"Harpy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a naked branch that projected over the water they noticed the solitary sky-blue king-fisher. Over the water swept the great harpy eagle—also a fisher like his white-headed cousin of the North; and now and then flocks of muscovy ducks made the air resound with their strong broad wings. They saw also the "boat-bill," or "crab-eater," a curious wading bird of the heron kind, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... caused them to see and hear. When fatigued with wandering about, and famished for want of food, he had suddenly set before them a delicious banquet, and then, just as they were going to eat, he appeared visible before them in the shape of a harpy, a voracious monster with wings, and the feast vanished away. Then, to their utter amazement, this seeming harpy spoke to them, reminding them of their cruelty in driving Prospero from his dukedom, and leaving him and his infant daughter to perish in the sea; saying, that for this cause ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... over another manuscript, I was caught by the name Charpillon, which every reader of the Memoirs will remember as the name of the harpy by whom Casanova suffered so much in London, in 1763-4. This manuscript begins by saying: 'I have been in London for six months and have been to see them (that is, the mother and daughter) in their own house,' where he finds nothing but 'swindlers, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... returned with so much ardour, in a letter which she received privately, but returned by her father's footman. Contempt has driven out my love, and I am content to have purchased, by the loss of fortune, an escape from a harpy, who has joined the artifices of age to the allurements of youth. I am now going to pursue my former projects with a legacy which my uncle bequeathed me, and if I succeed, shall expect to hear of the repentance ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... and the bull Apis; on others are figures copied from Assyrian originals; on others are Herakles fighting the lion, Herakles stealing the tripod of Apollo and discovered by the latter; Ajax and Cassandra, a Harpy, etc. Some of these have been found in tombs and other places with the color changed to an opaque white by the action of fire. These have been burned with the body of their ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... parallel finally carries itself too far. So small an affair even as this, it appears, cannot escape the hostility of "envious Fortune,"—the same who untimely cut off its lamented rival. A large, black cloud, coming up over us like a vengeful harpy, forebodes the invariable downpour, and grimly compels us to ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... him in his old age, which occasioned the saying, that they snatched the victuals out of his mouth. Le Clerc thinks, that the Harpies were vast swarms of grasshoppers, which ravaged all Paphlagonia, and caused a famine in the dominions of Phineus; the word 'arbati,' whence the term 'Harpy' is derived, signifying 'a grasshopper;' and that the North wind blowing them into the Ionian sea, it gave rise to the saying, that the sons of Boreas pursued them so far. Diodorus Siculus does not mention ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... me to pursue my studies at the first dawn of day. You should have heard her: 'Did I suppose she was an idiot, and couldn't smell apples!' and oh—nobody knows how much more. But I should have carried my point if ill-luck hadn't brought Fudge in the way, and the harpy ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... harpy!" I exclaimed, being now in a sort of rage, and quite familiar with him. "Where is the money? Where ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tin pap-cup. Against the wall a Dutch clock was fixed out of level, and ticked wildly in longs and shorts, its entrails hanging down beneath its white face and wiry hands, like the faeces of a Harpy ('foedissima ventris proluvies, uncaeque manus, et pallida semper ora'). A baby was crying against every chair-leg, the whole family of six or seven being small enough to be covered by a washing-tub. Mrs. Higgins sat helpless, clothed in a dress which had hooks and eyes in plenty, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... one grievance—a publisher by the name of Hotten, a sort of literary harpy, of which there were a great number in those days of defective copyright, not merely content with pilfering his early work, had reprinted, under the name of Mark Twain, the work of a mixed assortment of other humorists, an offensive volume bearing the title, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... squadron named in the margin—[the Elephant, Defiance, Monarch, Bellona, Edgar, Russell, Ganges, Glatton, Isis, Agamemnon, Polyphemus, and Ardent, ships of the line; the Amazon, Desiree, Blanche, and Alcmene, frigates; the Dart, Arrow, Cruiser, and Harpy, sloops; the Zephyr, and Otter, fire-ships; the Discovery, Sulphur, Hecla, Explosion, Zebra, Terror, and Volcano, bombs; with eight gun-brigs]—which you did me the honour to place under my command, I beg leave to inform you that, having by the assistance of that ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... "carpe, carpe!"[608] To-morrow sees another race as gay And transient, and devoured by the same harpy. "Life's a poor player,"[609]—then "play out the play,[610] Ye villains!" and above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but always ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... beauty in these statues, as also in the lions which support them, recalling the early French and German manner. In addition, one finds the usual Lombard grotesques—two sea-monsters, biting each other; harpy-birds; a dragon with a twisted tail; little men grinning and squatting in adaptation to coigns and angles of the windows. The toothed and chevron patterns of the north are quaintly blent with rude acanthus scrolls and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... course, passing the island where Syracuse now stands, and rounding the southern coast of Sicily. Then they sailed past the tall rock of Acragas and palm-loving Selinus, and so came to the western corner, where the harbor of Drepanun gave them shelter. Here a sorrow overtook AEneas, that neither the harpy nor the seer had foretold. Anchises, weary with wandering and sick of long-deferred hope, fell ill and died. Sadly AEneas sailed from hence without his trusted friend and counselor, and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... when a gloomy band Of vile excisemen threatened all the land, Help'd to deliver from their harpy gripe The cheerful bottle and the social pipe. O rare Ben Bradley! may for this the bowl, Still unexcised, rejoice thy honest soul! May still the best in Christendom for this Cleave to thy stopper, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... to depart: The heat and moisture, which did feed each other, For want of nourishment to feed them both, Are [126] dry and cold; and now doth ghastly Death With greedy talents [127] gripe my bleeding heart, And like a harpy [128] tires on my life.— Theridamas and Tamburlaine, I die: And fearful vengeance ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... and his books for company, are wrecked through his art upon the island of which he has become the master. Ariel, the spirit who serves Prospero, a mysterious, ever changing form, now fire, now a Nymph, now an invisible musician, now a Harpy, striking guilt into the conscience (and yet apparently not interested in either vice or virtue, but {206} longing only for free idleness), guides all to Prospero's cave, and receives freedom for his toil. His spirit pervades every ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... Edinburgh College the students were tolerably free from any of those clubs or parties into which some factitious subject—often a whim—divides them. In the prior year the spirit of wager had seized a great number of them with the harpy talons of the demon of gambling, giving rise to consequences prejudicial to their morals, as well as to their studies. A great deal of money among the richer of them changed hands upon the result of bets, often the most frivolous, if not altogether ridiculous. Now, we are not to say that, abstracted ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... found them; and a conspiracy was entered into to kill Prospero and secure the person of Miranda. Solemn and strange music was heard, and several strange shapes appeared at a banquet. Thunder rolled, and lightning flashed: Ariel, in the form of a harpy, clapped his wings upon the table, and the banquet vanished. Prospero gave Ferdinand a rich compensation to make amends for past austere punishments; and that compensation was nothing less than the hand of Miranda. He recommended them ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... clerk of Graspum when that gentleman sold the fair slave to Gurdoin Choicewest; in addition to which he had apartments at Lady Tuttlewell's most fashionable house, where the little doll-like thing used to be so sprightly in waiting at table. The quick eye of this harpy, as may readily be supposed, was not long in detecting the person of Annette the slave in our fair mother; which grand discovery he as soon communicated to Montague, pluming himself a generous fellow for being first to disclose ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... was a sad one. That fellow was the borrower of his half-crown; for weeks he had lost sight of him. Now, suddenly, chance had seemed to bring both man and money within reach, when, alas! the Harpy swooped down and took off the prize from ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... a stop, and Amory peered up, startled. A woman was standing beside the road, talking to Alec at the wheel. Afterward he remembered the harpy effect that her old kimono gave her, and the cracked hollowness of ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... think this by seeing how low, how unjust, how unworthy, the judgments of this world are; and I would not that what I so much respect, love, and revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... child of Envy and of Love! That turnest into pain thy father's joys, To evil Argus-eyed, but blind as mole to good. Minister of torment! Jealousy! Fetid harpy! Tisiphone infernal! Who steals and poisons others' good, Under thy cruel breath does languish The sweetest flower of all my hopes. Proud of thyself, unlovely one, Bird of sorrow and harbinger of ill, The heart thou visitest by thousand ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... foot-stools and hymn-books and cushions, like a bee among flowers, whilst the organ echoed away. This continued for some weeks. Then the charwoman worked herself up into a frenzy of rage, to dare to attack Brangwen, and one day descended on him like a harpy. He wilted away, and wanted to break the old ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... from a vacation. "One has positively seen nothing, and has always been robbed; the landlady was a harpy, the bedroom was unhealthy, and the mutton was tough. The other has always found the coziest nooks, the cheapest houses, the best landladies, the finest views, ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... now a beggar, in these domains, wrested from me by rapine and the harpy fangs of injustice misnamed law. Theophilus Ashton, from whom ye took your share of the inheritance when death dislodged it from his gripe, won it himself most foully from my ancestors;—and have I not a right ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... amid a chaotic mass of waves, which it was no exaggeration to term mountains high, as if she were in the vortex of a whirlpool; while dense opaque black clouds hovered over her, vomiting forth wind, apparently from every quarter of the horizon, the gusts tearing at the ship with harpy-like clutches, as if they would rend her to pieces—she, like a poor human thing racked with pain, labouring and groaning, and bending this way and that to escape the relentless wind, so well aided by the clutching billows from below that leaped ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... he, following lightly on his feet, cast the first apple [1713]: and, swiftly as a Harpy, she turned back and snatched it. Then he cast the second to the ground with his hand. And now fair, swift-footed Atalanta had two apples and was near the goal; but Hippomenes cast the third apple to the ground, and therewith ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... had we never met. For this love of ours has proven a tyrannous and evil lord. I have had everything, and upon each feast of will and sense the world afforded me this love has swept down, like a harpy—was it not a harpy you called the bird in that old poem of yours?—to rob me of delight. And you have had nothing, for he has pilfered you of life, giving only dreams in exchange, my poor Antoine, and he has led you at the last to infamy. We are as God made us, and—I ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... he failed to find her he flew into a terrible rage, and hastened home to consult his books, by which means he discovered that it was his son who had deprived him of this precious treasure. Immediately he took the shape of a harpy, and, filled with rage, was determined to devour his son, and even the Princess too, if ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... pelf. The man-of-warsman was the legitimate defender of his country's interests and fought in the open, without fear of death or imprisonment from his own people. The privateersman—a combination of all three—was the harpy of the rolling ocean, a vulture preying upon the merchant marine of the enemy to his country, attacking only those weaker than himself, scudding off at the advent of men-of-warsmen, and hovering where the guileless merchantman passed by. The privateersman ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... steed which was yoked with these immortal twain, the brood of Zephyr and the Harpy Podarga; only we can hardly say of the poet what Homer ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... upon the shingly strand, their ears are saluted by a chorus of cries—the alarm signal of seabirds, startled by the intrusion; among them the scream of the harpy eagle, resembling the laugh ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Youth, Health, a strong Frame, and a comely Countenance (as they told me), indeed, but with just two Guineas in my pouch for all my Fortune. Many a Lord Mayor of London has begun the World, 'tis said, with a yet more slender Provision (I wonder what Harpy Hopwood had to begin with?) and Eighteenpence would seem to be the average of Capital Stock for an Adventurer that is to heap up Riches. Still I seemed to have made my Start in Life's Voyage a great many ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... it. All I mean by this senseless interrupted tale, is, that by my central situation I am a little over-companied. Not that I have any animosity against the good creatures that are so anxious to drive away the harpy solitude from me. I like 'em, and cards, and a cheerful glass; but I mean merely to give you an idea between office confinement and after-office society, how little time I can call my own. I mean only to draw a picture, not to make an inference. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... rose-coloured velvet train, over a creamy satin petticoat, both exquisitely embroidered, sailed up with a cordial greeting to her good cousin, and wanted to set him down to loo or ombre; but the veteran knew too well what the play in her house was, and saw, moreover, Lady Aresfield sitting like a harpy before the green baize field of her spoils. While he was refusing, Sir Amyas returned to him, saying, "Sir, here is a gentleman whom I think you must have known in Flanders;" and the Major found himself shaking hands with an old comrade. Save for his heavy heart, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of fifty, with her pride of wealth and family, belonging to the strictest sect of New York's social elite, with her hard, fastidious face, her formidable elegance and self-possession. How she had loathed the marriage! And with what a harpy-like eagerness had she seized on the first signs of Madeleine's discontent and ennui; persuaded her to come home; prepared the divorce; poisoned public opinion. It was from a last interview with Mrs. Fanshaw that Leopold Verrier had gone straight to his death. What was it ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... full as good I hold, Except you eat the feathers green and gold. Of carps and mullets why prefer the great (Though cut in pieces ere my lord can eat), Yet for small turbots such esteem profess? Because God made these large, the other less. Oldfield with more than harpy throat endued, Cries "Send me, gods! a whole hog barbecued! Oh, b—— it, south-winds! till a stench exhale Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit's tail. By what criterion do ye eat, d'ye think, If this is ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... full flood of day, and whose unearthly character was only to be proved by observing that they cast no shadow in even the brightest sunlight; of vampires and ghouls and fair women with enchanting voices, who enticed their victims into blind passageways and then changed suddenly to foul, harpy-like monsters. But in this latter case the foolish one had only himself to blame, for if he kept on the lookout he could always detect the masquerade by observing the creature's hands. The harpies could transform themselves in every other way, but their claws ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... beings, Ker, Harpy, Fury, Gorgon, Sphinx, and the like, appear to have been developed out of ghosts[1408]—whether or not this is true of the Babylonian demons the known material does not enable us to say. Organization of such beings was carried out fully by the Persians, but not by any other Indo-European people ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... months after his arrival he began to complain that he felt worse. It was then that he became the ranch's incubus, its harpy, its Old Man of the Sea. He shut himself in his room like some venomous kobold or flibbertigibbet, whining, complaining, cursing, accusing. The keynote of his plaint was that he had been inveigled into a gehenna against ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... on to describe her ecstasy, but Marie Louise broke in: "It's Fraeulein's work, is it? I might have known that! Oh, the fiend, the harpy!" ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... play them. Once he set a banquet before them, and just as they were going to fall to, he appeared to them amid thunder and lightning in the form of a harpy, and immediately the banquet disappeared. Then Ariel upbraided them with their ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... delightful and sympathetic. Perhaps if you had looked like a bear and behaved like a harpy, who knows what ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... as the associate of this old harpy who sat leering at him, hands on his knees, and already swelling with a sense of proprietorship, he almost forgot his personal wrongs in the hot flush of his indignation on ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... interview. He had spoken of the widow in friendly terms,—declaring that she was simply mistaken in her ideas as to the duration of her interest in the Scotch property, and mistaken again about the diamonds;—whereas in truth he regarded her as a dishonest, lying, evil-minded harpy. Had Lord Fawn consulted him simply as a client, and not have come to him an engaged lover, he would have expressed his opinion quite frankly; but it is not the business of a lawyer to tell his client ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... harpy (har'pi), one of the three daughters of Neptune and Terra, having a woman's face and body and sharp claws like ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... forced to be part of humiliating tricks played to enable them to get into debt and then to avoid paying what they owed. Had she not seen one horrible old woman of their own rank who was an example of what poverty might bring one to, an old harpy who tried to queen it over her landlady in an actual back street, and was by turns fawned upon and disgustingly "your ladyshiped" or ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he said. "You can always get money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy...." ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... she was not pushed down, but emerged as one of those rare souls who have in their natures an uncontaminated spring of goodness and honesty. Unlike Barbara Villiers or Lucy Walters or Louise de Keroualle, she was neither a harpy nor a foe ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... side with Haldane stood a creature whose dishevelled, rusty hair, blotched and bloated features, wanton, cunning, restless eyes, combined perfectly to form the head of the mythological Harpy. It required little effort of the imagination to believe that her foul, bedraggled dress concealed the "wings and talons of the vulture." Being still unsteady from her night's debauch, she leaned against the young man, and when he shrank in loathing away, she, to annoy him, clasped him in ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to my acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like a veritable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty comparison, a piquant phrase fall from their lips and I was after it ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... hear her voice speaking to the dogs: "Ah, my friends, ah, my dears! I know you every one. Jo Portugais is here. I know your bark, you, Harpy, and you, Lazybones, and you, Cloud and London! I know you every one. I heard you as I came from Mass, beauty dears. Ah, you know me, sweethearts? Ah, God bless you for coming! You have come to bring us home; you have come to fetch us home—father and me." The paws ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... days, as I used to have, any especial taste for the joys of the chase. There was a time when my slungshot was unerring, and I could bring down a Dodo, or snipe my Harpy on the wing with as much ease as my wife can hit our barn-door with a rolling-pin at six feet, and for three hundred and thirty years I never let escape me any opportunity for tracking the Dinosaur, the Pterodactyl, or ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... the Courts. They had foretold of one another each the unfulfilled; each claimed the actual as the child of his prediction. Victor was to have been ruined long back; Colney the prey of independent bachelors. Colney had escaped his harpy, and Victor could be called a millionaire and more. Prophesy was crowned by Colney's dyspepsia, by Victor's ticklish domestic position. Their pity for one another, their warm regard, was genuine; only, they were of different temperaments; and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that I found that signboard to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by reason of immense flights of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon their prey even in the very scales), which purchase I made not only with an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative reproof of that too frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of chronology, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... pursued thee many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's pomp, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power! Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee) From Superstition's harpy minions And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy cherub pinions, The guide of homeless winds ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with marvellous rapidity. Now the picture glowed with the wealth and gorgeousness of the torrid zone; now the ice-fields of the North rose into view; anon a pine-forest; then a wild seashore; but always the same three flying figures; always the horrible three-formed harpy pursuing the enchanter, and beside her the evil spirit with the dragonfly wings. At last this succession of images ceased, and I beheld a desolate region, in the midst of which sat the woman with the enchanter beside her, his head reposing in her lap. Either the ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... 'carpe diem,' Juan, 'carpe, carpe!' To-morrow sees another race as gay And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. 'Life 's a poor player,'—then 'play out the play, Ye villains!' above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem, but always what ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and tact in motion. And as the actions of the foot and the hand in man are made by every great painter perfectly expressive of the character of mind, so the expressions of rapacity, cruelty, or force of seizure, in the harpy, the gryphon, and the hooked and clawed evil spirits of early religious art, can only be felt by extreme attention ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... at last Find out the still, the rural cell, Where sage Retirement loves to dwell! There let me taste the homefelt bliss Of innocence and inward peace; Untainted by the guilty bribe, Uncursed amid the harpy tribe; No orphan cry to wound my ear, My honor and my conscience clear; Thus may I calmly meet my end, Thus to the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... appearance upon earth, when they frequently obtained one from the form they loved to assume; for example, the familiars of the witches in "Macbeth"—Paddock (toad), Graymalkin (cat), and Harpier (harpy, possibly). Is it surprising that, with resources of this nature at his command, such an adept in the art of necromancy as Owen Glendower should hold Harry Percy, much to his disgust, ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... picture of Sol Glenhart, the police judge, was good. A striking likeness, and unmistakable, with phrases tripping along like this: 'This crook-nosed, gross-bodied harpy'; 'this civic sinner, this judicial highwayman'; 'possessing the morals of the Tenderloin and an honor which thieves' honor puts to shame'; 'who compounds criminality with shyster-sharks, and in atonement railroads the unfortunate and impecunious to rotting cells,'—and so forth ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... ago—when the Bishop sent off that ring—a sudden grip at the base of my heart filled me with a nameless terror—me, the fearless! I recognized its cause when she walked into the room. Cecil: this woman is a harpy, a siren, a mermaid, a vampire. There is only one chance for me: flight, instant precipitate flight. Make my excuses. Forget me. Farewell. [He makes for the door and is confronted by Mrs George entering]. Too late: I'm lost. [He turns back ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... severe style of the AEginetan there was a transitional style, to which period the artists Dipoenus and Scyllis are assigned by Pliny. The metopes of the temple of Selinus in Sicily, the bas-reliefs representing Agamemnon, Epeus, and Talthybius, in the Louvre, the Harpy monument in the British Museum, and the Apollo of Tenea, afford examples of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the Great Cham's beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy. You have no employment ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... a hard red winter apple was to leave a shaky tooth behind) obligingly took the first bite, but made that bite include nearly half the apple—that rapacious betrayer of confiding helplessness deserved to be called a harpy. But she wasn't; she was ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... for several dates with Sylvia. Out of the office she wasn't quite the protective harpy about Paul Cleary that she had been in the office, although the thought was never far ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... her handkerchief, and took from it a broad shining louis d'or. She placed it in the hand of La Corriveau, whose long fingers clutched it like the talons of a harpy. Of all the evil passions of this woman, the greed for money was the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and winged. So HESIOD drew The legendary Harpy crew, The "Spoilers" of old fable; Maidens, yet monsters, woman-faced, With iron hearts that had disgraced The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... putting his hand into his side pocket and pulling out coppers. He drips coppers all day in an unending stream. You enter a French theatre. You buy a programme, fifty centimes, and ten more to the man who sells it. You hand your coat and cane to an aged harpy, who presides over what is called the vestiaire, pay her twenty-five centimes and give her ten. You are shown to your seat by another old fairy in dingy black (she has a French name, but I forget it) and give her twenty centimes. Just think of the silly business of it. Your ticket, ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... amid the herbage bite. With point and edge we fall on them, and all the Gods invite, Yea very Jove, to share the spoil, and on the curved strand We strew the beds, and feast upon rich dainties of the land. When lo, with sudden dreadful rush from out the mountains hap The Harpy folk, and all about their clanging wings they flap, And foul all things with filthy touch as at the food they wrench, And riseth up their grisly voice ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... those outbursts and tears and rhapsodies of Khalid did mean somewhat. They did mean, even when we first approached his cell, that something was going on in him—a revolution, a coup d'etat, so to speak, of the spirit. For a Prince in Rags, but not in Debts and Dishonour, will throttle the Harpy which has hitherto ruled and degraded ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... land You must (like Oberon) be dwelling! Your notion's lovely, winning, grand, The fiscal cat most bravely belling; Guileless NATHANIEL, too, affects World-hardened hearts—almost to weeping, Volunteer taxes who expects To draw from Mammon's harpy keeping. Go, lure the tomtit from the twig, Go, coax the tiger from his quarry, The toper from his thirsty swig, The swindler from his schemings sorry: "Persuade" the Sweater to be just, The 'cute Monopolist to be kindly; Tempt hunger to resign ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... his ends, For want of foes to rob, made free with friends,[2] And, deepening still by amiable gradations, When foes were stript of all, then fleeced relations![3] Most mild and saintly Prussia—steeped to the ears In persecuted Poland's blood and tears, And now, with all her harpy wings outspread O'er severed Saxony's devoted head! Pure Austria too—whose history naught repeats But broken leagues and subsidized defeats; Whose faith, as Prince, extinguisht Venice shows, Whose faith, as man, a widowed daughter knows! And thou, oh England—who, tho' once as shy As cloistered ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... at all. The peace between the Austrian harpy and the frogs is made. They were stout, and preferred being gobbled to parting with their money. At last, France offered to pay the money for them. The harpy blushed-for the first time-and would not take it; but signed the peace, and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... with the Pterodactyl Pups was not forgotten, and as a direct result of looking out for soaring vultures and eagles, with hopes of again seeing a white-plumaged King and the regal Harpy, I caught sight of a tiny mote high up in mid-sky. I thought at first it was a martin or swift; but it descended, slowly spiraling, and became too small for any bird. With a final, long, descending curve, it alighted in the compound of our bungalow laboratory and rested quietly—a ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's train, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee,) Alike from priestcraft's harpy minions, And factious blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, The guide of homeless winds, and playmate ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... art like the harpy, Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face, Seize with thine ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... of Jacques Coeur was poured into the laps of Charles and his harpy courtiers, and the victim was consigned to oblivion. Of all he had saved and supported, one man alone was grateful—Jean du Village, his clerk, devoted himself to his master's interests, and his life, and part of ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... himself. There ought to be an end to this kind of thing now. He has got out of this mess, but every time it becomes worse and worse, and he'll be taken in horribly by some harpy if we don't get him to marry decently. I fancy he was very nearly going in this last affair." Sir George, in this matter, did not quite agree with his wife. It was in his opinion right to avoid Miss Trefoil, but he did not see why his brother-in-law ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... hand-waled curse keep hard in chase The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race, Wha count on poortith as disgrace— Their tuneless hearts! May fireside discords jar a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... ever feel in that peculiarly distressing state of mind in which one oppressing idea displaces or colours every other, absorbing, intermingling with, empoisoning, and, like the filth of the harpy, turning every thing into disgust—when a certain incubus rides upon the brain, as the Old Man of the Mountain did upon the shoulders of Sinbad, burdening, irritating, and rendering existence a misery—when, looking ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Luceta and Troccola, who had two daughters, Marziella and Puccia. Marziella was as fair to look upon as she was good at heart; whilst, on the contrary, Puccia by the same rule had a face of ugliness and a heart of pestilence, but the girl resembled her parent, for Troccola was a harpy within and a ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... Oppression in his harpy fangs From Want's weak grasp the last sad morsel bears, Can ye allay the heart-wrung parent's pangs, Whose famish'd child ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... her fittings out. Dirty, slatternly, always intriguing, pretending, enterprising, quarrelling—always low as the grass or high as the rainbow, according to the person with whom she had to deal: she was a blonde Fury, nay more, a harpy: she had all the effrontery of one, and the deceit and violence; all the avarice and the audacity; moreover, all the gluttony, and all the promptitude to relieve herself from the effects thereof; ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... on loins, and club in hand! Forceful and formidable to all foes, But fatal most especially to those Of Hydra presence and Stymphalian beak, Whose quarry is unseasoned youth, who seek By subtle snares the Infant's steps to trip, And catch the Minor in their harpy grip. To his Twelve Labours, against monsters grim, Who might have lived in safety but for him, To snare, to slay, to humbug, and to cozen, Herschelles, just to make a baker's dozen, Adds a Thirteenth! A wily, wicked wight, Dwelling in noxious nooks as dark ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. Thither, by harpy-footed Furies haled, At certain revolutions all the damned Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, From beds of raging fire to starve in ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... he take himself? In what furthest part of the Rocky Mountains should he spend the coming autumn? If neither Mr. nor Mrs. Green called upon him for an explanation, what possible right could this abominable old harpy have to prey upon him? Just at the end of a cotillon he had said one word! He knew men who had done ten times as much and had not been as severely handled. And he was sure that Jack De Baron had had something to do ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... And in her own mind thought herself secure, O'ercast with dim and darksome coverture. And now she lets him whisper in her ear, Flatter, entreat, promise, protest, and swear: Yet ever, as he greedily assay'd To touch those dainties, she the harpy play'd, And every limb did, as a soldier stout, Defend the fort, and keep the foeman out; For though the rising ivory mount he scal'd, Which is with azure circling lines empal'd. Much like a globe (a globe may I term this, By which Love sails ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... Mr. Crawfurd has given an admirable history of the fowl in his paper 'On the Relation of Domesticated Animals to Civilisation' read before the Brit. Assoc. at Oxford in 1860 and since printed separately. I quote from him on the Greek poet Theognis, and on the Harpy Tomb described by Sir C. Fellowes. I quote from a letter of Mr. Blyth's with respect to the Institutes of Manu.), such have certainly since been found associated with extinct animals and prehistoric remains. It is, therefore a strange ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... This Harpy was named Ce-lae'no. When the Trojans heard her awful words they prayed to the gods for protection, and then hastening to their ships, they put to sea. They soon came near Ith'a-ca, the island kingdom of Ulysses, the most skilful in stratagem of all the ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... and confound him, the confounder of us all; Pelt him, pummel him, and maul him; rummage, ransack, overhaul him; Overbear him and outbawl him; bear him down, and bring him under. Bellow, like a burst of thunder, robber! harpy! sink of plunder! Rogue and villain! rogue and cheat! rogue and villain, I repeat! Oftener than I can repeat it has the rogue and villain cheated. Close around him, left and right; spit upon him, spurn and smite: Spit upon him as you see; spurn ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... which wanted the property of sweetness so necessary to give point to the device. Unnatural or chimerical figures could not be admitted, excepting those to which tradition or classical authors had given fixed forms and attributes—as the mermaid, harpy, phoenix; consequently, a device representing a winged tortoise, the motto, Amor addidit (Love has added them), was improper. Qualities ascribed to animate or inanimate bodies by the ancients, were considered legitimate, though known by the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems 590 Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where Armies whole have sunk: the parching Air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of Fire. Thither by harpy-footed Furies hail'd, At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce, From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice 600 Thir soft Ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... mould, they were oblivious to their surroundings for with their heads hidden from view they felt a fanciful security from outward aggression. The rings of bony armor that covered their bodies was strong enough, it is true, to protect them from the talons of the harpy eagle and claws of the tiger cats; but when Suma dealt her crushing blow it proved at once the fallacy of taking too many things for granted. So the shattered casques and broken bones of many ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... carried off a place as a man will. The sagacious old soul who visits me yearly for young pie-plant actually hurried out and begged for a basketful of the roots at once, thus taking time—and the rhubarb—by the forelock. And the old epicurean harpy whose passion is asparagus, having accosted me gruffly on the street with an inquiry as to the truth of my engagement and been quietly assured, how true it was, informed me to my face that any man situated as happily as I am was an infernal fool to entangle himself with a wife, and bade ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... you are not my brother's son! If you were, you would not insult me as you have insulted me. So, then, I am an intriguer, an actress, a hypocritical harpy, a domestic plotter?" ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... steeds, whom, next to rank-breaking Achilles, he most honoured, because he was most faithful to him in battle, to stand the charge. Wherefore Automedon yoked the fleet horses, Xanthus and Balius, which kept pace with the winds. Them the Harpy Podarge bore to Zephyrus, the wind, while feeding in the meadows by the stream of Oceanus. And in the outer harness he fastened illustrious Pedasus, whom Achilles led away long since, having sacked the city of Eetion; and which [steed], though being mortal, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... both her hands she made the bed a tent, And in her own mind thought herself secure, O'ercast with dim and darksome coverture. And now she lets him whisper in her ear, Flatter, entreat, promise, protest, and swear: Yet ever, as he greedily assay'd To touch those dainties, she the harpy play'd, 270 And every limb did, as a soldier stout, Defend the fort, and keep the foeman out; For though the rising ivory mount he scal'd, Which is with azure circling lines empal'd, Much like a globe ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... a 'Harpy Eagle.' There's somebody we know looks just like that. Wait a minute—I'll tell you—it's the woman who sits in the cashier's cage ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... After they had buried her they found a grove, where they sat down on the grass to eat, using large round cakes or biscuits to put their meat on. Presently they came to eating up the cakes. Little Ascanius cried out, "We are eating our very tables," and AEneas, remembering the harpy's words, knew that ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... was a confiscation by Parliament itself of every moveable thing belonging to Mr. Powell that had been left at Forest-hill after the sale to Appletree. All the precious timber, including that bought by the harpy Appletree, but not yet removed by him, was voted to these cormorants of the town of Banbury: Mr. Powell's condition was to be that of Job at his worst. He had come to London to plead the benefit of the Articles of Surrender; and behold, enemies in Oxfordshire and Parliament in ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... than the glamour of Evil, for when on being drawn into it we sin, instead of the hoped-for delight we soon find satiety; instead of exhilaration, fatigue; instead of contentment, disillusion; instead of satisfaction, dust; instead of romance, the greedy claws of the harpy; and the further we go in response to this glamour the more pitiable our outlook; for the sweets and possibilities of Evil are extraordinarily limited. Can any man devise a new sin? No, but ever pursues the same old round, ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... rid of the notes they scattered; The great house is down at last; The image of gold is shattered, And never can be recast. The bankrupts show leaden features, And weary, distracted looks, While harpy-eyed, wolf-souled creatures Pry through their dishonored books. On, and on, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... bottomless pit; it is a cormorant, a harpy, that devours everything. John Bull was flattered by the lawyers that his suit would not last above a year or two at most; that before that time he would be in quiet possession of his business; yet ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... force, brute strength; coercion &c 744; strong hand, tight hand. hard lines, hard measure; tender mercies [Iron.]; sharp practice; pipe-clay, officialism. tyrant, disciplinarian, precisian^, martinet, stickler, bashaw^, despot, hard master, Draco, oppressor, inquisitor, extortioner, harpy, vulture; accipitres^, birds of prey, raptorials^, raptors^. V. be severe &c adj.. assume, usurp, arrogate, take liberties; domineer, bully &c 885; tyrannize, inflict, wreak, stretch a point, put on the screw; be hard upon; bear a heavy hand on, lay a heavy ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and woe and desolation, as he sat in his grim cell with aching head, bruised face and bleeding heart, with all his plans now broken, with the very soul within him dead—in this grief and anguish, I say, the foul harpy-brood of Capitalism revelled and rioted ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... for the living began to well up within him ... for Hilmer in the relentless grip of the harpy who would tear at his content with her scrawny fingers ... for Mrs. Hilmer, condemned to feed to the end upon the bitter fruits of hatred ... for his wife, drifting to a pallid fate made up of petty adjustments and compromises. Yes ... he found himself pitying Helen Starratt ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... which play important roles and which bear evidence of archaic origins. There is, however, one fragment of a food bowl which is adorned with a pictograph so realistic and so true to modern legends of a harpy that I have not hesitated to affix to it the name current in modern Tusayan folklore. This fragment ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... gentleman belonging to Bow Street, she consented to tell me all about the little girl. The man that stole little missy had been to her precious hovel, and old Mother Brimstone had found a change of clothes for little missy, in token of which, and on payment of another sovereign, the old harpy gave me little missy's own ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... one blacks, and were formerly slaves. They are very devoted and faithful, but are ill-qualified for their duties, having obtained all the learning they possess in the Sabbath school. They are all pious, and exert a harpy influence on ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... point her gold trumpet at him, and puff him out of existence! I laughed to myself over this conceit, which, at the time, I thought very amusing, and sat and chaffed myself and everything else, from the old harpy outside the railing, who had made me pay ten centimes for my chair, before she would let me in (she was more like a basilisk, I told myself, than was my organist with the anaemic complexion): from that grim old dame, to, yes, alas! Monseigneur C—— himself. For all ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... indorse what is said of those harpy-defilers of knowledge known as juvenile books. A limited use of the works of Abbott, Edgeworth, Sedgwick, and a very few others may certainly be permitted. But the common practice of removing every occasion for effort from the path ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... artist in complexions, and it was she who provided her middle-aged and elderly customers with the lilies and roses of youth. Lady Kirkbank's town complexion was superintended by Seraphine, sometimes even manipulated by those harpy-like claws. The eyebrows of which Lesbia complained were only eyebrows de province—eyebrows de voyage. In London Georgie was much more particular; and Seraphine was often in Arlington Street with her little morocco bag of washes and creams, and brushes ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... second the Siren was transformed into a harpy. Her blue eyes turned to steel, and shot lightning. The children, understanding the situation, stood by looking like little sharks, and the handsome friends suddenly assumed the air of fierce wild birds in the Zoo, just ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... certain. It is no matter how things are: so a man observe but the agreement of his own imaginations, and talk conformably, it is all truth, all certainty. Such castles in the air will be as strongholds of truth, as the demonstrations of Euclid. That an harpy is not a centaur is by this way as certain knowledge, and as much a truth, as that a square is ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... of all the lines of her face took place. She became sinister, mocking, and pitiless. An exultant cruelty croaked in her voice. Minute, repulsive remodellings of her neck and cheeks changed her to a harpy, and seeing these evidences of her great genius Douglass grew bitterly resentful, and when she laughed, with the action of a vulture thrusting her head forward from the shoulders, he sickened and turned ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Crevel has given her. The baggage! She is my provost-marshal, and finishes off those I have spoiled. I tell you why I am so curious to know what she is like, old boy; I just caught sight of her in the Bois, in an open carriage—but a long way off. She is a most accomplished harpy, Carabine says. She is trying to eat up Crevel, but he only lets her nibble. Crevel is a knowing hand, good-natured but hard-headed, who will always say Yes, and then go his own way. He is vain and passionate; but his cash is cold. You can never get anything out of such fellows beyond a thousand ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... promised immediate shelter from the intolerable stare that follows such victims of society. The girl's weak, pretty face, and soft, white hands were but too true an index to her infirm will and character, and, although fluttering and reluctant, she again fell helpless into the talons of the harpy. Hapless girl! you will probably stand at this bar again, and full sentence will then be given against you. The judge frowned heavily as he saw the result of his clemency, and then, as if it were an old story, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... "That harpy hopes to fleece us," said Dalrymple, slipping his arm through mine and drawing me towards the roulette table. "She has just told De Simoncourt to take us in hand. I always suspected the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... was easy to know them by their dress and general aspect—were standing in the middle of the room; and one of them, the centre of the group, the senior harpy of the lot, a maiden lady—I could have sworn to that—with a red nose, held in one hand a huge pair of scissors, and in the other—the already devoted goods of my most unfortunate companion! Down from the waistband, through that goodly expanse, a fell gash had already gone through and ...
— The Relics of General Chasse • Anthony Trollope
... was then quite unused to the species, had to stand and receive a flood of the most fulsome flattery, delivered in a strident voice, and to bear the critical and prolonged stare of the spectacled eyes. Nor would the harpy easily release her prey. She kept him much against his will, and I saw him looking wistfully now and then ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... powers, but we got in the middle of it," cried Mesty; "Harpy tink us Spaniard. Now, my lads, get all gun ready, bring up powder and shot. Massa, now us fire at Spaniard—Harpy not fire at us—no ab English colours on board—dat all we ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... becoming steadiness, bid him write his brothers word that he was dead, and gently desired a woman who waited to leave him quite alone. No interested attendants watching for ill-deserved legacies, no harpy relatives clung round the couch ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... last the whole cluster of them fastened together. You know, children, I don't think much of my own drawing; but take my proud word for once, that when I go to the Zoological Gardens, and happen to have a bit of chalk in my pocket, and the Gray Harpy will sit, without screwing his head round, for thirty seconds,—I can do a better thing of him in that time than the three years' work of this industrious firm. For, during the thirty seconds, the eagle is my object,—not ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... transformation follows—"Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made." Then, giving rest after labour, it "fetches dew from the still vext Bermoothes, and, with a charm joined to their suffered labour, leaves men asleep." Snatching away the feast of the cruel, it seems to them as a harpy; followed by the utterly vile, who cannot see it in any shape, but to whom it is the picture of nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their false and mocking catch, "Thought is free;" but leads them into briers and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds upon ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... lion and the lamb together," said one harpy. "The lion must buy a rose to give to the lamb. Sir Lion, the rose is but a poor half-crown." And she tendered him a battered flower, leering at him from beneath her draggled, dusty bonnet as she put forth her untempting hand for ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... quietness of the repast, Mr Snapley's voice was heard! You were too glad, of course, to give up the trifling point out of which he had raised a discussion; but the earliest concession never saved you, nor did you ever afterwards escape the consciousness that he was still hovering like a harpy over the tablecloth, and ready to fall foul of you again. Let the subject be what it might, you had only to make a remark in his presence, and without his permission, to insure its contradiction. "What a needless ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... regard with disdain, yet he would be shocked out of his well-fed cynicism by the notion that his son was gallivanting round the country as the chauffeur of an unconventional American girl and a middle-aged harpy ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... walk," had Abbot Samson said of himself, at starting. In four years he has become a great walker; striding prosperously along; driving much before him. In less than four years, says Jocelin, the Convent Debts were all liquidated: the harpy Jews not only settled with, but banished, bag and baggage, out of the Bannaleuca (Liberties, Banlieue) of St. Edmundsbury,—so has the King's Majesty been persuaded to permit. Farewell to you, at any rate; let us, in no extremity, apply again to you! Armed men march them over the borders, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... effect for a month to come. Between now and then, imagine the intrigues! I entreat you not to expose our friend Thuillier to the blows of his competitors; let us not deliver him over to public discussion, that modern harpy which is but the trumpet of envy and calumny, the pretext seized by malevolence to belittle all that is great, soil all that is immaculate and dishonor whatever is sacred. Let us, rather, do as the Third Party is now doing in ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... not an eye to see him if he should slip and be dashed to atoms on the unconscious rocks—this thought almost overmastered him, unmanned him, filled him with a weird sense of indescribable horror. He battled against it with all his might, but it came on him like a foul harpy again and again, sickening his whole soul, making his forehead glisten with the damp dews of anticipated death. At last he came to a stunted willow which had twisted its dry roots into the thin soil, and, clinging to the stem of it with both arms, he was forced to stop and ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... the street. She could not go back to that circle of harpy faces, all eagerly tearing to pieces the details of poor old Madame Gautier's death. She must be alone—think. She would have to write home. Her father would come to fetch her. Her aunt was beyond the reach of appeal. Her artist-life would be over. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Queen Bess rented rooms and sold drinks according to the easy-going ideas of that day. But there was something untouched by the sordidness of her calling about this ample Rabelaisian woman. There was a noise about Queen Bess lacking in her harpy contemporaries. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht |
