"Sprat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and as my boat began to gather way, they began to swim after her. The big fellow led, and all the others followed. There was hundreds of them, of all sizes, and one little chap, who brought up the rear, was no bigger than a sprat. After me they came with open months and big red eyes, all the hair on their backs standing up, and their tails whisking about like the flukes of a whale in a flurry. Didn't I just pull for dear life, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... death, had taken her to his home. Then, at last, the Duchess of Buckingham indignantly observed, that she and the countess could not possibly live together. 'So I thought, madam,' was the reply. 'I have therefore ordered your coach to take you to your father's.' It has been asserted that Dr. Sprat, the duke's chaplain, actually married him to Lady Shrewsbury, and that his legal wife was thenceforth ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... irregularly, and the heels of the stockings may sometimes be seen trimmed with the same material. A sort of basket-work is now a great deal seen as a head-dress, and in these cases it is strewed over with little silver fish, something like common sprat, which gives it a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... was made from the Thynnus or Tunny as well as from the Scomber, but that from the Scomber was counted the most delicate. Commentators, however, are not agreed about the Scomber or Scombrus. Some suppose it was the Herring or Sprat; others believe it was the mackarel; after all, perhaps it was the Anchovy, which I do not find distinguished by any other Latin name: for the Encrasicolus is a Greek appellation altogether generical. Those who would be further informed about the Garum and the Scomber may consult Caelius Apicius ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... right as whan the sonne shyneth brighte In March that chaungeth ofte tyme his face And that a cloud is put with wind to flighte Which over-sprat the sonne as for a space, A cloudy thought gan thorugh hir soule pace, That ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Leigh fisherman's life Jack had not yet encountered, for boys are seldom taken stow-boating. Stow-boating is really sprat catching, and no one can exactly explain the meaning of the term. It is carried on in winter at the edge of the sands, far down at the mouth of the river. Boats are out for many days together, frequently in terrible seas, when the boat is more under than above the water. The work of getting ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... had to choose between being too fat or too lean, the wise woman would certainly take the smaller allowance of flesh. Jack Sprat might incite pleasant ridicule, but Jack Sprat's wife—lo! there would be naught but pity and tears for her! It is better by far to be the butt of jokes concerning "walking shoestrings" or "perambulating umbrella cases" than to waddle through ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... Sprat can eat no fat, His wife can eat no lean, Because upon their platter now No ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... Sprat could eat no fat, His wife could eat no lean; And so, betwixt them both, you see, They ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... | of God is not to express matters of | nature in the Scriptures, otherwise | than in passage, and for application | to man's capacity and to matters | moral or divine" (ut 485-6). If we | take Thomas Sprat at his word, the | Royal Society was founded on | generally similar principles. The | first corruption of knowledge, he | argues, resulted from the Egyptians' | concealment of wisdom "as sacred | Mysteries." The current age of | inquiry benefitted from ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... Whales, and before very long they began fighting with one another. The battle was very fierce, and had lasted some time without any sign of coming to an end, when a Sprat thought that perhaps he could stop it; so he stepped in and tried to persuade them to give up fighting and make friends. But one of the Dolphins said to him contemptuously, "We would rather go on fighting till we're all killed than be reconciled ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... a time there was a fisherman who lived close by a palace, and fished for the king's table. One day when he was out fishing he just caught nothing. Do what he would—however he tried with bait and angle—there was never a sprat on his hook. But when the day was far spent a head bobbed up out ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... girl. He's a six-footer and over; he spangled a lot, and he smiled pretty—comme le printemps, and was sharp enough to keep clear of women that could hurt him. That was his strongest point after all, for a little, sly sprat of a woman that's made eyes at you and led you on, till you sent her a note in a hurry some time with some loose hot words in it, and she got what she'd wanted, will make you pay a hundred times for the goods you get. Ingolby ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 3rd of September 1658, when Oliver Cromwell died on the anniversary of Dunbar fight and of the field of Worcester. And yet the end, though it was to be sudden, did not at once seem likely to be so. There was time for the poets to tune their lyres. Waller, Dryden, Sprat, and Marvell had no doubt that "Tumbledown Dick" was to sit on the throne of his father and "still keep the sword erect," and were ready with ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... far more than compensated by the frank, social, and engaging qualities, both of disposition and manner, which, on a nearer intercourse, he disclosed, as well as by that entire absence of any literary assumption or pedantry, which entitled him fully to the praise bestowed by Sprat upon Cowley, that few could "ever discover he was a great poet by his discourse." While thus, by his intimates, and those who had got, as it were, behind the scenes of his fame, he was seen in his true colours, as well of weakness as of amiableness, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Cottingham's time. He had found the archway partially blocked, so that an ordinary square-headed door might be inserted, a most barbarous arrangement. In the passage within is a portrait of Bishop Sprat, and in the Chapter Room itself one of King James I. and a view in St. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... for time after time Selim the Fisherman caught nothing but bad luck in his nets, and not so much as a single sprat, and he was very hungry. "Come," said he to himself, "those who have some should surely give to those who have none," and so he went to Selim the Baker. "Let me have a loaf of bread," said he, "and I will ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... now every Athenian who returns home, bawls to his slaves, "Where is the stew-pot? Who has eaten off the sprat's head? Where is the clove of garlic that was left over from yesterday? Who has been nibbling at my olives?" Whereas formerly they kept their seats with mouths agape ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... after bin had like this, we went out on the Lachlan, clean fly-blowed; an' Tom got a job boundary ridin', through another feller goin' to Mount Brown diggin's; an' there was no work for me, so we had to shake hands. I'd part my last sprat to ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... believe—even dishonesty; though I didn't learn that until long afterward." The fun had died out of Natalie's voice now. "It's a miserable, ordinary kind of a story, isn't it?" she said deprecatingly. "Most girls go through with it safely; but I—well I was the simple sprat that ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the Reverend Mother-Superior of the Convent to all of you. But I was at school with her, and I can't forget she used to be Biddy. She was one of the great girls, and I was a sprat of ten, but she condescended to let me adore her, and I did, like everybody else. To be adored is her metier. The Sisters swear by her, and that girl worships the ground under her feet. If I had a daughter I should like her to look at me in that way—heart in her eyes, don't ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves |
