"Unicorn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with the usual announcement of certain commodities in which he dealt, was another board of a very different description. On it were emblazoned the arms of his Majesty, with the supporters, a lion and a unicorn, as the country folks said, "a-fighting ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... The sea-unicorn is, when full grown, from thirteen to sixteen feet long, and has a long spiral horn or tusk growing rather on one side of its upper jaw, of from eight to ten feet in length. The eyes are very small, the blow-hole is directly over them, and the head is small, blunt, and round, ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Windsor. These two houses were part of the Clancharlie inheritance. Hunkerville House was close to Oldgate. Oldgate was a gate of London, which was entered by the Harwich road, and on which was displayed a statue of Charles II., with a painted angel on his head, and beneath his feet a carved lion and unicorn. From Hunkerville House, in an easterly wind, you heard the peals of St. Marylebone. Corleone Lodge was a Florentine palace of brick and stone, with a marble colonnade, built on pilework, at Windsor, at the head of the wooden bridge, and ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... night were borne in chairs, singly? And those queer little places of worship, those stucco chapels, with their very secular little columns, their ample pews, and their negligible altars over which one saw the Lion and the Unicorn fighting, as who should say, for the Cross—did they not breathe all the inimitable Erastianism of their period? In qua te qaero proseucha, my Lady Powderbox? Alas! every one of your tabernacles is dust now—dust turned to mud by the tears of the ghost of the Rev. Charles Honeyman, and by my ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... our familiar acquaintance. But who is that lovely being in the first blush of youth, who, bearing aloft the symbolic cross, stands with one foot on the vanquished dragon? "That is a copy after Raphael." And who is that majestic creature holding her palm-branch, while the unicorn crouches at her feet? "That is the famous Moretto at Vienna." Are we satisfied? Not in the least! but we try to look ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... a whole region. She contemplated the results of twelve years' patience, a work which might have made the fame of many a superior man, with a gentle modesty such as Pontorno has painted in the sublime face of his "Christian Chastity caressing the Celestial Unicorn." The mistress of the manor, whose silence was respected by her companions when they saw that her eyes were roving over those vast plains, once arid, and now fertile by her will, walked on, her arms folded, with a distant look, as if to some ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... said it just as you might say, 'I've taken up tennis.' He gives you the impression that if he remarked that he had taken up cathedral-building or unicorn-breeding, you would believe him. A ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town. Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown; Some gave them plum-cake and drummed ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... divided into the Denticete, or Toothed Whales, and the Mysticete, or Whalebone Whales. The former contains the river dolphins, the ziphoid whales, the gigantic sperm whale, the sea dolphins, and the narwhal or sea unicorn. The latter contains ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the mind. But in the broad view, a classical education is not a true education. Life is real, life is earnest. One must face it with a practical education. The problems of Life, my dear fellow!—classical education completely ignores them! For example, how do you tell a true Unicorn ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... Don Quixote, "but because the sage whose duty it will be to write the history of my achievements must have thought it proper that I should take some distinctive name as all knights of yore did; one being 'He of the Burning Sword,' another 'He of the Unicorn,' this one 'He of the Damsels,' that 'He of the Phoenix,' another 'The Knight of the Griffin,' and another 'He of the Death,' and by these names and designations they were known all the world round; and so I say that ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Venetian glasses, a little pewter, and some rare shells. A few high-backed chairs were ranged against the wall; there was a tall "armory," i.e. a linen-press of dark oak, guarded on each side by the twisted weapons of the sea unicorn, and in the middle of the room stood a large, solid-looking table, adorned with a brown earthenware beau-pot, containing a stiff posy of roses, southernwood, gillyflowers, pinks and pansies, of small dimensions. On hooks, against the wall, hung a pair ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are of so stupendous a size, that when I was mounted on a large mule I could not reach with my hand within two spans of the top of their backs. In Abyssinia is likewise found the rhinoceros, a mortal enemy to the elephant. In the province of Agaus has been seen the unicorn, that beast so much talked of, and so little known: the prodigious swiftness with which this creature runs from one wood into another has given me no opportunity of examining it particularly, yet I have had ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... was bound and Himself bound the strong man, that was judged being judge of the quick and dead, and that was delivered into the hands of sinners to be crucified; the same that was lifted on the horns of the unicorn, and that was pierced in His holy side; the same that poured forth again the two purifying elements, water and blood, word and spirit, and that was buried on the day of the passover, the stone being laid against ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the "Unicorn"—that was the name of the vessel—returned to port, great was the astonishment of everybody (and no one's greater than Dick's) to find that the principal portion of the treasures on board belonged to the little scullery ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... run—there was no hurry. He could make deliberate and well-considered selections; he could consult his esthetic tastes. One comprehends how undisturbed he was, and how safe from any danger of interruption, when it is stated that he even carried off a unicorn's horn—a mere curiosity—which would not pass through the egress entire, but had to be sawn in two —a bit of work which cost him hours of tedious labor. He continued to store up his treasures at home until his occupation lost the charm ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... smoking and sputtering of wood newly lighted in a damp chimney, such an airing of linen, such a scorching smell of hot warming-pans, such a domestic bustle and to-do, in short, as never dragon, griffin, unicorn, or other animal of that species presided over, since they first began to interest themselves in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... hotspur of all history, and Frederik of Denmark had fallen out. Like their people, they were first cousins, and therefore all the more bent on settling the old question which was the better man. After the fashion of the lion and the unicorn, they fought "all about the town," and, indeed, about every town that came in their way, now this and now that side having the best of it. On the sea, which was the more important because neither Swedes ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... Catherine of Medicis, 'I have not delayed giving your Majesty timely notice of what was going on, though I doubt she will not allow them to escape her. The rest of the jewels are not near so valuable as the pearls. The only thing I have heard particularly described is a piece of unicorn richly carved and decorated.' Mary's royal mother-in-law of France, no whit more scrupulous than her good cousin of England, was eager to compete with the latter for the purchase of the pearls, knowing that they were worth nearly double the sum at which they had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... raising himself on his elbow to look at the pile of sheets which Priscilla had placed in readiness on the grass. "A shield and an eagle and a lion and a unicorn all at once, to say nothing of Latin. What ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... open side street up the main street. There, beneath the lion and the unicorn of the old State House, through that historic street, cleared now as for a triumph, marched a company of federal troops. Behind them, in a hollow square, followed a body of rough-appearing men, each with a short Roman sword and a revolver; and in the open centre, alone and handcuffed, ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... faint, and began to think the best thing for him would be to ride off, for the fight was likely to end badly for his master. The knight's knees were trembling under him, and as the monster, in the form of a unicorn, charged against his shield he fell ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... starved to death in it; another, that Foote was a lunatic who was found dying in the hole, but actually died in the workhouse. The details are precise. "Foote was a gentleman. He came one day to the Unicorn Inn at Farnham. Next day he hired a man to wheel a heavy portmanteau to Moor Park gate, when he told the man to put it down. Foote was taken very ill, was found by old Hill the keeper and taken to Swift's cottage ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Moreover, he had not trained himself in the art of throwing himself upon his back, as the owl, who was like a cat in this particular also, had apparently done, and since he could not prance on his hindlegs, unicorn-fashion, forever, he had to come down again, belly and throat first, on that infernal battery ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... regimentals Stood the old Continentals, Yielding not, When the grenadiers were lunging, And like hail fell the plunging Cannon-shot; When the files Of the isles From the smoky night encampment bore the banner of the rampant Unicorn, And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drummer, Through ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... twenty feet. But he could only adjust his wig and tap his snuff-box; for such was the lukewarm state of religion in those days, that not an aisle, steeple, porch, east window, Ten-Commandment board, lion-and-unicorn, or brass candlestick, was required anywhere at all in the neighbourhood as a votive offering from a distracted soul—the last century contrasting greatly in this respect with the happy times in which ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... Bishopsgate Ward, was one of those city princes whose wealth brought them into close relation with the Crown. A goldsmith by trade, he, like others of his class, took to keeping "running cashes" and transacting generally the business of a banker at his house known as the "Unicorn" in Lombard Street. Pepys mentions him frequently in his Diary. In the days of the Commonwealth he was paymaster of the garrison at Dunkirk, and continued to act as financial agent in all matters connected with that town ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... these Elizabethan houses, erected about the year 1600. It has a fine oak staircase, the newels beautifully carved and enriched with pierced finials and pendants. The market-place has two good specimens of the same date, one of which is probably the front of the Unicorn Inn, and had a fine pair of wooden gates bearing the date 1684, but I am not sure whether they are still there. The Reindeer Inn is one of the chief architectural attractions of the town. We see the dates 1624 and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... REPULSA. (Tyranny repulsed by virtue.) A unicorn (Great Britain), royally gorged, lies extended at the foot of a precipice, against which it has broken its horn; in the background a vast country (America), diversified by plains, rivers and mountains. Exergue: SUB GALLIAE AUSPICIIS (Under the auspices of France). On the platform: ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... alone concerned in this robbery; the hands of generals and barons were equally busy, and the King himself carried off objects of the greatest value; among other things a precious intaglio representing a unicorn, estimated by Comines to be worth about seven thousand ducats. With such an example set by their sovereign, it may be easily imagined how the others behaved; and Comines himself tells us that "they shamelessly took possession of everything that tempted their greed." Thus the rich and marvellous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... Sobersides, serious and soft, T Timothy Touchstone, tomboy and torch, U Uniform, Union, and Unicorn trot, V ...
— Funny Alphabet - Uncle Franks' Series • Edward P. Cogger
... pocket a paper, which he proceeded to nail up by the four corners to the trunk. He drew back, looked at it, and went on his way. Bob got his glass from indoors and levelled it at the placard, but after looking for a long time he could make out nothing but a lion and a unicorn at the top. Anne, who was ready for church, moved away from the door, though it was yet early, and showed her intention of going by way of the elm. The paper had been so impressively nailed up that she was curious to read it even at this theological time. Bob ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... light the butterfly, Winging his way knows not the burning flame, And if the thirsty stag, unmindful of the dart, Runs fainting to the brook, Or unicorn, unto the chaste breast running, Ignores the snare that is for him prepared, I, in the light, the fount, the bosom of my love Behold the flames, the arrows, and the chains. If it be sweet in plaintiveness to droop, Why does that lofty splendour dazzle me? Wherefore the sacred ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... chicken's-neck day (we dine alternately on poultry and—er—the joint) an old lady paused before my quarters and, her head on one side, murmured musingly: "Yet I always thought the Austrian eagle had two heads, but perhaps I'm thinking of the unicorn." Half an hour later a party stopped in front of me, and one of them says: "Them Jermins didn't deserve a noble-looking bird like 'im to represent 'em, did they, Hemelie? Something with scales and bat's wings 'ud ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... and his Tribune made huge beasts great in power and form, to dwell upon parts of the earth. The unicorn was larger than the elephant. He had horns as the horns of a bull. He was mighty in strength and was a ferocious beast. Mazaroth was much larger than the unicorn; he was a beast of the rivers, of the swamps, and glades. Arcturus was a roving beast of the plains; ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... is a most clever retelling of an old, comical tale. But it is by his mystical and poetical plays that he would be judged as playwright and poet—particularly Deirdre, which should be compared with Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows; The Unicorn of the Stars, written in collaboration with Lady Gregory; Cathleen Ni Hoolihan, a dramatization of the spirit of Ireland; The King's Threshold, a high glorification of the poet's art, with a fable, based on an ancient Celtic rite, of the hunger strike; and The Land ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... afraid to meet him. Is he really here?" This remark she made to Mrs. Keeley's brother, who could hardly conceal his amusement, but, to reassure her, displayed the cart and mules by which I had come. If in England we had heard of the arrival of a "unicorn" in an aeroplane, we should not have shown more anxiety or taken more trouble to hear about the strange creature than did they concerning myself. Their curiosity did not end here. What was Mr. Keeley doing in Mafeking? Was he fighting for the English? How many head of cattle ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... each with a jet in the center. Against the same side, are three colossal groups in lead. The central one represents Neptune and Amphitrite seated in an immense shell and surrounded by tritons, nymphs and sea-monsters. On the left is Oceanus resting upon a sea-unicorn, and on the right, Proteus, the son of Oceanus. There are several other groups; and from the jets of these, amounting to some 55 or 60 in all, issues a deluge of water, when the gates are opened. A quarter of an hour in advance of the appointed time, about 15,000 persons had assembled upon the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... there?" said Mr. Fitzwarren. "A friend," answered the other. "What friend can come at this unseasonable time?" "A real friend is never unseasonable," answered the other. "I come to bring you good news of your ship Unicorn." The merchant bustled up in such a hurry that he forgot his gout; instantly opened the door, and who should be seen waiting but the captain and factor, with a cabinet of jewels, and a bill of lading, for which the merchant lifted up his eyes and thanked ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... thing he had seen? Well! He didn't know. He couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen—unless it was a Unicorn—and he see him once at a fair. But supposing a young gentleman not eight year old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start? Certainly. Then that was a start as he himself ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go to sleep in her lap, and thus the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... my father; at that age you had already fought one of the proudest lords of the country. I have not forgotten that our arms are a unicorn ripping up a lion, and our motto. Onward! I do not wish the Kervers to blush for ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... waistcoat and silver-hilted hanger; Charley rejoiced in a rasee holiday suit of his father's, in which the Colonel had been married, and which Mrs. Lambert cut up, not without a pang. Ball and Dumpling had their tails and manes tied with ribbon, and Chump, the old white cart-horse, went as unicorn leader, to help the carriage-horses up the first hilly five miles of the road from Oakhurst to Westerham. The carriage was an ancient vehicle, and was believed to have served in the procession which had brought George ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Elise, who had heard part of the conversation. "Ethelinda aspires to a family tree and a coat-of-arms, too. I saw her box of stationery spilled out over your table when I was in your room yesterday, and it had quite an imposing crest on the paper—a unicorn or griffin or something, pawing away ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... either side by his colleagues, the little black plug of his hearingaid sticking out like a misplaced unicorn's horn, was the chairman, Senator Jones, his looseskinned old fingers resting lightly on the bright table, the nails square and ridged, the flesh brownspotted. He adjusted a pair of goldrimmed spectacles, quickly found the improvement ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... him ostrich and unicorn, Ape, lion, and tiger keen; And elephants wise roared 'Hail Kaiser!' As though ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... call scientific literature was practically wanting. It is true that there was a kind of encyclopedia in verse which gave a great deal of misinformation about things in general. Every one believed in strange animals like the unicorn, the dragon, and the phoenix, and in still stranger habits of real animals. A single example will suffice to show what passed for zology in the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... charter to the knights of Knighton-Guild. Upon the top of it, to the eastward, is placed a golden sphere; and on the upper battlements, the figures of two soldiers as sentinels: beneath, in a large square, King James I. is represented standing in gilt armour, at whose feet are a lion and unicorn, both couchant, the first the supporter of England, and the other for Scotland. On the west side of the gate is the figure of Fortune, finely gilded and carved, with a prosperous sail over her head, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... so much for a pun, as in allusion to the natural history of the Unicorn, which is supposed to be, something between the Bos and the Asinus, and, as Rees's Cyclopaedia assures us, has a particular liking ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Rodriguez to take the only chair and to be waited upon by its recent possessor. The boar's meat was cold and gnarled, another piece of meat stood on a plate on a shelf and a loaf of bread near by, but the rats had had most of the bread: Rodriguez demanded what the meat was. "Unicorn's tongue," said the servant, and Rodriguez bade him set the dish before him, and he set to well content, though I fear the unicorn's tongue was only horse: it was a credulous age, as all ages are. At the same time he pointed to a three-legged ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... elders or leaders wore lion and leopard skins and some were clad in a kind of silken tunic belted about the middle. All were armed for war with long bows, short swords and small shields round in shape and made from the hide of the hippopotamus or of the unicorn. Gold was plentiful amongst them since even the humblest wore bracelets of that metal, while about the necks of the chieftains it was wound in great torques, also sometimes on their ankles. They wore ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... leads after him the gods Bound in pliant traces; Harsh and stubborn hearts he bends, Breaks with blows of maces; Nay, the unicorn is ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... people—the scum of the rabble, sir, banded together by the myrmidons of Sir Barnes Newcome, attacked us at the King's Arms, and smashed ninety-six pounds' worth of glass at one volley, besides knocking off the gold unicorn head and the tail of the British lion; it was fine, sir," F. B. said, "to see how the Colonel came forward, and the coolness of the old boy in the midst of the action. He stood there in front, sir, with his old hat off, never so much as once bobbing ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was the Prence Ragin' himself, mounted up upon his elegant throne, an' his crown, that was half a hundred weight ov goold, I suppose, on his head, an' his sceptre in his hand, an' his lion sittin' on one side ov him, an' his unicorn on the other.—'Morrow, Dan,' says he, 'you're welcome here.'—'Good morning, my Lord,' says I, 'plase your Reverence.'—'An' what do you think ov my place,' says he, 'Dan, now you're in it?'—'By Dad! your worship,' says I, 'it bates all the places ever I see, an' there's not the like ov id for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... Abyssinia; the elephant, unicorn, their horses and cows; with a particular account ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... to direct the reader's eye upon this correction of the common problem as to this or that place—Ceylon for example—answering to this or that classical name—because, in fact, the problem is more subtle than it appears to be. If you are asked whether you believe in the unicorn, undoubtedly you are within the letter of the truth in replying that you do; for there are several varieties of large animals which carry a single horn in the forehead.[15] But, virtually, by such an answer you would countenance a falsehood or a doubtful legend, since you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... impending Presidential election. "The issue to-day," he says, "is the Tariff. It is the American system versus the British Colonial system. The Irish are instinctively Protectionists." And why? Mr. Ford goes on to explain. "The fact," he observes, "that the Lion and the Unicorn have taken the stump for Cleveland and Thurnan is not calculated to hurt Harrison and Morton in the estimation of the Irish, who will, I promise, give a good account of themselves in the coming Presidential election." Hatred of England, in other words, ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... again the almost lost art of tapestry, and her productions of wonderful beauty are considered as among the most desirable in modern decorative art. Among these tapestries are "The Lover's Song," "Salome Dancing before Herod," "The Annunciation," "The Legend of the Unicorn," "The Lovers' Picnic," and "The Lovers." The tapestries were painted in Rome and in the Vedder villa, Torre Quattro Venti on Capri, where the artist and his wife and daughter pass their summers. The established English Church has two chapels ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... matter is it for him then to be a he-goat, or a stumpbuck, or a kid, or a chamois, a stag, or a brill, a unicorn, or an elephant so he may be safe, but how may that be, I pray ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... seated figure with the unicorn. Recently acquired at Cologne, and known to the writer only by photograph and description, but tentatively accepted ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... the bands of the wild ass? whose house I have made the wilderness and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the voice of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture. The magnificent description of the unicorn and of leviathan, in the same book, is full of the same heightening circumstances: Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee? canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? wilt thou trust him because ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was never patented. The Elixir invented by Richard Stoughton was, in 1712, the second compound medicine to be granted a patent in England.[21] Stoughton was an apothecary who had a shop at the Sign of the Unicorn in Southwark, Surrey. It was evidently competition, the constant bane of the medicine proprietor's life, that drove him to seek governmental protection. In his specifications he asserted that he had been making his medical mixture for over twenty years. Stoughton was less precise about his formula; ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... the male Lolo, rich or poor, free or subject, may be instantly known by his horn. All his hair is gathered into a knot over his forehead and there twisted up in a cotton cloth so as to resemble the horn of a unicorn. The horn with its wrapper is sometimes a good nine inches long. They consider this coiffure sacred, so at least I was told, and even those who wear a short pig-tail for convenience in entering Chinese territory still conserve the indigenous horn, concealed ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... and as sound as ever. The sloping mirror over the chest of drawers was still supported by the four seasons, one at each corner. Above it was Queen Caroline, with the crown on her head, and the sceptre in her hand, seated in a magnificent Roman chariot, drawn by the lion and the unicorn. That team had tortured my young soul for years. I could never understand why that savage lion had not long ago devoured both the Queen ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... you, Entreat him mildly, let not your rough tongue Set us at louder variance; all my wrongs Are freely pardon'd; and I do not doubt, As men to try the precious unicorn's horn Make of the powder a preservative circle, And in it put a spider, so these arms Shall charm his poison, force it to obeying, And keep him chaste from an ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... had attained the entrance, with the other seven following, when some monsters arose from the bottom, near the shore, where he had been lurking, opposed his further progress, and a conflict instantly ensued. The daring assailant I distinguished to be a sword-fish, or sea-unicorn, the knight-errant of the sea, attacking every thing in its domain; his head is as hard and as rough as a rock, out of the centre of which grows horizontally an ivory spear, longer and far tougher than any warrior's lance; with this weapon he fights. The shark, with a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... a white unicorn who lived in the cave. When it saw the hermit coming the unicorn knelt down and worshipped him. Many people saw ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... Would be easier for him to tell what he hadn't seen than what he had. Ah! A deal, it would. What was the curiosest thing he'd seen? Well! He didn't know—couldn't name it momently—unless it was a Unicorn, and he see him over at a Fair. But"—and here came the golden retrospect, a fairy tale of love told by a tavern Boots, and told all through, moreover, as none but a Boots could tell it—"Supposing a young gentleman not eight year'old, was to run away with a fine young woman ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... alive in me! That battlemented hull, Tantallon o' the sea, Kicked in, as at Boston the taxed chests o' tea! Ay, spurned by the ram, once a tall, shapely craft, But lopped by the Rebs to an iron-beaked raft— A blacksmith's unicorn in ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... we came in the twilight to the Haunted House of Marnhoul, and Mr. Richard made his horse rear almost as high as the unicorn does in the sign above the King's Arms door, so suddenly did he swing him round to the gate. He halted the beast with his head against the very bar and looked up the avenue. The grass in the glade was again covered with dew, ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... hand; "for, having little time to spell at it," said he, "your lordship well knows I ken nought about it but the grand blazon at the tap—the lion has gotten a claught of our auld Scottish shield now, but it was as weel upheld when it had a unicorn on ilk side ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... antelope (Pantholops Hodgsoni), of which the bucks are armed with long, slender and heavily-ridged horns of an altogether peculiar type, while the does are hornless. Possibly this handsome antelope may be the original of the mythical unicorn, a single buck when seen in profile looking exactly as if it had but one long straight horn. Although far from uncommon, chiru are very wary, and consequently difficult to approach. They are generally found in small parties, although occasionally in herds. They inhabit the desolate ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... learned men in the Bestiaries how the unicorn, which bears on its forehead a flaming sword, transfixes the hunter in his coat-of-mail, but falls to its knees before a pure virgin. Be ye gentle-hearted, therefore, and simple-souled; keep your heart pure, and ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... education, and circumstances have made them. Once an age, once in half-a-dozen ages, nature may make a Brinvilliers, or art allow of a Zeluco; but, in general, monsters are mere fabulous creatures—mistakes often, from bad drawings, like the unicorn." "Yes, mamma, yes; now I feel much more comfortable. The unicorn has convinced me," said ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... to this betrothal, and caused him to swear fealty to his uncle for Brittany as a fief of Normandy. Arthur was now thirteen, and had newly received the order of knighthood, adopting as his device the lion, unicorn, and griffin, which tradition declared to have been borne by his namesake, and this homage must have been sorely against his will. He was betrothed to Marie, one of the French King's daughters, and continued to reside at his ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... or unicorn of the sea, often attains a length of sixty feet. Increase its size fivefold or tenfold, give it strength proportionate to its size, lengthen its destructive weapons, and you obtain the animal required. It will have the proportions determined by the officers of the Shannon, the instrument required ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... wordScotch, English, and foreign coins, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and some of them rariet rarioresetiam rarissimi! Here is the bonnet-piece of James V., the unicorn of James II.,ay, and the gold festoon of Queen Mary, with her head and the Dauphin's. And these were really found in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... further provided with a stove—all the heating there was in the three aisles. There was also a two-decker pulpit at the east end and over the dim little altar hung an escutcheon of Royal George—the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown amid ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... of the Roman king. There was beheld the lion from Bilidulgerid, and the leopard from Hindostan—the rein-deer from polar latitudes—the antelope from the Zaara—and the leigh, or gigantic stag, from Britain. Thither came the buffalo and the bison, the white bull of Northumberland and Galloway, the unicorn from the regions of Nepaul or Thibet, the rhinoceros and the river-horse from Senegal, with the elephant of Ceylon or Siam. The ostrich and the cameleopard, the wild ass and the zebra, the chamois and the ibex of Angora,—all brought their tributes of beauty or deformity to these ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... terrible sound came from it. It was as though a thousand horses were neighing and screaming all at once. Fritz's heart stood still. He wanted to run away, but his legs refused to move. As he stood there, shaking and quaking, there rushed out of the forest a huge unicorn with a spiral ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... with a Tuscan portico. The steeple at the west is a very extraordinary structure; on a round pedestal at the top of a pyramid is placed a colossal statue of the late King [George I.], and at the corners near the base are alternately placed the lion and unicorn, the British supporters, with festoons between. These animals, being very large, are injudiciously placed over columns very small, which make them appear monsters." The lions and unicorns have now been removed. This steeple has ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... let one perceive in a marvellous forest a lady at the feet of whom a unicorn lay on the grass, extended above cabinets to the painted beams of the ceiling. He led her to a large and low divan, loaded with cushions covered with sumptuous fragments of Spanish and Byzantine cloaks; but she sat in an armchair. "You are here! You ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... Tiger! Did she think of TIPPOO SAIB'S Tiger's Head? She saw the Lion! Thought she of one of her own Arms? She did NOT see the Unicorn; but (With her gracious habits of condescension) Did she think of him a bit the less? Thoughts crowd upon ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Moksha unto all creatures. Bow unto Him who is the Lord of Penances, of all kinds of energy, and of Fame, who is ever the Lord of Speech and the Lord of all the Rivers also. Bow unto Him who is called Kaparddin (Rudra), who is the Great Boar, who is Unicorn, and who is possessed of great intelligence, who is the Sun, who assumed the well-known form with the equine head; and who is always displayed in a four-fold form. Bow unto Him who is unrevealed, who is capable of being apprehended by knowledge ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... surmounted by a crown with its proper supporters, each surrounded by a small guard drawn from the troops that had ridden by just now. He identified a few here and there; and his heart gave a strange leap as the Imperial Crown of England came in sight, held up by the Lion and the Unicorn, and beneath it, within the gilded coach, the face of a boy capped and robed in scarlet. And then he looked up again, startled by a silence broken only by the footsteps of the horses and the wheels over the matted roadway, and ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... standing by the side of the sleeping Adam, and regarding him with pleasurable anticipation. Another shows us the animals marching in line to be inspected and named. The snail heads the procession and sets the pace. The lion and the tiger stroll gossiping together. The unicorn walks alone, very stiff and proud. Two rats and two mice are closely followed by two sleek cats, who keep them well covered, and plainly await the time when Eve's amiable indiscretion shall assign them their natural prey. In the third tapestry the deed has been ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... color with a representation of Egypt, but they had other forms besides. Ephraim's had the picture of a bull, to symbolize Joshua, sprung of this tribe, whose glory was like "the firstling of his bullock, that pusheth the people together to the ends of the earth;" whereas Manasseh's was that of a unicorn, symbolizing the judge Gideon that sprang from this tribe, "who with his horns of unicorns pushed the people." Benjamin's flag had a color composed of all the other eleven colors, and a wolf for his token, Jacob having described this tribe a "a ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... wish: but this promise she omitted to fulfil, and some obstruction was in consequence given to the execution of her last will. We possess a large inventory of her jewels and valuables, among which are enumerated "two pieces of unicorn's horn," an article highly valued in that day, from its supposed efficacy as an antidote, or a test, for poisons. The extreme smallness of her bequests for charitable purposes was justly remarked ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... UNICORN.—Considerably relieved. Though you can't imagine the stiffness of my neck and legs. Let me see, how long is it since we relieved ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Burnet, being appointed to preach the sermon on the Gunpowder Plot, (1684,) at the Rolls Chapel:—I chose for my text these words: "Save me from the lion's mouth, thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." I made no reflection in my thoughts on the lion and unicorn, as being the two supporters of the King's scutcheon.—Swift. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... it for the royal use, and printed an account in 1664. Evelyn relates that he accompanied Charles to see the preparation in 1662. But le Febre, Kenelm Digby, and Alexander Fraser tampered with the original. It is acknowledged that Fraser added the flesh, heart, and liver of vipers, and the mineral unicorn. Other liberties, it may be apprehended, were taken. The receipt as drawn up by le Febre reads like a botanist's catalogue interpolated with oriental pearls, ambergris, and bezoardic stones, to add mystery. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... I need not speak; use the same cordials as before. In this kind of melancholy, some prescribe [4398]treacle in winter, especially before or after purges, or in the spring, as Avicenna, [4399] Trincavellius mithridate, [4400]Montaltus paeony seed, unicorn's horn; os de corde ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... were to me, and under their benign influence the petty trials and inconveniences of the past seven or eight weeks faded away like a dissolving view. The authorities have also served us out with clothes. I have received a lovely khaki tunic with beautiful brass buttons stamped with Lion and Unicorn, "Dieu et mon Droit," and a' that. And the fit is a wonderful fit; it is truly marvellous how they can turn out such a well-fitting coat for—a big boy of twelve. And I have boots! A grand fit for a policeman. Only I am neither a boy of twelve nor ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... sea are found the black whale, porpoise, sea-horse, seal, and the narwal or sea unicorn; the horn of the latter, solid ivory, is a beautiful object. The largest I procured measured six feet and a half in length, four inches in diameter at the root, and a quarter of an inch at the point. It is of a spiral form, and projects from near the extremity ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... is for the Unicorn, The dearest little thing; Though he has but a single horn, And not a single wing. A Unicorn of any age Is nicer, so I've heard, To keep within a gilded cage ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... opera-house, with a dais and a sofa in the centre of one long side, and another dais with a second sofa immediately opposite to it in the centre of the other long side. Each dais had a canopy of red velvet, one bearing the Lion and the Unicorn, the other the American Eagle. The Royal Standard was displayed above the Unicorn; the Stars-and-Stripes, not quite so effectively, waved above the Eagle. The Princess, being no longer quite a child, ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... huddled. These and similar vehicles drew up in rows outside the public-houses, where the lean, long-legged colonial horses stood jerking at their tethers; and they were still there, still jerking, when he passed again toward evening. On a huge poster the "Unicorn" offered to lunch free all those "thinking men" who registered their vote for "the one and only true democrat, the miners' friend and tyrants' foe, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Society was founded, the Fellows set {22} to work to prove all things, that they might hold fast that which was good. They bent themselves to the question whether sprats were young herrings. They made a circle of the powder of a unicorn's horn, and set a spider in the middle of it; "but it immediately ran out." They tried several times, and the spider "once made some stay in the powder." They inquired into Kenelm Digby's sympathetic powder. "Magnetic cures being discoursed of, Sir Gilbert Talbot ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... drove the dog-cart over the hills to York races. My brother had come down to Perth, and we went together, taking with us our friend the amiable and talented editor of one of the Perth journals. Attaching another horse to an outrigger, we drove unicorn, or a team ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... in a better way from a higher motive. I will cheerfully promise you, however, to be 'bound by no words,' blind to no miracle; in sober earnest, it is not because I renounced once for all oxen and the owning and having to do with them, that I will obstinately turn away from any unicorn when such an apparition blesses me ... but meantime I shall walk at peace on our hills here nor go looking in all corners for the bright curved horn! And as for you ... if I did not dare 'to dream of that'—, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Gugu Forest there is a King—an enormous yellow leopard called "Gugu"—after whom the forest is named. And this King has three other beasts to advise him in keeping the laws and maintaining order—Bru the Bear, Loo the Unicorn and Rango the Gray Ape—who are known as the King's Counselors. All these are fierce and ferocious beasts, and hold their high offices because they are more intelligent and more ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... great bulls of Bashan have beset me round. Save me from the lion's mouth; for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn.'" ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... nice job with that," he answered. "The second sick ox died, and so did another, and we had to get on as best we could with three harnessed unicorn fashion, while we pushed behind. We did about four miles a day, and it took us nearly a month, during the last week of ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... conclusion, and went at once to see Isabella, who seemed to be almost at the last gasp. Sending with all speed for her physicians, she, meanwhile, ordered that the sufferer should be given a quantity of powdered unicorn's horn and several other antidotes, with which great princes are usually provided against such casualties. The physicians arrived and begged the queen to make the lady keeper declare what kind of poison she had used (for no one doubted that she was the poisoner). This information having been obtained ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and yellow, he knew at once that she was a sorceress, for the caterpillar of the hawk-moth is green and yellow, and it, too, knows how to bewitch the eye. The lower end of its body looks as if it were its head and has a horn like a unicorn, so that it frightens away its enemies with its mock face, while it feeds in peace with that part of its body which ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... the Monitory Dream Fairy, "is made of the twigs of hundreds of flowers, and the juice of ten thousands of trees, with the addition of must composed of unicorn marrow, and yeast prepared with phoenix milk. Hence the name of 'Ten thousand Beauties in one Cup' was given ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... were drawn, with the courteous acquiescence of various publishers, from The Pageant, The Savoy, The Chap Book, and The Yellow Book. Internal evidence shows that Mr. Beerbohm took fragments of his writings from Vanity (of New York) and The Unicorn, that he might inlay them in the First Essay, of whose scheme they are really a part. The Third Essay he re-wrote. The rest he carefully revised, and to some ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... miles of Steynham. Action was what he wanted, Everard said. Nevil perhaps thought the same, for he dashed out of his mooning with a wave of the Tory standard, delighting the ladies, though in that conflict of the Lion and the Unicorn (which was a Tory song) he seemed rather to wish to goad the dear lion than crush the one-horned intrusive upstart. His calling on the crack corps of Peers to enrol themselves forthwith in the front ranks, and to anticipate opposition by initiating measures, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... says Van de Velde, (the former possessor,) on the fly-leaf, "sans chiffres et reclames, en longues lignes de 27 lignes sur les pages entieres." The full stop employed is a sort of twofold, recumbent, circumflex or caret; and the most eminent watermark in the paper is a Unicorn, bearing a much more suitable antelopian weapon than is that awkwardly horizontal horn prefixed by Dr. Dibdin to the Oryx in profile which he has depicted in plate vi. appertaining to his life of Caxton: Typographical ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various |
