"Feather" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only by a single point of light where the fire yet smoldered, but Robert, kneeling by the side of Tayoga, saw with his trained eyes the separate trunks stretching away like columns, and then far beyond the fire he thought he caught a glimpse of a red feather raised for ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... understand, are the feathers a man picks and sticks all over his hide to make himself look like the village goat. It often takes six days, three hours and eighteen minutes to gather one goat-feather, and when a man has it and takes it home it is about as useful and valuable to him as a stone-bruise on the back of his neck. I have recently spent several days over a month gathering one goat-feather, and as a reward I was grabbed and chased after another that ate up two weeks ...
— Goat-Feathers • Ellis Parker Butler
... said that as the volley ceased, A low sob call'd them where They found an Indian maiden dead, Clasping in death's despair One feather from a Highland plume And one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... ultra-holiness of his ejaculations when called upon for an answer, and the pious cant of his protestation against all wrong-doings. At the same time that he was acting the part of saint, I knew him to be a bird of the same feather as the rest of the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... if 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
... of the room suddenly opened, and the woman of the breakfast table disclosed herself. She was dressed for going out, wearing a hat that seemed a yard in diameter, and a feather boa, from which her hen-like face and neck rose to the crowning triumph of ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... envoy of his who had been despatched thither, and had been detained; so both those envoys had many wonderful things to tell the Great Kaan about those strange islands, and about the birds I have mentioned. [They brought (as I heard) to the Great Kaan a feather of the said Ruc, which was stated to measure 90 spans, whilst the quill part was two palms in circumference, a marvellous object! The Great Kaan was delighted with it, and gave great presents to those who brought it. [NOTE 6]] They also ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... lb.; while the tractive power per lb. of steam in the cylinders is 94 lb. The fire-box is of copper, and the roof is stayed to the outer shell by wrought iron radiating stays screwed into both; a sloping mid-feather is placed in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... mouth for her to be silent, but pointed with the feather of his quill to a line of a little book that lay upon the pulpit near his elbow. She came closer ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... of feather-brained idea that would occur to a novelist," he said. "For my part, I should prefer to confront Merritt with his theft, and keep the upper hand of him ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... the tempered satisfaction of the bereaved after the finality of a smoothly conducted burial. For nothing has been settled. It's merely that Time has been trying to encyst what it can not absorb. I felt, for a day or two, that I had nothing much to live for. I felt like a feather-weight who'd faced a knock-out. I saw Pride go to the mat, and take the count, and if I was dazed, for a while, I suppose it was mostly convalescence from shock. Then I tightened my belt, and reminded ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... was very tired, having had a long journey with contraband. Believing him to be alone, the man opened the door. The room was immediately filled with armed men, who demanded his savings or his life. The commissar, from his knowledge of such matters, believing his savings to be in the feather pillow, ripped it open and found 4,600 roubles. Having collected all the other small articles of value in the house, these innocent children of the Revolution held consultation on the necessity of ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... gown and an ostrich-feather boa in delicate shades of cream and brown, and a cavalier hat with sweeping white plumes. Her hair was the colour of autumn leaves, or a squirrel's back in the sunshine, and she had grey eyes and piquant, irregular features, ears like shells, and a delicate, softly-tinted skin undefiled ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a group of which the center was a young and very pretty girl. A simple white gown became her youth and freshness, and a large white hat with a long white ostrich-feather curled over the brim, shading her piquant face, added to her charm. A few pink roses fastened in her dress were the only color about her, except the roses in her cheeks. Most of those with her were men ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... bands of blue (top), red (triple width), and blue; the red band is edged in yellow; centered in the red band is a large black and white shield covering two spears and a staff decorated with feather tassels, all ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... said the captain, pointing complacently to his own composition with the feather end of his pen, "I had the honor of suggesting a pious fraud on Mrs. Lecount. There ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of conforming in one's costume to the native habits. After the first feeling of awkwardness is over, nothing can be better adapted to the Polar Winter than the Lapp dress. I walked about at first with the sensation of having each foot in the middle of a large feather bed, but my blood preserved its natural warmth even after sitting for hours in an open pulk. The boellinger, fastened around the thighs by drawing-strings of reindeer sinew, are so covered by the poesk that one becomes, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Sheila's dark-blue dress and sailor hat with the white feather that we looked for as we loafed through the streets of Stornoway, that quaint metropolis of the herring-trade, where strings of fish alternated with boxes of flowers in the windows, and handfuls of fish were spread upon the roofs to dry just as ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... Jesu Christ! St. Peter and St. Paul! Ferdinand and Isabella, and St. George and the Dragon, and all the rest! And ires dire glories in excellence, and deuces tecum vademecum Christ Jesu, and birds of a feather, and now I lay me down to sleep, and a child is born for you to keep—Amen! Amen!—Who's ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... and, scarce staying to dress himself, rushed out into the open air. It was still dark, but he did not require to see the wind. He did not need to toss a feather or hold up his hat. The truth was too plain. A strong breeze was blowing—it was blowing ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... rolled up, wrapped in waterproof film, addressed to the Steamship Company, and lashed to the under side of Arnaux's middle tail-feather. ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in due order. We were on that island several weeks, and from the time we were flung unceremoniously upon its miserable shores to the day we left it we never saw a sail nor a wisp of smoke from a steamer. And it may be that this, and our privations, made us still more birds of a feather than we were. Anyway, you, Middlebrook, know how men, thrown together in that way, will talk—nay, must talk unless they'd go mad!—talk about themselves and their doings and so on. We all talked—we used to tell tales of our doubtful pasts as we huddled together under the ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... made recorder of Newark. The place, which he held till he went to India in 1869, was worth only 40l. a year; but was, as he said, a 'feather in his cap,' and a proof of his having gained a certain footing upon his circuit. It gave him his first experience as a judge, and I may mention a little incident of one of his earliest appearances in that character. He had to sentence a criminal to penal servitude, when the man's wife began ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... going!" cried one stout man to Sam. "Stop pushing me!" And then as the youngest Rover dodged out of his way he ran his ear into the big feather on a young lady clerk's immense hat. The girl glared at him and murmured something under her breath, which was far from complimentary. By the time he had reached the front end of the car half a ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... hemlocks grew so dark, That I stopped to look and hark, On a log, with feather-hat, By the path, an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... that could be saved from the housekeeping on the most stylish clothes to be found in Petticoat Lane market, and denying herself even in these for the sake of a little hoard, which accumulated, oh! so slowly since it had been broken into, once for a new feather for her little hat, once for a day's pleasuring at Greenwich; and Nelly resolved firmly it ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... with a feather was lapt all in leather, His boastings were all in vaine; He had such a chance, with a new morrice-dance He never ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... turret stairs, "I pray you bring me the silken shoes with the ribbon bows of silk. I am going down to Master von Sturm's house; also my gold chain and bonnet of blue velvet with the golden feather in it which I won at ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Whelk, they have no shell. Their bodies are naked. Neither do they grow a backbone, or skeleton; but, inside the body, the Cuttle has a plate of chalk, which you may find on the shore. Some kinds have a long strip of transparent substance, like a large feather. Fishermen use the smaller kinds of Cuttle as bait. You will find it quite easy to cut out the "beaks" and "bone" for yourself, or the fishermen will not ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... for Lieders's heels and hold them, while Carl backed down-stairs. But Lieders did not make the least resistance. He allowed them to carry him into the room indicated by his wife, and to lay him bound on the plump feather bed. It was not his bedroom but the sacred "spare room," and the bed was part of its luxury. Thekla ran in, first, to remove the embroidered pillow shams and the dazzling, silken "crazy quilt" that was ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... trouble,' and, poor soul, he didn't. But to see him come up the aisle! He'd fixed himself nice as he could, poor creatur; he'd raked out Miss Patience's old Navarino bonnet with green ribbons and a willow feather, and set it on right over his cap, and he had her bead bag on his arm, and her turkey-tail fan that he'd got out of the best room; and he come with little short steps up to the pew: and I s'posed he'd set by the door; but no, he made to go by us, up into the corner where she used to set, and ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Oz stories has received a little note from Princess Dorothy of Oz which, for a time, has made him feel rather disconcerted. The note was written on a broad, white feather from a stork's ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... o' Sunday, when you're lyin' at your ease, To watch the kites a-wheelin' round them feather-'eaded trees, For although there ain't no women, yet there ain't no barrick-yards, So the orficers goes shootin' an' the men they plays ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... tongues. The main streets are crowded with bright, wide-awake lawyers, ministers, merchants, agents for everything under the sun; ox drivers and loggers in stiff, gummy overalls; back-slanting dudes, well-tailored and shiny; and fashions and bonnets of every feather and color bloom gayly in the noisy throng and advertise London and Paris. Vigorous life and strife are to be seen everywhere. The spirit of progress is in the air. Still it is hard to realize how much good work is being done here of a kind that makes for civilization—the ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... be met with, both in the civilised man and the uncultivated savage. He declared that he would not land until they first came off to wait on him. Decorated with an old full-dress lieutenant's coat, white trousers, and a cap with a tall feather, he looked upon himself as a most exalted personage, and for the whole of the first day remained on board, impatiently, but in vain, prying into each boat that left the shore for the dusky forms of some of his quondam friends. His pride, however, could ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... kettle, in the warm light of the camp-fire. Our first bed was typical of the voyage, being hard and rough, but withal much more comfortable than many others we slept upon afterwards; and we were all soon as sound asleep upon the rock in the forest as if we had been in feather-beds at home. ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... Aunt Charlotte in Mamma's Album. She stood on a strip of carpet, supported by the hoops of her crinoline; her black lace shawl made a pattern on the light gown. She wore a little hat with a white sweeping feather, and under the hat two long black curls hung down ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... was a beautiful box; that was all. Preston had brought me a little riding whip, both costly and elegant. I could not but be much pleased with it. A large, rather soft package, marked with Aunt Gary's name, unfolded a riding cap to match; at least, it was exceeding rich and stylish, with a black feather that waved away in curves that called forth Margaret's delighted admiration. Nevertheless, I wondered, while I admired, at my Aunt Gary's choice of a present. I had a straw hat which served all purposes, even of elegance, for my notions. I was amazed to find that Miss Pinshon had not forgotten ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... 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 ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... in and sitting lankly down in the feather-cushioned rocking-chair which his mother pushed toward him with her foot, "that the expense would be more at Harvard than it would ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... stout, 865 In pudding-time came to his aid, And under him the Bear convey'd; The Bear, upon whose soft fur-gown The Knight with all his weight fell down. The friendly rug preserv'd the ground, 870 And headlong Knight, from bruise or wound; Like feather-bed betwixt a wall And heavy brunt of cannon-ball. As Sancho on a blanket fell, And had no hurt, our's far'd as well 875 In body; though his mighty spirit, B'ing heavy, did not so well bear it, The Bear was in a greater fright, Beat down and ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the nation," said Dr. Leete, "bear now like a feather the burden that broke the backs of the women of your day. Their misery came, with all your other miseries, from that incapacity for cooperation which followed from the individualism on which your social system was founded, from your inability to ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... the Duchess: 'flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is—"Birds of a feather ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... strength which his person exhibited. The short kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy and clean-made limbs; the goat-skin purse, flanked by the usual defences, a dirk and steel-wrought pistol, hung before him; his bonnet had a short feather, which indicated his claim to be treated as a Duinhe-wassel, or sort of gentleman; a broadsword dangled by his side, a target hung upon his shoulder, and a long Spanish fowling-piece occupied one of his hands. With the other hand he pulled off his bonnet, and ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... rest. The resistance of the air and the internal friction of the spring gradually lessen the amplitude of the movements, and the weight finally comes to rest. Suppose that the weight scales 30 lbs., and that it naturally bobs twenty times a minute. If you now take a feather and give it a push every three seconds you can coax it into vigorous motion, assuming that every push catches it exactly on the rebound. The same effect would be produced more slowly if 6 or 9 second ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... the door. Mr. Jones was at last nearly smothered in the encounter, for the great weight and ample drapery of Mrs. Morony were beginning to tell upon him. When she got his back against the counter, it was as though a feather bed was upon him. In the meantime the unfortunate mantle had fared badly between them, and was now not worth the purchase-money which, but ten minutes since, had been ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... feather bedds soft? Sheets of Raynes, long, large, and wide, And dyvers devyses of clothes chaynged oft. Metrical Visions, by George Cavendish, in his Life of Wolsey, ed. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... blow-out,—a dinner of two-and-twenty souls; six days' notice; turtle from St. Lucie, guinea-fowl, claret of the year forty, Madeira a discretion, and all that. Very well done the whole thing; nothing wrong, nothing wanting. As for me, I was in great feather. I took Polly in to dinner, greatly to the discomfiture of old Belson, our major, who was making up in that quarter; for you must know, she was an only daughter, and had a very nice thing of it in molasses and niggers. The papa preferred the major, but Polly looked sweetly upon ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... mantles, and of kirtles. Yet the making of such ordinary clothing was simple indeed compared to the manufacture of a chief's full dress mat of kiwi feathers. The soft, hairy-looking plumage of the kiwi (apteryx) is so fine, each feather so minute, that one mantle would occupy a first-rate artist for two years. Many of these mantles, whether of flax, feathers or dog-skin, were quaintly beautiful as well ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... here, but for ten months in the year he and his family fluttered about the social centers of the world. And with a house like this on his hands, one could scarce blame him. Twice a week, during this absence, a caretaker came in, flourished a feather duster, and went away again. Society reporters always referred to this house ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... in a loose white dress. Her morning face was wonderful. It was inevitable that he should ask himself where she had come from—what she had brought with her unknowing. She looked like a white blossom drifting from the bough—like a feather from a dove's wing floating downward to earth. ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... crafty intriguer like Crispi, therefore, easily inflamed Italian indignation, so recently excited by the seizure of Tunis and by Clerical intrigues, and he counted it a gay feather in his cap when, in 1889, he declared a tariff war on France. Hard times for Italy followed; the commerce of the country was dislocated, and although Crispi tried to get compensation by negotiating special terms for trade with Germany and Austria, the new customers did not ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... North, biting the feather of his pen and looking down on a sheet of note-paper on which he had been about to write; "I do not see this wrong so clearly. If a woman's heart will wander off in any forbidden direction, am I to blame because ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... become the nation's hero soon; there, a famous general, of long and splendid service; celebrated statesmen, diplomats, financiers; a noted English duke; a scion of the Hapsburg family; an intimate of the German kaiser; a swart Jap; a Chinaman with his peacock feather; tens of men whose lightest word was listened to by the four ends of the world; representatives of all the great kingdoms and states. The President and his handsome wife had just left as we came, so we missed that formality, which detracts from the ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled the time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat in a warm corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth of halfpence for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and rehearsing other feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying any regard whatever to the company, who in their turn left him utterly unnoticed. At length the weary child prevailed upon her grandfather to retire, and they withdrew, leaving the company yet seated round the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... angel. I was afraid you would show the white feather. It's a go, then—Manila! We can start next week and get ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... some depth of weakness, mightn't show him some shortest way with her that he would know how to use again. Therefore, since she had given him, as yet, no moment's pretext for pretending to her that she had either lost faith or suffered by a feather's weight in happiness, she left him, it was easy to reason, with an immense advantage for all waiting and all tension. She wished him, for the present, to "make up" to her for nothing. Who could say to what making-up might lead, into what consenting or pretending or destroying blindness it might ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... young gentlemen had been at the trouble of sewing the sheep-skin on me they left me, and retired to the hall. In a few minutes the roc appeared, and bore me off to the top of the mountain in his huge claws as lightly as if I had been a feather, for this great white bird is so strong that he has been known to carry even an elephant to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... said Cicely, firmly. She made a fantastic but agreeable figure as she sat near the window in the full golden light of the March evening. Above her black toque there soared a feather which almost touched the ceiling of the low room—a panache, nodding defiance; while her short grey skirts shewed her shapely ankles and feet, clothed in grey gaiters and high boots of ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I told him to find cousin Josephine and entreat her to write to me," said Alice, fanning her face with a great, flapping feather fan. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... have you to be jealous of this creature? what an ignorant ass or flattering knave might be counted, that should write sonnets to her eyes, or call her brow the snow of Ida, or ivory of Corinth; or compare her hair to the blackbird's bill, when 'tis liker the blackbird's feather? This is all. Be wise; I will make you friends, and you shall go to bed together. Marry, look you, it shall not be your seeking. Do you stand upon that, by any means: walk you aloof; I would not have you seen in ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... puzzled about a hat, Humphrey," said Edward: "I hate those steeple-crowned hats worn by the Roundheads; yet the hat and feather is not ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... laughter followed this allusion to Jones's well-known nickname of White-feather, a nickname earned by many acts ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... feeling now no pains, Leans o'er the boat's advancing end; And aided by her lord reclaims, The present of her feather'd friend. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... was going on that western trip," said Shadow, wistfully. "You'll have barrels of fun, and if you do locate that Landslide Mine—well, it will be a big feather in ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... was a jaded and unhealthy-looking though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... larynx).—Produce vomiting. Give an emetic, warm water, melted lard, vaselin or one teaspoonful of mustard in one-half glass of warm water and drink. Tickle the throat with your finger or a feather. For a child, sometimes by taking hold of the feet with the head down and give a few slight jerks frequently expels the foreign body. Slap patient's back. The ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... 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 to try and ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... but broad shouldered, black of hair and gray of eye, held himself in soldierly fashion 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 ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... he was gone, and she threw herself upon the old feather-cushioned lounge to enjoy a reverie in keeping with the dreary storm outside. Was it for this that she had left Rome? She had felt, as every American of conscience feels abroad, the drawings of a duty, obscure and indefinable, toward her country, the duty to come home and do something for ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... With his hair all crisp and curly, In the springtime bright and early A-tripping o'er the meadow he is seen. Through all the bright June weather, Like a jolly little tramp, He wanders o'er the hillside, down the road; Around his yellow feather, Thy gypsy fireflies camp; His companions are the wood lark ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... when Fleetfoot saw a bison frightened by a feather that he thought of making things do the work ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... the caravels must have been overcrowded. The character of the company was very different from that of the year before. Those who went in the first voyage were chiefly common sailors. Now there were many aristocratic young men, hot-blooded and feather-headed hidalgos whom the surrender of Granada had left without an occupation. Most distinguished among these was Alonso de Ojeda, a dare-devil of unrivalled muscular strength, full of energy and fanfaronade, and not without generous qualities, but with ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... palms and flowers. The service was well performed, and the singing was excellent. The sparrows flew in and out by the open doors and windows. One of the birds was building a nest in a corner, and during the service she added to it a marabout feather, a scrap of lace, and an end of pink riband. It will be a curious nest when finished, if she adds at this ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... while. If Ginevra were in a giddy mood, as she is eminently to-night, she would make no scruple of laughing at that mild, pensive Queen, or that melancholy King. She is not actuated by malevolence, but sheer, heedless folly. To a feather-brained school-girl nothing is sacred." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... sleigh—probably the roads were too bad to admit of the use of wheeled vehicles. The deacon, however, had a saddle for himself and a pillion for his wife and daughters. Household furniture was indeed meagre, for that of Deacon Burpee was valued at only L5. 7. 8. But his three good feather beds with pillows, coverlets and bankets were valued at L16. ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... The feather from the raven's breast Falls on the stubble lea, The acorns near the old crow's nest Drop pattering down the tree; The grunting pigs, that wait for all, Scramble and ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... Harrison, and tried to enlist him in their favor by repeating how well James had been treated, and how happy he was in slavery. Friend Harrison replied, in his ironical way, "O, I know very well that slaves sleep on feather beds, while their master's children sleep on straw; that they eat white bread, and their master's children eat brown. But enclose ten acres with a high wall, plant it with Lombardy poplars and the most beautiful shrubbery, build a magnificent castle in the midst of it, give thee ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... on steadily, the steersman standing at his post and handling the long oar as though it was a feather's weight. His huge figure soon identified him. It was Captain John Dunn, who, like Ira Ball, had left the sea, and he had left his right forearm, too, because of some accident somewhere on the other side of the globe. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... full of brilliant talents it must be, since it could afford to make light of his abilities. "You need n't in general attach much importance to anything I tell you," he pursued; "but you may believe me when I say this,—that I am little better than a good-natured feather-head." ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... officers went on shore for sight-seeing and enjoyment. We landed at a wharf opposite which was a famous French restaurant, Farroux, and after ordering supper we all proceeded to the Rua da Ouvador, where most of the shops were, especially those for making feather flowers, as much to see the pretty girls as the flowers which they so skillfully made; thence we went to the theatre, where, besides some opera, we witnessed the audience and saw the Emperor Dom Pedro, and his Empress, the daughter of the King of Sicily. After ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... procession met their eyes unawares, coming down the zig-zag path that led from the hills to the shore of the lagoon, where their huts were situated. At its head marched two men—tall, straight, and supple—wearing huge feather masks over their faces, and beating tom-toms, decorated with long strings of shiny cowries. After them, in order, came a sort of hollow square of chiefs or warriors, surrounding with fan-palms a central object all shrouded from the view with the utmost precaution. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... back, he whispered to Nevels: "Don't show the white feather. Let them see how Morgan's men ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... baby didn't wear anything at all except a loin cloth. When he looked up he saw the black faces and kinky black hair of his father and his mother. And when he was a little older he saw that they didn't wear any clothes either except a loin cloth and a feather skirt and some shells. Neither did this baby think any of this was queer,—not even when he grew older. He thought all the world looked and dressed ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... say, meaning as true as a yarn of Allan Quatermain's. Well, my blood was up; no man shall call Allan Quatermain a liar. The fellow was going on with a prodigious palaver about a white feather of Truth, and Mount Sinai, and the Land of Absolute Negation, and I don't know what, but I signified to him that if he did not believe my yarns I did not want his company. "I'm sorry to turn you out," I said, "for there are ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... and bedding, My only chattels worth the sledding, Consisting of a maple stead, A counterpane, and coverlet, Two cases with the pillows in, A blanket, cord, a winch and pin, Two sheets, a feather bed and hay-tick, I order sledded up to Natick, And that with care the sledder save them For those kind parents, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... produces the following changes in the body, what effects may not be ascribed to the constant use of teas, which we find, as before stated, operate internally? A person in perfect health, having his nostrils only touched with a feather, cannot avoid his body being so convulsed as to produce what is commonly called sneezing. But if the number of muscles agitated, the force and straining of the body by sneezing, are considered; the slightness of the cause must excite no little ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... upon my forehead light:— From off the oars, perchance, as feather'd spray, They drop, while some fair skiff bends on her way Across the ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... that." And he left her and gave the frightened man his orders. But before he reached her room she rolled up the feather-bed and drew the straw mattress to the front side of the bedstead, and told Zack to jump in. Her oder obeyed, she threw back the feather-bed, and before the master and officer entered her room she was occupying the front side of the bed. The clothes-press, wardrobe, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... are dressed to perfection. They are as clever at the demi-toilette as the Parisian, and the extreme neatness and smartness of their walking gowns is very refreshing after the floppy, blowsy, trailing dresses, accompanied by the inevitable feather boa, of which English girls, who used to be so tidy and "tailor-made," now seem so fond. The universal white "waist" is so pretty and trim on the American girl. It is one of the distinguishing marks of a land of the free, a land where "class" hardly exists. The girl in the store ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... sail, a valedictory party came on board: nine of our particular friends equipped with gifts and dressed as for a festival. Hoka, the chief dancer and singer, the greatest dandy of Anaho, and one of the handsomest young fellows in the world-sullen, showy, dramatic, light as a feather and strong as an ox—it would have been hard, on that occasion, to recognise, as he sat there stooped and silent, his face heavy and grey. It was strange to see the lad so much affected; stranger still to recognise in his last gift one of the curios we had refused on the first ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... when the whites have got between feather-beds to be safe from the lightning, I have often seen negroes, the aged as well as others, go out, and, lifting up their hands, thank God that judgment was coming at last. So cruelly are many of them used, that judgment, they ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... and Dick on either side of her, and was immediately accosted by a young lady, with a longer and straighter feather than most of them, ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... was, as has been said, tall, and wore a long beard. On the present occasion he was wrapped in an ample cloak, and had on his head a high-crowned hat encircled with a feather. Amos could not make him out;—what was he? As they came close up to one another, the stranger saluted Amos with an air of mingled ease and affectation, and motioned him to a seat when he had dismounted from his pony. So Amos, still holding Prince's ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the reply. "Fate seems to scatter, and then to gather in all at once, as though we were all feather-toys on strings." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her to show us these purchases: white satin ribbon, jet, and a feather that might have graced the hat of the Master of Ravenswood. The "locating" of this splendid ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... laugh or to talk away the meaning from his warming language. Nothing in the world is more pretty than that same species of defence; it is the charm of the African necromancer who professed with a feather to turn aside ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... in the sudden respite thus afforded slid in a trembling heap beneath the desk, and on hands and knees went crawling across the floor. And as Uncle Michael came in, a moment after, broom, pan, and feather-duster in hand, the last fluttering edge of a little pink dress was disappearing into the depths of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle Michael having put the room to rights, sweeping and dusting, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... kings of history, now shrouded in myst'ry, Once hunted the boar, or the feather, or fur. But we feel this is over as we wade thro' the clover, No tyrant again in this great ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... in his pocket, some he returned to its place. He stood thinking, as it were weighing a possibility. While lingering thus, he noticed the reflected image of his own face in the glass—pale and spectre-like in its indistinctness. The sight seemed to be the feather which turned the balance of indecision: he drew a heavy breath, retired from the room, and passed downstairs. She heard him unbar the back-door, and go out into ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... some time at Grecio, where, one night, when he intended to lay himself down to sleep, he felt a severe headache, and a shivering over his whole body, which quite impeded his resting. Thinking that this might be caused by a feather pillow which his friend Velita had compelled him to accept, in consequence of his infirmities, he called his companion, who was near his cell, and said: "Take away this pillow: I believe the devil is in it." His companion, who took it away, found it extremely ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... she said to an old brave who stood nearest her. "Knowest thou it not?—Matoaka, Little Snow Feather. Always when the moons of popanow (winter) bring us snow it calls me out to play. 'Come, Snow Feather,' it cries, 'come out and run with me and toss ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... than usual. "Come to think of it, that's just what they do. They risk their lives for the light they love. I 'follow you about,' as you put it, because I love you and want to persuade you that we're birds of a feather, made for each other by nature and fate and our mutual behaviour. We ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was well out in the stream, and left to his own resources. He got his sculls out successfully enough, and, though feeling by no means easy on his seat, proceeded to pull very deliberately past the barges, stopping his sculls in the air to feather accurately, in the hopes of deceiving spectators into the belief that he was an old hand just going out for a gentle paddle. The manager watched him for a minute, and turned to his work with an aspiration that he might not ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... wrath against the affronts of the implacable town. His health, undermined by excess and fever, could not bear up against it. He died of a flux of blood five months after his marriage. Four months later, his wife, a good creature, but weak and feather-brained, who had never lived through a day since her marriage without weeping, died in childbirth, casting the infant Anna upon the shores which ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... a whisper that scarce had its breath stirred a feather on her lips, Meriamun spoke the Word of Fear which may not be written, whose sound has power to pass all space and open the ears of the dead who dwell in Amenti. Softly she said it, for in a shout of thunder it was caught up and echoed from her lips, and down the eternal halls it ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... the plans he had adopted, and was adopting, for the benefit of all who became Chartists. He anticipated great results from his scheme of labour palaces—denied the propriety of being placed in the election returns as a feather in the quill of Whiggery—was an earnest advocate for the amelioration of Ireland, and still willing and determined to agitate for their cause. He would go to parliament, and record his first motion for 'The people's charter, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... knowing his brother's wickedness, was unwilling to trust him. So he answered falsely and craftily, 'By the stroke of an owl's feather it is fated that I shall ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... pupil, who thinks a riding habit should be worn over two or three skirts, and is consequently sitting with the aerial elegance of a feather bed, is riding with her snaffle rein, the curb tied on her horse's neck, and is clasping it by the centre, allowing the rest to hang loose, so that Clifton, supposing that she means to give him liberty to browse, is looking for grass among the tan. Not finding it, he snorts occasionally, ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... with very handsome red pines eleven years of age, some of them grow nearly two feet per year. The soil is sandy and gravelly glacial till which will raise little else beside feather grass and sumac. The red pines are not nut pines, and attention is called to them incidentally because of their value for growing upon this ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... so? Well, of course I regard that as another feather in her cap. I'm glad to think ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... English Boards! At the old Haymarket, I think: the pleasantest of all the Theatres (for size and Decoration) that I remember; yes, and for the Listons and Vestrises that I remember there in the days of their Glory. Vestris, in what was called a 'Pamela Hat' with a red feather; and, again, singing 'Cherry Ripe,' one of the Dozen immortal English Tunes. That was in 'Paul Pry.' Poor Plays they were, to be sure: but the Players were good and handsome, and—oneself was young—1822-3! There was Macready's Virginius at old Covent Garden, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... sometimes while you get so absorbed listening that you seem to forget everything; and I see the gratified expression of his face while he watches you. I know it would be a disappointment to him if you should develop into a fashionable, feather-headed woman." ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter |
