"Peacock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Vrihaspati) had become the cause of so much slaughter. And defeating, O king, the Rishikas in the field of battle, Arjuna took from them as tribute eight horses that were of the colour of the parrot's breast, as also other horses of the hues of the peacock, born in northern and other climes and endued with high speed. At last having conquered all the Himalayas and the Nishkuta mountains, that bull among men, arriving at the White mountains, encamped ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... mother Ida, harken ere I die. On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit, And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd Upon him, slowing dropping fragrant dew. Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods Rise up for reverence. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... nigger,—not by no manner of means. No, sir; you can turn out the whole lot, and get another after it, and another after that, and so on to the end of the chapter, and you can't find men among 'em all that'll stay and have him strutting through 'em, up to his stool and his books, grand as a peacock." ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... gloomy little chamber, but clean, and with a mug of wallflower in the window. On the chimney-piece were two peacock's feathers, a carved ship, a few shells, and a black profile with one eyelash; whether this portrait purported to be male or female passed my comprehension, until my hostess informed me that it was her only son, and 'quite ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... myself fresh vegetables, broil a fish that has not forgotten the water,—and with a roll and a little fruit, that is my dinner. The soteltes at kings' tables, all colored sugar and pastry and isinglass—they are only good for people who can eat peacock, and those are very few. Do you know, Master Gay, what is the great secret of my art? To know what is good, and ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Mrs. Madden's breath away. The peevish little plans for annoyance and tyranny, the resolutions born of ignorant and jealous egotism, found themselves swept out of sight by the very first swirl of Celia's dress-train, when she came down from her room robed in peacock blue. The step-mother ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... on the estate—and well they know it—are the white peafowl. The many-coloured peacock with which we are familiar is a beautiful bird, but I never saw anything in my life as perfect as the ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... light grey colour of the robe. The long outer robe thrown over the inner garment (uchikaku) in these brilliant colours, in its tamer shades yet harmonized. Taken with the broad sash of the obi it made her rival the peacock in his grandest display. Her hair dressed high, was a bewildering harmony of the costly tortoise shell combs and pins (kanzashi) arrayed in crab-like eccentricity. The gold ornamentation glistened and sparkled amid the dark tresses. Truly Shu[u]zen was puzzled in this claim ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the grammarian in his place; and, among others, these old grammarians of Alexandria; only being sure that as soon as any man begins, as they did, displaying himself peacock-fashion, boasting of his science as the great pursuit of humanity, and insulting his fellow- craftsmen, he becomes, ipso facto, unable to discover any more truth for us, having put on a habit of mind to which induction is impossible; ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... face. The officer himself was glad, and the whole thing was arranged; and in forty-eight hours, I was on board the Peninsula and Oriental steamship Bokhara bound for the Red Sea. The officer was the most brutal cad I have ever met. He strutted like a peacock, and seemed to take delight in humiliating, when an opportunity would present itself, anybody and everybody beneath him in ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... oot o' my place—wadna I noo? The hen-birds nae doobt are aye the soberer to luik at, an' haena the gran' colours nor the gran' w'ys wi' them 'at the cocks hae; but still there's a measur in a' thing: it wad ill set a common hen to hae a peacock for her man. My sowl, I ken, wad gang han' in han', in a heumble w'y, wi' yours, for I un'erstan' ye, Cosmo; an' the day may come whan I'll luik fitter for yer company nor I can the noo; but wha like me could help a sense o' unfitness, gien it war but gaein' ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... faith. There too was she, the beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the St. Cecilia whose delicate features, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the common decay. There were the members of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised, and exchanged repartees, under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the ladies whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried the Westminster election against palace and treasury shone round ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... depth of glory far away, Down in the green park, a lofty palace lay, There, drank the deer from many a crystal pond, And the starred peacock gemmed the shade beyond. Around that child all nature shone more bright; Her innocence was as an added light. Rubies and diamonds strewed the grass she trode, And jets of sapphire from ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls are tapestried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in her hand, sits perched ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and a Chinese boy beside the peacock feathers, in a blue silk shirt and trousers edged with black; a Burmese woman sweeping; two little brown half naked children—a boy and girl playing on the stone pavement with the guttering wax of candles at the side of the arches; and the kneeling youths and seniors ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... brightest where the cloth was most worn and soiled, and poorest where it was at the best. A pair of tawdry ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare. He had ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock's feathers, but they were limp and broken, and now trailed negligently down his back. Girt to his side was the steel hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard; and some particoloured ends of ribands and poor glass toys completed the ornamental portion of his attire. The fluttered ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... contemplating the picturesque groups it presented. There lay the salmon in its delicate coat of blue and silver; the mullet, in pink and gold; the mackerel, with its blending of all hues,—gorgeous as the tail of the peacock, and defying the art of the painter to transfer them to his canvas; the plaice, with its olive green coat, spotted with vivid orange, which must flash like sparks of flame glittering in the depths of the dark waters; the cod, and the siller ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Africa may also have produced the "peacocks," if tukkiyim are really "peacocks," though they are not found there at the present day. Or the tukkiyim may have been Guinea-fowl—a bird of the same class with the peacock. ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... feast was the peacock. It was sometimes served as a pie with its head protruding from one side of the crust and its wide-spread tail from the other; more often the bird was skinned, stuffed with herbs and sweet spices, roasted, and then put into ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... do you really think I look pretty?" and after a few more assurances he got down and strutted as proudly as any peacock; much to the discomfiture of the kitten, who wanted to play with him. And now he will cross the yard any time to have one of those ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... side. I had hoped that there was real feeling among politicians. But no; we are put off with a fast day. There, an end! I begin to think that nothing will do for England but a good revolution, and a 'besom of destruction' used dauntlessly. We are getting up our vainglories again, smoothing our peacock's plumes. We shall be as exemplary as ever by next winter, you ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... wearing the costumes of the Queen's Court now. Instead, he was dressed in a tailor-proud suit of dark blue, a white- on-white shirt and no tie. He selected one of a gorgeous peacock pattern from ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... writes back in return describing Reading festivities, 'an agreeable dinner at Doctor Valpy's, where Mrs. Women and Miss Peacock are present and Mr. J. Simpson, M.P.; the dinner very good, two full courses and one remove, the soup giving place to one quarter of lamb.' Mrs. Mitford sends a menu of ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the right and the left of the British position an almost unique disaster had befallen Hill's troops. Peacock, the colonel of the 71st, through some bewitched failure of nerve or of judgment, withdrew that regiment from the fight. It was a Highland regiment, great in fighting reputation, and full of daring. ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... his say: "For it is to be noted that the Beaux of those days were of a quite different cast from the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of the peacock in their mein than (which now seems to be their highest emulation) the pert air of a lap-wing. Now, whatever contempt philosophers may have for a fine perriwig, my friend, who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very well that so material an article of dress upon the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... her half-bare shoulders, and strings of great blonde pearls—almost equal to her neck in beauty of colour—descended upon her bosom. From time to time she elevated her head with the undulating grace of a startled serpent or peacock, thereby imparting a quivering motion to the high lace ruff which surrounded ...
— Clarimonde • Theophile Gautier
... yourself ever to come back," screeched the peacock, hoarsely. "For my part, I'm tired of having my handsomest tail-feathers snatched out by the handful. I'm sure I trust I shall never set ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... iron-bound chests full of gold; stately ladies, pearl inlaid caskets for their jewels; and even you and I, dear child, have our own. Your little box with lock and key, that aunt Lucy gave you, where you have kept for a long time your choicest paper doll, the peacock with spun-glass tail, and the robin's egg that we picked up on the path under the great trees that windy day last spring,—that is your treasure-box. I no less have mine; and, if you will look with me, I will show you how the ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... of true penitence and amendment of life. But it is the inner garments I must deal with, the raiments and habits of the soul. Some of these robes—such as vanity and pride—are as gay and showy as a peacock; others are dirty and leprous, and we should not dare to bring them to the door, and display them in the light. But all need severe treatment; they must be torn, fibre from fibre, and ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Its belly is wondrous with wealth of color, Sheer and shining. A shield extends Brilliantly fair above the back of the fowl. 310 The comely legs are covered with scales; The feet are bright yellow. The fowl is in beauty Peerless, alone, though like the peacock Delightfully wrought, as the writings relate. It is neither slow in movement, nor sluggish in mien, 315 Nor slothful nor inert as some birds are, Who flap their wings in weary flight, But he is fast and fleet, and floats through the air, Marvelous, winsome, and wondrously ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... there is another entrance leading down to the terrace by a long flight of stone stairs, the balustrades of which are covered by a tangle of clematis and roses. When I come walking down those steps and see the peacock strutting about in the park, and the old sundial, and the row of beeches in the distance, I feel a thrill of something that makes me hot and cold and proud and weepy all at the same time. Father says he feels just the same, in a man-ey ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... into a little copse, and the princess followed. Never was any one so struck with wonder as she, to behold there a great peacock with tail outspread. So beautiful, so exquisitely and perfectly beautiful did it seem to her that she could not take away her eyes. When the king and the prince joined her they asked what it was that had ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... and trained for the day of the contest, come upon the battle-field armed with long, sharp, steel spurs. They bear themselves erect; their deportment is bold and warlike; they raise their heads, and beat their sides with their wings, the feathers of which spread in the form of the proud peacock's fan. They pace the arena haughtily, raising their armed legs cautiously, and darting angry looks at each other, like two old warriors in armour ready to fight before the eyes of an assembled court. Their impatience is violent, their courage impetuous; shortly the two adversaries fall upon and attack ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... presently, "I thought thee't got low eno' when thee got drinkin' and picked up wi' that peacock-bedecked Polly Powell; but I ne'er thought a bairn o' mine would sink as low as that. Wer't'a ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... commercial travellers, amateurs (by far, indeed, the most numerous class), to express the feelings they experience in tasting wines. I know an English traveller who only liked a wine when it caused a 'peacock's tail in the mouth'; and everybody knows the expression of the Auvergnian drinking a glass of generous old wine—'It's a yard of velvet ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... bird, the peacock see:— Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he! Meridian sun-beams tempt him to unfold His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold: He treads as if, some solemn music near, His measured step were governed by his ear: And seems to say—'Ye meaner fowl, give place, I am all splendour, dignity, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and what adventures met him by the way, how he came upon a country inn of unsavoury reputation and was scrutinized by a rogue and what followed, how he rescued a maid and fought with a notorious pirate, and how the Golden Peacock was found and afterward lost again—all this makes a book of romance and adventure such as even Mr. Ben Bolt ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... on the 19th and your father went on that day to Cambridge to be present at the tri- centennial celebration of Trinity College . . . He went also the day after the anniversary, which was on our 22nd December, to Ely, with Peacock, the great mathematician, who is Dean of Ely, to see the great cathedral there . . . While he was at Cambridge I passed the evening of the 22nd at Lady Morgan's, who happened to have a most agreeable ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... premier. Part of the charm of hoeing potatoes lies in anticipating the joys of the potato properly baked. Charles Lamb may write of his roast pig, and the epicures among the ancients may expatiate upon the glories of a dish of peacock's tongues and their other rare and costly edibles, but they probably never knew to what heights one may ascend in the scale of gastronomic joys in the immediate presence of a baked Carmen. When it is ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... in Mary Godwin a woman belonging to the same intellectual and spiritual race as himself—a woman whom he loved as the great lovers in all the centuries have loved. Shelley himself expressed the situation in a few characteristic words to Thomas Love Peacock: "Everyone who knows me," he said, "must know that the partner of my life should be one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy. Harriet is a noble animal, but she can do neither." "It always appeared to me," said Peacock, "that you were very fond of Harriet." Shelley ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd; 50 And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries— So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries, She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf, Some demon's mistress, or the ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... see what I owe to the oracle. On the Exchange the whole company can do nothing but express their gratitude to me. I am regarded as the most prudent and most farseeing man in Holland. To you, my dear children, I owe this honour, but I wear my peacock's feathers ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... awaited the arrival of the king, with whom she had appointed the rendezvous. The sound of many feet upon the gravel walk made her turn round. Louis XIV. was hatless, he had struck down with his cane a peacock butterfly, which Monsieur de Saint-Aignan had picked up from ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... at Warlock Manor-house before, arrived there one after the other in the most friendly manner imaginable. Their owners admired everything,—the house was such a fine relic of old times!—for their parts they liked an oak staircase!—and those nice old windows!—and what a beautiful peacock!—and, Heaven save the mark! that magnificent chestnut-tree was worth a forest! Mr. Brandon was requested to make one of the county hunt, not that he any longer hunted himself, but that his name would give such consequence to the thing! Miss Lucy ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... great: and the smell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking." On the evening of the election at Eatanswill, Tupman and Snodgrass resort to the commercial room of the Peacock Inn, where "the atmosphere was redolent of tobacco-smoke, the fumes of which had communicated a rather dingy hue to the whole room, and more especially to the dusty red curtains which shaded the windows." Here, among others, were the dirty-faced man with a clay pipe, the very red-faced ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... to my father was Peacock, the novelist, for Peacock was also an official in the India House and so a colleague of ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... Augustus Peacock and Julius Candy (this enviable duo) were two such young men as may be met with in herds any fine afternoon publishing their persons to the frequenters of Regent-street. They did credit to their tailors, who were liberal enough to give them credit in return. Their coats were guiltless ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... your tresses and more bright Than the locks by German maidens coiled: Than the finest fleeces Baetis shows, Than the dormouse with her golden hue: Lips more fragrant than the Paestan rose, Than the Attic bees' first honey-dew, Or an amber ball, new-pressed and warm; Paled the peacock's sheen in your compare; E'en the winsome squirrel lost his charm, And the Phoenix seemed no longer rare. Scarce Erotion's ashes yet are cold; Greedily grim fate ordained to smite E'er her sixth brief winter had grown old— Little love, my bliss, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... were the flamingo, who, cautiously, timorously picked his way—as if he were conscious he was only a bunch of feathers hoisted on stilts; the white parrot, who was wabbling across the lawn to a favorite perch in the leaves of a tropical palm; and the peacock, whose train had been spread with a due regard to effect across a bed of purple irises, with a view to annihilating the brilliancy of their ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... out in a man's shirt, and nothing else; another one would enter with a flourish, with simply the sleeves of a bright calico dress tied around her waist and the rest of the garment dragging behind like a peacock's tail off duty; a stately "buck" Kanaka would stalk in with a woman's bonnet on, wrong side before—only this, and nothing more; after him would stride his fellow, with the legs of a pair of pantaloons ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... creed of pure caprice, the most unique of all geniuses; Leigh Hunt with his Bohemian impecuniosity; Landor with his tempestuous temper, throwing plates on the floor; Hazlitt with his bitterness and his low love affair; even that healthier and happier Bohemian, Peacock. With these, in one sense at least, goes De Quincey. He was, unlike most of these embers of the revolutionary age in letters, a Tory; and was attached to the political army which is best represented in letters by the virile laughter and leisure of Wilson's Noctes Ambrosianae. ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... giant, with broad shoulders, and a long, fair-like beard, which hung like a cloth on his chest. His whole, solemn person suggested the idea of a military peacock, a peacock who was carrying his tail spread out on to his breast. He had cold, gentle, blue eyes, and the scar from a sword-cut, which he had received in the war with Austria; he was said to be an honorable man, as ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Wren, If you will but be mine, You shall dine on cherry pie, And drink nice currant wine. I'll dress you like a Goldfinch, Or like a Peacock gay; So if you'll have me, Jenny, Let us appoint ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "1533. Stephen Peacock, haberdasher, mayor. "This year, the 29th day of May, the Mayor of London, with the aldermen in scarlet gowns, went in barges to Greenwich, with their banners, as they were wont to bring the Mayor to Westminister; and the ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... niches there were, half concealing and half revealing long-necked Chinese jars; and odd little carven tables bore strangely fashioned vessels of silver. There was a cabinet of ebony inlaid with jade, there were black tapestries figured with dragons of green and gold. Curtains she saw of peacock-blue; and in a tall, narrow recess, dominating the room, squatted a great ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... the laticlave on his tunica. Over this was a sumptuous lacerna of silver tissue fastened over the right shoulder with a diamond fibula. On his head he wore a petasus of hyacinthine hue, out of which sprang three peacock's feathers. He was shod with curule shoes, or mullei, fastened with four crimson thongs. Mr. LANSBURY'S costume was simpler but not less striking, consisting of scarlet braccae or barbarian pantaloons, a jade-green synthesis, buckskin soleae and an accordion-pleated pileus. Lord HOWARD ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... Delhi, India's imperial city. In and around it are innumerable palaces, mosques, tombs and forts, each and all worthy of careful inspection; but I will only mention the Jama Musjid; inside the fort the Diwan-i-Am, wherein formerly stood the famous peacock throne; and the Diwan-i-Kas, at either end of which, over the outer arches, is the famous Persian inscription, "If Heaven can be on the face of the earth it is this! Oh, it is this! Oh, it is this!" In the city itself is the famous street called Chandni ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... his own peculiar species; other kinds lodge under birds' feathers, and some birds have two or three sorts of parasites. There is one belonging to the turkey, to the peacock, to the sparrow, to the vulture, to the magpie, etc. I don't think there is a bird or animal which does not, like Gringalet, possess ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... summer is," meditated Aunt Jane, "and butterflies are caterpillars most of the time after all. How quiet it seems. The wrens whisper in their box above the window, and there has not been a blast from the peacock for a week. He seems ashamed of the summer shortness of his tail. He keeps glancing at it over his shoulder to see if it is not looking better than yesterday, while the staring eyes of the old tail are ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... could you? You were going on the whole time about cards and premiums and associates. Oh! yes, I know a peacock or a lynx is nothing to you, but how was it possible? Why, I was making talk to Constance all along, and trying to make Dolly speak of ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... known a poor woman's bastard better favoured—this is behind him. Now, to his face—all comparisons were hateful. Wise was the courtly peacock, that, being a great minion, and being compared for beauty by some dottrels that stood by to the kingly eagle, said the eagle was a far fairer bird than herself, not in respect of her feathers, but in respect of her long talons: his will grow out in ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... hotel brought us to a ridge where the precipice fell suddenly and almost sheer over one arm of Lugano Lake. Sullenly outstretched asleep it lay beneath us, coloured with the tints of fluor-spar, or with the changeful green and azure of a peacock's breast. The depth appeared immeasurable. San Salvadore had receded into insignificance: the houses and churches and villas of Lugano bordered the lake-shore with an uneven line of whiteness. And over all there rested a blue mist of twilight and of haze, contrasting ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... iii., by Pandit S. M. Natesa Sastri[FN403]): In the town of Tanjai there reigned a king named Hariji, who was a very good and charitable sovereign. In his reign the tiger and the bull drank out of the same pool, the serpent and the peacock amused themselves under the same tree; and thus even birds and beasts of a quarrelsome and inimical disposition lived together like sheep of the same flock. While the brute creation of the great God was thus living in friendship and happiness, need it be said ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... that the public should take care of them;" got into the House "not to be arrested;"—"his set speeches there, which he designs to get extempore to speak in the House." For his literary character we are told that "Steele was a jay who borrowed a feather from the peacock, another from the bullfinch, and another from the magpye; so that Dick is made up of borrowed colours; he borrowed his humour from Estcourt, criticism of Addison, his poetry of Pope, and his politics of Ridpath; so that his qualifications as a man of genius, like Mr. T——s, as a member of Parliament, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... that picture than a peacock. And every day we drop in to see if it is all right and Broun always goes behind the bar and dusts it off a little and draws himself another drink. There is never any question any more of our credit. Don't we own a picture insured for $2,000? The good Schneider ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... coachman, to drive home. She was disappointed and chagrined, but not discouraged. She was vain as a peacock or Queen Elizabeth. Like another Dorcasina, she fancied every man to be her inamorata. She had never abandoned the idea that Duncan Lisle had been once in love with her. She had been encouraged in this delusion ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... this be, whose rich and pleasant notes Proclaim him best of all the singing birds, Warbling so sweetly on the jambu-branch, Where like a peacock he sits ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... scarcely below his chin. The village tailor had fitted his armholes so tight that he could not bring his two little hands together. But, oh, how proud he was! He wore a round hat, with a black-and-gold cord, and a peacock's plume which stuck out proudly from a tuft of guinea feathers. A bunch of flowers, bigger than his head, covered his shoulder, and ribbons fluttered to his feet The hemp-dresser, who was also the barber and hair-dresser of the district, had cut his hair evenly, by covering his head with a bowl, ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... scrolls and leafy exuberance airily supporting the statues of the saints, was a hundred times etherialized by the purity and whiteness of the drifting flakes. The snow lay lightly on the golden globes that tremble like peacock-crests above the vast domes, and plumed them with softest white; it robed the saints in ermine; and it danced over all its work as ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... To chide daily one fit to supperward; And my master himself is worse than she, If he once thoroughly angered be. And a maid we have at home, Alison Trip-and-go: Not all London can show such other two: She simpereth, she pranketh, and jetteth without fail, As a peacock that hath spread and showeth her gay tail: She minceth, she bridleth, she swimmeth to and fro: She treadeth not one hair awry, she trippeth like a doe Abroad in the street, going or coming homeward: She quavereth and warbleth, like one in a galliard, Every joint in her body ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... there. They found, however, the inn had no accommodation to offer, but through the friendliness of Mr. Pott, Mr. Pickwick and Winkle accompanied that gentleman to his home, whilst Mr. Tupman, Mr. Snodgrass and Sam repaired to the "Peacock." They all first dined together at the "Town Arms" and arranged to reassemble there in the morning. It was here the barmaid was reported to have been bribed to "hocus the brandy and water of fourteen ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... the broken dam; there beside the breach, with the river sucking darkly through, Josiah Peacock stood, contemplating the scene with his practical eye against to-morrow's labor. Suddenly I found myself mentioning the telegram. He said, "Then you'll have to drive back to-night." I felt alarmed; surely this ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... cap and whip, and then slowly remove his gloves. If the matter before the House interested him, and he desired to be heard, he would fix his large, round, lustrous black eyes upon the Speaker, and, in a voice shrill and piercing as the cry of a peacock, exclaim: "Mr. Speaker!" then, for a moment or two, remain looking down upon his desk, as if to collect his thoughts; then lifting his eyes to the Speaker would commence, in a conversational tone, an address that not ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... a dangerous pisition, you must be chuckling and grinning, must you? I only wish my husband, Mr. Giblet, was here, he should soon wring your necks, and pluck some of your fine feathers for you, and make you look as foolish as a peacock without his tail." Mrs. Giblet's ire at length having subsided, she was handed down in safety on terra firma, and our heroes transferred their assistance to the other passengers. The violence of the concussion had burst open the coach-door ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... to-day, Sabre-Tooth somewhat resembled them, though, beside him, the largest inmate of the Indian jungle would appear but puny. The creature Ab looked upon that day so long ago was beautiful, in his way. He was beautiful as is the peacock or the banded rattlesnake. There were color contrasts and fine blendings. The stripes upon him were wonderfully rich, and as he came creeping toward the body, he was as splendid as ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... those who have seen this Arjemand crowned with the crown the Padishah set upon her sweet low brows, with the lamps of great jewels lighting the dimples of her cheeks as they swung beside them, have most surely seen perfection. He who sat upon the Peacock Throne, where the outspread tail of massed gems is centred by that great ruby, "The Eye of the Peacock, the Tribute of the World," valued it not so much as one Jock of the dark and perfumed tresses that rolled to her feet. ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... the expected guests. His Grace and the Bird of Paradise arrived first, with their foreign friends. Lord Squib and Lord Darrell, Sir Lucius Grafton, Mr. Annesley, and Mr. Peacock Piggott followed, but not alone. There were two ladies who, by courtesy if no other right, bore the titles of Lady Squib and Mrs. Annesley. There was also a pseudo Lady Aphrodite Grafton. There was Mrs. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... gods and food of sacrifice. Upon his forehead sat a golden throne, The massy metal twisted into shapes Grotesque, antediluvian, such as move In myth or have their broken images Sealed in the stony middle of the hills. A peacock spread his thousand dyes to screen The yellow sunlight from the head of one Who sat upon the throne, clad stiff with gems, Heirlooms of dynasties of buried kings,— Himself the likeness of a buried king, With frozen gesture and ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... Winifred Oharteris, coward before man, castaway before God. Of my sin two know besides my Maker—the father that begot you, whose false friend I was in the days that were, and Walter Skirving, the father of the first Winifred whose eyes this hand closed under the Peacock tree at Crossthwaite." ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... the warm wind sighs Heavily, faintly, languorously fanned By drowsy peacock-plumes—to keep the flies From your full nose and eyes— Waved from behind you, where on either hand Two silent slaves of Nubian polish stand, Whose patent-leather visages reflect The convex day, with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... the runaway slave in the canebrake, the woodyard man, or the "pirooter"—that degenerate heir, dwarfed to a parasite, of the terrible, earlier-day land-pirates and river-wolves of Plum Point and Crow's Nest Island? To such sorts, self-described as human snapping-turtles and alligators, her peacock show of innumerable lights was the jewelled crown of the only civilization they knew, knowing it only with the same aloofness with which they knew the stars. She woke them with the flutter of her wheels as of winged feet and passed like a goddess using the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... spoke jokingly there was such a note of belief in her voice that Mary caught her by the arm and shook it, saying playfully, "Peacock! If that's what you hope for me, then you must certainly speed my parting. It's only in the goodly land of Lloydsboro that I can measure up to all you expect of me. I'll try and fill the bill, but promise me this much. When I've finally pitched my tent in Canaan and achieved that ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... I and Willie, In fortunate parallels! Butterflies, Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes: ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... and Pfauentritt (peacock-strut), were nicknames given to the leaders of the guilds who rebelled against the patrician families in Nuremberg, from whom alone the aldermen or town-council could be elected. This patrician class originated in 1198 under the Emperor Henry IV., who ennobled 38 families of the citizens. They were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mother dear, for admiring myself in my new travelling-clothes. Oh, I'm such a fine peacock in all my fine feathers!" she said, pausing to give her father a quick hug before she took her place at the table. "Do tell me that I look like a ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... catch the trick of it; and whatever easy vice or mechanical habit the master may have been betrayed or warped into, the unhappy pupil watches and adopts, triumphant in its ease:—has not sense to steal the peacock's feather, but imitates its voice. Better for him, far better, never to have seen what had been accomplished by others, but to have gained gradually his own quiet way, or at least with his guide only a step in advance of him, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... their busy broods about them, or sat and scolded in the coops because the chicks would gad abroad. Doves cooed on the sunny roof, and smoothed their gleaming feathers. Daisy's donkey nibbled a thistle by the wall, and a stately peacock marched before the door with all his plumage spread. It made Daisy laugh to see the airs the fowls put on as she scattered corn, and threw meal and water to the chicks. Some pushed and gobbled; some stood meekly outside the crowd, and got what they could; others seized a ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... him some of the chiefs of Afghanistan, he crossed the Punjab and entered Delhi. He there raised enormous contributions, and seized upon everything worth taking away; amongst other things the far-famed Peacock throne, in which was the renowned diamond called "The Mountain of Light." The spoils with which he returned to Persia were valued at nearly seventy millions of pounds sterling. It is not necessary to follow the history ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... a haughty scutcheon, shone brightly against the western rays. From the flower-beds in the quaint garden near at hand, the fresh yet tranquil air wafted faint perfumes from the lingering heliotrope and fading rose. The peacock perched dozily on the heavy balustrade; the blithe robin hopped busily along the sun-track on the lawn; in the distance the tinkling bells of the flock, the plaining low of some wandering heifer, while breaking the silence, seemed still ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the garden where there were tame deer, and a "golden bear" in a cage, and peafowl in an aviary, and an ape. The people fed the deer and the bear with cakes, and tried to coax the peacock to open its tail, and grievously tormented the ape. I sat down to rest on the veranda of a pleasure-house near, the aviary, and the Japanese folk who had been looking at the picture of whale-fishing found ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... Cathedral) looming in the distance. At about half-past four we reached Boston, (which name has been shortened, in the course of ages, by the quick and slovenly English pronunciation, from Botolph's town,) and were taken by a cab to the Peacock, in the market-place. It was the best hotel in town, though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small, stilled parlor, dingy, musty, and scented with stale tobacco-smoke,—tobacco-smoke two days old, for the waiter assured us that the room ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... a peacock, as conscious of his glorious plumage as indifferent to the ugliness of his feet, kept time with undulating neck to the motion of those same feet, as he strode with stagey gait across the cornyard, now and then stooping to pick up a stray grain spitefully, ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... very much, but just then the baby was more to her than all else in the world, and as long as she had him with her, she did not very much mind anything. So, taking her son on her arm, and hanging a little earthen pot for cooking round her neck, she left her house with its great peacock fans and slaves and seats of ivory, and ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... figures coming doorward: and these were Eudemius, and Marius, and the physician Claudius. Eudemius, his face pinched and gray, leaned tottering with weakness on the arms of the other two; behind them walked a slave with a great peacock fan, and another slave was waiting at the door. At once Nicanor clapped his hardened hand over the thin flame of the lamp on the shelf, and the passage where they stood was plunged in darkness. Before the three lords had reached the threshold, he had drawn the girl out of sight behind ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... the American expedition proceeded south from Sydney at the close of 1839. His vessels were the 'Vincennes', a sloop of war of seven hundred and eighty tons, the 'Peacock', another sloop of six hundred and fifty tons, the 'Porpoise', a gun-brig of two hundred and thirty tons and a tender, the 'Flying Fish' of ninety-six tons. The scientists of the expedition were precluded from joining ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... outrival, Plain barnyard Spuytenduyvil, By peacock Riverdale, Which thinks all else it conquers, And over homespun Yonkers Spreads out its flaunting tail! There's new-named Mount St. Vincent, Where each dear little inn'cent Is taught the Popish rites,— Well, ain't it queer, wherever These saints possess the ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... on the voyage is not for us to speak of—was like a peacock, with great state and pomp. The declaration of His Honor, that he wished to stay here only three years, with other haughty expressions, caused some to think that he would not be a father. The appellation of Lord General, and similar titles, were never before known here. Almost ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... crept through the hedge and were pecking at the fallen apples. The drakes were handsome fellows, with pinkish gray bodies, their heads and necks covered with iridescent green feathers which grew close and full, changing to blue like a peacock's neck. Antonia said they always reminded her of soldiers—some uniform she had seen in the old country, when she ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... few stained chairs and a pembroke table. A pink shell was displayed on each of the little sideboards, which, with the addition of a tea-tray and caddy, a few more shells on the mantelpiece, and three peacock's feathers tastefully arranged above them, completed the decorative furniture ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... very much, and one day she was especially kind to me and I went walking down the street like a peacock and plumped right on to Mr. Clark. We walked along together and he said something about Miss Merriam, and I was jackass enough to say that I hoped—not thought, Ethel Blue, but hoped; do you ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... it—it does not search the air in which the patient lives, but the lungs. There you have it! Nevertheless, Christianity must have an eye to the monarchy—must pluck the lie from it—must not follow it to its coronation in the church, as an ape follows a peacock. I know what I felt in that situation. I had gone through with a rehearsal the day before—ho, ho! Ask the Christianity in this land, if it be not time to concern itself with the monarchy. It should hardly any longer, it seems to ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... suppression of the Dublin paper was an illegal act. He expressed regret, however, that the article had appeared in his journal, in view of its having given offence to the House. The Premier of Victoria, Mr. A. J. Peacock, at once declared that no apology was sufficient unless it included unqualified disavowal and disapproval of the article in question, and moved the following Resolution: "That the Honourable member for Melbourne, ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... cowards like the rabbit, nor all brave like the house-fly, nor all sweet and innocent and gentle like the lamb, nor all murderous like the spider and the tiger and the wasp, nor all thieves like the fox and the bluejay, nor all vain like the peacock, nor all frisky like the monkey. These things are all in him somewhere, and they develop according to the proportion of each he received in his allotment: We describe a man by his vicious traits and condemn him; or by his fine traits ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to think that Jimmy's father must have admirable tact, because he never seemed to have inquired why Jimmy always came alone. But Jimmy said it wasn't tact. It was pure haughtiness. The old bird, he said, was as proud as a peacock with his tail up. I used to think it wasn't very nice of him to talk like that about his father. And I used to think it wasn't very nice of Viola never to go ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... Peacock's gaudy dress: If she prefers That gray of hers, I don't admire her taste, I must confess. 'And as for legs and feet—well, I declare, The pair she's got Are really not The kind that ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... heaven or the air, was Juno—in Greek, Hera—the white-armed, ox-eyed, stately lady, whose bird was the peacock. Do you know how the peacock got the eyes in his tail? They once belonged to Argus, a shepherd with a hundred eyes, whom Juno had set to watch a cow named Io, who was really a lady, much hated by her. Argus watched ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who had formerly been a modest man, was now so swelled with pride that he tipped the rim of his hat over his left ear and smoked a big cigar that was fast making him ill. His wife strutted along beside him like a peacock, enjoying to the full the homage and respect her wealth had won from those who formerly deigned not to notice her, and glancing from time to time at the ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... at another disease by the light of recent knowledge, viz., the epidemic influenza, concerning which I remember hearing much talk, as a child, in 1847-48. There has been no epidemic of this disease in the British Isles since 1847, but we may judge of its serious nature from the computation of Peacock that in London alone 250,000 persons were stricken down with it in the space of a few days. It is characteristic of this disease that it invades a whole city, or even a whole country, at "one fell swoop," resembling in its sudden onset and its extent the potato disease which we ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... come from Caen. John Buck, from Rouen, is Jean Bouc, and Abraham Bushell, from Rochelle, was probably a Roussel or Boissel. James King and John Hill, both Dutchmen, are obvious translations of common Dutch names, while Henry Powell, a German, is Heinrich Paul. Mary Peacock, from Dunkirk, and John Bonner, a Frenchman, I take to be Marie Picot and Jean Bonheur, while Nicholas Bellow is surely Nicolas Belleau. Michael Leman, born in Brussels, may be French Leman or Lemoine, or ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... was darting up the branches of a beautiful spreading beech-tree, a whole army of rabbits were flashing with silver tails into the brushwood; swallows, blackbirds, peacock-butterflies, dragonflies on the wing, a mighty sylvan life was roaming ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... perhaps more than any other attract the general attention, as well as the general admiration, of mankind: I mean all that class of phenomena which go to constitute the Beautiful. Whatever value beauty as such may have, it clearly has not a life-preserving value. The gorgeous plumage of a peacock, for instance, is of no advantage to the peacock in his struggle for life, and therefore cannot be attributed to the agency of natural selection. Now this fact of beauty in organic structures is a fact of wide ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... rotten. Go to hell, and shut the door after you!" His man, who seems a very decent little fellow, though he is as vain as a peacock, and speaks with a Cockney accent which is simply terrible, came down the passage after me, and explained "on his own," as he expressed it, that his master, "Mr. Ernest," was upset by the long journey, ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... seated ourselves at the table. And what a banquet we had! Fried chicken, nice hot biscuits, butter, butter-milk, honey, (think of that!) preserved peaches, fresh cucumber pickles,—and so forth. And a colored house-girl moved back and forth behind us, keeping off the flies with a big peacock-feather brush. Aleck Cope sat opposite me, and when the girl was performing that office for him, the situation looked so intensely ludicrous that I wanted to scream. Supper over, we paid the bill, which was quite reasonable, and went on our way rejoicing, and reached ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... the sea the very peacock of peacocks?" asks Nietzsche. "Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes it unfoldeth its tail and never wearieth of its lace fan of silver and gold." But the sea is not moved by slander. "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!" sings Byron in praise, but ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... all grey, the hue of mother-of-pearl; only the inner side of her wings glowed with a tender flush of scarlet, like a rose bursting into blossom; a garland of lilies-of-the-valley confined the scattered curls of her small, round head,—and two peacock feathers quivered amusingly, like the feelers of a butterfly, above ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of the Edward Arms Company direct," he said, and then, leaning over the desk, "Edwards is a vain little peacock and a second rate business man," he declared emphatically. "Get him afraid and then flatter his vanity. He has a new wife with blonde hair and big soft blue eyes. He wants prominence. He is afraid to venture upon big things himself but ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... that of a mere boy, and his friend Mr. Peacock thus describes the conflict of his feelings after ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... a five-shilling piece. They are all sorts of colours, honey-yellow, rich orange, Venetian red, brown sherry, some clear and some clouded, some have insects in them, some when held properly in the sunlight, have a fluorescent, hazy tinge like the blue in a horse's eye, some are a peacock-green and others a deep purple. The largest piece is green, and has objects in it which Brancaccia says are cherry-blossoms. Peppino accepts his wife's view because it amuses him to call this piece The Field of Enna, where Proserpine ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... be photographed, fie also would insist upon arranging them before the camera. His efforts, however, were directed more toward achieving artistic triumph than scientific truth, and he wanted, for instance, to decorate the Indians with peacock feathers. He yielded, however, to my suggestion that turkey feathers would be more appropriate, and straightway ordered one of his turkeys to be caught and deprived of some of its tail feathers. The only way in which I could show my appreciation of the disinterested kindness ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... Dr Thorpe, "was my Lady of Somerset sent also to the Tower, for the great crime, I take it, of being wife unto her husband. And with her a fair throng of gentlemen—what they have done I wis not. Maybe one of them sent the Duke a peacock, and another doffed his bonnet to ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... at him for a considerable time). Ay, pity 'tis thou art! Alas, that home To thee has grown so strange! Oh, Uly! Uly! I scarce do know thee now, thus deck'd in silks, The peacock's feather[*] flaunting in thy cap, And purple mantle round thy shoulders flung; Thou look'st upon the peasant with disdain; And tak'st his ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... would spread your peacock wings even here? Ah, go your way! You forget. Our companionship is dissolved. We are not on ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... of British India,' p. 340) on the destruction of cobras by the ichneumon or herpestes, and whilst the cobras are young by the jungle-fowl. It is well known that the peacock also eagerly ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... feathers they become of an orrange green, then shaded pass to a redish indigo blue, and again at the extremity assume the predominant colour of changeable green- the tints of these feathers are very similar and equally as beatiful and rich as the tints of blue and green of the peacock- it is a most beatifull bird.- the legs and toes are black and imbricated. it has four long toes, three in front and one in rear, each terminated with a black sharp tallon from 3/8ths to 1/2 an inch in length.- these birds are seldom found in parties of more than three or four and most usually ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... thing seem'd resting on his nod, As they could read in all eyes. Now to them, Who were accustom'd, as a sort of god, To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad (That royal bird, whose tail 's a diadem), With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt How power ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and ironed, all alone. And thus she sang to the busy man Chang: "Have you forgotten.... Deep in the ages, long, long ago, I was your sweetheart, there on the sand— Storm-worn beach of the Chinese land? We sold our grain in the peacock town Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown— Built on the edge of ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... the Vatnsfjord one Vermund the Slender, a brother of Viga-Styr, who had married Thorbjorg the daughter of Olaf Peacock, the son of Hoskuld, called Thorbjorg the Fat. At the time when Grettir was in Langadal Vermund was away at the Thing. He went across the ridge to Laugabol where a man named Helgi was living, one of the principal bondis. Thence Grettir took a good horse belonging ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... in Foo Chow, Mr. Gouverneur was fortunate in securing the services of a Chinese interpreter named Ling Kein, a mandarin of high order, who wore the "blue button," significant of his rank. In addition to this distinction he wore on his hat the peacock feather, an official reward of merit. He was a Chinese of remarkable intelligence, well versed in English as well as in the Chinese vernacular, and was also the master of several dialects. He surprised me by his familiarity with New York, and upon inquiry I learned that he had once taken ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... colours her imagination was obliged to construct for her out of its own fabric; she knew what the girls would look like if they went to a Drawing Room and she often wondered if they would feel shy when the page spread out their lovely peacock tails for them and left them to their own devices. It was mere Nature that she should have pondered and pondered and sometimes unconsciously longed to feel herself part of the flood of being sweeping past her as she stood apart on the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lion or the frog - In all the life of moor and fen, In ass and peacock, stork and dog, He read similitudes ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... cottages, quaint and rustic, of artists and writers, and went on across wind-blown rolling sandhills held to place by sturdy lupine and nodding with pale California poppies. Saxon screamed in sudden wonder of delight, then caught her breath and gazed at the amazing peacock-blue of a breaker, shot through with golden sunlight, overfalling in a mile-long sweep and thundering into white ruin of foam on a crescent beach ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London |
