"Sparrow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... till the trains came. He argued that Pat would likely come down to report or get orders about the same time as before, and so in the stillness of the morning he lay on the ground and waited. He could hear a song sparrow high up on the telegraph wire, sing out its wild sweet lonely strain: Sweet—sweetsweetsweet—sweetsweet—sweetsweet—! and a hum of bees in the wild grape that trailed over the sassafras trees. Beside him a little wood spider stole ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... great general attends to the smallest details of his army. The Duke of Wellington's letters show his constant attention to minute details. And so with the Supreme Mind, of the universe, as He is revealed to us in his Son. 'The very hairs of your head are all numbered,' 'A sparrow cannot fall to the ground without your Father,' 'He who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto' condescends to provide for the minutest of our wants, directing, guarding, and assisting in each hour and moment, ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... stood the crooked and charred stems of furze with which it had been covered before the fire passed. A white owl floated rather than flew by, following the edge of the forest; from far down the slope came the chattering notes of a brook-sparrow, showing that there was water in the hollow. Some large animal moved into the white mist that hung there and immediately concealed it, like a cloud upon the ground. He was not certain in the dim light, and with so momentary and distant a view, but supposed from its size that it must have been a white ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... hastily-improvised bed under the counter. Even Deborah's strong nerves were shaken by the horrors she had witnessed, and she insisted that Bart should remain to protect her and Sylvia. Bart was not over-strong, but he was wiry, and, moreover, had the courage of a cock sparrow, so while he was guarding the house Deborah had no fears, and could attend altogether to ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Where are those precious darlings of mine? I suppose they've forgotten about me! But, then, why should they remember me? Saints alive, it'll soon be daylight. This night is shorter than a sparrow's beak. How can we go home then? How ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... you once more, Sparrow Hawk, try no tricks. You can see the men I have here, but you can't see my ray projectors. They're hidden, but they're centered on you, every one, and my hand's at the control that fires them. They have terrific power, Carse. ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... but I'd never know it if I didn't read the calendar. I haven't seen a robin or heard a song-sparrow. Just the same, I've had a wonderful time these past weeks. Of course my music gets first attention. I'm getting on well, though I'm beginning to see what a long, long time it will take before I become a great singer. Since I have heard really great singers ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... mushroom the table; and on it was spread A water-dock leaf, which their table-d'hote made. The viands were various, to each of their taste, And the Bee brought the honey to sweeten the feast. Then close on his haunches, so solemn and wise, The Frog from a corner looked up to the skies; And the Sparrow, well pleased such diversions to see, Mounted high overhead, and looked down from a tree. Then out came the Spider, with finger so fine, To show his dexterity on the tight line. From one branch to another his cobwebs he slung, Then quick as an arrow he darted along. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... it was, raised his hand high above the board, pounced upon one of his pieces like a sparrow-hawk and with the exclamation "checkmate!" rose quickly to his feet and stepped behind his chair. The ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... the smallest jellyfish to the ship-destroying monsters, the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, they all are called into existence by God, and God has not merely called all these creatures into existence, but His providence preserves them, and not even a sparrow falls from the ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... pioneers gave them no heed, but pushed steadily on. In the road lay a couple of pigeons, farther on a sparrow, and still farther a sleeping dog, showed how complete had been the effect of ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... "There is no fear of being forgotten. He who sees the sparrow when it falls, and does not forget to number the hairs of our heads, may well be trusted. And may we not trust in Him who is not ashamed to call His people brethren? Our Elder Brother! He who suffered being tempted—who is touched ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... puffed up with livid swellings, while the more nervous Africans looked as though they had been smoked, and were already drying up. The Mercenaries might be recognised by the tattooing on their hands: the old soldiers of Antiochus displayed a sparrow-hawk; those who had served in Egypt, the head of the cynosephalus; those who had served with the princes of Asia, a hatchet, a pomegranate, or a hammer; those who had served in the Greek republics, the side-view of ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... third time David maneuvered his retreat, and his eyes shot furtively to Concombre Bateese and the men at his back. They were grinning. The half-breed's mouth was wide open, and his grotesque body hung limp and astonished. This was not a fight! It was a comedy—like a rooster following a sparrow around a barnyard! And then a still funnier thing happened, for David began to trot in a circle around St. Pierre, dodging and feinting, and keeping always at a safe distance. A howl of laughter came from Bateese and broke in a roar from the men. St. Pierre stopped in his tracks, ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... most important mode of securing a placid and cheerful temper and tones is, by a constant belief in the influence of a superintending Providence. All persons are too much in the habit of regarding the more important events of life exclusively as under the control of Perfect Wisdom. But the fall of a sparrow, or the loss of a hair, they do not feel to be equally the result of his directing agency. In consequence of this, Christian persons who aim at perfect and cheerful submission to heavy afflictions, and who succeed to the edification ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of Paradise for the thieves and murderers who acknowledged His splendor and fought His fight. This marvelous charity, the cleansing hope for his blackened soul, swept over him in a warm rush of humble praise and unutterable gratitude. Nothing of the Lord's was lost: "His eye is on the sparrow." ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Jesus gives; the picture drawn of our Father in Heaven whose holiness cannot allow a stain upon a single soul, and whose tenderness cannot endure that a single soul should perish; Who ruleth all the universe, and yet without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground; the picture drawn of the ideal human life, the humility, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, the utter self-sacrifice, the purity; the picture drawn of human need, the helplessness, the hopelessness of man without God. Let him ponder on all this and on the many touching ...
— The Relations Between Religion and Science - Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1884 • Frederick, Lord Bishop of Exeter
... remark. mangxo meal. gxis as far as, up to, down to. nesto nest. hieraux yesterday. pasero sparrow. juna young. patro father. kapti to catch, to seize. post, after, behind. kato cat. surprizi to surprise. kolera angry. teni to hold, to keep. lavi to wash. vizagxo ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... there watching that spot whereon he had been standing, she could not say. Presently she shivered; the night had turned cold. She heard the cry of some small bird attacked by a midnight prowler; was it the sparrow-hawk after its prey? ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... but took great pleasure in giving them pans or saucers of clean water, to bathe themselves in; and plenty of fresh sand, and nice food: but most birds he could not bear to see within the bars of a prison. The robin, the thrush, the blackbird, the linnet, the sparrow, he knew it was a sin to deprive of their liberty. I have seen him persuade other boys to break their traps, or to let the poor frightened captives go: and I have seen him clap his hands with joy as they spread ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... mean any disrespect," said the boy, as he fixed the splint on the dog's leg, and tied it with a string, while the dog licked his hand, "but I learned in Sunday school that up there they watch even the sparrow's fail, and they wouldn't be apt to get left on a dog bigger than a whole flock of sparrows, 'specially when the dog's fall was accompanied with such noise as a velocipede makes when it falls down stairs. ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... was to do. By the power of a spell that was given him he was able to change her into the form of a sparrow. But before she did this she took the shining apples out of her basket and flung them into places where the ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... full crop on a 3-year graft. It seems to be immune to whatever it is that causes the other nuts to turn black, shrivel and drop off from the time they set until near maturity. Thomas was second. Snyder, Sparrow and Myers had no crop. I budded 25 more trees of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... down stenographically—very concisely. She perched her notebook on the desk of one crossed knee and perked her eyes up as alertly as a sparrow. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... lady took his number, and upon arriving at her home she related the heroic act to her husband (who had read the books), who listened with streaming eyes to the moving recital, and who, after returning thanks, in conjunction with his restored loved ones, to Him who suffereth not even a sparrow to fall to the ground unnoticed, sent for the brave young person, and, placing a check for five hundred dollars in his hand, said, "Take this as a reward for your noble act, William Ferguson, and if ever you shall need a friend, remember that Thompson McSpadden has a grateful ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... set in frames of gold." The very birds which rise from the clover or wheat, and nest in the trees or hedgerows of furze or quickset, are for the most part English—the skylark, the blackbird, finches, green and gold, thrushes, starlings, and that eternal impudent vagabond the house-sparrow. Heavy is the toll taken by the sparrow from the oat-crops of his new home; his thievish nature grows blacker there, though his plumage often turns partly white. He learns to hawk for moths and other flying insects. Near Christchurch rooks caw in the windy skies. Trout give excellent sport in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... from sparrow to ostrich, observe his mien! To strut and languish; to exhibit every beauteous lure; to sacrifice ease, comfort, speed, everything—to beauty—for her sake—this is the nature of the he-bird of any species; the characteristic, not of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... slightly of Burns's Jolly {54} Beggars. His Phyllyp Sparowe is a sportive, pretty, fantastic elegy on the death of a pet bird belonging to Mistress Joanna Scroupe, of Carowe, and has been compared to the Latin poet Catullus's elegy on Lesbia's sparrow. In Speke, Parrot, and Why Come ye not to Courte? he assailed the powerful Cardinal Wolsey with the most ferocious satire, and was, in consequence, obliged to take sanctuary at Westminster, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... paused, and looked at his companion as if seeking that intangible something. Then he jerked his head towards the drawing-room, where Marguerite could be dimly heard playing an air from the latest comic opera with a fine contempt for accidentals. "That child," he said, "knows no more about life than a sparrow. A man like myself—seventeen stone—may have to balance his books at any moment. You have a clear field; for you may take my word for it that you will be the first in it. My own experience of life has been mostly financial, but I am pretty certain that the ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... frequently seen these eagles swoop on to one, and, while struggling with its prey, have galloped up and secured it myself, before the dazed wallaby could collect its senses. Other birds of prey, such as sparrow-hawks, owls, and mopokes (a kind of owl), inhabit this region, but they are not numerous. Dull-coloured, small birds, that exist entirely without water, are found in the scrubs; and in the mornings they ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... shoulder. She knows she is not a Princess, and no Prince changed into a blue bird will come to visit her. She tells herself that all birds are not Princes; that the birds of her village are villagers, and that there might be one perhaps found amongst them, a little country lad changed into a sparrow by a bad fairy and wearing in his heart under his brown feathers the love of little Fanchon. Yes, if he came and she knew him, she would give him not bread crumbs only, but cake and kisses. She would so ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... things! Ammon, lord of eternity! Ptha, demiurgus! Thoth, his intelligence! Gods of Amenthi! Special Triads of the Nomes! Sparrow-hawks in the azure! Sphinxes on the outsides of temples! Ibises standing between the horns of oxen! Planets! Constellations! River-banks! Murmurs of wind! Reflections of light! Tell me ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... America who became an agnostic simply from observation of a particular Texas fly that bites the cattle. The Founder of Christianity recognized this problem, as He did every other painful fact in life, when He made the remark about the sparrow. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... covertly appears to point. And a singular coincidence appears between this dream and a little anecdote brought down to us, as having actually occurred in Rome about twenty-four hours before his death. A little bird, which by some is represented as a very small kind of sparrow, but which, both to the Greeks and the Romans, was known by a name implying a regal station (probably from the ambitious courage which at times prompted it to attack the eagle), was observed to direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst a crowd of other birds ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... always a welcome sign of the returning season, hardly less than the birds, though the advent of the white-throated sparrow (who delayed till April twenty-first last year) is always a great event. He is first heard most often before breakfast, in an apple tree close to the sleeping-porch, his flute-like triplets sweetly penetrating my dreams and bringing me gladly out of bed—something ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... Lincoln entered a quarter-section of government land eighteen miles north of the Ohio river and about a mile and a half from the present village of Gentryville. About a year later they were followed by the family of Thomas and Betsy Sparrow, relatives of Mrs. Lincoln and old-time neighbors on the Rock Spring farm in Kentucky. Dennis Hanks, a member of the Sparrow household and cousin of Abraham Lincoln, came also. He has furnished some recollections of the President's boyhood which are well worth recording. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... nothing to fear in the world." "What another man would call want, I call comfort." "Must not one often act thoughtlessly, if one would provoke Fortune to do something for him?" In his first inexperience, the life of "the sparrow on the house-top" (which we find oddly translated "roof") was the one he would choose for himself. Later in life, when he wished to marry, he was of another mind, and perhaps discovered that there was something in the old father's ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Field exercises; the nest, eggs, and young 96 The Song-sparrow 97 Field exercises; ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... almost hear the tones of your voice. I feel lonely sometimes. Your letters are a great solace. If I feel a little sad I go to my room, and unburden my heart to Him who is not indifferent even to the sparrow's fall. Sometimes the woods seem mournful, and when the wind, in these autumn evenings, wails through the pines, I don't know how it is, but I feel tears ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... plaintive or especially musical in his performance, but the sentiment expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, the songs of most birds have some human significance, which, I think, is the source of the delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink to me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's, love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's, self-consciousness; that of the hermit thrush, spiritual serenity: while there is something military in ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... no place for her," the latter continued hotly. He pointed through the open door to where, above the ash-trees, a hawk was pursuing a field-sparrow that vainly, by sudden dips and rises, strove to escape its enemy. "You see that?" he cried. "Well, in every city there's a thousand hawks with their claws out waiting to swoop down on them that don't watch. She'd better not go, I say. She'll be safe and happy ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... sorrows. She wept the loss of her favorite robin, from the ash tree in the middle meadow; and it was no longer a bliss, but a grief, to lie in that lovely shade, and sing her jocund songs, and scent the clover blooms. She missed the little sparrow that had come three years in succession, and reared three broods in a season, from a nest in the honeysuckle that curtained her window. She missed the robins from the cherry-trees, and the cherries palled on her tongue. She missed the bluebirds from ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... I seem to see yet. The dates had been erased, and Bonaparte's head simpered upon them. After I had put back the purse in my pocket, I returned to the gaming-table with the two pieces of gold in the palms of my damp hands, prowling about the players like a sparrow-hawk round a coop of chickens. Tormented by inexpressible terror, I flung a sudden clairvoyant glance round me, and feeling quite sure that I was seen by none of my acquaintance, betted on a stout, jovial little man, heaping upon his head more prayers and ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... brass farthing for the lot, madam! Present company always excepted, all women, great or little, are insincere, crooked, backbiters, envious, liars to the marrow of their bones, vain, trivial, merciless, unreasonable, and, as far as this is concerned [taps his forehead] excuse my outspokenness, a sparrow can give ten points to any philosopher in petticoats you like to name! You look at one of these poetic creatures: all muslin, an ethereal demi-goddess, you have a million transports of joy, and you look ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... drove our team to the point where roads ceased, and during a halt in the expedition this exuberant youth reclined upon a log, and with a pipe fashioned from a reed sought to imitate responsively the song of the white-throated sparrow. He looked for all the world like Siegfried ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... replies The solemn mate, with half-shut eyes; 'Right. Athens was the seat of learning, And truly wisdom is discerning. Besides, on Pallas' helm we sit, The type and ornament of wit: But now, alas! we're quite neglected, And a pert sparrow's more respected.' 20 A sparrow, who was lodged beside, O'erhears them soothe each other's pride, And thus he nimbly vents his heat: 'Who meets a fool must find conceit. I grant, you were at Athens graced, And on Minerva's helm ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... etiquette for which he was indebted to the unusual movement about him, pursued his favourite sport of bird-hunting in the gardens of the Tuileries, and attached more importance to the feats of a well-trained sparrow-hawk than to the probable qualities of the bride provided for him by the policy of his ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... A bird is chirping overhead among the branches, but exactly whereabout you seek in vain to determine; indeed, you hear the rustle of the leaves, as he continually changes his position. A little sparrow, however, hops into view, alighting on the slenderest twigs, and seemingly delighting in the swinging and heaving motion which his slight substance communicates to them; but he is not the loquacious bird, whose voice still comes, eager and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... was Pye. The little man fixed his gold glasses on his nose with two fingers in his nervous way, and blinked through them at us, unruffled as a cock-sparrow that yet ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... expeditions to the southward. Invariably they returned empty-handed. Occasionally they reported old tracks of reindeer and foxes, but the winter colds had driven everything far inland. Once only Clarke shot a snow-bunting, a little bird hardly bigger than a sparrow. Still Bennett pushed forward. ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... a boy picked up a young sparrow, which he brought home. His father put it in a big cage, and in course of time it became thoroughly domesticated. It used to fly about the garden and perch upon the heads and hands of the family. After a while it would venture upon an oak and carry on a very ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Dawn was entirely obscured; nothing but darkness appeared in the east. Sparrow-hawk sped away, returning in a very brief time with the report that water was fast rising in the two springs at the head of the river and might soon spread westward in a great devastating wave. Instantly the ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... and I can bear witness with a clear conscience that I am not angry when they smile and nod the head; why should I be? But, John, it is known to myself only and Him before whom all hearts are open how great is my suffering in being among my neighbours as a sparrow upon the housetop. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... carried before it is furnished by an incident in the history of the missionary Paulinus. He had preached before Edwin, King of Northumbria. An old earl stood up and said, "The life of man seems, when compared with what is hidden, like the sparrow, who, as you sit in your hall, with your thanes and attendants, warmed by the blazing fire, flies through. As he flies through from door to door, he enjoys a brief escape from the chilling storms of rain and snow without. Again ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... preparations are for the game that is to be held to-morrow by the young Earl, which will be on this wise. In the midst of a meadow which is here, two forks will be set up, and upon the two forks a silver rod, and upon the silver rod a Sparrow- Hawk, and for the Sparrow-Hawk there will be a tournament. And to the tournament will go all the array thou didst see in the city, of men, and of horses, and of arms. And with each man will go the lady he loves best; and no man can joust for the Sparrow-Hawk, except the lady he loves ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... just representation of the fact before us; as when a yachtsman, eager for marvels, sees a line of porpoises and takes them for the sea-serpent. Every one knows what it is to mistake a stranger for a friend, a leaf for a sparrow, one word for another. The wonder is that we are not oftener wrong; considering how small a part present sensation has in perception, and how much of every object observed is supplied by a sort of automatic judgment. You see something ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... Washington, had disappeared in the night. At first I thought that her distress was half jest, but nothing could have been more real; she was beside herself with grief. I realised that if philologians have disputed as to how far Catullus' poem of the girl's grief over the dead sparrow were jest or earnest, it was because they had never seen a girl weep over a bird. Catullus, perhaps, makes fun a little of the grief, but the grief itself, in his poem too, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... the day the meals are continued by two little dinners of the drollest description. They are brought up on a tray of red lacquer, in microscopic cups with covers, from Madame Prune's apartment, where they are cooked: a hashed sparrow, a stuffed prawn, seaweed with a sauce, a salted sweetmeat, a sugared chili! Chrysantheme tastes a little of all, with dainty pecks and the aid of her little chopsticks, raising the tips of her fingers with affected grace. At every ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... that she had explained many deep and devious matters. She came out of her hysteria like a sparrow shaking off rain-drops. She sat up, and took advantage of ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... "especially the humming-bird episode, and the mocking-bird digression, to say nothing of the doings of the hornet and the sparrow." ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Last Saturday, two lesser spotted woodpeckers invaded the garden. One always imagines a woodpecker as a bird of more substantial size, and it is surprising to see this little creature, patterned on the back like something made in the Omega workshop, no bigger than a sparrow, as it hastily visits apple and fig tree and even wygelia. As it climbed the wygelia, indeed, a sparrow stooped down from an upper branch to study it, and then advanced in the direction of the woodpecker. The woodpecker lay back from the ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... it, and may believe it, may form, that such a vast catastrophe as I have depicted militates against the idea that God rules and cares for his world and his creatures. It will be asked, If "there is a special providence even in the fall of a sparrow," how ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... a Liberty to make a Descent upon the Children of men. When the Devil does hurt unto us, he comes down unto us; for the Rendezvouze of the Infernal Troops, is indeed in the supernal parts of our Air. But as 'tis said, A sparrow of the Air does not fall down without the will of God; so I may say, Not a Devil in the Air, can come down without the leave of God. Of this we have a famous Instance in that Arabian Prince, of whom the Devil was not able so much as to Touch any thing, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... thus in doubt, they perceived another old man with a staffe in his hand very weary with travell, who approaching nigh to our company, began to weepe and complaine saying: Alas masters I pray you succour me miserable caitife, and restore my nephew to me againe, that by following a sparrow that flew before him, is fallen into a ditch hereby, and verily I thinke he is in danger of death. As for me, I am not able to helpe him out by reason of mine old age, but you that are so valiant and lusty may easily helpe me herein, and ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... Peterswaldau. A bare snow field, spread about huts of clay, shingles and branches, without a sign of life. Neither a cat, dog nor sparrow, not even chimney smoke, to indicate the activity of the inhabitants. Heated dwellings in this stretch of land are luxuries, difficult of achievement; and how is one to prepare a ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... shadow and a shining, we! One moment nothing seems but what we see, Nor aught to rule but common circumstance— Nought is to seek but praise, to shun but chance; A moment more, and God is all in all, And not a sparrow from its nest can fall But from the ground its chirp goes up into ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... what you shall eat to-morrow, about how you shall be clothed in the years to come. Trust in Him who feeds the birds, and makes the flowers bloom. Shall not the Heavenly Father have greater love for the children of men than for the sparrow or the lily? Do not burden your life with cares, but be glad, glad, glad in God, your Father. Set your minds on the Kingdom of Heaven; all else is second to that. . . . I observe, my brothers, that these ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... 'Tis I maun hae some winter fruit that in December grew, And I maun hae a silk mantil that waft gaed never through; A sparrow's horn, a priest unborn, this nicht to join us twa, Before I lie in your bed, ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Captain Gar'ner, I call Providence," was Stephen's answer. "The good book tells us that not a sparrow shall fall without the eye of Divine Providence ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the first fortnight, the novelty of Mrs Sparrow's school wore off. Instead of pegging along briskly to be in time, I pulled up once or twice on the road to investigate the wonders of a confectioner's window, or watch the men harness the horses for ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with some fine trees, under which the old men sat and amused themselves in the summer mornings. On this chilly wintry day none of them were visible, except the cheerful old soul bent almost double, but with a chirruppy little voice like a superannuated sparrow, who acted as porter, and closed the big gates every night, and fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He trotted along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show them ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... village where there is a curate; if not, here is our licentiate who will do the business beautifully; remember, I am old enough to give advice, and this I am giving comes pat to the purpose; for a sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture on the wing, and he who has the good to his hand and chooses the bad, that the good he complains of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... an ancient history that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in the chief Assembly of Athens, in the bosom of a member of that illustrious body, and that the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... and protector has ceased; he does not need my aid, he cannot be benefited by my counsel. That he will still be kindly cared for by Him who numbers the very hairs of our heads, and without whose notice a sparrow cannot fall to the ground; that he is still living, having thrown aside his mortal drapery, and occupying a higher sphere of existence, I do not entertain a doubt. My grief arises mainly from the conviction that his death was premature; that he was actually defrauded ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... alphabetical acrostics, line by line he wreathes into his compositions the words of successive Bible texts. Yet even at his worst he is ingenious and vigorous. Such phrases as "to hawk it as a hawk upon a sparrow" are at least bold and effective. Ibn Ezra later on lamented that Kalir had treated the Hebrew language like an unfenced city. But if the poet too freely admitted strange and ugly words, he added many of considerable force and beauty. Kalir rightly felt that ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... These verses are a quotation from that tender fable of the Sparrow and the Dove, in the ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... it, and said that her Ladyship was about to make Mr. Gamecock her bailiff. Mr. Howlet, the solicitor from the neighbouring village, shook his head, looked "wondrous wise," but said nothing; and that pert gentleman, Mr. Sparrow, reported that he had peeped in at the window one day, and knew more than he chose to tell. So matters went on for a time. At last, one fine day Mr. Howlet was seen to drive up to the Hall, and take in with him a large document. The whole village was astir: something must be going ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... not know him? He sang to thee the Marseillaise, and thou kissedst the pen that fell from his wing; he came in the radiance of Paradise, and perchance thou didst turn away from him towards the sparrow who sat with tinsel on ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... He looked at the seal again: "Here's a—goose, I think it is, sitting on a bowl with cross-bars on it, and a spoon in its mouth: like the fellow that owns it, may be. A goose with a silver spoon in its mouth—well, here's the gable-end of a house, and a bird sitting on the top of it. Could it be Sparrow? There is a fellow called Sparrow, an under-secretary at the Castle. D——n it! I wish I knew ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... this, as on most occasions, was our friend Cockerell,—affectionately known to the entire Battalion as "Sparrow,"—and his qualifications for the post were derived from three well-marked and invaluable characteristics, namely, an imperious disposition, a thick skin, and an attractive ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... such creatures as have no lungs want a bladder? A. Because such drink no water to make their meat digest and need no bladder for urine; as appears in such birds as do not drink at all, viz., the falcon and sparrow hawk. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... thy throne, O, teach her, Ruler of the skies, That, while by thy behest alone Earth's mightiest powers fall and rise, No tear is wept to thee unknown, No hair is lost, no sparrow dies! ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... together over there?" asked Dot, pointing to a branch of the dead tree, "since they all hate one another and want to get away. The Galahs have pecked the Butcher Bird twice in five minutes, the Peeweet keeps quarrelling with the Soldier Bird, and none of them can bear the English Sparrow." ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... suffering, where the art of torture is the only science cultivated, and the capacity for being tormented is the only faculty which remains to the children of that same Father who cares for the falling sparrow. The Deity has often been pictured as Moloch, and the physician has, no doubt, frequently ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Aunt Mary and Aunt Barbara appeared to believe that he was hardly more than a boy, but to Betty thirty-nine years was a long lifetime, and indeed her father had achieved much more than most men of his age. She was afraid of waking him and kept very still, so that a sparrow lit on the window-sill and looked at her a moment or two before he flew away again. She could even hear the pigeons walking on the roof overhead and hopping on the shingles, with a tap, from the little fence that went about the house-top. When Mr. Leicester ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... every bird, But just a crumb to me; I dare not eat it, though I starve, — My poignant luxury To own it, touch it, prove the feat That made the pellet mine, — Too happy in my sparrow chance ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... amazement of the men of the sanctuary, in the presence of the luminous press of Gutenberg. It was the pulpit and the manuscript taking the alarm at the printed word: something similar to the stupor of a sparrow which should behold the angel Legion unfold his six million wings. It was the cry of the prophet who already hears emancipated humanity roaring and swarming; who beholds in the future, intelligence sapping faith, opinion dethroning belief, the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Explores the pasture with his piercing eye, And visits oft the bushes by the stream, But takes no mate. For why? No leaves or tuft Are there to hide a home. Oh what is earth Without a home? On the dry garden bed, The sparrow—the little immigrant bird— Hops quick, and looks askance, And pecks, and chirps, asking for kindly crumbs— Just two or three to feed his little mate: Then, on return from some small cunning nook Where he has hidden her, he mounts the wires, Or garden fence, and sings a happy ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... commissioner, who had also observed the shadow, and got up to look out at the window, now called out, laughing heartily, "Marry, good Sparling, the shadow belongs to one of your worship's brothers—a poor little sparrow, who is hopping there on the house-top. Go out and see, if you don't believe me." Whereupon the whole court burst out into a loud fit of laughter, to the great annoyance of ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... it is stated that Rene, King of Sicily and Duke of Anjou, who died in 1480, introduced the red-legged partridge into the latter country. Attempts have been made, and I believe with success, to naturalize the European lark on Long Island, and the English sparrow has been introduced into various parts of the Northern States, where he is useful by destroying noxious insects and worms not preyed upon by native birds. The humming-bird has resisted all efforts to acclimate him in Europe, though they have not unfrequently survived the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... do to this very day. When he felt the pangs of hunger he ate raw leaves and the roots of plants or he took the eggs away from an angry bird and fed them to his own young. Once in a while, after a long and patient chase, he would catch a sparrow or a small wild dog or perhaps a rabbit. These he would eat raw for he had never discovered that food tasted ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, "Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;" I say, "Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture: ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... come, to grant thee that thou mayest crush the ends of the earth, so that the circle which surrounds the ocean may be grasped in thy fist,—I grant that they may see Thy Majesty as the sparrow-hawk, lord of the wing, who sees at a glance all ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... suddenly shot out of the bush, and fell about ten yards short. It was curious that the Spanish discoverers had precisely the same experience. It was supposed to be an act of individual mischief or fun, and the place obtained the appropriate name of Cock Sparrow Point. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... father en my mother, Jennie Ford, but dey didn' live on de same place. Father belonged to Alias Ford at Lake View en mother come from Timmonsville what used to be called Sparrow Swamp. Railroad run through dere change name from Sparrow ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... too sore and weary to make resistance. He dragged me to the ground before the tent, while the rest set up a skirling that deafened my wits. There he plumped me down, and stood glowering at me like a cat with a sparrow. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... ask the boy there who tells you the law, "Why not a chickadee as well as a sparrow?" he shakes his head as of yore, and answers dogmatically: ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... spring and early summer. The most familiar and best known of all is the common robin, who may be seen every day, hopping about briskly on the meadows and uttering his cheery, enlivening call. The black-headed grosbeak, too, is here, with the Bullock oriole, and western tanager, brown song-sparrow, hermit thrush, the purple finch,—a fine singer, with head and throat of a rosy-red hue,—several species of warblers and ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... flowering plant, and lowly creeper abides with me as an everlasting joy, and the song of the humblest singer the forest shelters finds a response in my heart. Without my window now, as I sit down to make a history of part of my life, a brown-coated English sparrow is chattering in a strange jargon to his mate on the limb of an Early Harvest apple tree, and I pause a moment to listen to his shrill little voice, and to watch the black patch under his throat puff ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... beard and was dumb, in silence confronting him. His soul was too shallow for silence, e'en with Death hunting him. I said: 'Tis his weariness speaks,' but, when he had rested, He chirped in my face like some sparrow, and, ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... Goat, Sparrow-thigh'd, sides as a Boar, Hare-mouth'd, Dog-nos'd, like Mule thy teeth and chin, Brow'd as old wife, Bull headed, black as a More, If such without, then what are you within? By these my signs the wife will easily conster, How little thou ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... to see how the mavis and the merle, the sparrow, chaffinch, robin, and tit fluttered round, and Grisell waited a moment to watch them before she stepped forth and said, "Ah! Master Groot, here is another poor ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as though he had been sitting in front of a wood fire at his club, ordered hot gin for himself and the ship's doctor. The ship's doctor had gone below on another "hurry call" from the widow. At the first luncheon on board the widow had sat on the right of Doctor Sparrow, with Austin Ford facing her. But since then, except to the doctor, she had been invisible. So, at frequent intervals, the ill health of the widow had deprived Ford of the society of the doctor. That it deprived him, also, of the society of ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Allington, &c. Herons bred heretofore, sc. about 1580, at Easton- Piers, before the great oakes were felled down neer the mannour-house; and they doe still breed in Farleigh Parke. An eirie of sparrow-hawkes at the parke at Kington St. Michael. The hobbies doe goe away at..... and return at the spring. Qure Sir James Long, if any other ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... German, schelm. {149a} Skelpit, beat the ground with strong pulsation; rode quickly; pounded along. {150d} Skirl, sound shrill. {147d} Slaps, breaks in walls or hedges; also narrow passes. {149b} Smoored, smothered. {151j} Spean, wean. {32} Spear-hawk, sparrow-hawk. From the root spar, to quiver or flutter, comes the name of "sparrow" and a part of the name "sparrow-hawk." {94e} Summerhall, Stubbs, in the "Anatomy of Abuses," speaking of the maypole, tells ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... rest of his talk and gesture maketh altogether for me. He said to my wife, Be wary of the monkey; that is as much as if she should be cheery, and take as much delight in a monkey as ever did the Lesbia of Catullus in her sparrow; who will for his recreation pass his time no less joyfully at the exercise of snatching flies than heretofore did the merciless fly-catcher Domitian. Withal he meant, by another part of his discourse, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... at him, his attention caught by the familiar note. And he stumped along the passage into the dim room at the end. It was a small, square room, with a window opening upon some leads, where discarded bottles and blackened moss surrounded the remains of a sparrow. The room was full of men—six or seven foreign faces were turned towards the new-comer. Only one, however, of these faces was familiar to Captain Cable. It was the face of the man known on the Vistula ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... as a sparrow was I, Yet I was saved like a king; I heard the death-bells ring, Yet I saw a light in the sky: And now to my Father ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Pashka looked round at them, and he too was silent, though he was seeing a great deal that was strange and funny. Only once, when a lad came into the waiting-room hopping on one leg, Pashka longed to hop too; he nudged his mother's elbow, giggled in his sleeve, and said: "Look, mammy, a sparrow." ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a gnat, Lawton," he continued in his old conversational manner. "Though one can kill a sparrow with a five pound shot, is it worth the effort? Small as my personal regard is for you, a note penned in three lines would have brought you back your trinket. But when you say it ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... said heartily. "I care for you as St Francis did for his pet sparrow. So now put your hat on and I will go down and get a vettura with a ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... Indeed!—A day, [1] we never saw before. The mighty [2] Thomas Thumb victorious comes; Millions of giants crowd his chariot wheels, [3] Giants! to whom the giants in Guildhall Are infant dwarfs. They frown, and foam, and roar, While Thumb, regardless of their noise, rides on. So some cock-sparrow in a farmer's yard, Hops at the head of an huge ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... exception of a casual song of the lark in a fresh morning, of the blackbird and thrush at sunset, or the monotonous wail of the yellow-hammer, the silence of birds is now complete; even the lesser reed-sparrow, which may very properly be called the English mock-bird, and which kept up a perpetual clatter with the notes of the sparrow, the swallow, the white-throat, &c. in every hedge-bottom, day and night, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... sparrow, but not so old that I cannot still relish a cherry, a grape, or a nice fat worm. I am about to write a short history of my life, for the instruction of my ...
— The Nursery, May 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... her class of boys that recently worms had become so numerous that they destroyed the crops, and it was necessary to import the English sparrow to exterminate them. The sparrows multiplied very fast and were gradually driving ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... all scientific; but I, of course, can now tell a lory from a Java sparrow, and a bullfinch from a canary. The first day I was there, I never shall forget the surprise I experienced, when, after the noon meal being finished, the aviary door was opened. After that I always let the creatures out ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... a sparrow falls, Captain Marble," said the gentle, earnest voice of my wife, "that he does ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... had been done, King Aylmer noticed his little daughter, and when he saw how pale her cheeks were, he patted her head and said, "Cheer up, child, the young cock-sparrow is not dead; 'tis but a swoon caused by the cold and wet, and methinks when old Elspeth hath put a little life into him, thou wilt mayhap ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... fortune—favoured me? You jest! But I will tell you how I fared. The Khan Of Berlas hath a favourite sparrow-hawk, That with his jesses to the forest flew. By some good chance I caught this hawk, and brought him Home to the Khan, who questioned of my name. I hid my birth, and painted myself poor, A porter of burdens, and my parents ill. Straightway he sends them ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... follows: "Last week my brother" (a lad of twelve) "killed a snake which was just in the act of robbing a song-sparrow's nest. Ever since then, the male sparrow has shown gratitude to George in a truly wonderful manner. When he goes into the garden the sparrow will fly to him, sometimes alighting on his head, at other times on his shoulder, all the while pouring out a tumultuous song of praise and gratitude. It ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... "Though the vain, silly ould crayture bate Banagher for flirtin'—an', indade, bates ivviry other of her sex, God bless 'em, that I've ivver clapt eyes on yet—that quare little Frenchy chap, her husband, he, the little sparrow, must neades git jallous, an' makes out it's all my fault, an', belave me, a nice toime I had o' it altogether. At last I said to him, afther havin' been more than usual exasperated by him, 'If you want to foight me, begorrah, ye can begin as soon as you loike,' at the same toime showin' him ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... thing to escape from a Virginia plantation. With dogs and with horses they hunt you down, yea, with torches and boats. They band themselves together against the fleeing sparrow. They call in the heathen to their aid. And it is a fearful land, for great rivers bar your way, and forests push you back, and deep quagmires clutch you and hold you until the men of blood come up. And when you are taken they ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... and distastefully. Her first impression of the stranger had been more correct than are first impressions nine times out of ten; he was as full of impudence as a city sparrow. She had sat up 'looking like a fright'; her father had made himself ridiculous; the stranger was mirthfully concerned with the amusing possibilities ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... got the bulge on all the Christians now, and draws more water than anybody, but He who knows the sparrow's fall has no doubt got an eye on the fat rascal, and some day will close two or three fingers around Bob's throat, when his eyes will stick out so you can hang your hat on them, and he will blat like a calf and get down on ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... the space of a minute, I have heard it imitate the woodlark, chaffinch, blackbird, thrush, and sparrow.... Their few natural notes resemble those of the nightingale, but their song is of greater compass and more varied."—Ashe, Travels in ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Indeed, it was a wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, with a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver at his back, sending his voice before him through the dim woods with a plaint about his "Nelly's grave," in a way that overflowed the eyes of the listener. A sparrow-hawk, fresh from his sixth victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kindred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain to confess the superiority of man. With a superior predatory capacity he ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... can read only a word of one syllable in the book of nature, he will make the most of that. I read such a word the other morning when I perceived, when watching a young but fully fledged junco, or snowbird, that its markings Were like those of the vesper sparrow. The young of birds always for a brief period repeat the markings of the birds of the parent stem from which they are an offshoot. Thus, the young of our robins have speckled breasts, betraying their ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... instinct with the spirit of loneliness; the ethereal call-note of the birds of passage high in the air; a patter, patter, patter among the dead leaves, immediately stilled; and then at the last, from the thicket close at hand, the beautiful silver purity of the white-throated sparrow—the nightingale of the North—trembling with the ecstasy of beauty, as though a shimmering moonbeam had turned to sound; and all the while the blurred figure of the moon mounting to the ridge-line of your tent—these things combine subtly, until at ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... constrained me at last in a fellow feeling to spare them a bit of canvas for permanent shelter. There was a fence in that country shutting in a cattle range, and along its fifteen miles of posts one could be sure of finding a bird or two in every strip of shadow; sometimes the sparrow and the hawk, with wings trailed and beaks parted, drooping in ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... night. The old man had for a long time ceased to take any notice of her crossness. He was out most of the day at work in the fields, and as he had no child, for his amusement when he came home, he kept a tame sparrow. He loved the little bird just as much as if she had been ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... smile. He was a little, bald man, and represented one of the types familiar to Flemish painters. On a table, among wooden lasts, nails, leather, and wax, a basilic plant displayed its round green head. A sparrow, lacking a leg, which had been replaced by a match, hopped on the old ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... followed out all you do know, instead of poaching with Black Thompson that you might revenge yourself for Snip being killed, you would have been praying for them that persecute you. The Bible says that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father. So God knew that poor ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... can mount them. At the end of the story he is caught and his horns are mounted and kept in the king's palace. I know you would like to read this book if you are fond of animal stories. Another interesting story is about Randy, an extraordinary sparrow who is brought up with some canaries and learns to sing. One day the cage Randy was in fell over with an astounding crash and he escaped. He built a nest of sticks, which was the only kind he knew, and was very disconsolate when his ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... give it to thee, to gratify my love to thee, and my pride in thy love." "Formerly, I often thought, Why was I born? but, after thou wert with me, I never asked again." "I see thee wandering past the grove where I am at home, just as a sparrow, concealed by dense foliage, watches a solitary swan swimming on the quiet waters, and, hidden, sees how it bends its neck to dip into the flood, drawing circles around it; sacred signs of its isolation from the impure, the reckless, the unspiritual!" "I have been ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... part of this variant is connected with our No. 60. The "killing fly on head" incident we have already met with in No. 9, in the notes to which I have pointed out Buddhistic parallels. It also occurs in No. 60 (d). In a German story (Grimm, No. 68, "The Dog and the Sparrow") the sparrow employs the same trick to bring ruin and death on a heartless wagoner who has cruelly ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... similar in size and coloration to the American Sparrow Hawk. They are much more abundant than the Sparrow Hawk is in this country and frequently nest about houses, in hollow trees, on rafters of barns, or on ledges and embankments. Their eggs are of a reddish buff color, speckled and blotched with ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... to God, the sighs of a sorrowful woman and the cries of little children whom all her toil could hardly supply with bread. Because, He hears the feeblest wail of want, though it comes not from a dove or even from a harmless sparrow, but a young raven. And He does not heed the sweetest anthem of the fullest choir, if it is a mere pomp of sound. Because, while the best love of His meanest creatures is precious to Him, the second-best of His loftiest creatures is intolerable to Him. He heeds the shining of the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... sun arises. Millions of gems seem suspended from the leafless branches. The familiar robin and the bolder sparrow seek the abode of man. Swift fly the balls of snow; the ruddy youth binds on his skates and gracefully ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... have been very slight, since it permitted me to become interested in the appearance and actions of a few sparrows inhabiting the temple. The common sparrow is parasitical on man, consequently but rarely found at any distance from human habitations, and it seemed a little strange to find them at home at Stonehenge on the open plain. They were very active carrying up straws and feathers to the crevices on the trioliths ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... chronicled. Commander and Mrs. Battye called. Captain and Mrs. Taylor called, bringing with them their daughter Louisa, a tight-lipped, well instructed High School mistress, of whom her parents stood—one couldn't but notice it—most wholesomely in awe. As is the youthful cuckoo in the nest of the hedge sparrow, so was Louisa Taylor to the authors of her being.—Mrs. Horniblow called also, flanked by her two girls, May and Doris—plain, thick-set, energetic, well-meaning young persons, whom their shrewd mother loved, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... must be a sparrow,' he said. 'Ras! Ras!' But no sparrows flew out, for Little Lasse had no wings, only two small legs. 'Wait! I will load my gun and shoot the sparrows,' ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... a long silence. It deepened, grew harder to break. Little Jenny Thurston, watching these two through an upstairs shutter, marveled what adults found to say to each other in these interminable colloquies. A young cock-sparrow, piqued by their stillness, alighted on the fence near by and studied them, eye ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... 'doors' are the lips, and the figure of the mill is continued. 'Arising at the voice of the bird' may describe the light sleep or insomnia of old age; but, according to some, with an alteration of rendering ('The voice riseth into a sparrow's'), it is the 'childish treble' of Shakespeare. The former is the more probable rendering and reference. The allegory is dropped in verse 5a, which describes the timid walk of the old, but is resumed in 'the almond trees shall flourish'; ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... (Parus monticola) is a glorified edition of our English great tit. It is a bird considerably smaller than a sparrow. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... her that, in a fond, protecting way; but it sounded most oddly from Jem, he was such a weak, swaggering sparrow of a little chap. He stretched his hands as high as he could reach up to her hips, and smoothed her linsey dress down: if it had been her face, the touch could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Hayes began the study of the law in the office of Thomas Sparrow, of Columbus. Mr. Sparrow was a lawyer of high standing, whose integrity was proverbial. Although a Democrat in politics, he was regarded by his political adversaries as the purest of pure men. This worthy instructor ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... innocent and hapless Sparrow Why should my mould-board gie thee sorrow! This day thou'll chirp and mourn the morrow Wi' anxious breast; The plough has turned the mould'ring ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... "Why should they be? There must be something queer, you know, or why doesn't that stupid old man at Brackenhill treat Percival as the eldest? Well, good-night." And Lottie went off, half saying, half singing, "Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the Sparrow—with my bow and arrow." And with a triumphant outburst of "I killed Cock Robin!" she banged the door ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... him!" cried Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, the boy and girl sparrow, who happened to be at the circus. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... to the Sparrow Hills, from which Napoleon first saw Moscow and the Kremlin, was also interesting; but the city itself, though picturesque, disappointed me. Everywhere were filth, squalor, beggary, and fetishism. Evidences of official stupidity were many. In one of the Kremlin ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... sorry for you, Paula dear," she concluded, "but I can't help being thankful that there's no demand for pessimism in the field of natural history. Fancy having to write 'The Fall of a Sparrow,' or 'How ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... be confessed, he is a slightly ludicrous figure. He presents the spectacle of a sparrow stretching its wings and opening its beak to imitate the eagle of catholic lecterns. And he has a singularly nettling manner with some people which must add, I should think, to this unpopularity. He seems sweepingly satisfied with himself and his opinions, which are ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... new edition of Behmen in English, William Law had re-translated and paraphrased The Supersensual Life, and the editor of the 1781 edition of Behmen's works has incorporated Law's beautiful rendering of that tract in room of JOHN SPARROW'S excellent but rather too antique rendering. We are in John Sparrow's everlasting debt for the immense labour he laid out on Behmen, as well as for his own deep piety and personal worth. But it was service enough and honour enough for Sparrow to have Englished Jacob Behmen at ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... more I have to say to you: Live much with Nature; accustom yourself to regard the sparrow, the flower, or the stone, as worthy of your attention as the wonderful phoenix or the monuments of the ancients with their illegible inscriptions. To walk with Nature is balsam for a weary soul; gently touched by her soft hands, the recovery ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... Providence in our affairs. And have we forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sirs, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without His notice is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sirs, that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... of tobacco to replenish his pipe, had he discovered the precious name. Twenty-five more of the names had rolled into a mouse-hole, where they had lain snugly hidden among generations of young mice ever since; six had been carried off by a most audacious sparrow who had built his nest in the rafters of the church-roof; and none of these thirty-one names would ever have seen the light again only that repairs and decorations were getting made in the old building for the coronation of the queen. Last of all, four names were brought to the palace by young ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... dawn? Across the Rhine to Speyer is but three hours riding; thence to Landau, into France, into—? Enough, Page Keith has undertaken to get horses, and the flight shall at last be. Husht, husht. To-morrow morning, before the sparrow wake, it is our determination to be upon ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle |
