"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any ears I would have pricked them up at this, for I was very fond of fowl, and I never got any at the Morrises', unless it might be a stray bone ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... appear generally to inhabit the N.W. interior. The present was a very large specimen, with a beautifully soft skin, and as it was the only one noticed during a residence of nearly six months at the same place, it was in all probability a stray animal. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... momentum of the whale—modifying its direction as he struck the surface—involuntarily launched him along it, to a little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that time was done, he pushed ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... me sing for little children, Before their footsteps stray, Sweet anthems of love and duty, To float o'er ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... English; Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure' being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas Hoby translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the extent to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the sixteenth century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of Harvey, in which he disparages the works of Robert Greene:—'Even Guicciardine's silver histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out of request: and the Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green enough ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... in the covert knew not whether most to dread a shouting which should agitate their horses, or a silence which might betray a movement on their part. This last seemed the most probable. The noise subsided; and when the troop was close at hand, only a stray voice or two was singing. They had with them two or three trucks, drawn by men, on which were piled barrels of ammunition. They were now very near. Whether it was that Therese, in fear of her infant crying, pressed it so close to ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... of smiles is the smile as we part, When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, We will seal the bright spring with a ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... A tear would stray down my cheek—How happy have I been, said I, sighing, in the supper-time conversations, with all my dear friends in my eye round their ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... you have been asleep, and let them stray, you villain. I will rub your back against a stick,' I answered, feeling very angry, for it was not a pleasant prospect to be stuck up in that fever trap for a week or so while we were hunting for ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... still remains intact; time has given it the appearance of genuine nature herself. Its greenish stones look old and decayed; the mosses, the delicate little plants brought from the river, and the rushes and wild iris have acclimated themselves, and dragon flies that stray through the town take refuge there—a bit of wild nature has established itself in that little corner and I hope it will never ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... formula for all cases. In each case your knowledge of your audience must guide you, and your own sagacity. Unnecessary definitions will make them think you a prig; insufficient definition will let them stray ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... rock, and then the deadly rifles began to spit spitefully, the balls casting up the soft dirt in clouds or flattening against the stones. The two men crouched lower, hugging their pile of slag, unable to perceive even a stray assailant within range of their ready revolvers. Hampton remained cool, alert, and motionless, striving in vain to discover some means of escape, but the little marshal kept grimly cheerful, creeping constantly from point to point in the endeavor to get a return ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... led him had suddenly exploded, leaving him stunned and flat for a time. Now he got to his feet and looked about. He realized that the world still lay before him, a place of wonderful promise and possibility, and apparently he could stray in any direction he chose. He had money and freedom and an excellent equipment of appetites and curiosities. Things he had dreamed of doing long ago, in case he should ever come into his wealth, now revisited his imagination. He had promised himself for one thing ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... Fancy dares invade The realm of time's uncounted hours, As fondly gay, as if she stray'd In safety through a ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... noon of the third day Elijah arrived, reporting no moose sign. That night Daylight came in with a similar report. As fast as they arrived, the men had started careful panning of the snow all around the cache. It was a large task, for they found stray beans fully a hundred yards from the cache. One more day all the men toiled. The result was pitiful, and the four showed their caliber in the division of the few pounds of food that had been recovered. Little as it was, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... collections of dust, or fragments of meals, or dirty plates. There was neither a Winged Victory, a Venus de Milo, nor a Hermes after Praxiteles. And except for the bust of Bubbles there was no example of Barbara's own work by which to fish for stray compliments from the casual visitor. Of the amenities the studio had but a thick carpet, an open fireplace, and a pair of plain but easy chairs. Upon a strong tremorless table placed near the one great window, a huge lump of clay, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... acquired. Hence he now found it considerably more difficult to follow the spotted trees. His brain was excited and preoccupied; and when once in fancied security he suffered his eyes and thoughts to stray for a minute from the trail, every unfamiliar woodland sight and sound tempted them to ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... all day long, while live children are good for only five minutes at a time. The recurrence with which these five-minute periods return determines whether the child is "good" or "bad." In the intervals the restless little feet stray into flowerbeds; stand on chairs so that grimy, dimpled hands may reach forbidden jam; run and romp in pure joyous innocence, or kick spitefully at authority. Then the little fellow may go to sleep, smile in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... not been told That bears have ventured in the very stalls, And that the eagles wait before the doors And watch when they are opened for a child That may stray out? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... I will not wipe away, But from this place, the scholar's home, I'll stray. The bonze for mercy I shall thank; under the lotus altar shave my pate; With Yan to be the luck I lack; soon in a twinkle we shall separate, And needy and forlorn I'll come and go, with none to care about my fate. Thither shall I a suppliant be for a fog wrapper ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... great deal, he was fond of music and games, and was never so pleased as when engaging in some wild frolic with his sisters and any chance youngster that happened to stray in. His sister, Lady Trevelyan, has recorded that during those days of gloom which followed her father's failure, matters were made worse by the stricken man moping at home and tightening the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... said the old woman. 'If you can take care of my mare for three days I will give you a horse for wages, but if you let her stray you will lose your head'; and as she spoke she led him into a courtyard surrounded with palings, and on every post a man's head was stuck. One post only was empty, and as they passed ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... allowed this child to come," said Mrs. Parlin, at the tea table; "but cousin Percy always picks up the stray babies, ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... his rival king—and he binds him by an oath to spare his house when he sits on the throne. The picture moves awful thoughts and gentle pity for the poor scathed soul writhing in its hopelessness and dwelling in a great solitude of fear, but out of which stray gleams of ancient nobleness still break;—and so the doomed man goes back to his gloomy seclusion at Gibeah, and David to the free life of the mountains and ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... them to do, and they were now all dead. Again, in other spots the ceaseless lashing of the sea had broken the dead coral in pieces, and cast it up in the form of sand. Here sea-birds had alighted, little pieces of seaweed and stray bits of wood had been washed up, seeds of plants had been carried by the wind, and a few lovely blades of bright green had already sprung up, which, when they died, would increase the size and fertility of these emeralds of ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... many a gem and chain, Treasure enough to make me rich in Spain, Until so changed by time, Disguised by wandering in a foreign clime, I may return to reap My vengeance; for a wrong doth never sleep. But whither do I stray, Treading the shades of death in this dark way? My path is lost: I go Whither I do not know; Perchance escaping from my prison bands To fall again into my tyrant's hands. If the dark night doth not my sight deceive, Yonder a rustic cabin I perceive. Yes, I am right. I'll knock; I can't much err, ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... dream of my desire, The bitter paths wherein I stray, Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire, Thou knowest Who hast made the clay! ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... as the contest goes forward, the relative position of the speakers begins to change. Hitherto, Job only had been passionate; and his friends temperate and collected. Now, becoming shocked at his obstinacy, and disappointed in the result of their homilies, they stray still further from the truth in an endeavour to strengthen their position, and, as a natural consequence, visibly grow angry. To them, Job's vehement and desperate speeches are damning evidence of the truth of their suspicion. Impiety is added to his first sin, and they begin ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... he took me by the hand, leading me very slowly, with much feeling about and frequent halts to assure himself that he did not stray into wrong passageways. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were difficult, my dear. They didn't exactly draw you out. She needed drawing out; and her husband drove her back into her corner, where she sulked rather till she died—died alone at Wiesbaden, with a German doctor, a stray curate, and a stuttering maid to wish her bon voyage. Yet I fancy she went glad enough, for she had no memories, not even an affaire to repent of, and to cherish. La, la! she wasn't so stupid, Sybil there, and she was an ornament to her own sex and the despair of the other. His Serene ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... attached to his person a stray dog and a mongrel boy and rendering himself responsible for their destinies, Paragot must now saddle himself with a young woman. Had she been a beautiful gipsy, holding fascinating allurements in lustrous eyes and pomegranate ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... transmigration, perhaps also the effect of a feeble presentation of the Christian doctrine of the Father's forgiveness of sin. Nevertheless, we may note in a hymn-book published in London for the use of members of the [A]rya Sam[a]j resident there, such hymns as "My God and Father, while I stray," and "My God, my Father, blissful name," as if the name were not explicitly excluded. We also read that the very last parting words of the founder of the [A]ryas himself were: "Let Thy will be done, O Father!"[86] The heart of man will not be denied the name and the feeling ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... standing outside, and asked the director when the personally-conducted party was to start. Aristide, who had totally forgotten the responsibilities attached to the directorship of the Agence Pujol and, but for this reminder, would have blissfully left his sheep to err and stray over Paris by themselves, returned crestfallen to his friends ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... Sir Reginald, "he'll miss his ring more than his brother! And remember, Cicely, you get a pound for finding the ring, and you win a pair of gloves if you can tempt Simon to stray from the paths of honesty and virtue! By Jingo, I'll give you the gloves if you can even make him tell a good ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... made any excuses to himself. He had a sort of idea that if he saw the magnificence that housed her, it would through her sheer remoteness kill the misery in him. But he regarded himself with a sort of humorous pity, and having picked up a stray dog, he addressed ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was only one thing to be done. The middle of the chalk-pit was occupied by a large area covered with nettles and other large weeds. Probably no human being trod on that space from one year's end to another, for the stinging-nettles, four or five feet high, were enough to keep off stray children. Even now the spring vegetation was coming up apace. If I placed the body inconspicuously in the middle of the weedy area it would soon be overgrown and hidden. Then the natural agencies would do the rougher part of my work. Necrophagous ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... bound to maintain good neighbourhood; to abstain from all encroachments on his neighbours, either by allowing his cattle improperly to stray on their grounds or otherwise, and to that end to keep his cattle properly tethered within the limits of his own grass, ley, or stubble ground, from the 1st day of April to the 1st day of November in each year; and to maintain in all respects ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... a man. We always did stray a bit. But when I think of the exclusiveness of only a few years ago! Why, New York Society was a Club. The most exclusive club in the world. London Society was Bohemia compared to it. It's the democratic flu, ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... bitter fancy" in the barn yards, now begin to extend their perigrinations towards the woods, browsing with delight on the sweet young buds of the birch tree. At this season it is, for obvious reasons, desirable that the "milky mothers" should not stray far from home—many "a staid brow'd matron" has disappeared in the spring, and, after her summer rambles in the woods, returned in the "fall" with her full-grown calf by her side, but many a good cow has gone and been seen no more, but as a white skeleton ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... fragments of manuscripts. Plays, novels, poems (none finished) littered the rooms in profusion; a brilliant but isolated Scene I., stray opening chapters of novels, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... arm the strong soldier took me on his knee, and drawing his pistol from his holster bade me snap the lock, which I was barely able to do. And he told me wonderful tales of the woods beyond the mountains, and of the painted men who tracked them; much wilder and fiercer they were than those stray Nanticokes I had seen from time to time near Carvel Hall. And when at last he would go I clung to him, so he swung me to the back of his great horse Ronald, and I seized the bridle in my small hands. The noble beast, like his master, loved a child ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the relation of the coup de soleil and the blaeberry had not been plainly causal and effectual, I might have called him Filius Gunni, for at the very moment of that shudder, by which he leapt out of non-life into life, the Marquis's gamekeeper fired his rifle up the hill, and brought down a stray young stag,) these two are happily with me still, and at this moment she is out on the grass in a low easy-chair, reading Emilie Carlen's Brilliant Marriage, and Dick is lying at her feet, watching, with cocked ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... you, Brer Rastus. W'en I went ter dat chu'ch, I went des ez umbill ez de nex' one. I went dar fer ter sing, an' fer ter pray, an' fer ter wushup, an' I mos' giner'lly allers had a stray shin-plarster w'ich de ole 'oman say she want sont out dar ter dem cullud fokes 'cross de water. Hit went on dis way twel bimeby, one day, de fus news I know'd der was a row got up in de amen cornder. Brer Dick, he 'nounced dat dey wern't nuff money in de box; an' Brer Sim said if dey wern't he ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... to call to the people again as He did on the last day of the Feast, for in His love and pity He longed to bring the lost children of Israel to Himself that He might bless them, as a shepherd brings back the sheep that stray ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... examination made by naturalists of the various Danish and Swiss deposits of the Recent period has been so searching, that the finding in them of a stray elephant or rhinoceros, should it ever occur, would prove little more than that some few individuals lingered on, when the species was on the verge of extinction, and such rare exceptions would not render the classification above ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... picturesque scenery. The broad top of the range at its highest part is called the Kinderscout, or, more familiarly, "The Peak." The mountain-top is a vast moor, abounding in deep holes and water-pools, uninhabited excepting by the stray sportsman or tourist, and dangerous and difficult to cross. Yet, once mounted to the top, there are good views of the wild scenery of the Derbyshire hills, with the villages nestling in the glens, and of the "Kinder Fall," where much of the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... exclusively asserts itself destroys too much good strength, and is too dearly bought by mankind. The straying ones, who so often are the inventive and productive ones, shall no longer be sacrificed; it shall not even be deemed a disgrace to stray from morals either in deeds or thoughts; numerous new experiments shall be made in matters of life and society; an enormous incubus of bad conscience shall be removed from the world—these are the general aims which ought to be recognised ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley
... in his throat stifled speech for a season. Presently he asked politely the nature of Mr. Carteret's immediate plans, and learned that he was leaving San Lorenzo for Santa Barbara on the morrow. Dick had determined not to let his father stray from his sight till he had seen him safe out of the country, but he told himself that he must confer with the 'Bishop' at once. The 'Bishop' must act as go-between; the 'Bishop,' by Jove! should let the cat out of the bag; the 'Bishop' would gladly colour the facts and obscure ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... mist and haze that surround him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts, torn from their connection; not by partial and imperfect glimpses caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad survey, in the light ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... long since been cast aside as useless to the ends of Ku Sui, but the priceless brains had been condemned to live on in an unlit, unseeing deathless existence: machines serving the man who had trapped them into life in death. Alive—and with stray memories, which Ku Sui could not banish entirely, of Earth, of love, of the work and the respect that had once been theirs. Alive—with an unnatural and horrible life, without sensation, without hope. Alive—and made ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... remained in that good mind for a month, during which they were confined to that station by contrary winds, till all the wine and the bread was gone, which they had brought with them. When their victuals were gone, necessity compelled them to stray in quest of whatever fish or fowl they could snare, which that coast did not yield in any great abundance. Then Ulysses prayed to all the gods that dwelt in bountiful heaven, that they would be pleased to yield them some means to stay their hunger without ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... dog's flesh, putrid and unsaleable, flung to us by the mocking butchers; minari, a water-cress gathered from stagnant pools of slime; spoiled kimchi that would revolt the stomachs of peasants and that could be smelled a mile. Ay—I have stolen bones from curs, gleaned the public road for stray grains of rice, robbed ponies of their steaming bean-soup on ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... her narrowly. She was probably about twenty years of age, but much suffering had made her look older. Though her features were worn and wasted, and though her cheeks were hollow by the pinchings of want, she was beautiful; her eyes were large, lustrous and eminently expressive, and two or three stray curls of luxuriant hair peeped from beneath her old, weather stained bonnet. Her form was tall, and graceful in its outlines; but what particularly struck me was the singular whiteness and delicacy of her hands, which plainly indicated that she had never been accustomed ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... consignment of "butter and eggs and a pound of cheese," which has come up from Srinagar, and select the best of the fruit and vegetables. It affords also an interesting promenade for the geese, who solemnly march down the main street daily for recreation and such stray articles of food as may be ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... villain flies, he, full of rage and ire, Pursues, she stood and wondered on them both, But yet to follow them showed no desire, To stray so far she would perchance be loth, But quickly turned her, fierce as flaming fire, And on her foes wreaked her anger wroth, On every side she kills them down amain, And now she flies, and now ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... for long long after I first went to sea in the Breeze, and subsequently when removed to the old Kraaken line—of—battle ship, both of which were constantly part of blockading squadrons, could be compared to nothing more fitly than a dish of trifle, anciently called syllabub, with a stray plum here and there scattered at the bottom. But when, after several weary years, I got away in the dear old Torch, on a separate cruise, incidents came fast enough with a vengeance—stem, unyielding, iron events, as I found to my heavy cost, which spoke out trumpet—tongued and fiercely ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late must be done; And I, as giddy travellers must do, Which stray or sleep all day, and, having lost Light and strength, dark and tir'd ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... winding, balsamic path to the unexpected hollow where a wood-spring lies have found the rarest secret the forest can reveal. Such was our good fortune that day. At the end of our path we found it, under the pines, a crystal-clear thing with lips unkissed by so much as a stray sunbeam. ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is no caress of lover with half the power of those little pink hands, as they stray about, seeking whereby to lay hold on life. And the infant glances, now turned upon the breast, now raised to meet our own! What dreams come to us as we watch the clinging nursling! All our powers, whether of mind or body, are at its ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... stick, or to toss them into his mouth, which he opened widely for that purpose. Another, apparently an elderly bear, not having skill nor agility for these gymnastics, sat on the ground, on his hinder end, groaning most pitifully. The third took what stray bits he could get, without ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which follows this soliloquy, in which Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano mistake one another in turn for evil spirits, fully flavoured with fun as it still remains, had far more point for the audiences at the Globe—to whom a stray devil or two was quite in the natural order of things under such circumstances—than it can possibly possess for us. In this play, Ariel, Prospero's familiar, besides appearing in his natural shape, and dividing ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... rhymes left unrhymed in 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship.' You don't write so carelessly, not you, and the reward is that you haven't so much trouble in your new editions. I see your book advertised in a stray number of the 'Athenaeum' lent to me by Mr. Tennyson—Frederick. He lent it to me because I wanted to see the article on the new poet, Alexander Smith, who appears so applauded everywhere. He has the poet's stuff in him, one may see ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... upper part of the inn was built of logs, the rest was brick and plaster. The house looked neatly kept, the yard was less full of the stray wood and litter that is so usual in a Swiss farmyard, but there was a dull, severe air about the place. There was not a flower or a plant, either in the balcony or on the broad wooden shelves below the windows—not so much as a carnation ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... force his way over drawbridge and beneath portcullis—or whatever else might be the method of entering a feudal pile—into the presence of the chatelaine whose abode here must be that of some legendary princess, and bend her to his will. Stray memories came to him of Siegfrieds and Prince Charmings, with a natural gift for this sort of thing, but only to make his own appearance in the ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... course that they also receive scant mention in the annals of the fort. It is from the General Regulations for the Army that one gets the daily program of a military post; and the few fragmentary pages of Taliaferro's diary and letters, together with the stray remarks of travellers and pioneers, indicate the joys and sorrows of a very ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... for years and years, As from my thoughts I fain would stray; But here once more I weep my tears O'er her now mouldering in the clay. Oh! would that happy day were come When death shall set my spirit free, And I shall rise to yonder home, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... of continuing to shine is to continue the contact which first illuminated. A break in the contact, of a finger's breadth, is as effectual as one of a mile. Let Christian men and women, if they would shine, remember, 'Ye are light in the Lord'; and if we stray, and get without the circle of the Light, we pass into darkness, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... respectively twenty-seven and twenty-three (they confess to twenty and to seventeen). Three years ago she had the thrice-blessed idea of opening a sort of pension for the entertainment and instruction of the blundering barbarians who come to Paris in the hope of picking up a few stray particles of the language of Voltaire—or of Zola. The idea lui a porte bonheur; the shop does a very good business. Until within a few months ago it was carried on by my cousins alone; but lately the need of a few extensions ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... very happy in the wood, with two drawbacks. The pigs would stray when he became absorbed in his sketching, and the slate and slate-pencil, which did very well to draw pigs in outline, were miserable implements, when more than half the beauty of the subject to be represented was in its color. For the first evil there was no remedy but ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... aboard whose job it is to get us out of the way of stray meteors, and it works automatically. Arcot and I were just changing places at the controls. While neither of us was strapped into our seats, a meteor came within range and the rocket tubes shot the car out of the way. ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... should step out and call "Joan of Arc—come!" there would be a landslide of cats and all such things, each supposing it was the one wanted, and all willing to take the benefit of the doubt, anyway, for the sake of the food that might be on delivery. The kitten you left behind—the last stray you fetched home—bears you name, now, and belongs to Pere Fronte, and is the pet and pride of the village; and people have come miles to look at it and pet it and stare at it and wonder over it because it was Joan of Arc's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a fiat of creation. God had said to her,—"Let there be light." How could she, then, return to darkness? To keep along on land,—it might be weeks before she reached the quarter of the gunboats,—she would be seized as a stray, and lodged in jail, and sold for whom it might concern. But with her scow gone to pieces, what other thing was there to do? So she sat looking up at the spurting cascades, with their horns of silver leaping into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... a little adventure. He was with some of our men when he saw a grey figure coming down one of the glades to the road. We knew there were many stray Uhlans in the forest who had been left behind by our advance. The grey figure was stalked, unconscious of his danger. Pollers had a shot with his revolver, luckily without effect, for the figure turned out to be our blasphemous farrier, who had gone into the forest, clad only ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... support, and to attack a beast or robber; and the crook, or rod. By this crook, the shepherd guided a sheep in a dangerous pass, placing the crook under the sheep's neck, to hold him up and assist his steps. When a sheep was disposed to stray, the shepherd could hold him back with his crook. When the sheep had fallen into the power of a beast, the crook assisted in drawing him away. A good sheep loved the crook as much as the staff,—to be guided, as well as to be defended. Both of the shepherd's ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the grisly sometimes harassed their bands as it now does the herds of the ranchman. The bison was the most easily approached of all game, and the great bear could often get near some outlying straggler, in its quest after stray cows, yearlings, or calves. In default of a favorable chance to make a prey of one of these weaker members of the herds, it did not hesitate to attack the mighty bulls themselves; and perhaps the grandest sights which it was ever the good fortune of the ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... bank arm-in-arm, and strolled into the shade of the pines, which grew deeper and deeper, till only here and there a stray sunbeam lighted up the green mossy carpet. So cool was the air that Mozart soon had to put on the coat, which, but for his prudent wife, he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... with Mary o'er the wilds to stray, When Glensmole is dress'd in all the pride of May; And, when weary roving through the greenwood glade, Softly to recline beneath the birken shade. Sweet the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... let him run about. See, he wants to play with one of those croquet balls. Put it in motion for him, and he will run with it. Bless me, who is that coming up the path at such a tremendous speed in a bath-chair? Oh, I see, it is Mrs Weston. She should not go as fast as that. If Pug was to stray on to the path he would be run over. Better pick up Pug again, Miss Lyall, till she has gone by. And here is Colonel Boucher. If he had brought his bull-dogs, I should have asked him to take them away again. I should like a cup of tea, Miss Lyall, with plenty of milk in it, and not too ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... was another called the Island, both were occasionally overflowed by the tide. On the other side of the bank were rich enclosed pastures, suitable for fattening the finest cattle. Into these inclosures many of Ben Bond's charge were frequently disposed to stray. The season was June, the time mid-day, and the western breezes came over the sea, a short distance from which our scene lay, at once cool, grateful, refreshing, and playful. The rushing Parret, with its ever shifting sands, ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... with its horizon like that of the sea, boundless in the direction in which he wished to proceed. This was the Stony Desert. That night they camped in it, and the next morning came to an earthy plain, with here and there a few bushes of polygonum growing beside some stray channel, in some of which they, luckily, found a little muddy rain water still left. When they camped at night they sighted, for a short time, some hills to the north, and, on examining them through the telescope, saw dark shadows on ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... your peculiar good fortune which led you to address yourself to me rather than to anyone else. You are secure in my house, where I advise you to continue, if you think fit; and, provided you .do not stray from hence, I dare assure you, you will have no just cause to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... lesson in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital in advance ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... I'll have something to say about that later. Now, I must go and see if there are any stray sparks around anywhere, and I want to investigate this fire. I have an idea it was set by tramps. That barge came down the lake early this evening, and the men in charge of it told me they threw a tramp overboard who was stealing a ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... "'Twere a stray pack," said David, "and they were hungry. Pop had a pack come at he that way once, but they just took one of ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... diurnal, and eats as well upon the Russ and Polander as the English and Dutch. By this means his belly is provided for, and nothing lies upon his hands but his back, which takes other courses to maintain itself by weft and stray silver spoons, straggling hoods and scarfs, pimping, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... "got up some size" he was required to do small tasks, but the master was not very exacting. There were the important tasks of ferreting out the nests of stray hens, turkeys, guineas and geese. These nests were robbed to prevent the fowls from hatching too far from the hen house. Quite a number of these eggs got roasted in remote corners of the plantation by the finders, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... buyers of half-ounces of shag. She remarked that it would have been possible here to take breakfast out of doors, and Henry rang and gave instructions to Rutley, the butler, and the next moment, as it seemed, they were at table on the lawn, with sparrows pecking at stray crumbs. Henry, asking permission ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... Moflong, Leucas ciliata, Ischaemum pygmaeum, on Rhododendron, Loranthus obovatus. The mosses of this side were Brachymenium, Tortula, Famaria, Trichostomum, Neckerae, Polytrichum fuscum, Zygodon? Dendrobium and Otochilus, occur here. A stray and small Abies occurs on the ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... themselves for the king our sovereign, and approved what had been done by the royal court. The Augustinian fathers said, "Viva Troya!" [99] with a document full of depositions—some made by so evil a brain as that of Fray Raimundo Verart (but signed by the father provincial Duque); some by two stray (that is, recently arrived) lecturers, one of whom confessed that he had never heard of the works of Solorzano; and the last who signed the paper was Fray Gaspar de San Agustin, the procurator-general, who on account of being learned in grammar, thought that, as versed in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... dear. Mrs Kelly, you know, from the inn," and then she very cautiously insinuated the rest of her body into the room, as though she thought that Barry was asleep under the bed, and she was afraid of treading on one of his stray fingers. "It's only me, my dear. Biddy's been down to me, like a good girl; and I tell you what—this is no place for you, just at present, Miss Anty; not till such time as things is settled a little. So I'm thinking you'd betther be slipping down ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... jingled in. This summer camp was almost in the nature of a vacation to them after the hard work of the desert. All they had to do was to ride about the pleasant hills examining that the cattle did not stray nor get into trouble. It was fun for them, and they ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... of costs and the estimated saving per ton, but Mary Fortune allowed her attention to stray. She was thinking of Rimrock Jones, and she was watching Rimrock's proxy. Like a criminal on trial L. W. sat glowering, his dead cigar still in his teeth; and before the end of the report was reached the ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... Soft speeches will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable; but hovering between the two is unquestionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing even louder into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry—which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the third and noisiest of all) penetrates that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... began, "I decided yesterday that it was getting along toward the season of the year when my thoughts stray as usual toward the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard. So I went down to see if Nan Brent had abandoned it again—and sure enough, she hadn't." He paused exasperatingly, after the fashion of an orator who realizes that he has awakened in his audience an alert and respectful interest. "Fine kettle of ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... occasionally called into her room, to cut her nails or dress her hair; and we would often collect the clippings, and distribute them to each other, or preserve them with the utmost care. I once picked up all the stray hairs I could find, after combing her head, bound them together, and kept them for some time, until she told me I was not worthy to possess things so sacred. Jane McCoy and I were once sent to alter ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... getting things that nobody wants, and nobody cares for after they are got; and I am glad, for my part, that you are going to get up a variety in this line; in fact, I should like to give you one of these stray leaves to help on," said he, dropping a ten dollar note into her paper. "I like to encourage girls to think of something besides ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... The other man, or rather lad, Jim-Jim, was a Mapoch Kaffir, or Knobnose, and even in the light of subsequent events I fear I cannot speak very well of him. He was an idle and careless young rascal, and only that very morning I had to tell Pharaoh to give him a beating for letting the oxen stray, which Pharaoh did with the greatest gusto, although he was by way of being very fond of Jim-Jim. Indeed, I saw him consoling Jim-Jim afterwards with a pinch of snuff from his own ear-box, whilst he explained to him that the next time it came in the ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... the great highway through Biscay the wondering native carters draw their sheep-skinned ox-teams aside, to let the regiments pass, and stray groups of peaceable field-workers in Navarre look inquiringly at the marching ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... supposed, if once across, they could get up the bank and turn the levee against the enemy, and left with that impression. Being in heavy timber, I was not quite sure of my way back to the general, his location being new, and therefore pushed full gallop for Morgan's front, catching a good many stray shots from the sharpshooters behind the levee, as I was compelled to keep in sight of the bayou to hold direction. Something over half-way along Morgan's division front, the commander of a Kentucky regiment hailed me and said he must ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... her in a futile manner. Beads of perspiration were gathering upon his brow and he seemed upon the verge of swooning. As if from habit, however, he reached forth a trembling hand and deftly replaced a loose hairpin, then tucked in a stray lock which Felicite's ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... our meal came to an end. The fowls came round us to pick up the stray crumbs we had let fall, and my wife took out her bag of grain and fed the cocks and hens, and sent them to roost on the top ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... steady weight on his arm, certainly felt the solemnity of the moment. It was as if the whole world—for all experience seemed at that instant concentrated in his own consciousness—were listening to the grating noise of that key. A stray puff of wind wandering down the empty street woke a momentary rustling in the trees behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key was the only sound audible; and at last it turned in the lock and the heavy door swung open and revealed a ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... of May there penetrated into the largest of the workrooms that rarest of visitants, a stray sunbeam. Only if the sun happened to shine at given moments could any of its light fall directly into the room I speak of; this afternoon, however, all circumstances were favourable, and behold the floor chequered with uncertain gleam. ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... one evening, when he "dropped in" to one of the meetings. "Keep it up, fellows. Our little four-footed animals serve us well, and deserve consideration in return." And the boys worked hard and faithfully to follow his advice. Homeless cats, stray, mangy dogs, ill-fed horses, neglected cows, street sparrows, pigeons, bluejays, were watched and protected and relieved of their sufferings all that winter through. Finally Benson's father arranged his evenings so that he could spend an hour with the club at each meeting, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... joy—the bread and wine and all— We have foresworn; our noisy hearts forget; We stray and on strange altars cry and call ... Ah, patient gods, be patient with us yet, And Pan, pipe on, pipe on, till we shall rise, And follow, and be happy, and ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... thousands of years, every little, tiny creature bringing his atom of lime to add to the great heap, till their heap stands out of the water and becomes dry land; and seeds float thither over the wide waste sea, and trees grow up, and birds are driven thither by storms; and men come by accident in stray ships, and build, and sow, and multiply, and raise churches, and worship the God of heaven, and Christ, the blessed One,—on that new land which the little coral worms have built up from the deep. Consider ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... that with morn was begun, Nor dreaded the dark and the dew? Some sweet thieves have made off with our fun! Would our paddles were free to pursue! Ah, could we but catch them anew, Clip their wings, forbid them to stray, Then more blithely we'd sing than we do— Many Happy Returns of ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... humble; for she saw In Henry's eye a love chastised by awe. Her thoughts of virtue were not all sublime, Nor virtuous all her thoughts; 'twas now her time To bait each hook, in every way to please, And the rich prize with dext'rous hand to seize. She had no virgin-terrors; she could stray In all love's maze, nor fear to lose her way; Nay, could go near the precipiee, nor dread A failing caution or a giddy head; She'd fix her eyes upon the roaring flood, And dance upon the brink where danger stood. 'Twas nature all, she judged, in one so young, To drop ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... with us course bullies of the press: you have not the STAMINY for a reglar set-to. What, then, is your plan? In the midst of the mob to pass as quiet as you can: you won't be undistubbed. Who is? Some stray kix and buffits will fall to you—mortial man is subjick to such; but if you begin to wins and cry out, and set up for ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this most abundant of all the wild roses from Ontario to Georgia, and westward to Wisconsin. In light, dry, or rocky soil we find the exquisite, but usually solitary, blossom late in May until July, and, like most roses, it has the pleasant practice of putting forth a stray blossom or two in early autumn. The stamens of this species are turned outward so strongly that self- pollination ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... considered that less safe than the open lawn I could not see, but they evidently did, for one of them perched upon the lilac, and filled the air with anxious "chucks," announcing to all whom it might concern—after the fashion of some birds—that here was a stray infant to be had for the picking up. Perhaps, however, the hue-and-cry kept off the quiet-loving cat; at any rate nothing happened to him, I think, for in a day or two the three young birds became so expert on wing that the whole family left ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... domestic cats wild, scarcity now made the burrowing owls tame and fearless of man. They were so reduced as scarcely to be able to fly, and hung about the houses all day long on the look-out for some stray morsel of food. I have frequently seen one alight and advance within two or three yards of the door-step, probably attracted by the smell of roasted meat. The weather continued dry until late in ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... a victory," quoth Midshipman Page, "and the only fellow who can feel cheap about it is the fellow who doesn't win. Cheer up, Davy. It's all well enough to wallop a stray college, here and there, but the one victory that sinks in deep and does our hearts good is the one we carry away from the Army. Whoop! I ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... deliberately about it, tearing off thin slathers from the fat pine, and arranging them into a light frame-work, beneath a topping of kindling and logs that he placed on the massive brass andirons. He crawled about on hands and knees, picking up the stray bits of chips and moss that had fallen from his arms when he came in. Then sitting back on his heels he looked meditatively into the blaze which he had kindled and scratched his nose with a splinter of pine wood. When Hosmer presently left ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... of day, Through this house each fairy stray, To the best bride-bed will we, Which by us shall blessed be; And the issue, there create, Ever shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples three Ever true and loving be: And the blots of nature's hand Shall ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... not one flickering spray Flashed into sunlight, nor a gaunt bough stirred; Yet, if wooed hence beneath those pines to stray, We catch a faint, thin murmur far away, A bodiless ...
— Songs from the Southland • Various
... judgment in this case is not perhaps to be depended on. Ookooma and his associates put off to accompany us in one of their own boats, but as it blew hard, they came no farther than the pier head: Jeeroo, however, was sent along with us, to see that there were no stray sheep. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall |
