"Bat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shed, directing the apparatus, and giving orders to his helpers like a white man. A bottle of explosion-water held no more than half a coconut, yet it was sold for ten cents, and it was a perplexity that anybody liked it, for it shot up your nose like the rush of a bat, and made you choke and sneeze, as Evanitalina discovered when once Viliamu brought her some. But it was a fine thing to be able to make it, and earn a dollar and a half a day, and dress magnificently, and give costly presents; and though Evanitalina did not ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... she hears it crying, In the shape of an owl or bat, And she'll bring us our darling Anna In ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... almost at hazard, following this bat, looking at this manure of the birds, respiring this dust, in this obscurity among the cobwebs and scampering rats, we came to a dark corner in which, on a big wheelbarrow, I could just distinguish a long package tied with string and that looked like ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... blind as a bat. The things you fight for in the World don't get to the bottom of ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... religious costumes also form a striking element in the general tone of the display,—Franciscan, Dominican, or Penitent habits,—usually crimson or yellow, rarely sky-blue. There are no historical costumes, few eccentricities or monsters: only a few "vampire-bat" head-dresses abruptly break the effect of the peaked caps and the hoods.... Still there are some decidedly local ideas in dress which deserve notice,—the congo, the bb (or ti-manmaille), the ti ngue gouos- sirop ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... wonder at the queer little pair lying prone amongst the green clover. Thousands of wonderful night noises also began to awaken in all directions—the merry chirp of the cricket, the whir of the bat on its circling flight, the hum of the moths—but the children heard nothing, although the creatures of the night were curious about these strange little beings who, by good rights, ought not to ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... nature that is not interesting and in some way useful. Perhaps you will say "How about a bat?" As a matter of fact a bat is one of our best friends because he will spend the whole night catching mosquitoes. But some one will say "he flies into your hair and is covered with a certain kind of disgusting vermin." Did you ever know of a bat flying into ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... and sank again. The priest knew well enough that it was a device of Satan's to frighten him; so he delayed not; but setting the lantern down on the ground, he stood. In a moment the lantern was obscured as by the rush of bat-like wings. But the priest took the veil off the vessel; and holding it up in the air, he let the water fall in the pool, saying softly, "Lord, let them ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... blind as a bat, with my mind still up on the walk-around. There was no answer to my knock. I hadn't expected any. Just from habit, and with my right foot already hanging down for the next step, I reached out to give the door one ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... preceded it, is peculiarly a period of mammals; and we find the class, free, if I may so express myself, of the three elements, disputing possession of the sea with the fishes, in its Cetaceans, its seals, and its sea-lions, and of the air with the birds, in its numerous genera of the bat family. Further, not until the great mammaliferous period is fairly ushered in do either the bats or the whales make their appearance in creation. Remains of Oolitic reptiles have been mistaken in more than one instance for ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... with coastlines in the shape of a baseball bat and ball, the two volcanic islands are separated by a three-km-wide channel called The Narrows; on the southern tip of long, baseball bat-shaped Saint Kitts lies the Great Salt Pond; Nevis Peak sits in the center of its almost circular namesake island and its ball shape complements that of ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... avenue. The bases of the columns are buried among the fallen fragments of the roof and a mass of superincumbent earth; from his hiding-place, amidst which the jackal began to steal forth, and wake the echoes of the ruins with his blood-curdling shriek; while the shadowy bat flitted, spirit-like, from dusky pillar to pillar. From the centre of the hall, whichever way we looked through the deepening gloom, there seemed no end to the labyrinthine ruins. Obelisks and columns, some erect in their pristine beauty, others fallen ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... is a square plot of ground with sides ninety feet long. At each corner of the square are bases called first, second, third and home plate. A game consists of nine innings, in each of which both teams have an opportunity to bat the ball and to score runs. The players bat in turn and attempt to reach the various bases without being put out by their opponents. Each year the rules are changed in some slight particulars, ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... and uncondensed light of the lamp. The hair of a mouse is a very good test object: it is best seen by daylight; the most difficult parts of which are longitudinal lines in the transparent part of the hair, which require high powers. The hair of the bat and seal are also fine tests. The lines on the scales of the diamond beetle, &c. are excellent opaque proof objects. The feet of flies ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... many years ago, Jane, and I wish things to be as he left them. Yes, even this cricket bat that I have just found in the attic. He used to have it in the corner by the fireplace, and I wish you to place it ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... rane. Beany and Ticky Moses got fiting at resess today. we was playing 2 old cat and we was chewsing sides, and Beany and Ticky was chewsing and the way they did it was this. Beany he throwed the bat at Ticky and Ticky he cought it about half way down, and then Beany he put his hand above Tickys and Ticky he put his above Beanys, and so on til when they came to the end of the bat the last one whitch had his hand on has the first choice and no fudging, ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... countenances, and making them look indeed more like female inquisitors, ogres, or Witches of Endor than human beings. I never saw human nature made so uninviting, and I could fancy the terror inspired by these awful figures, with their bat-like flaps, in the tender minds of the little children entrusted to their care. It was edifying to hear these holy women discourse upon the Paris Exhibition, which it is hardly necessary to say the clerical party throughout France was bound to consider a failure. Alike the highest ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... able to sit daan to a warm meal. But like monny a one beside, altho' he wor soa mich put abaght, it did'nt cure him; but when he'd had a doo, an' been two or three days at cold poltices; as he call'd em, he used to say, "Niver noa moor! If aw once get ovver this, yo'll niver catch me at that bat agean! It's towt me a lesson 'as this." An' noa daat it had, but he varry sooin ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... no end of monkeys. There are sixteen kinds of bats here, and all your base-ball clubs could be supplied from the stock; and there is a flying fox, which might amuse you if you could catch one. He is a sort of bat; and the more of them you shoot, the better the farmer will be pleased, for they feed on his fruit. Plenty of birds of all sorts are found in the island. The crocodile is the biggest reptile ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... heard by me. Listen now, with concentrated attention, to what I say unto you. He who is not employed in merit or in sin, he who does not attend to Profit, or Virtue, or Desire, who is above all faults, who regards gold and a brick-bat with equal eyes, becomes liberated from pleasure and pain and the necessity of accomplishing his purposes. All creatures are subject to birth and death. All are liable to waste and change. Awakened repeatedly by the diverse benefits and evils of life, all of them applaud Emancipation. We ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... bluebird an' phoebe Are smarter'n we be? Jest fold our hands an' see the swaller An' blackbird an' catbird beat us holler? Does the leetle, chatterin', sassy wren, No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men Jest show me that! Er prove't the bat Has got more brains than's in my hat, An' I'll back down, an' ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... ten years, yet little had been added to the stock of natural history which had been acquired in the first year or two of its infancy. The Kangaroo, the Dog, the Opossum, the Flying Squirrel, the Kangaroo Rat, a spotted Rat, the common Rat, and the large Fox-bat (if entitled to a place in this society), made up the whole catalogue of animals that were known at this time, with the exception which must now be made of an amphibious animal, of the mole species, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... or preferably a glass-worker's knife of hard Thuringian steel for cutting glass tubes etc.; next a blowpipe flame, for although much can be done with the ordinary Bunsen burner, a blowpipe flame makes for rapid work; and lastly a bat's-wing burner. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... other hand, went, I should think, naked, confining their attention to the hair, and in this resembling the Fijians, for they seemed to wear an artificial hair made of the fur of some creature like a bat, and also they wore wooden masks, and great rings—for the ear, no doubt—which must have fallen to the shoulders: for the earth was in them all, and made them wild, perverse and various like herself. I went from one to the other without any system whatever, searching ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... skin, a quiet manner, and a competent hand. His name was Michael. At his feet crouched a small Kikuyu savage, in blanket ear ornaments and all the fixings, armed with a long lashed whip and raucous voice. At any given moment he was likely to hop out over the moving wheel, run forward, bat the off leading mule, and hop back again, all with the most extraordinary agility. He likewise hurled what sounded like very opprobrious epithets at such natives as did not get out the way quickly enough to suit him. The expression of his face, which was ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... hee!" cackled old Gagool behind us, as she flitted about like a vampire bat. "There are the bright stones ye love, white men, as many as ye will; take them, run them through your fingers, eat of them, hee! hee! drink of ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... shining down upon the silent prairie. The moon was quite faint, so that only an indistinct view of objects could be seen. Occasionally Johnny clambered up the bank and took a survey of the surrounding plains; bat seeing nothing at all suspicious, he soon grew weary of this, and confined his walks to the immediate vicinity of the camp-fire, passing back and forth between the narrow ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... think they were anything except what they are called. As for the fried fish, it resembles coarse red sand-paper; and you would sooner think of purchasing a penny-worth to polish the handle of a cricket bat or racket, than of trying its qualities in any other way. The "black puddings" resemble great fossil ammonites, cut up lengthwise. What the "faggots" are made of, which form such a popular dish in this neighbourhood, we have yet to learn. We have heard rumours of ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... poppy's spreading shade. The jealous queen started in rage; She kick'd her crown and beat her page: "Bring me my magic wand," she cries; "Under that primrose there it lies; I'll change the silly, saucy chit, Into a flea, a louse, a nit, A worm, a grasshopper, a rat, An owl, a monkey, hedge-hog, bat. Ixion once a cloud embraced, By Jove and jealousy well placed; What sport to see proud Oberon stare, And flirt it with a pet-en Pair!" Then thrice she stamped the trembling ground, And thrice she waved her wand around; When I endowed with greater skill, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... so too, and more than seven too. Mark the Bounds with a Shell, or Brick-bat, or with ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... to be ominous, and dreaded the future event enchained to them. That the night owl should screech before the noon-day sun, that the hard-winged bat should wheel around the bed of beauty, that muttering thunder should in early spring startle the cloudless air, that sudden and exterminating blight should fall on the tree and shrub, were unaccustomed, but physical events, less horrible than the mental creations of almighty fear. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Reptiles or Pterosaurians, partly took the place of birds, and most of them were of small size. Strange bat-winged creatures, the wing membrane stretched on the enormously elongated fourth finger, they are of all extinct reptiles the least understood, the most difficult to reconstruct and visualize as they were ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... Ivanovna was a very unfortunate creature. "The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality? The Countess A—— had by no means a bad heart, bat she was capricious, like a woman who had been spoilt by the world, as well as being avaricious and egotistical, like all old people who have seen their best days, and whose thoughts are with the past and not the present. She participated ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... Sally sitting motionless, like a painted figure, in the faint, reddish glow of the night-lamp, while above her, and above the little waxen face on her knee, the shadow, of the palm-leaf fan, waved by Aunt Euphronasia, flitted to and fro like the wing of a bat. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... "I know, of course, that a substitute may not bat for another at the end of a match, but this is a dream, remember. That, perhaps, is what dreams are for—to provide the limited and frustrated life of the daytime with the compensations of limitless adventure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... crowd, and I was looking at and admiring the sunset. The golden earth and sky seemed like a little bubble that floated in the globe of human futility. . . . Then in the twilight I walked along an unknown, bat-haunted road ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... assistant adjutant-general; a. d. c., aide-de-camp; adm., admiral; adm'n, administration; A. C., army corps; art., artillery; bat., battery; br., brevet; brig., brigade, brigadier; capt., captain; cav., cavalry; ch., church; ch'f, chief; C. H., courthouse; co., company; col., colonel; com., commodore; com'd'g, commanding; com'r, commander; ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... fur, sleeked flat and wet where Jane had licked it. His eyes were buttoned up tight. Then they opened. He crawled feebly on the floor after Jane, or hung on to her little breasts, pressing out the milk with his clever paws. Then Jerry got older. Sometimes he went mad and became a bat or a bird, and flew up the drawing-room curtains as if his ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... some strange bird-creature hovering a few yards from his face in the darkness was indescribably unpleasant to Woodhouse. As his thought returned he concluded that it must be some night-bird or large bat. At any risk he would see what it was, and pulling a match from his pocket, he tried to strike it on the telescope seat. There was a smoking streak of phosphorescent light, the match flared for a moment, and he saw a vast wing sweeping towards ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... It should be as easy to expel an obnoxious thought from your mind as it is to shake a stone out of your shoe; and till a man can do that it is just nonsense to talk about his ascendancy over Nature, and all the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and prey to the bat-winged phantoms that flit through the ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... old bat-mole," said Marta, "I fink dat farm next ours purty good, but Rolf he say 'No Lake George no good.' Better he like all his folk ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... whirled aloft the heavy crutch. "If you hit at me again I'll let out what little brains you've got. God knows that's little enough!... Belllounds, I'm going to call you to your face—before this girl your bat-eyed old man means to give you. You're not drunk. You're only ugly—mean. You've got a chance now to lick me because I'm crippled. And you're going to make the most of it. Why, you cur, I could come near licking you with only one leg. But if you touch ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... any of them comments on the record, or works 'em in as repartee. Nothing like that. I may look foolish, but there are times when I know enough not to rock the boat. Besides, this was Myra's turn at the bat; and, ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... "Bat him on the head if you have to, Lance," Belle called, cold-eyed but capable. "He'll get sunstroke out here in this heat. And if you can get him into the house you had better tie him down till a doctor comes." Then she left, with the pintos circling in a lope ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... the wall, and one now often practised by the smith, is to use a quantity of so-called 'tar-band' or other stout cord. With this the foot is neatly bound after the manner of a cricket-bat handle, and all movement of the crack apparently restricted. There is always a tendency, however, for such a dressing to work loose, and in the case of a complicated crack it has the disadvantage of permanently ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... Jesu Christi Test. Syriac. cum versione Latina, curra et studio Joh. Leusden et Caroli Schaaf. Secunda editio a mendis purgata. Lugduni. Bat. Typ. Jo. Mulleri. John. fil. apud Vid. et fil. Cornel. Boutesteyn, Samuelem Luchtmans, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... birds, enough remained to supply their wants. They managed generally on each excursion to bring down three or four birds, Dan having by degrees found how to make his bow shoot straight. He one day killed what he took to be a large bat, but on showing it to the doctor, he was highly delighted to find that it was in reality a flying lemur. It had a largely developed membrane, connecting the fore limbs with the others, and the hind limbs ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... obtaining its plumage. the nativs in every part of the Continent who can precure those feathers attach them to their own hair and the mains and tail of their favorite horses by way of orniment. they also deckerate their own caps or bonnets with those feathers. The Leather winged bat ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... faint murmur of the river and the distant singing of a nightingale, the gleam of the glowworms, compose a scene of fantastic beauty. The slightest sounds startle her, whether it be a fish leaping at the surface of the water to seize a fly, the gurgling of a little eddy, or the shrill cry of a bat. There is a certain voluptuous beauty in the very sound of the words that describe the little ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... return to the bat-holes. The three men relieved each other in the operations of wielding the hammers and guiding the jumpers, so that the work never flagged for a moment, and it was found that when the tools were of a very good temper, these holes could ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... by Sir Joshua, that virtue was preferable to vice, considering this life only; and that a man would be virtuous were it only to preserve his character: and that he expressed much wonder at the curious formation of the bat, a mouse with wings; saying, that 'it was almost as strange a thing in physiology, as if the fabulous dragon could ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... where the most admirable flowers conceal hideous reptiles, where the brightest fruits contain subtle poisons, where grow splendid trees, whose very shadow is death—where the gigantic vampire bat sucks the blood of its victims whilst it prolongs their sleep, by surrounding them with a fresh and balmy air, no fan moving so rapidly as the great perfumed ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... loomed in the dusk, heavy and formidable. He was as big as a man, somewhat lank, and covered with coarse hair the colour of cocoanut matting. This afternoon, when the early patrons entered, they found him hanging limply by one arm, like a great ungainly bat. ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... thrown by the hand, each woman has a long stick with a circular frame at the end of it; this they call a bat stick, and, simple as it looks, it requires ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... night Henry Fenn passed from Congress Street and walked with a steady purpose manifest in his clicking heels. It was not a night's bat that guided his feet, no festive orgy, but the hard, firm footfall of a man who has been drunk a long time—terribly mean drunk. And terribly mean drunk he was. His eyes were blazing, and he mumbled as he walked. Down Market Street he turned and strode to the corner where the Traders' National ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... would have torn himself from the comfort of a morning nap to listen to a minstrel in a jacket; none but a maid awakes to songs of love. Not only was this woman a maid, but she was an old maid. When she had opened her blinds with the furtive motion of the bat, she looked in all directions, but saw nothing, and only heard, faintly, the flying footfalls of the lad. Can there be anything more dreadful than the matutinal apparition of an ugly old maid at her window? Of all the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... universally tolerated, as indeed the most horrible and aimless form of it is.[12] If Nature had intended man to think she would not have given him ears, or, at any rate, she would have furnished them with air-tight flaps like the bat, which for this reason is to be envied. But, in truth, man is like the rest, a poor animal, whose powers are calculated only to maintain him during his existence; therefore he requires to have his ears always open to announce of themselves, by night ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... gimcracks. The front of the upright piano had what March called a short-skirted portiere on it, and the top was covered with vases, with dragon candlesticks and with Jap fans, which also expanded themselves bat wise on the walls between the etchings and the water colors. The floors were covered with filling, and then rugs and then skins; the easy-chairs all had tidies, Armenian and Turkish and Persian; the lounges and sofas had embroidered ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... fallen on the trees and shrubs; and the wind, at length beginning to break the unnatural stillness that had prevailed all day, sighed heavily from time to time, as though foretelling in grief the ravages of the coming storm. The bat skimmed in fantastic flights through the heavy air, and the ground was alive with crawling things, whose instinct brought them forth to swell ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... me credit for being such a bat—such a mole. Now I must be away. We'll meet pretty soon, I expect. Just forget this afternoon as though it had never been, even though it's such a jolly sunny one. And remember me as a friend—a friend still for all my foolishness. Good-by ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... the fact was that she had been a regular nuisance. Mr. Churchill had somehow persuaded himself, and what was worse, he had managed to persuade Lord Kitchener as well as Mr. Asquith and others, that she would just about settle the Dardanelles business off her own bat. I had, as it happened (and as will be mentioned in the next chapter), expressed doubts to him six months earlier when the idea of operations in this quarter was first mooted, as to the efficacy of gun-fire from warships in assisting troops on shore ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... say?" he laughed. "Let me tell you that when I used to play baseball I had a 'follow through' which made the fielders get out so far when I came to bat that the spectators had to use fieldglasses to see where they were. If I hit that golf ball good and fair it will 'follow through' into the next county, and don't you forget that I told you so! Come ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... but the constrained smile on his lips was one of self-esteem at issue with adversity. He wore the dress of a gentleman, but it was disorderly. His light overcoat hung unbuttoned, and in his hand he crushed together a bat ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... princely gathering to see me carry out my bat! Don't grin, you fellows. I know it was a fluke—a dashed fine fluke, too. But it's what I always meant, after all. There's good old Monty, yelling himself hoarse in the pavilion. And his girl—waving. Sweet girl, too—the best in the world. I might cut him out there. But ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... good Baiardo by a monster view, — A bird, and bigger than that courser — prest. Above three yards in length appeared to view The monster's beak; a bat in all the rest. Equipt with feathers, black as ink in hue, And piercing talons was the winged pest; An eye of fire it had, a cruel look, And, like ship-sails, two spreading ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... great, that's great! Of course, of course. Here, I'll kiss you again—you can answer my second question." He embraced her with hysterical enthusiasm. "Oh, when did it happen?" he begged. "How did you know? Since when have they been engaged? My! I have been a bat! Where were my eyes? Of all the jolly luck!" he leaped from the bench and executed a ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... weird and heavily-lined picture in front, which is just a little too like a "Prophetic Hieroglyphic" in Zadkiel's Almanack. An emaciated and broken-winged devil is apparently carrying an engine-hose through a churchyard, whilst a bat flits against a curious sky, which looks like a young grainer's first attempt at imitating "birds'-eye maple." Upon a second glance it seems possible that the "hose" is a snake, the tail of which the devil is gnawing. The gruesome design illustrates a yet more gruesome Interlude, entitled, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... man the muscular." Humboldt himself, that serious thinker, has said that an invisible atmosphere surrounds the human nerves. I do not quote the dreamers who watch the flight of Spallanzani's bat, and who think they have found a sixth sense in nature. Such as nature is, her mysteries are terrible enough, her powers mighty enough, that nature which creates us, mocks at us, and kills us, without deepening the shadows that surround us. But where is the man who has lived who will ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... pleasant thoughts of the rooster as woke me, an' by that time it was half past four, an' I could hear all the other chickens stirrin' so I got up an' began to stir again myself. I opened the front door an' looked out an' that did n't bring me no good luck either, for as I looked out a bat flew in an' just as the bat flew in he managed to hook himself right in my hair. Well, Mrs. Lathrop, I tell you I was mad then. I don't know as I ever was madder than I was then. I was so mad that I can't tell you how mad I was. The bat held on by diggin' in like ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... "I'll bat you over the head if you try it," growled the voice; and the boy stood trembling while the hasp was unfastened and the door was pushed back a little. The light of a lantern flashed in ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... round to a capering varlet, Array'd in blue and white and scarlet, And cried, "Oh! brown of slipper as of hat! Lend me, Harlequin, thy bat!" He seized the wooden sword, and smote the earth; When lo! upstarting into birth A fabric, gorgeous to behold, Outshone in elegance the old, And Veeshnoo saw, and cried, "Hail, playhouse mine!" Then, bending his head, to Surya he said, "Soon as thy maiden ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... over them." And he thus sums up his own conviction. "He may be called a saint who best teaches us to keep our lives pure; he a poet whose insight dims that of his fellow-men. He is no less than this, though guided by an instinct no higher than that of the bat; no more, though inspired by God. All gifts are from God, and no multiplying of gifts can convert the creature into the Creator. Between Him who created goodness, and made it binding on the conscience ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... at the balls, and hit them away in a gallant style; yet, in this single feat, I think I have seen him excelled; but when he could cut them at the point of the bat he was in his glory; and upon my life, their speed was as the speed ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... in on this en' an' takin' ol' Bat Truxton clean off'n it to throw him onto the Rattlesnake," Spud went on. "Bat 'll have nigh on a hundred men down there workin' overtime before the week's up, he says. I guess he'll have his paws full without tryin' to run the cow ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... in Bourges, you may have seen the little Rue Sous-les-Ceps, the Cours du Bat d'Argent and de la Fleur-de-lys, the Rues de la Merede-Dieu, des Verts-Galants, Mausecret, du Moulin-le-Roi, the Quai Messire-Jacques, and other streets whose ancient names, preserved by a praiseworthy sentiment or instinctive conservatism, betoken an ancient city still inhabited ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... Mr. Marwood. "First there is the clay-carrier, who must bring the material to the workmen; then there is a second man called the batter-out who takes from the carrier the piece of clay cut into the proper size, and after laying this on a block gives it a strong blow with a plaster-of-Paris bat to flatten it for the jiggerman. When making simple objects such a man can give the article quite a start even with one stroke. You can see that some such beginning must be made before the jiggermen ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... is dead!" as the superstitious peasants of Thessaly said, when they imagined they heard the echo formed into words, sixteen hundred years ago; and while musing on the "rise and fall" of the classic idolatry, a bat flew past me out of the grotto, but I saw no moles for the old idols to be thrown to, (Isa. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... caverns; but the solitary gleam, in so much darkness, seemed to burn with the brightness of a conflagration. The smoke, also, from our torch, ascending into the vaulted roof of the cavern, was beginning to disturb the weird dwellers from their gloomy abode, and already ghostly, bat-like forms began to fill the air space above our heads. It was time to leave, and, reluctantly, we began to push the boat toward the mouth of the cave, promising ourselves to return next day for more of the precious stuff; of which there appeared to be an inexhaustible supply. ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... Sovereign. I have no doubt that after hours of immense labour you will triumphantly suggest "rateably." I suggested that myself, but it is wrong. There is no such word in the dictionary. The same objection applies to "bat-early"—it ought to ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... wrinkled little bat once went on a journey together. When it came toward night a storm arose, and the two companions sought everywhere for a shelter. But all the birds were sound asleep in their nests and the animals in their holes and dens. They could ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... the king's son may not have known that. Maybe he turned, as a man attacked by a dog does, because he felt, in a cold, nervy sort of spasm all up his spine, the terrible defenselessness of his hind-limbs. And as he turned, he struck—bat-bat!—struck with all his talons unsheathed; struck with every ounce and grain of power, and force of brain to back that power, in his system; struck as only a cornered cat can strike; ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... Epsom Salts?" I have followed this recipe (given me by a young friend, who says he has often been in Scotland) faithfully, but the result is not wholly satisfactory. I doubt whether genuine porridge should be of the consistency of a brick-bat, or taste of hair-oil.—UNDAUNTED. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... said Bevis, very eagerly, "I hit him yesterday so hard with my bat that he would not come and play with me. It is very nice to hit ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... world by a door in the side of the barn furthest from me, and it came in cautiously and silently and moved into the mass of hay opposite. There, for a moment, I lost it, but presently I caught it again higher up. It was clinging, like a great bat, to the side of the barn. Something trailed behind it, I could not make out what. . . . It crawled up the wooden wall and began to move out along one of the rafters. A numb terror settled down all over me as I ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... in quo de Nuptiis Philologiae et Mecurii libri duo, & de septem artibus liberalibus libri singulares. Omnes, et emendati et Notis sive Februis Hug. Grotii illustrati. Ex Officina Plantiniana, Apud Christophorum Raphelingium Academiae Lugduno-Bat. Typographum M. D. C." [Transcriber's note: Apostrophic date 1600] The Dedication to the Prince of Conde follows: then, Encomiastic Verses by Scaliger, and Tiliabrogus. The two works are then inserted, with ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... "You're the doctor. Be giving Fred a chance to prove one of his theories. Personally I believe you'd make a go of selling right off the bat, and a good salesman is wasted in the mechanical line. When you feel that you've saturated your system with valve clearances and compression formulas and gear ratios and all the rest of the shop dope, come and see me. I'll give you a try-out on ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Samtskhe-Javakheti, Shida Kartli : cities: Chiat'ura, Gori, K'ut'aisi, P'ot'i, Rust'avi, T'bilisi, Tqibuli, Tsqaltubo, Zugdidi : autonomous republics: Abkhazia or Ap'khazet'is Avtonomiuri Respublika (Sokhumi), Ajaria or Acharis Avtonomiuri Respublika (Bat'umi) note: the administrative centers of the 2 autonomous republics are shown ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... interposed. "Each to his or her own opinions. We're here in pursuit of facts, not fancies. Rick, you're first at bat." ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... principal emblems of the Apostles:— St. Andrew, a cross saltier; St. Bartholomew, a knife; St. James the Great, a pilgrim's staff, wallet, escallop shell; St. James the Less, a fuller's bat, or saw; St. John, a chalice and serpent; St. Jude, a boat in his hand, or a club; St. Matthew, a club, carpenter's square, or money-box; St. Matthias, a hatchet, battle-axe, or sword; St. Paul, a sword; St. Peter, keys; St. Philip, a tau cross, or a spear; St. ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... on a horse, Minerva on a wheel, Hercules going fishing with his basket and his creel. A Mercury on roller-skates, Diana with a hat, And Venus playing tennis with Achilles at the bat. ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... none at what you an' dat hawse doin'. He's got sense and—" added Jefferson with concession—"so has you. I aint got no time ter be a troublin' 'bout you-all. It's dese yo'ng ladies I has ter bat my eyes at; an' dey shore do keep me busy sometimes. Now what I tell you? Look at dat?" and as though in sympathy with Beverly's schemes, Chicadee, the little mare Petty Gaylord was riding chose that moment to shy at some leaves which fluttered to the ground and, of course, ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... bat may wheel on silent wing, The fox his guilty vigils keep, The boding owl his dirges sing; But love and innocence ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... was beginning to yield to the pale tints of early dawn. A bat was sounding the departure of the hours of darkness with a singular note resembling the gurgling of liquid from a narrow bottle-neck. A neighing of horses was heard far up the defile; then, with the first rays of dawn, we distinguished a sledge driven by the baron's servant; its bottom was littered ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... confidence I reposed in you," cried the angry beauty, wiping away the really starting tears with her white lace cloak. "I told you the elegant Constantine was the lord of my heart; and you have seduced him from me! Till you came, he was so respectful, so tender, so devoted! Bat I am rightly used! I ought to have carried my ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... jumped into Mounttop's boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir—hearts and souls alive, man—the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat—both eyes out—all befogged and bedeadened with black foam—the whale's tail looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday, with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... twenty ways of dressing hair I know. Often and often Conchita and I have spent a whole day dressing each other's hair, trying this effect, that effect. Ah, the superb hair that Conchita has; it sweeps the floor,—and soft—ah, as a bat's wool!" ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... fell to the ground and was caught by a Weasel, and was just going to be killed and eaten when it begged to be let go. The Weasel said he couldn't do that because he was an enemy of all birds on principle. "Oh, but," said the Bat, "I'm not a bird at all: I'm a mouse." "So you are," said the Weasel, "now I come to look at you"; and he let it go. Some time after this the Bat was caught in just the same way by another Weasel, and, as before, begged for its life. "No," said ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... enemies against him—but none had known who the Gray Seal was until that night when the Magpie had roused the Bad Lands like a hive of swarming hornets with the news that the Gray Seal was Larry the Bat; none had known until that night when it was accepted as a fact that Larry the Bat, and therefore the Gray Seal, had perished miserably in the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... piled it on then. I told him your leg was so rotten that you might not be alive to-morrow morning. He didn't even look interested. I piled it on thicker and told him about the poisoned spear. He didn't bat an eyelid or make a move. So I started ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... fount, I slumber; here my clustering fruits I tend; Or from the humid flowers, at break of day, Fresh garlands weave, and chase from all my bounds Each thing impure or noxious. Enter in, O stranger, undismay'd. Nor bat, nor toad Here lurks; and if thy breast of blameless thoughts Approve thee, not unwelcome shalt thou tread My quiet mansion; chiefly, if thy name Wise Pallas and the immortal ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... saints having pale profiles and wearing bright robes. On one of the tables was a bronze pulpit in the form of a Gothic chapel; in another place was a lamp-support, which represented the Triumph of Death; Death was a woman with the wings of a bat; she was in a flowing robe; she had curved talons on her feet, and a scythe in her hand. This was a sculptured copy of Orcagna, from the Campo Santo of Pisa. In the middle of the dining-room, which was seen beyond an open door, stood a table, in the style of the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... recovering himself, he resolutely cried out, "Who comes here?" No answer being made, he again cried out, "Who comes here?" Still no reply was made. He then groped about for a stone or brick-bat, which having found, he threw with great violence at the figure; upon which it appeared to move much quicker than before. He again spoke to the figure; and, receiving no answer, drew his hanger, and made a desperate stroke at this dreadful spectre, which moving with still greater ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... all spread upon the stones and the rock of that place; and surely it did be as that it were leathern, and made somewise as a bat doth be of this age, in that it did ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... instinct. If we were to endeavour to cultivate this instinct, we might make the animal tame and obedient. We might impress his sensitive powers, so that he might stop or go forward at our voice. We might bring him in some instances, to an imitation of outward gestures and sounds. Bat all the years of his life, and centuries of life in his progeny would pass away, and we should never be able so to improve his instinct into intellect, as to make him comprehend the affairs of a man. He would never understand the meaning of his goings in, or of his goings ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... beautiful feminine head, and two breasts, and the third a visage ornamented with wreaths and a head-dress. There are various other representations of them, one of the most remarkable of which is a monster with a human head and the body of a vampire bat. ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Fair and Foul! Thy mate, the Ghoul, Beats, bat-like, at thy golden gate! Around the graves the night-winds howl: "Arise!" they cry, "thy feast doth wait!" Dainty fingers thine, and nice, With ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... sign that she was still alive. Yes, I may as well tell you, that every year, when I came here a few days before you, to repair the nest and attend to various matters, I spent a whole night in flying to and fro over the lake, as if I had been an owl or a bat, but every time in vain. The two suits of swan feathers which I and the young ones dragged up here out of the land of the Nile have consequently not been used: we had trouble enough with them to bring them hither ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... which I passed with him and his brother officers, that of our visit to the Tuscorora Indians was not the least interesting. They received us in all their ancient costume; the young men exhibited for our amusement in the race, the bat game, &c, while the old and the women sat in groups under the surrounding trees, and the picture altogether was as beautiful as it was new to me."—Note in Moore's Epistles, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... that I have seen were all a kind of half-way-house characters, who I thought should, if they had not wanted courage, have ended in unbelief, in faint possible Theism; which I like considerably worse than Atheism. Such, I could not but feel, deserve the fate they find here; the bat fate; to be killed among the bats as a bird, among the birds as ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... shown me yet. Your common sense and praying that I'd go broke is all up in the air to me. Little woman, I just love you mighty hard, and I want you to marry me. That's straight and simple and right off the bat. Will ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Oh, then what feelings gathered over me as I turned slowly homeward! the air still, breathless, shining; the stars gleaming over the woods of the far Apennine; the hills growing huger in the shade; the small insects humming on the wing; and, ever and anon, the swift bat, wheeling round and amidst them; the music of the waterfall deepening on the ear; and the light and hour lending even a mysterious charm to the cry of the weird owl, flitting after its prey,—all this had a harmony ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with large white polka-dots on the border and little white polka-dots in the middle. He turned toward the professor inquiringly, warned by the scrunching footsteps that some one approached. But he was blind as a bat—so he declared—without his glasses, so he finished polishing them and placed them again before his bleared, powder-burned eyes before he knew ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... Ernie is. Seems satisfied to let it go as it stands, without trying to dope anything out. But me, I can't let anybody bat a mystery like that up to me without going through a few Sherlock Holmes motions. So that evening finds me wandering through Forty-fifth Street again at about the same hour. Not that I expected to find the same ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... inadequate for his boiling emotions just then. He advanced on Dodd, who shrank back into his chair. Davis whipped the long roll of plans out from under his arm, held the roll by one end, and swung it like a bat-stick. But he did not strike at Dodd, as the magnate ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... handsome Mamelukes, the like of the least of whom is not found with any of the Kings; and others of you be transmewed to muleteers, and the rest to menials." So seven hundred of them changed themselves into bat-mules and other hundred took the shape of slaves. Then Abu al-Sa'adat called upon his Marids, who presented themselves between his hands and he commanded some of them to assume the aspect of horses saddled with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... blind as a bat, he told himself, blinder even, for a bat has an instinct which warns it of danger. The interview which had revealed the woman's character came in the nature of a revelation in spite of that he already ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... place administherin' th' affairs iv a proud people that cudden't tell a hypothenoose fr'm a sea-lion. But whin things gets goin' right undher this administhration, th' civil sarvice commission consistin' iv th' Hon. Bill Cody, th' Hon. Texas Jack, an' th' Hon. Bat Masterson will put th' boys through an examination that'll bring out all there is in thim. I'm preparin' a pa-aper f'r an examination iv candydates f'r sup'rintindint iv ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... skip details. Suffice to say That, knocking at her wicket, There chanced to come one autumn day A common garden cricket So ragged, poor, and needy that, Without elucidation, One saw the symptoms of a bat Of ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... astonished at his audacity, but yet no one prevented him. Throwing down the half-roasted bat, he placed several pieces of the other meat on leaves, which served them as plates, and came back to us with them in triumph. He then returned for some sago. With this food we made a tolerably hearty meal, and certainly felt our ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... walnut-tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass— Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight: and though now the bat Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble-bee Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure; No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... women's letters unless they chance to be addressed to me—no, not even if they concern me very nearly." Nap's teeth gleamed for a moment. "I'm afraid you must play off your own bat, my worthy brother, though if you take my advice you'll postpone it. You're about used up, and I'm deuced thirsty. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... owlet to its nest, And warned the bat to close its filmy vans, Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her breast Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans So softly that the little nested thrush Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... friends coming," explained Tom. "I had a double room over in the Ball and Bat," he added, referring to the Freshman dormitory, "but there'll be three of ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... more refined, so much more beautiful than he had ever observed in any other girl. It began to seem difficult to believe that he could ever before have seen her, and yet failed to note such a combination of charms. He thought he must have been blind as a bat when he passed her by; but again he fell back on the excuse that a girl in a shop uniform was an entirely different appearing person from the same girl out on a holiday. He did not at all realize that his interest in this unidentified queen of chocolates was becoming less and less of a business ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... nervous," said Ogilvy, "because she's been on a bat and supped somewhere until the coy and rosy dawn chased her homeward. And your pretty paragon, Miss West, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... you didn't see it! That is the amusing part of it. You were as blind as a bat all the time, and you never had the least ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... it better than you, being an American born. You needn't try to walk faster either," he continued, "for you can't escape. I can run faster than you, my legs being longer. You don't know the grounds, either, half so well as I do, although I dare say you've been sneaking about here ever since I came. Bat let me tell you this, my friend, for your information. You can't come it over me, nohow; for I'm a free American, and I always carry a revolver. Take warning by that one fact, and bear this in mind too—that if I ever see ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... at, considering the important status assigned to women by the Khasis, that women should inherit the property and not men. The rule amongst the Khasis is that the youngest daughter "holds" the religion, "ka bat ka niam." Her house is called, "ka iing seng" and it is here that the members of the family assemble to witness her performance of the family ceremonies. Hers is, therefore, the largest share of the family property, because it is she whose duty it is to perform the family ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... Mackenzie child, how came you to do it, what happened to Dave Henderson, and full directions where I may locate Frances Mackenzie. Begin at the beginning, and I'll fire questions at you when you don't make any point clear to me. Turn loose your yarn at me hot off the bat." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... for. Byron, now. It was very good of you not to mention him before, Mrs. Vervain. Bat I knew he had to come. He called it a coffin ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... into that spectral shadow-land and moved slowly on as before. The silence was most impressive. Now and then the faint yeap of some traveling bird would come from the air overhead, or the wings of a bat whisp quickly by, or an owl hoot off in the mountains, giving to the silence and loneliness a tongue. At short intervals some noise in-shore would startle me, and cause me to turn inquiringly to the silent figure ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... is a rustling overhead in the feathery branches of the palms in the cobwebby spaces among the leaves that give the bats of Africa a home. A twitter of angry bat voices, shrill squeaks and flutters in the darkness. Then stillness—of a sudden—and the ground trembles with a far-off throbbing as a convoy of motor lorries approaching thunders past us, rumbling over the bridge and out into the ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... bat, Stubby," asserted Richardson to Walter unceremoniously. "Now remember who you're playing for. Don't hand Yale the game if you can ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... fairy things all about us," she said. "Countless pink campions and buttercups, with an elf in each. They will feel your giant feet, but they will know you are a mortal and cannot help your ways, because, you poor, blind bat, you cannot see!" ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... again he struck him; and his evil soul fled forth, and went down to Hades squeaking, like a bat into the darkness ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... noticed it, opened his arms with a broad gesture, spreading out the long black sleeves of his robe like the wings of a bat, and exclaimed: ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... stared after him. The bent figure of the Shaman looked like a huge bat flying low, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... effect in the face of a poisoning of the ether? There is not a greater difference in quality between a brick-bat and a gas than there is between oxygen and ether. They are different planes of matter. They cannot impinge upon one another. Come, Challenger, you could not defend such ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... power of God, who alone is great, Till the seventh day he fought with his fate. Then madness took him, and men declare He mowed in the branches as ape and bear, And last as a sloth, ere his body failed, And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed, And sleep the cord of his hands untied, And he fell, and was caught ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling |
