"Cat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doubt of that," Persis agreed. "Everything in the book is back. But there's always more'n one way to skin a cat. I could put a row of hooks under the lace, around this side of the yoke, and nobody'd ever know where it was fastened, or whether you ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Cover it with icing, and ornament it while wet, with nonpareils dropped on in borders, round each square of the cake. When the icing is dry, cut the cake in squares, cutting through the icing very carefully with a penknife. Or you may cat it in squares first, and then ice ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... jest fetched Mose a kick, wich is the cat, and went out and pitcht into Sammy Doppy, which licked ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... the way. Nelson went first, crouching low to the ground and running with the ease of a cat. He made the log and began firing to cover Glynnis. He saw her coming, out of the corner of his eye, then concentrated on covering her with firepower. Suddenly the girl let out a startled yell and he saw her sprawl to the ground, ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... Mrs. Margaret Dymock, which kindness is often more consistent than some people suppose, with attention to economy, especially when that economy is needful; and moreover, she had lately lost a favourite cat, which had been, as she said, quite a daughter to her. Therefore the place of pet happened to be vacant just at that time, which was much in favour of the forlorn child's interests. Dymock had taken Shanty with ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... forehead, whereas the skull of the skeleton is only 3-9/10 in. wide at the fangs and 5-1/10 in. wide at the forehead. The skull of the skeleton is 22 in. long. The small white object on the board supporting the detached skull represents the skull of an ordinary cat, thus giving an idea of the enormous size of the bear's skull. The skeleton is 9 ft. 8 in. high, and is one of the largest and most complete ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... him and lifted him up to the top of the wall as a cat might have lifted a mouse. Both men were breathing heavily as a result ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... pulling himself together, and we were wringing some gallons of water out of our blankets, we questioned the old man about the "squawk," and what bird was possessed of such a voice. It was not a bird at all, he said, but a cat, the black-cat of the woods, larger than the domestic animal, and an ugly customer, who is fond of fish, and carries a pelt that is worth two or three dollars in the market. Occasionally he blunders into a sable-trap; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is there. Why, sir; we do not know what moment someone may spring upon us! All their spies are out and on guard to-night; everything is watched as a cat watches a mouse-hole!" ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... the sound of the quick young feet had died away. "Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, but some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat and corner broomstick." ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... amazement and cries of "Shame!" from the galleries, Brown told of the abuses laid bare by the prison commission. He told of prisoners fed with rotten meal and bread infested with maggots; of children beaten with cat and rawhide for childish faults; of a coffin-shaped box in which men and even women were made to stand or rather crouch, their limbs cramped, and their lungs scantily supplied with air from a few holes. Brown's speech ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... opening and deeply investigating this subject, shows his master hand in every page. It was a subject which, from his first conviction of sin, while playing a gat at cat on a Sunday, ahd excited his feelings to an intense degree, absorbing all the powers of his soul. It was eminently to him the one thing needful—the sum and substance of human habbiness. He felt that it included ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... them first, they insisted and, strongest reason of all, had got them first. Max had better be a sheep or a Manx cat, and not ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... The king merrily answered, "Hear the fellow! Almost using violence too, in a strange land. What would he do if he used force, when he gets so much out of us by words? Lest we should be served worse by him, he must have it so." The cat was soon out of the bag. Each house was presented back to the man who had sold it, either to sell or to remove as he chose, lest in any way Jerusalem should ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... where I dawdle over my breakfast, the widowed bantam-hen has perched on the back of my drowsy cat. It is needless to go through the form of opening the school to-day; for, with the exception of Waster Lunny's girl, I have had no scholars for nine days. Yesterday she announced that there would be no ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... seem trivial. It is related in Northern mythology that the god of Force, visiting an enchanted region, was challenged by his royal entertainer to what seemed an humble feat of strength—merely, sir, to lift a cat from the ground. The god smiled at the challenge, and, calmly placing his hand under the belly of the animal, with superhuman strength strove, while the back of the feline monster arched far up-ward, even beyond ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... bird-box over the draw, which just then stood open for the passage of a tug-boat. The toll-gatherer told me they had come "from some place" eight or ten days before. His attention had been called to them by his cat, who was trying to get up to the box to bid them welcome. He believed that she discovered them within three minutes of their arrival. It seemed not unlikely. In its own way a cat is a ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... part of the boys' menagerie which had to find refuge from the other animals already housed in their adjoining rooms. Out in the garden there were pigeons fluttering in and out of a cote, and hens solemnly inspecting the newly-seeded flower-beds. A big silver Persian cat, and a smaller yellow Siamese one regularly attended breakfasts, and Rags irregularly attended everything. The cats were Mr. Hoover's favorites. He liked to have one on his lap as ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... were seated at the side of a red-hot cylinder stove. On one side, upon the floor, a small black-and-white dog lay very composedly baking himself; on the other, an old brown cat was, in as undisturbed a manner, doing the same. The warmth that existed between them was proof positive that they had not grown cold towards each other, though the distance between them might lead one to suppose ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... He repeated his command harshly. "Go at once! Go out of my house and never come back again, you white-faced mewling cat. Pah, you dare not do anything. You are not to stay ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... shoulder, comrade!" he shouted to the man next to him. The fellow braced himself, and in an instant the agile Zouave was on the narrow parapet, running along as nimbly as a cat, and winding himself past the huge statues at every half-dozen steps. He jumped down at the other end and ran for the Borgo Santo Spirito at the top of his speed. The broad space was almost deserted and in three minutes he was before the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... alive, who might inspire courage and spirit into them. Speaking of Holmes, how great a man he is, and that he do for the present, and hath done all the voyage, kept himself in good order and within bounds; but, says he, a cat will be a cat still, and some time or other out his humour must break again. He do not disowne but that the dividing of the fleete upon the presumptions that were then had (which, I suppose, was the French fleete being come this way), was a good resolution. Having had all ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... modern world, the old corn-chamber at home is lumbered with his mysterious contrivances, studies for a self-impelling or gravitating machine and perpetual motion. Another boy is fired with the mystery of form. He will draw the cat and dog; his chalk and charcoal are on all our elbows; he carves a ram's head on his bat, an eagle on a walking-stick, perches a cock on top of the barn, puts an eye and a nose to every triangle of the geometer, and paints faces on the wheels of his mechanical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... verge of speech. Then suddenly she caught my expression, and shrank up like a cat that has been discovered ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... dusters are fitted with buck horn handles or those made of fox or wild cat paws. Riding whips will look well with the ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... railway banks, because its winged seeds are wafted everywhere in myriads on the winds of March. All the willows and poplars have also winged seeds: so have the whole vast tribe of hawkweeds, groundsels, ragworts, thistles, fleabanes, cat's-ears, dandelions, and lettuces. Indeed, one may say roughly, there are very few plants of any size or importance in the economy of nature which don't deliberately provide, in one way or another, for the dispersal and dissemination of their ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... challenge. A flush slowly dyed his lean cheeks, and an angry depression of the brows suggested something passionate and forceful. Just for a moment many eyes glanced in his direction. The saloon-keeper was steadily regarding him. There was no suggestion of anger in his attitude, merely cat-like watchfulness. Their eyes met. Then the cloud abruptly lifted from Sikkem's brow, and he laughed with unsmiling, black eyes. The saloon-keeper rinsed a glass and unconcernedly ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... more, but happening to raise his eyes he was astonished to see the old butler, who had been slowly drawing nearer and nearer, raising his right arm, and looking at him almost fiercely, as though he were going to strike him.—"What's up now, Harry?" he cried; "is the black cat dead?" ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... wild-cat was shot and brought into camp by one of the 3d Ohio boys. He was about three feet in length, and a "varmint" I shouldn't like to meet on ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... issues: air pollution and resulting acid rain in the mineral extraction and refining region; chemical runoff into watersheds; poaching seriously threatens rhinoceros, elephant, antelope, and large cat populations; deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; lack of adequate water treatment presents human ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... your fears,—that is wolf wisdom in a nutshell; and that marks the difference between a wolf and a caribou, for instance, which in doubt trusts his nose or his curiosity. So the old wolf took counsel of her fears for her little ones, and that night carried them one by one in her mouth, as a cat carries her kittens, miles away over rocks and ravines and spruce thickets, to another den where no human eye ever looked upon ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... individuals of my old long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that have tumbled to pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on Thursday, convinced that it was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner." And at Enfield Elia was far from being happy or contented. Winter, however,—"confining, room-keeping winter," with its short days and long evenings, and cozy, comfortable fireside and cheerful candle-light,—he succeeded in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... mine," snaps Shinn. "Not him. His bulldog worries me cat, his roosters wake me up in the morning, and his Dago workmen chatter about all day long. No, I'll not own such a man as neighbor. Nor will I have his guests stealing ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... another person who was passing the church bethought him of its shelter as a refuge from the pouring rain. Seeing the open door, Mr. Knight, for it was he, slipped into the great building in his quiet, rather cat-like fashion, but on its threshold saw, and stopped. Notwithstanding the shadows, he recognised them in a moment. More, the sight of this pair, the son whom he disliked and the woman whom he hated, thus embraced, thus lost in a sea of passion, moved him ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... not for them; their children were not sent to school; their only masters were the fear of the gallows, constantly before their eyes at Execution Dock and on the shores of the Isle of Dogs, and their profound respect for the cat o' nine tails. They knew no morality; they had no other restraint; they all together slid, ran, fell, leaped, danced, and rolled swiftly and easily adown the Primrose Path; they fell into a savagery the like of which has never been known among English-folk since the days of their conversion to ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... tight embrace. The women wore nothing but a shift. Now and then two sailors would get up and dance together. The noise was deafening. People were singing, shouting, laughing; and when a man gave a long kiss to the girl sitting on his knees, cat-calls from the English sailors increased the din. The air was heavy with the dust beaten up by the heavy boots of the men, and gray with smoke. It was very hot. Behind the bar was seated a woman nursing her baby. The waiter, an undersized youth with a flat, ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... all this—and to the unworthiness of it all he gave no thought. But he realized enough as he toyed, as cat with mouse, with Richard Westmacott, to know that in striking at her through the worthless person of this brother whom she cherished—and who persisted in affording him this opportunity—a wicked vengeance ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... than mere animal resemblances. "There are groups where the attitudes are expressive of a varied action. Certain animals, like the weasel or mink, being seen with a bird so near that, apparently, it might be caught by a single spring; and still others, like the wolf or wild-cat, are arranged head to head, as if prepared for combat; and still others, like the squirrel or coon, are in the more playful attitudes, sometimes apparently chasing one another over hill or valley; and again situated alone, as ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... an experienced critic the picture would certainly have seemed crude. It was a study of a dark-eyed child holding a large black cat. Statisticians estimate that there is no moment during the day when one or more young artists somewhere on the face of the globe are not painting pictures of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... I? He was as weak as a cat when I got to him, but he had sense enough not to grab me. He knows how to swim all right, but something is the matter with ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... act, the two lovers have a duel and one is killed. In the third act, the surviving lover commits suicide, and, in the fourth act, the daughter jumps down the well. The curtain descends leaving only the old man and the cat alive and the impression is given that if the curtain were ten seconds later either the cat would get the old man or the old man ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... saying, "O King of the Age and the Time, dost thou deem it strange to see a dish of cucumbers stuffed with pearls? How much stranger then it is that thou wast not astonished to hear that the Queen thy Consort had, contrary to the laws of Allah's ordinance, given birth to such animals as dog and cat and musk-rat. This should have caused thee far more of wonder, for who hath ever heard of woman bearing such as these?" Hereat the Shah made answer to the Speaking-Bird, "All that thou sayest is right indeed and I know that such things are not after the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... and Tanqueray were walking up the East Heath Road towards their little house. Rose carried Tanqueray's gloves, and Tanqueray carried Minny, the cat, ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... is for ever new to me. I generally rise from bed about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is neither night or day; for this is the moment of the most universal vocal choir. Who can listen unmoved to the sweet love tales of our robins, told from tree to tree? or to the shrill cat birds? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high always retard my steps that I may listen to the delicious music. The variegated appearances of the dew drops, as they hang to the different objects, must present even to a clownish imagination, the most voluptuous ideas. ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... c'n see you're game. But don't make a fall play. If Mac Strann gets you, he'll California you like a yearling. You won't have no chance. You've done for Jerry, there ain't a doubt of that, but Jerry to Mac is like a tame cat to a mountain-lion. Lad, I c'n see you're a stranger to these parts, but ask me your questions and I'll tell you the ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... entirely different type from No. 1 and No. 2, and, happily for Whitney, there was no yowling bundle this time—merely a cat, and a silent cat ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... blind; children are born with the seeds in them of deadly diseases. Who can account for the cruelties of creation? Why are we endowed with life—only to end in death? And does it ever strike you, when you are cutting your mutton at dinner, and your cat is catching its mouse, and your spider is suffocating its fly, that we are all, big and little together, born to one certain inheritance—the privilege ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... are best taught to little children by a perfectly simple recognition of the phenomena of life around them—the cat with her kittens, the bird with its fledgelings, and still more the mother with her infant, are all common facts and beautiful types of motherhood. Instead of inventing silly and untrue stories as to the origin of the kitten and the fledgeling, it is better and wiser ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... stealthily and as silently as a cat, she went around to that side of the house, and a moment later the strange, mournful call of a whip-poor-will sounded in the still night air. It was repeated two or three times, but there was no answer. Then ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... their dignity, would make no haste in their coming, and would doubtless keep her waiting until the noonday hour which she had designated, but nevertheless her lookout up the river was never for a moment relinquished. She watched as a cat watches a hole—from which it expects the mouse to emerge—ready to pounce upon the ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... the bull and another with the goat. In India Dyaus was a bull, and his spouse, the earth mother, Prithivi, was a cow. The Egyptian sky goddess Hathor was a cow, and other goddesses were identified with the hippopotamus, the serpent, the cat, or the vulture. Ra, the sun god, was identified in turn with the cat, the ass, the bull, the ram, and the crocodile, the various animal forms of the local deities he had absorbed. The eagle in ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier-dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It causes a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... and he was impatient to get at his pipe, she remained prolonging her dessert. One night, when he and I came in from the veranda, she was standing at the sideboard, bent over a saucer of something, and she made me think of a large tortoise-shell cat which has got at the cream. I expected in my nerves to hear her lap, and my expectation was heightened by the soft, purring laugh with which she owned that she was hungry, and those berries ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... 21 districts; Acklins and Crooked Islands, Bimini, Cat Island, Exuma, Freeport, Fresh Creek, Governor's Harbour, Green Turtle Cay, Harbour Island, High Rock, Inagua, Kemps Bay, Long Island, Marsh Harbour, Mayaguana, New Providence, Nichollstown and Berry Islands, Ragged Island, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... eldest Simeon made for the third brother a gun, and took bread for their travels; and the thief Simeon took a cat with him, and so they set out. Now thief Simeon had so accustomed this cat to him, that she ran after him everywhere like a dog; and whenever he stopped, she sat up on her hind legs, rubbed her coat against him and purred. So they all went their way, until they came to the shore of the sea ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... pink, and the water had the sheen of iridescent glass. The whole sea for leagues was like this; even Lemnos and Samothrace lay in a dim pink and purple light in the east. There were vast clouds in huge walls, with towers and battlements, and in all fantastic shapes—one a gigantic cat with a preternatural tail, a cat of doom four degrees long. All this was piled about Mt. Athos, with its sharp summit of snow, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... oiled his machine, and cranked his motor. The lean cheeks filled out, the restless, audacious, roving eyes tamed down. A sleekness settled over his whole person. It was like discovering a hungry, prowling night cat, homeless and winning its meat by combat, and bringing that cat to the fireside and supplying it with copious cream, and watching it fill out and stretch itself ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... stole cat-like up the stairs to gloat over the contents of the bank portmanteau. He hastily transferred the ill-gotten fortune to a heavy black valise and, cutting the rifled portmanteau in pieces, he sought the furnace-room ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... with a fresh breeze and smooth water. The hammocks had been stowed, the decks washed, and the awnings spread. Shoals of albicore were darting across the bows of the different ships; and the seamen perched upon the cat-heads and spritsail-yard, had succeeded in piercing with their harpoons many, which were immediately cut up, and in the frying-pans for breakfast. But very soon they had "other fish to fry:" for one of the Indiamen, the Royal George, made the signal ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... stony avalanches, the path becoming steeper and steeper, until the far-off summit almost hung over our heads. It was now a zigzag ladder, roughly thrown together, but very firm. The red mare which my friend rode climbed it like a cat, never hesitating, even at an angle of 50 deg., and never making a false step. The performance of this noble animal was almost incredible. I should never have believed a horse capable of such gymnastics, had I ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... warder fled; with him his prisoned train, And many steeds as well are fled and gone; (These more than rope is needed to restrain) Who after their astounded masters run, Scared by the sound; nor cat nor mouse remain, Who seem to hear in it, "Lay on, lay on." Rabican with the rest had broke his bands, But that he fell ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... too red lips and round white neck. There, it was obvious, stood a little person feminine from the curls around her ears to the hole in one of her stockings, and as highly and gladly sexed as a purring cat. ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... adieu! Adieu, my playful cat, to thee! Who every morning round me came, And were my little family. But thee, my dog, I shall not leave No, thou shalt ever follow me, Shalt share my toils, shaft share my fame ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... much astonished to move. The little figure approached him, raising the veil, and he saw the most beautiful White Cat ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... more easily led by Hector. After walking half an hour, with many a glance by the way, and many a smile, they arrived in front of the Cottage of the Vines—the good old woman was hoeing peas in her garden—she had left her house to the protection of an old grey cat, that was sleeping in the doorway. Daphne was enraptured with the cottage. It was beautifully retired, and was approached by a little grass walk bordered by elder-trees; and all was closed in by a pretty orchard, in which luxuriant vines clambered up the fine old pear-trees, and formed in festoons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... afterwards I passed through Lyon and saw her. She was still very yellow, and more than ever attentive to Fanfreluche and Coco. I even thought she devoted herself too much to the service of these two troublesome pets, to say nothing of a huge cat which she had added to her menagerie, as a kind of hieroglyphic of her condition. "How fare the married couple?" cried she, tossing up her cork-screw ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... I hear on the drum of the ear, These thoughts in cat language conveyed— The which I interpret lest it should appear Of telling the ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... body, reall, corporeall, substantiall creature, and forceth that Creature (he working in it) to his desired ends, and useth the organs of that body to speake withall to make his compact up with the Witches, be the creature Cat, Rat, Mouse, &c. ...
— The Discovery of Witches • Matthew Hopkins
... scampering behind the book shelves. But they were never complained of and lived happily in the study until the time came for finding them other homes. One of these kittens was kept, who, as he was quite deaf, was left unnamed, and became known by the servants as "the master's cat," because of his devotion to my father. He was always with him, and used to follow him about the garden like a dog, and sit with him while he wrote. One evening we were all, except father, going to a ball, and when we started, left "the master" and ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... clergyman of Trevalga, Mr. Grand, who had lately been given the rich living of Lowbridge and one or two stately cathedral appointments. At the first word Joshua spoke there broke out such a tumult as I had never heard in any public meeting. The yells, hisses, cat-calls, whoopings, were indescribable. It only ceased when Mr. Grand rose, and standing on a chair, appealed to the audience to "Give him your minds, my men, and let him understand that Lowbridge is no place for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... snarler, no running out and giving tongue at each passing object, not that kind of a dog at all! He was just a plain, substantial, well-mannered, dignified, self-respecting St. Bernard dog, who knew his place and kept it, who knew his duty and did it, and who would no more chase a cat than he would bite your legs in the dark. Put a cap with a gold band on his head and he would really have made an ideal concierge. Even without the band, he concentrated in his person all the superiority, the repose, ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... led on by her unbridled passion, now formed a devilish design which would enable her to take the place of the lawful wife of Lambert. One night she slipped into the chamber of the lady of the castle, approached the bed of the sleeping woman with a cat-like step, and smothered her with the pillows, the poor invalid offering but ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... chiefs lodged at my house, Gomez, Cabrera, and the Sawyer; and it chanced that I was talking to my Lord Gomez in this very room in which we are now, when in came Cabrera in a mighty fury—he is a small man, Don Jorge, but he is as active as a wild cat and as fierce. 'The canaille,' said he, 'in the Casa of the Inquisition refuse to surrender; give but the order, General, and I will scale the walls with my men and put them all to the sword'; but Gomez said, 'No, we ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... added Freddie. And in a moment the two children were bending over a basket which was in the seat with Dinah. In the basket was Snoop, the big black cat. She always traveled that way with the Bobbseys. And she seemed very comfortable, for she was curled up on the blanket in the bottom of the basket. Snoop opened her eyes as Freddie and Flossie put their fingers through cracks and stroked her as ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... chance, she knew, did Miss Janet, with her softly sheathed but swift and sharp cat claws, drag in the delicate hint that while Adelaide was "cozy" in an unaristocratic maison meublee, she herself was ensconced in the haunts of royalty; and it suddenly came back to Del how essentially cheap ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... frightened did not seem to enter his calculations. He moved with cat-like stealth to the foot of the tiny staircase, and flattened himself against the wall. Then he stretched his left arm once or twice as if to make sure of it, licked the haft of the knife, and nodded ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... out from the tunnel, the blue moon was shining as before upon the roof of the Cat's house. The house itself was dark, but for a flicker of firelight on ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... out somewhere, and that opening is big enough to let a panther creep through, or a wild-cat! I'd like to crawl through there and make sure where it comes out and if it is quite safe on the other side," suggested Polly, looking ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... not be—what fierce, active horrors ready to pounce upon us from their lair among the rocks or brushwood? I knew little of prehistoric life, but I had a clear remembrance of one book which I had read in which it spoke of creatures who would live upon our lions and tigers as a cat lives upon mice. What if these also were to be found in the woods of ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... accumulated great wealth—how often, I say, we see such a man exhibit a degree of simplicity in money making or some other matter that would seem weak in an untutored boy. When he already has more money than he knows what to do with, he will perhaps hazard all on some wild cat speculation, and in a very little while find himself penniless and unable to furnish support for his family. Again he becomes the victim of a confidence game, and only learns how he has been played with when he has lost perhaps ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... and grin at her in a mocking, sarcastic way that he had. At first, as an answer to this, she had the ridiculous idea of herself adopting an animal, and she selected, for this purpose, the kitchen cat, a dull, somnolent beast, whose sleek black hair was furtive, and green, crooked eyes malignant. The cat showed no signs of affection for Mary, nor could she herself honestly care for it. When she brought it with her into the schoolroom, Hamlet treated it in a scornful, sarcastic fashion ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... and I don't feel to see them yet. The sound ir voices is too much for hat can I, a helpless wer do for them. They be better off among their kinsfolk than left mercy of strangers. I often I made a mistake in nging poor Nannie to this cat crowded city away from ive moors. The children I am told eak and delicate. There ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... HYPATIA. The cat's out of the bag, Johnny, about everybody. They were all beforehand with you: papa, Lord Summerhays, Bentley and all. Dont you ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... brutality of his assailant who doubtless belonged to the other camp. When Godwin attempts the supernatural in his other novels, he always fails to create an atmosphere of mystery. The apparition in Cloudesley appears, fades, and reappears in a manner so undignified as to remind us of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland: ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... prisoners guilty, and Thomas Fletcher not guilty, the latter in a very doubtful tone. He also appeared desirous of adding some explanation, which was not permitted; while, as the court broke up, I noticed the detective watching Fletcher much as a cat watches a momentarily liberated mouse. Then I was surrounded by the men from the prairie, who insisted on escorting us to our hotel, and when I asked for Jasper somebody said he had seen him loitering beside one of the court-house doors. ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... have only to whistle to have the awful animal appear. His head will slowly rise above the water. His jaws will open. His teeth will gleam. If any little girl cries, he will snap at her, and it will be good-bye girl. Now, if you are not a fraid-cat you'll say, ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... kept is a simple constructed cage. It is a large square hen-coop, placed on a low hand-cart which a man draws about from one street to another, and gets a few pennys a day from those who stop to look at the domestic happiness of his family. Perhaps the first thing you will see, is a large cat, washing her face, with a number of large rats nestling around her, like kittens, whilst others are climbing up her back and playing with her whiskers. In another corner of the room a dove and a hawk are sitting on the head of a dog which is resting across ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... used as a model the fair-haired Heliodora, whom he summoned from Alexandria, and as the wild cat could endure the loneliness only a fortnight, the sisters Nico and Pagis came together. But Tennis was too quiet for them too. The rabble can only be contented among those of their own sort in the capital. But the great preliminary work was already ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... things, I had the honor to carry an Irish lady to court that was admired beyond all the ladies in France for her beauty. She had great honors done her. The hussar himself was ordered to bring her the King's cat to kiss. Her ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... favourable season, moderately sized bits of the skinned ear of a cat, which includes cartilage, areolar and elastic tissue, were placed on three leaves. Some of the glands were touched with saliva, which caused prompt inflection. Two of the leaves began to re-expand after three days, and the third on the fifth ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... mere animal parents, whose lasting influence over their progeny is not a thing to be greatly desired, but of those who, having a conscience, yet avoid this part of their duty in a manner of which a good motherly cat would be ashamed. To one who has learned of all things to desire deliverance from himself, a nursery in which the children are humored and scolded and punished instead of being taught obedience, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... and then suddenly he sat up transfixed. From the cell next to him had come a cry, a horrible blood-curdling screech, more like the scream of a wild cat than any human sound. ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... at full speed along the dusty highway, its mistress would suddenly stop, vociferating at the top of her voice—"Muff! Muff! where are you, my incomparable Muff?" when the queer pet would bound up her dress like a cat, and settle itself down upon her arm, poking its black nose into her hand, or rearing up on its hind legs, to lick her face. They were an odd pair, so unlike, so widely disproportioned in size and motion, that Flora delighted in watching all their movements, and in drawing contrasts between ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... certain quantity of corn was every day thrown from a window in the piazza. Every dove in the "Republic" is punctual to a minute. There doves have come to acquire a sort of sacred character, and it would be about as hazardous to kill a dove in Venice, as of old a cat in Egypt. We wish some one would do as much for the beggars, which are yet more numerous, and who know no more, when they get up in the morning, where they are to be fed, than do the fowls of heaven. Trade there is none; "to dig," ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... was hanged—formally, deliberately, and judicially hanged. What had he done? He had killed the ship cat. It was a deliberate murder, with no extenuating circumstances, and a rope, with a noose, was swung over the yard-arm, and Tricky run up in the presence of all the crew. This happened about eight bells, and at dusk ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... ancient choruses of marriage-ripe maidens. The authority and magic circle kept by the broom are those of the hearth and floor in her primeval roundhut; and her distaff and pitchfork, her caldron, her cat and dog, are all in keeping with the role ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that the mantle of the late Winter Davis had fallen upon the member from New York. The gentleman took it seriously, and it has given his strut additional pomposity. The resemblance is great. It is striking. Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble, dung-hill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppy to a roaring lion. Shade of the mighty Davis, forgive the almost ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... of the sort, he thought humorously. English poets wear an iris halo in the eyes of humble American reviewers. Those godlike creatures have walked on Fleet Street, have bought books on Paternoster Row, have drunk half-and-half and eaten pigeon pie at the Salutation and Cat, and have probably roared with laughter over some alehouse jest ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... you say is true, Walter, and no one can regret it more than I do. Still, I do think that you would be worse off under France than under England. Louis would drain the island of its men to fill his army. He uses you only as a cat's paw in his struggle against England and Holland, and would not hesitate to turn you over to England again, did it at any time suit him to make peace on such terms; or to offer Ireland as an exchange for some piece of territory he ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... quick in quarrel " [As You Like It]. querulous, captious, moodish[obs3]; quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious; pugnacious &c. (bellicose) 720; cantankerous, exceptious[obs3]; restiff &c. (perverse) 901a[obs3]; churlish &c. (discourteous) 895. cross, cross as crabs, cross as two sticks, cross as a cat, cross as a dog, cross as the tongs; fractious, peevish, acaritre[obs3]. in a bad temper; sulky &c. 901a; angry &c. 900. resentful, resentive[obs3]; vindictive &c. 919. Int. pish! Phr. a vieux comptes nouvelles disputes[Fr]; quamvis tegatur ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a huge, leonine man; he rose now to his full height, as a cat rises. But the drama drew his gaze in spite of himself; he could not keep his eyes from his wife's face. Leontine plucked at ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... of going to Hollow's Cottage; also he suspected that she liked Robert Moore's occasional presence at the rectory. The Cossack had perceived that whereas if Malone stepped in of an evening to make himself sociable and charming, by pinching the ears of an aged black cat, which usually shared with Miss Helstone's feet the accommodation of her footstool, or by borrowing a fowling-piece, and banging away at a tool shed door in the garden while enough of daylight remained to show that conspicuous ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... strangers seemed to be frightened. Anyhow, shouts were heard. Old dog Spot did a great deal of barking. And Miss Kitty Cat hid under the woodpile. Queer tales travelled like wildfire that night. All the after-dark prowlers knew about Jack O'Lantern. And ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... every day arose, the councils decided that it was necessary to send a despatch to his Majesty secretly, remitting all the documents—although there was no more in the affair than as the proverb goes, the fear of a cat scalded with cold water. The governor began to suspect this, and left an order at all the gates to arrest father Fray Francisco Pindo and father Fray Domingo Collado, of the Dominican order; for he thought that, being persons who were not well disposed to him, it would be they who would carry ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... now their minister. Their minister? Their master, as being once more master of himself. It was they who had plotted his undoing. Because they loved him they were fain that he should die young. The Dobson woman was but their agent, their cat's-paw. By her they had all but got him. Not quite! And now, to teach them, through her, a lesson they would not soon forget, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... child takes a nurse, etc. The nurse takes a cat, etc. The cat takes a rat, etc. The ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... appointed to acquaint the said member, who stood three feet away, of his election, and to escort him to Tomlins's chair— the largest and most imposing-looking one in the room. This action was indorsed by the shouts and cat-calls of all present, accompanied by earthquake shakings of the coal-scuttle and the rattling of chairlegs and canes ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for an hour's sleep, dozing off between; 'Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green; 'Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play— That was on the Bolivar, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... were upon them. We were upon them so fast that I had barely the time to fling away my oar, and close my grip on the butt of the pistols Seraphina pressed into my hand from behind. Castro, too, had dropped his oar, and, turning as swift as a cat, crouched in the bows. I saw his good arm darting ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the male tiger is quite different from that of the female. The male calls with a hoarse harsh cry, something between the grunt of a pig and the bellow of a bull; the call of the tigress is more like the prolonged mew of a cat much intensified. During the pairing season the call is sharper and shorter, and ends in a sudden break. At that time, too, they cry at more frequent intervals. The roar of the tiger is quite unlike ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... to the cook tremendously," said Bubbles. "And he's even made friends—and that's much more wonderful—with the cat. He went straight up to her and smelt her, and she seemed to be quite pleased with ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... Mark fiercely. "Sir, that boy's not dead; he can't be. He has more lives than a cat, and if you know anything of him, you ought ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... class, who was there who used to have any kind of a fish pond, except of fresh water, stocked merely with cat fish and mullets, while today our elegants declare that they would as soon have a pond stocked with frogs as with those fish I have named. You will recall the story of Philippus when he was entertained ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... have it fixed. When he gets back, he steps upon one of the best parlor chairs to see if the pipe fits, and his wife makes him get down for fear he will scratch the varnish off from the chairs with the nails in his boot heel. In getting down he will surely step on the cat, and may thank his stars that it is not the baby. Then he gets an old chair and climbs up to the chimney again, to find that in cutting the pipe off, the end has been left too big for the hole in the chimney. So he goes to the woodshed and splits one side ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... the understanding and the fancy. Neither do we think the worse of a man for having invented the most horrible and old-woman-troubling curse that demons ever listened to. We are too apt to swear horribly ourselves; and often have we frightened the cat, to say nothing of the kettle, by our shocking [far ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... she. "Miss Withers is upstairs with Miss Bathsheby, a cryin' and a lamentin'. Miss Badlam's in the parlor. The men has been draggin' the pond. They have n't found not one thing, but only jest two, and that was the old coffeepot and the gray cat,—it's them nigger boys hanged her with a string they tied round her neck and then drownded her." [P. Fagan, Jr., Aet. 14, had a snarl of similar string in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lightning from the cloud's dark womb, As quickly swallow'd in the closing gloom. The distant streamy flashes, spread askance In paler sheetings, skirt the wide expanse. Dread flaming from aloft, the cat'ract dire Oft meets in middle space the nether fire. Fierce, red, and ragged, shiv'ring in the air, Athwart mid-darkness shoots the lengthen'd glare. Wild glancing round, the feebler lightning plays; The rifted centre pours the gen'ral blaze; And from the ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... gently: for they will not trafique or bring in any wares if they be euill vsed. At the first voyage that our men had into these parties, it so chanced, that at their departure from the first place where they did trafick, one of them either stole a muske Cat, or tooke her away by force, not mistrusting that that should haue hindered their bargaining in another place whither they intended to goe. But for all the haste they coulde make with full sailes, the fame of their misusage so preuented them, that the people of ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... standing in the carriage, that seemed to plunge and sway more furiously, as though to waken them that still slept on. He wore a long fur travelling-robe, girt about the waist with a fur girdle. Abnormally tall and broad as he was, he looked in this dress gigantic. Yet there was a marvellous cat-like lightness and agility about all ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and whether she ever found them again I do not know. At least she grew quiet for that time. For me, I snatched up the rug—afterwards I found it was Noma's best kaross, made by Basutos of chosen cat-skins, and worth three oxen—and ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... and boys to go down into the town, while I went further up into the hills with my stick and my dog. In the loveliness of the morning, and the beauty of the hills and valleys, I soon lost my sense of sadness and regret. For nearly an hour I walked along the road to the 'Cat and Fiddle,' and then returned. On the way back, suddenly, without warning, I felt that I was in Heaven—an inward state of peace and joy and assurance indescribably intense, accompanied with a sense ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... swept down into the pool. After some violent fluttering and floundering in the water, he extricated himself, perched on a stone at its edge, shook out his wet feathers, and stared at her with large cat-like eyes, without fear. She was near enough to reach him with her hand; but either he was so dazzled and stunned that he took no notice of her, or else the greater terror had rendered him tame to human approach. She believed the latter was the case, and saw something exceedingly ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Where never romping playmates come, Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb— An April burst of girls and boys, Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys Born with their songs, gone with their toys; Nor ever is its stillness stirred By purr of cat, or chirp of bird, Or mother's twilight legend, told Of Horner's pie, or Tiddler's gold, Or fairy hobbling to the door, Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor, To bless the good child's gracious ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... sentiments," he remarked at last, "is interesting so far as it goes. I am, however, a practical person, and my connection with you is of a practical order. You don't propose, I presume, to promenade the streets with a cat-o-nine-tails?" ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a sheep, he loved to sit in ladies' laps; he never said a bad word in all his blameless days; and if he had seen a flute, I am sure he could have played upon it by nature. It may seem hard to say it of a dog, but Chuchu was a tame cat. ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Rattler, in riding him thirty-four miles in the space of 2 hours, 18 min., and 56 sec." Next are four police cases of cruelties towards horses, bullocks, and cats, the persons convicted being "of low estate." Yet there follows the fact of a respectable woman boiling a cat to death! and next is this quotation from the Gentleman's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... course I forgive you! You can no more help making love, I suppose—no, don't interrupt: the thing's the same whatever you call it—you can no more help making love than a cat can help stealing cream. Only one day the cat gets caught, and badly beaten, and one day you'll get caught, and the beating will be a bad one, unless I'm a greater fool than I take myself for. And now I'll go and unlock ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... unhallowed means. On due consideration, however, I thought that a professional interview with the old witch would be rather amusing, and then a brilliant idea occurred to me! I would bring together the feldsher and the znakharka, who no doubt hated each other with a Kilkenny-cat hatred, and let them fight out their differences before me for the benefit of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... thrilling circumstances described by Bunyan in his Grace Abounding, No. 24:—Sunday sports were then allowed by the State, and after hearing a sermon on the evil of Sabbath-breaking, he went as usual to his sport. On that day it was a game at cat, and as he was about to strike, "a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my soul, which said, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of a favourite pursuit lies not only in its calculated results but also in its by-products. You may become a collector of almost anything in the world,—orchids, postage-stamps, flint arrowheads, cook-books, varieties of the game of cat's cradle,—and if you chase your trifle in the right spirit it will lead you into pleasant surprises and bring you acquainted with delightful or amusing people. You remember when you went with Professor Rinascimento on a Della Robbia hunt among the hill towns of Italy, ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... wouldn't know a single member of the gang if we were to meet him. We don't know where they hang out, and if we did we know nothing about the Sweet Grass Mountains, and could not go to where they are. All we can do is to watch the ranch house and the cattle as a cat watches a mouse, and if anything more, such as the shooting of Follansbee, occurs, we will have to go on the warpath ourselves. But I don't want to do that. We are out here to winter feed our cattle, ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... about me, Em. But your saying what you've done ... about yourself ... it's made me think a bit. I'm all on my own now—have been for years; but the way I live isn't good for anyone. It's a fact it's not. I mean to say, my rooms that I've got ... they're not big enough to swing a cat in; and the way the old girl at my place serves up the meals is a fair knock-out, if you notice things like I do. If I think of her, and then about the way you do things, it gives me the hump. Everything you do's so nice. But ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... 'Cat!' she muttered; 'I'll be even with her yet. Never mind, people; if she won't give us our tea we can get it for ourselves. Get cups and things out of the pantry, Hamish; and Reggie, you come ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... while, though," said Connie, as he gazed in disappointment at the snow which had been scratched and thrown in all directions by the big cat. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... late typewriter salesman darted in and out among the other scrubbers, leaving the spot he was working on to pounce upon any fresh space of planking sluiced by the water. Getting in everybody's way, tripping himself with his own broom, hopping like a cat in a puddle when his toes were jabbed by the bristles, he displayed three men's energy and accomplished the work of ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... I saw on Tanit-Zerga's knees a strange animal, about the size of a big cat, with flat ears, and a long muzzle. Its ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... see it in about a week. It's always on the first of the month that it is done up; and you will see the old woman will go in with you, and watch you all the time like a cat watches a mouse. Martha used to say so, But there—as you are not from this part of the country, and she won't think as you know nothing about the will or care nothing about it, she won't keep such a sharp lookout after you as ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... talk of two men behind her, one of whom, it seemed, had all the gossip of the place at his fingertips. From what she caught up greedily, as soon as Maurice's name was mentioned, she learnt a surprising piece of news. "A cat and dog life," was the phrase used by the speaker. As she afterwards picked her way through snow and slush, Madeleine confessed to herself that it was impossible to feel regret at what she had heard. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... as bitter a precisian as ever ate flesh in Lent; and a cat-and-dog life she led with Tony, as men said. But she is dead, rest be with her! and Tony hath but a slip of a daughter; so it is thought he means to wed this stranger, that men keep such ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... audible. A tear wandered down his brown cheek. They were at supper now, he whispered—the father and old mother, away back yonder beyond the night. They were far away; they would never be as near as once they had been, for he had stepped into the world. And the cat and Old Billy—ah, but the world was a lonely thing, so wide and tall and empty! And so bare, so bitter bare! Somehow he had never dreamed of the world as lonely before; he had fared forth to beckoning hands and luring, and to the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of development must have been reached at a very early day. Even animals pick and choose among the vegetables about them, and at times seek out certain herbs quite different from their ordinary food, practising a sort of instinctive therapeutics. The cat's fondness for catnip is a case in point. The most primitive man, then, must have inherited a racial or instinctive knowledge of the medicinal effects of certain herbs; in particular he must have had such elementary knowledge of toxicology as would enable him to avoid eating ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... could note; but no more. He saw the glance of recognition pass over Elsley's face, and that an ugly one. He saw him draw something from his bosom, and spring like a cat almost upon the table. A flash—a crack. He had fired a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... insult. Mithridates, they said, must not attack Nicomedes, and they intended to restore Ariobarzanes. Possibly the conduct of Aquillius was due to his having been heavily bribed by Nicomedes, who must have felt that when the Romans were gone he would be like a mouse awaiting the cat's spring; for it is difficult to imagine the foolhardiness which without some such tangible stimulus would at that moment have plunged him ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... of rage he whirled around and struck me full in the face, knocking me head over heels into the ashes on the hearth. Then he burst into a fit of violent weeping, or rather convulsions more befitting a wild-cat than a human being, stamping furiously with his feet, and screaming that he would have ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... and solitary lives. The little cell had an altar where the anchoress frequently prayed, and through a window saw the elevation of the Host in the daily Mass. The walls were covered with mural paintings. There was a table, a fire, and a cat lying before it. An unglazed window with a shutter was covered by a black curtain, through which she could converse with anyone outside without being seen. She was not allowed to put her head out of the open window. "A peering anchoress, who is always thrusting her head outward, is like ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... council, and consulted how and in what sort to persecute against the fox, where it was generally concluded that he should be again summoned to appear and answer his trespasses; and the party to summon him they appointed to be Tibert the cat, as well for his gravity as wisdom; all which pleased the ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... yellow bird with a white tail, when the cat leaves him any tail at all. He came as a gift, and I welcomed him, but without gratitude. For a gift is nothing. Always behind the gift stands the giver, and under the gift lies the motive. The gift itself has no character. It may be a blunder, a bribe, an offering, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... of birches; through and above the birches the sky showed red and clear where the sun was setting. Everything looked cold and bare and desolate to the little girl who was trying to keep Thanksgiving. Suddenly she heard a little cry, and Loretta's white cat came around ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... it get out for a fortune. They want me to go in with them on the sly—agent was here two weeks ago about it—go in on the sly" [voice down to an impressive whisper, now,] "and buy up a hundred and thirteen wild cat banks in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri—notes of these banks are at all sorts of discount now—average discount of the hundred and thirteen is forty-four per cent—buy them all up, you see, and then all of a sudden let the cat out of the bag! Whiz! ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner |
