"Kitten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the spark was out. She was not a nature that was easily alarmed or daunted; beneath her look of delicate fragility was a very sturdy confidence, and she had the implicit sense of security instinct in the kitten whose blithe days have known nothing but kindness. Yet she felt ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... friendly when we had the packing-case: indeed, she even asked me down to see her rooms. But she warned me not to come over there otherwise. She said that I might run the risk of her eating me. She and some other brown rats once ate a kitten, she said. And I could see by the look on her face that ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... Orientals do know more about the supernatural than we give them credit for; at any rate, I know that Miss Vaughan had been impressed with the yogi's power. It fascinated and at the same time horrified her. She said he had a hideous snake, a cobra, which he petted as she would pet a kitten...." ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... went up together. In the room at the top they came upon a miserable spectacle. On something which, for want of another name, was probably called a bed, there lay a woman either already dead or in a state of coma, and on the floor sat two very young children, amusing themselves with a dead kitten, their only toy. Mr. Woodstock bent over the woman and examined her. He found that she was breathing, though in a slow and scarcely perceptible way; her eyes were open, but expressed no consciousness. The slightly-parted lips were almost black, and here and there on her ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... 'dear mammy' between us—never once was he unkind, and he loved me and was the gentlest son to me. And he was a GOOD man. He is now, he is now. They don't understand him. They are not even sure that he did this. He never meant it. They don't know my son. Why, he wouldn't have hurt a kitten. Everybody loved him. He was driven to it. They hounded him down, they wouldn't let him alone. He was not right in his mind. They hounded him to it," she cried fiercely, "they hounded him to it. They drove him and goaded him till he couldn't stand ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... trailing back into the wings, and the shrieking and thumping and whistling out in front just went on—and on—and on—and on. Um! I just listened and loved it—every thump of it. And I stood there like a demure little kitten; or more like Mag Monahan after she'd had a good licking, and was good and quiet. And I never so much as budged till ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... way, I have a new inmate in my house—a kitten. He was evidently lost during the emigration. Amelie says he is three months old. He arrived at her door crying with hunger the other morning. Amelie loves beasties better than humans. She took him in and fed him. But as she has six cats already, she seemed to think that it was my duty ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... it's because he has not yet learned that you are my uncle," replied the Captain, suppressing a smile. "It's strange what dislikes he takes to certain persons when one considers that he's as gentle as a kitten when children are around; but I'll try to teach him to distinguish members of the family ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... assessors, come down to 'doom' every acquaintance he met—that, I have sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone home with a violent cold dating from that instant. I don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off if he caught her playing with it. Please tell me who taught her to ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... up in a parcel for her, and she left the shop. Very shortly after this everyone went home, and all was still in the dolls' department; and then suddenly there was a gentle little sniff, just as if a very wee kitten were crying, and a little movement from the shelf where the baby-doll had lain. Then a tiny little ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... the assurance that the rat was perfectly tame, and would not even bite a kitten, Lorne put him into the pocket of his jacket, and told the owner to make haste, but just at that moment the masters came out of "Chambers" and ascended the staircase, so Lorne was obliged to go into ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... Nick was amazed to see how one so cruel could be so kind, and how so good a little maid could love so bad a man; for she twined her arms about his neck, and then lay back with her head upon his shoulder, purring like a kitten in ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... from primordial motives—lust and hate and hunger and fear, and from all the tragic greatness of uncontrollable fate and we, we've got nothing to replace them. We are comic—comic! Ours is the stage of comedy in life's history, half lit and blinded,—and we fumble. As absurd as a kitten with its poor little head in a bag. There's your soul of man! Mewing. We're all at it, the poets, the teachers. How can anyone hope to escape? Why should I escape? What am I that I should expect to be anything but a thwarted lover, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... said Mr. Bumble, slowly, and marking the time with his teaspoon, 'I mean to say this, ma'am; that any cat, or kitten, that could live with you, ma'am, and not be fond of its home, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... and novelty to us all. We all worshipped the elder, and the little one was like a new discovery and toy to us, who had never been used to such a presence. She was not a commonplace child; but even if she had been, she would have been as charming a study as a kitten; and she had all the four of us at her feet, though her mother was constantly protesting against our spoiling her, and really kept up so much wholesome discipline that the little maid never exceeded the bounds of being charming to us. After that explanation there ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is a dandy. It is exactly the one I would have picked out could I have had my choice. You see, I've never owned a line watch. I guess it was just as well, too, for I never appreciated watchmaking until Mr. McPhearson told me what a really good watch meant. Now I'd as soon starve a kitten as ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... it, that ungrateful woman yearned after an occupant for the old wooden cradle, and treasured up the bits of baby things that had belonged to Tom and Bill, and nursed up any young thing that came to hand and wanted care, bringing up a motherless blind kitten with assiduous care and patience, as if the supply of that commodity was not always largely in excess of the demand, and lavishing more care on a sick lamb or a superfluous young pig than most ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... broom in the other; an old corn-colored silk handkerchief knotted over her hair,—her hair is black, and the effect was good,—and her little brown calico aprong-string literally tied to the baby, who was shrieking at the end of his tether because he could just not reach the kitten and throw her into the fire. On Alison's lap, between a pile of shirts and two piles of magazines, lay a freshly opened letter. I noticed that she put it into her pocket before she dropped her dusters and stood up to lift her face for my kiss. She forgot about the apron-strings, and the baby tipped ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... will find that, though practically instantaneous, it comprises all the sensations you have ever felt on that subject throughout your life. It commenced, perhaps, when you were only a year old, and, sitting on your mother's knee, your hand was made to stroke a kitten, and you felt it was soft and it gave you pleasure. Later on, when you were older, you had it in your arms, and you felt the first intimation of that wonderful "[Greek: storge]," which manifests itself in most children in their love for dolls; you found it delightful to cuddle and that it purred. ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... a young man who was bitten By twenty-two cats and a kitten; Sighed he, "It is clear My finish is near; No matter; I'll ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... Why so it would haue done at the same season, if your Mothers Cat had but kitten'd, though your selfe had neuer ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... carefully at the tips of her fingers and at the top of the guitar ... then suddenly began singing in a voice unexpectedly strong and agreeable, but guttural and to the ears of Kuzma Vassilyevitch rather savage. "Oh, you pretty kitten," he thought. She sang a mournful song, utterly un-Russian and in a language quite unknown to Kuzma Vassilyevitch. He used to declare that the sounds "Kha, gha" kept recurring in it and at the end ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Kittery its cat, but every house seems to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old, and young; of divers colors, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-shell. With a whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do not believe there is ever a kitten drowned in Kittery; the illimitable sea rather employs itself in supplying the fish to which "no cat's averse," but which the cats of Kittery demand to have cooked. They do not like raw fish; they say it plainly, and they prefer to have the bones taken ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... remember him by. Archer chose a paper-knife, because he did not like to choose anything too good; Jacob chose the works of Byron in one volume; John, who was still too young to make a proper choice, chose Mr. Floyd's kitten, which his brothers thought an absurd choice, but Mr. Floyd upheld him when he said: "It has fur like you." Then Mr. Floyd spoke about the King's Navy (to which Archer was going); and about Rugby ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... tracks, saying, "What a B[oe]otian and Hyperborean you are! Is there anything more fragile than enjoyment? Is there anything more sensitive to injury than grace? Did you not know that? If you had not followed this poor girl, she would have cleared the barrier as gracefully as a kitten; now she is as much ashamed as though you had seen her in her petticoat." I looked once more in her direction; sure enough, she too was looking round, with a flushed face and stupid, anxious eyes. O these soulful eyes, eyes ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... white bull, not knowing whether to be frightened or to wish the same good luck for themselves. The gentle and innocent creature (for who could possibly doubt that he was so?) pranced round among the children as sportively as a kitten. Europa all the while looked down upon her brothers, nodding and laughing, but yet with a sort of stateliness in her rosy little face. As the bull wheeled about to take another gallop across the meadow, the child waved her hand, and ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... of this railroad line; on is De Soto, always thrillingly historic; farther is Eudora (a word of Greek genesis, and meaning a good gift, though likely enough he who christened this village may have known as little of Greek as a kitten); on is Lawrence, named for a famous anti-slavery agitator and philanthropist of Massachusetts—for Lawrence is a New England colony, as is Manhattan, farther up the Kansas River, familiarly known as the "Kaw," which is the ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... wouldn't you? And if you did, and I gave it to you, you would have won me for yourself, wouldn't you? Then why should you worry concerning how I might love you? That would be my affair, my personal responsibility. And I admit to you that I know no more than a kitten what I might ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... yellow kitten purred on the hearth, While the kitchen clock, with its frame of oak, In the corner stood, like a sentinel, And challenged time with ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... hand of Dona Isabel in her own, as if to assure her that she was guiltless of any design against her former admirer. This was quite unnecessary, as the gentle Isabel, after bidding Brace, with a rap on the knuckles, to "go and play," contented herself with curling up like a kitten beside Miss Keene, and left that gentleman to wander somewhat aimlessly in ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... need, we certainly cannot taboo it as the extreme communists so dogmatically urge. "Pending ... an inquiry," writes Mr. Wallas, "my own provisional opinion is that, like a good many instincts of very early evolutionary origin, it can be satisfied by an avowed pretense; just as a kitten which is fed regularly on milk can be kept in good health if it is allowed to indulge its hunting instinct by playing with a bobbin, and a peaceful civil servant satisfies his instinct of combat and ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... hundred feet under ordinary circumstances, but that scream brought me here on the run. Now that the excitement is over I feel weak as a kitten," Charley answered. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... consideration of this topic; but I shall confine myself to certain phenomena observable in the animal world, since the games of animals are, in this connexion, so much simpler than those of children. Play constitutes a major part of the activities of young animals; think, for instance, of a kitten playing with a hanging tassel or with a ball, of puppies chasing one another, and of young birds playing with fluttering wings. The games of young animals often exhibit the character of love-games, and are in that case sexually differentiated. Various authors, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... curled up like a kitten; his eyes were shut, and he was smiling, too. Every one was very quiet; only Rosita moved, reaching out a ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... all in honor of, and to divert his royal highness, Prince Henry of Prussia, the famous brother of the present king. Yet his royal highness does not seem to be much diverted. He looks at them as an old cat looks at the gambols of a young kitten; or as one who has higher sport going on in his mind than the pastime of fiddling and dancing. He came here on pretense of a friendly visit to the empress; to have the happiness of waiting on so magnanimous a princess, and to see, with his own eyes, the progress of those immense improvements, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... getting!" was the reply. "I can't understand it. She used to be brave enough, and now she's as timid as a kitten." ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... Mastermaid, but they had scarce gone to bed before the Mastermaid said she had forgotten to bring home the calf from the meadow, so she must get up and drive him into the stall. Then the Sheriff swore by all the powers that should never be, and, stout and fat as he was, up he jumped as nimbly as a kitten. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... kitten, but a venerable cat, who had belonged to Edith's elder sister, and was given to Edith, the day that sister married, as a very precious gift; and Edith loved that grey cat, loved her dearly. She always sat in the same place in that ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... did once—but I never did it again. I caught one, a kitten, and set off with a number of boys to kill it; but as we went along it began to play with my neck-tie and to purr! Our hearts were softened, so we let it go. Ah! Corrie, my boy, never go ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... appear publicly in jerkin and galligaskins, to smoke tobacco in contempt of her sex, and to fight her enemies with a very fury of insolence. In stature she exceeded the limping clerk by a head, and she could pick him up with one hand, like a kitten. Yet he loved her, not for any grace of person, nor beauty of feature, nor even because her temperament was undaunted as his own. He loved her for that wisest of reasons, which is no reason at all, because he loved her. In his eyes she was the Queen, not of Misrule, but of Hearts. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... and came across the room to where he sat, looking down at him with the round, grey eyes that always reminded him of a kitten's. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Biddy! Biddy!" the creature walked up to him across the yard, stretched out her awkward neck, sniffed a little, and cropped from his hand the wisp of rowen hay he held, as composedly as if she were a tame kitten, and then followed him all round the yard for more, which I am sorry to say she did not get. Pat had only displayed her accomplishments to astonish me, and then shut her in her stall again. I afterward hunted out Biddy's history, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... his back at the time, in front of his hut, when Lippy prowled cautiously towards him, like a very small and sly kitten about to pounce on a very huge dog. She sprang, just as her mother caught sight of her, and was on his broad chest in a moment. The mother was, as we have said, transfixed with alarm. The human kitten seized Zeppa by the beard and laughed immoderately. Zeppa replied with ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... Snoop, the fat, black kitten, played a part in the story also. The Bobbsey twins were very fond of Snoop, and had kept him so many years that I suppose he ought to be called cat, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... an age when chivalrous respect to women had not yet given place to the licence of the Revival of Letters, practised irritation like a fine art. She was brimful of the superfluity of naughtiness, yet withal as innocent and playful as a kitten. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... hypocrisy about us. Consider—am not I the type of heroism, of magnanimity? Well, compelling me, the heroic, the magnanimous, now to stand here upon my hind-legs, and now to crouch quietly down, like a pet kitten over-fed with new milk,—any state roguery is passed off as the greatest piece of single-minded honesty upon the mere strength of my character—if I may so say it, upon my legendary reputation. Now, as for you, though you are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... and not from plan, my father took some trouble in my education; which I suspect was productive of unforeseen effects. He played with me as a cat does with her kitten, and taught me all the tricks of which he was master. They were chiefly indeed of a bodily kind; such as holding me over his head erect on the palm of his hand; putting me into various postures; making me tumble in ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... ain't he, 'squire?" I replied that I thought he was, and asked him if it was usual for his horse to play such pranks. He said it was not "You see, 'squire, he feels his oats, and hain't been out of the stable for a month. Use him, and he's as kind as a kitten." With that he put his foot in the stirrup, and mounted. The animal really looked very well as he moved around the grass-plot, and, as Mrs. Sparrowgrass seemed to fancy him, I took a written guarantee that he was sound, and bought him. What I gave for ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... captain, "that I should be disobeyed at every turn now that I'm on my beam-ends, with little more strength in me than a new-born kitten. But never mind, I'm beginnin' to feel stronger, and I'll pay you off, my dear, when I'm ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... it was a cat you might know it!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey with a laugh." I guess they're all right. They can't have gone far. Probably they are on the other side of the street, looking at some bedraggled kitten." But a look up and down the street did not show Flossie and Freddie. By this time the auto was all ready to start ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... was in great trouble. But a minute before Spry, the kitten, had strayed away from the mother-cat, and Lucy and she had got ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... man-smell on the trap to form a guide that told the animal exactly where the trap lay. Then, the overwhelming curiosity of the fox had compelled it to investigate the mystery by digging it up, and when found, the fox in its usual way would play with the strange object; just as a domestic kitten would do, and so the fox would ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... thank God! and as for me—fine, imprison, torture me as much as you like, you will find me rock!" she exclaimed, with her eyes flashing and all her little dark figure bristling with terror and resistance, for all the world like a poor little frightened kitten spluttering defiance ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... for Felix had pushed a slip of paper over to Alice, on which she read—"'Forget-me-not, ladybird, linnet, kitten." I don't think I ever saw a linnet. Isn't it a little ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boy's, and her face had not one regular feature in it. But then—regularity! who wanted it, who would have thought the most pure classic type a change for the better, with those dark, dancing, challenging eyes; with that arch, brilliant, kitten-like face, so sunny, so mignon, and those scarlet lips like a bud of camellia that were never so handsome as when a cigarette was between them, or sooth to say, not seldom ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... in the corridor; 'Hi! apprentice! Come here!' A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten, with a shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock, and huge goloshes on his bare feet. 'You take the gentleman, you know where,' said Ardalion, addressing the 'apprentice,' and ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... disadvantage of Maggie though a connoisseur might have seen "points" in her which had a higher promise for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her was neat,—her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls, to match hazel eyes, which looked up with ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... in which Agnes joined, and the two, banishing the thoughts of sick babies and pale-faced women, had a gay time. In the meantime, the children had scrambled over rocks to gather lichen, and dug holes deep enough to bury a kitten in, in their efforts to get moss; they had sailed little nut-shell boats down the stream, and in the many ways that children have enjoyed themselves. Everybody was hungry of course, so by the time Agnes was ready for her ferns, there were empty baskets ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... Character of the Happy Warrior,' and a chivalrous legend on 'The Horn of Egremont Castle,' which, without being very good, is very tolerable, and free from most of the author's habitual defects. Then follow some pretty, but professedly childish verses, on a kitten playing with the falling leaves. There is rather too much of Mr Ambrose Philips here and there in this piece also; but it ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... began bucking and kicking in a circle, kicking a ring all round the compass before it finally decided to settle down on all fours. Finishing, it meekly lowered its nose to the ground and now, as docile as a, kitten after having supped on warm milk, began dozing, the steam rising in a cloud from ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... And vivid smiles, and faintly-venomed points Of slander, glancing here and grazing there; And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer Would watch her at her petulance, and play, Even when they seemed unloveable, and laugh As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew Tolerant of what he half disdained, and she, Perceiving that she was but half disdained, Began to break her sports with graver fits, Turn red or pale, would often when they met Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him With such a fixt devotion, that the old man, Though doubtful, felt ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... any rate, that was his fancy then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious; however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Satanesses full of spite, did with this babe, even as they had done by the first: they wrapped it in a cloth and set it in a basket which they threw into the stream, then gave out that the Queen had brought forth a kitten. But once more, by the mercy of Allah Almighty, this boy came to the hands of that same Intendant of the gardens who carried him to his wife and placed him under her charge with strict injunctions to take care of the second foundling sedulously as ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... glowed with happiness and seemed to smile at one from under her beautiful, wavy brown hair. I am sorry to tell you that your child is not exactly engaging; she resembles a wild and furious little kitten with bristling hair. She seems to me to be always making a round back; she looks as if she wanted to jump at one ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... I ever saw!" exclaimed the midget, which was not much larger than a small kitten. "What is your name, and where on earth ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... look, my Infant, lo! What a pretty baby show! See the Kitten on the Wall, Sporting with the leaves that fall, Wither'd leaves, one, two, and three, From the lofty Elder-tree! Through the calm and frosty air Of this morning bright and fair, Eddying round and round ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... rocks and came upon the clear sand, she stopped and looked at her sweet shadow in the moonlight. Then, with the self-pleasing playfulness of a kitten, she stood and put herself into all kinds of postures to see what varying silhouettes they would make on the hard and polished sand (that shone with a soft lustre like satin); now throwing up one arm, now another, and at last making a pirouette, twirling her shawl round, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... state. The keepers have frequently the utmost difficulty in rearing animals which are born in menageries and zoological gardens. Yet if these animals were born in their own countries and under natural conditions, they would grow up healthy and strong, without receiving any more care than a kitten ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... please, Miss Helen," said Alice, the neat housemaid, putting in her head at the nursery door, "there's a lady downstairs, and a heap of luggage, and the nastiest little dog I ever saw. He has almost killed the Persian kitten, Miss, and he is snarling and snapping at every one. See, he took this bit out of my apron, miss. The old lady says as her name is Mrs. Cameron, and she has come to stay; and she'd be glad if you'd go down to her immediately, ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... haven't tested you out yet on the first named but the chief engineer speaks in your behalf. The last two you certainly have. There's the story of a man who was going home late at night and picked up what he thought was a kitten and found it to be a pole-cat. It was good judgment to set it down again mighty sudden. But the skin was worth something and he resolved to have the skin to pay for the damage. Now President Whittaker and myself have been up in the north ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... no Betty. Not even a wise old cat like Solomon, or a playful, amusing little kitten. The school children stared when she ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... You see, our Sally's been tied up by the nose for so many months in harbour yonder, that now she's running free she can't hold herself in. Ketch hold of the rail, sir. That's your sort! There she goes again, larking like a young kitten." ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... nice to get a little help sometimes," said Jan. "Now I have another favour to ask of you. We don't know just what to do with Glory Goldie's kitten. It will have to be put out of the way, I suppose, as we can't afford to keep it; but I can't bear the thought of that, nor has Katrina the heart to drown it. We've talked of asking ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... as unafraid of the mighty Tantor as though he had not just witnessed his shocking murder of a human being, signalled the beast to approach and lift him to its head, and Tantor came as he was bid, docile as a kitten, and hoisted The Killer ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a kitten in one hand and an elegant bouquet of pine needles and grass in the other, and what with the due presentation of the bouquets and the struggles of the kittens, the hugging and kissing was much interfered with. Kittens, bouquets, and babies were all somehow squeezed into the sleigh, and ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... street one sees the labourers working in fishermen's boots up to their knees in water, driving the great wooden blocks into the mud. Many of the older houses slope forward at such an angle that you almost fear to pass beneath them. I should be as nervous as a kitten, living in one of the upper storeys. But the Dutchman leans out of a window that is hanging above the street six feet beyond the perpendicular, and ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... appropriately be introduced into a conception of repose, its contrast heightening this emotion; the creeping baby, the frolicking kitten, the swinging pendulum, the distant toilers observed by a ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... thinking of Esther now. He was hugging his idea to his breast and hurrying with it, either to entrust it to somebody or to wrap it up in the safety of pen and ink while it was so warm. And when he got home he came on Lydia, sitting on the front steps, singing to herself and cuddling a kitten in the curve of her arm. Lydia with no cares, either of the house or her dancing class or Jeff's future, but given up to the idleness of a summer afternoon, was one of the most pleasing sights ever put into the hollow of a lovely world. Jeffrey ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... best of women," ran a saying of Batty Langton's, "if you watch 'em, are always practising; even the youngest, as a kitten plays with a leaf." ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... dubbel barrel shot gun, & slugs? Then they'd get a durn site more'an they'd use in a hull lifetime. This would 'pare to be more senser-abel than payin Lords & Tailor's 150 dollars for a little insignifercant kitten, wot aint cut his eye ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... in the person of the useful and ornamental domestic animal who is popularly supposed to furnish the material for sausages. The accidental discovery of a suspender-button, or the claw of a kitten, in the sausage, gave rise to some doubt as to the composition of this favorite edible; but statisticians usually admit that hogmeat forms the staple. Doctor KANE speaks in glowing terms of the excellence of rats when mixed with due proportions of walrus ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... which was a tumbler with a little sugar and water mixed in it, and a spoon laid across, out of which he helped himself whenever he felt in the mood,—sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the water in the tumbler,—which caused the prophecy on the part of some of his guardians, that he would fall in some day and be drowned. For which reason it ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... cubs, up to this time, had been very kitten-like in their behavior, purring and frolicking about, and only emitting occasional little growls when thrown about or disturbed by one another. But, at the sight of the fresh meat, the wild blood ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... very different food to what they are accustomed to live upon in a wild state. The wild cat lives on raw flesh; while the domestic cat, you know, my dear, will eat cooked meat, and even salt meat, with bread and milk and many other things. I knew a person who had a black kitten called 'Wildfire,' who would sip whiskey-toddy out of his glass, and seemed to like it as well as milk or water, only it made him too ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... pennies, are my regular purveyors. Throughout the good season, they come running triumphantly to my door, with a snake at the end of a stick, or a lizard in a cabbage leaf. They bring me the rat caught in a trap, the chicken dead of the pip, the mole slain by the gardener, the kitten killed by accident, the rabbit poisoned by some weed. The business proceeds to the mutual satisfaction of sellers and buyer. No such trade had ever been known before in the village nor ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... looked at the scolder for a moment; then, placing her watering-pot upon the floor, she darted toward the divan like a kitten that has just received a blow from its mother's paw and feels authorized to play with her. Madame de Bergenheim tried to rise at this unexpected attack; but before she could sit up, she was thrown back upon the cushions by the young girl, who seized both her ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... up his coat and looking carefully behind him as he sat down on the settle, lest a stray kitten or chicken should preoccupy the bench, "you see I was down to Orrin's abaout a week back, and he hed a litter o' pigs,—eleven on 'em. Well, he couldn't raise the hull on 'em,—'t a'n't good to raise more 'n nine,—an' so he said, ef I'd 'a' had a place o' my own, I could 'a' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... down to one corner. Then his captors would get a firm grip on the back of his neck. If the squirrel proved to be a young one, they would put on a collar and little chain, that they had always ready, and keep him to train for a pet. Once Paul caught a gray squirrel kitten so small and young that he had to feed it on milk and crushed walnuts. He called it May. The tiny creature lived in his pocket and desk and shared his bed at night. It would sit on the off page of his book whilst he studied and comb ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... by adding s to the singular, or, when euphony requires it, es; as, tree, trees; sun, suns; dish, dishes; box, boxes. Some retain the old plural form; as, ox, oxen; child, children; chick, chicken; kit, kitten. But habit has burst the barrier of old rules, and we now talk of chicks and chickens, kits and kittens. Oxen alone stands as a monument raised to the memory of ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... up with a poor cripple dying of muscular atrophy who cannot move. It stays with him all the time, and sleeps most of the day in his straw hat. To-night I saw the kitten curled up under the bed-clothes. It seems as if it were a gift of Providence that the little creature should attach itself to the child ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... was a good way off, being the point of the promontory that shut in the mouth of the river, a great crag, with a long reef of rocks running out into the sea, playfully called the Kitten's Tail, though the antiquarians always deposed that the head had nothing to do with cats or kits, but with the disposition to erect chapels to St. Christopher on the points of land where they might first greet the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me. It is the delight of motherhood and fatherhood in one; and when I was allowed to take you away out of the room where you lay—I admit it was not a pleasant scene—I felt just like a child who is given a kitten for its very own." ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... shirts and a soft spot in her heart for the bel Anglais who chaffed her unmercifully, but paid his rent with commendable promptitude. A huge woman, with a shrewd not unkindly face, she sat in a rocking chair with a diminutive kitten on her shoulder and a mass of knitting in her lap. As she listened to Craven's inquiry she tossed the kitten into a basket and bundled the shawl she was making under her arm, while she rose ponderously to her feet and favoured the stranger ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... see your uncle. Eh? 'Course 'e will," cooed Howard in the attempt to escape the depressing atmosphere. The little one listened to his inflections as a kitten does, and at last lifted its arms in sign ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... gathering up her floods for the tide, carrying the ships to their destinations, and feeding the universal life. I found in a hidden nook a sheet of fine sand which the water had furrowed and folded like the pink palate of a kitten's mouth, or like a dappled sky. Everything repeats itself by analogy, and each little fraction of the earth reproduces in a smaller and individual form all the phenomena of the planet. Farther on I came across a bank of crumbling ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and went to her room, where she sat down and tried to think hard. A Pink Kitten was curled up on the window-sill and ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... John, was born on June 18, 1803. Southey's little girl was Edith, born in September of the preceding year. It was Southey who made the charming remark that no house was complete unless it had in it a child rising six years, and a kitten rising six months. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... simplest savage. He cannot concentrate his thought—he cannot think at all; his consciousness is in its dawn; he revels in colours, in odours, is thrilled by touch and taste and sound, and is like a well-nourished pup or kitten at play on a green turf in the sunshine. This being so, one would have thought that the pain of the revelation I had received would have quickly vanished—that the vivid impressions of external things would have blotted it out and restored the ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... what she did. She got the bread all right, but, on the way back she stopped to pet a kitten that rubbed up against her. And then Vi got turned around, and she went down a side street, and walked two or three blocks before she knew that ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope
... table and the floor were littered by them; a stack of the Rolls publications was on his right hand; a Dugdale's "Monasticon" lay open at a little distance; and curled upon a newspaper beside it lay a gray kitten. The kitten had that morning upset an inkstand over three sheets of the Canon's laborious handwriting. At the time he had indeed dropped her angrily by the scruff of the neck into a wastepaper basket to repent of her sins; but ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were standing quite near, and it would have been too dangerous. The Foreign Secretary, who is rather a nervous man, and fastidious about a woman's looks, never could bear me: and I believe he would have thought it almost as justifiable as drowning an ugly kitten, to choke me if he knew ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... I didn't dare. I haven't told you, but she went out for her daily walk and brought me home a Christmas card, the prettiest one she could find, she said. I was propped up on pillows, as weak as a kitten. I looked at it and looked at it, and when I saw that it was this room, the old fireplace and mother's picture, and the Hessian soldier andirons, when I realized there was a face at the window and that the door was ajar,—everything just swam before me and I fainted dead away. ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a good deal at this account, for he had much the same sympathy for ordinary cases of sea-sickness, as a kitten feels in the agony of the first mouse it has caught, and which it is its sovereign pleasure to play ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... kid didn't do anything but save your life. I wouldn't let a little thing like that trouble me if I were you. You've been doing something to that bull, or he'd never have used you like that. Why, Emperor is as gentle as a young kitten. He wouldn't hurt a fly unless the fly happened to bite him too hard. Phil, did you see that fellow do ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Alf rushed in, announcing with breathless haste that "Kitten had a calf." Kitten was a fawn-colored Alderney, the favorite of the barnyard, and so gentle that even Johnnie did not fear to rub her rough nose, scratch her between her horns, or bring her wisps of grass when she was ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... day, so I shall be sure of seeing them, whereas now I am sometimes too late. And then—perhaps she may come to see you! I shall hear her, I shall see her in her soft quilted pelisse tripping about as daintily as a kitten. In this one month she has become my little girl again, so light-hearted and gay. Her soul is recovering, and her happiness is owing to you! Oh! I would do impossibilities for you. Only just now she said to me, 'I am very happy, papa!' ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... right," she said upon one of these midnight confabs so immemoriably dear to women, when hairpins can be removed and the dig of skirt bands unhooked. "You're so snowy, and soft, too; you feel like a kitten's ear. And that shining ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play, and Sylvia looked at her mother blankly. "I didn't see ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... called "Saved," which tells its own story. A pet kitten has been chased by two lively little terriers, and the big, friendly dog has taken her into his care. She is not afraid of the little dogs now. They may bark as much as they like. The big dog looks ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... disgrace, refused to betray her, and was sent to the Bastille for her loyalty. She resigned herself to her imprisonment with admirable philosophy, amused herself in the study of Latin, in watching the gambols of a cat and kitten, and in carrying on a safe and sentimental flirtation with the fascinating Duc de Richelieu, who occupied an adjoining cell and passed the hours in singing with her popular airs from Iphigenie. ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... the western sun shone brightly in, and tinged the white wainscoted wall with yellow light; the cat sat in the window-seat, winking at the sun, and sleepily whisking her tail for the amusement of her kitten, which was darting to and fro, and patting her on the head, in the hope of rousing her to ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cage; for he said to himself that a creature made to frisk about in the green woods could not be happy shut up in a box. This pretty little animal became so much attached to her kind-hearted protector, that she would run about after him, and come like a kitten whenever he called her. While he was gone to school, she frequently ran off to the woods and played with wild squirrels on a tree that grew near his path homeward. Sometimes she took a nap in a large knot-hole, or, if the weather ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... spry; spirited, spiritful[obs3]; lively, animated, vivacious; brisk as a bee; sparklinly as a thrush, jolly as a sandboy[obs3]; blithesome; gleeful, gleesome[obs3]; hilarious, rattling. winsome, bonny, hearty, buxom. playful, playsome[obs3]; folatre[Fr], playful as a kitten, tricksy[obs3], frisky, frolicsome; gamesome; jocose, jocular, waggish; mirth loving, laughter-loving; mirthful, rollicking. elate, elated; exulting, jubilant, flushed; rejoicing &c. 838; cock-a- hoop. cheering, inspiriting, exhilarating; cardiac, cardiacal[obs3]; pleasing &c. 829; palmy. Adv. cheerfully ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... trench-water came the leaf, like a tiny fist of wrinkles, and day by day spread and uncurled, looking like the unwieldy paw of a kitten or cub. The keels and ribs covering the under-side increased in size and strength, and finally the great leaf was ironed out by the warm sun into a mighty sheet of smooth, emerald chlorophyll. Then, for a time,—no one has ever taken the ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... also very much interested in the novelty of a new scene, and anticipated a great deal of pleasure in examining the premises. Aunt Henshaw had told me that she believed there were kittens somewhere around, and I determined to search till I found them; for a little pet kitten appeared to me the sweetest ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... I am not going away from you. Let me go to sleep for a little.' An old servant who had followed her came up and said in astonishment, 'Well, young sir, you may be proud of yourself, the child is generally so wild and rough, and with you she is as tame as a kitten.' I learned from her that little Sonia lived in the neighborhood, and that her aunt had come to look for her in our house. She would not go away from me, and the old servant had to call her mother, who only persuaded her to return home with ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... mild Equality to dwell, Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his bride, And Laughter tickle Plenty's ribless side! 30 How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play, And frisk about, as lamb or kitten gay! Yea! and more musically sweet to me Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be, Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest 35 The aching of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... old man dozed o'er the latest news, Till the light of his pipe went out, And, unheeded, the kitten, with cunning paws, Rolled and tangled the balls about; Yet still sat the wife in the ancient chair, Swaying to and fro, in ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the other's, and he knew it, knew that his endurance would be nothing against the muscles seasoned by daily physical work until they were like steel. He knew that in two minutes of battling struggle he would be like a kitten in the big, powerful hands. And he was of no mind to have Brayley manhandle him before such an audience as was now sitting quietly watching, listening to his panting breaths. In one straining effort he jerked his ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... presented her as his sister and kept her sternly in view during every possible moment, but she was not sufficiently well dressed to be his sister. And his overcoat was buttoned suspiciously high. Was he to stroll out of the waiting-room and leave her abandoned, like some undesirable kitten, in the corner? The idea was ludicrous: she must be taken care of. Had she thrust herself upon him, enticed him, challenged him? Assuredly not; moved by some completely inexplicable influence, utterly ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... makes to-day," said the fisherman, "there wouldn't have been water enough to drown a kitten on that side of the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... A kitten before which I held a small mirror must surely have taken the image for a second living cat, for she went behind the glass and around it when it was ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... incomprehensible torment of delight. For she roamed the fields and woods with him gladly, lunched in glens remote it seemed from everything but the call of that infernal horn, yielded to the enthusiasm of his maddest moods, romped with him like a kitten or a child—and kept miraculously the poise and reticence of a woman. She talked freely of her brother; ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple |
