lay hold of these circumstances, at this critical moment, to give a death-blow to the cause of the abolition? They represented the committee, though it had existed before the French revolution, or the Rights of Man were heard of, as a nest of Jacobins; and they held up the cause, sacred as it was, and though it had the support of the minister, as affording an opportunity of meeting for the purpose of overthrowing the state. Their cry succeeded. The very book of the abridgment of the evidence was considered by ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... conquer the British, they at least kept them in a hornets' nest. If they could not drive them out of South Carolina, they could keep them there, which was nearly as good a thing to do, because every soldier that Cornwallis had to keep in the South would have been sent to some other part of the country to fight the Americans ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... sichere Nest kein Vogel geht, Auch Sturm es manchmal rttelt; Kein Baum im freien Walde weht, Den Winters Gewalt nicht schttelt. Was auf der Erde lebt und steht; Wechselt immer Schmerz und Wonne; Der Winter wohl nach Sommer geht, ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... after we have feathered his nest," said Brigitte, "to work his influence for his own election? He ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... every fellow is his own boss. I'll do as I please. What do I care about the laws of these little brown monkeys! Where would they be anyhow if it wasn't for America? Didn't we yank 'em out of their hermits' nest and make them play the game whether they wanted to or not? They had better lay low! Don't they know there are ninety millions of us? Why, with one hand tied behind we could lick the Rising Sun clean off their ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... about the Leverian Museum, and a swallow's nest in a pair of garden-shears; and I was afraid I was to have a catalogue of curiosities, for which I have ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... told them, 'There was too much envy and malice amongst them, for him to pronounce any of them deserving or capable of being happy; but I wonder,' says he, 'why the dove alone is absent from this meeting?' 'I know of one in her nest hard by,' answered the redbreast, 'shall I go and call her?' 'No,' says the eagle, 'since she did not obey our general summons, 'tis plain she had no ambition for a public preference; but I will take two or three chosen friends, and we will go softly to her nest, and see in what ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... she relieved her feelings a little by getting Yorick at a canter up the twisted scrap of a path that climbed to a wooden doll's house, christened by a poetical Hindu landlord, the "Crow's Nest." Perched on an impossible-looking slope of gravel and granite, eight thousand feet above the Punjab, it seemed only to be saved from falling headlong by an eight-foot ledge of earth, which Quita spoke of proudly as her "garden," and which actually boasted two strips of border ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... we take the living soldiers away. No, boy, it will not take two hundred years to subdue the Filipinos. That is, we will not be working at the job that long, because we are not built that way. If we find we have got into a hornet's nest, and that the hornets don't have any honey, anyway, and that we don't need hornets in our regular business, somebody in authority will be apt to know when we have got enough, and we will probably shake the dice with some nation that is so addicted to gambling that ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... a hornet's nest with a vengeance. They were mad as March hares, most of them. For five minutes I sat amazed, listening to the wildest talk it had ever been my lot to hear. The Guelphs would be driven out. The good old days would be restored; there would be no more whiggery and Walpolism; ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Movement, showed between original sketches by Walter Crane, Balfour Kerr, Art Young and Ryan Walker. And in the well-filled bookshelves at the right, Socialist books in abundance all told the same tale to the observer—that this was a Socialist nest high up there among the mountains, and that every thought and word and deed was inspired by one great ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... cadets who waited to nail them in place on a pontoon bridge out over an arm of the Hudson. Greg Holmes was one of four young men toiling at the rope by which they were endeavoring to drag a mountain howitzer into position up a steep slope near Crow's Nest, while Anstey, studying field fortification, was digging in a trench with all his might ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... foes, The Atreidae strong, Menelaues and eke Agamemnon arose, Two thrones, two sceptres, yoked of God; And a thousand galleys of Argos trod The seas for the righting of wrong; And wrath of battle about them cried, As vultures cry, Whose nest is plundered, and up they fly In anguish lonely, eddying wide, Great wings like oars in the waste of sky, Their task gone from them, no more to keep Watch o'er the vulture babes asleep. But One there ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus |
