"Tail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boys wore dresses till they was twelve or fifteen years old. One fellar rode a mule or cow one the other to preaching. While he sit talking to his gal at the window a steer cone up and et off his dress tail. Boys got to courting before they got to ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... the year. She was the most important person within a radius of a hundred and fifty miles, not excepting Rembrandt, the owner of Bomba Station, which was twenty miles square, nor the parson at Magari, ninety miles south, by the Ring-Tail Billabong. For both Rembrandt and the parson had, and showed, a respect for her, which might appear startling were it seen in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... little figures in her fingers with a wonderful lightness and deftness, painting the chickens Naples yellow, the elephants blue gray, the horses Vandyke brown, adding a dot of Chinese white for the eyes and sticking in the ears and tail with a drop of glue. The animals once done, she put together and painted the arks, some dozen of them, all windows and no doors, each one opening only by a lid which was half the roof. She had all the work she could handle these days, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... built of this same stone. For, as we know, St. Anthony had a weakness for pigs, and was famous for recovering one of his favourites from the devil, who had stolen it: recovered it not quite undamaged, as the animal was restored with his tail on fire: a base return for the Saint's politeness, who had offered his petition in poetical terms to which his audience could scarcely ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... spots like pumpkin seeds over his eyes. His affection for Johnson was extreme. He looked up to Johnson. If he startled a bird at the roadside, or scratched at the roots of a tree after his imagination, he came back to Johnson for approval, wagging his tail until it made his whole body undulate. Johnson sometimes condescended to rub a nose against his silly head, and this threw him into such fire of delight that he was obliged to get out of the wagon-track, and bark around himself in a circle ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... wields a very pretty flail— Drubs them delightfully, 'midst general laughter. But oh, poor ass, aching from head to tail, Pray, what the better is your state thereafter? BURIDAN'S Ass was surely your twin brother. There's such small difference ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... White-tail or Virginia Deer Black Bear Lynx Wild Cat Red Fox Gray Fox Beaver Raccoon Skunk Otter Fisher Cottontail Rabbit Martin Mink Black Squirrel Gray Squirrel Red Squirrel Fox Squirrel Flying Squirrel Chipmunk Musk Rat Opossum Varying ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... a large paved place, in which there were a score of armed men. Presently the lord of the castle came forward. This lord was much larger than Sir Ivaine, and the lion, on seeing him, began to lash its tail. But Sir Ivaine ordered it to be still, and it at ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... lunged with the knife, but I hardly think it entered the invisible fin, or tail, or paw of the monster; but it moved away from the screaming man, and the next moment I received a blow in the face that sent me aft six feet, flat on my back. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... unfair and insincere to us. I cannot make out whether this public wants me or not. Burenin says that it does not, and that I waste my time on trifles; the Academy has given me a prize. The devil himself could not make head or tail of it. Write for the sake of money? But I never have any money, and not being used to having it I am almost indifferent to it. For the sake of money I work apathetically. Write for the sake of praise? But praise merely irritates me. Literary society, students, Pleshtcheyev, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Well, my mind is relieved at any rate. He spoke up like a little man, didn't he, mother? I thought he would. And I'll bet you gave him as good as he sent, so he's got his tail between his legs now and yelping for mercy. How does he ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... bold old lady, she flounced about our market-place with insufferable airs of patronage and condescension. She bought, indeed, with liberality, but her manner of studying us through a quizzing-glass, and playing cicerone to her followers, acquitted us of any gratitude. She had a tail behind her of heavy, obsequious old gentlemen, or dull, giggling misses, to whom she appeared to be an oracle. "This one can really carve prettily: is he not a quiz with his big whiskers?" she would say. "And this one," indicating ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of thinking, as grammar from his language." [Footnote: Tait's Mag. Sept. 1834, p. 514.] True: his mind was a logic-vice; let him fasten it on the tiniest flourish of an error, he never slacked his hold, till he had crushed body and tail to dust. He was always ratiocinating in his own mind, and therefore sometimes seemed incoherent to the partial observer. It happened to him as to Pindar, who in modern days has been called a rambling ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... indeed, I thoroughly searched all the fences and trees in the vicinity, to find some nest or young birds, but could find none. What this fascinating power is, whether it be the look or effluvium, or the singing by the vibration of the tail of the snake, or anything else, I will not attempt to determine—possibly this power may be owing to different causes in different kinds of snakes. But so far as the black snake is concerned, it seems to be nothing more than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... with friend and foe, At home che hold the plough by th' tail: Che dig, che delve, che zet, che zow, Che mow, che reap, che ply my flail. A pair of dice is thy delight, Thou liv'st for most part by the spoil: I truly labour day and night To get my living by my toil. Chill therefore sure this issue make: The best deserver ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... is sure the resemblance can't fail, The tip of his nose is red hot, There's his grin and his fangs, his skin cover'd with scales And that—the identical curl of the tail, Not a ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... solidly in on three sides—there are no neighbors. There are beautiful little tan-colored impudent squirrels about. They take tea 5 P.M. (not invited) at the table in the woods where Jean does my typewriting, & one of them has been brave enough to sit upon Jean's knee with his tail curved over his back & munch his food. They come to dinner 7 P.M. on the front porch (not invited), but Clara drives them away. It is an occupation which requires some industry & attention to business. They all have the one name ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... better. He sat back in his chair and regarded the commander with mixed respect and something else. Against his will, he was beginning to like the man. No doubt of it, the Scorpius was well named. And the sting in the scorpion's tail was O'Brine himself. ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... it may properly be named, is in length from the nose to the extremity of the tail about twenty-five inches, of which the tail itself takes up about nine or ten. The general colour of the animal is black, inclining to brown beneath; the neck and body spotted with irregular roundish patches of white; the ears are pretty large, and stand erect, the visage is pointed, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... the act of reporting that he had just patrolled six leagues to the front, without seeing any signs of an enemy, we saw the indefatigable rascals, on the mountain opposite our windows, just beginning to wind round us, with a mixture of cavalry and infantry; the wind blowing so strong, that the long tail of each particular horse stuck as stiffly out in the face of the one behind, as if the whole had been strung upon a cable and dragged by the leaders. We turned out a few companies, and kept them in check while the division was getting under ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... Antiquity," contains much interesting matter relating to it. From these and other sources the student of human unreason can reconstruct that astounding fallacy of insurance as, from three joints of its tail, the great naturalist Bogramus restored the ancient elephant, from hoof ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... in which this was uttered was so stern that the terrier drooped its ears, lowered its tail, and looked up with an expression that was equivalent to "Don't ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... middling turbot, clean it very well, cut off the head, tail, and fins. Make a forcemeat thus; take a large eel, boil it tender, then take off the flesh; put the bones of the turbot and eel into the water the eel was boiled in, with a faggot of herbs, whole pepper, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... that of all other animals in complexity of organization and fulness of development, is, at one early period, only 'a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty distinguishable into three parts, while a little tail-like prolongation towards the hinder parts, and which had been the first to appear, is the only representation of a spinal marrow. Now, in this state, it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish, thus assuming in transitu the form that in the fish is permanent. ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... be able to talk a little "pigeon English," to obtain the Chinese position left vacant by Mr. BURLINGAME. Most of these gentlemen can point the Moral of the matter—the sixty thousand dollars a year—but whether any of them would adorn the Tail, is ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... associate, nevertheless, by I know not what natural conjunction. Socrates says, that some god tried to mix in one mass and to confound pain and pleasure, but not being able to do it; he bethought him at least to couple them by the tail. Metrodorus said, that in sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure. I know not whether or no he intended anything else by that saying; but for my part, I am of opinion that there is design, consent, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... which nature had so differenced were equalized by art through the lavish provision of sleigh-bells, without some strands of which no team in Spain is properly equipped. Besides, as to his size the mule was quite as large as the horse, and as to his tail he was much more decorative. About two inches after this member left his body it was closely shaved for some six inches or more, and for that space it presented the effect of a rather large size of garden-hose; below, it swept his thighs in a lordly switch. ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... sot down, and began to pick his teeth with his tail, afther the heavy breakquest he made that mornin' (for he ate a whole village, let alone a horse) and he got dhrowsy at last, and fell asleep; but before he wint to sleep, he wound himself all round about the three, all as one ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... laid down beside him; but when all was quiet Wiley rose up silently and tiptoed about the camp. He strapped on his pistol and picked up his gun, but as he was groping in the darkness for his canteen Heine trotted up and flapped his ears. It was his sign of friendship, like wagging his tail, and Wiley patted him quietly; but when he was gone, he lifted the canteen and slung it over his shoulder. In the land where he was going there were more dangers than one, but lack of water was the greatest. He stepped ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... But a tail-race is a long race and a hundred yards' start is a serious handicap in a quarter of a mile. Down the sloping trail the bronchos were running savagely, their noses close to earth, their feet on the hard ground like the roar of a kettledrum, ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... coolie bearing a plethoric basket, lashed with a stout rope, but bulging in all directions. Little Willie sniffed once at the basket and stiffened. "Good dog," said Philip; "is that opium you have found?" The hound's tail wagged furiously, and he scratched at the basket in a paroxysm of excitement. The coolie dropped it and ran away. The amah waxed voluble and attacked Little Willie with the family umbrella. The hound grew more and more enthusiastic for the quest. Philip issued the fiat, "Open that basket, it contains ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... that it much resembles the market place of a small town. The melodious sounds thence issuing, continually draw tears from the eyes of the Waisters; reminding them of their old paternal pig-pens and potato-patches. They are the tag-rag and bob-tail of the crew; and he who is good for nothing else is good ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... brown Waxwing resembles the common Cedar Waxwing but is larger (length 8 inches), has a black throat, much white and yellow on the wing and a yellow tip to tail. Their nests are made of rootlets, grass and moss, and situated in trees usually at a low elevation. The eggs resemble those of the Cedar-bird, but are larger and the marking more blotchy with indistinct edges; dull bluish blotched with blackish brown; size .95 ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... fall. The mass he denounced as the greatest and most horrible abomination, inasmuch as it was 'downright destructive of the first article,' and as the chiefest of Papal idolatries; moreover, this dragon's tail had begotten many other kinds of vermin and abominations of idolatry. With regard to the Papacy itself, the Augsburg Confession had been content to condemn it by silence, not having taken any notice of it in its articles on the essence and nature of the Christian Church. Luther ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Miss Lady," the Stray pleaded, as he ran along beside me, trying to keep up with my long steps. "I've got me a dog now to keep off turkles from me and you." And the slinking brindle bunch of ears and tail and very little else, at our heels, regarded me with the same brave entreaty. He and the Stray, indeed, presented a picture of chivalrous attention as ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and the fruit lies soft in its sheath; It hardens and is of good quality; There is no wolf's-tail grass nor darnel. We remove the insects that eat the heart and the leaf, And those that eat the roots and the joints, So that they shall not hurt the young plants of our fields. May the spirit, the Father of Husbandry[1], Lay hold of them, and put ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... "to ask you to do me a favor. As host I must positively have a black swallow-tail, and I have not got one; ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... drawing the ramshackle carryall in which Flint sat, toiled on with sweating haunches, switching his tail, impatient of the flies, and now and then shaking his head deprecatingly, as if in remonstrance against the fate which destined him to work so hard for the benefit of a lazy human being reclining ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... told him all of my secrets, And he kept them without fail, With never a sign that he knew them But a wag of his short, stump tail. Long years have passed since I heard them.— The sound of his gruff bow-wows, As he tagged my heels in the good old days When we ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... two or three weeks, but then he couldn't hold out any longer; he must and would go into that room, and so in he stole. There stood a great black horse tied up in a stall by himself, with a manger of red-hot coals at his head and a truss of hay at his tail. Then the lad thought this all wrong, so he changed them about, and put the hay at his ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... of such affected joviality, to hear Jerrold ask the butler for "some of the old, not the elder, port"? as he would in the sanctity of their own precincts; or retort on one who declared his liking for calf's-tail, "Extremes meet!" or (when the dish was calf's-head), "What egotism!" and yet again, "There's brotherly love for you!" Not at my Lord Carlisle's, as in Bouverie Street, would you hear Shirley Brooks ask the famous two-edged riddle which Dean Hole reminds us of—"Why is Lady Palmerston's ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... he procures the things that are suitable for him, the art of hunting. He is not also without virtue; since the 67 true nature of justice is to give to every one according to his merit, as the dog wags his tail to those who belong to the family, and to those who behave well to him, guards them, and keeps off strangers and evil doers, he is surely not without justice. Now if he has this virtue, since the virtues follow 68 each other in turn, he has the other virtues also, which the wise men ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... or moderate sized salmon, season it with salt, pepper, and powdered mace rubbed on it both outside and in. Skewer it with the tail turned round and put to the mouth. Lay it on a stand or trivet in a deep dish or pan, and stick it over with bits of butter rolled in flour. Put it into the oven, and baste it occasionally, while baking, with ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... gully, directly in front of him, lay a gigantic lizard—a reptile hideous, grotesque in its enormity. It was lying motionless, with its jaw, longer than his own body, flat on the ground as though it were sunning itself. Its tail, motionless also, wound out behind it. It was a reptile that by its size—it seemed to the Very Young Man at least thirty feet long—might have been a dinosaur reincarnated out of the dark, mysterious ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... with many very curious vases in the shape of animals with three feet. The mouth of the vessel is in the tail, which is upright and very thick, and is connected with the back by a handle. In these strata we also meet with an immense number of those round terra-cottas—the whorls—embellished with beautiful and ingenious symbolical ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... irregularities. A man might be a drunkard, a debauchee, and yet long escape the Proctor's animadversion; but no virtue could protect you if you walked on Christ-church meadow or the High Street with a band tied too low, or with no band at all; with a pig-tail, or with a green or scarlet coat.' Ib. p. 159. Only thirteen weeks' residence a year was required. Ib. p. 172. The degree was conferred without examination. Ib. p. 189. After taking it 'a man offers himself as a candidate for ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the Rocky Mountains and most of the short ranges of the Great Basin, where it is called the Fox-tail Pine, from its long dense leaf-tassels. On the Hot Creek, White Pine, and Golden Gate ranges it is quite abundant. About a foot or eighteen inches of the ends of the branches is densely packed with stiff outstanding needles which radiate ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... man, concerning the kid[FN63] that is in the firmament, tell me be it male or female?" for he was minded on this wise to cut short his words. The young Sayyid replied, "O Hajjaj, draw me aside its tail so I may inform thee thereanent."[FN64] "O young man, say me on what pasture best grow the horns of the camel?" "From leaves of stone." "O lack-wit! do stones bear leaves?" "O swollen of lips and little of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... steed saw the cow's tail wag, And eke the black cow-horn; He stamped, and stared, and away he ran, As ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... hopeless-looking cases, life may be prolonged. To insure the removal of the lymphatic vessels as well as the glands, it is best not to separate the breast at its axillary margin, but keep it attached by the tail of lymphatics surrounded by fat, which will lead up to the glands. Section of the great pectoral ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... neck and that was not a month after it had took the prize at our county fair. And, after I had took him atween my knees and talked to him about his responsibility to his Creator, he didn't wait two days till he cut off the colt's tail so as to make it bobbed like the British and it kicked and broke its leg on the cross bar. But I do believe he's got the making of a man in him after all. I think he must be like his father, though I never seed him. You see Mary ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... head darted in again, trying to circle the tyrannosaurus's head and complete the last and fatal coil, but the giant beast lunged, its massive jaws snapping, and the snake drew back. Suddenly its tail lashed out and circled the left legs of the tyrannosaurus. Astro could see the beast straining against the sudden pressure, at the same time alert for the swooping head of the snake. The pressure on the leg was too great, and the ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... very common racket. He meant a 'flash-tail,' or prostitute who goes about the streets at nights trying to pick up 'toffs.' When she manages to do this her accomplice the coshman (a man who carries a 'cosh' or life preserver) comes up, when she has signed to him that she has got the 'toff's' watch and chain, and quarrels ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... run along that stoop! He didna wait a second; he never touched me, or tried to. He cried out once, nearly dropped his lamp, and then turned tail and went as if the dell were after him. I'd told some of the miners what I meant to do, so they were waiting for him, and when he came along they saw how frightened he was. They had to support him; he was ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... stimulated with electricity, very definite and regular movements of certain muscles on the opposite side of the body. By careful exploration of these areas the principal muscular combinations—those for facial movements, neck movements, movements of the arm, trunk, legs, tail, etc.—have been very precisely ascertained. It was concluded from these facts that these areas were respectively the centres for the discharge of the nervous impulses running in each case to the muscles which were moved. The evidence recently forthcoming, however, is leading investigators to ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... stated, they wore long-legged boots with very broad tops coming above the knee, silver-furred seal-skin breeches, and a jacket of white hare-skin (the polar hare) edged with the down of the eider-duck. These jackets had at least one very peculiar feature: that was nothing less than a tail about four inches broad, and reaching within a foot of the ground. I have no doubt they were in style: still they did look a little singular, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... judgment in the operations of intellect can hinder faults, but not produce excellence. Prior is never low, nor very often sublime. It is said by Longinus of Euripides, that he forces himself sometimes into grandeur by violence of effort, as the lion kindles his fury by the lashes of his own tail. Whatever Prior obtains above mediocrity seems the effort of struggle and of toil. He has many vigorous, but few happy lines; he has everything by purchase, and nothing by gift; he had no NIGHTLY VISITATIONS of the Muse, no infusions of sentiment or felicities of fancy. His ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... part irritated him furtively. He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan, even the old taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve once more. The points at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy weapons. He eggs his German ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... shadowy figures moving around it, heaping boxes, barrels and other combustibles upon the flame. It was a bonfire, kindled to light the work of building a barricade at that point. Across the street a line of wagons had been placed; the tail of each one touching the front of another, the horses having been withdrawn. And then hundreds of busy figures were to be seen at work, tearing up the pavements of the street and heaping the materials under the wagons; and then shovels flew, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... flowering shrubs, and little ponds of gold and silver fish. These fishes attracted notice as being quite different from any with which we were acquainted. They were a small species, not more than three inches long, and generally smaller than that; but they were supplied with a double complement of tail, and had large protruding eyes like a King Charles spaniel, and pug noses like a fashionable bull pup. They were ludicrous little fellows, so curious withal, that at great trouble and care a few were brought home by one of our party; not all of ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... feel at once as if I had met with some good-luck; and there are a thousand other men in Memphis who feel the same, and still more the women you may be sure—but many a one has shed bitter tears on his account for all that.—But, by all the saints!—Talk of the wolf and you see his tail! Look, there he is!—Halt! Stop a minute, you men; it is worth while, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of a lifetime made him cautious. He slipped on to the bumper of a car and peered through. An automobile had struck the car, and stood there on two wheels. The tail lights were burning, but the headlights were out. Two men were stooping over some one who lay on the ground. Then the taller of the two started on a dog-trot along the train looking for an empty. He found one ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... actors. Before they begin to perform the actors go up to the temple, kneel, and beg the king to let them know which play they are to give. And the river-god picks one out and points to it with his head; or else he writes signs in the sand with his tail. The actors then at once begin ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... above, are blocked with snow. Their useless arches yawn, as we glide over or outside them, by paths which instinct in our horse and driver traces. As a fly may creep along a house-roof, slanting downwards we descend. One whisk from the swinged tail of an avalanche would hurl us, like a fly, into the ruin of the gaping gorge. But this season little snow has fallen on the higher hills; and what still lies there, is hard frozen. Therefore we have ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... loss which way to go, and wavers this way and that. His dog stands at his feet looking up at him, wagging a slow tail; deferentially offering no suggestion, but ready with advice if called upon. The young lady's thought is:—"Why can't he let that sweet dog settle it for him? He would find the way." Because she is sure of the sweetness of that collie, even at this distance. Ultimately the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... had to cut some ob it off arterward to git 'em away. We'se nebber been able to prise 'em clean open sence: dey look more like birds' claws dan han's, anyway, do' 'tain't likely yer ebber took notice on't. I was a-holdin' on to Challenger's tail, an' dar we all t'ree was in de middle ob de ribber. Wall, fus' de current carried us down a good piece, an' I t'ought it was all ober for dis nigger sho'; den de saddle-girth bust, an' dat seemed to gib Challenger some 'couragement, fur he drawed a long breff an' struck ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... still more solemnly and slowly, while all the Court listened in breathless attention, "and has she forgiven KANGAROO-TAIL SOUP?" ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... invalid stranger.' He seemed not only satisfied, but, for some unknown reason, delighted. He wagged the cropped stump of a gray tail, and writhed his whole body with a greeting that had an almost slavish air of charmed propitiation; and then, without a word on his side or on mine, he mounted the steps which led to the great crucifix, ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... times round him, scenting him again. Then, pressing her breast to the ground, tail uplifted, her eyes half-closed—she waited. The male threw himself towards her, seized her comb with his bill, clapping the ground with his heavy wings; and through his veins there coursed such a wonderful ecstasy, such invigorating joy, that he was dazzled, feeling nothing else save ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... up out of her elbow-chair like a top, and was upon Hodge, whom she held by the coat-tail, and brought him to ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... mind in one direction is a telescope for the objects on which it is pointed. But every other part of knowledge is to be pushed to the same extravagance, ere the soul attains her due sphericity. Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate,—and meantime it is only puss and her tail. How long before our ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Trivial, or Small. Insignificant means not signifying anything, and should be used only in contrast, expressed or implied, with something that is important for what it implies. The bear's tail may be insignificant to a naturalist tracing the animal's descent from an earlier species, but to the rest of us, not concerned with the matter, it ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... his peaceful picture with care; also the tail of his eye told him that his companion was listening. And his movements, every now and then, had in them something of the spasmodic movements of a chained wild beast. This lithe youth had certain resemblance to the puma. He seemed to burn with ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... near, he goes for a day to his intended place of sojourn, and cuts as many twigs, about 18 in. in length, as he intends hanging springes. There are two methods of hanging them—in one the twig is bent into the form of the figure six, the tail end running through a slit out in the upper part of the twig. The other method is to sharpen a twig at both ends, and insert the points into a grower or stem of underwood, thus forming a bow, of which the stem forms the string below the springe; and hanging from the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... did. With her father moonin' round in a kind of trance, and the yogi lookin' at her with eyes like live coals, and a snake that stood on its tail, and the other naygur going around with nothin' on but a diaper, I thought she needed somebody to look after her; and says I, 'Annie Crogan, you're the ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... hohl fish/ /n. obs./ The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked whole (not {parse}d) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Usage: primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... presence of mind, to elude her vigilance I watched her face and motions so well, that I took my opportunity, and passed through quick enough to save myself and escape her malice, though she pinched the end of my tail. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the animal, only to be thrown over its head. Young Ulysses was among those who offered to ride, but, like the others, he failed. Then, pulling off his coat, he got on the animal again. Putting his legs firmly around the mule's body and seizing it by the tail, Ulysses rode in triumph around the ring amid ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... marble. The effect was to give to the inhabitants of the Five Towns the impression that the dog had forgotten an essential part of its attire and was outraging decency. The ball of hair which had been allowed to grow on the dog's tail, and the circles of hair which ornamented its ankles, only served to intensify the impression of indecency. A pink ribbon round its neck completed the outrage. The animal had absolutely the air of a decked trollop. A chain ran ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... "I'm going to call this craft the Serpent. She's got a fair twist on her. Her head is pointed to port and her tail to starboard. It takes a mathematical deduction to figure ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... so tall as me, if not taller. He'd got one of them old white beaver hats on his head, and he wore a flowing white beard, so long as my plough-horse's tail, and he walked up and down, up and down over the stones, like a sailor walks up and down on the deck of a ship. I shouted to the chap, but he didn't take no more notice than the moon. Up and down he went; and then ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... now, and a moment later he came into sight on a moonlit part of the path. The children could see that it was a big, shaggy white dog, who wagged his tail in greeting as ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... farmer is said to have the following warning posted conspicuously on his premises: "If any man's or woman's cows or oxen gits in this here oats his or her tail will be cut off, as ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... in two shakes of a lamb's tail, papa," soothed Mrs. Daggett, to whom the above remark had come to signify not merely a statement of fact, but a gentle reprimand. "I know you like 'em good and hot; and cold buckwheat cakes certainly is ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... has edible, indeed we may say savory flesh, has retained its small place in civilization solely on account of its extraordinary beauty. For its size it is doubtless the most beautiful of animals, its plumage, especially the magnificent display of the tail, exceeding that of any other natural object. There are other birds of small size which vie with the peacock in the details of ornamentation. Those jewels among the feathered tribes, the humming-birds, have a more delicate beauty. The birds-of-paradise and the lyre-birds have a grace in the attitudes ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... in our direction," said Ayrault, "and at almost exactly our speed." While the sun shone full upon it they brought their camera into play, and again succeeded in photographing a heavenly body at close range. The nucleus or head was of course turned towards the sun; while the tail, which they could see faintly, preceded it, as the comet was receding towards the cold and dark depths of space. The head was only a few miles in diameter, for it was a small comet, and was composed of grains and masses of stone and meteoric iron. ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... face; it was full of a furtive wildness. She seemed to be keeping a watch to prevent herself from looking as if she were looking for some one. "Do you know," Mrs. March said to her husband as they jingled along homeward in the Christopher Street bob-tail car, "I thought she was in love with that detestable Mr. Beaton of yours at one time; and that he was amusing ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... woo the Muse to-day, Though line before I never wrote! "On what occasion?" do you say? Our Dick has got a long-tail'd coat!! ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... his bright eyes, and evidently ready to be off again at the first indication that his playmate had recovered her wind. Chattie was coming lazily over the lawn, stretching each leg behind her as she walked, tail arched, green eyes flaming in the sun, a ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... door, a dog. He had travelled a long way, he wath in very bad condition, he wath lame and pretty well blind. He went round as if he wath a theeking for a child he know'd; and then he comed to me, and thood on hith two fore-legth, weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith tail and died. ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... thither and shown into Witherspoon's private apartment—into the calico, bombazine, hardware and universal nick-nack holy of holies. The room was not fitted up for show, but for business. Its furniture consisted mainly of a roll-top desk, a stamp with its handle sticking up like the tail of an excited cat, a dingy carpet and several chairs of a shape so ungenial to the human form as to suggest that a hint at me desirability of a visitor's early withdrawal might have been incorporated in ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... downcast eyes, and without uttering a word. 16. Marie Antoinette of Austria, Queen of France, is conveyed in a cart to the place of execution, her hands tied behind her back, and with her back to the horse's tail. She mounted the scaffold quickly, amidst acclamations of the people, which excited only a smile of pity in her. She looked earnestly at the Tuilleries, and seemed to dwell upon the place where her children were; before she was fastened to the guillotine, ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... before her dizzy eyes, and planted ribboned darts in her quivering shoulders. Even Althea could not accuse them of aggressiveness or rudeness. They never put themselves forward; they were there already. They never twisted the tail of the British lion; they never squeezed the eagle; they were far too secure under his wings for that. The bird, indeed, had grown since Althea's youth, and could no longer be carried about as a hostile trophy. ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Bramble the Tadpole stand in his seat and cheer till he is hoarse, and till his grandmother pulleth him by the tail of his jacket. The hero Padger, perspiring very much in the face, but otherwise composed, takes the homage of his chief and the third arithmetic prize with becoming humility, and clears off the arena as fast as he ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... defiance and avoid monotony, as he progressed, while Ripton bobbed his head every time in assent, as it were, to his comrade's accuracy, and as a record for his profound humiliation. The dog they had with them gazed at the extraordinary performance with interrogating wags of the tail. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had got hard; therefore, 4. before the seed was sown, these ridges were split again by running twice in the middle of them, both times in the same furrow; 5. after which the ridges were harrowed; and, 6. where the ground was lumpy, run a spiked roller with a harrow at the tail of it, which was found very efficacious in breaking the clods and pulverizing the earth, and would have done it perfectly, if there had not been too much moisture remaining from the late rains. After this, harrowing and rolling were necessary, the wheat was sown with ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... is in the form of a serpent's tail, and the spout is the serpent's open mouth. The lid is a nautilus shell on which stands an eagle with raised wings. On one side ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... red pasteboard placard round its neck, with FIRST PREMIUM printed on it, and so she knew that it was the ghost of the very turkey they had had for dinner. It was perfectly awful when it put up its tail, and dropped its wings, and strutted just the way the grandfather said it used to do. It seemed to be in a wide pasture, like that back of the house, and the children had to cross it to get home, and they were ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells
... knight, apparently perceiving the Indian for the first time, dropped his encumbering sword and rushed at his rival with sudden vehemence and blood-curdling cries. The little Indian stared for a moment in blank amazement, then slipping off his blanket turned tail and ran, reaching the door long before his sophomore supporters could stop him. The knight meanwhile, left in full possession of the field, waited for a moment until the laughter and applause had died away into ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... fore-finger and thumb of my right hand in his gills. I got him on to land, my friends ran about in exstacy, and I think I never saw a finer trout than he proved to be—real Eden. We gave a shout of triumph, after which we cut him on the nose to kill him. From tail to snout he measured one foot four inches; but he was beautifully plump and thick-made. We now began to wonder what caused the blood on my hand, when on examination, we found a large night hook in his side, which no doubt I had touched, and had thus given him pain, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... said the Cat, yawning, and stretching herself against the fender, 'but it is rather a bore; I don't see the use of it.' She raised herself, and arranging her tail into a ring, and seating herself in the middle of it, with her fore paws in a straight line from her shoulders, at right angles to the hearth-rug, she looked pensively at the fire. 'It is very odd,' she went on, 'there is my poor Tom; he is gone. I saw him stretched out in the yard. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... uttered a sound like thunder, and, expanding a pair of wings, soared with me to an immense height through the air, and then alighted upon the roof of another palace, where he threw me from his back, and, by a violent blow with his tail upon my face, struck out my ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... me how I know this," said the Brahman, turning it all over slowly in his mind and trying to make head or tail of it. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... the count!" cried Pierre, making his pan crack like the blow of a beaver's tail when ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... Tolto," he said, taking over the controls himself again, "before our tail's going to drop ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... the badge I had acquired to the coat-tail of a local bank manager who, though on her side, had lately distinguished himself by a public denouncement of "Women's Rights," so savagely virulent and idiotically tyrannous in principle as to suggest that his household contained representatives of ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... so. The little group stood motionless, chilled with horror. The beast came thundering on, with lips of terror parted, nostrils wide and snorting, mane and tail flying in the wild air, hoofs striking fire from the rocks. A human being—a man—was lying close to his neck, and clinging fast: the face hidden by the tossing and streaming mane: a fearful ride! the mystery surrounding him, and the awful ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... between the Scotch Lion, Wallace, and the English Bulldogs, for eight hundred guineas a side, while the spectators are a-looking on in the most facetious manner. Here you see the lion has got his paws on one of the dogs whilst he is whisking out the eyes of another with his tail!" ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... was assisting a moribund ox to die. True we did not mean to kill him, for we owe many debts of gratitude to vultures; but, to my surprise, my native boy seemed greatly pleased. Lifting the big black tail he showed me the white soft feathers beneath, and by many signs appeared to indicate that these feathers were of great value. Then I looked again, and it was a marabou stork. My boy, who had been with marabou and egret poachers in the swamps and rice-fields ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... beyond the impishness of a naughty boy. But when, being promoted to mind the horses, and having a grudge against a certain "wise" mare named Keingala, because she stays out at graze longer than suits his laziness, he flays the unhappy beast alive in a broad strip from shoulder to tail, the thing goes beyond a joke. Also he is represented, throughout the saga, as invariably capping his pranks or crimes with one of the jeering enigmatic epigrams in which one finds considerable excuse for ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... He turned tail and hobbled off, as he spoke, and the boys raised "three groans for Jack Ketch," and then rushed away by the other entrance to their own dinners. The fact was, the porter had brought ill will upon himself, through his cross-grained temper. He had ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the tail St. Peter's cock on the church spire and whirled it about, so did the wind of words in Glaston rudely seize and flack hither and thither the spiritual reputation of Thomas Wingfold, curate. And all the time, the young man was wrestling, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... Gum.' . . . A variety of E. amygdalina growing in the south coast district of New South Wales, goes by the name of 'Ribbon Gum,' in allusion to the very thin, easily detachable, smooth bark. This is also E. radiata probably. A further New South Wales variety goes by the name of 'Cut-tail' in the Braidwood district. The author has been unable to ascertain the meaning of this absurd designation. These varieties are, several of them, quite different in leaves, bark, and timber, and there is no species better ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris |
