"Black cat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his strong hand, and he gave us a cheery godspeed on our way. I am convinced that Billy could earn quite a salary on the vaudeville stage; but—no! he is better where he is, sitting there at his bench, with his black cat and his guitar and his singing, ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... she had told this tale, the lay sister, as if to prevent all commentary, was seized with convulsions, and Barre recommenced his prayers and exorcisms, but was soon interrupted by shrieks; for one of the persons present had seen a black cat come down the chimney and disappear. Instantly everyone concluded it must be the devil, and began to seek it out. It was not without great difficulty that it was caught; for, terrified at the sight of so many people and at the noise, the poor ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... so that a good pile of ashes should collect for baking purposes, we had made a semicircular wall of stones. The nearest available stones, quartz boulders from the blow, were used, and so it came about that we had a gold-studded fireplace! We used to have a curious visitor from the caves—a small black cat, which was tame enough to wander between our legs as we sat round the fire, but too wary to be caught. I can hardly imagine a prospector carrying a cat as companion, and yet how else did it get there? Its shyness inclined us to think it had strayed from civilisation. Jim tried ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... place in this little modern room at the top of Putney Hill between midnight and sunrise—that Dr. Silence was hardly able to follow and remember it all. It came about with such uncanny swiftness and terror; the light was so uncertain; the movements of the black cat so difficult to follow on the dark carpet, and the doctor himself so weary and taken by surprise—that he found it almost impossible to observe accurately, or to recall afterwards precisely what it was he had seen or in what order the incidents had taken place. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... have been connected with superstition and sorcery. They have always been regarded as attendants upon witches; and witches themselves have been said to borrow their shapes when on their mysterious expeditions. I was once told, that Lord Cochrane was accompanied by a favourite black cat in a cruise through the northern seas. The weather had been most unpropitious; no day had passed without some untoward circumstance, and the sailors were not slow in attributing the whole to the influence of the black ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... me; and I certainly never mean to try to like any one. It must be true love with me, or none at all. I shall die an old maid, and unless you will, just for my sake, try to cut out Lady Nugent, I daresay you and I will nurse the black cat together.' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... up at George's house as I passed, but except for a black cat sunning herself on the top of the gatepost there was no sign of life about the place. My thoughts went back to Joyce, and I wondered how the dinner party at the Savoy had gone off. I could almost see George sitting at one side of the table with that insufferable ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... lonesome; aren't you, Snoop?" asked Flossie, poking her finger in one of the cracks, to caress, as well as she could, a fat, black cat. The cat, like Dinah the cook, went with the Bobbseys on all ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... phantom milkmen rattling spectral cans beneath their windows. What a dream that life lived up to three days ago seemed in this morning light of reality. White clouds, like the clouds in Raphael's backgrounds, were floating so high overhead that they could not be hurried by the wind; a black cat sat in a patch of sunshine on the path washing itself; somebody opened a lower window, and there was a noise of sweeping, presently made indistinguishable by the chorale sung by the sweeper, no doubt Marie, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... in the story of the Arabs having allied themselves to the Watuta. He had full faith in Musa, and hoped, if the Arabs had no hostile intentions towards him, he, Musa, would send him two of theirs; further, Suwarora wished Musa would send him a cat. A black cat was then given to the messenger for Suwarora, and Musa sent an account of all that I had done towards effecting a peace, saying that the Arabs had accepted my views, and if he would have patience until I arrived in Usui, the four ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of God until very near his end, and much given to prayer; albeit I had indeed marvelled why he had other thoughts in his last illness; she answered that one day he had seen her spirit, which she kept in a chest, in the shape of a black cat, and whose name was Kit, and had threatened that he would tell me of it; whereupon she, being frightened, had caused her spirit to make him so ill that he despaired of ever getting over it. Thereupon she had comforted him, saying that she would presently ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... thrush sang lustily in the big elm opposite my bedroom windows. The tree, laughed and shook out its finery at me like a woman, saying: "See how green I am, after Sunday's rain." Antoinette's one eyed black cat (a hideous beast) met me in the hall and arching its back welcomed me affably to its new residence. And on my breakfast-table I found a copy of the first edition of Cristoforo da Costa's "Elogi delle Donne Illustri," a book which, in great ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... scarcely a footprint in the road to break the soft mass of new-fallen snow. Isabelle could see a black cat deliberately stealing its way from the barn across the road to the house. It lifted each paw with delicate precision and pushed it firmly into the snow, casting a deep shadow on the gleaming surface of white. The black cat, lean and muscular, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... came downstairs into the parlour on the following morning, the old dame was not there. A black cat sat on the only chair and purred; cats have been condemned to purr, because they are such lazy beasts, ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... Clayton decided to let Rudolph go. Hutchinson was insistent. Production was falling down. One or two accidents to the machinery lately looked like sabotage. He had found a black cat crudely drawn on the cement pavement outside his office-door that very morning, the black cat being the symbol of ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... these women were unkind in what they said about people the Fates—I have told you another story about the Fates—the Fates to punish them turned them into wolves. The Wolf Charmer, who really is the old gypsy who killed the black cat of the village witch, goes out into the night. The owl calls the wolves to attack the gypsy. But the gypsy knew the old women before they were turned into wolves so he calls them by name: "Kate, Anne, and Bee!" And soon they follow him down ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant
... take him with us," said Bert. "Did you, Snoop?" he asked. But the big black cat, who must have found it rather hard work to curl up in the basket, snuggled close to Bert, who was ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black cat. ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... had no pencils, he enquired what kind of things these were, and they were described to him as small brushes made of camels' hair fastened in a quill. As there were, however, no camels in America, he could not think of any substitute, till he happened to cast his eyes on a black cat, the favourite of his father; when, in the tapering fur of her tail, he discovered the means of supplying what he wanted. He immediately armed himself with his mother's scissors, and, laying hold of Grimalkin with all due caution, and a proper attention to her feelings, ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... You don't know. They," said Psmith, indicating the rest with a wave of the hand, "don't know. Nobody knows. His locality is as hard to ascertain as that of a black cat in a coal-cellar on a moonless night. Shortly before I joined this journal, Mr. Wilberfloss, by his doctor's orders, started out on a holiday, leaving no address. No letters were to be forwarded. He was to enjoy complete rest. Where is he now? Who shall say? Possibly ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... it hanging, and sat down on a great stone, with her black cat, which had followed her all round the cave, by her side. Then she began to knit and mutter awful words. The snake hung like a huge leech, sucking at the stone; the cat stood with his back arched, and his tail like ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... of the following tale of Pogump, or Black Cat and the Sable, was given me by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown.[9] The original was told into the phonograph in Passamaquoddy by Peter Selmore, in the presence of Noel Josephs. A bark picture of Pookjinsquess leaving the island, ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... "I shouldn't have thought you'd have believed in the like of that—but I do—that old devil's dam, dame Parker, that lives alone up in Hatherleigh Wood, got gibbering some infernal nonsense at me the other day, for shooting her black cat. I made the cross in the road though, so I suppose it won't ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... be led a few steps further, and then drew back again. "O Benny," said she, "there's her broomstick! there it is, right outside o' the door—and O Benny, Benny, there's her old black cat!" ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... reading aloud to him from the weekly Bohemian papers. She had worn a white muslin dress under her riding-habit, and the leaves of the cherry tree threw a pattern of sharp shadows over her skirt. The black cat was dozing in the sunlight at her feet, and Joe's dachshund was scratching a hole under the scarlet geraniums and dreaming of badgers. Joe was filling his pipe for the third time since dinner, when he heard a knocking on the fence. He ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... a prospectin' outfit all ready—he allers has—up to Black Cat Camp. That's the startin'-point for the Rodman trail, on which the Landslide Mine an' my mine was located. Now we haven't any outfit, so we'll have to git one right ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... cat which had been stretched near the fire rose at her entrance, and spat as if he resented the intrusion as well as his mistress. Francis glanced at the mysterious signs, the black cat, the old woman, and a half wish came into her mind that she had braved the fury of the storm rather than enter such an abode. As if in answer to her ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... said, "on the evening when I first entered the house. Sir Jervis took me into the dining-room—and there sat Miss Redwood, with a large black cat on her lap. Older than her brother, taller than her brother, leaner than her brother—with strange stony eyes, and a skin like parchment—she looked (if I may speak in contradictions) like a living corpse. I was presented, and the corpse revived. The last lingering relics of former good breeding ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... rectory and Tom Pepper's is the "Guildhall," an ancient house, though probably far less ancient than its name. It is parish property, and for years has served as an almshouse for ten or a dozen old people. My father used to read the Bible to them, and there was a black cat once which would jump on to his knees, so at last it was shut up in a cupboard. The top of this cupboard, however, above the door, was separated from the room only by a piece of pasted paper; and through this paper the cat's head suddenly emerged. "Cat, you bitch!" said ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... the Horse occurs the following anecdote, in which the cat is quite as much concerned as the horse: "A celebrated Arabian horse and a black cat were for many years the warmest friends. When the horse died in 1753, the cat sat upon his carcass until it was buried; and then, creeping slowly and reluctantly away, was never seen again, till her dead body was ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... about beauty. If it lie in great staring black eyes, and a soft, debonere [amiable, pleasant] manner, like a black cat, belike so." ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... drew from her miniature pocket a piece of sweetstuff, extracted from the basket a small black cat, and settled in for the afternoon. Her grandmother rose, took her basket, and, with a nod and "Thank 'ee kindly, mister," went off down ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... from the Owl's Nest, "like clockwork, you little grinder!" as the boy expressed it, making his awkward admission to her on Christmas Eve, the two wreathing the house with holly and evergreens. This was something which Carlo and Smut the black cat thought it their duty to look into, to judge from the way they pryingly inspected the monster heap of greenery in the wide passage, where the boy and girl worked, making Inna laugh and laugh again, till her uncle peeped out of his study door to ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... that he had been very fond of horses; and that he had died in consequence of a kick received from one of his own, as he was looking at his hoof. But he had not heard that, just before he died, a black cat "opened the casement with her nails, ran to his bed, and violently scratched his face and the bolster, as if she endeavoured by force to remove him out of the place where he lay. But the cat afterwards was suddenly gone, and she was no sooner ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... on." "Strike from the shoulder." "A kick for a blow, always bestow." "When you get a good thing, keep it—keep it." "When you get a black cat, skin it to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... this—there it goes!" and the sage pointed to a cloud emitted from his pipe. "Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on Optical Delusions? No! Well, I'll lend it to you. You will find therein a story of a lady who always saw a black cat on her hearth-rug. The black cat existed only in her fancy, but the hallucination was natural and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... black cat; about once in four months this cat has kittens. Opposite our place is a man who has an Airedale dog. When that dog comes across the street and that cat has no kittens, the cat immediately "beats it" as fast as she ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... like he'd been war correspondent in the Boer war, and the Spanish-American, an' Gawd knows where. He spoke low, not usin' any big words, either, an' I thought his eyes looked somethin' like those of the Black Cat up on the mantel just over his head—you know what I mean, when the electric lights is turned on in-inside{sic} the ugly thing. Well, every time he showed signs of stoppin', one of the boys would up with a question, and ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... medicine man had somehow got hold of a large black cat with yellow eyes. Cats were not common among the Indians, these animals having been brought by the white people. Such a cat as this, the Indians had never seen. The medicine man kept the cat in his cabin, and trained it. He would strike it with a whip, crying ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... a typical figure: she was usually a simple, old woman living in a lonely cottage with a black cat, gathering herbs by the light of the moon. But she was not always an ancient beldam; some witches were known as the purest and fairest maidens of the village; some were ladies in high station; some were men. A ground for suspicion was sometimes furnished ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... other purpose apparently, than to connect the north and south forests. A little church had been built—there had never been any regular service held in it—and a small school-house which promptly degenerated into the Black Cat Tavern, General Store, and Post Office. A few modest houses met the highway face to face; a few more turned their backs upon it and were content with an outlook across Long Meadow and toward Beacon Hill, beyond which lay the village of Hillcrest which grew in ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... threatened them with a stick. The Town Councillors did not interfere, and the rabble passed bawling by the Pack-horse. Long before it came the Emigrant had recognised the ungainly man. It was Dicky Loony, the town butt. He had chivvied the imbecile a hundred times in just the same fashion, yelling "Black Cat!" after him as these young imps were yelling—though why "Black Cat" neither he nor the imps could have told. But Dicky had always resented it as he resented it now, wheeling round, shaking his stick, and sputtering maledictions. A stone or two flew harmlessly by. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... hair, and are wonderfully addicted to superstition, being all idolaters; insomuch that upon the most frivolous motives they will give over the most important enterprises: Thus the king of Quiloa failed to meet Don Francisco de Almeyda, because a black cat crossed his way when going out. The cattle, fruit, and grain are answerable to the wildness of the country. The Moors or Arabs, who inhabit this coast and the adjacent islands, seldom cultivate the ground, and mostly subsist on wild beasts and several loathsome ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... old red cloak, with a large hood, and in her ears she wore a pair of long gold-dropped earrings, similar to what one sees among the Norman peasantry—the gift, as I afterwards learned, of a drowned lover. After scrutinising us for a second or two, during which time a large black cat kept walking to and fro, purring and rubbing itself against her, she held back the door and beckoned us to enter. The little place was cleanly swept up, and a faggot and some dry brushwood, which she had just lighted for the purpose of boiling her kettle, threw a ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... her alarm was less frightful than she supposed. The cook's great black cat, pursued by the housekeeper's terrier, had bounced against her bedroom door, which had not been properly fastened, and the two had burst into the room together and commenced a battle royal. How the nurse came to sleep through it was a mystery, but I suspect the old lady had something ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... within. The fire was burning hot and flameless; a three-footed pot stood half in it; other sign of presence they saw none. As Alister stooped searching for some implement to serve their need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back, and disappeared. The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... official channel, the Foreign Office. The ground for this popular interpretation is a constitutional device which to an Englishman, if it be not offensive to say so, can only recall the well-known definition of a metaphysician as "a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat, which is ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... and opened with an eager rather than a trembling hand. She seemed to fear nothing, and to be intent only on obtaining possession of some coveted treasure. As she pulled out the drawer, she was startled by a very unexpected incident. A great black cat, suddenly released from imprisonment, sprang out of the drawer, and, terrified by the appearance of the naughty girl, ran around the room several times, and then disappeared through an open window. ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... steps stood a white cottage with red-tiled roof, the little garden in front of it gay with hollyhocks and dahlias. A group of barefooted children were standing by the gate feeding some chickens and ducks, a large dog was lying asleep at the top of the steps, and a black cat was basking in the morning sunshine on the low garden wall. It was, to my mind, an extremely pretty scene, and it made me long to be busy ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... up sometimes alone And drew the ladder in, to lie and moon Over some novel all the afternoon. And one time Johnty, from the crowd below,— Outraged to find themselves deserted so— Threw bodily their old black cat up in The airy fastness, with much yowl and din. Resulting, while a wild periphery Of cat went circling to another tree, And, in impassioned outburst, Uncle Mart Loomed up, and thus relieved ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... on Thursday, and the two sovereigns in his pocket stood for his banking account. They would last for twenty minutes, if his luck were out, and he would never forgive himself. But at that moment a black cat crossed the footpath rapidly in front of him, and his courage revived. That made the third tonight. Men were slipping in at the door of the school, which was guarded by a sentinel. Chook, being unknown, waited till he saw an acquaintance, and was then passed ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... Waite's was 'a deformed thing with many feet, black of colour, rough with hair, the bigness of a cat'; her daughter, Margaret Waite, had as 'her spirit, a white cat spotted with black, and named Inges'; Jennet Dibble had 'her spirit in the shape of a great black cat called Gibbe, which hath attended her now above 40 years'; Dibble's daughter, Margaret Thorpe, had a 'familiar in the shape of a bird, yellow of colour, about the bigness of a crow—the name of it is Tewhit'; Elizabeth ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... followed, finally broken by Peg, who introduced her pets to us and told how she had come by them. The black cat was her favourite. ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... strange, pure light he saw Anne, in her white wrapper with the great rope of her black hair, plaited, hanging down her back. The little black cat lay in her white lap, supported by ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... them." "Whosoever wishes to know their existence, let him take ashes passed through a sieve, and strew them in his bed, and in the morning he will see the marks of a cock's claws. Whosoever wishes to see them, let him take the inner covering of a black cat, the kitten of a first-born black cat, which is also the kitten of a first-born, and let him burn it in the fire, and powder it, and fill his eyes with it, and he will see them. And let him pour the powder into ...
— Hebrew Literature
... Christmas morning, before the cattle are watered, a dog is thrown into their drinking water, in order that they may not suffer from the mange. In the Uckermark a cat may be substituted for the dog. In Bohemia a black cat is caught, boiled, and buried by night under a tree, to keep evil spirits ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... crazy things without thinking. He also was allergic to nearly everything and was always sneezing at the wrong time, just when we were supposed to be quiet. Also, he was about the only one in the gang whose mother was superstitious,—such as thinking it is bad luck if a black cat crosses the road in front of you, or good luck if you find a horseshoe and hang it above one of the doors in ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... muttered some strange words which sounded like "Buggara wuggera boogle jum, Hobble-gobble!" She said this last word suddenly and sharply, and Polly was quite startled; but fancy her alarm when a large black cat crept out from beneath the red cloak, and sitting down on his mistress's knee, looked up in her face with an air of unearthly sagacity, and poor Polly fell back in her chair, unable to move hand or foot. There ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... of smoke luxuriously through his delicately chiselled nostrils. His eyes wandered round the cornice of the room, took in the pictures and decorations, and then came down to meet the faces of his companions. As they did so, the black cat, having finished its meal, sprang on to his shoulder to crouch there, watching the three men through the curling smoke drift with its green blinking, fiendish eyes. Dr. Nikola smiled as he noticed the effect the ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... impoverish the young Adolphus to enrich her kinsman, but she allowed him a seat at her hospitable board, whenever it was not otherwise filled; and all that she demanded in return was a picture of herself, another of Mr. Copperas, a third of Master Adolphus, a fourth of the black cat, and from time to time sundry other lesser productions of his genius, of which, through the agency of Mr. Brown, she secretly disposed at a price that sufficiently remunerated her for whatever havoc the slender appetite of the young painter was ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lady then exclaimed, as if to encourage somebody who was hesitating at the door. Six eyes followed hers. The angel was a huge black cat, with green eyes, that shone like emeralds. Mabel felt like getting down to pet her, and Edith who did not admire cats, felt a cold ...
— Five Happy Weeks • Margaret E. Sangster
... eye of an experienced critic the picture would certainly have seemed crude. It was a study of a dark-eyed child holding a large black cat. Statisticians estimate that there is no moment during the day when one or more young artists somewhere on the face of the globe are not painting pictures of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... into a grassy street, on both sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the community houses, big and substantial, but gauntly plain; their yellow paint, flaking and peeling here and there, shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning. Except for a black cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white doorstep, the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life. There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; a sort of emptiness, and a silence that silenced ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... a bull, or a bull into a man, the line of demarcation is clearly drawn; but the rustic has no such conviction even to-day. That crone, his aged aunt, may any day come in at the window in the shape of a black cat; why should she not? It is not, then, that a god 'takes upon him the form of a bull,' or is 'incarnate in a bull,' but that the real Bull and the worshipper dressed as a bull are seen and remembered and give rise to an imagined Bull-God; but, it should be observed, only among gifted, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... en good luck signs but I'se fergettin' sum, but I'se members 'bout a black cat crossin' ovuh de path in frunt ob you dat you sho would hab bad luck. W'en dat happened ter me, I would spit on de ground, turn 'round en back ober de place de cat crossed en de "bad luck" wuz gon' fum me. Ef'n you found a ole hoss shoe dat had bin drapt'd by de hoss, hit meant ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... ghost continued to visit her as usual, and she began to grow pale and thin. The father discovered the state of the case, and consulted the priest, who learned from the girl, in confession, how matters stood, and came with a black cat, a stole, and book, to conjure the spirit and save ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... a quiet street where the houses were separated from the pavement by gardens and stone balustrades, he noticed a black cat seated on the top of a pillar, its head thrown far back, and its wide-open eyes, looking like balls of yellow fire, fixed on a sparrow perched high above on the topmost twig of a tall slender tree. "Puss, puss," said ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... village lay bleak and closed under a sky of unbroken gray. Here and there smoke streamed upward from a chimney, or a window-pane showed an oblong of pale light. The dirty snow, frozen in thick lumps about the yard, was trodden by a furtive black cat, that mounted a fence ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... again forgot what he had been told. After long remaining silent before his book, absorbed in the contemplation of a wood-cut depicting a black cat, he began to hum some words of his own composition: 'Oh, you pretty cat; oh, you ugly cat; oh, you pretty, ugly cat,' and so on, ad infinitum, ever in the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... jumped on to a chair and thence to the table, but so quietly that the large black cat with four white paws, called Muff, because she was so fat and soft and her fur so long, who sat dozing in front of the fire, just opened one eye and went to sleep again. She had tried to get her nose into the milk jug, but it was too small; and the junket dish was ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... described, lives almost entirely among the branches of the trees. In shape it is somewhat like a weasel, and is the largest of the tree martens. It is known as the wood-shock or pekan, and is also called the black cat, and fisher. This last term is inappropriate, as it is not in any way piscivorous. It is of a dark brown hue, with a line of black shining hair reaching from the neck to the extremity of the tail. The under parts are lighter; some entirely white. It possesses also a very large, full, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... it was the Breton's son surrounded by a dozen ragamuffins of his own set. They took no notice of us. He had a beautiful black cat, that had a string tied to its hind legs. The boy was swinging it around his head and at times ducking it in the canal while his companions danced around him ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... Pipchin and the fender, with all the light of his little face absorbed into the black bombazeen drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of her countenance, and peering at the hard grey eye, until Mrs Pipchin was sometimes fain to shut it, on pretence of dozing. Mrs Pipchin had an old black cat, who generally lay coiled upon the centre foot of the fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire until the contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The good ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... cottage, and by a general plebiscitum, ransacked the little dwelling, partly in indignation, and partly, if the truth be told, in the hope of plunder; but plunder there was none. Lucy had decamped with all her movable wealth, saving the huge black cat among the embers, who at the sight of the bloodhound vanished up the chimney (some said with a strong smell of brimstone), and being viewed outside, was chased into the woods, where she lived, I doubt not, many happy years, a scourge to all ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... of Glooskap and Pook-jin-skwess, the Evil Pitcher, is told by the Passamaquoddy Indians. [Footnote: In this story Glooskap is called Pogumk, the Black Cat or Fisher, that is, a species of wild cat, while Martin is a N'mockswess, sable. There seems to be no settled idea as to what was the totem or innate animal nature of the lord of men and beasts. I have a series of pictures scraped on birch-bark illustrating ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... evidently on the most friendly, and even intimate, terms, was working with him, and apparently under his close and constant supervision. A thrush with very bright eyes looked on from an adjacent elder bush. Upon the wall, near the end of the Bishop's Palace, a black cat was sunning itself and lazily attending to ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... second bull enters into details. On the reception of a convert, a toad made its appearance, which was adored by the assembled crowd. On sitting down to the banquet a black cat comes upon the stage, double the size of an ordinary dog, advancing backwards with up-turned tail. The neophytes, one after another, kissed this feline demon, with due solemnity, on the back. Walter Mapes has given ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... stone flags, and small, barred windows upon the farther wall. In the centre of this room, lying in the middle of a golden patch of sunlight, there was stretched a huge creature, as large as a tiger, but as black and sleek as ebony. It was simply a very enormous and very well-kept black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of light exactly as a cat would do. It was so graceful, so sinewy, and so gently and smoothly diabolical, that I could not take my eyes ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mrs. Eben with a sigh of perplexity. "You know that black cat we've had for two years? Eben and I have always made a lot of him, but Sara seemed to have a dislike to him. Never a peaceful nap under the stove could he have when Sara was home—out he must go. Well, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... evening, the negro Mok sat behind a table in the well-known beer-shop called the "Black Cat." He had before him a half-emptied beer-glass, and in front of him was a pile of three small white dishes. These signified that Mok had had three glasses of beer, and when he should finish the one in his hand, and should order another, the waiter ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... rocking-chair, resting her swollen slippered feet on a velvet stool, while her silver-mounted crutches leaned against the arm of her chair. An ugly and very diminutive brown terrier snarled and frisked on the rug, tormenting a staid and aged black cat, who occasionally arched her back and showed her teeth; and Dr. Grey stood leaning over his sister's chair, smoothing the soft grizzled locks that clustered under the rich lace border of her cap. He was talking of other days,—those of his ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the ceiling of the basement; some were covered by ancient layers of wall-paper and some were not; some were painted yellow, and some were painted grey, and some were not painted. Mr. Haim exhibited first the kitchen. George saw a morsel of red amber behind black bars, a white deal table and a black cat crouched on a corner of the table, a chair, and a tea-cloth drying over the back thereof. He liked the scene; it reminded him of the Five Towns, and showed reassuringly—if he needed reassurance, which he did not—that all houses are the same at heart. Then Mr. Haim, flashing ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... reply at once. He seated himself, curled his tail into a graceful ring around his paws—and stared at the boy. It was a large black cat with one white spot on his chest. His fur lay sleek and soft, and shone in the sunlight. The claws were drawn in, and the eyes were a dull gray, with just a little narrow dark streak down the centre. The cat looked thoroughly ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... the chiefs of the Village informing them that we Spoke to them as we had done when we were with them last and we now repeeted our envitation to the principal Chiefs of all the Villages to accompany us and to the U States &c. &c. the Black Cat Chief of the Mandans, Spoke and informed me that he wished to Visit the United States and his Great Father but was afraid of the Scioux who were yet at war with them and had killed Several of their men Since we had left them, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... said that I must speak to the man next door about his black cat, I was greatly perturbed. It appeared that the animal had acquired the habit of spending the night in our house, and that Harriet didn't like it. I said that black cats brought good luck, and, anyhow, by night all cats were grey. Araminta replied that this one was as black ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... noddin', en bimeby he drapt off en went soun' asleep. Co'se, Brer Tarrypin kyar he house wid 'im eve'ywhar he go, en w'en he fix fer ter go ter sleep, he des shet de do' en pull to de winder-shetters, en dar he is des ez snug ez de ole black cat ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... black cat perched on the shoulder of an innocent, chattering old gran'ma. The next day a neighbor had a convulsion; and Cotton Mather went forth and exorcised Tabby with a hymn-book, and hanged gran'ma by the neck, high on Gallows Hill, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Poe's "The Black Cat," one tragedy is a preliminary of the climax and another is in a manner the result of it; but the real climax is the discovery ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... and a fat English lady, with a fine carriage, who gives all her money to the church, and has made for the house a terrace of flowers that would delight you. Antonia has her flowers in a humble balcony, her birds, and an immense black cat; always addressed by both husband and wife ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... our black cat, goes under the trees where the little birds are, the old bird flies down, pecks him on the back, and looks very angry. Pluto looks as if he would like to eat her ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... example of that rare thing, a use of old material that is so inspired that it has the dignity of a new creation. The raw stuff of the plot is pieced together from the story of The Tell-tale Heart and the poem Annabel Lee. It has behind it, in the further distance, Poe's conscience stories of The Black Cat, and William Wilson. I will describe the film here at length, and apply it to whatever ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... crouching in an overhanging tree ready to drop into the procession at the right moment. Night and day, year after year, I see them going by, watched by the red fox and the comfortably clad sable, and grinned at by the black cat,—the innocent, the vicious, the timid and the savage, the shy and the bold, the chattering slanderer and the screaming prowler, the industrious and the peaceful, the tree-top critic and the crawling biter,—just as it is elsewhere. It makes me blush for my species when I think ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... had tightened its grip, this outside world was full of perils. Hungry lynxes, foxes, and fishers ("black cat," the woodsman called them) hunted through the silent and pallid aisles of the forest. They all would have loved a meal of warm, fat beaver-meat; and they all knew what these low, snow-covered mounds ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... waitin' for dat one 'bout de black cat crossin' de road, and, sho' 'nough, it come. Let me ask you one. How many people can yous find dat likes to have de black cat cross in front of 'em? Dat's right, no one likes dat. Let dis old cullud person inform yous dat it am sho' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... a large black cat with one eye, and a parrot which he had caught and tamed and educated himself in the course of one of his voyages, and which uttered a variety of sea-phrases with the hoarse brattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The establishment reminded me of that of the renowned Robinson Crusoe; it was kept ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... cluttered outbuildings, and the copings of the walls of grimy backyards, where the sooty trees were making a fight with the spring, and putting forth a rash of buds like green points of electric light: the same sort of light that showed in the eyes of a black cat seasonably appearing under them. Inquiries into English civilization can always wait, but such passing effects stay for no man, and I put them down roughly in behalf of a futile philosopher who ought to have studied them in ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... following him, to be led through a labyrinth of queer passages and up dark stairways to the top of the old, old house. There, in the strangest room I ever saw, we were greeted by a small brown woman, as shabby as her husband, and a supernaturally clever black cat. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... crouched a huge black cat, glaring steadily with great yellow eyes out of the murky confusion, like the familiar ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... on the two stools by the heads of our bunks, turned in, and filled up and smoked comfortably, dropping in a lazy word now and again about nothing in particular. Once I happened to look across at Dave, and saw him sitting up a bit and watching the door. The door opened very slowly, wide, and a black cat walked in, looked first at me, then at Dave, and walked out again; and ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... which the first answered, You do not know, it seems, that she is possessed by genie Maimoun, the son of Demdim, who is fallen in love with her. But I know well how this good head of the dervizes may cure her; the thing is very easy, and I will tell it you. He has a black cat in his convent, with a white spot at the end of her tail, about the bigness of a small piece of English money: let him only pull seven hairs out of this white spot, burn them, and smoke the princess's head with the fume, she will not only be perfectly ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... now sparkled wildly, and she put some money in the woman's hand, who murmured, "For the evil one;" then stepped behind a tree, and returned in a short time with a black cat wrapped up ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold |
