"Scratching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Francisco was totally destroyed by fire. The conflagration was caused by the friction of a pig scratching itself against an angle of a wooden building. More than one hundred thousand persons perished, and the loss of property is estimated by Kobo-Dogarque at one and a half million drusoes. On more than two-thirds ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... snatched off the encircling linen, when out struggled—scratching, grinning, and screaming—what the doctor in his fright fully believed to be a demon, but what Tito recognised as Vaiano's monkey, made more formidable by an artificial blackness, such as might have come from a hasty rubbing up ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... voice continued its drowsy tale. The afternoon sun poured in at the window until it made the little wainscoted parlour like an oven, but still for me it only lit up one pair of eyes. The voices sounded more and more like those of a dream; the scratching of pens and shuffling of feet were, to my ears, as distant murmurs of the sea, until the coroner's ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Monsieur Funck-Brentano does not tell the sequel of the story of Jeanne de la Motte, nee de Saint-Remy, and calling herself de Valois. He leaves this wicked woman at the moment when (June 21, 1786) she has been publicly flogged and branded, struggling, scratching, and biting like a wild cat. Her husband, at about the same time, was in Edinburgh, and had just escaped from being kidnapped by the French police. In another work Monsieur Funck-Brentano criticises, with ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... the occasion of my visit to McPherson on the 30th of May, while standing with a group of officers, among whom were Generals McPherson, Logan, Barry, and Colonel Taylor, my former chief of artillery, a Minie-ball passed through Logan's coat-sleeve, scratching the skin, and struck Colonel Taylor square in the breast; luckily he had in his pocket a famous memorandum-book, in which he kept a sort of diary, about which we used to joke him a good deal; its thickness ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... calm, starry nights. Maloney's selfish prayer had been favourably received. Nothing came to disturb or perplex. There was not even the prowling of night animals to vex the rest of Mrs. Maloney; for in previous camps it had often been her peculiar affliction that she heard the porcupines scratching against the canvas, or the squirrels dropping fir-cones in the early morning with a sound of miniature thunder upon the roof of her tent. But on this island there was not even a squirrel or a mouse. I think ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and on, while for the life of me I could not find a word to say. I managed a question or so every five minutes, to which they offered the briefest replies; and then I sat vacantly, twirling my pen, and scratching ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... see them feeding along quietly, with their noses on the ground, and sometimes they look up, and now one of them is scratching her ear with her hind foot. It is the prettiest thing I ever saw. Now they are going on again, slowly. You are not going to try and kill them, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... a nicety that he could propel himself against a bed of nails and broken glass at just the right velocity to be able to stop himself without so much as scratching his glove. And he could see that there was no ragged stuff on the spot he had selected. The slanting rays of the sun would have made them stand out ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... he slept or no, but suddenly sunlight was in the room, the bath-water was running, the canary was singing and Hamlet was scratching upon his door. He jumped out of bed and let the dog in. Then he heard Rose's voice from the ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... exactly with those of a primary lesion. There had also been some enlargement of the femoral glands. He had never thought of the sore in this connection, but remembered most distinctly that it followed a flea-bite in an omnibus, and had been caused, as he supposed, by his scratching the place, though he could not understand why it lasted so long. Mr. Hutchinson concludes that all the evidence tends to show that the disease had probably been communicated from the blood of an infected person through the bite of the insect. It thus appears that even the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... fortune? Whoy, huttlety-tut!" roared the burly smith, turning ponderously upon Nick, who was dodging around him like a boy at tag around a tree. "Whoy, lad," said he, scratching his puzzled head with his great, grimy fingers, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... to perceive," said the muleteer, scratching his head and looking very sorrowful, "that for your sins you were turned into a mule, and that for mine, I had the misfortune to purchase you. I always thought there was something strange about ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... porter, scratching his nose, "it's very odd they should have let him lodgings in the Rue de Rivoli, and never come here to ask about him. Very odd, that. At any rate, he can't carry off his furniture without paying. If only the new tenant don't come moving ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... had fallen asleep, was awakened suddenly by the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... rays of the taper borne through the silent files of graves, sparkles and gleams with a light and glory not of this world. There are other graves in which martyrs have lain, where no such sign as this appears, but in its place the rude scratching of a palm-branch upon the rock or the plaster. It was the sign of victory, and he who lay within had conquered. The great rudeness in the drawing of the palm, often as if, while the mortar was still wet, the mason had made the lines upon it with his trowel, is a striking ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... says he, scratching his shaven chin, "since you've got your breakfus' surely, if you're minded t' step along t' my cottage down t' lane, I can give ye a jug of good ale to wash it down." Now as he spoke thus, seeing the sturdy manliness of him I dropped my ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... place in his magnetic pole[658] (hear) and there might, for aught he knew, be a successful attempt to reach his pole of rotation, he thought he could not answer for the preservation of the precession in its present state. (Here the hon. luminary, scratching his side, exclaimed, as he sat down, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the blue-gray of the hills as they stretched on, farther and farther into the distance, gradually whitening until they resolved themselves into the snowy range, with the gaunt, high-peaked summit of Mount Evans scratching the sky ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... dream of fruit and cool dainties. When one thinks of the countless army of one's fellows who are daily selling their very souls for the barest necessaries of life, I suppose we—irresponsible beings—should be thankful to God for allowing us, by scratching and scraping all our lives, to keep a crust in our mouth and a rag on our back. I am not thankful, I have been guilty of what Pat would term a "digresshion"—I started about going for the mail at Dogtrap. Harold Beecham never once missed ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... draw her toward him. But her muscles had been tensed with the second fear that had taken possession of her, and she resisted—almost broke away from him. His fingers slipped from her wrist, the nails scratching the flesh deeply, and she sprang toward the door. But he was upon her instantly, his arms around her, pinning her own to her sides, and then he squeezed her to him, so tightly that the breath almost left her body, and kissed her three or four times ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Emperor!" ("Kaiser lebe! Hoch!"). A cow shut up in the barn and the men drinking at the inn were to be heard. Kites with long tails like comets dipped and swung in the air above the fields. The fowls were scratching frantically in the straw and the golden dung-heap; the wind blew out their feathers like the skirts of an old lady. A pink pig was sleeping voluptuously on his side in ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Assembly was in an uproar. The President's voice was unheeded and unheard; the whole House arose; patriots and antagonists mingled in the fray, and the ground was covered with the combatants, kicking, biting, striking, and scratching each other in ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... rose the smoke of the distant factory, and the river that turned the wheels was gliding through the meadows, where soon the blackbirds would be singing. Old Bess pawed the ground, eager to be off; the gray hens were scratching busily all about the yard; even the green things in the garden were pushing through the brown earth, softened by April rains, and there was a shimmer of sunshine over the wide landscape that made ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... they did, but were mighty sure they'd all be hoodooed if they uncovered it for anyone else, so I reckon that primitive dope does go pretty far back. I'll bet it was old when Tubal Cain first began scratching around the outcroppings ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... with a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and laying it upon the whale's head, he says—"Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden's." Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful consternation—so truly English—knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of thee," said Leh Shin, scratching his loose sleeves with his long, claw-like fingers. "But thy friend, the Burman, who spoke beforehand of thy coming, and who still recalls the mixture of his opium pipe, I cannot remember." He hunched ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... New England cut his food down to six bland meals daily. All of them had tried to cure the offending ulcers by dosings. Think whether bleeding ulcers on the body would get well with their tender surfaces subjected to the same grinding, scratching process from bowel rubbish! ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... silence, broken only by the scratching of the Coroner's pen, Alderman Crood rose heavily in his place ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... birds and at frequent intervals, while they are scratching among the leaves for their food they will stop and utter their familiar "tow-hee" or "che-wink" and then again will mount to the summit of a tree or bush and sing their sweet refrain ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... you doing here anyhow?" said he, "—up before breakfast and busy as a hen scratching for ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... camp, and in the course of my wanderings I made a discovery that filled me with horror and the anguish of blackest despair. My curiosity was first attracted by a human skull that lay near a large circular depression in the sand about two feet deep. I commenced scratching with my fingers at one side, and had only gone a few inches down, when I came upon a ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... awakened some time afterwards by a strange noise. He sprang up at once, threw some fresh wood on the embers, and, grasping his musket, stood listening. In a minute the noise was renewed; something was scratching at the door, and a moment later he heard a pattering of feet overhead. Then came a low whimper and a snarl, and the truth at once rushed upon him. He was surrounded ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... followed another little discovery: a portion of soil fell inward as he scraped, and disclosed a small cavity. He lighted one match after another to help him to see of what nature the hole was, but the wind was too strong for them all. By tapping and scratching the sides with his knife, however, he was able to make out that it must be an artificial hole in masonry. It was rectangular, and the sides, top, and bottom, if not actually plastered, were smooth and regular. Of course it was empty. No! As he withdrew ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... placed the paper of questions and sundry plants. I looked at my questions, but for some moments could hardly hold my pen, so extreme was my nervousness; but when I once fairly began, my ideas crowded upon me almost faster than I could write them. And so we all sat, nothing heard but the scratching of the pens and the occasional crackle of the examiner's "Times" as he quietly looked over ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... how sweet to waltz through life with the right partner And not any of your grand ladies can match my wife at home Any man is in love with any woman Believed in her love, and judged it by the strength of his own Eating, like scratching, only wants a beginning Feel no shame that I do not feel! Feel they are not up to the people they are mixing with Found it difficult to forgive her his own folly Good and evil work together in this world Hated one thing alone—which was 'bother' ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... the key, and then, putting his field-glass to his eye, he saw that the dog was released, but the animal sat there scratching its ear with its paw. Then, realizing that it was loose, it sniffed for a moment at the chain. Finally, it threw up its head and barked, although the distance was too great for them to hear any sound. The dog started in the direction the two men had gone, but, before it had taken three ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... in my office. His method of composition was slow and laborious. It was evident that he thought out what he was going to say before he touched his pen to the paper. He would sit looking out of the window, his left elbow on the table, his hand scratching his temple, his lips moving, and frequently he spoke the sentence aloud ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... entered and gained possession of it without the loss of a man. After everything was quiet, Admiral Watson sent for Strachan to admonish him for his temerity, and addressing him, observed, "Strachan, what is this you have been doing?" The untutored hero, after having made his bow, scratching his head with one hand and twirling his hat with the other, replied, "Why, to be sure, sir, it was I who took the fort, but I hope there was no harm in it." The admiral then pointed out to him the dreadful consequences that might have resulted from so rash an act, and insinuated as he left ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... did, monsieur,... or I shouldn't be here at sunrise, scratching at your door for news of you. This," she said, petulantly, "is ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... other pains in store, to which what thou hast as yet suffered is but as the scratching of the lion's paw. It were better not to suffer them. They will leave no life in thee. Curse Christ—'tis ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... Raphael and talk, since we must, of comic opera. It's a pity we're not talking of the Parcoe who have been in my mind all the morning,' and she began to recite some verses that she had written. But, interrupting herself suddenly, she cried: 'Dick, who has been scratching you? How did your face get torn like that—who's been ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... hours I heard every kind of a growl and howl imaginable, as bears prowled about the hut sniffing at the buried food, or scratching at ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... latch lifted, and the tall bulky form of a man filled the threshold. With him came the wind, playing havoc about my room, sending papers and ornaments flying around in wild confusion. He closed the door quickly with a little imprecation. I heard the scratching of a match, saw it carefully shielded in the hollow of the man's hand. Then it burned clearly, and I knew ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I know the port—that ain't the head wind!" said Jack Miles, pushing up the side of his hat, and scratching his head with a look of ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... he closed the door, shutting himself in; and none too soon, for instantly a heavy animal leaped on the roof over his head and began fiercely scratching at the cover. At the same time a mewing at the door, and a snuffing at the side of the pen, showed him that he was a prisoner, with at least three panthers as his jailors. But unlike jailors generally, these were ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... sound sleep, from which he awoke only once in the night, and then it was a noise of something as of claws scratching at the door which stirred him. The scratch was repeated only once or twice, and with it came the sound of heavy, gasping puffs, like a big animal breathing. Then the creature went away, and Dick, half asleep, murmured: "I've ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... convenient branch. He put one ear against the trunk of the tree and listened. Then he put the other ear against the tree and listened. There certainly was a funny noise, and it seemed to come from right inside his hollow tree. Unc' Billy turned and looked up at his doorway, scratching his head thoughtfully ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... just says "Amen" when she gets to the end of—thirty, say—fancying that will be right; and it is generally. Only Uncle John stopped in the middle to say, "Damn that dog!" as Fido was whining and scratching outside, so that put her out and brought in the "Amen" ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... irresistible attractions for the gardener, and this drew his laggard steps from their idle excursion, back to the freshly spaded spot enriched by leaf mould, and carefully picketed against the incursions of scratching hens. Here he busied himself in planting lettuce seed, forgetful of Scipio, who lolled sleepily in the shadow of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... it over, and there is," returned Morris, crossing his legs, and scratching his head in his thoughtful way. "Three years ago, me and Kit Carson had to scoot up here to get out of the reach of something like two hundred Comanches, under that prime devil Valo-Velasquiz. They shot Kit's horse, and mine dropped dead just as we reached the bottom ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... heard light feet, as of some beast stirring and scratching in the trees overhead, and there with a light jingling noise. Was it a squirrel? Whatever it was, it raced about the tree, coming nearer and going further away, till it fell with a weight on my breast, and, shivering with cold, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... mercurial and fussy things there is nothing on the face of the earth to equal cocks and hens. They have such an utterly exaggerated sense, too, of their own importance; they make such a clacking and clucking over every egg, such a scratching and trumpeting over every morsel of treasure-trove, and such a striding and stamping over every bit of well-worn ground. On the whole, I think poultry have more humanity in them than any other race, footed or feathered; and cocks certainly must have been the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... something that appears like a white bird, A pigeon or a seagull or the like, But if you hit it with a stone or a stick It clangs as though it had been made of brass; And that if you dig down where it was scratching You'll ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... well that you are so easy, lording," said Warrenton, scratching his head. "Now tell us whom you saw; and how you contrived ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... Brown Geraldine at Dublin," responded that worthy, scratching the gray beard which had begun to sprout. "They broke his bones with the back of an ax and swung him out in a cage until he died, and after. ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... it was three miles," replied Michel scratching his head; "but never mind. I'll send for them anyway without telling them what they're wanted for. Once here, it's for your ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... there but a mouse!" she said contemptuously, when she had looked and listened for a moment, and heard only a little faint scratching ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... fable. Let them come and see in the corner of the stable one of these poor beasts, thin and wasted, restlessly lashing his lean flanks with his tail, violently breathing with mingled terror and disdain on the food offered him, his eyes always turned toward the door, scratching with his hoof the empty place at his side, sniffing the yokes and chains which his fellow used to wear, and incessantly calling him with melancholy lowings. The ox-herd will say: "There is a pair of oxen gone;' this one will work no more, for his brother is dead. We ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... I seen him myself," said Mike, still scratching his head. "I'll just have a look inside ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... approached, he saw that it was sprung. A peculiar whining and scratching came from it and he shouted in great excitement: "Boys, boys, I've got him! I've got ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... excitement and followed Jacky through the stiff bush, often scratching his hands and face. At last Jacky stopped and pointed ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... for he rose and stood opposite to her, scratching his lean chin and smiling in a sickly, indeterminate fashion that ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... East bread comes naturally, even to the poorest, by a little scratching or the gift of a friend not quite so poor. In less favored countries one is apt to forget. Then I went to bed. And that was on ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... a barb and serve also to pres it forward when onece entered a small distance. these barbed seed penetrate our mockersons and leather legings and give us great pain untill they are removed. my poor dog suffers with them excessively, he is constantly hinting and scratching himself as if in a rack of pain. the prickly pear also grow here as abundantly as usual. there is another species of the prickly pear of a globular form, composed of an assemblage of little conic leaves springing from a common root to which their small points are ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... way you feel. Well," scratching his chin, "I don't know as it makes much difference one way or the other, but I hope, Mr. Westerfelt, that you won't mention what I said. These fellers are the ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... a kind of madness, well known in every village, which comes by the biting of a mad dog, or scratching, saith [912]Aurelianus; touching, or smelling alone sometimes as [913]Sckenkius proves, and is incident to many other creatures as well as men: so called because the parties affected cannot endure the sight of water, or any liquor, supposing still they see a mad dog in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... muse,—and the quick, gentle rise and fall of her young breast. He could see her lift her head now and then to stare dreamily at the ceiling, searching there for inspiration. He could see the cramped, tense fingers that gripped the pen as she wrote these precious lines,—with David scratching away laboriously at the opposite end of the table. A strange tenderness entered his soul. Something akin to reverence took possession of him. He had ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... on with the disabled scissors, and only succeeded in scratching the smooth marble a little; he stopped to pant. "There's only way," he told himself desperately; "a little diamond cement would make it all right again; and you expect cracks ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... set," said Macnooder, scratching his head. "I've got two, plain and fancy, what we call a souvenir set—but you wouldn't understand that. I'll show you the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... had risen some distance in the heavens. By and by, however, the moon shot above the cloud, and that which before had been obscured by darkness became plain. There was the great rugged rock which bore a resemblance to the rude scratching on the paper. By the side of the rock ran a deep gulf filled with black water. Near by, perhaps twenty feet away, was another and larger mass of cliff. I looked at the water which lay between the two, and saw that it whirled and eddied, as though there were some ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... master's orders in confining her, has himself been lost in the labyrinth, and has not been able to discover what dungeon he put her in. For three days he has been looking for it, during which our heroine has been without food, and he is still searching and scratching his woolly head in despair, as he is to die by slow torture, if he does not reproduce her—for you observe, the chief who has thrown her into this dungeon is most ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... not answer his sister Sue right away. He was listening to the queer scratching sound. He wanted to try and think ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... Q—-, after scratching his head, and considering for a few minutes, told me that he knew a farm which he could sell me for that price, particularly as he wished to get rid of a set of Yankee rascals who prevented emigrants ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of questions, which he could not refuse to answer, though he stood sweating with agony all the time, stretching his neck every instant towards the window through which the voices were conveyed, scratching his head, and exhibiting sundry other symptoms of impatience and agitation. At length the supposed conversation came to such a pitch of amorous complaisance, that the husband, quite frantic with his imaginary disgrace, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... wasn't quite sane. My coolness in the Pink Chalet had given place to a crazy restlessness. I can see Peter yet, standing in the ring of lamplight, supporting himself by a chair back, wrinkling his brows and, as he always did in moments of excitement, scratching gently the tip of his left ear. His ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... hardly follow what you say. It's so complicated—a bit over my head, you know. But you astonish me! Are they in the habit of hindering you in your changeful moods? You mew, and they open the door. You lie on the paper—the sacred paper He's scratching on—He moves away, marvelous condescension!—and leaves you his soiled page. You meander up and down his scratching table, obviously in quest of mischief, your nose wrinkled up, your tail giving quick little jerks back and forth like a pendulum. She watches you ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... with her mild eyes and said, "It were a great sin if you were not to know your lesson tomorrow morning. You have aided me, I therefore will now help you; and the loving God will do so at all times." And all of a sudden the book under Tuk's pillow began scraping and scratching. ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... but as the boy hustled across the square Scattergood heaved himself out of his chair and padded inside the store. He stood scratching his head a moment and then removed a tin object from a card holding eleven more of its like. With it in his hand, he returned to his chair and resettled himself cautiously, for to apply his weight suddenly might ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... you're not far out," replied the captain, scratching his head and pondering over the matter, "for we'll only just shave past Cape Finisterre now keeping our course; and if we hadn't made so much westing when we got out of the Channel I don't know where we ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... witness it; for I have the high honour of being in this world superior to all other creatures." At these words the whole of the assembly [of animals] protested. "And I!" said the Eagle, with a loud voice, as he alighted on a rock. "Corcorico!" chanted the Cock. The Monkey was scratching himself and admiring his grinning phiz in the water, which served him for a looking-glass. Then the Buzzard was beside himself [with rage]. And the Cuckoo was wailing. The Ass rolled over and over, crying: "Heehaw! how ugly Man is!" The Elephant stamped about with ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... good hand at garden-work," answered the old man, with some embarrassment, scratching his gray head with a ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... last I asked myself where I might be. It did not seem to occur to me that I had but to call him to receive an answer to that question. Instead, I closed my eyes again, and essayed to think. But just then there came a gentle scratching at the door, and I could hear Michelot tiptoeing across the room; next he and the one he had admitted tiptoed back towards my bedside, and as they came I caught a whisper in a voice that seemed to ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... The ear-stinging, throat-scratching Yell screeched high over the pound of the artillery, the vicious spat of Minie balls. A whip length of dusty gray-brown lashed forward, flanking the stone barrier. Blue-coated men wavered, broke, ran for the bridge, heading into ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... Phipps, scratching his had; "but I should think it might have been six years ago, or more. It was a long time before we ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... fairly, and as an honest man, what is the reason that the Touaricks kill Christians, and why did they kill the English officer who went to Timbuctoo?" "Stop, stop," the brigand replied, very pleased with the piastre, "I'll tell you. There are three reasons. First (scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians will not say that Mahomet is the prophet of God. Second (again scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians are the brothers of Pharaoh, and have ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... previously observed that the claws of some of the bear which we had killed here had much shorter tallons than the variagated or white bear usually have but supposed that they had woarn them out by scratching up roots, and these were those which the indians called Yak-kah. on enquiry I found also that a cub of an uniform redish brown colour, pup to a female black bear intermixed with entire white hairs had climbed a tree. I think this a distinct speceis from the common black bear, because ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... dragged up all the bush and dry wood, and had piled them in front of the door. Swartboy had taken out his flint and steel, and was about to strike, when a loud scratching was heard from the inside, unlike anything that had yet reached their ears. It was the rattling of the lion's claws against the wall, but it had an odd sound as if the animal was struggling violently; at the same time his voice seemed ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... are such reprehensible and unutterably detestable insects as mosquitoes, and sand-flies, and bull-dogs; and there is such a thing as being bitten, and stung, and worried, and sucked into a sort of partial madness; and I have seen such sights as men perpetually slapping their own faces, and scratching the skin off their own cheeks with their own nails, and getting no relief thereby, but rather making things worse; and I have, moreover, seen men's heads swelled until the eyes and noses were lost, and the mouths only visible when opened, and their ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... clipped and cut into decorated designs, was lying about, as also wads of cotton, colored wools, long strings of yarn, and bits of half-beaten bark fibre. Near the front edge of the cave was a hole with large stones; here, with a little scratching, we found feathers and bits of bone of turkeys and hens, that had been sacrificed, as well as splints of pine tied together with bark string. Wooden spoons, probably used in the banquets of the witches, were stowed away in crevices of the rock. Chains ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... goes through the hedge into the border of furze, and thence into the meadow-grass. Some way down the brook they are so numerous as to have destroyed the vegetation on the banks, excepting a few ferns, by their constant movements and scratching of the sand; so that there is a small warren on either side of the water. It is said that they occasionally swim across the broad brook, which is much too wide to jump; but I have never seen such a thing but once. A rabbit already ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... November election Colonel Saylor was elected; but by a very small majority. He ran more than five thousand votes behind the head of the ticket, and in a district where little scratching is done. The State ticket pulled ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... But the little man bent over the desk, and began to write in an account book. His pen went on scratching, inscribing large, flourishing numbers in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... her for his own, and did not care how much he showed it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a variety of uncouth bounces, and concluded, when poor Florence was at last asleep, by scratching open her bedroom door; rolling up his bed into a pillow; lying down on the boards at the full length of his tether with his head toward her; and looking lazily at her, upside down, out of the tops of his eyes, until, from winking ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Hanson giving Mrs. Gallito an opportunity to recover her self-control, while he devoted his attention to Lolita, who had sidled up to him and was gazing at him evilly, ready to nip him malevolently should he attempt the familiarity of scratching her head. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... was in the next room and in sight; but he had with him the chief, two other leading Moquis, and his chance Navajo interpreter; they were making a map of the San Juan country by scratching with an arrow-point on the clay floor; everybody was interested in the matter, and there was a pretty smart jabbering. Thus Coronado could say his say ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... stream, and from these we have fashioned a bench to hold six or eight people, and set it where the view is glorious. I have helped lay the stones, and have dabbled in mortar until I can hardly use my hands to write. This sort of work is so much more interesting than scratching with a pen. In the joy of even so poor a creation I forget the sad purpose of it, and am as happy as one hopes to be who has lived as ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... night: one could see the whole shore. He looked for Campana's grave. Two dogs scratching the sand showed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Germany. At a later period he had spent some months in a community of Fourierists. Still more recently he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism, for which science (as he assured Phoebe, and, indeed, satisfactorily proved, by putting Chanticleer, who happened to be scratching near by, to sleep) he had ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the public prints upon the characters of political demagogues, liquor interests, and the state treasury. And what she said was violently effective. Her victims might persist in the error of their ways, but not one of them ever recovered from the face-scratching fury ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... a leer and drove them before him back to the table. There was more scratching in his register. The two uncouth witnesses scrawled something for ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... sake, come aboard and listen!" I listened and sure enough, right out of that grain bin overhead came a moaning and whimpering, and then a scratching against the door. My hair stood on end. Blended with the drip, drip of the rain, and the occasional scurrying of a rat overhead, that noise had a super-natural sound. I was really frightened; perhaps my nerves were a trifle unstrung from our recent ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... took up the church keys and a horn lantern, and led the young Prince through a narrow corridor up to the church door. Hardly, however, had she put the key in the lock, when the loud bark of a dog was heard inside, and they soon heard it scratching, and smelling, and growling at them ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... the Delhi mine in Nevada county" he announced, "but the Baby Mine makes that record look amateurish. It's the richest strike I have ever heard of, with the exception, possibly, of the big strike at Antelope Peak. They took out nearly three hundred thousand there in less than three days, just scratching it out of stringers and crevices with their jack-knives. Boston, my dear man, I have more than three hundred pounds of gold with, as I said before, some quartz, but not enough to bother. At twelve ounces to the pound, twenty dollars to the ounce, ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... with you, Katie?' he used to say. 'Of course, I'll go anywhere to please you.' But then, while she was trying to get a blessing, he would be scratching little pictures on the back of the seat to make her laugh. Perhaps you can guess the struggle it was for Katie to decide what her answer should be. 'If you will only say "yes," and be engaged to him, I am sure you will be able ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... heard a scratching sound inside the hollow tree. Once more he beat the long roll and the scratching sound grew louder. Then he heard a voice just a little ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... to the crest of the hill. Men were moving along those paths: they swarmed like ants across the hillside, but I could not see whence they were coming nor whither they were going. All were pushing and jostling and scratching and howling and fighting. Every one's object seemed to be to raise himself to the path above his own and to prevent all others ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... shook his head and flirted up dirt by scratching on the ground with his feet. He had smelled blood. Mr. Billy-Goat saw how Mr. Dog acted, and he was afraid to go in. So he shook ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... indeed an almost immeasurable distance from the primitive mother scratching the soil with her sharpened stick, her baby bound to her bended back, in order to plant a few seeds for a tiny harvest to save the life of her child when the hunt should be poor, to the modern mother whose food ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... cat up, and went along the path towards the cottage, Miss Bassett following close behind me. The cat was an immense beast, awfully heavy, and just as I turned out of the yew path to go up to the cottage door he began struggling to get away, and scratching. I held on to him, but it wasn't easy, and I got my hand torn before I dropped him down inside the little hall. Away he ran, towards the kitchen, I suppose. Miss Bassett was very grateful, but I cut ...
— The Spinster - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... to him that Josiah was only scratching the surface and he wanted to come to the well-meaning king's help. Notwithstanding his call and his conviction that his life work as a prophet had been determined upon even before his birth, Jeremiah was yet too timid to take up his burden among the people until the word of God ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... deception on the surface: he was externally a person who inspired, at first sight, feelings of doubt and dislike. His manner failed to show even a pretence of being glad to see Hugh. What he had to say, he said walking up and down the room, and scratching his bristly iron-gray hair from time to time. Those signs of restlessness indicated, to those who knew him well, that he had a selfish use to make of a fellow-creature, and failed to see immediately how to ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... keep theirselves to theirselves, she to the house, and I to the garden.' 'So be it, says I, 'and by the same toaken, don't let me catch them "Ns" in my garden again, or I'll spoil their clucking and scratching,' says I, 'for I'll twist their dalled necks: ye've got a yard,' says I, 'and a roost, and likewise a turnpike, you and your poultry: so bide at home the lot, and don't come a scratching o' me,' and with that we had a ripput; and she took one of her pangs; and then I behoved to ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... all very well," the elder Pendennis said, who found Pen scratching down one of these artless effusions at the Club as he was waiting for his dinner; "and letter-writing if mamma allows it, and between such old country friends of course there may be a correspondence, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Eric went up after her, often slipping back and bruising and scratching his hands and knees, but as resolute as his playmate. At last they gained the top. The Wind Creatures had flown up and were waiting for them there, sitting cross-legged with their purple ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... hard job, breaking up this place and making the first crops grow," he said, pushing back his hat and scratching his grizzled hair. "Sometimes I git awful sore on this place and want to quit, but my wife she always say we better stick it out. The babies come along pretty fast, so it look like it be hard to move, anyhow. I guess she was right, all right. We got this place ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... Mariner's Passage. He said; and leaping from his Chariot, lest Ariadne should be afraid of the Tygers, the Sand sunk under the Weight of his Feet; and catching her instantly in his Arms, he carried her, who was incapable of scratching, directly off; (for every Thing, we know, is in the Power of a Deity:) And now, whilst Part of his Train sing the Hymenaeum, and other cry Evie Evoe, two very mysterious Words, and full of Masonry, ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... him set Dan'l Webster down here on this flor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... take the diminishing drug. From across the room there came a very queer sound. A scuttling, scratching, and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... sing!' and 'Please keep that damn Tana away from me,' and 'Let me read you my opening sentence,' and 'I won't be through for a long time, Gloria, so don't stay up for me,' and a tremendous consumption of tea or coffee. And that's all. In just about an hour I hear the old pencil stop scratching and look over. You've got out a book and you're 'looking up' something. Then you're reading. Then yawns—then bed and a great tossing about because you're all full of caffeine and can't sleep. Two weeks later the whole performance ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... while a loud scratching pen indorsed the record of acquittal. Then Wood walked down to the jury-box and took ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's face and said: "I am witing ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... length, which brought it along with amazing bounds. Seeing this, I quickly found my own legs, and rushed down the hill towards Vitalis. But, strange to say, I made less haste going down than I had in climbing up. I threw myself into the thick of the thistles and brambles, scratching myself at every step. Scrambling out of a prickly bush I took a glance back. The animal was coming nearer! ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... whole body was sown over with spots, and my face covered; and for several days I lay blind and in great pain. They tried the only possible alleviation, and promised me heaps of gold if I would keep quiet, and not increase the mischief by rubbing and scratching. I controlled myself, while, according to the prevailing prejudice, they kept me as warm as possible, and thus only rendered my suffering more acute. At last, after a woeful time, there fell, as it were, a mask from my face. The blotches had left no visible mark upon the skin, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... publishers, making showy drawings from sketches taken by other people of places he had never seen, and touching up the bad engravings from his works submitted to him almost every day,—engravings utterly destitute of animation, and which had to be raised into a specious brilliancy by scratching them over with white, spotty lights, he gradually got inured to many conventionalities, and even falsities; and, having trusted for ten or twelve years almost entirely to his memory and invention, living I believe mostly in London, and receiving a new sensation ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... pheasant of England, and greatly resembling it in appearance and plumage; these birds are very cautious and shy, and run rapidly through the underwood, rarely flying unless when closely pursued. The shell of the egg is thin and fragile, and the young are hatched entirely by the heat of the sun, scratching their way out as soon as they are born, at which time they are able to shift for themselves. [Note 25: For a further account of the LEIPOA, vide CHAPTER III. of Notes ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... said my father to himself, scratching his eyebrow, "that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not, and 'twould be a pity in such a case to throw away so great a name as Trismegistus upon him. But ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... society of those whom it is not flattery to call your betters. When "The Pactolian" has paid you for a copy of verses,—(I can furnish you a list of alliterative signatures, beginning with Annie Aureole and ending with Zoe Zenith,)—when "The Rag-bag" has stolen your piece, after carefully scratching your name out,—when "The Nut-cracker" has thought you worth shelling, and strung the kernel of your cleverest poem,— then, and not till then, you may consider the presumption against you, from the fact of your rhyming tendency, as called in question, and let our friends hear from you, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... listened outside of the door. She was determined to have Uncle Jason up, and she waited, still scratching on the door panel until she heard him give an angry grunt, and then land with both feet on the straw matting. Then she scurried back to her own room ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... dealing strenuously with a pile of sandwiches in a paper packet, and a tankard of ale from the tavern opposite, whose shutters had just been taken down. Neither of them spoke, and there was no sound in the living stillness except the scratching of Wayne's pencil and the squealing of an aimless-looking cat. At length Wayne broke ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... under them, one tucked up on the other, and you may be sure the person they belong to feels comfortable—physically. And Mrs. Starling in a corner, in her quiet state and black-silk gown, was as contented as an old hen that sees all her chickens prosperously scratching for themselves. And the June afternoon breathed in at the window and upon all those busy talkers; and nobody knew that it was June. So things went, until Diana left them to put the finishing touches of readiness to the tea-table. Her going was noticed by some of the assembly, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... you haue in manner aforeshewed, planted your garden with rootes, it shall not be amisse, if the place be apt to such annoyance, to pricke vpon the site of euery hill a few sharpe Thornes to defend them from the scratching of poultry, or such like, which euer are busie to doe mischeife: yet of all house-fowle Geese be the worst, but if your fence be as it ought, high, strong, and close, it will both preuent their harme ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... finds its young ones carries them off hastily, placing mirrors in the place whence he takes them, and at once escapes on a swift horse. The panther returning finds the mirrors fixed on the ground and looking into them believes it sees its young; then scratching with its paws it discovers the cheat. Forthwith, by means of the scent of its young, it follows the hunter, and when this hunter sees the tigress he drops one of the young ones and she takes it, and having carried it ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... said Dandie, scratching his head; 'it's lying high and exposed—it may feed a hog, or aiblins twa in a ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... little while he sprang from his icy prison once more free. But the young ones! Redruff flew to the nearest bank, hastily gathered a few red hips to stay his gnawing hunger, then returned to the prison-drift and clucked and stamped. He got only one reply, a feeble 'peete, peete,' and scratching with his sharp claws on the thinned granular sheet he soon broke through, and Graytail feebly crawled out of the hole. But that was all; the others, scattered he could not tell where in the drift, made no reply, gave no sign of life, and he was forced to leave them. When the snow ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... visited the Louvre it was closed, and none have been admitted since. I believe they are scratching out some N's or Eagles. I should conceive these to be the last of their species, for the activity and extent of this effacement of emblems related to Napoleon is past all belief. In a picture of ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... heard the slow, deliberate sound creeping towards me again. Slowly, slowly it drew near, scratching against the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... abstinence; only such foods as mush and bread made from corn-meal may be eaten, nor may they contain any salt. To indulge in viands of a richer nature would be to invite laziness and an ugly form at a comparatively early age. The girl must also refrain from scratching her head or body, for marks made by her nails during this period would surely become ill-looking scars. All the women folk in the hogan begin grinding corn on the first day and continue at irregular intervals ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... said the ecstatic lover. Lady Amaldina thought that June would do very well. "But there will be the Town's Education Improvement Bill," said his lordship, again scratching ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... at this point. It came in. He resumed his eulogy.] Look at Cleopatra! look at Desdemona!—look at Florence Nightingale!—look at Joan of Arc!—look at Lucretia Borgia! [Disapprobation expressed.] Well [said Mr. Clemens, scratching his head, doubtfully], suppose we let Lucretia slide. Look at Joyce Heth!—look at Mother Eve! You need not look at her unless you want to, but [said Mr. Clemens, reflectively, after a pause] Eve was ornamental, sir —particularly before ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Fred was scratching his jaw meditatively with the pencil, and staring at the order. "I can just about fill that order outa stock on hand," he told Irish. "When all this land rush started I laid in a big supply of posts and wire. First thing they'd want, after they ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... the itch of litherature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Elmer stood for a few minutes, thoughtfully scratching the ample red surface of his wide, clean-shaven cheek. "I don't know," he ejaculated at last, addressing his empty study, "I don't know." And with that expression he put all thought of Victor Stott away from him, and sat down to write an exhaustive article on the necessity ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... of the girls remained in the race. Ruth had given up in despair. Her turkey had wandered off to parts unknown. Another girl sat on an upturned stump feeding crumbs to a motherly hen that had found walking disagreeable and had taken to scratching around the roots ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... few city editors I have ever seen who used that tool which all of them are popularly supposed to handle so murderously—a blue pencil. And as he had a habit, when he was flustered or annoyed—and that was most of the time—of scratching his head with the point end of it, his forehead under the hair roots was usually streaked with purplish-blue tracings, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... motioned for me to dismount. I hadn't hardly struck the ground, before I found what they were going to do with me; for would you believe it, every old squaw and pappoose in that village, that had strength enough, flew at me and commenced biting, and kicking, and scratching me. You see I couldn't do much, for my hands were tied, but I made up my mind that Tom Pope would die like a man, even though he never had calculated to be bit and kicked to death, by a lot of ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... person seated on a chair, John's throne in fact, was far back in the room, and could not be seen from below. A few minutes passed away, while Crayshaw began to breathe like, other people, and a certain scratching noise was heard below, upon which significant looks entreated her to be silent. She thought she would let things take their course, and sat still for a minute, when a casement was flung open below, and a shrill voice ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Matthew Arnold, Renan, Emerson, with scores of popular followers, taught the German faith. The literary world had revolted against the yoke of coming capitalism — its money-lenders, its bank directors, and its railway magnates. Thackeray and Dickens followed Balzac in scratching and biting the unfortunate middle class with savage ill-temper, much as the middle class had scratched and bitten the Church and Court for a hundred years before. The middle class had the power, and held its coal and iron well in hand, but the satirists and idealists seized the press, and as they ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... the reverse to humor the little man, who darted forward and began scraping up the dust in the road with his hands as if he had been a dog scratching out a rabbit hole. He began chipping away eagerly with his hammer at some rock that cropped up out ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... looked so human when it chattered. Losson used to sit, swinging his fat legs, on the side of the cot, and ask the parrot what it thought of Simmons. The parrot would answer: "Simmons, ye so-oor." "Good boy," Losson used to say, scratching the parrot's head; "ye 'ear that, Sim?" And Simmons used to turn over on his stomach and make answer: "I 'ear. Take 'eed you don't 'ear something one of ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... would amend itself. Many here would consider it a heinous sin, but those who think such things sins make them sins. I have seen, in the old days, most delightful little children sent away, branded with infamy, and scarce knowing why—you might as well expel a boy for scratching his head when it itched. I am sure the soundest way is to treat it as a doctor would, and explain to the boy the physical effects of over-indulgence of any sort. When it is combated from the monkish standpoint, the evil becomes an epidemic." I am, however, far from anxious to indorse the policy ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Pentuer had not been in that place; hence he was struck by neglect in it, and poverty. The brick wall was falling, in the garden the trees were withering, in the yard a lean goat moved around and a few hens were scratching. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... Brahmana, I cannot extract this thorn that has entered my body, or crush these insects and worms that are biting and afflicting me greatly! They that have bestowed upon them two hands with ten fingers, succeed in throwing away or crushing the worms (by scratching) that bite their limbs. They succeed in constructing shelters for themselves from rain, cold, and heat. They succeed also in enjoying excellent clothes for themselves, good food, comfortable beds, and excellent habitations. Lying on this Earth, they that have hands enjoy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... said Slightly at once, and disappeared, scratching his head. But he knew Peter must be obeyed, and he returned in a moment, wearing ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... the social fabric shall be built up on the foundations of human thought and action. Like the worm that crawls over the mud ere it hardens into rock; or the leaf that fixes its form and impress in the bed of coal; or like the bowlder that forms the pencil point of a mighty iceberg, scratching the rocks in its movement across a submerged plain, destined to be upheaved as a continent in some future convulsion; or like the coral insect, which, in forming his separate cell, unconsciously assists in laying the foundation of islands and ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a pair of stockings belonging to Sally Henny-penny —look how she's worn the heels out with scratching in the yard! She'll very soon go barefoot!" ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle • Beatrix Potter
... force my way in. There was space only for two, and that space was already occupied. Also, they had me at a disadvantage, and, what of the scratching and hair-pulling I received, I was glad to retreat. I slept that night, and for many nights, in the connecting passage of the double-cave. From my experience it seemed reasonably safe. As the two Folk had dodged old Saber-Tooth, and as I had dodged Red-Eye, so it seemed to me that I could dodge ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... American soldiers and the "Y" man and the two British soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy taplooshka, hands and faces with three days and nights of grime and dirt, scratching themselves under their dirty rags, cussing the active cooties that had come with the shirts, and trying to soothe their itching bewhiskered faces. Here the resourceful old sergeant keenly picked out the cleanest one of the guards and approached ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... story, and he stood for a moment scratching his head, as if he were much puzzled to know what to do ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long, deep respirations of his sleeping companions were distinct from that monotonous sound. He could not even tell if it were IN the cabin or without. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket that covered ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... general vehicle of sound, yet sound will go where no air can convey it; thus the scratching of a pin at the end of a long piece of timber may be heard by an ear applied at the other end, though it could not be heard at the same distance through the air. On this account it is that sentinels are accustomed to lay their ears to the ground, by which means they can often discover the approach ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... feeling of curiosity concerning that odd expanse of white overhead filtered into her consciousness, gradually increasing in strength until it became a definite irritation, like the prolonged light scratching of a finger-nail up a surface of silk. She opened her eyes again reluctantly. It was still there, immediately above her—a formless stretch of dull white. She wondered whether it extended indefinitely, and her eyes travelled slowly along until they were arrested by a narrow ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... the door-ladder, he found descent difficult but possible. It was more difficult to make his way through the tangled bushes without scratching the baby, which, after all, might, alas, be beyond hurt! He held it close to his bosom, life coaxing life to ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... his pipe and choice tobacco, and looked the picture of contentment as he squatted in his seat, scratching his ankle, where a burning sensation told him he had once again been visited by the tiny but venomous red-bug pest which he hated with ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... because the nugget couldn't be thrown out with two or three spadefuls of earth," continued Tom. "I followed along after him for two weeks, and in every camping-place there were two shovelfuls of dirt flung out. If a hen had been scratching for that nugget, she would ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... him from the weekly Bohemian papers. She had worn a white muslin dress under her riding-habit, and the leaves of the cherry tree threw a pattern of sharp shadows over her skirt. The black cat was dozing in the sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund was scratching a hole under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of badgers. Joe was filling his pipe for the third time since dinner, when he heard a knocking on the fence. He broke into a loud guffaw and unlatched the little door that led into the street. He ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather |
