"Take flight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a lantern about eight o'clock in the evening, I pause and say, "Let's see if Downy is at home." A slight tap on the post and we hear Downy jump out of bed, as it were, and his head quickly fills the doorway. We pass hurriedly on and he does not take flight. ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... ones, begin to leave the island. The dingy youngsters are slower to forsake their Eden of innocence, lingering on beside the unsullied waters and beneath the crystalline skies until the frosts of late September warn them that winter is at hand. Then the last of the colony take flight, winging their way southward leisurely and comfortably, putting in at many a port where fish are cleaned and scraps are thrown overboard, until they arrive at their chosen harbour by some populous and smoke-clouded city, and learn to dodge the steamboats ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... doubt the desire to allow me perfect freedom in the matter that induces you to take flight whenever I have the honor to meet ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... friends had met in a little room near the old castle; their countenances were sad and irresolute—Du Couedic announced that he had received a note recommending them to take flight. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... succeed each other in the course round the ball-room! Commencing at first with a kind of timid hesitation, the lady sways about like a bird about to take flight; gliding for some time on one foot only, like a skater, she skims the ice of the polished floor; then, running forward like a sportive child, she suddenly takes wing. Raising her veiling eyelids, with head erect, with ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... of the reinforcement, Randolph and Archie now gave the word for their men to charge, and these, rushing on with spear and axe, completed the discomfiture of the enemy, killed many, and forced the rest to take flight. Numbers, however, were taken. Randolph is said to have had but two men killed in ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... pretty eggs, quite warm and white, Were waiting for the brooding wing, That from each shell there might take flight A bird, to trill ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Jezebel were howling under her very windows, when there came a man blundering on to the scene and spoiled everything,—a man who is a man, who is more than a prince, a man from top to toe, in short, who carried off the woman from Rome. I hoped they would take flight to some foreign land, whence we might have obtained an official announcement of her death. Of course it might not have been true, but the fugitives would have changed their names, in all probability, and an official ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... horror, a bunch of the dearest little curls, which I always thought lived there, were loosened. There was a great wind blowing, and in a second more the curls would have been on the horizon, if I hadn't seized them just as they were about to take flight. If they'd gone, they must have passed almost in front of Sir Lionel's nose, on their way. Wouldn't that have been dreadful? I should think she could never have looked him in the face again, for her hair's her greatest beauty, and she's continually saying ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... every-day observer the most enticing field of natural history is that in which common flowers and common insects work out their unending co-partnery. A blossom by its scent, its beauty of tint, allures a moth or bee and thus, in effect, is able to take flight and find a mate across a county so as to perpetuate its race a hundred miles from home. Our volume closes with a sketch of the singular ties which thus bind together the fortunes of blossom and insect, so that at last the very ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... garcon!" exclaimed the Countess, turning him round after having led him into the middle of the room—"dat habit does fit you like vax." "Yes," replied Mr. Jorrocks, raising his arms as though he were going to take flight, "but it is rather tight—partiklarly round the waist—shouldn't like to dine in it. What do you think of it?" turning round and addressing the Yorkshireman as if nothing had happened—"suppose you get one like it?" "Do," rejoined the Countess, "and some of the other things—vot you call ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... power of hindering myself from laughing. Turning round, therefore, I saw everybody with their hands upon their mouths, and their shoulders in motion. At last a third belch, still louder than the two others, threw all present into confusion, and forced me to take flight, followed by all my suite, amid shouts of laughter, all the louder because they had previously been kept in. But all barriers of restraint were now thrown down; Spanish gravity was entirely disconcerted; all was deranged; no reverences; each person, bursting with laughter, escaped ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... hedge a little above the beach, sometimes half a mile in length. Towards daylight, when the birds are about to put to sea, the men station themselves at the extremities, and their prey, not being able to take flight off the ground, run down towards the water until obstructed by the hedge, when they are driven towards the centre, where a hole about five feet deep is prepared to receive them; in this they effectually smother each ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... of a new artistic sense. A novel art is arising, the music of rhymed poetry, and in the songs of Aucassin and Nicolette, which seem always on the point of passing into true rhyme, but which halt somehow, and can never quite take flight, you see people just growing aware of the elements of a new music in their possession, and anticipating how pleasant such ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... Hathor), Shu, Tefnut, Keb, Nut, and the father and mother gods and goddesses who were with him in the watery abyss of NU, and also the god of this water, NU. They were to come to him with all their followers secretly, so that men should not suspect the reason for their coming, and take flight, and they were to assemble in the Great House in Heliopolis, where Ra would take counsel with them. In due course all the gods assembled in the Great House, and they ranged themselves down the sides ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... attributes which led the early architects to rest the pilasters of the pulpit and portal upon lions' backs. But the eagle of St. John is superb, even grander than the famous classical marble of the same subject.[199] It has the broad expanse of wings, vibrating as though the bird were about to take flight: the long lithe body with its soft pectoral feathers, the striking claws, and the flattened head with cruel gleaming eye, all combine to give a terribilita which is, perhaps, unsurpassed in all the countless versions of the symbol. But the drama of the eagle is eclipsed by the quiet ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... off; start, issue, march out, debouch; go forth, sally forth; sally, set forward; be gone; hail from. leave a place, quit, vacate, evacuate, abandon; go off the stage, make one's exit; retire, withdraw, remove; vamoose*, vamose* [obs3][U.S.]; go one's way, go along, go from home; take flight, take wing; spring, fly, flit, wing one's flight; fly away, whip away; embark; go on board, go aboard; set sail' put to sea, go to sea; sail, take ship; hoist blue Peter; get under way, weigh anchor; strike tents, decamp; walk one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... comic, half serious, which is a better argument than most which are going. The regard of my health is what chiefly keeps me in check. The provoking odium I should mind much less; for there will always be as many for as against me, but it would be a foolish thing to take flight to the next world in a political gale of wind. If Cadell gave me the least encouragement I would give way to the temptation. Meantime I am tugging at the chain for very eagerness. I have done enough to incense people against me, without, perhaps, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... sorceress Pamphile, who turns her neighbours into various animals. What true humour in the scene where, after mounting the rickety stairs, Lucius, peeping curiously through a chink in the door, is a spectator of the transformation of the old witch herself into a bird, that she may take flight to the object of her affections—into an owl! "First she stripped off every rag she had. Then opening a certain chest she took from it many small boxes, and removing the lid [59] of one of them, rubbed herself over for a long time, from head to foot, with an ointment it contained, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... Orangery, and, after closing the gate, compelled them to go back; moreover, the king, either ignorant of the designs of the court, or conceiving them impracticable, refused to escape. Fears were mingled with his pacific intentions, when he hesitated to repel the aggression or to take flight. Conquered, he apprehended the fate of Charles I. of England; absent, he feared that the duke of Orleans would obtain the lieutenancy of the kingdom. But, in the meantime, the rain, fatigue, and the inaction of the household troops, lessened the fury of the multitude, and ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... even zebras bite and kick an unfortunate or a diseased one. It is intended by this instinct that none but the perfect and healthy ones should propagate the species. In this case they manifested their usual propensity to gore the wounded, but our appearance at that moment caused them to take flight, and this, with the goring being continued a little, gave my men the impression that they were helping away their wounded companion. He was shot between the fourth and fifth ribs; the ball passed through both lungs and a rib on the opposite side, and then ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... sound in the chamber. Nevertheless, the parrot was obviously getting excited and increasingly attentive. It bent its head lower and lower, stretching out its neck until, almost falling from the perch, it half extended its wings, raising them slightly from its back, as if about to take flight, and fluttering them rapidly up and down. It continued this fluttering movement for what seemed to the Father an immense time. At length, raising its wings as far as possible, it dropped them slowly and deliberately down to its back, caught hold of the edge of its bath ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... take flight, for Perseus had not done the deed so quietly but that the clash of his sword and the hissing of the snakes and the thump of Medusa's head as it tumbled upon the sea-beaten sand awoke the other two monsters. There they sat for an instant, sleepily rubbing their ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... only in her night robe, barefooted; not knowing whether to take flight or stand and plead for mercy; with the child on one arm, one hand raised in supplication, yielded finally to the impulse to flee. As she started the attacking band resumed firing; she was struck, by arrows and at least one bullet, and ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... soon as they have acquired sufficient strength they abandon their birth-place, destroy all kinds of vegetation that comes in their way, and direct their course to the cultivated fields, which they desolate until the period when their wings appear. They then take flight in order to ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... in rebellion against France, dispatches fifteen hundred of its National Guard to set the prisoners free. Toulouse gives its aid to Bordeaux. The fermentation is frightful. Four thousand of the Protestants of Montauban take flight; armed cities are about to contend with each other, as formerly in Italy. It is necessary that a commissioner of the National Assembly and of the King, Mathieu Dumas, should be dispatched to harangue the people of Montauban, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... inhabits only those countries about which very little is known by civilised people; secondly, it is but rarely seen, even by travellers; and, thirdly, when it is encountered in its native haunts, it is of so shy a disposition, and so ready to take flight, that scarce any opportunity is ever ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... whirlwind of dust created by their departure, all of a sudden reappear. Menacing their host and his companions like an army, they gallop up, their bornouses flying and their weapons flashing, until at a few paces they discharge their long guns under the bodies of the horses opposite, and take flight like a covey of birds. Loading as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge, shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up to the door ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... matter of money, before that mighty king, ignorance and poverty, together with all their allies, take flight. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... could withstand such fine mould, masculine grace and handsome features; such strong heart and hot blood. What maid beside her Lambkin would not be overjoyed to see him so mad with love of her? Who could resist kneeling before him and pleading, and watch his anger take flight; and feel his strong arms raise her and fold the maiden bosom to his heart, where 'twould throb and flutter as he held it close pressed—ah! 'twas not his anger that would kill, nay! nay! ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... over mine, Then lips once pressed invite; But sleep hath given a silent sign, And both, alas! take flight. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... Foolish action! It hit the cougar, and turning, he now rushed to the bank, and, bellowing with rage, plunged into the river. My position now became critical in the extreme. Once the rock was gained, I would certainly be mangled by the fierce creature. I could not take flight by water, as he could ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... very good sport. The clams are shy, and endeavour to take flight when they hear the strokes of the hoe; so that it comes to a trial of speed between the pursuer and the pursued; ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... last been able to take flight from Boston, and after a long, uncomfortable trip, had arrived at his daughter's home in Lancaster, where he heard that "Daughter Dolly and Hancock had taken dinner ten days before, having driven over from Shirley for the purpose." He writes to his son Henry of this, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... accursed, fly!... why do you stop and hold back, when you know that your strength is lost on Christ? For it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks; and, verily, the longer it takes you to go, the worse it will go with you. Begone, then: take flight, thou venomous hisser, thou lying worm, thou ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... springing skyward, singing, Piercing the empyrean of blinding light, So shall our souls take flight, serenely winging, Soaring on azure heights to God's delight; While from below through sombre deeps come stealing The floating notes of ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... to a man of probably twenty-eight or thirty; it had regular features, keen, level eyes and a firm mouth. There was a slight smile on his face and somehow the fear that had oppressed Sheila began to take flight. And while she sat awaiting the turn of events his voice ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... governors. Mr. Willard, a pious minister of Boston, was cried out upon as a wizard in open court. Mrs. Hale, the wife of the minister of Beverly, was likewise accused. Philip English, a rich merchant of Salem, found it necessary to take flight, leaving his property and business in confusion. But a short time afterwards, the Salem people were glad ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... care, and it will be well to think further ere we let so rabid a heretic stray from these walls. Wretched boy! the devil himself must sure have entered into thee. But fiends have been exorcised before now. It shall not be the fault of Nicholas Trevlyn if this one be not quickly forced to take flight!" ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and when the old one returned and called, it came out from the shore. On the wing overhead, the loon looks not unlike a very large duck, but when it alights it ploughs into the water like a bombshell. It probably cannot take flight from the land, as the one Gilbert White saw and describes in his letters was picked up in a field, unable to ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... with a fleet of sixteen sail, a few of which had beaks of brass, to the assistance of Lucius Domitius and the Massilians, passed the straits of Sicily without the knowledge or expectation of Curio, and, putting with his fleet into Messana, and making the nobles and senate take flight with the sudden terror, carried off one of their ships out of dock. Having joined this to his other ships, he made good his voyage to Massilia, and, having sent in a galley privately, acquaints Domitius and the Massilians of his arrival, and ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... unhappy marital relationships. It required only definite proof of misconduct, mistreatment, or oppression of any kind to win freedom from an unwanted partner. Nanlo had been confident that after a year or two she would be able to shake free of the bonds uniting her to Negu Mah and take flight for herself into a world made vastly more pleasant by the marriage settlement ...
— The Indulgence of Negu Mah • Robert Andrew Arthur
... talons are nerveless. Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over Parnassus. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... really savour of comic opera, is not so farcical as it appears on the surface. It is an unwritten law that the police shall not pigliare him till the sessions are nigh. He is on parole, so to speak, to come up when called upon; if he were really to take flight, he would be declared an outlaw, and the only reason the police cannot find him is that they know where he is. How sensible! Why board and lodge him gratis for weeks? He has outraged the community: shall the community reward him with free meals? Even when he is caught he will be treated ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... all my rear property and a great quantity of Musa's, but with out the old man. By a letter from Sheikh Said I then found that, since my leaving Kaze, the Arabs had, along with Mkisiwa, invested the position of Manua Sera at Kigue, and forced him to take flight again. Afterwards the Arabs, returning to Kaze, found Musa preparing to leave. Angry at this attempt to desert them, they persuaded him to give up his journey north for the present; so that at the time Bombay left, Musa was engaged as public auctioneer in selling the effects ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... fifth-story chamber! He is not confined to the woods, but is quite as common in the fields, particularly in the fall, amid the corn and potatoes. When routed by the plough, I have seen the old one take flight with half a dozen young hanging to her teats, and with such reckless speed, that some of the young would lose their hold, and fly off amid the weeds. Taking refuge in a stump with the rest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... come, and hath subdued the Midianites!" he answered, with a ring of triumph in his voice. "King David is come, and the Philistines will take flight, and Israel shall sit in peace under his vine and fig-tree. May God save ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... lines, common in similar form to many countries, are said by children when they throw the beautiful little insect into the air to make it take flight. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... terrible-looking object which, in their eyes—imbued as they were with superstitious notions—was a fearful demon of the most unsparing nature, and a minute later, they were back in the clump of trees and bushes, spreading news which made the whole mob of blacks take flight. ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... thousands will agonize till death or relief comes. In Australia in drought times vast flocks of sheep go traveling with shepherds looking for food and water, and no flock ever comes back as it went forth. Not in flocks guided by shepherds, but lonely, hopeless units, the Belgian people take flight, looking for food and shelter, or remain paralyzed by the tragedy fallen upon them in ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... to take flight?" said Isabelle to herself, as she anxiously watched Chiquita's movements, not knowing what to expect. Exactly opposite to the window, on the other side of the moat, was an immense tree, very high and old, whose great branches, spreading out horizontally, overhung ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... evidently quite wide awake. "Do you remember how well Buckle says that the feminine intellect is the higher, and that the great geniuses of the world have possessed it? The gift of intuition reaches directly towards the truth, and it is only reasoning by deduction that can take flight into the upper air of life and certainty. You remember what he ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... sea, The sense, more fearful at noon than in midmost night, Of wrath scarce hushed and of imminent ill to be, Where are they? Heaven is as earth, and as heaven to me Earth: for the shadows that sundered them here take flight; And nought is all, as am I, but ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... or yellow covers, which hope has tied with slender ribbons, ye who take flight swelling with ambition and with dreams, who knows what hands will open you, turn your leaves, what prying fingers will deflower your unknown charm, that shining dust stored up by every new idea? Who passes judgment on you, and who condemns you? Sometimes, before going ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... rosaries, or bundles of Lyons silk, wrapped in oilcloth; in front, loaded with merchandise less valuable, walk two men who are the skirmishers, those who will attract, if necessary, the guns of the Spaniards and will then take flight, throwing away everything. All talk in a low voice, despite the drumming of the ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... could be numbered by millions, there existed other communities, founded upon naive and child-like superstitions, strange fruits of the tree of faith. The members of one of these believed that it was only necessary to climb upon the roofs in order to take flight to heaven. The deceptions practised on them by charlatans, the relentless persecution of the government, even the loss of reason, all counted for nothing if only they might enjoy some few moments of ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... six Danish earls who came To aid his force, and raise his name, No mighty thanks King Svein is owing For mighty actions of their doing. Fin Arnason, in battle known, With a stout Norse heart of his own, Would not take flight his life to gain, And in the foremost ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... hath left its trail The picturesque and beautiful take flight; The Past's inspiring influences fail, As stars are ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... would I do, to escape the fate whose stealthy footsteps were tracking us out. Well I knew, that, once in the power of the law, its firm grasp would wrest every secret from the deepest depths where it was hidden. Once out of the city, we could readily take flight, if immediate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... the lanista had failed him. Already Drusus's reinforcements in the peristylium had become so numerous and so well armed that the young chieftain was pushing back the gladiators and rapidly assuming the offensive. Gabinius was the first to take flight. He plunged into one of the rooms off the atrium, and through a side door gained the open. The demoralized and beaten gladiators followed him, like a flock of sheep. Only Dumnorix and two or three ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... last, and perhaps see the showers come up the Connecticut till they patter on the leaves beneath you, and then, swerving, pass up the black ravine and leave you unwet. Or of those among the White Mountains, gorgeous with great red lilies which presently seem to take flight in a cloud of butterflies that match their tints,—paths where the balsamic air caresses you in light breezes, and masses of alder-berries rise above the waving ferns. Or of the paths that lead beside many a little New England ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... fer a spell, honey," he announced with a tense authority which sought to recall her to herself. "I'm obleeged ter take flight right speedily now, an' afore I goes thar's things ter be studied out an' ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Heaven attendeth The faithful knights who guard that sacred place. He whom the Grail to be its servant chooses, Is armed henceforth with high invincible might; All evil craft its power before him loses, The spirits of darkness, where he dwells, take flight. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... since you won't, I will tell the company the reason of so nice an old gentleman wearing Baltimore flour in his hair instead of perfumed Mareschale powder, and none of the freshest either, let me tell you; why, I have seen three weavels take flight from your august pate since we sat ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... it to be a hostile vessel, they bore down upon it, together with another ship in their company. Those aboard the ship were only the said father provincial and five other Spaniards and the sailors. The Sangley ship, seeing them bearing down upon it, tried to take flight; but, the contrary wind not permitting this, as a consequence, the Spanish ships, by means of sail and oar, came within cannon range, and even nearer, in a few moments. On one of the Spanish ships was a Chinese named Sinsay, who had been ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... that once were we take flight and fly, Winnowed to earth, or whirled along the sky, Not lost but disunited. Life lives on. It is the lives, the lives, the lives ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... herself; but in her increasing nervous weakness her hand at last grew weary; and it seemed to Faith then as if she could see nothing but those arrows flying through the air. But there was one human form before which, she knew, this mental array of enemies would incontinently take flight and disappear; she knew they would not stand the first sound of Mr. Linden's voice; and her longing grew intense for his coming. How did she ever keep it out of her letters! Yet it hardly got in there, for she watched it ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... no security in that of the enemy. He accordingly attacked and dispersed, on several occasions, the Getulians and Jugurtha on their march, as they were carrying off spoil from our allies;[258] and he obliged the king himself, near the town of Cirta, to take flight without his arms[259] But finding that such enterprises merely gained him honor, without tending to terminate the war, he resolved on investing, one after another, all the cities, which, by the strength of their garrisons or situation, were best suited either to support the enemy, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... they remember my affection nor would they desire my predilection; and so satisfied with my solitude am I that an I saw my family I should start away as in fear of them, and were my parent quickened anew and longed for my society verily I would take flight from them.' " Replied the Fowl-let, "In good sooth, O my brother, truth thou hast pronounced in all by thee announced and the best of rede did from thee proceed; but tell me, prithee, anent that cord about thy middle wound and despite thine expending efforts that abound ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... quoted here; do my bidding.' 'Assuredly, sir,' said Bayard, 'I will do it, since it is your pleasure;' and, taking his sword, 'Avail it as much,' said he, 'as if I were Roland or Oliver, Godfrey or his brother Baldwin; please God, sir, that in war you may never take flight!' and, holding up his sword in the air, he cried, 'Assuredly, my good sword, thou shalt be well guarded as a relic and honored above all others for having this day conferred upon so handsome and puissant ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... out to meet them and asked the news. They told the tribe what had passed; and, when they heard that their chief was a prisoner, they set out for the valley vying one with other in their haste to deliver him. Now when King Gharib had captured Jamrkan and had seen his braves take flight, he dismounted and called for Jamrkan, who humbled himself before him, saying, "I am under thy protection, O champion of the Age!" Replied Gharib, "O dog of the Arabs, dost thou cut the road for the servants of Almighty ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... "Aye, by making each Grow conscious in himself—by that alone. All's perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock, The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims 200 And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight, Till life's mechanics can no further go— And all this joy in natural life is put Like fire from off thy finger into each, So exquisitely perfect is the same. 205 But 'tis pure fire, and they mere matter are; It has them, not ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... I were to predict on my own experience, I should say she would take flight as fast as she could, to avoid falling under the evil influence herself. The man would never hear of her again, and she would doubtless ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of leaves, both combatants were still there; and they were still here, too, when the sun, silting in through a rift in the foliage, found and bathed them. The owl was crouched as she had been when the moon left her—crouched, and with her wings just a little open, like a bird about to take flight; but she had already taken wing on the longest flight of all. The hedgehog was, too, just as the moon had left him, rolled up in a spiky ball, apparently asleep; but his sleep, also, was the longest sleep ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... half-pay and come to settle down at Arbitt Lodge for the rest of his life with Grandmamma and their son Marmaduke. A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left of a pretty flock who, one after the other, had but hovered down into the world for a year or two to spread their tiny wings and take flight again, leaving two desolate hearts behind them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... of light to thee be chary? What though stars of hope like flowers take flight? Seest thou all things here, where all see ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... tender, glancing April days, running over your lawn but a few yards from you! Their dovelike heads, their long, slender legs, that curious, mechanical jerking up-and-down movement of their bodies, their shrill, disconsolate cries as they take flight, their beautiful and powerful wings and tail, and their mastery of the air—all arrest your attention or challenge your admiration. They bring the distant and the furtive to your very door. All climes and lands wait upon their wings. They fly ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... like the white man, has many superstitions, some ugly, and some beautiful, and of the latter class, I quote one: he believes that the spirits of still-born children or very young infants take flight, when they die, and enter the bodies of birds. A delightful thought—especially for the mother. For as Kingsley says of St. Francis, "perfectly sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that birds might be spiritual beings ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... were eager to attack them, to see if they could capture them. Now they did not think it good yet to sail against them directly for this reason,—for fear namely that the Hellenes, when they saw them sailing against them, should set forth to take flight and darkness should come upon them in their flight; and so they were likely (thought the Persians) 6 to get away; whereas it was right, according to their calculation, that not even the fire-bearer 7 should ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... in an arm-chair and made an effort to draw Pearl betwixt his knees. But the child, unaccustomed to the touch or familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window, and stood on the upper step, looking like a wild tropical bird of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not a little astonished at this outbreak—for he was a grandfatherly sort of personage, and usually a vast favourite with children—essayed, however, to proceed with ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Saturn, looking down from Ida, stretched for them the contest with equal tension, and they slaughtered one another. The son of Tydeus indeed wounded on the hip, with his spear, the hero Agastrophus, son of Paeon; for his horses were not at hand for him to take flight; but he had erred greatly in his mind, for his attendant kept them apart, whilst he rushed on foot through the foremost combatants, till he lost his life. But Hector quickly perceived it along the ranks, and hastened towards them, shouting; and with him followed the phalanxes of ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... fleshy, with a dropsical stomach which threw her trunk far out behind her, opened wide her astonished eyes, ready to take flight. The husband, a shoemaker socialist, a little hairy man, the perfect image of a monkey, murmured, quite unconcerned: "Well, what ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the moon's mysterious light They hear the honking geese take flight, Threshing up from the arrow-heads As the lonely ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... to let the conspirators alone, until the very day before the opening of Parliament. That the conspirators had their fears, is certain; for, Tresham himself said before them all, that they were every one dead men; and, although even he did not take flight, there is reason to suppose that he had warned other persons besides Lord Mounteagle. However, they were all firm; and Fawkes, who was a man of iron, went down every day and night to keep watch in the cellar as usual. He ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... distinguished from those that creep exclusively, the air tubes (tracheae) which ramify into every part of the body, are dilated here and there, especially in the base of the abdomen, into large sacs, which are filled with air when the insect is about to take flight, so that the specific gravity of the body is greatly diminished. Indeed, these air sacs, dilatable at will by the insect, may be compared to the swimming bladder of fishes, which enables them to rise and fall at will to different levels in the sea, thus effecting an immense saving ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... the midst of the battle, the Prussians, commanded by the king in person, attacked the corps of Marshal Ney with such fury that it fell back, but the conscripts did not take flight. They withstood the fire, rallied by platoons, and flanked the enemy, crying with all their might, "Vive l'Empereur." The Emperor appeared; and recovering from the terrible shock they had sustained, and electrified by the presence of their ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Originality gradually gave place to conventionality, until men actually came to prefer the absurdities of Ciceronianism, and a cold, colorless adherence to hard-and-fast rules of composition, to a work throbbing with the pulsation of virile life. Humanism was beginning to take flight from Italy, to find a home and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... to Cima. He was appointed to decorate S. Antonino. His early work there is hard and coarse, ill-drawn, the figures unwieldy and shapeless, and the colour dusky and uniform; but owing to the Turkish raid, he had to take flight, and it was many a year before the monks gained sufficient courage and saved enough money to continue the embellishment of their church. In the meantime, Pellegrino's years had been spent partly in Venice and partly, perhaps, in Ferrara, ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... cooing seems to proceed from a great distance, but, conscious of the enemy's ventriloquial power, his muffled music does not deceive me. My companion has now levelled his gun, and, taking steady aim, presently fires. At the sound of fire-arms my pigeons take flight, and as they rise I fire into their midst. My companion now discharges his second barrel into a covey of quails, which had been feeding unobserved within a few paces of him. I take a shot at one of these birds as ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... boys noticed the abundance of the pretty little whidah bird, a lovely little creature, about the size of a lark, but with a tail of such enormous length that in a breeze the power of the wind upon the tail drives the bird to take flight into shelter, so that it shall not be blown away. Pigeons in abundance flew over their heads, and parrots of such gaudy colours that Dick felt obliged to shoot three or four as specimens, to skin and ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... pass Nanjisal Cove. Its name, the "holed headland of Penwith," refers to a deep cleft or fissure, which can be explored from the sea when tide and weather permit. Part of this fine bluff is known as the Chair Ladder, and has traditions of a witch, Madge Figgy, who used to take flight with her comrades from this magnificent point, and here would shriek her incantations above the roar of wind and waters. The spot was certainly well chosen. There are some hidden crags, and some that are not hidden, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... to an ampler ether, a diviner air. You have attained the beatific state and at once take flight. If they confer perfection like an academic ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... variability, that several generations must be subjected to changed habits for any appreciable result. Our domestic fowls, ducks, and geese have almost lost, not {298} only in the individual but in the race, their power of flight; for we do not see a chicken, when frightened, take flight like a young pheasant. Hence I was led carefully to compare the limb-bones of fowls, ducks, pigeons, and rabbits, with the same bones in the wild parent-species. As the measurements and weights were fully given in the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... eyes are veiled with night. What boots the archer's skill, if, when the foe draws near, His bow-string snap and leave him helpless in the fight? So when afflictions press upon the noble mind, Where shall a man from Fate and Destiny take flight? ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... top layer was rice and the rest straw and stones. The Indian who had practiced this jest would clap his hands in glee, and laugh long and loud, and go from that vessel to another, to play the same trick. Then again they would take the nails, and take flight without giving anything in return. These and many other deceptions were practiced by them. They are so great thieves that they even tried to pull out the nails from our ships. They are better proportioned than the Spaniards. Often they attain the great strength fitting ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... long since Peace and I have been acquainted that I hardly yet dare look her full in the face for fear she will take flight and leave me in utter darkness again. Even if she has not come to live with me, she is at least my next door neighbor, and I offer her ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... as he always fired with a double-barrelled gun, under the cloak of attacking Calvinism, he aimed a deadly shot at the Thomists, and particularly at a Dominican friar, whom he considered as bad as Calvin. Raynaud exults that he had driven one of his adversaries to take flight into Scotland, ad pultes Scoticas transgressus—to a Scotch pottage; an expression which Saint Jerome used in speaking of Pelagius. He always rendered an adversary odious by coupling him with some odious name. On one of these controversial books where Casalas refuted Raynaud, Monnoye wrote, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... creatures, and seem to know that their riders have the means of defending them, so that they very seldom run away," answered Mrs Vallery, "occasionally they take flight. Nothing can be more uncomfortable than having to sit on the back of an elephant under such circumstances. The creature sticks out its trunk and screams as it rushes onward, trampling down everything in its way. Should it pass under trees, it happens occasionally that a branch sweeps its ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... clothed with flowers from the water's edge to the very summits, whose sweet blooms filled the air with their spicy odours. This wondrous wall of verdure rose to a great height; and when the current sometimes swept us near what was really a shoreless shore great herons would sometimes take flight, or a troop of monkeys rush chattering up amongst the leafy branches, going along hand over hand with the most astonishing velocity, or making bounds that I would think must end in their falling headlong ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... though every instant made the danger more deadly. 'If I forsake you, if I take flight,' he said, 'I shall bring eternal ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... as she was in thoughts which, by reason of their very profundity, had ceased to be sorrowful. Perhaps she felt she was keeping a last vigil over her happiness, and that with the final breath of this dying man all her girlhood's dreams and all her dearest hopes would take flight for evermore. Undoubtedly her thoughts flew to the man to whom she had promised her life—to Pascal, to the unfortunate fellow whose honor was being stolen from him at that very moment, in ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... like a sleeping dog when one treads on his tail. 'What!' he cried, so that every one could hear. 'You think Levetinczy is a rich man with a great name—a clever man, a happy family man, a faithful subject? I will prove to you that this man, if I can once meet him, will take flight from here next day—that he will leave his lovely wife and his house in the lurch, and fly from Hungary, from Europe, so that you will never hear of ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... like the inhabitants of the dark hemisphere, they were, evidently, unaccustomed to hearing sounds of such forcefulness issue from a living creature no larger than themselves, they were not faint-hearted, and the air ship did not, as we half expected it would, take flight. The momentary commotion was quickly quieted, and our visitors continued their inspection. All of us immediately recognized the personage whom Jack had singled out as the subject of his startling exclamation. It was clear that he had rightly guessed her sex, and she appeared worthy of ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... infinite. No two acted precisely alike. Some lay stubbornly close in a little depression between two clods, till the horses' hoofs were all but upon them, then sprang out from their hiding-place at the last second. Others ran forward but a few yards at a time, refusing to take flight, scenting a greater danger before them than behind. Still others, forced up at the last moment, doubled with lightning alacrity in their tracks, turning back to scuttle between the teams, taking desperate chances. ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... was soon over. In a few moments the whole company appeared to take flight at once, without her having stirred a muscle. Away they went, with such speed and noiselessness that they appeared not to touch the ground. From point to point of the rock they sprang, and the last branchy head disappeared over ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... he would come to her like this. She had believed that he would take flight into the night, escaping from her as he would have run from a plague. She put up her two hands, in the trick they had of groping at her white throat, and her lips formed a word which she ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... warrior changes to warlike ardor when he appears upon the field. His coming turns the tide of battle. The victorious Greeks are driven back before his shining spear, many of them are slain, and the whole host is driven to its ships and almost forced to take flight by sea from the victorious onset of Hector and his triumphant followers. While the Greeks cower in their ships the Trojans spend the night in bivouac upon the field. Homer gives us a picturesque description of this night-watch, which Tennyson has ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... quarter, dashing gallantly on; now rushing upward upon the crest of a wave, amid a deluge of spray, and lifting her fore-foot out of the water as though about to leave the element altogether and take flight into the air, like a startled sea-bird; and anon plunging down into the trough until only a small portion of the heads of her sails was visible. She was evidently making much better weather of it than we were; but on the other hand half-an-hour's patient observation revealed to us the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... lean, long figure bent forward like a bird about to take flight, stared into the darkness ahead of the boat with his hawk eyes, and turning his rapacious, hooked nose from side to side, gripped with one hand the rudder handle, while with the other he twirled his mustache, that ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... good evidence for absence of insects in small islands? I found thirteen species in Keeling Atoll. Flies are good fertilizers, and I have seen a microscopic Thrips and a Cecidomya take flight from a flower in the direction of another with pollen adhering to them. In Arctic countries a bee seems to go as far ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... goodly sheep with speed; and provide you with honey-hearted wine, and corn from your houses, and gather much wood withal, that all night long until early-springing dawn we may burn many fires, and the gleam may reach to heaven; lest perchance even by night the flowing-haired Achaians strive to take flight over the broad back of the sea. Verily must they not embark upon their ships unvexed, at ease: but see ye that many a one of them have a wound to nurse even at home, being stricken with arrow or keen-pointed spear as he leapeth ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... Dear Pisistratus, ———- is up; we are in for it for two mortal hours! I take flight to the library, and devote those hours to you. Don't be conceited, but that picture of yourself which you have placed before me has struck me with all the force of an original. The state of mind which you describe so vividly ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... probably bamboos: he says, "the merchants and travellers passing through these countries at night collect a quantity of these canes and make a large fire of them, for when they are burning they make such a noise and crackle so much, that the lions, bears, and other wild beasts take flight to a distance, and would not approach these fires on any account; thus both men, horses, and camels are safe. In another way, too, protection is afforded by throwing a number of these canes on a wood fire, and when they become heated and split, and the sap hisses, the sound is heard at least ten ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... time to lose, since the swift creature would take flight in an instant, and almost as he caught sight of it the rifle went up to his shoulder. For a moment the foresight wavered across the indistinct form, and then his numbed hands grew steady, and, trusting that nothing would check the frost-clogged action, he ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... the key to his father, and while Lucy hastened to release her husband, Mr. Kendal seized the boy, finding him already about again to take flight. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conceive 'Tis as if some masterpiece they weave. One thread, and a thousand strands take flight, Swift to and fro the shuttles going, All unseen the threads a-flowing, One stroke, ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... her poor little home. She had experienced one of those convulsions of being which we know at the hour of a great misfortune, when we see no possible refuge and all our hopes take flight. If then a ray of light illumine some little corner, we fly toward it without ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal |
