"Talon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... might as well have held a wildcat, or captured with his bare hands a wild eagle, strong of talon and beak. She tore and raged in a ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... second Chief Crown Governor, or Viceroy. He was not fettered with a Council of Advice, but he was more absurdly hampered with almost co-equals in the shape of assistants. The Seigneur de Courcelles was appointed Governor of the Colony, and Mon. De Talon, Intendant. De Tracy brought with him as settlers the then newly disbanded regiment of Carignan-Sallieres, which had returned from fighting, not for the Turks in Hungary, but against them. They had been extraordinarily successful. And France had acquired great influence ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... rise at the sight, Thronging the Ceil de Boeuf through, Courtiers as butterflies bright, Beauties that Fragonard drew, Talon-rouge, falbala, queue, Cardinal, Duke,—to a man, Eager to sigh or to sue,— ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... fearsome old woman, clawing at the meat with her bony, talon-like fingers in a highly offensive manner. "Tonbridge, hey, dearie?" she mumbled, stuffing the meat into her mouth until I wondered she did not choke to death outright. "'T is a goodish step from 'ere, dearie," she gasped, when at last she could speak, "a goodish ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... with pomp and sickening at the light, He stagger d wild on this delirious height; Forgot the plainest truths he learnt before, And barter'd moral for material power. From Calpe's rock to India's ardent skies, O'er shuddering earth his talon'd Eagle flies, To justice blind, and heedless where she drove, As when she bore the brandisht ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... whipped it from his robe flew at Kirby with a condor swoop, talon-hands outstretched, his wrinkled, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... pervaded the lower ranks of society in France. Crushed and impoverished by taxation—imposed by Mazarin, whose avarice impelled him to grind them down to the very dust—the people, as the Advocate-General Talon described it, had nothing left to them except their souls; and as those could not be sold by auction, they began to murmur. Patience had in vain been recommended to them by reports of brilliant victories gained by France; laurels, however, were not meat and ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... very well; the old Comte de la Rochefidele, yonder, couldn't do it better. I told them that if we only gave you a chance you would be a perfect talon rouge. I know something about men. Besides, you and I belong to the same camp. I am a ferocious democrat. By birth I am vieille roche; a good little bit of the history of France is the history of my family. Oh, you never heard of us, of course! Ce que c'est que la gloire! We are much ...
— The American • Henry James
... promise you, the ancient freedom come down, O happiness, upon the smallest city, and love alone bind the races together; and if ever the black talon of the tyrant is seen, all the races will bound up to drive out the bird ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... leaped frantically about the circle. A certain rude rhythm characterized his frenzy, and when all were under its sway, swinging their bodies in accord with his and venting their cries in unison, he sat bolt upright, with arm outstretched and long, talon-like finger extended. A low moaning, as of the dead, greeted this, and the people cowered with shaking knees as the dread finger passed them slowly by. For death went with it, and life remained with those who watched it go; and being rejected, ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... un de mes deux conducteurs, au marche qu'on appelle bathsar (bazar). J'y achetai deux longues robes blanches qui me descenoient jusqu'au talon, une toque accomplie (turban complet), une ceinture de toile, une braie (calecon) de futaine pour y mettre le bas de ma robe, deux petits sacs ou besaces, l'un pour mon usage, l'autre pour suspendre a la ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... with cries and exclamations from all. Quick as the others were, the old woman was at his side before them, snarling with rage. Her talon-like fingers sunk into his arm, and her gaze went darting about the room in a most convincing way. Some minutes passed before the old woman could be quieted. Then King explained his action. He swore ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... exhumed corpse galvanized into a horrid semblance of life might look as he did—with just such sunken cheeks and ashen lips and frozen eyes; with just such a collapsed and shuddering form; yet, withal, could not have shown that terrific look of utter, incurable despair! His fingers, talon-like in their horny paleness and rigidity, clutched his breast, as if to tear some mortal anguish thence, and his glassy eyes were fixed in unutterable reproach upon her face! Thrice he essayed to speak, but a gurgling noise ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... how Jurgen came through the trapdoor in the vestry-room; and how he saw and wondered over the creatures which inhabited this place. For to him after the Christmas services came all such devils as his fathers had foretold, and in not a hair or scale or talon did they differ from the worst that anybody had been able ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the east, called the Grand Port, was again divided by three fingers of rock projecting from the mainland, at right angles to the tongue that bore Fort St. Elmo. Each finger was armed with a strong talon—the Castle of La Sangle to the east, the Castle of St. Angelo in the middle, and Fort Ricasoli to the west. Between St. Angelo and La Sangle was the harbour where all the ships of war were shut up at night by an immense chain; and behind was il Borgo, the chief fortification in ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rough with many a wound Of beaks and claws, disclosing to their sight The glorious meed of high heroic might. For with insatiate vengeance he pursued, And never-ending hate, the feathery brood. 110 Unhappy they, confiding in the length Of horny beak, or talon's crooked strength, Who durst abide his rage; the blade descends, And from the panting trunk the pinion rends: Laid low in dust the pinion waves no more, The trunk disfigured stiffens in its gore. What hosts of heroes fell beneath his ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... expression of exaltation which mutely proclaimed: "A prophet is risen among us," but after it came swift doubt and foreboding. The eagle eyes, deep-set in the thin face, were clouded and hurt. Tho talon-like fingers clutched at their chair arms. Must he sit here constrained to silence, ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... are only strong as tigers are strong—just the strength of the talon and fang. I do not know. I was weak as water once; I ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... exclaimed Madame Talon, shaking the rough board door with all her meagre weight, "and I have walked eight kilometers to get a jupon, ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... the hands of the Muscovites. They withdrew, uttering piercing cries, but one hand, more firmly entwined in the hair, remained hanging and spurted forth blood. Thus an eagle, when it buries one talon in a hare, catches with the other at a tree, in order to hold back the beast; but the hare, pulling, splits the eagle in two; the right talon remains on the tree in the forest; the left, covered with blood, the beast bears away ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... once I stopped—staring at something which lay at the edge of one of these pools—a white claw—a hand whose fingers, talon-like, had sunk deep and embedded themselves in the turf. And, beyond this gleaming hand, was an arm, and beyond that again, something that bulked across my ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... strangely distorted talon and gripped my fingers. The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came forward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light of the opening of the hut and I saw with a quivering disgust ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... attainable by her harsh and pain-distorted features, Septimius perceived that she was in prayer. And so it proved by what followed, for the old woman turned to him with a grim tenderness on her face, and stretched out her hand to be taken in his own. He clasped the bony talon in both ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... companions in misery, had drifted ashore at lonely Vahitahi in the Paumotu Group, and the kindly-hearted people had gazed with pitying horror upon the dreadful beings that, muttering and gibbering to each other, lay in the bottom of the boat, and pointed with long talon-like fingers to their ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... Domingo-men, down to colliers and cock-boats, and from California into the very Bay of Calais. The French have taken but one ship from us, the Blandford, and that they have restored—but I don't like this drowsy civil lion; it will put out a talon and give us a cursed scratch before we are aware. Monsieur de seychelles, who grows into power, is labouring at their finances and marine: they have struck off their sous-fermiers, and by a reform in what they call the King's pleasures, have already saved 1,200,000 pounds sterling a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... yo sayn, Suky?" cried Jennet, whose quick ears had caught the words, "Tak care whot ye do to offend me, lass," she added, shaking her thin fingers, armed with talon-like claws, threateningly at her, "or ey'll ask my granddame, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... half-a-dozen pairs of talon-like hands clutched frantically at her skirts, the door behind her was quickly opened. She felt her arm seized firmly, and herself dragged swiftly within the shelter of ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the reverse is not used. This is a plate of the first and original Seal, which, by use, has been worn out. The one now in use is the second; it differs from the first that, by an accident, seven arrows were left out of the eagle's talon. ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... a modified US coat of arms in the center between the large blue initials V and I; the coat of arms shows an eagle holding an olive branch in one talon and three arrows in the other with a superimposed shield of vertical red and white ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... on their hinder feet, Paw'd them in blandishment, and wagg'd the tail. As, when from feast he rises, dogs around Their master fawn, accustom'd to receive The sop conciliatory from his hand, Around my people, so, those talon'd wolves And lions fawn'd. They, terrified, that troop Of savage monsters horrible beheld. 270 And now, before the Goddess' gates arrived, They heard the voice of Circe singing sweet Within, while, busied at the loom, she wove An ample web immortal, such a work Transparent, graceful, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... eagle that he could not stay on his back another minute, but must sleep awhile. Gorgo had promptly swooped to the ground, where the boy had dropped down on a moss tuft. Then Gorgo put a talon around him and soared into the ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... which may at all events be compared with the little we know of the Shakespearian Morris dance, seems to have been very violent exercise for the heels (talon). Arbeau mentions that it is bad for the gout. The reader will notice that there is a separate movement for each crotchet ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... to herself that phrase, "the hands of the successful cocotte," which somehow seemed oddly illuminating. Lady Clifford's hands had a meaning for her now. The soft cushioned palms spelled love of luxury, the stumpy, curving fingers and talon-like nails indicated acquisitive greed. She could see ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... direction of Nature. But that it is not natural to mankind to feed on flesh, we first of all demonstrate from the very shape and figure of the body. For a human body no ways resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk's bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But even from hence, that is, from the smoothness of the tongue, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... globe les traits de foudre.' Ce sont ici des haches de l'age neolithique ou de la pierre polie, dont la plupart appartiennent au type repandu en toute la terre. D'autres de ces celtes, dits epaules, parcequ'ils possedent un talon d'une forme particuliere, paraissent appartenir en propre a l'Indo-Chine et a la presqu'ile dekkhanique. Its fourniraient donc un premier indice, non negligeable, d'une communaute d'origine des populations primitives des deux ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... states,—was adopted June 20, 1782. The spread eagle signifies strength; the thirteen stars above his head, and the thirteen stripes on the shield on his breast, represent the thirteen original states; the olive branch, held in the eagle's right talon, shows that America seeks peace, while the bundle of arrows in his left talon shows that we are prepared for war. This seal is used in stamping agreements or treaties made by the United States with other nations, and also for other ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... decide the question by making the first move, the astute Tallyrand, in an attempt to force the hand of the foreign sovereigns, arranged for a group of about twenty young men from the Faubourg Saint-Germain to appear on horseback in Louis XV square, decked with white cockades, and led by Vicomte Talon, my former comrade in arms, from whom I have these details. They went towards the mansion in the rue Saint-Florentin occupied by the Emperor Alexander, shouting at the top of their voices "Long live King Louis XVIII! Long live the Bourbons! ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... personal hostility, for the reason that, though not "comme il faut," they accounted me their equal, and actually patronised me in a sort of good-humoured fashion. What in particular excited in me this feeling was their feet, their dirty nails and fingers, a particularly long talon on Operoff's obtrusive little finger, their red shirts, their dickeys, the chaff which they good-naturedly threw at one another, the dirty room, a habit which Zuchin had of continually snuffling and pressing a finger to his nose, and, above all, their manner of speaking—that is to say, their use ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... government of Athens, by seconding the climate, put into Demosthenes' head something that the air of Climart and La Grenouillere and the government of Cardinal de Richelieu did not put into the heads of Omer Talon and ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... fact that the ex-abbe Noel, one of Chauvelin's "advisers," came to Miles late on 18th December, and affected much concern at the prospect of the execution of Louis. He then suggested that Pitt should confer with a M. Talon, residing in Sloane Street, who had immense resources and stood well with all parties in France, in order to devise some means for saving the life of that monarch. When Miles asked Noel how Pitt was to assist in this laudable project, no answer was forthcoming. We must commend Noel's ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of the United States of America. Arms: Paleways of thirteen pieces, argent and gules, a chief, azure. The escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle, displayed proper, holding in his dexter talon an olive branch, and in his sinister a bundle of thirteen arrows,[62] all proper, and in his beak a scroll inscribed with this motto, E PLURIBUS UNUM (One out of many). Crest: Over the head of the eagle, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... hypoderm multiform. Conelets large, their scales tapering to a sharp point. Cones from 15 to 25 cm. long, reflexed, ovate, slightly oblique, persistent; apophyses chocolate-brown, very prominent, the curved umbo confluent with the apophysis and with it forming a very large talon-like armature with a sharp apex and a broad thick base; seed-wing very thick, with a short membranous margin, the dorsal surface of the nut uniform ...
— The Genus Pinus • George Russell Shaw
... a horde of unseen little devils were shooting red-hot arrows into his brain. He did not sense the fact of human presence; nor that the divan had been changed into a bed and the four lamps lighted, and that wrinkled, brown hands with talon-like fingers were performing a miracle of wilderness surgery upon him. He did not see the age-old face of Nepapinas—"The Wandering Bolt of Lightning"—as the bent and tottering Cree called upon all his eighty years of experience to bring him back to life. And he did not see Bateese, stolid-faced, ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... hundred steps in all, and at the end the light he had seen completely vanished, leaving him in the most profound darkness. Confused and startled, he stretched out his hands instinctively as a blind man might do, and thus came in contact with something sharp, pointed, and icy cold like the frozen talon of a dead bird. Shuddering at the touch, he recoiled,—and was about to try and grope his way up the stairs again, when the light once more appeared, this time casting a thin, slanting, azure blaze through the dense shadows,—and ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... coins is the bundle of arrows held in one talon or the other of the eagle. On a few of our earlier coins the number of these arrows was four or six, or even more; but commonly there have been three, and now they are uniformly of that number. They ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... the unpopular tax, or rachat, as it was termed, was postponed, and the creation of many new maitres de requetes provided a certain amount of money. At the lit de justice, Omer Talon, the intrepid avocat-general, delivered an eloquent oration on the condition of the French peasants. "For ten years, sire," he said, "the country has been ruined, the peasants reduced to sleep upon straw, their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed Incessantly—sometimes on high concealing 210 Its lessening orbs, sometimes as if it failed, Drooped through the air; and still it shrieked and wailed, And casting back its eager head, with beak And talon unremittingly assailed The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek 215 Upon his enemy's heart a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... gleams in his bloodshot eyes! Madness gives new strength to his nerveless limbs as he rises and bends over his companion. As he slowly uplifts his arm its shrunken muscles swell beneath the skin as though they would burst it, his talon- like fingers close with a grip of steel round the haft of the upraised knife, Sibylla closes her eyes in patient expectancy of the stroke, the blade quivers and flashes in the sunlight, and Captain Blyth, with ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... indissoluble portion of solar and stellar systems; no thought, word or act of man but has sprung withal out of all men, and works sooner or later, recognizably or irrecognizably, on all men! It is all a Tree: circulation of sap and influences, mutual communication of every minutest leaf with the lowest talon of a root, with every other greatest and minutest portion of the whole. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the Kingdoms of Hela and Death, and whose boughs ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... bark four times more as the things closed in. Then the gun was knocked from the gangster's grip by a groping talon-armed hand. Mapes tried to batter back his assailants with his naked fists, but the flailing arms of the horde knocked him from his feet. His limp body was promptly tramped into unconsciousness by the milling feet of ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... In the neighboring grove of pine-trees, Waiting for the crows and blackbirds, Waiting for the jays and ravens. Soon they came with caw and clamor, Rush of wings and cry of voices, To their work of devastation, Settling down upon the cornfields, Delving deep with beak and talon, For the body of Mondamin. And with all their craft and cunning, All their skill in wiles of warfare, They perceived no danger near them, Till their claws became entangled, Till they found themselves imprisoned In the snares of Hiawatha. From his place of ambush came he, Striding terrible ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... forcible, Hermotimus! with this theory of The Whole by the Part. Yet, methinks, I heard you but now propound the contrary. But tell me; would Pheidias when he saw the lion's talon have known that it was a lion's, if he had never seen the animal? Surely, the cause of his recognising the part was his knowledge of the whole. There is a way of choosing one's philosophy even less troublesome than yours. Put the names of all the philosophers into an urn. Then call a little ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... Zeus! in the Gasteres. Wild birds were they, strong of talon, clanging of wing, and clamorous of gullet. Wild birds, O Zeus! wild birds; now cropping the tender grass by the river of Adonis, and breaking the nascent reed at the root, and depasturing the sweet nymphaea; now again picking up serpents and other creeping ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... he was, the lynx recovered in time to meet the attack with deadly counter-stroke of bared claws, parrying like a skilled boxer. In this forearm work the catamount, lighter of paw and talon, suffered the more; and being quick to perceive his adversary's advantage, he sought to force a close grapple. This the lynx at first avoided, rending and punishing frightfully as he gave ground; while the solemn height of old Ringwaak was shocked by a clamour of spitting and raucous yowling ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... covered with hair beneath; the fur too is longer and the colour browner on the back; the tail is more rufous, and the tip blacker; the skull is larger and broader; the nasal portion more elongate and less concave above, and the hind upper molar has a distinct talon, or rudimentary second transverse ridge, in young specimens, traces of which may be detected in the form ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... to reach forth and seize this presumptuous mortal that dared question its right to the flesh it craved; and then the man sprang to the opposite side of the deck. The banth toppled sideways at the same instant that it attempted to spring; a raking talon passed close to Gahan's head at the moment that his sword lunged through the savage heart, and as the warrior wrenched his blade from the carcass it slipped silently over ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Rouille, Roux-Carbonel, Saint-Beuve, de Saint-Germain, General Comte de Saint-Priest, Salmon (Meuse), Marquis Sauvaire-Barthelemy, de Serre, Comte de Sesmaisons, Simonot, de Staplande, de Surville, Marquis de Talhouet, Talon, Tamisier, Thuriot de la Rosiere, de Tinguy, Comte de Tocqueville, de la Tourette, Comte de Treveneue, Mortimer-Ternaux, de Vatimesnil, Baron de Vandoeuvre, Vernhette (Herault), Vernhette (Aveyron), Vezin, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... closed, talon-like, on the manila envelope. He flashed the unbroken red seal at the officer, with a little laugh of triumph. That laugh seemed to madden MacNutt, as he made a second ineffectual effort to break into that tense and ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... physician, who is said to rule both their Majesties, and I suppose is sold to France, for that is the predominant interest now at Copenhagen. The Czarina has whispered her disapprobation, and if she has a talon left, when she has done with the Ottomans, may chance to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the fly side and extends to the hoist side; a brown and white American bald eagle flying toward the hoist side is carrying two traditional Samoan symbols of authority, a war club known as a "Fa'alaufa'i" (upper; left talon), and a coconut fiber fly whisk known as a "Fue" (lower; right talon); the combination of symbols broadly mimics that seen on the US Great Seal and reflects the relationship between the United States ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... beak and talon, until the nest was ready. And as the first tints of dawn began to streak the east, the Phoenix rose once, high into the air, gazing with wistful eyes over the world which he had loved; then, slowly sinking to the palm, he poised his gorgeous body upon the fragrant nest. With wings spread ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... them to Verrinder. He nodded solemnly, took the book from her hand, closed it, and held it before her. She put the slim tips of her young fingers near the talon of his old thumb and echoed in a timid, silvern voice the broken phrases he spoke in a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... woman bent forward and, as the log drifted slowly past, a talon-like hand shot out and fastened upon the bit of striped cloth, and the next moment the two were tugging and hauling in their efforts to drag the limp body clear ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... hearts that crack within the fire Where smoulder their dead despots; and of those,— Mothers,—that, with all prophetic pity, fling Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart Made for all noble motion: and I saw That equal baseness lived in sleeker times With smoother men: the old leaven leavened all: Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, No woman named: therefore I set my face Against all men, and lived ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Merciless were they in their ravages on our borders, and ghastly and torturing their fell revenge. But it is one thing to grapple with a foe fierce and strong, and another to smite when his power is gone, fang and talon. And when I see before me the faded king of a great race, and the last band of doomed heroes, too few and too feeble to make head against my arms,—when the land is already my own, and the sword is that of the deathsman, not of the warrior,—verily, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his teeth. In the momentary respite afforded by the powerful stimulant, he lifted his yellow, claw-like hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gathered upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the painter saw, on one bony, talon-like finger, the gleaming ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... visited by Messrs. Dollier de Casson and de Galinee, missionaries of St. Sulpice, drawn by the same M. de Galinee. (See M. Talon's letter 10th November, 1670)." L. Huron: "Michigan or Fresh-Water Sea of the Hurons." (These lakes were erroneously supposed to be but one). N. End: "Bay of the Pottawatamies." Islands near Mackinac: "I entered this ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... Trojan host, of life Bereaving numerous of their warriors bold. He said, and with his arms leap'd to the ground. On the other side, Patroclus at that sight Sprang from his chariot. As two vultures clash 520 Bow-beak'd, crook-talon'd, on some lofty rock Clamoring both, so they together rush'd With clamors loud; whom when the son observed Of wily Saturn, with compassion moved His sister and his spouse he thus bespake. 525 Alas, he falls! my most beloved ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... minister Colbert had labored in earnest to build up a new France in the west. For years past, ship-loads of emigrants had landed every summer on the strand beneath the rock. All was life and action, and the air was full of promise. The royal agent Talon had written to his master: "This part of the French monarchy is destined to a grand future. All that I see around me points to it; and the colonies of foreign nations, so long settled on the seaboard, are trembling with ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... this word, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder with the weight of an eagle's talon, and he heard ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... he fell had closed his fingers on a jagged little stone. Sinclair saw the blow coming, swerved from it, and straightway went mad. The brown man became a helpless bulk; the knee of Sinclair was planted on his shoulders, the talon fingers of Sinclair ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... is angry. There is something stupid, absurd, in the hard, talon-like eyes watching so fiercely and so confidently in the doorway, sure, unmitigated. ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... light. Beyond and around me, as I stood in the midst of them, the phantom troop dropped into formless masses, while the monsters advanced. They came close to me; and I alone, of all the myriads around, changed not at their approach. Each laid a talon on my shoulder—each raised a veil which was one hideous net-work of twining worms. I saw through the ghastly corruption of their faces the look that told me who they were—the monstrous iniquities incarnate in monstrous forms; ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... Springfield Republican is due. Gradually the hum in front of the boxes quiets, and two loud voices have risen behind the screen. Then out walks great Martin Culpepper, white of face, with pent-up fury. His left hand is clutched like a talon in the shoulder of the stranger, whom Martin is holding before him. "Gentlemen, your attention," demands Culpepper. The stranger swallows his Adam's apple as if to speak; Martin turns to him ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... in 1672 that Talon, the Superintendent of "La Nouvelle France," having heard from the Indians of the existence of a great river, sent out an expedition to discover it under Father Marquette, who had great influence over the Indian tribes. Crossing the great lakes, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Falconry was the favourite pastime of the kings and nobles of the time; indeed, everybody found it very exciting to watch the long struggle in the air between the trained falcon and its prey, as each bird tried every skill of wing and talon that it knew. The falconer was to drink very sparingly in the king's hall, for fear the falcons might suffer; and his lodging was to be in the king's barn, not in the king's hall, lest the smoke from the great fire-place should ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... brown bird had been gashed in the breast by a sharp talon. Jean was much concerned over the wound, even though it did not reach any vital organ. She was afraid of septic poisoning, she told the bird; but added comfortingly: "There—you needn't worry one minute over that. I'm ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... talon-like fingers, with their sharp, grimy nails, closed and unclosed like those of feline creatures when ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... been fishing up the river and had caught a tremendous eel. An eel can hold out to wriggle a very long time. He has no vitals. Even with talon-tipped claws he is slippery and more than a clawful; so the old hawk took a short cut home across the railroad-track and the corner of the woods ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... which shed the most glory on the history of Canada; the age of Louis XIV, so marvellous in the number of great men which it gave to France, lavished them also upon her daughter of the new continent—Brebeuf and Lalemant, de Maisonneuve, Dollard, Laval, Talon, de la Salle, Frontenac, d'Iberville, de Maricourt, ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... scarecrow suddenly upreared itself in the stern-sheets and, uttering queer, gibbering sounds the while, scrambled forward into the eyes of the boat, with movements that somehow were equally suggestive of the very opposite qualities of agility and exhaustion, and held out its lean, talon-like hands for the rope which I was waiting to heave. As we drifted alongside the boat I hove the rope's-end; the man caught it, and collapsing, rather than stooping, with it, he made it fast to the ring-bolt in the stem. Then, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... queer girl. She had made no objection to replacing the broken dishes, yet a present of food aroused her to violent anger. Her temper was positively something terrible in so small a person and remembering her story of how Old Swallowtail had clenched his talon-like fingers and twisted Ingua's arm till she screamed with pain, Mary Louise could well believe the statement that the child was ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... ungainly, the sleeves of his tunic far above the bony wrist, as though his tailor in cutting the garment had repudiated as fantastic the evidence of his measurements. Yet, when one might have expected to find hands of a talon-like knottiness, to correspond with the sparse rugosity of his person, one found to one's astonishment the most delicately shaped hands in the world, with long, sensitive, nervous fingers, like those of the thousands of artists who have lived and died without being ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... which the study of Natural History swarms, and especially that branch of it which unfolds the character and habits, physical, moral, and intellectual, of those most interesting and admirable creatures—Birds. It is familiar not only with the shape and colour of beak, bill, claw, talon, and plume, but with the purposes for which they are designed, and with the instincts which guide their use in the beautiful economy of all-gracious Nature. We remember the time when the very word Ornithology would have required interpretation in mixed company; when a naturalist was looked on ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... stepped forth of the underwood that clothed the steep, dragging a thing of rags and tatters, a wretched creature, bent and wrinkled, that mopped and mowed with toothless chaps and clutched a misshapen bundle in yellow, talon-like fingers, and these yellow fingers were splotched horribly with dark stains even as were the rags that covered her. She whined and whimpered querulously, mouthing inarticulate plaints and prayers as Roger haled her along, with Cnut and Walkyn, fierce and ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... some years, as a result of the new policy adopted by the French government. The Mohawks, the most daring and dangerous nation of the Iroquois confederacy, were humbled by Tracy in 1667, and forced to sue for peace. Under the influence of Talon, the ablest intendant who ever administered Canadian affairs, the country enjoyed a moderate degree of prosperity, although trade continued entirely dependent on the orders and regulations of the King and ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... dreaming of a great over-sea Empire. The first step was to take over from the trading Company the direct government of the colony. The next was to get the right men to do the work in New France. An excellent start was made when, in 1665, Jean Talon was sent out to Canada as Intendant. He had a genius for organization. Though in rank below the Governor he, with the title of Intendant, did the real work of ruling; the Governor discharged its ceremonial functions. Talon had a policy. ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... however, was judicial rather than legislative; made up of pedantic and aristocratic lawyers, who could be troublesome. We get some idea of the humiliation of this assembly of lawyers and nobles from the speech of Omer Talon,—the greatest lawyer of the realm,—when called upon to express the sentiments of his illustrious body to the King, at a "bed of justice": "Happy should we be, most gracious sovereign, if we could ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... "She roves: exhorts the dogs, and drives such game "As threaten not with danger; fearful hares, "High-antler'd stags, and rapid-flying deer. "Fierce boars she shuns, and shuns the robber-wolf, "Strong-talon'd bears, and lions slaughter-gorg'd. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... back by this remark that, presently, he trumped his partner's ace, and was rewarded by a talon-like look from the Tall Master's eye; but it was immediately followed by one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... upon this place of skulls, The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo![hb] How in an hour the Power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!— In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew,[1.B.] Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,[hc] Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through; Ambition's life and labours all were vain— He wears the shattered links of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... A raking talon caught Tarzan on the side, inflicting a long, deep wound and then the ape-man was on Numa's back and the blade was sinking again and again into the savage side. Nor was the man-thing either longer fleeing, ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... parish. The press groaned under large volumes of theological, metaphysical, and psychological disquisition, the very thought of which is now "a weariness to the flesh;" in rapid succession pamphlet encountered pamphlet, horned, beaked, and sharp of talon, grappling with each other in mid-air, like Milton's angels. That loud controversy, the sound whereof went over Christendom, awakening responses from beyond the Atlantic, has now died away; its ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... hour is coming—seize the hour! Divide the spoil, the prey devour! Howl o'er the dead and dying, cry All ye that raven earth and sky! With beak and talon rend the prey, Track carnage on her gory way, To chide o'er many a gleamy bone The moon, or with the wind to moan! Benumb'd with cold, by torture wrung, To winter leave the famine-clung, O thou for whom they toil and bleed, Deserted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... against the Turks, was also sent as a proof of the intention of the King to defend his long-neglected colony. In a few weeks, more than two thousand persons, soldiers and settlers, had come to Canada. Among {153} the number were M. de Courcelles, the first governor, and M. Talon, the first intendant, under the new regime. Both were fond of state and ceremony, and the French taste of the Canadians was now gratified by a plentiful display of gold lace, ribbons, wigs, ornamented swords, and slouched hats. Probably ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... fierce cruelty his look bespake! In act how bitter did he seem, with wings Buoyant outstretch'd and feet of nimblest tread! His shoulder proudly eminent and sharp Was with a sinner charg'd; by either haunch He held him, the foot's sinew griping fast. "Ye of our bridge!" he cried, "keen-talon'd fiends! Lo! one of Santa Zita's elders! Him Whelm ye beneath, while I return for more. That land hath store of such. All men are there, Except Bonturo, barterers: of 'no' For lucre there an 'aye' is quickly made." Him dashing down, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... soothed her, and by his magic arts he changed her into a nut, which he took up in one talon, while the casket he carried with the other, and so set off to ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... foreign nations so long settled on the sea board," wrote the Intendant Talon in 1671, "are trembling with fright in view of what your Majesty has accomplished here in the last seven years." In fact, the thrifty and unadventurous farmers along the Atlantic were as yet only too indifferent to the importance of Canada; still less ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... of the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and descended upon the arm of Phoebus with the grip of an eagle's talon; at the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... children, Deucalion; but these priests were unarmed, according to the rubric, which ordains that they shall intrust themselves completely to the guardianship of the High Gods during the hours of sacrifice. The great bird swooped down, settling on the wood pyre, and attacked the sacrifice with beak and talon. My poor superior here, still strong in his faith, called loudly on our Lord the Sun to lend power to his arm, and sprang up on the altar with naught but his teeth and his bare arms for weapons. It may be that he expected a miracle—he has not spoke since, poor soul, in explanation—but ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... was that a hand, withered and lean with age, passed beneath her eyes, and, swiftly as the snatch of an eagle's talon, seized the bag and rent it from her grasp. She sprang up with a cry of dismay, and well might she be dismayed, for there, running from her with incredible speed, was Nam, the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... talon-hand, hardened and misshapen by manual labor, but if ugly, then ugly with the majesty of the twisted, tempest- defying oak, over hers. "Believe me, Margaret, you love me. You have loved me all ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... considerable landed estate, much embarrassed by debt. The Marquis de la Fare, a friend of the family, soon after sought for him an advantageous marriage to strengthen his position and increase his prospects of promotion; and he accordingly espoused Mademoiselle Angelique Louise Talon du Boulay,—a union which brought him influential alliances and some property. Madame de Montcalm bore him ten children, of whom only two sons and four daughters were living in 1752. "May God preserve them all," he writes in his autobiography, "and make them prosper for this ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... able to resist, not only the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations, but the still more powerful league of New England and the other English Colonies. There, also, were seen the sharp intellectual face of Laval, its first bishop, who organized the church and education in the colony; and of Talon, wisest of Intendants, who devoted himself to the improvement of agriculture, the increase of trade, and the well being of all the King's subjects in New France. And one more portrait was there, worthy to rank among the statesmen and rulers of New France—the pale, calm, intellectual ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... fire us?" he shouted, his eyes inflamed and his dirty fingers crisping to a talon. "You go home and tell Puma what you say to us. Then you learn something maybe, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... dream, moving slowly, right hand outstretched like a talon, with the fingers drawn downward, he advanced on the second mate with the evident intention of thrusting his fingers into that cleft and of clawing and tearing at the brain-life beneath that pulsed under the ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... and in totters Pantaloon. You know him for Pantaloon, as you knew him as Pantaloon for Charon, for all he's Mr. Talon with his tie wig, his spectacles, ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... all the employees, the functionaries of every rank and class, the deputies and senators, whom the new Government had brought from the provinces; and, in particular, of the voracious hawks who had swooped down upon Rome, the Pradas, the men of prey from all parts of the kingdom, who with beak and talon devoured both people and aristocracy. For whom, then, had one laboured? For whom had those gigantic works of new Rome been undertaken? A shudder of fear sped by, a crack as of doom was heard, arousing pitiful disquietude in every fraternal heart. Yes, a threat ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the Sampo between them. But she scorned his offer, and the eagle made a swoop downward to pick up the Sampo in its talons. But Lemminkainen raised his sword, and no sooner had the eagle grasped the Sampo than he brought down his sword with such force that every talon was cut off ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... one of his mother's pupils at the fashionable Bath boarding-school, the living image of Scott's Fenella, the smallest woman that I have ever seen, with fairy feet and tiny hands, the extraordinary power of which was like that of a steel talon. On one occasion, when Horace Twiss happened to mention that his bright little spark of a wife sat working in his library by him, while he was engaged with his law or business papers, my mother suggested that her conversation must disturb him. "Oh, she doesn't ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Enchanters dire and goblins could alone this arduous task perform; to rout the knight of Mancha, foul defeat, and war, even such as ne'er was known before. Then hear, O del Toboso! hear my vows, that thus in anguish of my soul I urge, midst frogs, Gridalbin, Hecaton, Kai, Talon, and the Rove! [for such the names and definitions of their qualities, their separate powers.] For Merlin plumed their airy flight, and then in watery moonbeam dyed his rod eccentric. At the touch ten thousand frogs, strange metamorphosed, croaked even thus: And here they come, on high behest, to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe |
