"Feather" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out with motions too fast for the eye to follow. Jim Silent stepped back a half pace, shifted his weight, and drove his fist straight at that white face. How it happened not a man in the room could tell, but the hand did not strike home. Dan had swerved aside as lightly as a wind-blown feather and his fist rapped against Silent's ribs with a force that ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up the bed of the stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were in high feather, her short, snappy barks mingling with his deeper chest-notes. Arrived at the pool, he threw down the dip-net and sack, and drew from his hip-pocket what looked like a large, fat candle. But I knew it to be a stick of "giant"; for such was his method of catching trout. He dynamited ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... the Piazza Colonna. They bowed. The thin, sour-looking painter was walking with a beardless young German, red and snub-nosed. This young man was a painter too, Cortes said; he wore a green hat with a cock's feather, a blue cape, thick eyeglasses, big boots, and had a certain air of being ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... in two I saw thar had been a row. Her notion to have you on hand at sech a time as that may seem odd, but women are all odd. They want what other women can't have, and I reckon Het thinks it would be a sort o' feather in 'er cap to mourn in public over one husband while she's leanin' agin another that is ready ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... of which the King had had long attacks, induced Fagon to swaddle him, so to say, every evening in a heap of feather pillows, which made him sweat all night to such an extent that it was necessary in the morning to rub him down and change his linen before the grand chamberlain and the first gentleman of the chamber could enter. For many years he had drunk nothing but Burgundy wine, half mixed with water, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the corpse, automatically putting aside some spine quills to feather future arrows. Then he ate slivers of dusky meat raw, throwing ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... Butch, stealthily approaching the window, and beckoning his companions. "Easy—look at him, Deke, there he is, Hicks, the irrepressible! We might as well attempt to stab a rhinocerous to death with a humming-bird's feather, as ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... us inside, and we proceeded on our quixotic search for a topi not entirely hideous. Half an hour later we came out of the shop, the shopman more obsequious than ever, not only wearing topis, but laden with boxes of Turkish Delight, ostrich-feather fans, tinsel scarves, and a string of pink beads which he swore were coral, but I greatly doubt it. We had an uneasy feeling as we bought the things that perhaps we were foolish virgins, but before the afternoon was very old we were sure of it. You wouldn't ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... corner was a second door. On the polished table food had been laid—a noble ham, two virgin pies, a dish of fruits, and a group of shining decanters. To one coming out of the wild night it was a transformation like a dream, but Mr. Lovel, half drunk, accepted it as no more than his due. His feather brain had been fired by the butler's "my lord," and he did not puzzle his head with questions. From a slim bottle he filled himself a glass of brandy, but on second thoughts set it down untasted. He would ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... a strange piece of money, not being round as all other currant money in Christianitie, but is a small rod of siluer of the greatnesse of the pen of a goose feather, wherewith we vse to write, and in length about one eight part thereof, which is wrested, so that the two ends meet at the iust halfe part, and in the head thereof is a stampe Turkesco, and these be the best currant money in all the Indias, and 6 of these larines make a duckat, which ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... you'll have to expect if they take us. We must beat 'em off or die; for it's better to die sword in hand than to be tortured or strangled. Those of you, however, who prefer the latter modes of going under may show the white feather and enjoy yourselves in your own way. Now, lads, you know me. I expect obedience to orders to the letter. I hate fighting and bloodshed—so don't kill unless you can't help it. Also, take care that you don't ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... If the difference between being well and badly off is that some things we readily volunteer to do and others we are unwilling and grudge to perform, the trouble can be easily mended. For if We endure willingly all necessary things and show the white feather before none of them, all those matters in which one might assume unwillingness have been abolished. There is, indeed, an old saying and a very good one, to the effect that we ought not to think it requisite for whatever we wish to ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... looking up, What mean, said I, those great Flights of Birds that are perpetually hovering about the Bridge, and settling upon it from time to time? I see Vultures, Harpyes, Ravens, Cormorants, and among many other feather'd Creatures several little winged Boys, that perch in great Numbers upon the middle Arches. These, said the Genius, are Envy, Avarice, Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like Cares and Passions that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... or take water. Now, Harry, old man, you don't want me to show the white feather, so go back ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... upon the arrow. He started, a flush of excitement rushed across his face, and his hands and lips trembled as he closely examined the feather. ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... belonged to the Emir of Seca. The commander was a Greek captain named Spiro Calligero. Among the passengers were five members of the family superseded by the Bakri as kings of the Jews; two Maroccan ostrich-feather merchants; Captain Krog from Bergen in Norway; two lions sent by the Dey of Algiers as presents to the Emperor Napoleon; and a great ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... good humor, and felt like shaking hands with himself. To get out of a bad scrape, and without the least bit of assistance from anybody was a feather in his cap; and he believed that he had good reason to ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... daughters, were reaping the scanty harvest of oats. Nor did the women repine at their hard lot. In their view it was quite fit that a man, especially if he assumed the aristocratic title of Duinhe Wassel and adorned his bonnet with the eagle's feather, should take his ease, except when he was fighting, hunting, or marauding. To mention the name of such a man in connection with commerce or with any mechanical art was an insult. Agriculture was indeed less despised. Yet a highborn warrior was much more becomingly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Ware. "I couldn't hit a flock of feather pillers with your gun. You see, I shoot by throw, and I'm used to the balance of ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... overhanging branches of the great forest trees, as if their curiosity had been excited by the strangers, were the many-tinted plantain eaters, with their crested heads, and the lovely green and crimson touracoos, which, while their violet and crimson relatives wore, as it were, a feather casque, displayed on their part a vivid green ornamentation that passed from beak to nape, which when they were excited ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... you recollect the drawing of the Medusa's head, with its curling arms, branched again and again without end? Here it is. No, you shall not look at the vignettes now. We must mind business. Now look at this one; the Feather-star, with arms almost like fern-fronds. And in foreign seas there are many other branched ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... damp, and latticed by the shadows which branches cast in the sickly moonlight, until—just when he was almost clear of the gloom—his knees bent under him; for there, at the end of the walk, against the starry sky, stood a towering figure, with bristling feather head-dress, ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... the fair Freyia's dwelling, and he these words first of all said: "Wilt thou me, Freyia, thy feather-garment lend, that perchance my hammer I ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... Piccaninnies didn't have a rag to their backs except a huia feather which they wore in their hair. They were the jolliest, tubbiest, brownest babies you ever saw with tiny nubbly knobs on their shoulders, as if they had started to grow wings and then changed their minds about it, and little furry pointed ears, as ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... ran away from Poland. Now don't you know? Sleeps with a feather bed over her, covered ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... man in whom the barbarian was still active, whose laws of right and wrong and honor were likely to be of his own fashioning—one in whom it would be dangerous to trust too implicitly. Yet he was a striking and a handsome figure, and his dress gave him distinction. A scarlet feather was in his hat, and he wore a scarlet cloak which the weather had stained. A heavy knife was stuck in his belt, and it was obvious that his companions treated ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... long for its appearance that she thought the kennel untenanted, but presently saw a maid come out from the kitchen with a tin dish. This she dumped upon the brick platform, turning her back instantly; and a fine, ruffed, feather-tailed collie stepped over the kennel threshold to get ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... probably go to Rome again for the winter, as Florence is considered too cold. There will be disturbances that way in all probability; but we are bold as to such things. The Pope is hard to manage, even for the Emperor. It is hard to cut up a feather bed into sandwiches with the finest Damascus blade, but the end will be attained somehow. I wish I could see clearly about Venetia. There are intelligent and thoughtful Italians who are hopeful even for Venetia, and ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Mississippian gal she'll flare-up like a scorched feather, and return the compliment by bruising your sky-lights, or may-be giving the quid pro quo in the shape of a blunder-buss. Baltimore girls, more beautiful than any in the world, all meet you with a half-smiling, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... from his pocket, Levi greased the running parts of the machine, hoisted the gate, and away went the saw as briskly as a bee after its years of rest in the attic, to the intense delight of Bessie, who was quite ready to vote another feather for the cap of the hero. A piece of board was adjusted on the carriage, and the saw began to whisk, whisk, whisk through it, when a series of yells in the direction of the road attracted the attention of the engineer of ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... but did Mr. Badman and his Master agree so well? I mean his last Master, since they were Birds of a Feather, I mean, since they were so ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... He knew that the white feather never helped one out with such fellows. It was all the work of an instant. The stranger ran a couple of lengths astern the Ocean Star, swung his main-yard aback and hailed; but while the bold buccaneer was doing this, Captain Lane had performed an equally ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... to Anne. His face wore a sad expression, as she glanced up at him from beneath the white feather of her rather large-brimmed straw hat. Anne had been a great deal at Hartledon that week, and was as interested in the race as any of them, wearing ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Thought, Art, everything. The years have passed. It is remarkable how nearly now Boston is to New York what Munich is to Berlin. Boston and Munich were the leaders forty years ago. They can't quite make out that they aren't now. It is too incredible that Art should leave her goose-feather bed and away to the wraggle-taggle business-men. And certainly, if Berlin and New York are more 'live,' Boston and Munich are more themselves, less feverishly imitations of Paris. But the undisputed palm is there no more; and ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... to button her gloves, and to readjust her feather boa with which she had been knocking the Easter cards off the counter. ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... close so foxly after some sanctimonious speech, or the voice which, when not savage with recrimination, could take on a sustained and calculated intonation of appeal,—perhaps these things aroused my interest as well as my disgust. Certain it is that other men of a like feather, sly, irascible, gone to seed in a disorderly Illinois town, I should have avoided. I made the excuse of Lisbeth, and it was true that her welfare, first as his daughter and later as the wife of my friend, was very dear to my heart. Yet that could ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his act by the application of a little discipline at the fountain-head, it is more than probable that a popular commotion, not unlike that of Mas' Aniello would have ensued; but the time was not come: the Indian showed a white feather, was laughed at, flogged, and sent home to his friends, who had intended him for the bar; but foreseeing that he might, in the course of events, chance to cut a figure on the wrong side of it, sent him to sea, where his valour, if he had ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... wished to be polite, and even thought himself so; but his civility still retained something uncouth and harsh. His manners took a milder tone, but the endeavour was too palpably seen. He laboured even in trifles. He was a giant gaining a purchase to lift a feather. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Though he was no beauty according to our notions, he was, as he stood motionless as a statue, with his bundle of five lances, their sharp points polished and serrated, in his left hand, really a fine-looking savage. Stuck in his bushy hair, and fixed in his ear, he wore a heron's feather; and round his waist was a broad belt which served to keep up his very tight kilt, composed of opossum skins. In this belt was stuck a knife or dagger of bone or stone; while at his back was slung a small stone axe. His right hand was, however, kept in readiness ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... boy had now thrust into his hat band a turkey feather, picked up, en route, along my field's edge. Jimmy was not sure of the correctness of this; and admitted that, sometimes, he had read literature having to do with Indian fighting, as well as piratical enterprises. I suggested that, ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... place in the work before them). The start was to be made at noon, but Danton was on the ground so early as almost to lower his dignity in the eyes of the bronzed canoemen. He wore his bravest uniform, with polished belt and buttons and new lace at the neck. His broad hat had a long curling feather. He wore the new musket slung rakishly over ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... assurances of high mutual consideration, the boat bore away for the southwest angle of the lake. Rob Roy was left alone on the shore, conspicuous by his long gun, waving tartans, and the single tall feather in his ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered— Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... of a brooch and a cabinet beyond both foretell the unexpected development of good fortune. If the consultant is married, the thimble in the centre would show future changes in the household; that they will be advantageous is shown by the large feather which gives assurance of ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... carry a copy of the Bible. Do they? Are they in affinity with the Bible? Are they even friendly to it? Things that are in affinity with each other are drawn together. "A fellow feeling makes us very kind." "By their fruits ye shall know them." "Birds of a feather flock together." ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... Ball," Miss Adams went to a ball and assumed tipsiness in order to influence her dissipated husband and achieve his ultimate reformation. The way she prepared for this part was characteristic of the woman. She wore a hat with a long feather, and she determined to make it a "tipsy feather." This feature became one of the comedy hits of the play, but in order to achieve it she worked for days and days to bring about the desired effect. The result of all this painstaking preparation was a brilliant performance. When ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... favori. Favour favoro. Favourable favora. Fawn cervido. Fawn-coloured brunrugxa. Fay feo (m.), feino (f.). Fealty fideleco. Fear timi. Fear timo. Feasible farebla. Feast regali. Feast (meal) regalo. Feast (holiday) festeno. Feast festeni. Feat heroajxo. Feather plumo. Feather-duster plumbalailo. Feature (trait) trajto. Febrile febra. February Februaro. Fecundate fruktigi. Federal federa. Federation (act) federo. Federation (state) federacio. Federative federa. Fee pagi. Feeble malforta. Feebleness ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... I thought of her inside those brick walls, looking out on one of those yards they march about in, now they've cut down all the trees, and planted sentry boxes, I put my best bonnet out of the window, which always spoils the feather, and told Harness to turn his horses' heads, and drive ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... puzzle is easily found. Sir Francis had conceived an utter distaste for the persons and political principles of the Reformers of Upper Canada. There was an inherent antagonism between the nature of this shallow, feather-brained sketcher by the wayside and the natures of men like Rolph, Bidwell and the Baldwins, whose quiet earnestness and fixity of purpose had been intensified by the long course of injustice to which they, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... So right his shaft he set, The swan's feather that his arrow bare In his heart's ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... course, as well as singing; and now he's got a chance to sing somewhere—create a role, or something—Belle said she wasn't quite clear on the matter herself, but it was a perfectly splendid chance, and one that was a fine feather ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... carrying his master, who, almost distracted with rage, shouted and beat the animal with his fists, and thereby impelled his flight. After running thus three miles or more, a deep ditch opposed their progress. The horse and rider fell headlong into it, and did not find the bottom covered with feather-beds or roses. They got sadly bruised; but were lucky enough to escape without ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... mistake of carrying the Old Man of the Mountain on his back. If he had only lifted him up in his arms before him, the Old Man would have been as light as a feather, and Freddie would have been himself again in a flash. But of course he didn't know. We've got to correct ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... to think almost worthy of an elegy by Ossian. Wherever we roved, we were pleased to see the reverence with which his subjects regarded him. He did not endeavour to dazzle them by any magnificence of dress: his only distinction was a feather in his bonnet; but as soon as he appeared, they forsook their work and clustered about him: he took them by the hand, and they seemed mutually delighted. He has the proper disposition of a Chieftain, and seems desirous to continue ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... a sudden he sat up, got his oars set right, and oh, bibbie, you should have seen that fellow row. Every stroke he took he almost lay down flat, and oh, Christmas, couldn't he feather! Pretty soon we were over near the shore where the campers were. You could see their tent in among ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Amazon, sitting upon a bank of flowers, dressed in a green joseph richly laced with gold, and a whip in her hand. Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing; and Moses was to be dressed out with an hat and white feather. Our taste so much pleased the Squire that he insisted on being put in as one of the family, in the character of Alexander the Great, at Olivia's feet. This was considered by us all as an indication of his desire to be introduced into the family, nor ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... ashore while the ship coaled at Steamer Point, on the western side of the rock, three miles from the town proper. Multitudes of Jewish ostrich-feather merchants and Somali boys gave the travellers amusement at the landing and in the coast part of the town. The Americans began to breathe what Hugh called a genuinely ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... not follow if they would;—and her shelves kept always dusted down; they could see her way of doing that, as they happened in at different times, when she whisked about, lightly and nicely, behind and between her jars and boxes and parcels with the little feather duster that she kept hanging over her table where she made her change and ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... rocks clashed together as the bird fled swiftly through; but they struck but a feather from his tail, and then rebounded ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... horrible declaration on his lips the miserable creature walked out with his cap and feather set jauntily on one side, and feeble limbs, and a sinister face pale as ashes, and all drawn down as ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... stranger, was from Louisville, Kentucky, and whose acquaintance was easily made. The sight of the conductor awoke in Mrs. Nichols's brain a new idea, and after peering out upon the platform, she went rushing up to her son, telling him that: "the trunks, box, feather bed, and all, were ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... mortality were deposited; and they were guarded by about thirty young men in their finest dresses, composed principally of scarlet jackets ornamented with shells, turbans of the native bark-cloth dyed bright yellow, and spread on the head, and decked with an occasional feather, flower, or twig of leaves. Nothing can exceed their partiality for these trophies; and in retiring from the 'war-path,' the man who has been so fortunate as to obtain a head hangs it about his neck, and instantly commences his return to his tribe. If he sleep on the way, the precious burden, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... want the stimulus of friends and home, but who sufficiently hear and feel their own dear land in the shouts and cheers of another—and who strive to the last with a desperate tenacity that makes the beating of them a new feather in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, you agree with me that such a defeat is a great, noble part of a manly, wholesome action; and I say that it is in the essence and life- blood of such a defeat to become ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... embroidery, and wore round his neck a heavy gold chain, the centre of which was studded with a single enormous ruby. As a head-covering he wore a round Chinese cap, which was ornamented by a single magnificent peacock's feather, fastened to the cap by a brooch of solid gold set with another ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... later the feather bed had taken her into its arms and she almost instantly fell asleep. Occasionally through the night she was roused by unfamiliar sounds. There was a fog coming in from the sea and the siren at the lighthouse on the Neck began to ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... take us prisoners, for we were searched, and then two of them were detailed to take us back—the only reason we were spared was because it is quite a feather in a German's cap to take a British officer prisoner—they are always rewarded for it. Well, they started us out at once over the same road we had come, and we went from shell hole to shell hole as before, but now that we were under German escort no one "potted" us, and in spite of the shell ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... your letter oftener than a dozen times already, and at every reading my heart burns more and more. That weight of humiliation and despondency which, without your arm to sustain me, would assuredly sink me to the grave, becomes light as a feather; and, while I crush your testimonies of love in my hand, I seem to have hold of a stay of which ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... stars. The Milky Way In which our sun is drowned, to these would seem Less than to us their faintest drift of haze; Yet we, who are borne on one dark grain of dust Around one indistinguishable spark Of star-mist, lost in one lost feather of light, Can by the strength of our own thought, ascend Through universe after universe; trace their growth Through boundless time, their glory, their decay; And, on the invisible road of law, more firm Than granite, range through ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... uncommon curiosities in medival ages; and holds that they were mostly fronds of the palm Raphia vinifera, which has the largest leaf in the vegetable kingdom and which the Moslems of Zanzibar call "Satan's date-tree." I need hardly quote "Frate Cipolla and the Angel Gabriel's Feather." (Decameron ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... ye hed hed a hard day's sewin'," said Justus. He was in high feather, eager, jubilant, drinking in all the rich and subtle flavors of success with ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... for supper, and in the place of honour sat a youth of some seventeen or eighteen years, gaily dressed, with a little feather curling over his crimson cap, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... new feather beds, put half a pound of cayenne, and half a pound of black pepper in each bed; this will prevent the moths from getting into new feathers that have not been well cured. It is best to air your beds frequently, and shake them up, even if they are not slept in. It is the oil in the feathers that ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... she remonstrated. "You don't mean to tell me that you would show the white feather, just at the idea of making some response to ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... and gazed unmoved. His two mates—one stocky, red faced and red headed; the other slender, bronzed and blond—betrayed their thoughts in their blue eyes. The red man squinted quizzically at the smoke feather as if it mattered little to him where he was. The blond watched it with the wistfulness of one who sees the last sign of his ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... best of women, was (as I could well perceive) a little annoyed and vexed with things. For this particular occasion, she had procured from Dulverton, by special message to Ruth Huckaback (whereof more anon), a head-dress with a feather never seen before upon Exmoor, to the best of every one's knowledge. It came from a bird called a flaming something—a flaming oh, or a flaming ah, I will not be positive—but I can assure you that it did flame; and dear mother had no other thought, but that all the congregation would neither ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... with a laugh, "the ci-devant Captain Jarvis is a sportsman to your mind. He would shoot a month without moving a feather; he was a great friend to," throwing an arch look to his solitary sister, who sat on a sofa at a distance perusing a ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... could deaden the merry sound of wealth. The two coins ran trickling, the one to clash against a brass spittoon, the other to take hiding in a dark corner under the counter. "You might," said Mr Latter that evening, relating the occurrence to a circle of steady customers, "have knocked me down with a feather. To see old Nicky, of all men, standin' there before my very eyes an' ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a desolate bit of the Cresswell manor, a tiny cabin, new-boarded and bare, in front of it a blazing bonfire. A white man was tossing into the flames different household articles—a feather bed, a bedstead, two rickety chairs. A young, boyish fellow, golden-faced and curly, stood with clenched fists, while a woman with tear-stained eyes clung to him. The white man raised a cradle to dash it into the flames; the woman cried, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... to active life on the morning after the party from Cannes arrived in Paris, and she hastened to emphasize the fact of her return to complete health by the unusual effort of coming down to breakfast. She was in high feather, and her cheery conversation lifted, to some extent, the gloom which had settled on her young friends. While exhorting to patience she was full of hope, and dismissed as chimerical all the darker explanations which the disconsolate lovers invented to account for the silence ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... my pocket (which was all the loose gold he had), I walked forth from Master Carter's door. To make up the deficiency, their highnesses had insisted on furnishing me with a suit made up from the simplest in their joint wardrobes—riding-boots, breeches, buff-coat, sash, pistols, cloak, and feather'd hat, all of which fitted me excellently well. By the doors of Christ Church, before we came to the south gate, Prince Rupert, who had been staggering in his walk, suddenly pull'd up, and ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... four-poster where once heavy draperies had shut in the slumbers of dead and gone Contessas, and she watched the square of moonlight travel over the painted cherubs on the ceiling. There was always a lump in her throat to be swallowed, and often the tears soaked into the big feather pillows, but there were no sobs to ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... worked wonders for a consideration, but Fate overtook him and he was smothered under a feather bed for having too much wizard in his cosmos. A wizard, be it known, is a male witch, and the Bible says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," although it does not say ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... appointments a year beforehand and suddenly appear before a waiting congregation like an apparition. At Montville, Connecticut, a thief had stolen an axe. In the course of a sermon Dow said that the guilty man was in the congregation and had a feather on his nose. At once the right man was detected by his trying to brush away the feather. On another occasion Dow denounced a rich man who had recently died. He was tried for slander and imprisoned in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... what is met with on the roads in England. In the article of beds, with a very few exceptions, the French inns exceed the English: if a traveller carry his sheets with him, he is always secure of an excellent hair mattrass, or if he prefer it, a clean feather-bed. On the other side, the French inns are certainly inferior to the English in their apartments. The bed-room is too often the dining-room. The walls are merely whitewashed, or covered with some execrable ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... and climbed out of the house by the rope-ladder. He left it hanging at the window and walked up the glimmering road, a ribbon of ghostly white between dim hills. It was then about half-past twelve of the night, and not a feather of cloud stained the perfection of the sky. It curved above his head spangled like a fair lady's fan, and unfathomably blue like Clementina's eyes when her heart stirred in their depths. He reached the ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... Kirkpatrick, in an affected whisper, "I am not always to be bird alone, under the whip of our regent; you have had a few stripes, and now look a little of my feather!" ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Feather eating is the result of idleness or a shortage of green feed. The best way to cure it is to furnish the fowls with exercise. Boil some oats until soft, and when cooked stir in salt enough to taste ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... thus to waste, did grudgingly commend her for airing well. Her bed might not even be spread up till sundown, but the sheets were always hanging from her little side window, in fine weather, flapping dazzlingly in the sun; and sometimes her feather-bed lay, the whole day long, on the green slope outside, called by Dilly her "spring," only because the snow melted first there on the freedom days of the year. The new editor of the Sudleigh "Star," seeing her slight, wiry figure ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Lightning Maker, with lightning, hadilhkih, in zigzag lines above his head and beneath his feet. The broad arch indicates clouds with rifts in them, out of which the evil came and into which it may return. The cross of abalone, the small white bead, and the eagle feather are media through which Tu Ntelh (Wide Water), Yolkai Nali{COMBINING BREVE}n (White-Shell Girl), and Itsad Nde{COMBINING BREVE}yu (Eagle People) ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... that what I do to-night is not quite fair to Chloris. And I do not know what thing it is that I desire, and the will of Jurgen is a feather in the wind. But I know that I would like to love somebody as Chloris loves me, and as so many women have loved me. And I know that it is you who have prevented this, Queen Helen, at every moment ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the wise, the brave, That surest shine, or highest rise; The feather sports upon the wave, The pearl ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... of Tomo Chichi, on presenting the feather of an Eagle to Oglethorpe, is very expressive in his own laconic explication. By a little paraphrase it may be understood to import: "The Eagle has a sharp beak for his enemies, but down on his breast for his friend. He has strong wings, for he is aspiring; but they give shelter to feeble ones, ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... one for the toil and hardships by which it is won, but truly makes them as nothing in comparison to the former. All I can say is, let me go through the world sharing the rough and the smooth alike—the storms and sunshine of life; but save me from the stagnant existence of the man who sleeps on a feather bed and always ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... their honest desires put in a way to be gratified;] there are three crooked horns, smartly top-knotted with ribands; which being the ladies' wear, seem to indicate that they may very probably adorn, as well as bestow, the bull's feather. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... been gradually, but completely, subdued, subjugated, absolutely cowed beneath the weight of her spouse's despotic mildness; for in Hartopp there was a weight of soft quietude, of placid oppression, wholly irresistible. It would have buried a Titaness under a Pelion of moral feather-beds. Mass upon mass of downy influence descended upon you, seemingly yielding as it fell, enveloping, overbearing, stifling you; not presenting a single hard point of contact; giving in as you pushed against it; supplying itself seductively round you, softer and softer, heavier and heavier,—till, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... split—and we smashed a few spars, and lost some running gear; nothing more serious happened, save the loss of as fine a young fellow as ever trode shoe-leather—a seaman. He was caught sharply by one of the ropes that gave way, and it carried him overboard like a feather. We saw him drop—the sea was running mountains high—we could render him no assistance; and he perished under our very eyes. The wind, fortunately for us, continued on either quarter of our ship; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Jeffries, signing even more rapidly. "A gunman shoots his best when there's somebody shooting at him—otherwise he wouldn't be a gunman—he would be just an ordinary, every-day marksman, with a Schuetzenverein medal and a rooster feather in his hat. That's why you shoot well, John—because you're a ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... because I've got consideration for my seniors. I was raised that way. I honored your age, Jerry. I knew you was about all in, but I never CALLED you old. I wouldn't hurt your feelings. What did you do? You set around on your bony hips and criticized and picked at me. But you've picked my last feather off and I'm plumb raw. Right ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... set resolutely about the task of remarshaling her awkward squad. With a soft, clucking sound she moved hither and thither. A feather or two drifted lazily about in the air. At last she gathered them in, all but one foolish, blank-eyed gander, which, poising on a large boulder, threatened to dive headforemost into the torrent. She coaxed him gently, then severely, but without success. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... said, I had the will and the fearlessness, and I racked my sea- cuny brains for the wit. A palace eunuch, tickling my neck with a feather from behind, gave me my start. I had already drawn attention by my aloofness and imperviousness to the attacks of the ki-sang, so that many were looking on at the eunuch's baiting of me. I gave no sign, made no move, until I had located him and distanced him. Then, like a shot, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... of the arch-thief was vanity, intolerable vanity: and he was therefore justly sent away with a blush upon his cheeks to heaven, and could not brag—the other, that I am afraid, if she dislikes thee, she dislikes me: for are we not birds of a feather? ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... officials. For the complaisance of Khorkud there were two reasons: in the first place, he was acting in the interests of his brother in sending to sea any really capable man to make head against his enemies, and the fact that Uruj was a pirate pure and simple did not weigh for a feather in the balance; in the second place, it was a decidedly good mercantile speculation as he ordered his inferior, the Basha of Egypt, to bear the expense of fitting out the necessary ship—which came to some 5,000 ducats—and doubtless received a handsome percentage on all ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... delightful weather left them without employment. The richest localities are very thickly populated, the miners having built themselves log-cabins and organized communities for the winter. On parts of Feather river, the American Fork, and the Mokelumne, Tuolumne, and Mariposa rivers, the diggings were still yielding a good return. New discoveries of rich veins of quartz-bearing gold continue to be made. A mine of silver ore, of a very rich quality, is reported to have been discovered ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... to have planned a retreat; to have climbed down a well and cut the bucket rope! For in effect that was precisely what he had done. Only wings could carry him up to that window. With sardonic humour he felt of his shoulder blades. Not a feather in sight. Then he touched his ears. Ah, here was something definite; they had grown several inches during the past few hours. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... and laughed at her softly. "I'm the happiest man on earth. I shall go Home now without a pang, and so will you. We have got to feather the nest, you know. That'll be fun, ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... upon strange things in its tumultuous privacy. I like these truces of wind and heat that the desert makes, otherwise I do not know how I should come by so many acquaintances with furtive folk. I like to see hawks sitting daunted in shallow holes, not daring to spread a feather, and doves in a row by the prickle-bushes, and shut-eyed cattle, turned tail to the wind in a patient doze. I like the smother of sand among the dunes, and finding small coiled snakes in open places, but I never like to come in ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... Susanna," said Margaret gently—Magsie and Laura are birds of a feather—"I want to be a teacher if I can manage to get through, and I shall need ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fellows thus? The man that once did sell the lion's skin While the beast liv'd, was kill'd with hunting him. Let me speak proudly:—Tell the Constable, We are but warriors for the working-day; Our gayness and our gilt, are all besmirch'd With rainy marching in the painful field; There's not a piece of feather in our host (Good argument, I hope, we will not fly), And time hath worn us into slovenry; But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim: And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night They'll be in fresher ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... coast, like a dark knight charging full tilt toward the foe, a white plume swept back from his helmet. Suddenly the smooth blue surface of the sea was broken by the rush of a motor-boat practising for a forthcoming race, a mere buzzing feather of foam, with a sound like the beating of an excited heart, heard after taking some drug to exaggerate the pulsation. Yet Carleton was hardly conscious of what he saw or heard. He was thinking how best to ask Rose Winter to make Miss Grant's acquaintance. Several ways occurred to him, but ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... to hear of a secret my wife communicated to me. So long as I was of any use, I did not care much about having the fact recognised, but now that I am used up I like the feather in my cap. "Fuimus." Let us ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... where her father was trying to sleep. She stood on tiptoe to turn out the gas-light in the hall; but for a time the key resisted the insufficient pressure of her finger-tips: the little orange flame, with its black-green crescent over the armature, so maliciously like the "eye" of a peacock feather, limned the exquisite planes of the upturned face; modelled them with soft and regular shadows; painted a sullen loveliness. The key turned a little, but not enough; and she whispered to herself a monosyllable ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... me afterwards that he gin up that he wuz a-goin' to be killed, and that his last thought wuz as he swooned away—wuz how much ostrich feathers cost, and how sweet it would be to give me a last gift of dyin' love, by pickin' a feather off for nothin'. ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... a pearl grey and pink sports coat, with a large black hat, and carried a silver chain handbag. Around her throat was a white feather boa, while her features were half concealed by the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... evidence of arrested development. We had the choice of reaching our rooms either through the dining-room or by a circuitous detour past the pantries; but our rooms had a proud little vestibule of their own, with a balcony over the great square, and if one of them had a belated feather-bed the other had a new hair mattress, and the whole house was brilliantly lighted with electricity. As for the cooking, it was delicious, and the table was of an abundance and variety which might well have made one ashamed of paying so small a rate ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... could during his vacations away from town. He was a good swimmer, knew all about the best way to revive a person who had been in the water a perilous length of time, and besides, had studied the habits of both game fishes and the inhabitants of the woods, fur, fin and feather. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... to Gray's Inn: the chariot was drawn with four horses all abreast, and they were covered to their heels all over with cloth of tissue, of the colors of crimson and silver, huge plumes of white and red feathers on their heads; the coachman's cap and feather, his long coat, and his very whip and cushion of the same stuff and color. In this chariot sat the four grand masquers of Gray's Inn, their habits, doublets, trunk-hose, and caps of most rich cloth of tissue, and wrought as thick with silver spangles ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... himself, the project being one of those favourite schemes of the mate, that men sometimes maintain through thick or thin, until they get to be ruling thoughts. On Captain Williams it had not weighed a feather; his intention having been to proceed to the Sandwich Islands for sandalwood, which was the course then usually pursued by North-West traders, after quitting the coast. The parenthetical project, however, was to touch at the last island, procure a few divers, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... another in the theater as the passers down Piccadilly had nudged one another, whispering his name, Herbert Courtland. Others—they were not quite such outsiders—nudged one another when Mrs. Linton laid down her new feather fan on the ledge of the box. It was possibly the loveliest thing that existed in the world at that moment. No artist had ever dreamed of so wonderful a scheme of color—such miracles of color—combinations in every feather from the quill to the spider-web-like fluffs ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... "I amna a feather to blow wi' th' wind. I've had my share o' trouble wi' men foak, an' I ha' no mind to try again. Him as lies i' th' churchyard loved me i' his way—men foak's way is apt to be a poor un—an' I'm wore out wi' life. Dunnot come here courtin'—tak' ...
— One Day At Arle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Hollow, and Stephen heard little Nan's shrill voice calling his name, as if she were seeking him weariedly; but when he hesitated for a moment, his heart yearning to answer her, Black Thompson again patted him on the back, and bade him never show the white feather, but remember poor dead Snip; at which his passion for revenge returned, and he pressed ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... around and soon found for him a long, fluffy feather. Taking this in his hand the Prince approached the Cast-iron Man and tickled him under the left arm with ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... Incidentally she mentioned the fact that Mr. Hennage had once presented her with an order for a registered letter for a man by the name of Robert McGraw, and taking into consideration this fact and the further fact that birds of a feather always flock together, Miss Pickett opined that the hold- up man was doubtless a bosom ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a hunting For fear of little men: Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... not progressed far until there came a general outcry against the heavy loads and unnecessary articles. Soon we began to see abandoned property. First it might be a table or a cupboard, or perhaps a bedstead or a cast-iron cookstove. Then feather beds, blankets, quilts, and pillows were seen. Very soon, here and there would be an abandoned wagon; then provisions, stacks of flour and bacon being the most abundant—all left as ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... had not felt very well for a day or two back, and all at once a kind of shiver took him, till he lay fourteen days perfectly insensible, and could eat nothing but a little pounded ice—and his wife- -a small woman, too—used to lift him back and forth between the bed and sofa like a feather, and the neighbors did not know half the time whether he was dead or alive. This history, from which not the smallest particular or the least significant symptom of the case was omitted, occupied an hour in recital, and was told, as it seemed, for the entertainment of one who had been five ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which is a way-station of the Boston and Montreal Road on the borders of the lake, is a cottage city. Here in front of each domicile is built the miniature wharf off which is moored the row boat or yacht, dancing feather like on the waves. Lofty trees with dense foliage grow to the water's edge, affording grateful shade. Within the grove is an auditorium in one of nature's amphitheatres where the weary people, assembled from their homes in the dusty city, listen to words of eloquence ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various |
