"Downy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... marriage (which was evidently distasteful to both) go on to the conclusion of the ceremony, he could not comprehend. There were, however, so many things in the world that he could not comprehend, and he had grown so accustomed, after an effort to master a difficulty, to lean his head back upon downy ignorance, that he treated this significant letter of Edward's like a tough lesson, and quietly put it by, together with every recommendation it contained. For all that was practical in it, it might just as well ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... so good a thing to the handmaid frightened the daughter. Violet set her tray down hastily on the nearest table, and ran to her mother's sofa. She looked at the pale and sunken cheek, just visible in the downy hollow of the pillows; she touched the hand lying on the silken coverlet. That marble coldness, that waxen hue of the cheek, told her the awful truth. She fell on her knees beside the sofa, with a cry of sharp and ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... readiness; but whilst they awaited the Khalif's signal for the execution and the people wept for Jaafer and his kinsmen, behold, a handsome and well-dressed young man, with shining face and bright black eyes, flower-white forehead, downy whiskers and rosy cheeks and a mole like a grain of ambergris, pressed through the crowd, till he stood before Jaafer and said to him, 'I come to deliver thee from this strait, O chief of the Amirs and refuge of the poor! I am he who killed the woman ye found in the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... and complete work of Dr. Bowman, On the Structure of the Cotton Fibre. Suffice it to say that in certain plants and trees the seeds or fruit are surrounded, in the pods in which they develop, with a downy substance, and that the cotton shrub belongs to this class of plants. A fibre picked out from the mass of the downy substance referred to, and examined under the microscope, is found to be a spirally twisted band; or better, an irregular, ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... the Fourth of July. When Benton returned with the French clothes Fitzhugh Williams rose from his downy couch and bathed in cold water. He was even an eager bather in France, rejoicing in the feeling of superiority and stoicism which accompanied the pang and pain of it. But in England, where everybody ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... his approach with terror. Oh, now he would clasp those big white arms round her, which were all covered with downy hairs, those arms into which her mother had delivered her whilst she was still young and harmless, and had only thought of the dear saints, and had felt no desire for any man. Now she was no longer young and harmless, and—a sudden thought flashed through her brain—oh, perhaps she could persuade ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... the spring, the glad joyous spring, returned. The leaf-buds, wrapped within their gummy and downy cases, began to unfold; the dark green pines, spruce, and balsams began to shoot out fresh spiny leaves, like tassels, from the ends of every bough, giving out the most refreshing fragrance; the crimson buds of the young hazels, ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... onions in an iron pot? Or is thy wish to dwell in the marble halls of Dea Flavia's house, where the air is filled with the perfume of roses and violets and tame songbirds make their nests in the oleander bushes? Wouldst like to recline on soft downy cushions, allowing thy golden hair to fall over thy shoulders the while I, mallet or chisel in hand, would make thy face immortal by carving it in marble? The praefect saith thine is a case for pity, then do I have ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the silent shades of soft repose, Where fancy's boundless stream for ever flows; Where the enfranchis'd soul, at ease can play, Tir'd with the toilsome bus'ness of the day, Where princes gladly rest their weary heads, And change uneasy thrones for downy beds: Where seeming joys delude despairing minds, And where even jealousy some quiet finds; There I, and sorrow, for a while could part, Sleep clos'd my eyes, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... farther side. Now that was a lane much frequented by negroes, and, being alarmed for his safety, I sent a boy after him, and in a moment had him in my hand. He was a beautiful little creature, having a head covered with downy dark feathers, and soft black eyes, which regarded me with interest, but not at all with fear. All this time, of course, the parents were scolding and crying, and I held him only long enough to look carefully at him, when I replaced him on the grass. Off he started at ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... low humming as if some sentry were cheering his dreary watch by recollections of an old west-country ditty, and then from a little distance there was the half-hissing, half-grating cry of a white owl, as it flapped along upon its downy, silent pinions, while, through the trees at the edge of the wood, there was a dull red light, which showed where the embers of the great oaken beams of the Hall sent forth ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... stands in the midst of what was formerly a chase of immense extent, and which now forms a park of extraordinary size, and of singular beauty. The hand of man seems to have done but little to improve that beauty: the house stands as if by chance in the midst of a wilderness of downy hills and grassy valleys, of hawthorn groves, and wild commons, of remnants of forests, and miles of underwood. I was so engrossed by the strange character of this, to me, perfectly novel scenery, that I thought little of anything else as we drove up to the house: and when on reaching the entrance ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... on its bare crown, where nothing grew but heather and blaeberries. There he threw himself down, and gazed into the heavens. The sun was below the horizon; all the dazzle was gone out of the gold, and the roses were fast fading; the downy blue of the sky was trembling into stars over his head; the brown dusk was gathering in the air; and a wind full of gentleness and peace came to him from the west. He let his thoughts go where they would, and they went up into the abyss ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... The ancient historical rivers flowing through a land made sacred by the divine madness of the human spirit; the snow-capped mountains at the feet of which the lily and the oleander bloom; the pine forests diffusing their fragrance even among the downy clouds; the peaceful, sun-swept multi-coloured meadows; the trellised vines, the fig groves, the quince orchards, the orangeries: the absence of these did not disturb his serenity in the cellar, his voluptuousness in Bohemia, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... perfecting of that green until the whole earth is hidden away; then the soft, juicy look of the young blades nodding and waving at each other in the wind, that seems almost tender of them, and at last the fleecy, downy ears all ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... stunted, ruined nursling of Nature yet spoke unsuccess; no canker-bitten bud marked the cold finger of failure; for in that first rush of life all the earthborn host had set forth, if not equal, at least together. The primroses twinkled true on downy coral stems and the stars of anemone, celandine, and daisy opened perfect. Countless consummate, lustrous things were leaping, mingling, and uncurling, aloft and below, in the mazes of the wood, at the margins of the water. Verdant spears and ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Without rememb'ring who our fathers were: Fly to the arbors, grots, and flow'ry meads; There in soft murmurs interchange our souls; Together drink the crystal of the stream, Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields, And, when the golden evening calls us home, Wing to our downy ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... you'll be able to if we catch one, as I hope we shall, you'll find they are very like a large pigeon, only that they have webbed feet; and they always seem plump and fat. See, their feathers are white and downy, while their heads are brown and their wings striped with the same colour, giving them the appearance, if you look down on them from a ship, of being large white and brown butterflies, with their large ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... last summer, Miss L—— came home from one of her rides, with a large basket closely covered; and what do you think it contained? Why, a great anxious mother-hen, all tawny-colored and white, with thirteen downy little chickens, who were frightened enough, and wondering where in the wide world they were. We made a house for them in the green meadow, of a barrel turned upside down; and they all crept under their mother's wing, and went to sleep. But, lo! a great ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... Cotton is the white downy covering of the seed of several special of cotton of cotton plant. It is a native of many parts of the world, being found by Columbus growing in the West Indies and on the main land, by Cortez in Mexico, and ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... got over one eye, and he whipped the whole thing off. Kurt was also sitting up, a yard away from him, pink as ever, wrapped in blankets, and with an aluminium diver's helmet over his knee, staring at him with a severe expression, and rubbing his downy unshaven chin. They were both on a slanting floor of crimson padding, and above them was an opening like a long, low cellar flap that Bert by an effort perceived to be the cabin door in a half-inverted condition. The whole cabin had in ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... rugged mountain tops and sides, Her forests in the vale, each tree and shrub, With a fair foliage? hast though not beheld Her weaving, in the sunny springtide hours, A fairy web of emerald-bladed grass To robe her valleys in? With every flow'r Of graceful form, and soft and downy leaf, And tender hue, and tint, that Beauty owns, To deck her gentle breast? When Autumn came, With its rich gifts of pleasant, mellow fruits, Hast though not seen her wipe her sunburnt brow, And shake her yellow ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... hills the whirlwinds keenly blow, Howl through the woods, and pierce the vales below; Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies, Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies; The fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare, And shed their substance on the floating air; The floating air their downy substance glides Through springing waters, and prevents their tides; Seizes the rolling waves, and, as a god, Charms their swift race, and stops the refluent flood; The opening valves, which fill the venal ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... county-seat, by a march of thirty miles due north into Loudoun County, and a mile or two east of this attractive town went into bivouac about sunset in a beautiful grassy meadow which afforded what seemed to us a downy couch, and to the horses luxuriant pasturage, recalling former and better days. Next morning, while lying sound asleep wrapped in my blanket, I became painfully conscious of a crushing weight on my foot. Opening my eyes, there stood a horse almost over me, quietly cropping ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... boat, he brought Sam one of the soft, light coverings peculiar to the country. The foundation was a wide-meshed net of cord, to which had been tied hundreds of the fragile, downy pelts. Sam could stick his finger anywhere through the interstices, yet it was warmer than a blanket, ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... friends and acquaintances coming to say good-bye. Manm-Robert brings to see me a pretty young girl—very fair, with a violet foulard twisted about her blonde head. It is little Basilique, who is going to make her poumi communion. So I kiss her, according to the old colonial custom, once on each downy cheek;—and she is to pray to Notre Dame du Bon Port that the ship shall bear me safely to far-away New ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... exquisite pattern; curtains of richest lace; lambrequins of costly texture; richly-embroidered and velvet-covered sleepy-hollows and lounging chairs; nothing stiff, nothing that did not betoken abandonment to ease and pleasure; downy cushions; rarest pictures; loveliest statuettes; finest bronzes; delicate vases; magnificent, full length mirrors, a bookcase, itself a rare work of art, containing the best works of the best authors, all in the richest of bindings—nothing here that the most ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... she would have been ashamed of the fuss she had made. She wanted only this final assurance that the boy was at home, safe and sound; then she would think of her own affairs. She watched the moths fly about the lantern, and when one poor downy pair of wings touched the hot, domed top and fell fluttering into the road, she bent forward and looked at it, wondering what she could do for it. To kill it would be the kindest thing,—to put it out of its pain. But some obscure connection of ideas made ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts—guilty of education and suspected ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... "Downy pillow, this!" growled Larry, as he folded his sweater over a gold sack to get at least a semblance of softness for his ear to ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... light o' heaven fa' on her bonnie brow, An' glitter on the honey-blabs upon her cherry mou'; I saw the lily moonbeams steal the redness o' the rose, An' sleep upon her downy cheek in beautiful repose. The moon rose high, the stream gaed by, but aye she smiled on me, An' what she wadna breathe in words she tauld it ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... deal in rhetoric. He talked—it was continuous, strong, quiet talk—like a patriarch about to leave the world to the young lads who had chosen him and were just entering the world. His voice is a soft, downy voice—not a tone in it is of the shrill, fierce kind that one would expect it to be ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... penicellate tuft as a persistent pulvillus in a small central depression) and coalescing into broad convex vertical ribs: spine bearing areolae obsolete: flowers borne at the summit of nascent tubercles: ovary naked (that is free from scales, but often downy): fruit ...
— The North American Species of Cactus, Anhalonium, and Lophophora • John M. Coulter
... not go in for show," answered Gaston, affecting an air of wisdom, "but it is deemed handy sometimes. It does all sorts of business that you would never think of. A real downy ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... sea rocked in drowsy rest; ships and clumsy, broad-nosed prams ploughed graves in its bluish surface, and scattered rays to the right and left, and glided on, whilst the smoke rolled up in downy masses from the chimney-stacks, and the stroke of the engine pistons pierced the clammy air with a dull sound. There was no sun and no wind; the trees behind me were almost wet, and the seat upon which I ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... dead of night, when weary bodies close Their eyes in balmy sleep and soft repose: The winds no longer whisper thro' the woods, Nor murm'ring tides disturb the gentle floods. The stars in silent order mov'd around; And Peace, with downy wings, was brooding on the ground The flocks and herds, and party-color'd fowl, Which haunt the woods, or swim the weedy pool, Stretch'd on the quiet earth, securely lay, Forgetting the past labors of the day. All else of nature's common gift partake: Unhappy ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... up, up, up, And here we go down, down, downy, And here we go backwards and forwards, And here we go round, ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... swarm from their moss-ensconced grottos; an oppressive clamor beats the air. Along the ocean, where crevices of the descending iron-chiselled cliffs are fugitively green with ribbons of pale grass, downy-winged ducks purr, mating guillemots coo incessantly, and tremulous oogzooks chirrup joyously to ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... a fear, As she walk'd through the dank-moss'd dells; She breathed on their downy citadels, And whisper'd the young in their ivory shells: "Awaken! for I ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... finished, I take her place. There is nothing either on the skin or at the mouth of the wound. I have to withdraw the downy plug and dig to some depth before discovering the eggs. The ovipositor has therefore lengthened its extensible tube and pushed beyond the feather stopper driven in by the lead. The eggs are in one packet; they number ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... many a weary day and long, Ere you will see so restful and sweet a place, As this, my home, my nest so downy and warm, The labor of many happy and hopeful days; But its low brown walls are laid and softly lined, And oh, full happily now my rest I take, And care not I when it lightly rocks in the wind, For the branch above though it bends will never ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... even rent into many divisions like separate stems, but the extremities are exquisitely graceful, especially in the setting on of the leaves; and the notable and characteristic effect of the tree in the distance is of a rounded and soft mass or ball of downy foliage. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... everlasting comfort's in thy arms. To lean thus on thy breast, is softer ease Than downy pillows, deck'd with ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... struck twelve, and with its iron tongue remorse entered her youthful conscience. Was this obeying mamma? Mamma had said, "Go to bed:" not, "Go upstairs and meditate: upon young gentlemen." She gave an expressive shake of her fair shoulders, like a swan flapping the water off its downy wings, and so dismissed the subject from ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... chiefs and princes high of the Argives Wip'd away feminine tears, and each shook in every member, Him in that hour of dread these orbs of vision beheld not Either grow pallid or quake, or away from his cheek fresh and downy Wiping the tears—O no! and ever he begg'd for the signal Forth from the horse to emerge; and with ill intent to the Trojan, Ever his spear he grip'd, or rattled the hilt of his falchion— But when with ruin dread we raz'd the city of Priam Fraught with the choicest ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... andrachne—bears also a bright red fruit, which colours the thickets;[237] the styrax, famous for yielding the gum storax of commerce, grows towards the east end of Carmel, and is a very large bush branching from the ground, but never assuming the form of a tree; it has small downy leaves, white flowers like orange blossoms, and round yellow fruit, pendulous from slender stalks, like cherries.[238] Travellers in Phoenicia do not often mention the caper plant, but it was seen by Canon Tristram hanging from the fissures of the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... the rice and stew, his bruised feet were bathed in warm water, rubbed with a soothing ointment, and wrapped in a downy bandage. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... regard to the facts of birth, I do not think we ought to find much difficulty. You can point out how the baby seed has a soft, downy place provided for it in the pod of the parent plant till it has ripened and is fit to be sown, when the pod opens and lets it fall to the earth, and it becomes a plant in its turn. You can point out that the egg in a similar way ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... give, information. He didn't the least want to know what she thought; he was only working to give her a useful tip. So she would take her time about answering. She took it, looking as grave as a little downy owl-tot. Meanwhile, to show there was no bad feeling, she went and sat candidly on the fossil's knee, and attended to his ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... shiv'ring bosom from the weather? When she was mine, no care came ever nigh her; I thought the gentlest breeze that wakes the spring Too rough to breathe upon her; cheerfulness Danc'd all the day before her, and at night Soft slumbers waited on her downy pillow—. Now, sad and shelterless, perhaps she lies, Where piercing winds blow sharp, and the chill rain Drops from some pent-house on her wretched head, Drenches her locks, and kills her with the cold. It is too much.——Hence with her past offences, They ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... the ten hours of undisturbed consecutive repose in the downy bed at the Mehadia hotel had made up the deficiency of sleep during the foregoing week, and drowsiness overcame us. I think we must have had a couple of hours of monotonous jog-trot on the fairly level road when I fell asleep, and I suppose my ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... separating his room from Miss Bower's, Hedger kept all his wearing apparel, some of it on hooks and hangers, some of it on the floor. When he opened his closet door now-a-days, little dust-coloured insects flew out on downy wing, and he suspected that a brood of moths were hatching in his winter overcoat. Mrs. Foley, the janitress, told him to bring down all his heavy clothes and she would give them a beating and hang them in the court. The closet was in such ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... his girdle the downy feather of an eagle, stepped outside to the edge of the mesa and with a breath sent it beyond him into space. A current of air caught it and whirled it upwards in token that the prayer was accepted by ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Fontenette, from farthest off in our group, had slipped around to the Baroness. She spoke something low, stroking her downy fan and blushing with that damsel sweetness of which her ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... simple folk take for the true mandrake, and make thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they intend to exercise their witchcraft." And Lord Bacon, speaking of the mandrake, says—"Some plants there are, but rare, that have a mossie or downy root, and likewise that have a number of threads, like beards, as mandrakes, whereof witches and impostours make an ugly image, giving it the form of a face at the top of the root, and leave those strings to make a broad beard down to the foot." The witchcraft ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... take part in a very formal little affair on the lawn of Beth's home. Each of the guests receives a present in the shape of a downy white kitten. The drive home in Beth's pony cart furnishes a few exciting moments, but Patsy bravely comes ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... me aft to that gilded cabin the which gave upon the stern-gallery; and here, outstretched on downy cushions and covered by a rich ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... on downy plumes, nor under shade Of canopy reposing, Fame is won: Without which, whosoe'er consumes his days, Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth As smoke in air, or foam upon ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... a peasant boy, little Petter Nord. He was short and round; he was brown-eyed and smiling. His hair was paler than birch leaves in the autumn; his cheeks were red and downy. And he was from Vaermland. No one, seeing him, could imagine that he was from any other place. His native land had equipped him with its excellent qualities. He was quick at his work, nimble with his fingers, ready with his tongue, clear in his thoughts. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... I—what is life without thee?" And his prayer went up like a vapour To the palace above the snows, Where the shining gods held revel, And deathless laughter arose. But Hupnos swiftly descended Like a noiseless bird of the night And brushed his eyes with pinions Downy and thick and light, Circled dimly about him, And brushed his eyes as he prayed Laying a drowsy mandate, And the ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... wronged one of the hated pair. Mrs. Aylett's slumbers upon her downy couch might be none the less serene for her sister-in-law's danger, but Herbert's was the sleep of exhaustion, not callousness. He had been up all the previous night, and racked by the wildest anxiety throughout the intervening day, and to compass this ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... walls, much like that in which he had been imprisoned on the island. And there were no other furnishings save the mat on which he rested. Over him was a light cover netted of fibers resembling yarn, with feathers knotted into it to provide a downy upper surface. His clothing was gone, but the single covering was too warm and he pushed it away from his shoulders and chest as he wriggled up to see the view beyond ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... long, and creeping into her heart sung to her beautiful songs of the future which might be were Hester's baby a lady. And Hagar, listening to that song, fell asleep, dreaming that the deed was done by other agency than hers—that the little face resting on the downy pillow, and shaded by the costly lace, was lowly born; while the child wrapped in the coarser blanket came of nobler blood, even that of the Conways, who boasted more than one lordly title. With a nervous start she awoke at last, and creeping to the cradle of mahogany ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... gods were call'd in vain, But the rash youth prepares to scour the plain: Across his back the bended bow he flung, A wolf's grey hide around his shoulders hung, A ferret's downy fur his helmet lined, And in his hand a pointed javelin shined. Then (never to return) he sought the shore, And trod the path his feet must tread no more. Scarce had he pass'd the steeds and Trojan throng, (Still bending ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... and weighty ... that I question if Van Huysum or De Heem ever sat down to such a model for the exercise of their unrivalled pencils. The juice of this bunch was as copious and delicious as the exterior was downy and inviting. We learnt, however, that these little acts of depredation were not always to be committed with impunity; for that, in the middle of extensive fields, when the grape was ripe enough to be gathered, watch-boxes ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... starting from the corn, he cheerly sings, And trusts with conscious pride his downy wings; Still louder breathes, and in the face of day Mounts up and calls on Giles to mark his way. Close to his eye his hat he instant bends And forms a friendly telescope that lends Just aid enough to dull the glaring light And place the wandering bird before his sight, That oft beneath a light ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Downy pillow take thy head, Silken coverlet bestead, Sunshine help thy sleeping! No fly's buzzing wake thee up, No man break thy purple cup Set for ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... at last, upon the marge We found ourselves, and there, behold, In hosts the lilies, white and large, Lay close, with hearts of downy gold! ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... I love the jolly rattle Of an orde-al by battle, There's an end of tittle-tattle When your enemy is dead. It's an arrant molly-coddle Fears a crack upon his noddle And he's only fit to swaddle In a downy feather-bed! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... fairy thing, Poised upon slender tip, and quivering To flight! a flower of the fields of air; A jeweled moth; a butterfly, with rare And tender tints upon his downy wings, A moment resting in our happy sight; A flower held captive by a thread so slight Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer Are light as the wind, with every wind astir, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite. O dainty nursling of ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... chirp of the cardinal suddenly smote the ear from some neighboring tree; but he would pass, a flash of crimson, from one garden to the next, and with another chirp or two be gone for days. The nervy, unmusical waking cry of the mocking-bird was often the first daybreak sound. At times a myriad downy seed floated everywhere, now softly upward, now gently downward, and the mellow rays of sunset turned it into a warm, golden snow-fall. By night a soft glow from distant burning prairies showed the hunters were afield; the call of unseen wild fowl was heard overhead, and—finer ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... "Downy," as the men called him, the whilom digger of graves, who had so puzzled Commander Nesbitt on the first day of his joining, by giving his profession so peculiar a designation, had come on board without any sort of an ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... grace That gildeth but the superficial frame With the false tissue of deep-seeming life; The searching knife must pierce into the heart, And shew a frame veined with the same warm stream That melts in blushes on the downy cheek. My bright ideal, like the bow of heaven, Hath faded into nothingness, and made A blank upon the clouded sky of life. Can my soul live and ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... opinion of them. That will do, Thomas; we have got everything now, I think." Mrs Morgan was a little anxious about the peaches, having made a great many changes on her own responsibility in the gardening department; but the Rector took the downy fruit as if it had been a turnip, and notwithstanding her interest in the long-delayed news, his wife could not but find it very provoking that he took so little ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... is a fine, downy undercovering, obtained by combing the fleece of a goat native to the Kashmir Valley in India. A single animal yields scarcely more than an ounce or two, and the best product is worth about its weight in gold. It is used in the ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... consideration that a low nature must make a low world of its own to live in, whatever the real materials, or it could no more exist than any of us could without the sense of touch, brings Mr. Goodchild to reason: the rather, because the thing soon drops its downy chin upon its scarf, and ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... "we'll have plenty of time to talk this over, but now we must get some rest. I want to get an early start in the morning, if the storm has blown over. It's me for the downy couch now and the early bird ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... with the Chicadees in their foraging excursions, we often see two Speckled Woodpeckers, differing apparently only in size, each having a sort of red crest. The smaller of the two (Picus pubescens) is the Downy Woodpecker. The birds of this species are called "Sap-Suckers," from their habit of making perforations in the sound branches of trees through the bark without penetrating the wood, as if they designed only to obtain the sap. These perforations are often made in a circle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... CUCUMBER-TREE.) Leaves broadly ovate or oval, rarely cordate at base, smooth above, white-downy beneath, 4 to 6 in. long. Flowers lemon-yellow slightly streaked with red. June. Fruit nearly 3 in. long, red when ripe in autumn. A rather small, broad-headed tree (20 to 50 ft.), wild in the Southern States, but hardy as far north as Boston; ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... days of May, when the leaflets were unfolding, and when the downy bluebells were lifting their clustered blossoms filled with a mysterious fragrance, like the breath of young babes, Adele loved to linger in the study of the parsonage; more than ever the good Doctor seemed a "New Papa,"—more than ever his eye dwelt upon her with a parental smile. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... creature, perhaps conscious, through its secret instinct, that in the endless wastes of the prairies its surest protector was to be found in man, was so exceedingly docile as quietly to submit to the close examination it was doomed to undergo. The hand of the wandering Teton passed over the downy coat, the meek countenance, and the slender limbs of the gentle creature, with untiring curiosity; but he finally abandoned the prize, as useless in his predatory expeditions, and offering too little temptation to the appetite. As soon, however, as he found ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... peeps, and as she peeps, 'tis no more one, but three, And eye of bat, and downy wing of owl within the tree, And the bells of that sweet belfry a-pealing as before, And now it is not three she sees, and now it ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... and Rob were all babies in turn. Her mother would gather the little daily supply of fresh clothes from bureau and chest every morning, and carry the little bath-tub into the sunny nursery window, and sit there with only a bobbing downy head and waving pink angers visible from the great warm bundle of bath apron.... Ju ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... wrapped loosely about the baby's body—the swaddling band, which, when tightly drawn, is to hold the figure straight. The fingers of one hand peep out from the folds, and one little foot is free. For the rest we see only the downy top of the baby's head and one plump shoulder. The little figure glows lite an incandescent body, and the mother's face is lighted as if she were bending over a fire. It is a girlish face, for we are told that Mary was a very young mother. The cares of life have not yet touched the ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Greek cap, composed of brown network strewn with gold beads. Here and there very small, thin dark curls strayed from under it, like the tendrils of a delicate vine; and nestling close to each ear was a little dark, downy crescent, which papa called her whisker when he was playfully inclined ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... stomach to the colon, there are, it is estimated, over 20,000,000 rootlets (called glands, lacteals, follicles, villi), which take up intestinal juices as roots of a plant take sap from the soil. These millions of rootlets give a velvety appearance to the alimentary canal, like a nap or downy surface. Intestinal rootlets of the small intestines, like vegetal rootlets, demand a certain amount of normal fluid and solid substance, free from noxious gas. It is the down or nap of fabrics, and not their body, that shows damage first. So it is with the frail ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... of my friends begged me to observe, the other day, that Claude was "pulpy;" another added the yet more gratifying information that he was "juicy;" and it is now happily discovered that Cuyp is "downy." Now I dare say that the sky of this first-rate Cuyp is very like an unripe nectarine: all that I have to say about it is, that it is exceedingly unlike a sky. The blue remains unchanged and ungraduated over three-fourths of it, down to the horizon; ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... child, knitting his little downy eyebrows into a frown. "Drat the dirt! I've cleaned ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... Cree legends of Wa-sa-kee-chaulk, the Cree Hiawatha, and his Indian lore of stagnant waters now lured him into steering us to one of the side channels. We were not expected. An old mother duck was directly across our path teaching some twenty-two little black hobbling downy babies how to swim. With a cry that shrieked "Leg it—leg it" plain as a quack could speak and which sent the little fellows scuttling, half swim, half run, the old mother flung herself over on her back not a paddle's length ahead of us, dipped, dived, came up again just at our bow and flopped ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... which appeal especially to the child's mind are the hen and chickens, the downy eider ducks, the family of red foxes, and the home of the muskrat. "Color in nature" is effectively illustrated by grouping together certain tropical fishes, minerals, shells, insects, and birds ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... with all their spring and summer hues. Pomegranates hang with dapple cheeks full ripe, And over all the town a dreamy haze Drops down. The great plantations stretching far Away are plains of cotton, downy white. Oh, glorious is this night of joyous sounds. Too full for sleep Aromas wild and sweet From muscadine, late-booming jessamine And roses all the heavy air suffuse. Faint bellows from the alligators ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the Blue Rod vacates his office on Wednesday next, when you will be required to appear before the woolsack to take the usual oaths. As soon as you have entered upon your duties, the customary presentation to her Majesty will take place. Lord Downy will be prepared to conclude the preliminaries at his hotel at twelve o'clock to-morrow.—I am, sir, with respect, your obedient humble servant, "WARREN DE FITZALBERT. "Abraham Moses, Esq., &c. ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... salad-green bodice on her elder daughter. That young woman's efforts to see her own spine, where her mother was distributing pins with solemn intentness, had dyed her face a somewhat unnatural red, but the hands that lay upon her downy arms were much whiter than those that hovered about her back. A dining-table, bearing the more permanent part of its outfit, was pushed into a corner of the room, and covered with a yellow mosquito-net, and from the kitchen came a sound of crockery accompanied by an occasional ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... out of sight. Cold, deadly fury possessed and filled me, casting out fear of consequences and routing the weakling conscience engendered and nourished by parental counsel. I plucked Rozillah from her downy bed and bore her into the air, cuffing her polished red cheeks soundly on the way. Then I stripped off her gay raiment and knotted the ribbon sash about her smooth neck. I had never tied a knot before, but this held, as did the loop I cast over a projecting ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... at the hour of prayer, Behold two maidens, up the quiet green Shining, far distant, in the summer air That flaunts their dewy robes and breathes between Their downy plumes,—sailing as if they were Two far-off ships,—until they brush between The churchyard's humble walls, and watch and wait On either side of the wide ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... exile, Tommy was one towards whom I still feel a certain sense of obligation because he taught me for the first time what an owl is. For Tommy was an owl. From any dictionary you may ascertain that an owl is a nocturnal, carnivorous bird, of a short, stout form, with downy feathers and a large head; and if that does not satisfy you, there is no lack of books which will furnish fuller and ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... happened. Oh, Thomas Jefferson, it glittered—I saw it glitter!" Suddenly Rebecca Mary stooped and gathered Thomas Jefferson into her arms. She held him with a passionate clasp against her flat little calico breast. He was HERS. He was all the intimate friend she had ever had. He had been her little downy baby and slept in her hand. She had fed him and watched him grow and been proud of ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... played and shouted and ran and laughed, while the long, pale-golden spring afternoon stood still, until Mother held up her finger and stopped the game. "The baby's awake!" she said, and Father went bounding off. When he came back with the downy pink morsel, everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the tiny fat hands and hungry little rosebud mouth. "He's starved!" said Mother. "He wants his supper, poor little Buddy! He doesn't want a lot of people staring at him, do you, Buddy-baby?" She snatched ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... take my rest, for it is thou, Lord, only who makest me dwell in safety," was painted in soft purples and grays, and among the poppies and silver lilies which wreathed it appeared a cunning little downy bird, fast asleep, with his head under his wing. The morning text, "When I awake, I am still with Thee," was in bright colors, scarlet and blue and gold, and had a frame of rose garlands and wide-awake-looking butterflies and humming-birds. The girls thought ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... of commerce; for Pliny in his "Natural History" informs us that "in Upper Egypt, towards Arabia, there grows a shrub which some call Gossypion and others Xylon. It is small, and bears a fruit resembling the filbert, within which is a downy wool that is spun into thread. There is nothing to be preferred to these stuffs for whiteness or softness. Beautiful garments are made from them for the priests ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... do the robins build their nest? Robin Red Breast told me, First a wisp of yellow hay In a pretty round they lay; Then some shreds of downy floss, Feathers too, and bits of moss, Woven with a sweet, sweet song, This way, that way, and across: That's ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... have been some kind of a fairy, for we didn't mention kittens, but we wanted one, and here are two darlings," cried Polly, almost purring with delight as the downy bunches unrolled and gaped till their bits of pink ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 7 inches broad, fleshy, compact, convex, saucer-shaped, the margin for a long time sloping downward, with short, downy hairs (pubescent), dry, zoneless. Stem 2 to 3 inches long, 1 to 1 1/2 inch thick, stout, solid, equal, covered with innate, thin pubescence. Gills arcuate, adnato-decurrent, rather thick, acute at the edge, somewhat distant, rather broad, connected by branches, ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... likeness in a thousand. She was a woman magnificently planned, of stature not to be diminished by the highest pedestal. A figure fit for a throne, a niche, a shrine. Edith could see the dear little downy feathers sprouting on Anne's shoulder-blades, and the infant aureole ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... scalpel. Another demonstration was to the effect that the first and hardest step in drawing, if not in painting, was a clear-cut conception of the object to be delineated. Elise knew her object. From the first downy ball that pushed its way into the opening spring, to the unfolding of the perfect flower, every shade and variety of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... better taste than I, father," she said. "You have been enjoying the beauty of nature, while I was lying on a downy pillow." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... happiness, I kneel on the soft carpet of grass, and, burying my face extravagantly, in alternate laps of luxurious, downy, scent-laden petals, fill ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... one of the greatest joys the world held for him. Such a sense of safety and comfort—of hen's wings—was nowhere else to be had on the face of the great world! It was the full type of conscious well-being, of softness and warmth and peace in the heart of strength. His father was to him a downy ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main. His eyes pursued its flight:—"Thou hast a home, Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. And what am I that I should linger here, With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers In the deaf air, to the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... not visit an African jungle or an Indian forest to hunt the tiger. One can lie in bed amid downy pillows and dream tigers as terrible as any in the pathless wild. I was a little girl when one night I tried to cross the garden in front of my aunt's house in Alabama. I was in pursuit of a large cat with a great bushy tail. A few hours before he ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... fasten a necklet of diamonds at her throat, to gather up her gloves and lace hand-kerchief and allow Janet to wrap her up in her downy opera cloak, and she was ready. As she turned from the glass her gaze fell fully upon me. I could see that she was not disappointed, but her generous admiration in no way interfered with the consciousness which filled her of her own superior dignity and grace. She may have envied me my youth, for ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... the wood, all the labyrinths of summer are buried beneath one white inviting pathway, and the pledge of perfect loneliness is given by the unbroken surface of the all-revealing snow. There appears nothing living except a downy woodpecker, whirling round and round upon a young beech-stem, and a few sparrows, plump with grass-seed and hurrying with jerking flight down the sunny glade. But the trees furnish society enough. What a congress of ermined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... his arm. Legs dangled wretchedly; gallant young Tom leapt from her dreams and she awoke. She stirred. George had a foot upon the window-sill, and the night air ruffled her downy coat. She was pressed against bony ribs; a rough arm squeezed her wretchedly; long, poky fingers tortured her flank; her legs draggled dismally. She voiced protest in a plaintive, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the literal meaning, and read, 'under His wings shalt thou flee for refuge,' we have the picture of the chicken flying to the mother-bird when kites are in the sky, and huddling close to the warm breast and the soft downy feathers, and so with the spread of the great wing being sheltered from all possibility of harm. This psalm is ascribed to David when he was in hiding. The superscription says that it is 'a psalm of David, when he changed his behaviour ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... for Audrey to be admitted to that quiet room, and she saw Geraldine looking lovelier than ever in her weakness, with a dark, downy head nestled against her arm, a great rush of tenderness filled her heart, and she felt as though she had never loved ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Nymphs of Sion, as you go Arm'd with the sounding Quiver and the Bow, Whilst thro' the lonesome Woods you rove, You ne'er disturb my sleeping Love, Be only gentle Zephyrs there, With downy Wings to fan the Air; Let sacred Silence dwell around, To keep off each intruding Sound: And when the balmy Slumber leaves his Eyes, May he to Joys, unknown till ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Pileated Woodpecker Goshawk Red-shouldered Hawk Sharp-shinned Hawk Broad-winged Hawk Rough-legged Hawk Duck Hawk, Gray Gyrfalcon Snow Owl Barred Owl Great-horned Owl Long-eared Owl Short-eared Owl Acadian Owl Screech Owl Great Gray Owl Hawk Owl Barn Owl Richardson Owl Hairy Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Flicker Pine Grosbeak Red-winged Crossbill White-winged Crossbill Redpoll Blue Jay Horned Lark Lapland Longspur English Sparrow Winter Wren Chickadee Northern Shrike Snowflake Moose Bird ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... would have given the good wives to the good husbands, and made drunken men marry drunken women. Then there would have been one family exquisitely happy, instead of two struggling against misery. I would have made the rose-stem downy, and put all the thorns on the thistles. I would have gouged out the jewel from the toad's head, and given the peacock the nightingale's voice, and not set everything so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Pennsylvania.) New Holland contains above forty European phanerogamous plants: and the greater number of those plants, which are found equally in the temperate zones of both hemispheres, are entirely wanting in the intermediary or equinoctial region, as well in the plains as on the mountains. A downy-leaved violet, which terminates in some sort the zone of the phanerogamous plants at Teneriffe, and which was long thought peculiar to that island,* is seen three hundred leagues farther north, near the snowy summit of the Pyrenees. (* ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... rabbits must have been astonished that night at the shouts of the revelers, as they hurried past them, and the birds must have taken their sleepy heads from under their downy wings, and wondered if the morning had come some hours ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... we had better dispense with your company as soon as we have eaten a bite, and retire to it. On second thought, we will eat in it. Carnes, we will go to our downy couches at once and leave our substitutes in possession of the cabin. I trust, gentlemen, that things come out all right and that you are ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... hatched, but one egg broke, and one tiny birdling died, but out of five eggs I have three fine young birds. Their names are Ganarra, Goldie, and Downy. They are hopping around on the perches now. The mother bird behaved so badly that I took her out of the cage, and now the father takes care of the little ones. Is such an action common on the father's part, ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a "bristling up," or "creepy" feeling along the spine. The organs registering the presence of a strange or alien creature consist of certain delicate nerves of the surface of the skin, generally connected with the roots of the downy hair of the body—or resting where the hair roots would naturally be, in the case of a hairless skin. These seem to report directly to the solar-plexus, which then acts quickly by reflex action on the other ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... he followed to where the Colonel stopped before a peach tree, and stooped to pick up a downy red-cheeked fellow which had fallen ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... and the wavering peaks and jagged edges of the northern lights, brought out the shadows of the uneven hills, and revealed the winding length of downy mist which kept the stream in the valley warm. Such was the stillness, and the subdued tone of the landscape, that it seemed unreal—the phantom of a world which had lost its sunshine, and was mourning ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne |
