"Licking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the fact that it was written during a period of continued ill-health, and it was now found to require a great deal of alteration. He wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker (March 3, 1875): "It is lucky for authors in general that they do not require such dreadful work in merely licking what they write into shape." And to Mr. Murray in September he wrote: "The corrections are heavy in 'Climbing Plants,' and yet I deliberately went over the MS. and old sheets three times." The book was published in September 1875, an edition of 1500 copies was struck off; ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... became to him distinct personalities, powerful beings, that might do him great harm or much good. He therefore endeavored to propitiate them, just as a dog endeavors to get the good will of man by abjectly crawling toward him on his belly and licking his feet. There was no element of true worship in the propitiatory offerings of primitive man; in the beginning he was essentially a materialist—he became a spiritualist later on. Man's first religion must have been, necessarily, a material one; he worshiped (propitiated) only that which ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... depending upon each one's own experiences. Thus, "St. Charles" suggests "railway bridge" to me, because I was vividly impressed by the breaking of the Wabash bridge at that point. "Stable" and "broken leg" come near each other in my experience, as do "cow" and "shot-gun" and "licking." ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... shout of 'Spare him!' came too late. The man, as he lay, buried his sword in the slender body of the child, and then rising, walked coolly back to the side passages, while the poor cur stood over the little corpse, licking its hands and face, and making the whole building ring with his doleful cries. The attendants entered, and striking their hooks into corpse after corpse, dragged them out of sight, marking their path by long red furrows in the sand; while ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... remained in the midst of all the good things and ate away at the bacon, and the little fox gobbled up the honey, and they ate and ate till they couldn't eat any more, and then they both went home licking their paws. ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... rivers, the fountains, and the waters. There is one other very sweet incident at the bottom of the picture; four or five sheep, instead of pasturing, turn their heads aside to catch the manna as it comes down, or seem to be licking it off each other's fleeces. The tree above, to which the drapery is tied, is the most delicate and delightful piece of leafage in all the Scuola; it has a large sharp leaf, something like that of a willow, but five times ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Magendie desired to lay bare to demonstrate Bell's theory, which he claimed as his own. The dog, already mutilated and bleeding, twice escaped from under the implacable knife, and threw his forepaws around Magendie's neck, licking, as if to soften his murderer and ask for mercy! Vivisectors may laugh, but I confess I was unable to endure ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... eye. When he had gulped his food to please her, she produced a small bottle. He cursed her when he saw its size, but all the same he held out his hand for it eagerly and drank its contents, shutting his eyes with satisfaction and licking his lips. ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... alive. He was writhing in the middle of a heap of fagots, against a stake to which they had fastened him, and the flames were licking him with their sharp tongues. When he saw us, his tongue seemed to stick in his throat, he drooped his head, and seemed as if he were going to die. It was only the affair of a moment to upset the burning pile, to scatter the embers, and to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... to become the authoress became the helloess in the home telephone exchange, and had become absolutely indispensable to the community. The girl who was to become the poetess became the goddess at the general delivery window and superintendent of the stamp-licking department of the home postoffice. The boy who was going to Confess was raising the best corn in the county, and his wife was speaker of ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... did the others. He was very restless, and when he dozed off it was to dream of the lion that had escaped from the circus. He imagined that the animal had followed them to their camp and was bending over him and licking his face. He uttered a groan of terror and sat up and opened his eyes. As he did this a dark form leaped over him and out of the open tent. The fire had burned low, so what the form was Shep ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... brilliant as those on the ring. This task performed, the caldron, based on an iron tripod, was placed on the wood-pile. And then the woman, before inactive and unheeding, slowly advanced, knelt by the pile, and lighted it. The dry wood crackled and the flame burst forth, licking the rims of the caldron with ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... like it—would you mind licking Dickson Minor for me? He's always ragging me—you see, I've a rotten time—because of my hair, and about playing the piano. Dickson's the worst. I'd be awfully glad, if you wouldn't ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... round the corner of the building and ran up to the roof towards another that was licking its way along the ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... responsibility; it flatters one, and then, your father might say, I have more to gain than to lose. Moreover I do like this bloodless, painless combat with wood and iron, forcing the stubborn rascals to do my will, licking the clumsy cubs into an active shape, seeing the child of to-day's thought working to-morrow in full vigour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Have they not been licking their chops for ten years outside the Treasury door, while the sneaking Whigs were helping themselves to all the fat tit-bits within? Have they not growled and snarled all the while, and proved by their barking that they were the fittest guardians of the country? Have they not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... his own deformities, and rocking himself backwards and forwards, moaning and jibbering like one distraught, he remained for several minutes. At length poor Crisp, who had been a most anxious spectator of the scene, ran timidly to his master, and, standing on his hind legs, began licking his fingers with an affectionate earnestness, more soothing to his agitated feelings than all the sincere apologies of the trooper, whose rough good-nature was really moved at what had taken place. Slowly uncovering his face, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... is a terrible affair," remarked Fred, who had been perusing Gif's letter. "I think we ought to round Werner up and give it to him good and plenty. He deserves the licking of ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... within, nor consequently bring out; they do not yet themselves understand what they would be at, and if you but observe how they haggle and stammer upon the point of parturition, you will soon conclude, that their labour is not to delivery, but about conception, and that they are but licking their formless embryo. For my part, I hold, and Socrates commands it, that whoever has in his mind a sprightly and clear imagination, he will express it well enough in one kind of tongue or another, and, if he ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... was hungry also, and began to lick the salt off the blocks of ice by which she was surrounded. And presently, as she went on licking with her strong, rough tongue, a head of hair pushed itself through the melting ice. Still the cow went on licking, until she had at last melted all the icy covering and there stood fully revealed the frame ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... "I got a licking from a bear to-night—but I don't mind it much since I've had a snack. But if ever I come across him in the daytime, I'll show him a thing or two," said Joe, with his ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... me laugh, even now, to remember how I used to look along the line of "writing-scholars" on my bench, and see the rows of lolling tongues and moving heads over the long desk, mastering the first difficulties of chirography; some licking off "blots" of ink from their copy-books, others drawing in or dropping slowly out of the mouth, at each upward or downward "stroke" of ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... for anything Thatcher springs. Thatcher has developed into a shrewd and hard fighter. The other crowd don't laugh at him any more; it was his work that got our legislative ticket through last fall when Bassett passed the word that we should take a licking just to magnify his importance. Is Thatcher in ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Marielihou was, always and at all times. If Graeme found her in the hedge with Johnnie, she was busy licking her lips with vicious enjoyment as though she had just finished eating something that had screamed as it died. Or she was licking them snarlishly and surreptitiously, and sharpening her claws, as though just about starting out after something to eat—something ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... she would spring on my back, but she followed me quietly. At the foot I turned to lay hold of her, but she sprang over my head; and when again I turned to face her, she was crouching at my feet! I stooped and stroked her lovely white skin; she responded by licking my bare feet with her hard dry tongue. Then I patted and fondled her, a well of tenderness overflowing in my heart: she might be treacherous too, but if I turned from every show of love lest it should be feigned, how was I ever to find the real love which must be somewhere ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... I was stretched on some fresh plantain leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining and licking my hands and face. On the rude joists that bound the rafters of the roof together, rested a light canoe with its paddles, and over against me, on the wall, hung some Indian fishing implements, and a long—barrelled Spanish gun. Underneath lay a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... adventurers approached they could see that the vessel was now a mass of flames. The wind was driving the fire toward the forecastle, and the crew had sought refuge aft. But this expedient could not last long, for, already the tongues of fire were licking the sides of the craft and coming nearer and nearer the seemingly doomed men. The vessel was a large ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... its desolation. I see a country ruined and impoverished. I see a nation disfranchised and maltreated. I see a commonwealth forced to pay dishonest and fraudulent bonds that were issued to crush that people. I see sycophants licking the boots of the country's oppressor. I see other and many wrongs perpetrated upon a conquered people. But maybe it is but the ghosts and phantoms of a dreamy mind, or the wind as it whistles around our lonely cabin-home. The past is buried in oblivion. The mantle of charity ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... the cats collected in a group on the road-bed. They sat licking their forepaws while a dozen shabbily dressed guerrillas moved out of the jungle in a ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... parcels arrived, having been delayed at the border, and we sure had a big feed. My first food parcel contained one tin of Welsh rarebit, one tin of jam, a large package of biscuits, three bars of chocolate, and two packages of cigarettes. I tell you it put new life into us, and we felt like licking all the Huns ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... or give her something to eat, or walk around the garden carrying her on her shoulder. Malta was a most affectionate cat, and if Miss Laura would not let her lick her face, she licked her hair with her little, rough tongue. Often Malta lay by the fire, licking my coat or little Billy's, to show ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... country—probably because it permits them to practice a brutal predacity —and now cultivate foreign customs, ape foreign fashions, and purchase as husbands for their daughters the upper- servants of European potentates—people who earned their titles of nobility by chronic boot-licking or sacrificing their female relatives to the god of infamy. Year after year these titled paupers—these shameless parodies on God's masterpiece—paddle across the pond to barter their tawdy dishonor for boodle, to sell their shame-crested coronets to porcine-souled American parvenues, who ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... on the sand, licking his wounds, he remembered many strange things. First of all, there was the trouble with ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... through the childs arme, whereupon she cried out, and our Surgeon meaning to heale her childes arme, applyed salues thereunto. [Sidenote: A prety kind of surgery which nature teacheth.] But she not acquainted with such kind of surgery, plucked those salues away, and by continuall licking with her owne tongue, not much vnlike our dogs, healed vp the childes arme. And because the day was welneere spent our men made haste vnto the rest of our company which on the other side of the water remained at the tents, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... destruction they had wrought without feelings of sadness. It was their first act of war. One of the officers of the "Sumter" writes: "Few, few on board can forget the spectacle,—a ship set fire to at sea. It would seem that man was almost warring with his Maker. Her helpless condition, the red flames licking the rigging as they climbed aloft, the sparks and pieces of burning rope taken off by the wind, and flying miles to leeward, the ghastly glare thrown upon the dark sea as far as the eye could reach, and then the deathlike stillness of the scene,—all these combined to place the "Golden Rocket" on ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... deserving case, and are guided in this by the simple knowledge that Nell can't hold on to her money. Of course it's her good heart. She's done a lot for them and their family, too, I've discovered. I don't know just how much, but I can guess by their look of licking their chops. I'm not saying they aren't all right—honest, sincere, and so forth—or that I don't like them. It's Nell's own fault that she's imposed on. I don't doubt that they're as devoted as they seem, it's ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... fisherman's house were only of straw done up in bags, and the bed-clothes were very light, but the children slept soundly and found everything as comfortable as possible. Terry was wakened by a little kid licking her face, and started up in great astonishment and delight. It was a pet kid, and had rushed into the house as soon ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... a forest, where a tiger came upon us with fury in its eyes. I betook me, alas, to a tree, and left thee lying on the ground, such terror was in me; and the horrible beast looked down upon thee. But it fell to licking thee with its dreadful tongue, and thou didst smile to it, and put thy little hand to its jaws; and, lo, it gave thee suck, being a mother itself; and then, wonderful to relate, it returned into the woods, leaving me to venture down from the tree, and bear thee onward to my place ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... tired and, lying down, began to think, licking its paw as it thought and making a kind of moaning noise. Next it commenced gnawing at the root after trying the chain and finding that its teeth would not go into it. While it was doing this I heard the sound of a man somewhere in the wood. So did the fox, and oh! it looked so frightened. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... looked at him, his green eyes shrewdly confiding. "There's been the devil of a row," he said. "The mater is furious with her. She gave her a fearful licking last night to judge by the sounds. Dinah was squealing like a rat. Of course girls always do squeal when they're hurt, but I fancy the mater must have hit a bit harder than usual. And she's burnt the whole of the trousseau too. Dinah was so mighty ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the fascination of horror, for now tiny tongues of flame were licking about. Blue tongues, licking the air, vanishing into ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... against diplomacy, for this blunder was really unique), this big man had scarcely finished the pipe of peace which he smoked with the authorities, when he proposed to introduce vaccination and tracts among the people? Badly as the poor fellows felt the licking they had received, and much as they feared another should they give trouble to the invaders, they so resented our representative's meddling that he found it better to beat a hasty retreat, and to send a wiser man in his stead. But their fate was sealed, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... directions were fire and flames and oil-laden smoke. It was like a bit of Gustave Dore's idea of the infernal regions. From time to time great tongues of fire shot out from the tanks, and in this way, the flames greedily licking the sides of other tanks, the conflagration spread. How long this particular fire raged I cannot say, for I saw neither the beginning nor the end of it, but while I watched its progress it seemed to represent the limit of what a fire was ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... has made me friends, too, with a pair of as reckless young ruffians as ever gloried in playing a trick. My word, Josh, I must be a good man! If I hadn't a better temper than your friend Drinkwater, Master Will, I should have loosened both your skins with a good licking more than once." ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... the road, out of this damned mess. The stage, he, had not fallen far; the road was but a few yards above him, but the ascent, with the pain licking through him like a burning tongue, the unaccustomed, disconcerting choking in his ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that once again the little girl shuddered and shrank. It was the victory cry of the bull ape that has made a kill. The boy only looked on for a moment in silence; then he leaped into the tree again to the girl's side. Akut presently rejoined them. For a few minutes he busied himself licking his wounds, then he wandered ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Cappy's interested her now. Wisps of smoke were licking around the trees. A tongue of flame lapped at one while she watched. Branches writhed. The trees were too slow-moving to ...
— Tree, Spare that Woodman • Dave Dryfoos
... ran round the garden, barking and jumping at the birds in the air, instantly knew her voice, and came capering in, bounding up at her side, and licking her hand. The tears came to Philothea's eyes, as she stooped to caress the affectionate animal: "Poor Hylax," said she, "you have not changed." She gathered some flowers, and twined them round the dog's neck, thinking this simple artifice might bring ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... Pillars of salt are to be met with elsewhere, for instance at Hammam Meskutim in Algeria. They are caused by spouts of water, in which so great a quantity of salt is contained as at times to stop up the aperture of the spring. The latter, however, is again unsealed through cattle licking off the salt near the aperture, and the same process of filling up and unstopping goes on continually. ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... he gets a licking,—or gives it? But who was he, and what's this about his having been scorned ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... II., third Grand Prince of Suzdal, succeeded to the Principality, he was invited to pay this visit. After reaching there, and after all the degrading ceremonies to which he was subjected—kissing the stirrup of his Suzerain, and licking up the drops which fell from his cup as he drank—then this Prince of the family of Rurik perished from exhaustion in the Desert of Gobi on his return journey. But this was not all. The yoke was a heavy as well as a degrading one. Each Prince with ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... these words, old goody Liu had had her repast and come over, dragging Pan Erh; and, licking her lips and smacking her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... rests; until one or the other is outside. Clean breaks. That's about all. Now, put up your dukes and take a man's licking. I thought you were your father's son, but I guess you are like the rest of 'em, ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... some of the sword-strokes that threatened to pierce to the heart of the West. Our national and natural instinct of admiration for a hard fighter, and still greater admiration for the apex of good sportmanship, for the friend or foe who can "take a licking," who is a "good loser," went out even more strongly to Russia in the dark days when, faced by an overwhelming weight of metal, she was forced and hammered and battered back, losing battle-line after battle-line, stronghold after stronghold, city after city; ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... licking his lips, as we took our station beside the cliff. "I feel quite a tender affection for young pigs in my heart. Perhaps it would be more correct to ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... I won out, for one thing," answered Dave, dryly. "You won't have to give Yates that licking." And this remark made the cowboy laugh in spite of himself. Nevertheless, later on he gave Yates a lecture ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... drawer. He found, after hunting, some notes. He counted two off, licking his big thumb with a pompous gesture, and having recounted them passed them heavily to me. I took them as a ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... sell the boy to accommodate his excellency, Quintus Drusus," said Calatinus, "although he was a valuable slave. Still, in honesty he had to admit that Agias had some mischievous points. Calatinus had boxed his ears only the day before for licking the pastry. But, since his wife disliked the fellow, he would be constrained to sell him, if a purchaser ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... of dead barnacles. As each wave lifted and retreated, leaving the porous wall dripping like a sponge, it disturbed countless crabs, rock scorpions and creeping, leech-like things that ran blindly into the holes in the limestone; and, at the water-line, the sea-weed, licking hungrily at the wall, rose and fell, the great arms twisting and coiling like ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... minutes after that he got shot in the leg. The bone was fractured, and he couldn't move. I saw him fall and I pulled him to a little hollow under a stone where he'd be safe. And it was just as well, for the cavalry came up over there when the chase began. We gave them the licking they deserved that day. But you know ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... one occasion Clem was obliged to drive one out of the trail with stones, not having his rifle. One morning, as I was riding along not far from camp, a huge whitish fellow followed behind like a dog about twenty yards back, licking his chaps. At first I thought he might be the dog of some Indian camped near, but remembering that there were none in the valley, and also that an Indian dog, or any strange dog, would have run from me, I saw that he was a hungry wolf unused ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... and bubbled, and the Mouse King stood close beside the kettle—there was almost danger in it—and he put forth his tail, as the mice do in the dairy, when they skim the cream from a pan of milk, afterwards licking their creamy tails; but his tail only penetrated into the hot steam, and then he sprang hastily down from ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... of Manna"—not that end; that's "the Fall of Man." RUSKIN points out (reading)—"A very sweet incident. Four or five sheep, instead of pasturing, turn their heads to catch the manna as it comes down" (here BOB catches PODBURY's eye) "or seem to be licking it off each other's fleeces." (PODBURY is suddenly convulsed by inexplicable and untimely mirth.) Really, Mr. PODBURY, this is too disgraceful! [She shuts the book sharply ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... cold morning, when the frost was on the glass, so that he could not see out into the street, he applied his warm tongue to the glass, and licking from it the frost, ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... not quite sure!) actually left that house of mystery carrying a yellow earthen pitcher of milk, a crusty loaf of new bread, a great slice of sage cheese and a blueberry pie, followed by Margarita and the Danish hound, Margarita prattling of Broadway, the dog licking her hand, Roger, I have no sort of doubt, intent on conveying the food in good order ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... one of those girls from another," grumbled the Crane. "You know just how much I like girls. I don't mind helping get ready for this business, but I'd rather take a licking than come back here to-night. You'll see me vanishing around the corner and out of here at the very first chance. Girls are an awful ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... telling illustration of that primitive woman's occupations, as she carries them on among us today, the following will serve. Quite recently a friend, traveling in the mountainous regions of Kentucky, at the head of Licking Creek, had occasion to call at a little mountain cabin, newly built out of logs, the chinks stopped up with clay, evidently the pride and the comfort of the dwellers. It consisted of one long room. At one end were three beds. In the center was the family dining-table, and set out in order on ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... answered the policeman, licking his hands nervously and looking at the door. "I ban't feared of nought said or done if I've got the Law behind me. An' you'm liable ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... to that that you are a decent officer, Parsons," Captain Holland laughed. "You were the awkwardest young beggar I ever saw when you first joined, and you have given me no end of trouble in licking you into shape. How do you think you ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... Elkhorn, he said, must represent the Licking River. On that side were the Indians; on this, the pioneers, a crowd of foot and horse. There stretched the ridge of rocks, made bare by the stamping of the buffalo; here was the clay they licked for salt. In that direction headed the two ravines in which Boone had feared an ambuscade. And ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... mine by licking a state-prison bird, and you shall have the satisfaction of being licked by a black man," said the steward, stepping ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... overeat because of emotional problems. Some come from families where "licking the platter clean" was the rule because food was scarce. Others come from rich families where overeating by the parents established a habit pattern in the children. Certain races and nationalities ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... still turn on her keeper. The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It is asserted that they sleep ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... face gives to a still heightened degree this convincing sense of reality, every line functioning perfectly for the osseous structure of brow, nose, and cheeks. As to the hair—imagine shapes having the supreme life of line you may see in the contours of licking flames, and yet possessed of all the plasticity of something which caresses the hand that models it to ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... down, hit or missed with monotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with wild eyes and dripping fangs; and man and beast fought for supremacy to the bitterest conclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds, voicing ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... valiant of all the wethers, who had met me when I came home from London, and been so glad to see me. And then we all fell to again; and very soon we hauled him out. Watch took charge of him at once, with an air of the noblest patronage, lying on his frozen fleece, and licking all his face and feet, to restore his warmth to him. Then fighting Tom jumped up at once, and made a little butt at Watch, as if nothing had ever ailed him, and then set off to a shallow place, and looked for something ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... accompanied with a slight pat designed to intimidate further display of appetite. The small bunch in her arms raised his head and regarded her with pink, sick little eyes, his tongue darting this way and that in an aftermath of relish; then fell to licking her bare forearm with ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... which the children had been exposed, on dry ground, a thirsty she-wolf, coming from the neighbouring mountains, directed her course to the cries of the infants, and that she held down her dugs to them with so much gentleness, that the keeper of the king's flock found her licking the boys with her tongue. It is said his name was Faustulus; and that they were carried by him to his homestead to be nursed by his wife Laurentia. Some are of opinion that she was called Lupa among the shepherds, from her being a common prostitute, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Billy, as the leopard was named. At my first interview I found him in the stables amongst the dogs and horses, and, as I sat down on his charpoy, he jumped up alongside of me, and laid down to be scratched, playing and purring and licking my hands with a very rough tongue. He sometimes used to go out with his master, and was gradually getting into the way of running down antelope, when Dr. Jerdon was ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... cow, in old Norse mythology, that grazes on hoar-frost, "licking the rime from the rocks—a Hindu cow transported ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... her call and came and crouched at her feet, fawning on them and licking them. After him came three companions, all the same size, and all of them big ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... there. The red blood flowed and the porcupine lay still. Again and again as he uttered chesty growls the pekan ground his teeth into the warm flesh and shook and worried the unconquerable one he had conquered. He was licking his bloody chops for the twentieth time, gloating in gore, when "crack" went Quonab's gun, and the pekan had an opportunity of resuming the combat with Kahk far away in the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... were assembled, under the command of Colonel Edwards. A light snow had fallen during the latter part of the night, and the Indian trail could be followed at a gallop. It led directly into the mountainous country bordering on the Licking, and afforded evidences of great hurry and precipitation on the part of the fugitives. Unfortunately, a hound had been permitted to follow the whites, and as the trail became fresh, and the scent warm, she followed it with eagerness, baying loudly and giving the alarm to the Indians. The consequences ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... Fritz was gravely licking his lips, and the Little Colonel had her mouth full, when they suddenly made their appearance ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... use for him either," exclaimed Donald vindictively. "I'll give him a good licking when ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... shawl drawn about her head—ran with long, free stride, her limbs envigored by fear, her full-bosomed body heaving chokingly. The smoke was now in the air, and up the unshorn valley came the fire remorselessly, licking up the under lying layer of sun-cured grass which a winter's snow had ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... mosque, a native badly wounded on a charpoy, by which was sitting a woman in deep affliction. The explanation given of this scene was, that "—— [the name of the Englishman was left blank] had been licking two of his bearers (or servants), and had nearly murdered them." This was one of the servants, and, without knowing or caring to know the causes of such chastisement, I cannot but express my disgust at the severity—to call it by no harsher ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... gets some bread, and steals to bed With his heart fill'd up with sorrow, And shudders, as he looks ahead, And thinks of school to-morrow; He knows the score of lies he'll tell Will scarce prevent a licking, And he sadly wonders if 'tis well To go thus ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... Pigeons, bitten by Vipers, without finding any alteration from it in their health. On the contrary, he declares, That it is a soveraign Remedy against the biting of Vipers, to suck the wound; alledging an Experiment, made upon a Dog, which he caused to be bitten by a Viper at the nose, who by licking his own wound saved his life. Which he confirms by the example of those people, celebrated in History by the name of Marsi and Psilli, whose Employment it was, to heal those, that had been bitten by Serpents, by sucking ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... their feudal lords, and fettered the ecclesiastical power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful, but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of despotism, frail, yet old as ambition, the lamp of freedom had long burned dimly: now its flames were licking, with serpent-like tongues, the enclosure so long deemed sacred, and threatened, as they dyed the air with their amber flood of light, to shiver their temple to fragments. The theory of the divine right of kings was but another ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... ready to mount the masonry and spring over, when he felt a tongue licking his hands. He turned, and Homo was behind him. Gwynplaine uttered a cry. Homo wagged his tail. Then the wolf led the way down a narrow platform to the wharf, and Gwynplaine followed him. On the vessel alongside the wharf was the old wooden ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... rejoicing all the time at her evident anxiety, and blessing my stars for the luck they had brought me. "Why, Miss Cullen," I went on, "I've become so interested in your success and the licking of those fellows that I really think I'd stand about anything rather than that they should win. Yesterday, when Mr. Camp threatened to—" Then I stopped, as it suddenly occurred to me that it was best not to tell ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... people mean by the deceitfulness of riches; but Albert's uncle says it is the spirit of progress, and Mrs Leslie said some people called it 'divine discontent'. Oswald asked them all what they thought one Sunday at dinner. Uncle said it was rot, and what we wanted was bread and water and a licking; but he meant it for a joke. This was in ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... farm, yes," said Jamieson, dryly. "But no straying into the road! And you'd better see that half a dozen of them are always together, Eleanor. Mr. Holmes isn't the sort to be content with one licking. He'll come back for more, or else I'm mightily ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... but some sugared water being offered to him, he drank the whole; and upon sugar being placed before him, in a saucer, he was at a loss how to use it, until one of the boys fed him with his fingers, and when the saucer was emptied, he showed his taste for this food by licking it with his tongue. He was then taken to the side of the vessel from which his companions were visible, when he immediately exclaimed, with much earnestness, and in a loud voice, "coma negra," and ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... me he did," Robin answered, running her fingers through the short, curly forelock of a colt that stood placidly licking her hand. "I wonder that they don't remember longer, or perhaps they know that we think they are folks. Really, I think we ought to hold a reception, a kind of salon, once a week, so as to keep ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... come to Africa, or why, having come, did I not know when I was well off and stay in Glass? Before these problems were settled in my mind we were close to the true land again, with the water under us licking lazily among the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... haze of the far distance deepened with the thickening air. Four times in the last ten days he had swung the pointer over the mapped table and sighted it upon brown puffballs that rose over the treetops—the first betraying marks of the licking flames below. He had watched the puff balls grow until they exploded into rolling clouds of smoke, yellow where the flames mounted high in some dead pine or into a cedar, black where a pitch stump ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... attempt that," Frank declared. "The minute she sees her last chance gone, she'll squeal for help, the same as a hog. It's not in a German to take a licking, you know. He begins to show, yellow when the ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... cry, poured from the park along the rough paths of the Midway, streaming out across the prairie toward the fire. He plunged into the cool gulf under the Illinois Central tracks, then out into a glare of full day, before the wild, licking flames. The Court of Honor with its empty lagoon and broken bridges was more beautiful in the savage glow of the ravaging fire than ever on the gala nights of the exposition. The fantastic fury of the scene fascinated man and beast. The streaming ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... last words. In the morning the doctor was still sitting in his big chair, and Skye was fondly licking a hand that would never again ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... Peggy saw her first, a furry, gray ball, poised lightly on the piazza rail. Alice saw her give a spring through the open pane of glass and land on the hammock. She was giving her joyous tea-kettle purr, and, oh, it was too much to bear, she was actually licking Diana's hand. ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... bit of paper into a grubby envelope in which he had for some time kept some used French stamps; then, licking down the flap, he left his room and went into his mother's, where he propped up the envelope on the fat pin-cushion lying on her dressing-table, remembering the while that so had been propped an anonymous letter written ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... the child who was licking stones, and her heart was wrung with pity. Going into the hut she fetched most of the water in a gourd, and calling to the child, who staggered towards her, for she could scarcely walk, she gave it to her, bidding ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... The dragon was licking his scales and rubbing them with a bit of house-flannel the Boy's mother had lent him, till he shone like a ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... else, as we are the fellows that will have to learn it, if it is to be retained. Then about corporal punishment. Not that we mind it much, still we are the fellows who get swished at Eton, and feel the tolly at Beaumont. Surely the Boys know more about a licking than Head Masters and Parents? You, as a practical man, will say, "Who should attend the Congress?" I reply, every public school might send a delegate; and by public school, I do not limit the term to the old legitimate "E. and the two W.'s," Eton, Winchester and Westminster. No; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... night I was roused by the beat of rain, and I crawled from hole to hole, lapping up the rain or licking it from the rocks. Brackish it was, but drinkable. It was what saved me, for, toward morning, I awoke to find myself in a profuse perspiration and quite free of ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... before the court licking her paws," resumed the Woggle-Bug, "has long desired to unlawfully eat the fat piglet, which was no bigger than a mouse. And finally she made a wicked plan to satisfy her depraved appetite for pork. I can see ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... their moist countenances. The only person who was cool was a small, nude, china infant in its zinc bath, the property of Stella, whose determination to reach central facts, and to penetrate to the root of the matter, at present took the form of tearing or licking off all that could be torn or licked from objects of interest. Hester, who had presented her with the floating baby in the bath, sometimes wondered, as she watched Stella conscientiously work through a well-dressed doll down to its stitched sawdust compartments, what Mr. Gresley ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... and introduce him to me, we haven't met yet, and I want to know all your friends." So Billy Westaway, who is as obedient as a spaniel, secured Lord Valmond, and presently we saw them comfortably tucked into a small settee together, and there they stayed all the evening. She kept licking her lips as if he was something good to eat, and the next morning she fixed a rose in his buttonhole at breakfast and called him "Cousin Val," and by lunch time it was plain "Val," and now it is "Harry." ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... locked him up all night; and kept him without food till one o'clock the next day. He then hung Ben up by his hands, and beat him from time to time till the slaves came in at night. We found the poor creature hung up when we came home; with a pool of blood beneath him, and our master still licking him. But this was not the worst. My master's son was in the habit of stealing the rice and rum. Ben had seen him do this, and thought he might do the same, and when master found out that Ben had ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... I know them. They'll pretend it's nothing, but mother won't sleep at night for thinking how to arrange things for the best, and as for my cuckoo of an uncle, if you notice something funny about your feet, it'll be the esteemed alderman licking your boots. You'll have the time of your life. In fact they'll ruin your character for you. There'll be no holding ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... legs in another generation. It's our train. Here in New York a hundred trains come in each morning from Chicago, New Orleans, Everywhere and points beyond, and the office-boy next door to the depot doesn't stop licking stamps long enough to look up. But when old Number Eleven, which is its official railroad name, pulls into Homeburg from Chicago each afternoon, loaded with mail, news, passengers, home-comers, adventurers, mysterious strangers, friends, brides, heroes, widows ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... with the common little brown ants that harbor under logs in the uplands, but now they came for the first time on one of the hills of the great, fat, luscious Wood-ant, and they all crowded around to lick up those that ran out. But they soon found that they were licking up more cactus-prickles and sand than ants, till their Mother said in Grizzly, "Let me show ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... it," Tompkins replied hastily; "you may rely on that. What a lucky fellow you are to be going home! Nothing will be said to you for being an hour late. I shall get a licking to a certainty. How I do hate that Hathorn, to ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... to prowl up and down, licking their chops and occasionally glancing at the top of the rock. Suddenly they halted in the middle of their beat, and, pricking up their ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... did they fall on thee and bite thee, poor soul?' 'Worse, worse, dear Bon Bec. Had they bitten me I had earned silver. But the great idiots, being, as I think, puppies, or little better, fell on me where I sat, downed me, and fell a licking my sores among them. As thou, false knave, didst swear the whelps in heaven licked the sores of Lazybones, a beggar of old.' 'Nay, nay,' said I, 'I said no such thing. But tell me, since they bit thee not, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... a sort, you know, to whollop a woman. Why, you very near give me a licking. You must have forgot ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... down as trifling. "We have been whipped," was what all Northerners said; "we've got an almighty whipping, and here we are." I have heard many Englishmen complain of this—saying that the matter was taken almost as a joke, that no disgrace was felt, and that the licking was owned by a people who ought never to have allowed that they had been licked. To all this, however, I demur. Their only chance of speedy success consisted in their seeing and recognizing the truth. Had they confessed the whipping, and then ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... propose to speak is the old dispute between Dives and Lazarus. Lazarus, presumably, was a better man than Dives. How could Dives justify himself for living in purple and fine linen, while Lazarus was lying at the gates, with the dogs licking his sores? The problem is one of all ages, and takes many forms. When the old Puritan saw a man going to the gallows, "There," he said, "but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford". When the rich man, entering his club, sees some wretched ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... feebleness of hunger, lameness, and old age; the ox bleeding from the goad on the hard furrows, or stumbling through the hooting crowd, blind, footsore, and shivering, to its last home in the slaughter-house; the dog, yielding up its noble life inch by inch under the tortures of the knife, loyally licking the hand of the vivisector while he drove his probe through its quivering nerves; the unutterable hell in which all these gentle, kindly, and long-suffering creatures dwelt for the pleasure or the vanity, the avarice or the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker |
