"Parrot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... position, that he was a fiction, a sham held up by his father's hands. Orders issued from his lips to unsmiling subordinates, who knew well they were not his orders, but words placed in his mouth to recite parrot- like. Letters went out under his signature, dictated by him— according to the dictation of his father. He was a rubber stamp, a mechanical means of communication.... He was not a man, an individual—he was a marionette ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... owl-faced fish is unknown to me: it may perhaps be a seal or a manatee. Hole says that Father Martini, the Jesuit (seventeenth century), placed in the Canton Seas, an "animal with the head of a bird and the tail of a fish," a parrot-beak? ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... prey are met with; and partridges, duck, teal, guinea-fowl, sand-grouse, curlews, woodcock, snipe, pigeons, thrushes and swallows are very plentiful. A fine variety of ostrich is commonly found. Among the birds prized for their plumage are the marabout, crane, heron, blacks bird, parrot, jay and humming-birds of extraordinary brilliance, Among insects the most numerous and useful is the bee, honey everywhere constituting an important part of the food of the inhabitants. Of an opposite class is the locust. Serpents are not numerous, but several species are poisonous. There are ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was drying we put him among the bantams. They had been the greatest allies. But I suppose they took him for a parrot or a hawk, or something that bantams hate for while his cage was drying they picked out his feathers, and PICKED and PICKED out his feathers, till he was perfectly bald. 'Hugo, look,' said I. 'This is the end of Parsival. Let me have no more ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... so stuck up," she said, loudly and derisively. "Yez was all of yez rocked in a flour barrel. And there's old Henry Frewen, still above ground. I called my parrot after him because their noses were exactly alike. Look at Caroline Marr, will yez? That's a woman who'd like pretty well to get married, And there's Alexander Marr. He's a real Christian, anyhow, and so's his dog. I can always size up what a man's religion amounts ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Spiteful he is not, though he wrote a satire, For still there goes some thinking to ill-nature: He needs no more than birds and beasts to think, All his occasions are to eat and drink. If he call rogue and rascal from a garret, He means you no more mischief than a parrot; The words for friend and foe alike were made, To fetter them in verse is all his trade. For almonds he'll cry whore to his own mother: And call young Absalom king David's brother. 430 Let him be gallows-free by my consent, And nothing suffer, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... reversed this experiment by feeding pigeons for a lengthened period on a meat-diet, with the result that the gizzard became transformed into the carnivorous stomach. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace mentions the case of a Brazilian parrot which changes its color from green to red or yellow when fed on the fat of certain fishes. Not only changes of food, however, but changes of climate and of temperature, changes in surrounding organisms, in the case of marine animals even changes of pressure, of ocean ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... discourse so wisely on "Some Carp at Sans Souci," the vicissitudes which this veteran Parisian witnessed in the French capital from 1776 to 1873, under two empires, two royal dynasties and three republics, might be worth a rhapsody. Nono seems to have been a well-preserved old parrot. Magnificent in youth, he attained literally a green old age, for his plumage was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, he had lost his houppe, and was almost totally bald. However, his eye was clear and bright enough to have read ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... in which we stayed on our first visit there was a green-and-yellow parrot which was very tame. His accomplishments included the saying "Marietta, padrona, and hello" quite clearly, singing and laughing. Its mistress made it flirt with a highly coloured young lady on a poster ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... your bedroom with all my possessions," returned Flamant heartily. "I have a stuffed parrot that is most decorative, but I have not a ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... fished. They soon found that the fish were not only abundant and easily caught, but also very beautiful, with glittering scales of every imaginable hue; and before long the King discovered that he could teach them to talk and whistle better than any parrot. Then he determined to carry some to the nearest town and try to sell them; and as no one had ever before seen any like them the people flocked about him eagerly and bought all he had caught, so that presently not a house in the city was considered complete ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... standard of the faith even of the members of the Bonaparte family. Two days before this Christian circle at Madame Napoleon's, Madame de Chateaureine, with three other ladies, visited the Princesse Borghese. Not seeing a favourite parrot they had often previously admired, they inquired what was ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "there is a beautiful red-and-green parrot down-stairs in a great cage that shines like gold, and you shall have him for your own, and he can talk. You shall have him for your very own, sweetheart. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in politics for a lad of his age, and could discuss glibly the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. He denounced the seditious doings in Annapolis and Boston Town with an air of easy familiarity, for Philip had the memory of a parrot, and 'twas easy to perceive whence his knowledge sprang. But when my fine master spoke disparagingly of the tradesmen as at the bottom of the trouble, my grandfather's patience ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cockatoos which were perfectly black "excepting the breast and a few feathers on the wing which were yellow." They were so shy that no one could get near them. Other birds were killed—whose flesh, when cooked, was very palatable; that of the parrot resembled our pigeon in taste—"possibly because they feed on seeds ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... design of the PDP-10 model KL10. 2. The name of the company formed by Dave Poole, one of the principal Super Foonly designers, and one of hackerdom's more colorful personalities. Many people remember the parrot which sat on Poole's shoulder and was a regular companion. 3. Any of the machines built by Poole's company. The first was the F-1 (a.k.a. Super Foonly), which was the computational engine used to create the graphics ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... stand in front of the parrots to take off their attention. He was told that this was not nearly so dangerous as pulling the feathers out, and so he believed what was told him, and did his best to attract the parrot's attention, while his fellow- monkeys got behind and pulled ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... Spinet, to read, write, and cast accounts in a small way." Dancing was the all-important study, since this was the surest route to their Promised Land, matrimony. The study of French consisted in learning parrot-like a modicum of that language pronounced according to the fancy of the speaker. As, however, the young beau probably did not know any more himself, the end justified the means. Studies like history, when pursued, ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... exclaimed Mary, and a great parrot was visible on the branch of a sumach, which stretched over the railings of the low wall of the pagoda garden. "O you appropriate bird,-you surely ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the death of Francis Bacon—appeared "Cures for the Itch; Characters, Epigrams, Epitaphs by H. P." with the motto "Scalpat qui Tangitur." H. P. was read by Philip Bliss into Henry Parrot, who published a collection of epigrams in 1613, as "Laquei Ridiculosi, or Springes for Woodcocks." The Characters in this little volume are of a Ballad Maker, a Tapster, a Drunkard, a Rectified Young Man, a Young Novice's New Younger Wife, a Common Fiddler, a Broker, a Jovial Good ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... but the difference between the fiction and what we believe would have been the reality is significant. De Foe, even in 'Robinson Crusoe,' gives a very inadequate picture of the mental torments to which his hero is exposed. He is frightened by a parrot calling him by name, and by the strangely picturesque incident of the footmark on the sand; but, on the whole, he takes his imprisonment with preternatural stolidity. His stay on the island produces the same state of mind as might be due to a dull Sunday in Scotland. For this ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... his uncle exclaimed gayly. "What cares a prefect of Rome for the scratching hens of Lorium? As for me, most noble Prefect, I am but a man from whom neither power nor philosophy can take my natural affections"; and, as the parrot swinging over the door-way croaked out his "Salve!" (Welcome!), arm-in-arm uncle and nephew entered ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... if he had been up a week of Sundays, too," said she. Then she called out to him, in her high-pitched treble, which sounded odd coming from her soft circumference of throat. Maud's voice ought, by good rights, to have been a rich, husky drone, instead of bearing a resemblance to a parrot's. "Say, Wollaston Lee," she called out, and the boy approached perforce, lifting his hat—"say," said Maud, "I hear you and Maria eloped last ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and our daily bill of fare profited by the boatswain's trawling lines, to the extreme satisfaction of stomachs weary of salt meat. Our lines brought us goby, salmon, cod, mackerel, conger, mullet, and parrot-fish. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... placing three regiments under Colonel Basil W. Duke, in the first brigade, with a battery of four guns. The second brigade was placed in command of Colonel W. C. P. Breckenridge, and was composed of four regiments, with one three-inch Parrot gun and the two mountain howitzers. This force, trained as it had been, had no superior for the work it was ordered to do—raiding in the rear, destroying bridges, trestleworks, and capturing bridge-guards. So accustomed ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... my dear Bertie," I said, one day, when Mr. Mortimer had departed, and she came to throw herself down on the sofa in my chamber and rest, "what has reconciled you to the old Parrot, as you used to ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... for the night and started next morning at 11 o'clock for Memphis which city he reached at four o'clock. Above Memphis he was met by a fleet of excursion steamers and the sight of his flashing paddle as he approached them was the signal for the firing of a salute from a ten pound parrot gun on the deck of the General Pierson. Miss Jeanette Boswell, one of the reigning belles of Memphis, handed him a banner and made a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... croquet, or talk to the Archdeacon's wife, or do anything that is likely to bring on physical prostration. You can just wear your sweetest clothes and moderately amiable expression, and eat chocolate-creams with the appetite of a blase parrot. Nothing ...
— Reginald • Saki
... an understanding and characteristic picture of the men (and some women) of the tribe of the Tecunas moving in procession through the woods mostly naked, except for wearing animal heads and masks—the masks representing Cranes of various kinds, Ducks, the Opossum, the Jaguar, the Parrot, etc., probably symbolic of ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... a fickle Heine so faithful. Sometimes, one gathers, she as little realized the tragedy of Heine's suffering as she understood his writings. As such a woman must, she often left Heine very lonely; and seemed to feel more for her cat, or her parrot "Cocotte," ...
— Old Love Stories Retold • Richard Le Gallienne
... and making them run is called dhor jagana or bichkana, that is, to wake up or terrify the cattle. Its meaning is obscure, but it is said to preserve the cattle from disease during the year. In Raipur the women make an image of a parrot in clay at the Diwali and place it on a pole and go round to the different houses, singing and dancing round the pole, and receiving presents of rice and money. They praise the parrot as the bird who carries messages from a lover to his mistress, and as ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Calf!" he exclaimed in English, like the croak of a parrot, striking his hand upon his breast with a gesture which should have been ludicrous or pompous, but was neither. "Me, White Calf!" said the chief again, and lifted the medal which lay upon his breast. "Good. White man come. White man go. Me ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... footsteps very happily, and came to the dark inn I had missed. It stood fifty yards back from the road, and had no light except what glimmered from the embers of a wood fire. At the door was a parrot that cried out, "Choozhoi, choozhoi, choozhoi preeshhol"—"A stranger, a stranger, a ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... repeated the man, parrot fashion, showing plainly enough that he had been trained to use ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... she sings like a nurse putting a child to sleep, in a sort of humming hush-a-by-baby way; then she tries dance-music, and hops first on one foot, then on the other—this way," and Graham began mimicking the parrot, and Phil laughed till the ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... an impatient movement of her head that reminded me of a parrot viciously digging out the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... forget, gentlemen, that you have to deal with an ignorant public." The dictum may fairly be extended from medical knowledge to general information amongst the many headed of England; and the Publisher, when rejecting a too recondite book, will repeat parrot-fashion, The English public is not a learned body. Equally valid is the statement in the case of the Anglo-American community which is still half-educated and very far from being erudite. The vast country has produced a few men of great and original genius, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... recollection, and that my mother remarked it. She had brown hair and eyes, I recollect well the features of the woman. Her lower lip was like a cherry, having a distinct cut down the middle, caused she said by the bite of a parrot, which nearly severed her lip when a girl. This feature I recollect more clearly than anything else. My mother remarked that though so big, she was lighter in tread, than anyone in the house, her voice was so soft, it was like a whisper ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... was a passionate lover of the Violin, and an excellent player. One evening he was playing at a musical party. After he had finished he placed his "Strad" in its case as usual, which he closed, without locking it. The next day he was amusing himself with a parrot, which bit him on the lip; the wound appeared very unimportant, but exposure to the cold brought on malignant abscess, and he sank and died. In due course his representatives arrived in St. Petersburg, and took charge of his property, which was brought to ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... 'I only wish I was coming with you. It'll take you a little while to understand the language. You'll find a good deal of senseless bellicosity among the workmen, for they've got parrot-cries about the war as they used to have parrot-cries about their labour politics. But there's plenty of shrewd brains and sound hearts too. You must write ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... no beacons of hope to the consumptive. She is an interesting woman, and I pity her from my soul. This Mr. Mathews, who was confined with her husband, and arrived lately in London, and who, moreover, is a countryman of mine, brought her from her dying husband a little favourite dog and a parrot, which were his companions in his dungeon. He very indiscreetly came before her with the remembrances without any preparation, and she received a shock from it, from which she has not yet, nor ever will recover. What affecting little ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... tongue, my wylie parrot, And tell no tales of me, And where I gave a pickle befor It's now I'll ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... by virtue of their superior resolution and experience, was productive of absolutely no result except to place an additional damper upon their already sufficiently depressed spirits. Bob said nothing, but, like the queen's parrot, he thought the more. Brook frankly acknowledged himself quite unequal to the emergency, as did Dale, but both cheerfully stated their readiness to do anything they might be directed to do. And here it may be stated ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... I found them still slumbering, so I again lay down to think over our situation. Just at that moment I was attracted by the sight of a very small parrot, which Jack afterwards told me was called a paroquet. It was seated on a twig that overhung Peterkin's head, and I was speedily lost in admiration of its bright green plumage, which was mingled with other gay colours. While I looked ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... queer old lady, who, they say, once used to queen it at the court of Louis Napoleon. She's over eighty years of age now, but quite rich, I've been told. And if you've never been in her house you'd be interested in seeing how she lives. That wonderful green parrot of hers can rattle off a whole string of songs and sayings. It almost gives you the creeps to hear Jocko performing, for it strikes you as what Andy McGuffey would call uncanny. Well, so long, K. K. I hope you make ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... all the messenger could give only increased Joseph's alarm, and it was with much difficulty that he learnt from him that the master had brought some walnuts to the parrots, and just after giving a nut to the green parrot had cried out to Tobias that a great pain had come into his head. Joseph dug his heels into his ass's side and cried to the messenger: and then? The messenger answered that the pain in the back of his father's head had become so great that he had begun to reel about, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... the swift closing of the scullery-door upon us by Julia; then the voice of the Dean of Glengad, demanding from the house at large an explanation, in a voice of cathedral severity. Miss McEvoy's reply was to us about as coherent as the shrieks of a parrot, but we plainly heard ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the animals are by no means shown in this position. The screech owl, or Moan bird (as in Dresden 10a) appears most frequently in this way. The king vulture (Dresden 8a), the dog (Dresden 7a), and the parrot (Dresden 40b) come next in descending importance. The animals represented as copulating (as in Dresden 13c) might also be considered as mythological animals as well as the full drawings of the jaguar (Dresden 8a) and the other animals when they occur alone in the ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... under the mastership of a mind of no ordinary calibre. From all that we can learn of him, Allen Wight was that remarkable character—a born educator. He did not believe his duty was performed by merely drilling his pupils, parrot-like, to repeat other men's sentiments. He knew that the minds of mortals, particularly if young and fresh, are as diverse in their springs of action as the laws of the universe, and he conceived it to be his duty to study the individual characteristics ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... entered a door marked "Buckeye Comedies. Jeff Baird, Manager." The outer office was vacant, but through the open door to another room she observed Baird at his desk, his head bent low over certain sheets of yellow paper. He was a bulky, rather phlegmatic looking man, with a parrot-like crest of gray hair. He did not look up as the girl entered. She stood a moment as if to control her ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... is in the act of kissing his hand as if to thank him for his deliverance; the Minotaur is here represented as a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull); a Centaur carrying off a nymph; a car drawn by a parrot and driven by a cricket: a woman offering to another little Loves for sale (she is pulling out the little Cupids from a basket and holding them by their wings as if they were fowls); a beautiful female figure seated on a monster something like the Chimaera of the ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... last thing that can be said of Spenser is that he is a poet of mere words. Milton himself, the severe Milton, extolled his moral teaching; his philosophical idealism is evidently no mere poet's plaything or parrot-lesson, but thoroughly thought out and believed in. He is a determined, almost a savage partisan in politics and religion, a steady patriot, something of a statesman, very much indeed of a friend and a lover. And of all this there is ample evidence in his verse. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... shift with their stages of growth. Many a meanness of life is left uncommitted, not solely because it is a meanness but because it would look execrable in the pages of a novel. Why, only for being terrorized by the Old Maid of Fiction, I'd be keeping a cat and a parrot myself by this time, Hugh ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... enumeration. Reasons having some reference to the canons of scientific investigation have been attempted to be given, however unsuccessfully, for some of these propositions; but to the multitude of those who parrot them, the enumeratio simplex, ex his tantummodo quae praesto sunt pronuncians, is the sole evidence. Their fallacy consists in this, that they are inductions without elimination: there has been no real comparison of instances, nor even ascertainment ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... story, if our cat doesn't go hunting for the poll parrot's cracker in the gold fish bowl and get his whiskers all wet, I'll tell you about Uncle Wiggily ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... upper lip began to saw at it with his knife. His large yellow teeth were displayed, and the appearance of a beak was so effectively presented by the protruded lip that words came from behind it with the uncanny sound of a parrot; but it did not occur to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... have to take care of the parrot, Mary,' said the butler; 'and you, Susan, must look after the page. We shall all be well cross-examined as to the state of the establishment; and so I advise you to be prepared. Her ladyship is a rum one, and that's ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... of bush vermln, so often extolled in these colonies, and although carefully eschewing all parrot pies, red-bill ragouts, black swans, kangaroo rats, porcupines, and such vaunted nastinesses, we strongly contend for the excellence of "kangaroo steamer," as a most savory and appetizing dish. We cannot reproach it with a fault, save its tendency to lead one to excess; the only difficulty ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... endeavoring to estimate the mental capacity of the elephant, we will base no general conclusions upon any particularly intelligent individual, as all mankind is tempted to do in discussions of the intelligence of the dog, the cat, the horse, parrot and ape. On the contrary, it is our desire to reveal the mental capacity of every elephant living, tame or wild, except the few individuals with abnormal or diseased minds. It is not to be shown how successfully an elephant has been taught by man, but how all elephants in ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... parrots," declares the choirmaster of St. John's Church, Grimsby. His facts are wrong. The only thing automatic about a parrot is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... preparing for death the king's parrot flew from its cage and alighted on a rosebush in Zadig's garden. A peach had been driven thither by the wind from a neighboring tree, and had fallen on a piece of the written leaf of the pocketbook to which it stuck. The bird carried off the peach and the paper and laid them ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... sailors; and Uncle John went for a walk down Wapping High Street to talk to the pretty ladies one evening; and there was a press all along the river that night—a regular hot one—and Uncle John was carried on board a man-of-war to fight under Nelson; and nobody minded Uncle John's parrot, and it talked itself to death. So Mr. Pitt killed Uncle John's parrot; ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... parrot said to the falling tree, Wait, brother, till I fetch a prop!' said Gobind with a grim chuckle. 'God has given me eighty years, and it may be some over. I cannot look for more than day granted by day and as a favour ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... and then there was the sweet note of some bird ringing clearly in the air; then a loud and piercing screech heralded the coming of a parrot or cockatoo, which seemed tame enough to care little for the stranger who ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... over the kid Prof. saved—it was Patsy—and Kelly was crazy; but the Doc. was bringin' the kid around all right, when one of the Miss Deveres, she has to come nutty all to once—say, she sounded like the parrot-house in Central Park, laughin' till you'd think she'd bust, only it sounded like she was cryin' at the same time, and screamin' out at the top of her voice, 'Oh, he looked so damned funny with his mus-tache burned off! Oh, he looked so damned funny with his mus-tache burned ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... came two golden-haired pages, also clad in red velvet and carrying a flat black-lacquer box on a velvet cushion. Last of all came an elderly man dressed in black, and carrying a golden perch on which sat a fine green parrot. On reaching the centre of the hall, the parrot flapped its wings, arranged an upstart feather or two, and then resumed that solemn dignity for which birds and animals ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... child may reel off a string of facts, but unless it can apply them they are undigested mental food and of no use. What I want to do is to find out how far each girl understands what she has learnt. Mere parrot repetition is quite valueless in my opinion, and most ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... brought on shore two cats and a dog. He was a trusty servant to me many years. I wanted nothing that he could fetch me, nor any company. I only wanted him to talk to me, but that he could not do. Later, I managed to catch a parrot, which did much to cheer my loneliness. I taught him to speak, and it would have done your heart good to have heard the pitying tones in which he used to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... baggage depart, Arthur turned, and resisting the importunities of beggars, guides, and parrot-sellers, who had not yet recognized him as an old hand, made his way towards the Quinta Carr. How well he knew the streets and houses, even to the withered faces of the women who sat by the doors, and yet ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... technique," "vonderful touch," "bee-youtiful tone," or "poeytic temperament." She assured me that her son was the youngest boy in the United States to play Brahms and Beethoven successfully. At first I thought that she was prattling these words parrot fashion, but I soon realized that, to a considerable extent, at least, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... sauntering about alone, especially when waiting, we, like children, make the most of everything that can while away the time, or give even the semblance of being occupied: a flower-pot in a window, a parrot in a cage, nay, even an insect flying past, is an absolute gain to us. David felt it quite a fortunate chance when he suddenly caught sight of a sign-painter carrying on his work in the open air. Though ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... bamboo drum, the melodrama was begun. The hero pranced into the open square to the tune of a minor dirge, not knowing a single sentence of his part; the prompter, kneeling down before a flaring candle, told him what to say; he repeated in parrot-like fashion, and then pranced off the square to slow dirge-like music. Now the heroine minced in from the opposite corner to slow music with her satin train sweeping in the dust; though carefully raised when she crossed the sacred precincts of the square, and in a sauntering way, with one arm ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... reported the following year, "A special effort was made to throw away the old, parrot-like way of learning. As the teachers needed instruction as well as the pupils, sometimes, the text-books were taken away. The teachers were required to tell a story every day; and with the story a verse of the Scriptures, meant for a peg on which to hang the tale, was committed to memory ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... talented Manager of the Excelsior Mill, otherwise known to our delighted readers as 'Outcrop.'" The Green Springs "Arcadian" was no less fanciful in imagery: "Messrs. —— and Co. send us a gaudy green-and-yellow, parrot-colored volume, which is supposed to contain the first callow 'cheepings' and 'peepings' of Californian songsters. From the flavor of the specimens before us we should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to be a good ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... I loaded one of my barrels with small shot, that I might kill a bird for my supper, the pangs of hunger warning me that I should not get on at all without eating. I very soon knocked over a pea-fowl and a parrot. Of the latter I had frequently eaten pies during our journey. I was thus in no fear of starving, and I thought that if I could have had Solon with me I should have had no cause to fear. As it was, I felt very solitary, and not a ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... entered was concealed from the inner and smaller room by the jutting wall of the outer room, in which stood a huge writing-table loaded with letters, pamphlets and manuscripts. Between the two windows of the inner room was a cage in which a large, grey parrot was clambering, using both beak and claws to assist him in his slow ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... being—I did not fail to perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then, immediately arose the idea of a non-reasoning creature capable of speech; and very naturally, a parrot, in the first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded forthwith by a Raven as equally capable of speech, and infinitely more in keeping with the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... touch of humour when he describes a state umbrella, of which the handle and ribs are pure gold, tipped with rubies and diamonds, the silken covering bordered with thirty-two fringed loops of pearls, and "also appropriately decorated with the feathers of the peacock, heron, parrot, and goose."—Birdwood, "Indian Arts," ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... Salvin tells this curious anecdote: "Some years ago the Zoological Society possessed a specimen which lived in one of the large cages of the parrot house by itself. I have a very distinct recollection of the bird, for I used every time I saw it to cheer it up a bit by whistling such of its notes as I had picked up in the forests of America. The bird always seemed to appreciate this attention, for although it never replied, it became ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... whose throats and crests glowed with scale-like feathers, brilliant as the precious stones—emerald, topaz, ruby, and sapphire—after which they were named. The great forest trees would be, I felt sure, full of the screaming parrot tribe, in their uniforms of leafy green, faced with orange, blue, and crimson; while, farther up the country, there would be the splendid quetzals, all ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... wit's ends again to know what to say next when the door opened. Jane had heard the commotion, and there she stood in her sleeping garments and cap, a kimono floating behind her. In one hand was her candle, in the other the only ornament she possessed—a stuffed parrot! ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... always talk to men? No, she had her confidante: Mother Stuart. Stuart, as the lady would point out, is the name of a Royal house; but what that signified, and what her business way, no one knew; only that Mrs. Stuart got postal orders every Monday morning, kept a parrot, believed in the transmigration of souls, and could read the future in tea leaves. Dirty lodging-house wallpaper she was ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... out the words in tones of unusual vigour, a little, stout old gentleman, opening a door behind Gotthold, received them fairly in the face. With his parrot's beak for a nose, his pursed mouth, his little goggling eyes, he was the picture of formality; and in ordinary circumstances, strutting behind the drum of his corporation, he impressed the beholder with a certain air of frozen dignity and wisdom. But at the smallest contrariety, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... These west-country yokels, to fancy that they can do Tom Thurnall! It's adding insult to injury, as Sam Weller's parrot has it." ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... o' Books!" cries the Baron, remembering the clever Parrot who uttered a similar exclamation at a Parrot Competition. First, here is Blossom Land and Fallen Leaves, by CLEMENT SCOTT, published by HUTCHINSON & CO., which is an interesting and useful book to those who are able to take a holiday in Cromer, and marvel at the sunset, and notice ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... man with horses, and had never liked an automobile half as much. He loved all animals and they seemed to love him too. At the present time his pets consisted of a small woolly dog, an angora cat, a parrot, and an alligator. The last named pet he kept in an old wash tub, half full of water, and called him Percy. He used to talk to all his pets as if they were human beings, Percy included, and many people had ventured the opinion ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... tormented by this black woman with rotten teeth, the governess of hell. The chariot drawn by red mares, which a legless coachman is driving, is carrying about in broad daylight the master of the sun. The moon-god accompanies him in a litter drawn by three gazelles. On her knees, on the back of a parrot, the goddess of beauty is presenting her round breast to Love, her son. Here she is farther on; she leaps with joy in the prairies. Look! look! With a radiant mitre on her head, she runs over the cornfields, over the waves, mounts into the air, and ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... the birds in the bush can make some kind of a noise; and most of them like to do it; and some of them like it a great deal and do it very much. But it is not always for edification, nor are the most vociferous and garrulous birds commonly the most pleasing. A parrot, for instance, in your neighbour's back yard, in the summer time, when the windows are open, is not an aid to the development of Christian character. I knew a man who had to stay in the city all summer, ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... its own sake. Of her friends and acquaintances she saw much less than formerly. Many of them complained that they never could get a glimpse of her now, that she shut them out, that "not at home" had become a parrot-cry on the lips of her well-trained parlor-maid, that she cared for nobody now that she had a husband and a baby, that she was self-engrossed, etc., etc. But they could not be angry with her; for if they did happen to meet her, or if she did ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... over a fleet of motortrucks. After a wilderness of railway yards one comes to a curious bit in the 1100 block; a little brick tunnel that bends around into a huddle of backyards and small houses, where a large green parrot was stooping and nodding on a pile of old boxes. This little scene is overlooked by the tall brown spires of the Church of the Assumption ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... nothing about it. I said she need not worry herself. She is quite twenty-eight, you know, Mamma, so I suppose she knows best; but I should hate a religion that obliged me to kiss White Ferret curates in a parrot-house, ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... have had a capital time with a whole island to himself; and you think you would like such a time yourself, if only Nelly and Charlie could be there with you. But this thought does not come till afterward; for the time you are nothing but Crusoe; you are living in his cave with Poll the parrot, and are looking out for your goats ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... was murmuring a few words of regret at her bad luck," continued Ella, "a sharp voice called out from a back room, 'Almiry! Almiry! come here.' It sounded very like a cross parrot, but it was the old lady, and while I put on my hat I heard her asking who was in the shop, and what we were 'gabbin' about.' Her daughter told her, and the old soul demanded to 'see the gal;' so I went in, being ready for fun as usual. It was a little, dark, dismal place, but as ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... that the greasy Chinaman, who fried the sausages and boiled the rice back in the tiny den, was a great favorite. At our own restaurant, two Negro women made the best corn-fritters we had ever tasted; a green parrot and a monkey squawked and chattered on the balustrade; a Filipino boy played marches on a ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... apprehension, there came into view, not a fathom below my feet, a face like to the face which had peered up into my own on that night, as we drifted beside the weed-continent. At that, I could have screamed, had I been in less terror; for the great eyes, so big as crown pieces, the bill like to an inverted parrot's, and the slug-like undulating of its white and slimy body, bred in me the dumbness of one mortally stricken. And, even as I stayed there, my helpless body bent and rigid, the bo'sun spat a mighty curse into my ear, and, leaning forward, smote at ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... effort, prizing at the same time with the poker, when the screws of the hasp came out and the top flew up, revealing only "odds and ends" so far as I could see. I closed it, replaced the striped cover, and put the cage with the parrot on it, where it usually remains. The day, and the expressed objection of my wife to have the lock broken or injured, have, until to-day, restrained me from revealing to the family what I had done. But now I shall assemble them, and by a sort of Christmas ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... of the vessel, the Sub explaining everything to them in detail. Already the lads had taken a great fancy to the Sub, and Fox reciprocated the sentiment. He had a way about him that enabled him to give particulars of the most intricate mechanism without having to resort to dry, parrot-like instruction. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... as these!" she repeated, looking on her finery with disdain. "No, Robin, young as I am, I have learned better things. The linnet would look ill tricked out in parrot's feathers. Not but I think the bravery becoming, though, perhaps, not to me;—surely no, if you like it not! But whither are you going? only tell me that. Alas! that dark and black-browed boy has so confounded me, that I know not what I say. The last ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... taught, as women should be, that they in turn may teach others, how to wash, cook, scrub, dress and talk, to counteract the idea that woman is a toy, pretty doll, with no will power of her own, only a parrot, a parasite of a man. To be womanly, means strength of character, virtue and a power for good. Let your women be teachers of good things, says ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... to the drawing-room to see a grey parrot, brought hither since her last visit—a very entertaining companion in the evenings, the President declared. He told Lord Carse he would be back in three minutes, and so he was—with a lady on his arm, and ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... with a centered cross of three equal bands - the vertical part is yellow (hoist side), black, and white and the horizontal part is yellow (top), black, and white; superimposed in the center of the cross is a red disk bearing a sisserou parrot encircled by 10 green, five-pointed stars edged in yellow; the 10 stars represent ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... Winchester, and he preached at each one Sunday in the month. After awhile he put in his appearance. He was rather small in stature, and held his head somewhat to one side and looked at you with that knowing look of the parrot. He wore a pair of trousers that had been black, but were now sleet from much wear. They lacked two inches of reaching down to the feet of his high-heeled boots. He had on a long linen cluster that reached below his knees. Beneath this was a faded Prince Albert coat and a vest much too small. ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... a name given to one of the early French governors, and continued to be used generally for the French as long as they held Canada. The story means a parrot probably.] ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... before the ship was ready to go into commission. Important alterations had been made below, and the armament had been taken from her deck, substituting for it a Parrot midship piece, of eight-inch bore, and carrying a one hundred and fifty pound shot, two sixty-pounders, and two thirty-pounders. This was a heavy armament, but the ship was strong enough to ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... dressed! He wore tight red trousers, a red and blue turban on his head, and a tight jeweled tunic, covered with pearl buttons. His sash was green, dotted with purple spots. He had purple parrot feathers at his waist ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... was continued with much life on the Ministerial side of the House. It was very easy for them to cry Faction! Faction! and hardly necessary for them to do more. A few parrot words had been learned as to the expediency of fitting the great and increasing Church of England to the growing necessity of the age. That the CHURCH OF ENGLAND would still be the CHURCH OF ENGLAND was repeated till weary listeners were sick of the unmeaning words. But the zeal of the combatants ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... she made him worse; (Some women are like this, I think;) He taught her parrot how to curse, Her Assam monkey how ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... nor articulation are essentially human. Many of the lower animals, e.g. parrots, possess the power of articulate speech, and birds can be taught to pipe tunes. The essential difference between the articulate speech of the parrot and the human being is that the parrot merely imitates sounds, it does not employ these articulate sounds to express judgments; likewise there are imbecile human beings who, parrot-like, repeat ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... and in Johannesburg madly gambled, and large fortunes were quickly made by those who had foresight enough not to hold on too long. For already the political horizon was darkening, and the wrongs of the "Uitlanders," real and apparent as they were, became a parrot-cry, which waxed and waned, but never died away, till the ultimatum of President Kruger, in October, 1899, brought matters ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... courteous interest. "Well, my way lies uptown. I have to stop in at Greenberg's and get a mustard plaster for the parrot." ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... lesson. Music always rested him, and the sound of her voice soothed. It was the "Elegie" of Massenet that he had given her, foolishly perhaps, a difficult thing at so early a stage, because of its purity and simplicity, and he had made her learn the words of the French—like a parrot—written them out phonetically, because the French words were beautiful and the English, as written, abominable. And now she sang it to him softly, as he had taught her, again and again, while he corrected her phrasing, suggesting subtle meanings in his accompaniment which she was ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair, Lips that lover has never kissed; Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the little maid. On her hand a parrot green Sits unmoving and ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... a little girl who had four dolls. One of them was French; the other three were wax. There was a parrot in the house where the little girl lived. This little girl had a nurse she loved very much. The little girl had a brother whose name was Harry. He had a little boat that went by steam. He ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... looked after him a moment, and with a chuckling laugh, such as that with which a magpie or parrot applauds a successful exploit of mischief, he resumed once more the road to Fairport. His habits had given him a sort of restlessness, much increased by the pleasure he took in gathering news; and in a short ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... certainly by evening he had worked himself up into a fine frenzy of revolt. When we had got through our foolish game of living statues, and had settled down to dinner in a little restaurant, where a parrot's greeting of "Apres vous, madame! Apres vous, monsieur!" had vouched for the excellence of its manners, and where we could look across the river and see for ourselves how true were the effects that Cazin used to paint and that seemed so false to those who knew nothing of French twilight, ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... about which you inquire have nothing to do with the reformation of wicked parrots. If the language made use of by your parrot is so dreadful that the cats have left the house in consequence of it, we are afraid that the bird is past reform. Try him with rats, and you may yet be renowned as the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... refresh my memory. Yes," continued the venerable wreck, after a short pause,—"yes, I like my residence pretty well; I enjoy a calm conscience, and a clean shirt: what more can man desire? I have made acquaintance with a tame parrot, and I have taught it to say, whenever an English fool with a stiff neck and a loose swagger passes him—'True Briton—true Briton.' I take care of my health, and reflect upon old age. I have read Gil Blas, and the Whole Duty of Man; and, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... object to undertake At the same high pitch as an altercation. It's not for me, of course, to judge How much a deaf lady ought to begrudge; But half-a-guinea seems no great matter - Letting alone more rational patter - Only to hear a parrot chatter: Not to mention that feathered wit, The starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit; The pies and jays that utter words, And other Dicky Gossips of birds, That talk with as much good sense and decorum As many Beaks who belong ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... had been to look to the right and left for the means of avoiding this encounter, but there was no escape; and he was moreover in most fantastic motley, arrayed in one of the many suits provided for the occasion. It was in imitation of a parrot, brilliant grass-green velvet, touched here and there with scarlet, yellow, or blue. He had been only half disguised on the occasion of Fulford's visit to his wife, and he perceived the start of recognition in the eyes ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very ungallant declaration, certainly, for a young gentleman, and one that he had not, and was never likely to have, the opportunity of proving the truth of. Harry was soon joined by the young ladies, whom the noise of the parrot-house had nearly deafened, and a general resolution was put, and carried by the whole party, Mabel herself not excepted, that fine plumage did not at all make amends ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... have been equal to such a task. In 1775, Sergeant Thompson, as overseer of Government works, was charged with erecting the palisades, fascines and other primitive contrivances to keep out Brother Jonathan, who had not yet learned the use of Parrot or Gatling guns and torpedoes. Later on, we find the sturdy Highlander an object of curiosity to strangers visiting Quebec —full of siege anecdotes and reminiscences—a welcome guest at the Chateau ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... suit of company manners which I wore only when guests were present, and so was always sorry to have guests come. I sat back on the chair instead of on its edge; I didn't swing my legs unless I had a lapse of memory; I said, "Yes, ma'am," and, "No, ma'am," like any other parrot, just as I did at rehearsal; and, in short, I was a most exemplary child save for occasional reactions to unlooked-for situations. The folks knew I was posing, and were on nettles all the while from ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... natural gift." Ransom saw that he should not in the least discover Mrs. Farrinder's real opinion, and her dissimulation added to his impression that she was a woman with a policy. It was none of his business whether in her heart she thought Verena a parrot or a genius; it was perceptible to him that she saw she would be effective, would help the cause. He stood almost appalled for a moment, as he said to himself that she would take her up and the girl would be ruined, would force her note and become a screamer. But ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... the control of the supreme government of New Amsterdam. This great dignitary was called Mynheer William Beekman, or rather Beck-man, who derived his surname, as did Ovidius Naso of yore, from the lordly dimensions of his nose, which projected from the center of his countenance like the beak of a parrot. He was the great progenitor of the tribe of the Beekmans, one of the most ancient and honorable families of the province; the members of which do gratefully commemorate the origin of their dignity, nor as your noble families ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... knew it was. I've proved it. She would have come to me in any case. And as for success—it doesn't depend on things of that sort. I've proved that too. But he—Jack—got hold of the same infernal parrot-cry. Oh, I'm sorry, sir," he glanced upwards for a second with working lips. "I can't dress this up in polite language. Jack said to my boy Robin what you had said to me. And he—believed ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... much harm. I went forth to the garden in the rear of the inn. Here spread a lawn more level than a ballroom floor. There was a summer-house and many beds of flowers. On this day there was nobody abroad in the garden but an atrocious parrot, which, balancing on its stick, called out continually raucous cries ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... to this ridiculous scene, Mrs. Waddel's grey parrot, who was not the least important personage in her establishment, having been presented to her by her sailor son, fraternised with the prostrate lad, and echoed his laughter in the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... the ever: no, no, Orlando, men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives: I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more newfangled than an ape; more giddy in my desires than a monkey; I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when you are inclined ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... "girls" who were idly strolling in a distant part of the field, and the archdeacon ran at full speed. The air grew dark with bows, and resonant with the genial laugh of the archdeacon, the cackle of the younger ladies, and the shrill parrot-like voices of the matrons; those smiled who had never smiled before, and on some maiden faces there hovered that look of adoring ecstasy with which the old maidens graced their angels. Then, when all the due rites had been performed, the company turned and began to walk towards ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... the gallery and across the narrow "bridges" which connected the Lebrun cottages one with the other. He had been seated before the door of the main house. The parrot and the mockingbird were the property of Madame Lebrun, and they had the right to make all the noise they wished. Mr. Pontellier had the privilege of quitting their society when ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... which, after all, I love, with its great memories, its high courage, and its bright skies, as I love the little Danish town where my cradle stood, let me, before I close this account of the struggle with evil, show you also its good heart by telling you "the unnecessary story of Mrs. Ben Wah and her parrot." Perchance it may help you to grasp better the meaning of the Battle with the Slum. It is for such as she and for such as "Jim," whose story I told before, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... busy clearing the snow from the horses' hoofs. The driver, stupid or dazed, sat on the box, helpless as a parrot on ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... The name is spelled variously, Ethelney, AEthelney, Ethelingay, &c. It was in Somersetshire, between the rivers Thone and Parrot.] ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... parrot singing an air from Joseph Haydn's 'Creation,'" exclaimed Conrad, bursting into triumphant laughter. "And just listen, doctor, the prima donna assoluta of the good God has become entirely silent, and listens with delight to the divine melodies, modulations, and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... couple of seamen followed with huge painted canvas bags on their shoulders, and various foreign-looking things hung about outside. They themselves carried a couple of birdcages and two parrots; and a mischievous-looking monkey sat on the black's shoulder, another parrot being perched on the top of his hat, and a fiddle-case hung over his neck. They soon got out of Gosport into ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... the sour astringent wines of the country, and bought inlaid-wood paper-cutters and silk socks and neckties and hat-bands, enough, in truth, to last him for several generations; another week in Capri, where, at the Zum Kater Hidigeigei, he exchanged compliments with the green parrot, drank good beer, played batseka (a game of billiards) with the exiles (for Capri has as many as Cairo!) and beat them out of sundry lire, toiled up to the ledge where the playful Tiberius (see guide-books) tipped over his whilom favorites, bought a marine daub; and then ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... of those present, and set off very finely the gleaming jewels and gemmed sword-hilts which were worn by the more important personages. The room was spacious and lofty, hung with arras, and lit by candles burning in silver sconces; it rang as we entered with the shrill screaming of a parrot, which was being teased by a group occupying the farther of the two hearths. Near them play was going on at one table, and primero at a second. In a corner were three or four ladies, in a circle about a red-faced, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... doom had fallen to thy chance In our days: Thy sole assignment Some solitary confinement, (Not worth thy care a carrot,) Where in world-hidden cell Thou thy own Crusoe might have acted well, Only without the parrot; By sure experience taught to know, Whether the qualms thou mak'st him feel ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... door, they're quiet enough; but they have a parrot, and he's in the room just across from this, and he chatters so often that it is sometimes very annoying. Look over, you ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... advantage. It is probable, for instance, that a speaker may walk back and forth in his room practising his speech aloud; it is probable that an actor may read through his part aloud, that a servant-girl may talk to her cat, that a mother may prattle to her child, that an old spinster may chatter to her parrot, that a person may talk in his sleep. And in order that the actor for once may have a chance to work independently, and to be free for a moment from the author's pointer, it is better that the monologues be not written out, but just indicated. As it matters comparatively little what is said to the ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... for wasps' nests, but the party insisted that they saw parrots come out of them, and that no doubt young parrots were in the nests. Immediately there was great excitement, for Manuel had all along wanted to capture a parrot to take home with him. The party stopped, and stones were thrown to drive out the birds, but with no result. Finally Mariano climbed the tree, creeping out along the branches almost to the nest; just ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... applause. He was then asked which was his favourite recitation in Milton? He replied that he preferred 'Satan's Address to the Sun,' but that his father would not permit him to repeat it. On this account, and to ascertain whether the child merely performed parrot-fashion, the company were especially anxious to hear the forbidden reading. Young Lawrence's dutiful scruples, however, were not overcome until all present had promised to intercede on his behalf and obtain for him his father's forgiveness. As he turned to the interdicted page a slip of paper ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... in this well-governed and happy community, not every man's opinion was free from error, nor every man's temper free from prejudice and passion. Those who insisted that my bamboo music was only a parrot-like imitation of their speech accused those who held that I was really rational of the crime of exalting a Batrachian into equality with "rational animals with sentiments of justice and piety"; and the accused party, after a little natural shrinking from so bold a position, finally ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... quick by the painful accuracy of this appellative, her husband was understood to mutter that he had rather be an ill-favoured worm than an overdressed parrot ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... the moment. . . . But it isn't quite as easy as all that, my dear fellow. In times of unrest power comes automatically more and more into the hands of the man who can talk; men like Ramage, and others of his kidney. A few meaningless but high flown phrases; a few such parrot cries as 'Down with the Capitalist and the Future is for the Worker,' and you've got even the steadiest man unsettled. . . . Especially if he's one of a crowd; mob psychology is the devil. . . ." Sir James paused and stared out of the window. "I don't fear for the decent fellow in ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... I ..." She hesitated and thought, "Rachel thinks she's mysterious and enigmatic and everything, but she's an awful fool. She can't put it over on me." Yet she sat, despite the vindication of Charlie's amorous embarrassment, and wondered, parrot fashion, ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... fish—groper, the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with fibre, the binding being made impervious to water by a liberal ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... on that side. When he got there, he found himself in a jungle, and nothing in the jungle but a quantity of parrots, who lived in it. The young Raja shot at some of them, and at once they all flew away up to the sky. All, that is, but one, and this was their Raja, who was called Hiraman parrot. ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... combination. What we, in the North, call an "ice-cream freezer" becomes in Charleston an "ice-cream churn." "Good morning" is the salutation up to three P.M., whereas in other parts of the South "Good evening" is said for the Northern "Good afternoon." Charlestonians speak of being "parrot-toed"—not "pigeon-toed." Where, in the North, we would ask a friend, "How are things out your way?" a Charlestonian may inquire, "How are things out your side?" The expression "going out" means to go to St. Cecilia Balls, and I have been told that it is never ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... this time I really think he began to be rather penurious—not avaricious, certainly not. But he was not a hermit of the holiest kind. He began to save money and acquire stock. He had not been long on the hill before he owned a horse, two dogs, a cat, a native bear, a magpie, and a parrot, and he paid nothing for any of them except the horse. One day he met Mr. McCarthy talking to Bob Atkins, a station hand, who had a horse to sell—a filly, rising three. McCarthy was a good judge of horses, and after inspecting the filly, he said: "She will just suit you, Mr. Philip, you ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale |
