"Robin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vessel took me off, and I wasn't sorry for it, for raw rats are not very good eating. I went home again, and I hadn't been on shore more than two hours, when who should I see but my first wife, Bet, with a robin-redbreast in tow. 'That's he!' says she. I gave fight, but was nabbed and put into limbo, to be tried for what they call biggery, or having ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... nest out on one of the cherry trees and I know you like dinky birds and thought I'd get you an egg. There's three more in the nest; I guess that's enough for any robin. Anyhow, they had young ones in that nest early ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... permanent Command when he went to the Highlanders, but apparently a former Colonel returned a few days after he arrived there, and he was consequently sent back. However, there were now many vacancies in our Division, and Col. Toller was at once sent to command the 7th Sherwood Foresters, the Robin Hoods—an appointment which proved to be permanent, and which he held for the next two years. At the same time, Lieut. N.C. Marriott, wounded at Hohenzollern, returned to us, and soon afterwards 2nd Lieut. J.C. Barrett joined us from England, ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... I know you have a taste for such things: and so has Mrs. Quisque, and the two Miss Quisques, and all the family. I now and then see very pretty things of their writing in the Lady's Magazine. An elegy on a robin red-breast. The drooping violet, a sonnet. And others equally ecstatic. Quite charming! rapturous! elegant! flowery! sentimental! Some of them very smart, and epigrammatic. It is a family, my dear Trevor, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the ladder to Ike and back, half feeling that he was imposing upon me, but in too much trouble to resent it, and as I stared about a robin came and sat upon the broken branch, and seemed to be examining how ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... one of the farm-houses and show his daughter's teeth with great pride. On the way, the child would often go to sleep in his arms, as she did with her nurse. At other times he would take her into the forest, and there, under the trees full of robin-redbreasts and nightingales, towards the end of the day when there are voices overhead in the woods, he would experience the most unutterable joy on hearing the child, impressed by the noises around, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... scene from Ivanhoe is of the description of the grand tournament, held by Prince John Lockland, at Ashby, in which Robin Hood, under the disguise of Locksley, wins the prize for his skill ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... the shutters wide and the daylight streamed in. It was not fraught with colour, like the mists of her dream, but was the clear, sane light of every day. A robin outside her window chirped cheerily, and a bluebird flashed across the distant meadow, then paused on the rushes at the bend of the river and swayed there for a moment, like some ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... housekeeper every day in the week, and on Saturday, when she was getting ready for the Sabbath, it was a bold person indeed who would venture to put himself in the path of her broom. To be sure, there was no one in the family to take such a risk except her twin brother Jock, her father, Robin Campbell, the Shepherd of Glen Easig, and True Tammas, the dog, for the Twins' mother had "slippit awa'" when they were only ten years old, leaving Jean to take a woman's care of her father and brother and the little gray ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... a glorious morning. Joyce, romping around the lawn chased by Dodo, and much wound up with the cocker spaniel, Robin, did not see George Dalton as he entered her grounds from the front entrance, opposite the park. There was no reason why he should not mount the front steps and ring the doorbell, but a carriage-way led to a side entrance, and he felt certain that the gay laughter he could ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... she hoped that largest robin redbreast would get drunk and tumble down. He would be sure to bump some of his pretty bright feathers out, if he rolled over the shells two or three times," answered Lilly, pointing to a China tree near, where a flock ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... morning by the lake," Mr. Kennaston informed the party at large, "in company with a mocking-bird who was practising a new aria. It was a wonderful place; the trees were lisping verses to themselves, and the sky overhead was like a robin's egg in colour, and a faint wind was making tucks and ruches and pleats all over the water, quite as if the breezes had set up in business as mantua-makers. I fancy they thought they were working on a great sheet of blue silk, for it was very like that. And every once in a while a fish would ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... gladness were in the air. The trill of the blue-bird was a thrill; and the first song of the robin was full of lilac and apple blossoms. The softened winds fell to zephyrs, and whispered strange mysterious legends to the brown silent trees, and murmured lovingly over the warming beds of the slumbering flowers. ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... bear and forbear; and his face cleared, and he looked round about again and let his eyes rest calmly on all eyes that he met till they came on the Lord's face again. Then he let his hand fall into the strings and they fell a-tinkling sweetly, like unto the song of the winter robin, and at last he lifted his voice ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... pebble at another robin and accidentally hit it. Stunned for an instant, it keeled over, and Wallie glanced guiltily toward the hotel to see if by any chance Mr. Cone, who encouraged ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... volumes called The Children's Hour. Among her most delightful books is Robin Hood: His Book, from which the following story is taken, (by permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Co., Boston). Some few moralists have been distressed about giving stories of an outlaw to children, but Robin Hood was really the champion of the people against tyrannous oppression and injustice. This is the fact that children never miss, and the thing that endears Robin and his followers in Lincoln green. There is, of course, the further interesting fact that these stories take ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... named Robin Hinton an' my mother wus named Dafney Hinton. My father belonged to Betsy Ransom Hinton an' mother belonged first to Reddin Cromb in Lenoir County an' then to James Thompson of Wake County. I wus borned after mother wus brought to Wake County. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... the Wisp." This personage is a strolling demon or esprit follet, who, once upon a time, got admittance into a monastery as a scullion, and played the monks many pranks. He was also a sort of Robin Goodfellow, and Jack o' Lanthern. It is in allusion to this mischievous demon that Milton's ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... robin's sturdy note, The gay canary's trill, Blent with the low of new-milked kine ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... the ever-memorable visit of the Earl of Sittingbourne. Not only is he of the British peerage, but he is also, on dit, a leader of the British metal industries. As he comes from Nottingham, a favorite haunt of Robin Hood, though now, we are informed by Lord Doak, a live modern city of 275,573 inhabitants, and important lace as well as other industries, we like to think that perhaps through his veins runs some of the blood, both virile red ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... cities, "in the bush". (today: a "bushy") bushranger: an Australian "highwayman", who lived in the 'bush'— scrub—and attacked especially gold carrying coaches and banks. Romanticised as anti-authoritarian Robin Hood figures—cf. Ned ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... 'Soldiers Three' was his Bible; he was always singing 'Tipperary,' and he never got the tune right nor learnt more than three lines of it. He laced all his talk with 'b——y'; it was his jewel, his ruby. But he had the pluck of a robin or a squirrel; I never knew him scared or anything but cheerful. Misfortunes, humiliations, only made him chatty. And he'd starve to have something ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Robin Hood and his Huntesmen" in Metropolis Coronata, I am not aware that any of Munday's ballads are extant—unless indeed the "ditties" in The Banquet of daintie Conceits may be regarded as such; but there is ...
— Kemps Nine Daies Wonder - Performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich • William Kemp
... first in the manner of Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin, who had cast on me a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other works: CAIN, an epic, was (save the mark!) an imitation of SORDELLO: ROBIN HOOD, a tale in verse, took an eclectic middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer and Morris: in MONMOUTH, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr. Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many masters; ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whome the Bishop ascited to purge hir selfe of the fame of inchantment and witchcraft imposed unto hir, and to one Petronill and Basill, hir complices. She was charged to have nightlie conference with a spirit called Robin Artisson, to whome she sacrificed in the high waie nine red cocks, and nine peacocks' eies. Also, that she swept the streets of Kilkennie betweene compleine and twilight, raking all the filth towards the doores of hir sonne William ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... dissatisfaction over an expensive but ill-made salad, he alone ate with apparent relish. The host, who was of like mind with his guests, said, 'The Bibliotaph doesn't care for the quality of his food, if it has filling power.' To which he at once responded, 'You merely imply that I am like a robin: I eat cherries when I may, ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... temper was originally raised by the follies of some people who got money by it,—that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications,—I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them terribly; such as 'Lily's Almanack,' 'Gadbury's Astrological Predictions,' 'Poor Robin's Almanack,' and the like; also several pretended religious books, one entitled, 'Come out of Her, my People, lest Ye be Partakers of her Plagues'; another called 'Fair Warning'; another, 'Britain's Remembrancer'; and many such, all or most part of which foretold, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... eagerly. "The longest I ever heard. That man deserves to be suppressed or excommunicated; and the parishioners ought to send him a round robin to that effect. Odd, too, how much at sea one feels with a strange prayer-book. One looks for one's prayer at the top of the page, where it always used to be in one's own particular edition, and, lo! one finds it at the bottom. Whatever you may do for the future, Lady Stafford, don't lend me your ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... pudding's in the eating. But wait till you see how thick the snow is. Come—in!" This is very staccato. Jane was knocking at the door with cans of really hot water this time. "I said come in before. Merry Christmas and happy New Year, Jane!... Oh, I say! What a dear little robin! He's such a little duck, I hope that cat won't get him!" And Sally, who is huddled up in a thick dressing-gown and is shivering, is so excited that she goes on looking through the blind, and the peep-hole she has had to make to see clear through the frosted pane, in spite of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... must love and wed! Were one to go to worlds where May is naught, And seek to tell the memories he had brought From earth of thee, what were most fitly said? I know not if the rosy showers shed From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read Thee best who in the ancient time did say Thou wert the sacred month unto the old: No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day So subtly sweet as memories which unfold ...
— A Calendar of Sonnets • Helen Hunt Jackson
... not a Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor. Rather, it deals most cruelly with those who can least protect themselves. It strikes hardest those millions of our citizens whose incomes do not quickly rise with the cost of living. When prices soar, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... that shares in toils like these Will sigh not to prolong Our days beneath the broad-leaved trees, Our nights of mirth and song? Then leave the dust of noisy streets, Ye outlaws of the wood, And follow through his green retreats Your noble Robin Hood. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... hands; but my vigorous efforts only caused the jay to pick up the wren in its bill and continue its flight, and neither wren nor jay was seen by me again. This incident furnishes unimpeachable testimony against the character of the blue-coated Robin Hood. There was no faltering or hesitancy in his conduct, but he seized and carried off his little victim as if he were to the manner born, and had become hardened by practice in depredations of ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... me that my older and less sensitive years have never known such a night. The world was stifling in a deluge of gray, cold mists, unstirred by a breath of air. A robin with feathers all ruffled, and head hidden, sat on the gate-post, and chirped a little mournful chirp, like a creature dying in a vacuum. The very daisy that nodded and drooped in the grass at my feet seemed to be gasping for breath. The neighbor's ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... near the grove, and saw two boys who had caught a robin, and were playing with it. They had tied a string to its legs; and, when the poor bird tried to fly away, they pulled it back again, ...
— The Nursery, October 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 4 • Various
... They drafted a Round Robin to the Englishman, the backslider of old days, adjuring him in the interests of the Creed to explain whether there was any connection between the embodiment of some Egyptian God or other [I have forgotten the name] and his communication. They called the kitten Ra, or Toth, or Tum, ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... Britain and Ireland the redbreast's nest is spared, while those of other birds are robbed without ceremony; and his life is equally sacred. No schoolboy who has ever killed a robin can forget the dire remorse and fear that followed the deed. And little wonder, for terrible are the punishments said to overtake those who persecute this little bird. Generally such a crime is believed to be expiated by the death of a friend. Sometimes the punishment is more trivial. In some parts ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... lilacs a robin was singing his delicate and bold welcome to autumn, and over the window a branch of red roses nodded persistently and rhythmically in a draught of wind. Lawrence stood looking out into the garden of which he saw nothing, and Isabel, watching him, felt tears coming into her own eyes, the ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... an American flag merchant ship, the ROBIN MOOR, was sunk by a Nazi submarine in the middle of the South Atlantic, under circumstances violating long-established international law and violating every principle of humanity. The passengers and the crew were forced into open boats hundreds of miles from land, ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... Frederick has a robin, and he calls him a dear little pet, he sings so sweetly. Oh! you cannot think how well he knows Freddy. You should see him early in the morning, when we first come down stairs, or at any time when we come in from a walk, how he runs to one corner of his cage, to look at us: and when Fred ...
— Child's New Story Book; - Tales and Dialogues for Little Folks • Anonymous
... "became general amongst the barons, knights, and gentry, soon after the Conquest, yet Saxon patronymics long continued in use amongst the common people, and are still not unusual here. Thus, instead of John Ashworth and Robert Butterworth, we hear of Robin o' Ben's and John o'Johnny's,"—meaning Robert the son of Benjamin, and John the son of John, "similar to the Norman Fitz, the Welsh Ap', the Scotch Mac, and the Irish O'; and this ancient mode of describing an individual sometimes ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... British officers placed in detention barracks by the Germans in retaliation for English treatment of German submarine crews shows the names of seven Captains and thirty-two Lieutenants, included being the names of Lieutenant Goschen, son of a former Ambassador to Berlin; Robin Grey, a nephew of Sir Edward Grey, and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... could only be demonstrated"—did not escape the naturalist's genius so manifest in Goethe. When Eckermann told once to Goethe— it was in 1827—that two little wren-fledglings, which had run away from him, were found by him next day in the nest of robin redbreasts (Rothkehlchen), which fed the little ones, together with their own youngsters, Goethe grew quite excited about this fact. He saw in it a confirmation of his pantheistic views, and said:—"If it be true that this feeding of a stranger goes ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... grief was in store for the stern old lord of Walderne. The third child, Mabel, the youngest daughter, fell in love with a handsome young hunter, a Saxon outlaw of the type of Robin Hood, who delivered her from a wild boar which would have slain or cruelly mangled her. The old father had inspired no confidence in his children: she met her outlaw again and again by stealth, and eventually became ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... yesterday two hours on the terrace. These are the most considerable events that have happened in your absence; excepting that a good-natured robin red-breast kept me company almost all the afternoon with so much good humour and humanity as gives me faith for the piece of charity ascribed to these little creatures in the Children in the Wood, which I have hitherto thought only a poetical ornament ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... devoutness, probity, discretion and good fortune,—that the said Parliament ever came to be good for much? In that case it will not be easy to "imitate" the English Parliament; and the ballot-box and suffrage will be the mere bow of Robin Hood, which it is given to very few to bend, or shoot with to any perfection. And if the Peers become mere big Capitalists, Railway Directors, gigantic Hucksters, Kings of Scrip, without lordly quality, or other virtue except ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... you have is best hidden under a napkin. The descriptive terms men use here are crisp and to the point. The vicious habit of giving birds bad names is one that grows, and you never know when the scientific have come to a finality. For instance, little Robin Red-Breast ("the pious bird with scarlet breast" whose nest with four eggs the Kid discovered to-day), has successively lived through three tags, "Turdus migratorius," "Planesticus migratorius," and "Turdus canadensis." If he had not been an especially plucky ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... whom I know well, first told me how a fox manages to carry a number of chicks at once. He heard a clamor from a hen-turkey and her brood one day, and ran to a wood path in time to see a vixen make off with a turkey chick scarcely larger than a robin. Several were missing from the brood. He hunted about, and presently found five more just killed. They were beautifully laid out, the bodies at a broad angle, the necks crossing each other, like the corner of a corn-cob house, in such a way that, by gripping the necks ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... trusty weapon being called "a stick"—"an' I don't think," he went on, "that Robin Hood ever fought without his sword. Let's see what the book says," and he drew a very crumpled papercovered volume from his pocket, which he consulted with knitted brows, while the ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... side of St. George's Channel, it was being carried out on the other by a mind inferior indeed to his own in genius, but almost equal to it in courage and tenacity. Cold, pedantic, superstitious as he was (he notes in his diary the entry of a robin-redbreast into his study as a matter of grave moment), William Laud rose out of the mass of court-prelates by his industry, his personal unselfishness, his remarkable capacity for administration. At a later period, when immersed in State business, he found time ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... been walking uphill all the time, and, as soon as they were clear of the woods, found they had reached a high table-land, covered with pastures, through the midst of which flowed a stream, whose rushy banks were gay with purple loosestrife, Ragged Robin, and yellow spearwort. It was a famous place in which to botanize, and the girls were allowed to disperse and hunt about for specimens, and came back every now and then to show ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... to inquire for the patient, reported him better, but still unable to be moved, since he could not lift his head without sickness, she became very anxious. Giles was transformed in her estimate from a cross-grained slip to poor Robin Headley's boy, the only son of a widow, and nothing would content her but to make her son conduct her to Warwick Inner Yard to inspect matters, and carry thither a precious relic ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... one at last that Robin bight, (Renown'd for pinching maids by night) Has hent him up aloof; And full against the beam he flung, Where by the back the youth he hung ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... melody linked to words which moved us in our youth. When an orchestra stops playing its waltzes and mazourkas of the latest fashion and takes up the strains of "Kathleen Mavourneen," "Oft in the Stilly Night," or "Robin Adair," one may readily observe a change come over the older part of the crowd who listen. The familiar air is like a shell murmuring in their ears sweet, far-off, imperishable memories of youth, and that special epoch of youth best described as "les ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... be not deceived, he had the longest lease, the smoothest time without rubs, of any of her favorites." Lord Bacon also testifies that he "had much and private access to her, which he used honorably and did many men good: yet he would say merrily of himself, that he was like Robin Goodfellow; for when the maids spilt the milk-pans or kept any racket, they would lay it upon Robin: so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or other bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him." The poems of Fulke Greville, celebrated and fashionable in his ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... got Lady Waterford's 'Babes in the Wood,' which are well enough, pretty in Colour: only, why has she made so bad a Portrait of one of her chief Performers, whose Likeness is so easily got at, the Robin Redbreast? This Lady Waterford was at Gillingham this Summer: and my Sister Eleanor said (as Thackeray had done) she was something almost to ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... asked all the animals that he had made to come to his lodge. Those that could fly came first: the robin, the bluebird, the owl, the butterfly, the wasp, and the firefly. Behind them came the chicken, fluttering its wings and trying hard to keep up. Then came the deer, the squirrel, the serpent, the cat, and the rabbit. Last of all ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... a moment as though her very heart stood still. Was it thus that God had given her its desire? Was this white, worn, bearded man verily "our Robin," who had passed away from them so very different? She seemed neither to know nor to see any thing, till she felt two arms clasped around her, and a voice, that no time nor prison could wholly alter, called her to herself, with—"Mother, ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... easy to believe anything that may be stated with regard to money, except that one will ever be able to get enough of it to cover these terrible charges. The entire fabric of things rests on money; and our prices would drive a respectable Frenchman into suicide. O poor Robin Ruff! alas for your grand visions that you sang so glowingly to dear Gaffer Green! In this age of the world, O what could you do, or where could you go, e'en on a thousand pounds ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... to return in words like these:—"It is too delightful to think that I shall see the leaves fall and hear the robin sing next autumn at Shrewsbury. My feelings are those of a schoolboy to the smallest point; I doubt whether ever boy longed for his holidays as much as I do to see you all again. I am at present, although ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... potassium—why the nitrous oxyde, or laughing gas, induces people to make such asses of themselves; and, especially, all sorts of individual inquiries, which, if continued at the present rate, will range from "Who discovered the use of the spleen?" to "Who killed cock robin?" for aught we know. They ask questions at the Hall ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... Would that our young men would lay them to heart! The characters are, many of them, well drawn and sustained—we confess to a sincere affection for the Highlander, Gil Macdonald, and the Scotch sheep-dog, Robin. Many of the scenes in which they appear are full of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of mine has a robin's nest that he guards with very great care, and about which he tells a story to all the young and old people ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... such national lyrist as Burns. Fine ballads, mostly anonymous, existed in Scotland previous to his time; and shortly before a few authors had produced a few songs equal to some of his best. Such are Alexander Ross's "Wooed and Married," Lowe's "Mary's Dream," "Auld Robin Gray," "The Land o' the Leal" and the two versions of "The Flowers o' the Forest." From these and many of the older pieces in Ramsay's collection, Burns admits to have derived copious suggestions and impulses. He fed on the past literature of his country as Chaucer ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the Round Robin. This jeu d'esprit took its rise one day at dinner at our friend Sir Joshua Reynolds's. All the company present, except myself, were friends and acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith. The Epitaph, written for him by Dr. Johnson, became the subject of conversation, and various emendations were suggested, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... y'understand, this here League of Nations looks like a pretty safe proposition for any politician to tie up to, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if even some of them Senators which signed the round robin would be claiming just before the 1920 National Conventions that they was never what you might call actually against a League of Nations except, as one might say, in a manner of speaking, if you know what I mean. Also, Abe, these here Senators which ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... 'Auld Robin Grey,' a friend whose age and experience made her a proper confidante, sent for the broken-hearted, perplexed wife, and offered her a ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Anna doubtfully. "I had to learn that once at school, but, somehow, I didn't think that it was about a robin." ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the maple sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along Main Street in Syracuse, the first chirp of the bluebird, the swan song of the Blue Point, the annual tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... "Couldn't you," says Douglas, (and of course the right-minded reader is shocked,) "couldn't you make it a woman?" What a scandalous way to treat a man of business! Between Douglas and the lawyers, for many years, there was open war. He was a kind of Robin Hood to these representatives of the Crown,—adopting the plucky and defiant gaiety of the old outlaw, and shooting keen arrows at them with a bow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... like our own native Robin, fond of woodlands, and is generally found amongst thick brush, issuing from it to perch on dead branches. Its breast is a fine bright pink; its plumage is otherwise black and white, and it has a spot of white over the nostrils. The range of this bird is ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... Robin Pierce, the tall young man, stood alone for a few minutes. Two or three times he glanced towards Lady Holme, who had sat down on a sofa, and was opening and shutting a small silver box which she had picked up from ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... other boys of that bygone day. Regions of freedom and delight, where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer's rifle, and was friends with Chingachgook and his noble son—the last, alas! of the Mohicans: where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and exchanged buffets with Lion-hearted Richard under the green-wood tree: where Quentin Durward, happy squire of dames, rode midnightly by their side through the gibbet-and-gipsy-haunted forests of Touraine.... Ah! I ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... ballads and lyrics, such as the cycle of Robin Hood and that exquisite love-poem "The Nut-Brown Maid," are based on the custom of outlawry. One of the most charming of these early English productions is "The Tale of Gamelyn," in which we meet with the following passage alluding to ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... on the ground that morning and twice he left Jack "to snook" out to the trail and look for tracks. Solomon could imitate the call of the swamp robin, and when they were separated in the bush, he gave it so that his friend could locate him. At midday they sat down in deep shade by the side of a ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... Nationales," F7, 2494. Section of the Reunion, official report, June 1.—Ibid., June 2. Citizen Robin is arrested on the 2nd of June, "for having manifested opinions contrary to the sovereignty of the people in the National Assembly." The same day a proclamation is made on the territory of the section by a deputation of the commune, accompanied by one member and two drummers, "tending (tendantes) ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... involved in litigation and low in purse; but nothing could damp his zeal. Acadia must become a new France, and he, Poutrincourt, must be its father. He gained from the King a confirmation of his grant, and, to supply the lack of his own weakened resources, associated with himself one Robin, a man of family and wealth. This did not save him from a host of delays and vexations; and it was not until the spring of 1610 that he found himself in a condition to embark on his ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... life's prime, my soul Comes out in flower; Late, as with Robin, comes My singing power; I was not born to joy Till this ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... gave a laugh. "I'm Robin Hood and I want you to explain yourself. Why do you bow down before that brazen ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... one seems to have enquired into the truth of the story, or to have asked Thornbury and Elliot what business it was of theirs; they had it entirely their own way. I propose that we should all sign a Round Robin, go to Rodriguez in a body, and insist upon a full enquiry. Something's got to be ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... is the carol the Robin throws Over the edge of the valley; Listen how boldly it flows, Sally on sally: Tirra-lirra, Early morn, New born! Day is near, Clear, clear. Down the river All a-quiver, Fish are breaking; Time for waking, Tup, tup, tup! Do you hear? ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... clean.' 'Not so. Kid, I have thought much, and yet the thing remains. I knew, and made her go back.' The clear note of a robin rang out from the wooden bank, a partridge drummed the call in the distance, a moose lunged noisily in the eddy; but the twain ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... grateful as I am to you," said Robin Goodfellow. "But for you I should be disturbing that hawk's digestion at the present moment, instead of which, here I am, a respectable fairy once more, and my late wife (though I ought not to call her that, for goodness knows she was early enough hustling me out of my nest before daybreak, ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was, most certainly, not comfort. Robin himself would have smiled contemptuously if you had pleaded for something homely, something suggestive of roaring fires and cosy armchairs, instead of the stiff-backed, beautifully carved Louis XIV. furniture that stood, each chair and table ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... Mrs. Oldmixon, a noted singer, made her first appearance in America at the Chestnut St. Theatre, Philadelphia, in "Robin Hood." ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... and Mrs. Robin Redbreast, one of our most aristocratic families," said he, swinging his club around in a circle until Chubbins ducked his head for ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... in New York at all, anything like a decent game-bag—a little fancy-worked French or German jigmaree machine you can get anywhere, I grant, that will do well enough for a fellow to carry on his shoulders, who goes out robin-gunning, but nothing for your man to carry, wherein to keep your birds cool, fresh, and unmutilated. Now, these loops and buttons, at which you laugh, will make the difference of a week at least in the bird's keeping, if every hour or so you empty your pockets—wherein I take it for granted you put ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... conscious ladies. And men—ah, pitiful!—pitiful the wretch whose hardihood has involved him in cruel and unusual great gloss and unsheltered tailed coat. Any man in his overcoat is wrapped in his castle; he fears nothing. But to this hunted creature, naked in his robin's tail, the whole panorama of the Avenue is merely a blurred audience, focusing upon him a vast glare of derision; he walks swiftly, as upon fire, pretends to careless sidelong interest in shop-windows ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... Marshall tells me that "the Streaked Laughing-Thrush is very common at Mussoorie, where it is called by the public the Robin of India. It breeds in July and August all about Landour. The nest is cup-shaped, rather shallow, and loosely put together, made of grass and fibre with some moss and a few dead leaves twisted into it; it is placed in a ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... what she doesn't know. She never thinks of such things, does she, Christopher? Her father and I have to command her and keep her in order, as you would a child. She will say things worthy of a French epigrammatist, and act like a robin in a greenhouse. But I think we will send for Dr. Granson—there can ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... as he was sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighboring villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk, sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and while he was dancing ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... was away until the next evening. When he came back he had a peaceful air, but sometimes peace is not attained without effort and we have to struggle to keep it. When he had helped to unharness Robin and had given him some hay, had changed his cassock and unpacked his box, from which he took a dozen little packages of things bought on his visit to the city, it was the very time that the birds assembled in the branches to tell each other about the day. There had ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... an ortolan, a beccafico, a robin-redbreast, or any other feathered and diminutive biped. He is not so ambitious as to expect a quail. Partridges he has heard of; of one, at least, a sort of phoenix, reproduced from its own ashes, and seen from time to time before an earthquake, or other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... appealed particularly to his brother Philip, who was always ready to stand his friend, when his elder brother Robin was inclined to exercise a ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Luther; by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch. Our more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a hidden meaning in "The Antediluvians," a parable in Powhatan, "new views in Cock Robin," and transcendentalism in "Hop O' My Thumb." In short, it has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care of his moral. It is there—that is ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the threshold of Thomas Dickson's house, they were greeted with sounds from two English soldiers within. "Quiet, Anthony," said one voice,—"quiet, man!—for the sake of common sense, if not common manners;—Robin Hood himself never sat down to his board ere ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... You drain the world dry of its blood and its money. You possess, like the mosquito, a beautiful instrument of suction—Founders' Shares—with which you absorb the surplus wealth of the community. In my smaller way, again, I relieve you in turn of a portion of the plunder. I am a Robin Hood of my age; and, looking upon you as an exceptionally bad form of millionaire—as well as an exceptionally easy form of pigeon for a man of my type and talents to pluck—I have, so to speak, taken ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... Hildeburn; Ford; Sabin; Seilhamer, ii, 10; Tyler; "New Travels through North-America." Translated from the Original of the Abbe Robin [Claude C.], one of the Chaplains to the French Army in America, 1783. (Observations made in 1781); Sonneck's "Early Opera in America;" Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia;" Philadelphia Directories as mentioned ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists - 1765-1819 • Various
... have no objection to Robin Masters being wooden-head of the Antiquarian Society; but, I suppose, he is not dignified enough for them. I should prefer the Judge too, because a coif makes him more like an old woman, and I reckon that Society the midwives of superannuated ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... to be disposed of. In the original inventory, discovered in the library at Versailles, were included pieces of Saxony ware, Watteau figures, Sevres vases, dishes and cups, Beauvais tapestries, clocks made by Robin and de Sotian, candelabra of crystal, chandeliers of silver—all from the apartments of the King, the Queen and the Dauphin. For 20,000 francs there was sold a tapestry emblematic of the American Revolution. Creditors of the new Government were paid in furniture and ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... "worthy to rank with your own Robin Hood, signorina. Montano, the King of Thieves, was first heard of in the mountains some ten years ago, when people said brigands were extinct. But his wild authority spread with the swiftness of a silent revolution. Men found his fierce proclamations nailed in ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... with the full swelling chorus of spring, but yet sufficiently to give cheerfulness to the otherwise silent woods. It is a calumny on the feathered tribes of Canada to assert that they have no song; the blackbird can sing when he is inclined, as sweetly as his brother in England, and the Canadian robin's notes are as full of glee as those of his smaller namesake in ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... of a doctor, with his head on one side,' said my aunt, 'Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about? All he could do, was to say to me, like a robin redbreast—as he is—"It's a boy." A boy! Yah, the imbecility of ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... mean that you look like him; you are far handsomer. I meant simply that you both habitually speak the truth, and because you speak the truth the world mistakes you for a successful comedian and Vetch for a kind of political Robin Hood." ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... hear de leetle bird say, "Wait till de snow is geev up it's dead, Wait till I go, an' de robin come, An' den you will fin' hees cole, ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... tells how, after some classical or fashionable music had been played, Landor would come closer to the piano and ask for an old English ballad, and when "Auld Robin Gray," his favourite of all, was sung, the tears would stream down his face. "Ah, you don't know what thoughts you are recalling ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... been an interesting character for many generations of schoolboys, and among the ballads concerning him (Volume III, page 436) are several good selections for reading aloud. Most children know something about Robin Hood and many of them have read full accounts, yet probably the old ballads are not familiar. The note on page 436 gives information about the ballads and tells what it is necessary to know about Robin Hood himself. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... plum porridge, with the eating of which the man in the South burnt his mouth. Here is a portrait of the man in the moon, when he came down too soon to inquire the way to Norwich. In one of the other gables of this house I can show you Mother Goose's cap frill. And here is the arrow with which Cock Robin was cruelly murdered by the sparrow. This is the original and genuine arrow; all others are humbugs. This is the bone that Mother Hubbard went to look for, but failed to find. Here are ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... one's Eyes open; besides it is really doing her an Injury. This last Consideration, forsooth, of injuring her in persisting, made him resolve to break off upon the first favourable Opportunity of making her angry. When he was in this Thought, he saw Robin the Porter who waits at Will's Coffee-House, passing by. Robin, you must know, is the best Man in Town for carrying a Billet; the Fellow has a thin Body, swift Step, demure Looks, sufficient Sense, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... systematically plundered, and the same article often sold four times over to the officials. The absence of patrols gave ample chance to the highwaymen then peculiar to England. Their careers, commemorated in the Newgate Calendar, had a certain flavour of Robin Hood romance, and their ranks were recruited from dissipated apprentices and tradesmen in difficulty. The fields round London were so constantly plundered that the rent was materially lowered. Half the hackney coachmen, he says,[102] were in league ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... him up to it, I will! Arthur and she indeed! As if a plate of porridge like Arthur would draw a fireflash like Bab! I'd give the whole litter of 'em, and throw in the dam, to call that plucky little robin my girl! I'd give my soul to have such ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... Bill Sikes, Jack Sheppard, Jonathan Wild. gang[group of thieves], gang of thieves, theft ring; organized crime, mafia, the Sicilian Mafia, the mob, la cosa nostra [Italian]. Dillinger[famous thieves], Al Capone; Robin Hood. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... appeared in the two volumes just mentioned. Out of the comedy of his nature came the sweetness of his work, and out of his association with all conditions of his fellow-men came that insight into the springs of human passion and action that leavens all that he wrote, from "The Robin and the Violet" (1884) down to "The Love Affairs ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the piano and filled the room with the soft sounds of "Auld Robin Gray" and "The ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... here is one thing that strikes me as curious, coming from the vicinity of Philadelphia, where even the robin redbreast, held sacred by the humanity of all other Christian people, is not safe from the gunning prowess of the unlicensed sportsmen of your free country. The negroes (of course) are not allowed the use of firearms, and their very simply constructed traps ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... archers. The exploits of this renowned outlaw and his merry men form the subject of many old ballads and romances, and the old oaks in Sherwood Forest could tell the tale of many an exciting chase after the king's deer, and of many a luckless traveller who had to pay dearly for the hospitality of Robin Hood and Little John. The ballads narrate that they could shoot an arrow a measured mile, but this is a flight of imagination ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... stood by her little boy a few minutes, looking from the window. Presently a robin alighted on the walnut tree, directly before them, with a bunch of dry grass in its mouth. It rested a few seconds, and then flew in among the branches of a honeysuckle which twined around the pillars, and crept over the top of the porch. ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... the old Scotch ballads, I need do no more than mention the name of Auld Robin Gray. The effect of reading this old ballad is as if all our hopes and fears hung upon the last fibre of the heart, and we felt that giving way. What silence, what loneliness, what leisure ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... robin called. Felicity's eyes opened. They looked calm and dewy, like a child's. She raised her head—the robin called again. Felicity looked about her, at the flowers in her hand, the trees, the sky. Her face broke into smiles, she rose tall, taller, feet on tiptoe, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... had not fallen to him for many long years, while a faint groan of misery escaped his lips from time to time before the last metal loop had been forced over its stud and then drawn into its place, the last buckle drawn tight, and the armed cheek-straps of the great Robin helmet passed ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... to particulars, as we dip into the stores of earlier centuries the broadsheets reveal almost nothing intended for children—the many Robin Hood ballads, for example, are decidedly meant for grown-up people; and so in the eighteenth century we find its chap-books of "Guy, Earl of Warwick," "Sir Bevis, of Southampton," "Valentine and Orson," are still ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White |
