"Downy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shepherd's clock, so are the feathery seedtufts his barometer, predicting calm or storm. These downy seedballs, which children blow off to find out the hour of day, serve for other oracular purposes. Are you separated from the object of your love? Carefully pluck one of the feathery heads; charge each of the little feathers composing it with a tender thought; turn towards the spot where ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of soft desires,' said he, 'flies the confused glare of pomp and public shews;—'tis in the shady bowers, or on the banks of a sweet purling stream, he spreads his downy wings, and wafts his thousand nameless pleasures on the fond—the innocent and the ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... oppressed by some fantastic woes, Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose; Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance With timid eye to read the distant glance; Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease To name the nameless, ever-new, disease; Who with mock patience dire complaints endure, Which real pain, and that alone, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... my mantle which thou hast pilfered, and the Saetaban napkin and Thynian tablets which, idiot, thou dost openly parade as though they were heirlooms. These now unglue from thy nails and return, lest the stinging scourge shall shamefully score thy downy flanks and delicate hands, and thou unwonted heave and toss like a tiny boat surprised on the vasty sea by a ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... day it presents this appearance, but at night a hard pillow is added, the native woman wraps herself in a sheet, and lies down on the matting to sleep as peaceful and dreams as blissful, let us hope, as her more favored sister who reclines upon a downy couch ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... tender, downy head of the newly born baby was covered with a cap of delicatest material incrusted to hardness with needlework. The baby's caps of the period are a perfect chapter of human emotions; mother-love, emulation, pride, and declaration of family or personal position are skillfully expressed in ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... preferred. Their ears were their fancies,—the scene was weird, And the witches [63] dance at the midnight hour. She leaped the brook and she swam the river; Her course through the forest Wiwst wist By the star that gleamed through the glimmering mist That fell from the dim moon's downy quiver. In her heart she spoke to her spirit-mother: "Look down from your teepee, O starry spirit. The cry of Wiwst, O mother, hear it; And touch the heart of my cruel father. He hearkened not to a virgin's ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... "The Old Woman who lived in a Shoe"—a big floral slipper, with a dozen children in pink and gray-green, and the old woman on great poke-bonnet; a Japanese jinrikisha; an egg of white flowers, and a little boy hid away so as to peep and put out a downy head as a yellow chicken; a bicycle brigade; equestriennes; an interesting procession of native Californians, with the accoutrements of the Castilian, on horseback. One carriage is banked with marigolds, and the black horses are harnessed ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... sharp air a flaky torrent flies, Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies; The fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare, And shed their substance on the floating air; The floating air their downy substance glides Through springing waters, and prevents their tides; Seizes the rolling waves, and, as a god, Charms their swift race, and stops the refluent flood; The opening valves, which fill the venal road, Then scarcely urge along the sanguine flood; The labouring pulse a slower ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... for any woman to surpass this girl; she is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl with ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks a white down whose line, luminous on fine days, begins at her ears and loses itself on ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... I dream that somewhere, clad in downy whiteness, dwell the honey-makers, In aerial gardens that no mortal sees: And at times returning, lo, they flutter round us, gathering mystic harvest,— So I weave the legend of ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... youngest, who was quite unlike his brothers and sisters. Indeed, he was such a strange, queer-looking creature that when he first clipped his shell his mother could scarcely believe her eyes, he was so different from the twelve other fluffy, downy, soft little chicks who nestled under her wings. This one looked just as if he had been cut in two. He had only one leg, and one wing, and one eye, and he had half a head and half a beak. His mother shook her head sadly as she looked at him ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... at dawn, there was a heavy snow squall for an hour. It left about four inches of downy snow upon the hard-packed and slippery ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... answered Mrs. Minot, as she took from its wrappings the waxen figure of a little child. The rosy limbs were very life-like, so was the smiling face under the locks of shining hair. Both plump arms were outspread as if to scatter blessings over all, and downy wings seemed to flutter from the dimpled shoulders, making ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... jealousy, at end * We have won all we hoped of the friend: We've crowned our meeting with a close embrace * On quilts where new brocades with sendal blend; On bed of perfumed leather, which the spoils * Of downy birds luxuriously distend. But I abstain me from unneeded wine, * When honey-dews of lips sweet musk can lend: Now from the sweets of union we unknow * Time near and far, if slow or fast it wend, The seventh night hath come ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... some are in the palace On a white and downy bed, And some are in the garret With a clout beneath their head, And some are on the cold hard earth, ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... swimming here and there. The young birds were quite full-grown now, and it was great fun shooting at them and watching them dive and rise again unharmed, though sometimes one would be just a fraction of a second too slow and the shot would find it, and then its downy body would float upon the water, and Bobby would pick it up and drop it into the boat and turn his attention to another, which might escape, or might be added ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... to add his own. She was simply dressed, clad in a black costume embroidered and trimmed with jet, tempering the severity of her attire with a glittering of reflected lights, and with a delightful little hat all made of downy plumes, the play of colour in which her hair, curled delicately on her forehead and drawn back to the neck in great waves, seemed to continue and ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the children first, asleep in their downy nests, tucked in by the skilled hands of the staff of trained nurses, and as he gazed on his offspring, his little tucked and quilted Petticoats, he named them Guelph and Ghibelline, after two of his illustrious ancestors and ran off at once to put up ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... dependent on him; it made him honest returns for his care. Moreover, it was agreeably linked with the past. There were quiet cows which his wife had milked, clucking biddies which she had lifted from nests with their downy broods. He looked at them wistfully, and was wondering if they ever missed the presence that he regretted so deeply, when he became conscious that Jane's eyes were upon him. How long she had been watching him he ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... grasslands where late the frost hath shone, And lo, what elfin cities are these we come upon! What pigmy domes and thatches, what Arab caravan, What downy-roofed pagodas that have known no touch of man! Are these the oldtime meadows? Yes, the wildgrape scents the air; The breath of ripened orchards still is incense everywhere; Yet do these dawn-encampments ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... very still. A train thundered by, and Potter's windmill creaked and splashed,—creaked and splashed. A cow-bell clanked in the lane, and Mary Bell looked up to see the Dickeys' cow dawdle by, her nose sniffing idly at the clover, her downy great bag leaving a trail of foam on the fresh grass. From up the road came the faint ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... our heart, and even unconsciously passes the barrier of our lips, as we retire, utterly unsympathizing with the selfish enjoyment of those who delight to wrap up themselves, warm and cozy, in their curtained and downy repose, lulled to deeper slumber by the blustering cold in which others are shivering, or, haply, contending with the winds and waves so soon to overwhelm them. And in our more ordinary everyday humour—if it chance to rise above what in our humble opinion ought to be its maximum, a gentle refreshing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... and eager is the air; With flakes of feather'd snow the ground is spread; To step, with mincing pace, to early prayer, Our clay-cold vestal leaves her downy bed. ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... thou expect to see The downy peach make court to thee? Or that thy sense shall ever meet The bean-flower's deep-embosom'd sweet Exhaling with an evening blast? Thy evenings then will all ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... prairies its surest protector was to be found in man, was so exceedingly docile as quietly to submit to the close examination it was doomed to undergo. The hand of the wandering Teton passed over the downy coat, the meek countenance, and the slender limbs of the gentle creature, with untiring curiosity; but he finally abandoned the prize, as useless in his predatory expeditions, and offering too little temptation to the appetite. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... awaited the Khalif's signal for the execution and the people wept for Jaafer and his kinsmen, behold, a handsome and well-dressed young man, with shining face and bright black eyes, flower-white forehead, downy whiskers and rosy cheeks and a mole like a grain of ambergris, pressed through the crowd, till he stood before Jaafer and said to him, 'I come to deliver thee from this strait, O chief of the Amirs and refuge of the poor! I am he who killed the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... summer nest Amid her spreading figs and roses still In bloom with all their spring and summer hues. Pomegranates hang with dapple cheeks full ripe, And over all the town a dreamy haze Drops down. The great plantations stretching far Away are plains of cotton, downy white. Oh, glorious is this night of joyous sounds. Too full for sleep Aromas wild and sweet From muscadine, late-booming jessamine And roses all the heavy air suffuse. Faint bellows from the alligators come From swamps ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... branches. Habits rather phlegmatic. The flicker has better developed vocal powers than other birds of this class, whose rolling tattoo, beaten with their bills against the tree-trunks, must answer for their love-song. Nest in hollowed-out trees. Red-headed Woodpecker. Hairy Woodpecker. Downy Woodpecker. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Youth, too, in its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to our purpose; for it would behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming over the very same spots of withered grass and barren sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. We had very young people with us, it is true,—downy lads, rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above one's knee; but these had chiefly been sent hither for education, which it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply. Then we had boarders, from town and elsewhere, who lived with ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... baby's little downy head at her brother. "It can't be Barney," she said out loud to herself. She stood still in the road, staring after him with parted lips. The baby wailed softly, and she hushed it mechanically, her great, happy, startled eyes fixed upon ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... flowers. Light blue scorpion-grasses and forget-me-nots were there too, not only among the sword-flags and the tall fescue-grasses by the bank, but little islands of them dotted about a over the brook. Thyme-scented water-mint, with lilac-tinted spikes and downy stalks, was almost lost amongst the taller wild flowers and the "segs" that ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... sufficient to set a small boy up in trade, and to imbue him with all the importance and insistence of a merchant with jewels. Other ten-year-old ragamuffins tried to call our attention to some sort of sleight-of-hand with poor downy little chickens. Grave, turbaned, and polite Indians squatted cross-legged at our feet, begging to give us a look into the future by means of the only genuine hall-marked Yogi-ism; a troupe of acrobats went energetically ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... than hist'ry knows, Mov'd by no power but melting snows, Or gushing springs, that wash away Th' embedded earth that forms their stay. The heart distends, the whole frame feelsr Where, inaccessible to wheels, The utmost storm-worn summit spreads Its rocks grotesque, its downy beds; Here no false feeling sense belies, Man lifts the weary foot, and sighs; Laughter is dumb; hilarity Forsakes at once th' astonish'd eye; E'en the clos'd lip, half useless grown, Drops but a word, "Look ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... awoke, as was her custom,—when the very faintest hue of dawn streaked the horizon. A hen who has seen a hawk balancing his wings and cawing in mid-air over her downy family could not have awakened with her feathers, metaphorically speaking, in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... laughing and crying with his new parental emotions, and running to the side of the plain crib in which his alter egg, as he used to say, was swinging, to hang over the little heap of stirring clothes, from which looked the minute, red, downy, still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips,—in that unearthly gravity which has never yet been broken by a smile, and which gives to the earliest moon-year or two of an infant's life the character of a first old age, to counterpoise that second ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Emblem of happiness, Bless'd is thy dwelling-place— O to abide in the desert with thee! Wild is thy lay and loud, Far in the downy cloud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. Where on thy dewy wing, Where art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. O'er fell and mountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the winter months, this species is not as commonly seen about houses or orchards as the Downy Woodpecker. During the summer they retire to the larger woods to nest, laying their eggs in holes in the trunks or limbs of trees at any height from the ground, and generally using the same hole year after ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... churches in the villages, reconciling differences, and extending the sacred influences of the gospel, so that in a very short time he attained the appellation of Bishop Bunyan—a title much better merited by him than by the downy prelates who sent him to jail for preaching that which they ought ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hands, with their tapering fingers and pink nails, retained the purity of their outline, and had by no means degenerated into mere cushions of fat. The proudly-poised head was crowned by a wealth of heavy, pale brown hair with dull gold reflections in it, waving in soft, downy locks round her forehead. The cheeks were very full but firm, and the well shaped, boldly modeled nose stood in exactly the right proportion to the rather large face. The light brown eyes with their remarkably small ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... birds. The woods were vocal with the cackling of robins, the warble of bluebirds, and the trills of pine warblers. Flickers were shouting—or laughing, if one pleased to hear it so—with true flickerish prolixity, and a single downy woodpecker called sharply again and again. A mocking-bird near me (there is always a mocking-bird near you, in Florida) added his voice for a time, but soon relapsed into silence. The fact was characteristic; for, wherever I went, ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... you, Mr. Scott, I've a deal to do before I get to my downy; and I don't like those doctored tipples. Good night, Mr. Scott. I wishes you good night, sir;' and making another slight reference to his hat, which had not been removed from his head during the whole interview, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... my job! Watch the old bird. Listen in. He's downy. He knows a chance when he sees it, and he might try to cheat you at dominoes. But in a big crisis he's a ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... smallish, golden-faced, downy-headed boy ... almost an albino.... I had seen him run ... he ran low to the ground, in flashes, like ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Don Dunce, "Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet. Through all the flimsy things we see at once As easily as through a Naples bonnet— Trash of all trash! how can a lady don it? 5 Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff, Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it." And, veritably, Sol is right enough. The general tuckermanities are arrant 10 Bubbles, ephemeral and so transparent; But this ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... and fluttered in their downy, white nightgowns till they came to the porch, where little Ray was just closing his eyes, while mamma ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... better dispense with your company as soon as we have eaten a bite, and retire to it. On second thought, we will eat in it. Carnes, we will go to our downy couches at once and leave our substitutes in possession of the cabin. I trust, gentlemen, that things come out all right and that you are ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... his utter surprise, saw that the stables were thatched with downy bird feathers, no two ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... ten hours of undisturbed consecutive repose in the downy bed at the Mehadia hotel had made up the deficiency of sleep during the foregoing week, and drowsiness overcame us. I think we must have had a couple of hours of monotonous jog-trot on the fairly level road when I fell asleep, and I suppose my companions ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... the marge We found ourselves, and there, behold, In hosts the lilies, white and large, Lay close, with hearts of downy gold! ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in Louisa's arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid and brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... downy seed-vessels, mingling quaint brown punctuation, and dusty tremors of dancing grain, with the bloom of the nearer fields; and casting a gossamered grayness and softness of plumy mist along their surfaces far away; mysterious evermore, not only with dew in the morning, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... to count your tiny toes. To find your breathing-place, And touch the downy horn that grows ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... like flaming catherine wheels, but there are certain requests which one has not the option of refusing. Tommy crept nearer, and put his lips to the round face out of which the eyes shone. Oh! it was so downy and warm, so soft, so indescribably soft. Tommy's lips sank into it, and couldn't get to the bottom. It was ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... putting away some of the childish things, and taking up the gentler and nobler ways of first young girlhood now. She thought in an almost undefined way of mother's words as she held the fluttering thrushes to her lips and kissed their downy breasts. Then had come the unlooked-for interruption. Polly's life seemed cloudless, and all of a sudden there appeared a speck in the firmament—a little cloud which grew rapidly, until the whole heavens were covered with it. Mother had gone away for ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... abroad was Doctor Abbot. Aunt Margaret's interest was not sufficient to drag her from her downy couch thus early, but, with truly womanly logic, she saw no reason why the doctor should not glean for her the information she required. Therefore the doctor rose and shivered under the lightness of his summer apparel in the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... said, hoarsely; "I'm too dirty." He put out a hand, and softly touched her dress. "Is it pink?" he asked, "or does it only look so in this light? It feels awfully downy ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... go up, up, up, And here we go down, down, downy, And here we go backwards and forwards, And here we go round, ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... rewarded by seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradually get so absorbed in his wonderful geological story that she sat looking at him, leaning forward with crossed arms, and with an entire absence of self-consciousness, as if he had been the snuffiest of old professors, and she a downy-lipped alumna. He was so fascinated by the clear, large gaze that at last he forgot to look away from it occasionally toward Lucy; but she, sweet child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was proving to Maggie how clever ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... seventh month, length of child 10 to 14 inches—that is, the length of the child after the fifth month is about double the lunar months—weight 1 to 3 pounds; skin, dusky red, covered with downy hair (lanugo) and sebaceous matter; membrana pupillaris disappearing; nails not reaching to ends of fingers; meconium at upper part of large intestine; testes near kidneys; no appearance of convolutions in brain; points of ossification ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... and as she peeps, 'tis no more one, but three, And eye of bat, and downy wing of owl within the tree, And the bells of that sweet belfry a-pealing as before, And now it is not three she sees, and now it is ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... flow'ry meads; There in soft murmurs interchange our souls; Together drink the crystal of the stream, Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields, And, when the golden evening calls us home, Wing to our downy ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... were open, and moths had come in. One had settled on the hydrangea plant that filled the hearth. Gyp looked at the soft, white, downy thing, whose head was like a tiny owl's against the bluish petals; looked at the purple-grey tiles down there, and the stuff of her own frock, in the shaded gleam of the lamps. And all her love of beauty rebelled, called up by his: "Oh, no!" She would be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... peaches, gathered where the bees, As downy, bask and boom In sunshine and in gloom of trees. But get you in, a storm is at my heels; The whirlwind whistles and wheels, Lightning flashes and thunder peals, Flying and following hard ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... sick-room let in a flood of morning light. Gone was the bird choir that used to welcome his earliest rays, swept south by the great tide of migration. Those that remained, snowbird, cardinal, and downy woodpecker—the "checkerbacker" of the mountaineer,—harboured all night and much of the day in the barn loft and in Judith's cedar tree. Their twittering ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... comfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his rashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no; I verily believe that buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had a pernicious effect upon him—upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... heads and eagle claws, came paddling across the inlet. Three savages were in one, six in the other, ten in the third. They came slowly over the water, singing some song of welcome, beating time with their paddles, {186} scattering downy white feathers on the air, at intervals standing up to harangue a welcome to the newcomers. Soon thirty canoes were around the ships with some ten warriors in each. Still they came, shoals of them, like fish, with savages almost naked, the harbor smooth as glass, the grand tyee, or great ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... passions, finishing the pilgrimage of life! You seemed to behold him in pure white raiment, ready to appear before his heavenly judge. Obrazetz was the chief of the party in years, in grave majestic dignity, and patriarchal air. Crossing his arms upon his staff, he covered them with his beard, downy as the soft fleece of a lamb; the glow of health, deepened by the cup of strong mead, blushed through the snow-white hair with which his cheeks were thickly clothed; he listened with singular attention and delight to the story-teller. This pleasure was painted on his face, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... was a dotard. To-day is a sage: between them stands the night which brings wisdom, the night which gives light. I ought to go, I ought to do it, I promised I would—I am weak, I know. But how can I resist the downy creases of my bed? My feet feel flaccid, I think I must be sick, I am too happy just here. I long to see the ethereal horizon of my dreams again, those women without claws, those winged beings and their ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... size, are protected by a coat of a glutinous substance, which is impervious to water; in spring this melts, and the bud-scales are then cast off. The leaves are composed of seven radiating leaflets (long-wedge-shaped); when young they are downy and drooping. From the early date of its leafing year by year, a horse-chestnut in the Tuileries is known as the "Marronnier du 20 mars." The flowers of the horse-chestnut, which are white dashed with red ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... so white as a lily, an' each Ov her cheaeks is so downy an' red as a peach; She's pretty a-zitten; but oh! how my love Do watch her to madness ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... trees, on the wall of the hut, and on the still wet tiles of the roof, which had a chicken perching upon its ridge. The wind pulled out sideways the wild grass that grew in the wall, and the chicken's downy feathers, both of which things let themselves float upon the wind's breath to their full extent, with the unresisting submissiveness of light and lifeless matter. The tiled roof cast upon the pond, whose reflections were now clear again in ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... framing so great and massie a body to be directed by such small and complementall wings, as are unable to hoise her from the ground; serving only to prove her a bird, which otherwise might be doubted of. Her head is variously drest, the one-half hooded with downy blackish feathers; the other perfectly naked, of a whitish hue, as if a transparent lawne had covered it. Her bill is very howked, and bends downwards; the thrill or breathing-place is in the midst of it, from which part ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... creeping into her heart sung to her beautiful songs of the future which might be were Hester's baby a lady. And Hagar, listening to that song, fell asleep, dreaming that the deed was done by other agency than hers—that the little face resting on the downy pillow, and shaded by the costly lace, was lowly born; while the child wrapped in the coarser blanket came of nobler blood, even that of the Conways, who boasted more than one lordly title. With a nervous start she awoke at last, and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... Downy mildew (Phytopthora infestans DeBy.), the cause of the late blight of potatoes, will attack tomatoes during cool and very moist weather, which greatly favors its development. Such outbreaks sometimes occur ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... his food, and now I'm going back to my downy couch. If I don't see you to-morrow before ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... I said before, there isn't any hair; only on the slopes of the cheese are some very pale, faint, downy lines, which look as though they had been sketched on lightly with a very soft drawing pencil and would wipe off readily. That, however is the inception and beginning of what afterward becomes, among our race, hair. ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... divisions, which look exactly like honeycomb inside, and in which the seeds are contained; they are about the size of a nut, the outside being very hard. The natives roast and eat them. The leaves resemble the mulberry, and are of a downy light-green. We have obtained a few of the seeds of it. The bean-tree does not seem to grow up here. Mr. Kekwick, in looking for plants this morning, discovered one which very much resembles wheat in straw ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... especially North; from two to three feet high; the upright stems, stalks, etc., beset with copious bristles, and some of them becoming weak prickles, also glandular; leaflets oblong-ovate, pointed, cut-serrate, white- downy beneath, the lateral ones (either one or two pairs) not stalked; petals as long as the sepals; fruit light-red, tender and watery, but high flavored, ripening ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... you, sir—how are you?" Foker replied, imperturbably. "I'm not clever, p'raps: but I am rather downy; and partial friends say I know what's o'clock tolerably well. Can I tell you the time of day ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Junior amid downy pillows on Stella's bed. The doctor stood looking at him, then drew ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... some kind of a fairy, for we didn't mention kittens, but we wanted one, and here are two darlings," cried Polly, almost purring with delight as the downy bunches unrolled and gaped till their bits of ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the spectacle of his shame and remorse and agony of mind, for the old hag knows how to concoct the sort of venom that corrodes the heart. Now Barbara is not like that. Whenever that woman speaks of the Hetfalusies, her downy lips swell out, her cheeks flush, her black eyes cast forth sparks like a crackling fire, and if at such times she has a knife in her hands, it is not well to approach her. She longs to taste the blood of her enemy, and smack her lips over it; she longs to see his haughty castle in a blaze. I ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Michel, was a marble bust of Louis XIV., represented with a Roman helmet and a peruke interlaced with laurel-leaves. Behind this bust was a round window, which looked upon the staircase; and just in front of the pedestal was the downy cushion that served as a bed for Moumouth, who would certainly have been crushed if the bust had taken it into its ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... cylindrical spike, half to one foot long, of closely packed male (above) and female (below) flowers. The familiar brown spike is a dense mass of minute one-seeded fruits, each on a long hair-like stalk and covered with long downy hairs, which render the fruits very light and readily carried by the wind. The name bulrush is more correctly applied to Scirpus lacustris, a member of a different family (Cyperaceae), a common plant in wet places, with tall spongy, usually leafless stems, bearing a tuft of many-flowered spikelets. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... of a spacious garden were thrown open at this instant, and I accepted with avidity an invitation to walk in it. Mirth and hilarity prevailed, and the moments fled on downy wings, while we traced the beauties of Art and Nature, so liberally displayed and so happily blended in this delightful retreat. An enthusiastic admirer of scenes like these, I had rambled some way from the company, when I was followed by Mrs. Laiton to offer her condolence ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... of the East, the following are the most approved varieties:—The royal plantain, which fruits in eight months; one which bears in a year, the milk plantain, the downy plantain, and the golden plantain or banana. A species termed gindy has been lately imported from Madras, where it is in great request. It has this advantage over the other kinds, that it can be stewed down like an apple ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... to say good-bye. Manm-Robert brings to see me a pretty young girl—very fair, with a violet foulard twisted about her blonde head. It is little Basilique, who is going to make her poumi communion. So I kiss her, according to the old colonial custom, once on each downy cheek;—and she is to pray to Notre Dame du Bon Port that the ship shall bear me safely ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... a twelvemonth yet, although it seems ten years agone, since I blew the downy globe to learn the time of day, or set beneath my chin the veinings of the varnished buttercup, or fired the fox-glove cannonade, or made a captive of myself with dandelion fetters; for then I had not very much to trouble me in ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... dusky-green; but the adult male is a beautiful white, excepting the extraordinary structure with which we are at present concerned. This is a tube about three inches long, which rises from the base of the beak. It is jet black, and dotted over with small downy feathers. The tube is closed at the top, but its cavity communicates with the palate, and thus the whole admits of being inflated from within, when, of course, it stands erect as represented in one of the two drawings. When not thus inflated, it hangs down, as shown in the second figure, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... pressed the foundling to her bosom. She was sitting on her heels holding the child in her lap; she stroked its rosy cheeks, its little downy head, and showered caresses and flattering words on it, but the child continued to gaze into the luminous space with its large, dark, and yet so clear eyes. It did not smile, but it did not cry either; it took no notice whatever ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the Huxtables; but cheer up, sister, things will be better in a day or two. We shall all put on our tartans—cheer up you too, niece Jane, Charles Hobbins will be here ere long; I've got some clothes ready for him too, and intend to give him a black feather, and make him as good a downy-whistle as you can desire." ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... primroses living in what Southerners call 'the cold grey North' were obviously enjoying themselves. Their smooth, pale-yellow faces opened wider, and grew larger and more golden, day by day: while new, soft, pointed buds came poking up through their downy green blankets in unexpected places. Moreover, the warm weather lasted right through the summer. Not only did far more primroses flower than usual, but also, after they had faded, there was plenty of warmth to ripen the precious seed ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... dreams, and make my slumbers sweet and gentle. You, Emily, with your mild blue eyes; and you, Henrietta, with your splendid black hair; and you, Nelly, with your hair so brightly, beautifully golden; and you, Mollie, with your cheeks so downy; and you, Betsy, with your wine-red lips— far more delicious, though, than any wine I ever tasted—and you, Maria, with your winsome voice; and you, Susan, with your—with your—that is to say, Susan, with your—and the other thirteen ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... and sent their busy hum upon the calm, clear air. The wild bee, provident for future wants, had sallied from his wintry hive, and sipped from every honied cup, to fill the treasures of his waxen cell; and a thousand birds of passage folded their downy pinions, and delayed their distant flight, till bleaker skies should chill their melody, and ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... bird, braving the snow and frost of winter, it likes a warm bed, to which it may retire after the toils of the day. To this end its resting place, as well as its nest, is always stuffed with downy feathers. Tramp, Hoodlum, Gamin, Rat of the Air! Notwithstanding these more or less deserved names, however, one cannot view a number of homeless Sparrows, presumably the last brood, seeking shelter in any corner or crevice from a winter's storm, without a feeling of deep compassion. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... Oriental hornbeam) principally differs from our native species in its smaller size, the lesser leaves with downy petioles, and the green, much-lacerated bractlets. It is a native of the south of Europe, whence it extends to the Caucasus, and probably also to China; the Carpinus Turczaninovi of Hance scarcely seems to differ, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... distributed over the warmtemperate region of the Old World. It ripens its fruit in the south of England. It is a tree of moderate size; the leaves are lanceolate, and serrated at the edges; and it flowers early in spring. The fruit is a drupe, having a downy outer coat, called the epicarp, which encloses the reticulated hard stony shell or endocarp. The seed is the kernel which is contained within these coverings. The shell-almonds of trade consist of the endocarps enclosing the seeds. The tree grows ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... up, And here we go down, down, downy, Here we go backward and forward, And here we go ...
— The Only True Mother Goose Melodies • Anonymous
... of poesy, expresses it, I could place the gentle reader "atween the downy wings" of some beneficent and willing angel, in one brief instant of time should he be deposited on the little hill that first discovers the smiling, quiet village of Ellendale. He would imbibe of beauty more in a breath, a glance, than I can pour into his soul in pages of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and tension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the utter stillness and amid the rigid forms we listen with pleasure; and, as it comes to my ear oftener at this season than at any other, I freely exonerate the author of it from the imputation of any gastronomic motives, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... especially, if aided by the effect of a ferocious scowl, will admirably suit those who would wish to have an imposing appearance; the chin, with its pointed tuft a la capricorne, will, at all events, ensure distinction from the human herd; and the decorated upper lip, with its downy growth dyed black, and gummed (the cheek at the same time having been faintly tinged with rouge, the locks parted, perfumed, and curled, the waist duly compressed, a slight addition, if necessary, made to the breadth of the hips, and the feet confined by the most taper and diminutive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the Oregon or downy squirrel, is found in the Territory from which it takes its name, and also northward in British America. In size it resembles the chipmuck, and its color is light red above, pure white beneath, and silver grey at ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... cherry-bird, king-bird, and many more, came with haste and built their nests and warbled in its boughs, and so became orchard-birds, and multiplied more than ever. It was an era in the history of their race. The downy woodpecker found such a savory morsel under its bark, that he perforated it in a ring quite round the tree before he left it,—a thing which he had never done before, to my knowledge. It did not take the partridge long to find out how sweet its buds ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau |
