"Ostrich" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... help me, I took the bottle from his hands to look at the label; for there is a difference in the fluid, and Roederer and Roederer is not always alike. There are certain symbolical marks on the bottles, well known to connoisseurs. On some is a bee, on others an ostrich or an elephant. On this particular bottle was a fly, and I threw the bottle to the wall with such force that it broke into shivers, and the foaming contents went splashing into the faces of the company. The reverend Father had just risen, glass in hand, to drink ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... group is sometimes spoken of as the order Struthiones from the ostrich (Struthio), which is its typical form. Sometimes these keelless birds are called Ratitae. Besides the ostrich, the rhea, cassowary, and emeu are included within the group; also the small and nocturnal Apteryx of New Zealand and those giants ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... the whole was a latticed casement adorned with pearls which were threaded upon golden wire and curtains bearing scented satchels of ambergris. The furniture of the divans was of raw silk stuffed with ostrich- down and the cushions were purfled with gold. The floors of all the saloons were spread with carpets and rugs embroidered with sendal, and in the heart of the Great Hall amiddlemost the four saloons rose a marble jet-d'eau, square of shape, whose corners were cunningly wrought ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... he was just alive, and his wound was closed. The attitude in which he had been dumped down upon the cargo (the ostensible and upper strata thereof, consisting of hides and salt, with a hint of ostrich-feathers, coffee, frankincense and myrrh) had favoured his chance of recovery, for, thanks to a friendly bundle, his head was pressed forward to his chest and the lips of the gaping wound in his throat ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... only short blinds. In other words, just as the ostrich, when pursued, is said to thrust its head into the ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... the products of the plant, the animal, a consumer far more than a producer, contrasts the uniformity in its own products. The albumen in the egg of the Ostrich or the Chaffinch, the casein in the milk of the Cow or the Ass, the muscular flesh of the Wolf or the Sheep, the Screech-owl or the Field-mouse, the Frog or the Earth-worm: these remain albumen, casein or fibrin, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... never would lay any claim to the throne of England, or do any thing to disturb King Henry in his possession of it. He cried out, in a loud voice, in the hearing of the people, "Long live King Henry, and Prince Edward his son!" He wore an ostrich feather, too, in his armor, which was the badge of Prince Edward. The people of York were satisfied with these protestations, ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... was short and broad and, in the evening, always wore curled ostrich plumes on tightly filled gray puffs. She reminded Linda of a wadded chair. Mrs. Randall, after the other's slight ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the classification of birds. The great group of birds contains a larger number of species than is known in any other group of vertebrates, and, in this vast assemblage of forms there is strikingly little anatomical difference. The ostrich and the humming-bird might perhaps be taken as types of the extremest differences to be found, and yet, although these differ in size, plumage, adaptations, habits, mode of life, and almost everything that can separate living things, the two conform so closely to the common ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... Assuan, I seemed at last to be also approaching the real, the intense Africa that I had known in the Sahara, the enigmatic siren, savage and strange and wonderful, whom the typical Ouled Nail, crowned with gold, and tufted with ostrich plumes, painted with kohl, tattooed, and perfumed, hung with golden coins and amulets, and framed in plaits of coarse, false hair, represents indifferently to the eyes of the travelling stranger. For at last I saw the sands that I love creeping down to the banks of the Nile. And ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... a very ancient and sublime writer concerning the defect of natural affection in the ostrich may be well applied to the bird we are ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... voices and light laughter wake the street, Like notes of woodbirds, and where'er the eye Threads the long way, plumes wave, and twinkling feet Fall light, as hastes that crowd of beauty by. The ostrich, hurrying o'er the desert space, Scarce bore those tossing plumes with ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... not desire. For a long while she wandered southwards, living on roots and berries, till she came to desert land and at last, worn out, lay down to die. Then she was found by some of the Mazitu who were on an expedition seeking ostrich feathers for war-plumes. They gave her food and, seeing that she was fair, brought her back to their country, where one of them married her. But of her own land she uttered only lying words to them because she feared that if she told the truth the gods who guard its secrets would be avenged on ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... sent to be a blessing to me," she said to herself; "and my dear old friend's child, too. Oh, why was I given such a creature as Irene to bring up and look after? I can no more manage her than an old hen could manage a fierce young ostrich." ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... Let the ostrich with his head in the sand still imagine himself unseen; the masquerader still conceive himself secure beneath his paper travesty; the serpent still coil apparently unrecognized beside the bare, gray stone that reveals him to the eye—I was ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... food consisted of the eggs of the African ostrich or northern sea- birds, with a few fruits, especially those of the palm and the banana of the tropics. The tobacco-plant consoled me when I was depressed; and the affection of my spaniel was a compensation for the loss of human sympathy ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... the students often sketched her during the rests. Although quietly, she was always beautifully dressed. Simple though they appeared to be, her black crepe de chine skirts told of large sums of money spent in fashionable millinery establishments, and her large hats profusely trimmed with ostrich feathers, which suited her so well, contrasted strangely with the poor head-gear of the other girls; and when the weather grew warmer she appeared in a charming shot silk grey and pink, and a black ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... little sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... satin, a mantle of crimson satin lined with white, tied at the neck with a cordon of crimson silk and gold, with gold tassels, and the star of the order embroidered on the left shoulder; a white silk hat adorned with a standing plume of white ostrich feathers, white leather boots, edged and heeled, spurs of crimson and gold, a sword in a white leather scabbard with cross hilts of gold. Each knight is allowed three squires, who must be gentlemen of blood, bearing coat armour, and who are entitled ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... in the courses. He looked at her critically. She was very handsomely dressed in a walking costume of dove-coloured grey. The ostrich feathers which drooped from her large hat were almost priceless. She had the undeniable air of being a person of breeding. But she was paler even than usual, her hair, notwithstanding its careful arrangement, gave signs of being a little thin in front. There were wrinkles at the corners ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... humpy, bumpy cattle, The tiger from his lair, Go down into the battle Beside the timid hare. The elephant and camel, The ostrich and emu, Weird things, both bird and mammal, And old ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... Ostrich skims, Beneath a burning sky; Swift as the swiftest horse he runs, But has no wings ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... housing. At their head rode one with a white lettered green flag, and beating an immense drum. They were armed with long spears of Indian bamboo, garnished below the slender points with swinging tufts of ostrich feathers. Each carried a woman behind him disdainful of a veil. The feminine screams of exultation rose high above the yells of the men, helping not a little to the recklessness with which ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Vladimir, as spokesman of a throng of emperors and princes. A great deal of curious information is conveyed—all very poetically expressed—including some odd facts in natural history, such as: that the ostrich is the mother of birds, and that she lives, feeds, and rears her young on the blue sea, drowning mariners and sinking ships. Whenever she (or the whale on which the earth rests) moves, an earthquake ensues. There are several versions of this ballad. The following abridged ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... the subject, truth and duty to our readers compel us to state that White Magic has its opposite pole—that opposite pole known as Black Magic, or the use of psychic force for selfish and unworthy ends. There is no use trying to pursue the ostrich policy regarding these things—it is always better to face them boldly, and then to take means to avoid the evil contained ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... confirmed by the space which Strauss gives to the exposure of the absurdities of the Rationalists, which, in fact, occupies at least half his work. Dr. D. will even very likely prove that Strauss himself is a fictitious name; Strauss, in the German, meaning an ostrich, which, according to the proverb, can digest any thing. On the other hand, as he will be able to show that Strauss's work is a piece of prolonged irony, he will very likely show that Whately's 'Historic Doubts' may be a sincere expression ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... said—"excuse me, Mr. Mannering—you remind me irresistibly of Punch's cartoon last week—the ostrich politician with his head in the sand. You have thrust yours very deep down indeed, when you talk of political opponents. Do you know what they call you ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the sober consideration of what we are suffering at his hands, and take measures of defense and safety, instead of burying our heads in the sand, like the foolish, ostrich, while the huntsmen are ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... the Emir of Seca. The commander was a Greek captain named Spiro Calligero. Among the passengers were five members of the family superseded by the Bakri as kings of the Jews; two Maroccan ostrich-feather merchants; Captain Krog from Bergen in Norway; two lions sent by the Dey of Algiers as presents to the Emperor Napoleon; and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... contrivance for the pleasure of the animal; the moment we reduce enjoyment to ingenuity, and volition to leverage, that instant all sense of beauty disappears. Take, for instance, the action of the limb of the ostrich, which is beautiful so long as we see it in its swift uplifting along the desert sands, and trace in the tread of it her scorn of the horse and his rider, but would infinitely lose of its impressiveness, if we could see the spring ligament playing backwards and forwards in alternate jerks over the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... of course, be called an ostrich, and here we have for the first time in history a picturesque description ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... said hastily. 'I felt just a little faintish for a moment—but it's nothing. I am not a bit of a fainting girl, Mr. Ericson, I can assure you—never fainted in all my life. I have the nerves of a bull-dog and the digestion of an ostrich.' ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... was there of course. She wore a wonderful red gown and carried a big yellow ostrich fan. She looked like a Spanish dancer. It took me all evening to get used to her. The combination was rather startling. Lo, in spite of her dislike, wanted to paint her. I did not—jealousy, on my part of course—for every time she came near me, she killed ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... entered the room, the Mahdi lay on a soft cot, surrounded by his wives, two of whom fanned him with great ostrich feathers and the other two lightly scratched the soles of his feet. Besides his wives, there were present only the caliph Abdullahi and the sheref caliph, as the third, Ali Uled Helu, was despatching at that time troops to the north, particularly to Beber and Abu Hamed, which already ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... stores of water and fuel on board, the "ship" can go on for a fortnight, or even a month, absolutely without eating or drinking, while things that other creatures—unless, perhaps, it be some bird of the ostrich tribe—would never dream of touching, will furnish forth a sumptuous meal for a camel. Off a handful of thorns and briers he can make an excellent breakfast, and I believe he will not disdain anything apparently so untempting as a bit ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... variegated. They comprised some elephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons, a box of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-eaten stuffed monkeys (one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a flyblown ostrich egg or so, some fishing-tackle, and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glass fish-tank. There was also, at the moment the story begins, a mass of crystal, worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And at that two people, ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... slim form was clad in a coat of mail glittering with gold; over his shoulders hung a velvet mantle decorated with a princely crown; and his head, covered with dark ringlets, was adorned with a cap embroidered with gold, from which a long white ostrich-feather drooped to his shoulder. His oval face presented the full type of aristocratic beauty; his cheeks were of a clear, transparent paleness; about his slightly pouting mouth played a smile, half contemptuous and half languid; the high, arched brow and delicately ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... The ostrich is the largest of all birds now existing, and is found chiefly in the sandy deserts of Africa ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... sensuous. She was tall and of a shape that in Europe would have been accounted perfect, which is to say that she was a thought too slender for Oriental taste; she moved along beside her lord with a sinuous, languorous grace, gently stirring her fan of ostrich plumes. She was unveiled; indeed it was her immodest habit to go naked of face more often than was seemly, which is but the least of the many undesirable infidel ways which had survived her induction into the Faith of Islam—a necessary step before Asad, who was devout to ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... loose in the theatre, by accident, the sparrows preserved to show the rapidly fatal action of choke-damp upon life; turns the bladders, which have been provided to tie over bottles, into footballs; and makes daily contributions to the plate of pebbles taken from the stomach of the ostrich, and preserved in the museum to show the mode in which these birds assist digestion, until he quadruples the quantity, and has the quiet satisfaction of seeing exhibited at lecture, as the identical objects, the heap of small stones which he has collected ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... before. When a quiet woman is stirred from her usual poise, the pendulum of her nerves swings in a long arc. The Dvorak dance had not deepened Sally's color; the Damrosch song had not caused her to draw her white ostrich boa more closely about ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... the usual squalid fashion of Indians who are hangers-on round the white man but have not yet adopted his ways. Most of the men were at work cutting wood for the tannery. The women and children were in camp. Some individuals of both sexes were naked to the waist. One little girl had a young ostrich as a pet. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... me of that of the Marchioness of Londonderry, in her opera-box. The Marquesa de Vivanco had a riviere of brilliants of extraordinary size and beauty, and perfectly well set. Madame S—-r wore a very rich blonde dress, garnie with plumes of ostrich feathers, a large diamond fastening each plume. One lady wore a diadem which ——- said could not be worth less than a hundred thousand dollars. Diamonds are always worn plain or with pearls; coloured ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... low one. I don't play ostrich with any of the staring permanences of human nature. We're just as noble to-day as David was sometimes, and just as bestial to-day as David was sometimes, and we've every possibility inside us all the time, whether we paint our naked skins, or wear steel armor ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... to receive the distilling juice, which is very sweet, but in a few days grows strong, yet will not keep long, for in fifteen days it grows sour. One tree will yield near a gallon in twenty-four hours. The commodities of this country are gold, ostrich feathers, amber, gums, civit ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... was that I saw a very welcome sight, namely Hans, yes, the lost Hans himself, with his filthy hat whereof I noticed even then the frayed ostrich feathers were smouldering, hanging by a leather strap at the back of his head. He was shambling along in a sly and silent sort of way, but at a great rate with his mouth open, beckoning over his shoulder, and behind him came about ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... it hadn't been for my ostrich-like digestion, I wouldn't have had anything to worry about by this time. However, if you insist, I will throw the rice and let you heave the shoes. If you have the precision of aim which distinguishes your sex, the ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... perfect equanimity and a smiling countenance? Admirable directions! Your friend, the curly-haired blonde, with florid complexion, round cheeks, the best possible digestion and respiration, the stomach of an ostrich and the lungs of a pearl-diver, finds it perfectly easy to carry them into practice. You, of leaden complexion, with black and lank hair, lean, hollow-eyed, dyspeptic, nervous, find it not so easy to be always hilarious and happy. The truth is that the ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... for her hat, which was big enough to be a drum major's, and full of ostrich feathers. She went out into the hall and Jurgis followed, the policeman remaining to look under the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... trouble of moving furniture and setting it straight. She prepared for her labours by putting on her black silk blouse and her best skirt, and as William was anchored by the fireside with the newspaper, she decided to wear her new hat with the ostrich feathers, twenty years too young for her face, which she had worn for three months on the quiet out of regard for William's feelings, for it had cost the best part of his week's wages, squeezed out in shillings and sixpences, the price of imaginary ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... two pet bantam hens laid very small eggs troubled little Johnny. At last he was seized with an inspiration. Johnny's father, upon going to the fowl-run one morning, was surprised at seeing an ostrich egg tied to one of the beams, with ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... 1911), these details as to the seclusion of girls at puberty are not mentioned, though what seems to be the final ceremony is described (op. cit. pp. 177 sq.). From the description we learn that boys dressed in ostrich feathers and wearing masks circle round the girl with shrill cries, but ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... an ostrich bury its head in the sand? Why does a camel try to get through the eye of a needle? (But perhaps he does not.) I often tell her fat cannot be hidden, but ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... coming day, and never seemed in the least disturbed by the roar of artillery. In the left-hand corner of the sketch will be noticed the firing platform, over which is the "funk hole," so called from its being the refuge to run to when the shells arrive. The soldier buries his head like the ostrich—only he beats the ostrich by getting his shoulders in as well—and ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... a new one. Let me, at the risk of repetition, explain my meaning more fully by taking a concrete illustration. The mandibulo-hyoid cleft (spiracle) of the elasmobranch fishes, the lateral digits of the pig's foot, the hind-limbs of whales, the enlarged digit of the ostrich's foot are supposed to be organs which have been recently modified. This modification is not confined to the final adult stage of the life-history but characterises them throughout the whole of their development. A stage with a reduced spiracle does not proceed in development from a preceding stage ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... a pleasant ride over a valley-plain, between hedges of cactus in flower and bushes of red roses, past graceful clumps of bamboo waving like ostrich feathers. By-and-by drizzling rain came on and compelled us to seek shelter in the only inn in a poor out-of-the-way hamlet. But I could not stop here, because the best room in the inn was already occupied by a military officer of some distinction, a colonel, on his way, like ourselves, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... that tight and hold it fast till morning. But to birds that do not perch this mechanism is only an encumbrance, so many of them, like the plovers, abolish the hind toe entirely, and the prince of all two-legged runners, the ostrich, has got rid of one of the front ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... a fierce struggle with his pride, but he forced himself to think the problem out in all its bearings, and the folly of adopting the legendary policy of the chased ostrich became manifest. What, then, should he do? He thought, at first, of invoking the aid of a barrister friend, who could watch ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... the passers by, noticed the old man who stood just at their elbow. When they had gone he looked drearily in where they had looked. There were the woolly things they had spoken of, short woven strips of loopy wool, to be tied about the neck by the two-inch ribbons that dangled from the ends. "Ostrich wool boas in all colours, price, one shilling and three farthings," they were ticketed. He read the ticket mechanically. He still held his two coins; he held them mechanically; had he thought about it he would scarcely have troubled to do so, they were so cruelly, so mockingly inadequate. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... he hastened toward that end of the parlor car where some one was begging the porter not to let Dickie be harmed, he saw the woman who was so excited. She was a large woman, wearing a wide-brimmed hat trimmed with many ostrich feathers which nodded and swayed as ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... worst class rooms. To define a tendency so sharply that it cannot flow without breaking the definition, is a lecturer's trick for which audiences should stone him. Solemn generalizations which squat upon a book like an ostrich on a goose egg and hatch out vast moral philosophies are to be dreaded like the devil, as are, equally, the critics with pet theories, who, having defined them, make everything from a squib to an ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... is an area peculiarly adapted for the cultivation of tobacco; and east of the tobacco district, north of the coastal belt of wheat in a region of sandy scrub, the bush country, are the ostrich farms, in the hands mainly of men of considerable capital, who supply nearly all the feathers derived from the domesticated ostrich. The plumes are sometimes worth as much as $200 a pound, the ordinary feathers bringing from $5 to $7 a pound. Natal is unique in two of its agricultural industries, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... should take them; for whatever number he should get, he would gain souls, because the negroes might be converted to the faith, which could not be managed with the Moors." Goncalvez obtained ten black slaves, some gold-dust, a target of buffalo-hide, and some ostrich eggs in exchange for two of the Moors, and, returning with his cargo, excited general wonderment on account of the color of the slaves. These, then, we may presume, were the first black slaves that had made ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... heather, as well as with lakes and rivers full of fish. So on the morning of the great congress the birds began to arrive in a steady stream, and by noon every description of bird was represented—even the ostrich (though how he contrived to cross the seas the story does not say). The eagle welcomed them, and when the last hummingbird had settled down he addressed the meeting, saying that there was no doubt that he had a right to demand to be ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... about at the source of the river near Orion. Topaz yellow in color, and culminates January 13th. This star is also known as Dhalim (Tha'lim) ("the ostrich"). ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... difficulty of the readjustment of European affairs. If our Ministers had manifested their real feelings about Napoleon's presidency of the Italian Republic, war would certainly have broken forth. But, as has been seen, they preferred to assume the attitude of the ostrich, the worst possible device both for the welfare of Europe and the interests of Great Britain; for it convinced Napoleon that he could safely venture on other interventions; and this he proceeded to do in the affairs ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... I knew she'd be interested in it, but I have always forgotten to give it to her," said the clerk. She seemed to be very much in earnest as she continued, "I do wish something could be done to save the birds. If women must have feathers, why can't they content themselves with wearing ostrich tips and plumes? There is nothing cruel or wicked in ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... they brought gold, agate, and onyx, incense and myrrh, and the perfumes of Arabia; pearls, spices, ivory, ebony, ostrich plumes ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... were walking along, interlaced, charming, with short, little steps, crossing the flakes of light; which illuminated them momentarily, and then sinking back into the shadow. The youth was dressed in a suit of white satin, such as men wore in the eighteenth century, and had on a hat with an ostrich plume. The girl was arrayed in a gown with panniers, and the high, powdered coiffure of the handsome dames of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... parents are aware that the little birds cannot run so fast as they themselves can, they endeavour, when an enemy comes near, to draw him away from their charges. The female generally undertakes this office, while the cock bird leads the brood in an opposite direction. Now the hen ostrich flies off before the horseman, spreading out or drooping her wings. Now she will throw herself on the ground before the foe, as if wounded, again to rise when he gets too near; and then, wheeling about, she tries to induce him to follow her. Thus she will proceed, trying ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... the layers, on which the birds walked after the subsidence. They must have been of various sizes,—some no larger than a small sand-piper, while others, judging from their footprints, which measure no less than nineteen inches, must have been twice the size of the modern African ostrich. The distances between the smaller measure only about three inches, but in the base of the largest, called the Ornithichnites Gigas, they are from four to six feet apart. In some places where the birds have congregated together none of the steps ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... themselves for an hour or two every evening; and fixed in recesses intended for the purpose, Sam Roberts, for such was his name, having built the house himself, were comfortable cupboards filled with a variety of delft, several curious and foreign ornaments, an ostrich's egg, a drinking cup made of the polished shell of a cocoanut, whilst crossed saltier-wise over a portrait of himself and of his wife, were placed two feathers of the bird of paradise, constituting, one might imagine, emblems significant ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... carved in stone; Inscrutable, colossal, and alone, And ancienter than memory of things. Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings; Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown. The affrighted ostrich dare not dust her wings Anear this Presence. The long caravan's Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare. This symbol of past power more than man's Presages doom. Kings look—and Kings despair: Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands And dark thrones totter ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... was the wish uttered, than she found herself seated in a high gallery, as delicately carved as the ivory fans of the east; with diamonds and ostrich-feathers all about and below her, and a prodigious crowd assembled in the open air,—with the lists open,—a trumpet sounding,—and scores of knights armed cap-a-pie, and mounted on dragon-flies, waiting for the charge. All eyes were upon her, and everybody about was whispering her name, and ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... know less of animals than they do of angels. Why should we show such foolish pride and delusion, and try to baffle one of God's great facts? When men attempt to extinguish the idea of animal intelligence and sentiment by referring to it as instinct, we are reminded of the desert ostrich, which buries its head in the sand and thinks it cannot be seen. We should proudly acknowledge the wonderful human-like methods of these food conservers of the animal world, and recognise in all this a guiding Providence who provides for and protects all his creatures, ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... clanking chains Urged on by trampling cohorts bronzed and scarred, And wild-eyed wonders snared on Lybian plains, Lion and ostrich and camelopard. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said prettier things than myself upon the importance of stoicism concerning the opinion of others, when their applause or censure refers to literary character only; and I had determined to lay my work before the public, with the same unconcern with which the ostrich lays her eggs in the sand, giving herself no farther trouble concerning the incubation, but leaving to the atmosphere to bring forth the young, or otherwise, as the climate shall serve. But though an ostrich in theory, I became in practice a poor hen, who has no sooner made her deposit, ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... to the Tivoli and saw Mildred with her companion, a smooth-faced young man with sleek hair and the spruce look of a commercial traveller, sitting in the second row of the stalls. Mildred wore a black picture hat with ostrich feathers in it, which became her well. She was listening to her host with that quiet smile which Philip knew; she had no vivacity of expression, and it required broad farce to excite her laughter; but ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... an ingenue who had been suddenly sent on in the role of the Russian adventuress. Her slight girl's figure was draped in black lace. Her face was shaded by a large picture hat, heavy with drooping ostrich feathers; around her shoulders was a necklace of jade, and on her wrists many bracelets of silver gilt. When she moved they rattled. As the girl advanced, smiling, to greet Mr. Hallowell, she suddenly stopped, shivered slightly, and threw her right arm across her eyes. ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... The Electoral Prince had just swung himself into the saddle. The horse gave a loud neigh, as if recognizing its master, then reared, but the Prince sat firm. His short, furred mantle was lifted high by the wind, the long white ostrich plumes nodded above his broad-brimmed, gold-laced hat, beneath which floated like a lion's mane his brown and curly hair. With firm, energetic hand the youth compelled the animal to stand, then pressed his knees into its flanks, and swift as an arrow from the bow the animal ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... terror the war correspondent threw himself to the ground and, like an ostrich, seemed to try to bury his head ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... two or three seconds to stare at him, then turn slowly round and walk off a few steps, looking over its shoulder, then begin to trot, and when at last he thinks he is no longer seen will bound away like a hare. The Doctor says also, that the roar of the lion is very like the cry of the ostrich, but the former roars only at night, however, while the latter cries only ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... a beautiful girl of about sixteen, handsomely clad in a short dress and zouave waist of fine silk, while a stylish big Gainsborough hat with black ostrich plumes crowned ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... neck. On her feet were moccasins, of the natural russet shade of the leather, laced up the calf of the leg, so that they nearly reached the skirt, and on her head she wore a black leather cap, ornamented with an ostrich's feather, beneath the protection of which her hair fell down in plaits upon her back. The dress was a mixture of the civilized and of the savage, and as she approached, with a little color in her cheeks, occasioned by the exercise, Arundel thought that she looked even beautiful. ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... and the King looks at first like a pleasant absurdity; it is in reality valuable as a short history of the ostrich method of dealing with realities. The beggar, of course, continues to cry aloud after his tongue, and even his head, have been removed, because there are so many millions of him. Again and again, in the course of history, he has gathered desperate courage ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... braying through the streets of the village on the morning of the performance, and for me the mangy old camels and the pimpled elephants of yore led the procession through accompanying ranks of boys who have mostly been in their graves for half a lifetime; the distracted ostrich thrust an advertising neck through the top of its cage, and the lion roared to himself in the darkness of his moving prison. I felt the old thrill of excitement, the vain hope of something preternatural and impossible, and I do not know what could have kept me from that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was, "Because we never do anything properly at the Cape." "Ah, sir!" he said; "that is a great mistake to leave so fine a bay without harbor conveniences. It is a great deal better than Table Bay. We enjoyed ourselves capitally there, had some good shooting; one of us shot an ostrich, a fine fellow, but he got away. Unfortunately, we lost one of our officers there—one whom we all respected—as fine an officer as ever trod this ship's deck. He was in a boat in the bay, shooting wild fowl; he drew his gun towards him, the barrel in his hand; the trigger caught, the charge ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... which were visible a variety of tasteful devices exquisitely embroidered with the stained quills of the porcupine. A shirt of dazzling whiteness was carefully drawn over his expansive chest, and in his equally white shawl-turban was placed an ostrich feather, the prized gift of the lady of the mansion. On all occasions of festivity, and latterly in the field, he was wont thus to decorate himself; and never did the noble warrior appear to greater advantage than when habited ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Titanic was concerned. The ship was built for high-priced passengers, and what little cargo she carried was also of the kind that demanded quick transportation. The Titanic's freight was for the most part what is known as high-class package freight, consisting of such articles as fine laces, ostrich feathers, wines, liquors and ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... to allow such innovations to remain uninvestigated. She would not be likely to be "upset," at least. She descended from her landau, with her most rigorous air. Her stout, rich black moire-antique gown rustled severely; the yellow ostrich feather in her bonnet waved majestically. (Being a brunette, and Lady Theobald, she wore yellow.) As she tramped up the gravel walk, she held up her dress with both hands, as an example to vulgar and reckless young people who wore trains and ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Yoop was so tall that our friends had to tip their heads way back to look into his face, and they noticed he was dressed all in pink velvet, with silver buttons and braid. The Giant's boots were of pink leather and had tassels on them and his hat was decorated with an enormous pink ostrich feather, ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... felt the ribbon that his stooping posture and violent exercise had forced into a prominence that defied further concealment; then turned away laughing, and, with his face now vying with the Sunset, said, "You have caught an ostrich hiding with its head ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... 4. An ostrich outruns an Arab's horse. 5. His pretty little nephew Arthur had the best claim to the throne. 6. Milton, the great English poet, became blind. 7. Caesar gave his daughter Julia in marriage to Pompey. 8. London, the capital of England, is the largest and richest ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... fidget, am I?" It was going to wring tears from me, I felt, the way she hid her head, ostrich-like, in the other ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... aside her broadcloth cape or camblet roquelo and stand up clad in a sprigged India muslin gown with only a thin lace tucker over her neck, warm with pride in her pretty gown, her white bonnet with ostrich feathers and embroidered veil, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... incidents, a funeral started from Canterville Chase at about eleven o'clock at night. The hearse was drawn by eight black horses, each of which carried on its head a great tuft of nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin was covered by a rich purple pall, on which was embroidered in gold the Canterville coat-of-arms. By the side of the hearse and the coaches walked the servants with ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... odor of that great, mysterious continent into which men of the Northern races but rarely penetrate, into my face. For three months I had been wandering on the borders of that great, unknown world, on the outskirts of that strange world of the ostrich, the camel, the gazelle, the hippopotamus, the gorilla, the lion and the tiger, and the negro. I had seen the Arab galloping like the wind, and passing like a floating standard, and I had slept under those brown tents, the moving habitation of those white birds of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... greater difficulty in staying his hand than had Barry Whalen, for the sjambok seemed the only reply to the dark suggestion. He realized how, like the ostrich, he had thrust his head into the sand, imagining that no one knew what was between himself and Jasmine. Yet here was one who knew, here was one who had, for whatever purpose, precipitated a crisis with Fellowes to prevent ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... counterpart of {14} the earthly life, but was reserved for the worthy. All the dead belonged to Osiris and were brought before him for judgment. The protest of being innocent of the forty-two sins was made, and then the heart was weighed against truth, symbolised by the ostrich feather, the emblem of the goddess of truth. From this feather, the emblem of lightness, being placed against the heart in weighing, it seems that sins were considered to weigh down the heart, and its lightness required to be proved. Th[o]th, the god who ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... The populace arose with a mighty cheer. King Harry had entered the arena. He bestrode a fine white charger and was clad in a rich dark suit of slashed velvet with satin and gold facings. His hat bore a long curling ostrich plume of pure white and he doffed it graciously in answer to the shouts of the people. By his side rode Queen Eleanor, looking regal and charming in her long brocade riding-habit; while immediately behind them came Prince Richard and Prince John, each attired in knightly coats of mail and ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... from Martin Baldwin the petitioner; I have neither head nor nerves to present it. That confounded supper at Lewis's has spoiled my digestion and my philanthropy. I have no more charity than a cruet of vinegar. Would I were an ostrich, and dieted on fire-irons,—or any thing that my gizzard could get the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... habit of dark blue summer-cloth, fastened with small gold buttons, fine, tiny white linen cuffs and collar, dark blue gloves, dark blue velvet hat with a short, white ostrich plume secured by a small gold butterfly, and she carried in her hand a slender ivory-handled riding-whip, set with a sapphire. Her dress was neat, elegant, and appropriate; and her face was for the moment radiant and beautiful ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... for the next night, the leader, in making his rounds, ordered that the young Negro mother be left unshackled, and that she be given some meat for supper and allowed to sleep warmly upon a mat. But during the night, when everything was quiet, the mother put her infant in a basket filled with ostrich feathers, placed it upon her head, and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... back in her arm-chair as possible. The Princess was a woman of about forty-five, small and delicate, with a shrivelled skin and disagreeable, greyish-green eyes, the expression of which contradicted the unnaturally suave look of the rest of her face. Underneath her velvet bonnet, adorned with an ostrich feather, was visible some reddish hair, while against the unhealthy colour of her skin her eyebrows and eyelashes looked even lighter and redder that they would other wise have done. Yet, for all ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... solid funeral of Victorian fashion proper to the time. The hearse had been drawn by four black horses with black trappings, and over the invisible coffin nodded a gloomy harvest of black ostrich plumes. There were no flowers, and some children, who crept forward with a little wreath of wild roses, were ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously, battering them open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware.... One man went strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich feathers, which he stuck in his hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, "Comrades! Don't touch anything! Don't take anything! This is the property of the People!" Immediately twenty voices ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... order comprises the ostrich and a few other large birds, which have such small wings that they are unable to fly, but with very large and powerful legs, so that they are excellent runners. Although this order includes the largest bird at present living, there were formerly running ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... in and shook up the pillows, and soothed the sick woman with some little cares and then came out and shut the door. Her wide brimmed hat of fine leghorn straw with a blue ostrich plume curled around the crown, and a light cashmere shawl lay on the table. Perching the one a trifle sideways on her dark brown curls, which were gathered simply in a ribbon behind, according to the style of the day, she threw the shawl about her shoulders, and ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... ear with an excellent English accent. We then visited the jewellery of the palace, a most beautiful collection; and the sacred armour, which surpasses description. At last we saw something unique—an ostrich race. The man mounts, sits back, puts his legs under the wings, and locks his feet under the breast. The birds go at a tremendous pace, and ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... magnificent meeting, however, Wolsey acting as costumer, and was called "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." Large, portly men with whiskers wore purple velvet opera-cloaks trimmed with fur, and Gainsborough hats with ostrich feathers worth four pounds apiece (sterling). These corpulent warriors, who at Calais shortly before had run till overtaken by nervous prostration and general debility, now wore more millinery and breastpins ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... and see what happens. (What happens is that a cassowary comes along.) Oh, what a lovely bird! Is it an ostrich? ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... locks. I dare say for a while it really weighed upon his mind, and disturbed his quiet, that he was getting bald. But now he has quite reconciled himself to his lot; and with a head smooth and sheeny as the egg of the ostrich, Smith goes on through life, and feels no pang at the remembrance of the ambrosial curls of his youth. Most young people, I dare say, think it will be a dreadful thing to grow old: a girl of eighteen thinks it must be an awful sensation to be thirty. Believe ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... springbok's fawn sounds plaintively; And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neigh Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray; Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane. With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain; And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste, Hieing away to the home of her rest, Where she and her mate have scooped their nest, Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view In the pathless depths of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... he was playing, because of the assiduity with which the principal witness for the prosecution had been "nursed" by the police from the moment he made his confession. Crewe bit hard into his amber mouthpiece in vexation as he recalled the ostrich-like tactics of Inspector Chippenfield, who, having accepted Hill's story as genuine, had officially baulked all his efforts to see the man and ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... than poor old Reginald did. After Reginald had been charmed a while, it would be the glass eater's turn. Which he really eat it, and the doctor says that kind always dies before they is fifty. I never knowed his right name, but what he went by was The Human Ostrich. ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... country are the miserablest people in the world. The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty people yet for wealth are gentlemen to these, who have no houses and skin garments, sheep, poultry, and fruits of the earth, ostrich eggs etc. as the Hodmadods have; and setting aside their human shape, they differ but little from brutes. They are tall, straight-bodied and thin, with small long limbs. They have great heads, round foreheads and great brows. Their eyelids are always ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... this discourse, remained silent and full of contemplation. A little while after we saw the tears flow out of his eyes as big as ostrich's eggs. God take me presently if I tell you one single syllable of a lie in ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... her seat in a crimson and gilt chair immediately in front of her counsel. Her appearance was anything but prepossessing. She wore a black dress with a high ruff, an unbecoming gipsy hat with a huge bow in front, the whole surmounted by a plume of ostrich feathers. Nature had given her light hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion, and a good-humoured expression of countenance; but these characteristics were marred by painted eyebrows, and by a black wig with a profusion of curls, which overshadowed her cheeks and gave ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... day, shortly before sunset, the queen's gilded barge appeared with a purple tent having ostrich plumes on each of its four comers, Ramses gave command to prepare a boat for two persons, and told Sarah that he would sail ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... monuments in great variety. Among these I have noted the lotus, the papyrus, the leek, the palm, wheat, barley, and millet; the crocodile, the frog, the crane, the flamingo, the ibis, the goose, the owl, the ostrich, the peacock; and of beasts the now famous ancestral ape, Ptolemy's tame lion, the leopard, the gazelle, the hippopotamus, the giraffe, and the wild boar, and many others. But there is not the least perceptible change in the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson |
