"Prey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there should exist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the gigantic ichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closed upon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks of having desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoes should have ravaged fair continents prolific of animal and vegetable life: that, in fine, though man's ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... almost a human quality in it. Restrained by the walls of stone from being destructive, it seems to rave at its own impotence, and when it reaches the whirlpool it is like a hungry animal, returning and licking the shore for the prey it has missed. But it has not always wanted a prey. Now and again it has a wreck or a dead body to toss and fling about. Although it does not need the human element of disaster to make this canon grewsome, the keepers of the show places make the most of the late Captain ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... could in all Probability be the Issue of bringing such Matters to bear, but the throwing ourselves and all Europe into a Flame? ruining our Credit, destroying our Trade, beggaring of private Families, setting us a cutting one another's Throats; by which we should become an easy Prey to the common Enemy, who would at once subvert our Constitution, the happiest, the best in the World; destroy our Church Establishment; and subject us to all the Cruelty and Sufferings the unbounded Lust of Tyrants, and the ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... could buy it if you'd hold this baby till I put my hand in my pocket.' The youth laughed, but for the sake of 'making a trade' set down his basket and took the 'enfant terrible.' There was an instant attack upon his hair, which was so long and straggling as to prove an easy prey ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... Jimmie Higgins had no acquaintance with the poets, and so it was a brand new thing to him, he was left to experience the shock of it and to resolve the problems of it all alone. To be rolled and tossed about like a man in a blanket at a college ragging! To be a prey to bewilderment and fear, hope and longing, despair and rebellion, delicious excitement, angry self-contempt and tormenting doubt! Truly did that poet divine who first conceived the symbol of the mischievous little god, who steals ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... withdraws his looming disc Beneath the western sky, the full-blown flower Of the night-loving lotus sheds her leaves In sorrow for his loss, bequeathing nought But the sweet memory of her loveliness To my bereaved sight: e'en as the bride Disconsolately mourns her absent lord, And yields her heart a prey to anxious grief. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... dear Schwarzwald I now rest, And near me rush the healing waters out, On high a bird of prey soars o'er his nest, And in the brook are sporting tiny trout. From charcoal kilns the smoke clouds are ascending, With iris-coloured hues the sun embrace, And stately giant pines in rows unending, Like wreaths of evergreens, the mountains grace. A spicy hay-scent rises ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... buildings and numbered only five families, including the family of the Presiding Elder. The school house was the only public building, and for years was used for all public meetings known to civilization. Subsequently this public convenience fell a prey to the devouring element. The papers, in announcing the fire, gravely enumerated the losses incurred by the disastrous conflagration in this wise: "The Court House has been burned, every church in the ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... thinks I was very rich. But take heed of the pretences of men, and their affections, for they last not but in honest and worthy men; and no greater misery can befall you in this life than to become a prey, and afterwards to be despised. I speak not this, God knows, to dissuade you from marriage, for it will be best for you both in respect of the world and of God. As for me, I am no more yours, nor you mine, death hath cut us asunder; and God hath divided me from the world and you ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... out and bitten a child, and the officers, knowing who owned them, had come to arrest Mullholland. We were all surprised, for the officers recognized in Mullholland and the woman two old offenders. And while they were dragged off to the Tombs, I was left to prey upon the world as best I could. Again homeless, I wandered about with urchins as ragged and destitute as myself. It seemed to me that everybody viewed me as an object of suspicion, for I sought in vain for employment that would give me bread and clothing. I wanted to be honest, and would have ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... this was the occasion! He felt so sure of Hadria to-day, that he was swayed by an overpowering temptation to reveal to her the almost comic situation. It appealed to his sense of the absurd, and to the savagery that lurked, like a beast of prey, at the foundation of his nature. Her evident emotion when he arrived yesterday afternoon and all through his visit, her agitation to-day, at the mere sound of his voice, assured him that his hold over her was secure. He must be a fool ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... of the jealousy, pride, and vanity of Sally Martin and Polly Horton, on his respectful behaviour to the Lady: creatures who, brought up too high for their fortunes, and to a taste of pleasure, and the public diversions, had fallen an easy prey to his seducing arts (as will be seen in the conclusion of this work:) and who, as he observed, 'had not yet got over that distinction in their love, which makes a woman prefer one man ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... doubts of every breed In the last bastion of my creed, With shot and shell for Sabbath-chime, I watch the storming-party climb, Panting (their prey in easy reach), To pour triumphant through the breach In walls that shed like snowflakes tons Of missiles from old-fashioned guns, But crumble 'neath the storm that pours All day and night from bigger bores. 20 There, as I hopeless watch and wait The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... confounded me—If I thought of the creation I saw an eternal chain of evil linked one to the other—from the great whale who in the sea swallows & destroys multitudes & the smaller fish that live on him also & torment him to madness—to the cat whose pleasure it is to torment her prey I saw the whole creation filled with pain—each creature seems to exist through the misery of another & death & havoc is the watchword of the animated world—And Man also—even in Athens the most civilized spot on the earth what a multitude of mean passions—envy, malice—a restless ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... Churches and houses of religion there should be kept inuiolate, which was accordingly performed, through his appointment of guarders and keepers for those places: but the rest of the towne eyther for want of the former inhibition, or for desire of spoyle and prey, was rifled, and ransacked by the souldiers and mariners, who scarcely left any house vnsearched, out of which they tooke such things as liked them, as chestes of sweete wood, chaires, cloth, couerlets, hangings, bedding, apparell: and further ranged into the countrey, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... walk in danger everywhere,[7] The thought must never leave me, That Satan watches to ensnare And with his guile deceive me. His cunning pitfalls may Make me an easy prey Unless I guard myself with care; ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... come to him suddenly that this was the hour of a great temptation, and he sat very still, conscious that his heart beat fast because of the evil that was near him. The Count watched him, meanwhile, as a wild beast may watch its prey. The man's eyes appeared to have turned to coals of fire; his fingers twitched; his teeth were on edge—he ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... asked the tribeless chief of the leader of the Pottawattamies present, who sat near him, gazing on le Bourdon much as the cat looks upon the mouse, ere it makes it its prey. "Some Injins are fond of that sweet food: if my brother is one of that sort, I can tell him how to fill his wigwam with honey with ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... he was joined to an air squadron. He risked his life every moment he was aloft, but the danger became a negligible thing in the thrill of the liveliest form of big-game hunting thus far known to man. In mid-sky he stalked his prey and was stalked by it; he chased German Taubes or was chased by them into clouds and out of them, up hill and down dale in ether-land amid the showers from below of the raining aircraft guns. Strathdene knew how to dodge ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... and Fire. Here we see that, through the evolution of sex and its accompanying desire for procreation, these blind forces of Nature find their avenue of expression. Spiritual consciousness almost lost, and without reason, the soul becomes the prey, so to say, of these forces of the astral world, which is the realm of design. The soul's creations must be met and vanquished upon the upward arc of the Cycle of Progress. They guard or oppose the way to eternal life. Here ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... commensurate with his ambition, he might have deeply influenced the fate of the world; but fortunately no wizard's charm came to the aid of Paul Caraffa, and the triple-crowned monk sat upon the pontifical throne, a fierce, peevish, querulous, and quarrelsome dotard; the prey and the tool of his vigorous enemies and his intriguing relations. His hatred of Spain and Spaniards was unbounded. He raved at them as "heretics, schismatics, accursed of God, the spawn of Jews and Moors, the very dregs of the earth." To play upon such insane passions was not ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Colombo, feeding on rice, fruit, and vegetables. It was partial to ants and other insects, and always eager for milk or the bone of a fowl. The naturally slow motion of its limbs enables the loris to approach its prey so stealthily that it seizes birds before they can be alarmed by its presence. The natives assert that it has been known to strangle the pea-fowl at night, and feast on the brain. During the day the one which ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... returned from the land of the dwellers in tents, with the information that they were numerous as the sands of the sea, riding like the whirlwinds across the desert, keen as a race of eagles for prey, devouring as locusts spreading over a field of corn, and greedy as jackals upon the track of a wounded antelope. Nothing but the terror of the Great King's name restrained them within their boundaries; which they would leave at a moment's notice, as allies of any one ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... hireling? Never! The bought and sold Are ever the prey of the traitor's gold, Wherever the fight may be. Or ever a man will sell his sword, The highest bidder may buy the gaud With a coward's niggard fee. Who buys and sells to the market goes, And sells his friends as he sells his foes, So he gain in the main by his country's woes,— ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... assemble round him from all quarters, as wolves and vultures, and other animals of the feathered tribe assemble round—I will not say round carrion or a carcass, for Mr Chuzzlewit is quite the contrary—but round their prey; their prey; to rifle and despoil; gorging their voracious maws, and staining their offensive beaks, with every description ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... shamed her.) 'I only mean, not happy with us. It is a difficult topic to enter on; but, from one young woman to another, perhaps—in short, we have been apprehensive that you may allow some family circumstances of which no one can be more innocent than yourself, to prey upon your spirits. If so, let us entreat you not to make them a cause of grief. My husband himself, as is well known, formerly had a very dear sister who was not in law his sister, but who was universally ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... troubles, were gone, and all had given place to a soul-penetrating joy. She should grow perfect now, for she had one whom she believed perfect to lead her on. Her pride, her jealousy, would trouble her no more: it was for want of sympathy— perfect sympathy always at hand—that she had been a prey to them. She should pine no more, for there was one who was her own. A calm, nameless, all-pervading bliss had wrapped itself round her spirit, and brought her as near to her Maker as if she had been his favoured child. There needs no other proof that happiness is the most ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... because I must love you with all my heart. You are your own dear papa's child, and this little man's sister. Yes, and you are yourself, my poor, sad, lonely child, who does not know how to bring out the thoughts that prey on her, and who thinks it very hard to have a stranger instead of her own mother. I know I should ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eggs within the stamens of a Scrophularia, and secretes a poison which produces a gall, on which the larva feeds; but there is another insect (Misocampus) which deposits its eggs within the body of the larva within the gall, and is thus nourished by its living prey; so that here a hymenopterous insect depends on a dipterous insect, and this depends on its power of producing a monstrous growth in a particular organ of a particular plant. So it is, in a more or less plainly marked manner, in thousands and tens of thousands of cases, with ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... may have eaten more, or possibly the poison he had tasted on the former occasion helped, but at any rate the lieutenant was the first to be attacked with vomiting two hours later, the councillor showed the same symptoms; the commandant and the others were a prey for several hours to frightful internal pains; but from the beginning their condition was not nearly so grave as that of the two brothers. This time again, as usual, the help of doctors was useless. On the 12th ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide and made my pains his prey. "Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain essay A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likewise." "Not so," quoth I; "let baser things devise To die ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... twain the empire of David and Solomon. United, the tribes might have maintained an empire capable of offering successful resistance to the encroachments of the powerful and ambitious monarchs about them. But now the land becomes an easy prey to the spoiler. It is henceforth the pathway of the conquering armies of the Nile and the Euphrates. Between the powerful monarchies of these regions, as between an upper and nether millstone, the little kingdoms are destined, one after ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... found reflection in the eyes of Julyman. He, too, was an easy prey to the other's primitive superstition. Steve alone seemed untroubled. He understood these men. They were comrades on the trail. There was no distinction. There was no master and servant here. They fought the battle together, the Indians only looking to him for leadership. Thus ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... dry and withered of the last year's growth, but so rich and in such seeming order that one might almost take it to be an old nursery-ground. A shrill wind whistled through the columns as if through a wood, and screaming birds of prey hovered around the pediments. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... wooden galleries, which were repeatedly consumed by fire, and restored by the emperors. Whatever was precious, or portable, or profane, the statues of gods and heroes, and the costly ornaments of sculpture which were cast in brass, or overspread with leaves of silver and gold, became the first prey of conquest or fanaticism, of the avarice of the Barbarians or the Christians. In the massy stones of the Coliseum, many holes are discerned; and the two most probable conjectures represent the various accidents of its decay. These stones were connected by solid links of brass ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the King and Queen were a prey to all these fears, the festivities in celebration of the acceptance of the constitution proceeded. Their Majesties went to the Opera; the audience consisted entirely of persons who sided with the King, and on that day the happiness of seeing him for ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... out. The shake of the beast of prey seemed to have stunned the victim, really to have saved it much suffering. The Kitten seemed unharmed, but giddy. It tottered in a circle for a time, then slowly revived, and a few minutes later was purring in the negro's lap, apparently none ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... pleasant surprise, I am sure," and, with that, the detective led the way across the hall, leaving the youthful Jew in a maze of conflicting emotions, for, according to all the rules of the game as played in the dime novel, the tec' should have sprung on his prey like a tiger. Another person whose nervous system received a shock was the super-clerk. He, like the boy, knew of the network of suspicion which had closed on Curtis during the past two hours, and he had watched the cordial meeting between the two men with something ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... thought fit to put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My first attempt to "rush" Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me that I had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the ant-lion sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down from above in tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes like small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down to the bottom, half choked with the torrents of ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... alarm. This was soon confirmed by the terrified surf-bathers, who had all fled ashore at seeing the terrible fate of Kahalaopuna. Canoes were launched and manned, and chase given to the shark and his prey, which could be easily tracked ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... yet music in his soul, called aloud for a song. The idea was hailed with acclamations. Not satisfied with the capitalized results of his voice to which they had helped themselves, they were unwilling to let their prey go until they had also ravished from him some specimens of the airy mintage whence they had issued. Accordingly the Catholic vagabonds seated themselves on the ground, a fuliginous parterre to look upon, and called upon G—— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... he tell me? My eyes sometimes take pity on my ears,—and seeing very distinctly, save the necessity of hearing. My vision is quite as keen now as when in my anterior existence, I crouched in jungles, watching for my prey. Oh, Miss Jane! if you could look here, and know all that I have suffered during the past three weeks, you would not wonder that the tiger element within me swallows ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... these tumults of the noisy world, Where Fraud, the coward, tracks his prey by stealth, And Strength, the ruffian, glories in his guilt, Oppress the heart with sadness. Oh, my friend, In what serener mood we look upon The gloomiest aspects of the elements Among the woods and fields! Let us awhile, As the slow wind is rolling ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Baulked of their prey, the horsemen turned about and rode away. They had been noticed the day before, hanging about and asking ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... seen on the ground, where its movements are rather awkward. Its amiability and social disposition are observed in the fact that several pairs will breed close to each other in perfect harmony. Birds smaller than itself are rarely molested by it, but it boldly attacks birds of prey. It is a restless bird, constantly on the lookout for passing insects, nearly all of which are caught on the wing and carried to a perch to be eaten. It eats moths, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, cotton worms, and, to some extent, berries. Its usefulness cannot be doubted. According ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... fancy I destroyed them. I restored the natural right common to all men of being obedient only to the law, and of being tried only by their peers and by laws to which they have agreed-in short, I built castles in Spain. Such is man when he has become the prey of a devouring passion. He does not suspect that the principle which moves him is not reason ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... by one our little conclave thinned, Passed into ships, and sailed, and so away, To drown in some great roaring of the wind, Wanderers themselves, unhappy fortune's prey. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... fresh defiance might have borne prompt and serious consequences; but Louis XIV. conveniently selected the moment to declare war on England; and Boston commended herself to the home government by arming privateers to prey upon the Canadian commerce, and by a timely gift of a cargo of masts for the English navy. Charles became so much interested in the ladies of his court that he had less leisure for the affairs of empire. Yet he still kept New England in mind; he believed Massachusetts to be rich and ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... has faded from thy cause, High priest of heaven and hell and purgatory: Thy lips are loud with strains of oldworld story, But the red prey was rent out of thy paws Long since: and they that dying brake down thy laws Have with the fires of death-enkindled glory Put out the flame that faltered on thy hoary High altars, waning with the world's applause. This Italy was Dante's: Bruno died Here: Campanella, too sublime for pride, ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Well, then, let the indictment be stated more definitely, in terms sharp and unmistakable. In the first place, consider the caveman. He was a very simple creature. His head slanted back like an orang-outang's, and he had but little more intelligence. He lived in a hostile environment, the prey of all manner of fierce life. He had no inventions nor artifices. His natural efficiency for food-getting was, say, 1. He did not even till the soil. With his natural efficiency of 1, he fought off his carnivorous enemies and got himself food and shelter. He must have done ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... They shewed him moreover the Sling and Stone with which David slew Goliath of Gath; and the Sword also with which their Lord will kill the Man of Sin, in the day that he shall rise up to the prey. They shewed him besides many excellent things, with which Christian was much delighted. This done, they ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... in the hearse. Dr. Dix and Mr. Nawby entered the mourning coach provided for them. The smug human vultures who prey commercially on the civilized dead, arranged themselves, with black wands, in solemn Undertakers' order of procession on either side of the funeral vehicles. Those clumsy pomps of feathers and velvet, of strutting ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... wise he will stay at home, for robbery and even murder are of frequent occurrence. A large proportion of the population here consists of time-expired convicts, many of whom haunt the night-houses in quest of prey. During our short stay a woman was murdered one night within a few yards of our hotel, and a man was stabbed to death in broad daylight on the busy "Bolshaya." The Chief of Police told me that there is an average of a murder ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... Wantons over the blooms on his winglets of love.— So gay, o'er the meads, went his footsteps in bliss, The silver wave mirror'd the smile of his face; Delight, like a flame, kindled up at his kiss, And the heart of the maid was the prey of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... self-government which exist in Africa do not exist in the same measure in Asia. What stands in the way of freedom of Asiatic populations is not their lack of intelligence, but only their lack of military prowess, which makes them an easy prey to our lust for dominion. This lust would probably be in temporary abeyance on the morrow of a Socialist revolution, and at such a moment a new departure in Asiatic policy might be taken with permanently beneficial results. I do not mean, of course, that we should ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... pregnant, public prayers were offered up for her according to custom, and her Majesty was forever saying: "My pregnancy this time is different from preceding ones. I am a prey to nausea and strange whims; I have never felt like this before. If, for propriety's sake, I did not restrain myself, I should now dearly like to be turning somersaults on the carpet, like little Osmin. He eats green fruit ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... lurid, brassy glare, overhung with banks of sinister clouds, a leaden purple above, fiery crimson below. The unnatural light fell strongly upon us both. A big shadow passed for an instant across the sunset, and we, looking instinctively up, saw the circling bulk of some huge bird of prey. I ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... with precise and exact terms and rules, to plunge into the opposite extreme,—into blue mistiness for instance. Or is it perhaps the fact that mathematicians and physicists deal very largely with symbols, with abstractions as opposed to realities, and that they therefore easily fall a prey to this ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... bitterly, crushed it in her hand, and walked up to her room with her head high. All the time she was preparing for her bed, she was talking in her spirit with her husband. When she lay down she became a mere prey to her own thoughts, and was pulled, and torn, and hurt by them for hours ere she set herself to rule them. For the first time in her life she distrusted her son. She did not know what he would do! The temptation would surely be too strong for him! Two good things were set ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... an excellent study of a temperament, but it bores. The theme is not big enough to be worth the effort expended upon it. Here is an hysterical, wrong-headed, and confused-hearted little hussy who can't make up her mind as to what is right and what is wrong, and who is a prey to the impulse of the moment, psychical or physical. I don't think there are many people like her. I don't think that from the broad human-natural point of view it matters a great deal how she decides. But I am sure of this—that the more that kind of small monstrosity is publicly analysed ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... assistance might be sent to us; but no answering signal came. Too soon the roar of the surf reached our ears, and it became fearfully probable that the ship and her rich cargo, with all on board, would become the prey of the waves. I secured the precious box and case as usual, determined, if I could save my own life, to preserve them. The lead was continually hove, and at last the captain ordered the anchors to be let go. They held the ship but for a few minutes; then a tremendous ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... ravages of the disease are seen in the number and variety of the species attacked. While it may be regarded as essentially a disease of cattle, hogs would seem to be as easy a prey. Almost in the same grade of receptivity are sheep and goats. Next in order of susceptibility come the buffalo, American bison, camel, chamois, llama, giraffe, and antelope. Horses, dogs, cats, and even poultry may occasionally become infected with the disease, the last three being ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... left my father's house, abandoned I procrastinate my doom. O if any of the gods hear this, I wish I may wander naked among lions: before foul decay seizes my comely cheeks, and moisture leaves this tender prey, I desire, in all my beauty, to be the food of tigers." "Base Europa," thy absent father urges, "why do you hesitate to die? you may strangle your neck suspended from this ash, with your girdle that ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... freshening evening breeze her sloop grew momentarily clearer to the eye; it was easy to fancy she could hear the howls of disappointed rage pealing up from her deck; it needed no second sight to determine the side those humiliated pirates would take, when they hove alongside another prey which promised at least a taste of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Piles on either side Drew Roman blood, which spent, the Prince of weapons, (The sword) succeeded, which in Civil wars Appoints the Tent on which wing'd victory Shall make a certain Stand; then, how the Plains Flow'd o're with blood, and what a cloud of vulturs And other birds of prey, hung o're both armies, Attending when their ready Servitors, (The Souldiers, from whom the angry gods Had took all sense of reason, and of pity) Would serve in their own carkasses for a feast, How Caesar with ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... terror that gave the promised deliverance of that approaching Easter Wednesday an air of blind necessity. Also about the house the dust and neglect crept and increased as though it had been, in its menace and evil omen, a veritable beast of prey. Doors were off their hinges, windows screamed to their clanging shutters, the grime lay, like sand, about the sills and corners of the rooms. At night the house was astir with sound but with ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... readers may imagine that vultures and birds of prey are attracted to the carcasses of animals by smell, I may state that an experiment was tried with a condor in South America; being hoodwinked, he passed unnoticed a large piece of beef, but as soon as the bandage was removed, he rushed eagerly ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... his prey, so wilful was the maiden that she would blame him, and complain that she could now have nought to eat save ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... greatest gift to man, but it was a theft from the immortal gods, and Zeus would endure no more. He could not take back the secret of fire; but he had Prometheus chained to a lofty crag in the Caucasus, where every day a vulture came to prey upon his body, and at night the wound would heal, so that it was ever to suffer again. It was a bitter penalty for so noble-hearted a rebel, and as time went by, and Zeus remembered his bygone services, ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... battle, or strengthen it properly with reserves. He would have owned that he was not dealing with Darius, who drew after him a train of women and eunuchs; saw nothing about him but gold and purple; was encumbered with the trappings of his state, and should be called his prey, rather than his antagonist; whom therefore he vanquished without loss of blood and had no other merit, on the occasion, than that of showing a proper spirit in despising empty show. The aspect of ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... towering antique bards, seem to make little mention of the song-birds. They loved better the soaring, swooping birds of prey, the eagle, the ominous birds, the vultures, the storks and cranes, or the clamorous sea-birds and the screaming hawks. These suited better the rugged, warlike character of the times and the simple, powerful souls of the singers themselves. Homer must have heard ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... distance. It was Bone; he had followed his master: the thought passing vaguely before him without meaning. On! on! The man beside him, with his head bent, his teeth clenched, the pupils of his eyes contracted, like a cat's nearing its prey. The road lay ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... association of pirates is traced to bands of smugglers—English, French, and Dutch—who carried on a secret trade with the island of Santo Domingo. Later they settled there and on other islands, and after a while began to prey upon Spanish commerce. In 1630 they made their chief head-quarters on the island of Tortuga; in 1655 they aided in the English conquest of Jamaica, and ten years later settled the Bahamas. All these islands became centres ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... backs beneath the squall, their woolen caps pulled down over their ears; two big Normandy fishermen, bearded, their skin tanned through exposure, with the piercing black eyes of the sailor who looks over the horizon like a bird of prey. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... footsteps, as of pursuers coming swiftly up the secret passage by which the physician had entered the royal apartments; in another second the hanging was torn aside and Rizzo, dark and ferocious, panting like some savage with the madness of the deeds already done—his eyes glaring upon his prey—with an oath at finding them so engaged, thrust the young Queen violently away, and sprang at the physician crying out in a voice of frenzy, as he dealt him two desperate blows with his iron ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... reply, implied his intention of returning to X—-from Philadelphia; and she clung to this rope of sand until a week had passed. Then the conviction was inevitable that he regarded her appeal as merely a ruse to divert his course, to delay the seizure of his prey; and that while he misinterpreted the motive that prompted her message, she had merely furnished an additional ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... I wavered in my determination. What if the island had its wild creatures after all? But neither lynx nor panther nor any other beast of prey is white, except a polar bear, and it would be unusual to meet ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... evening she pleadingly suggested to Mr Hare that he should go to Stanton College, and endeavour to persuade John to return home. The parson was of course obliged to decline. He advised her to leave the matter in the hands of God, and Mrs Norton went to bed a prey to scruples ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... seemed painfully fond of her son, "why do you not go more into the world? You suffer your mind to prey upon itself, till it destroys you. My dear, dear son, how very ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... another such chance to fall on a transport as today. It's too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till another day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey from under our noses," thought Denisov, continually peering forward, hoping to see a messenger ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... fellows to prey upon them, and fill their own greedy maws; Richard hunted and caught his brother and sister that he might feed them with the labour of his hands. I fear there was therefore a little more for the mother to guzzle, but it is of small consequence whether ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... more remained to be done, or to be said—when the hurry of action, the novelty of generosity, the glow of enthusiasm, and the freshness of gratitude, were over, I felt that, though large motives could now invigorate my mind, I was still a prey to habitual indolence, and that I should relapse into my former state of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Then the three women bent their heads together and spoke in lower tones. They were unanimously of opinion that it might perhaps be dangerous to attack the beautiful Lisa, but it was decidedly necessary that they should settle the Red Republican's hash, so that he might no longer prey upon the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... off, and he was to be seen a mendicant in the streets of London—shunned where he once was adored. Gray, his agent, became equally involved; but, marrying a widow with some money, he was enabled to make a better fight. Eventually, however, he became a prey to the money-lender, and his life ended under circumstances distressing to those who had known him in ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... passed like a tortoise, and we came to the Lucayas, to the outposts of the vast hunting ground of Spaniard and pirate and buccaneer, the fringe of that zone of beauty and villainy and fear, and sailed slowly past the islands, looking for our prey. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Vendemiaire 23, year II.) When there is no special information concerning the other committees the verdict, on the whole, is nearly always as overwhe1ming.-Ibid. (Session of Vendemiaire 12, year III. complaint of a deputation from Ferney-Voltaire.) "The Gex district was, for over a year, a prey to five or six scoundrels who took refuge there. Under the mask of patriotism they succeeded in getting possession of all the offices. Vexations of every kind, robberies of private houses, squandering of public money, were committed by these monsters." (The Ferney deputies ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... had given her a hundred crowns, and found employment for the man at the Court of Burgundy. Bertha was astonished to learn that her maid had left the castle without receiving her dismissal from herself, her mistress; but she said nothing. Soon afterwards she had other fish to fry, for she became a prey to vague apprehensions, because her husband completely changed in his manner, commenced to notice the likeness of his first-born to himself, and could find nothing resembling his nose, or his forehead, his this, or his that, in the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... that the blood mingled with the rain that poured down his face. A pod of the fishhook-barbed cholla drove its points through his trousers into the flesh of his knee and, detaching itself from the stem, as is the detestable habit of this vegetable blood-seeker, clung there like a live thing of prey, from barbs which must later be removed delicately and separately with the cold steel. Blindly homing, a jack-rabbit ran almost beneath the horse's hooves, causing him to shy again, this time into a bulky vizcaya, as big as a full-grown man, and inflicting ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... replaced by General Jesup. These events and changes took place under the Administration of my predecessor. Notwithstanding the exertions of the experienced officers who had command there for eighteen months, on entering upon the administration of the Government I found the Territory of Florida a prey to Indian atrocities. A strenuous effort was immediately made to bring those hostilities to a close, and the army under General Jesup was reenforced until it amounted to 10,000 men, and furnished with abundant supplies of every description. In this campaign a great number of the enemy were captured ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... energetic dissuasions of the natives, whom, by the way, he could not understand, he advanced on foot; but the earth opened again—he disappeared. One moment his head remained above this liquid ground, one moment he cried for aid, and the abyss had swallowed its prey. However, at certain points, this lake is quite approachable; and, there being several barques, excellent sport may be had. I would, however, recommend sportsmen to procure a letter of introduction to ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... who has been wounded, learns, though late, to beware; But the unfortunate Actaeon always presses on. The chaste virgin naturally pitied: But the powerful goddess revenged the wrong. Let Actaeon fall a prey to his dogs, An example to youth, A disgrace to those that belong to him! May Diana live the care of Heaven; The delight of mortals; The security of those that belong ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... of superstition and oppression, and witnesses to the luxury and vices of their superiors, which they could only envy and not enjoy? It was turning tigers loose; and the degradation of the nobility pointed out the prey. Could it be expected that savages so hallooed on to outrage and void of any notions of reciprocal"duties and obligations, would fall into a regular system of' acting as citizens under the government of reason and justice? It was tearing all the bonds of society, which the experience ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... than many that have actually occurred in war? If Hood had succeeded in overwhelming the smaller force that opposed him at Columbia, Spring Hill, and Franklin, as he came near doing, Nashville would have fallen an easy prey, for it was not defensible by any force Thomas then had there. Thomas's cavalry was not yet remounted, and Forrest, with his troopers, would have had nearly a clear field of Kentucky while Hood marched to the Ohio. What offset ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... the tempest travels gathering force And sobs and howls and raves and roars And laughs like a demon band, And the great waves clamber into the bay With voices triumphant which seem to say "Hurrah! Hurrah! we have found a prey But we seek another ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... falling a prey to the French, Austrian and Russian troops were collecting on the other side of the Alps. After demanding from the Emperor of Germany the dismissal of all the Russian troops, the French negociators declared the congress at Radstadt dissolved. War, therefore, commenced ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey, All gaping for the carcase of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... even against such odds as that, yet the other commanders were greatly opposed to so rash an enterprise; and the master of his own ship said he would rather jump into the sea than conduct her Majesty's ship and the rest to be a prey to ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... was, when I settled near it, EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED IN MY BOOKS. The process of dismantling it was told in, Freckles, to start with, carried on in 'A Girl of the Limberlost,' and finished in 'Moths of the Limberlost.' Now it has so completely fallen prey to commercialism through the devastation of lumbermen, oilmen, and farmers, that I have been forced to move my working territory and build a new cabin about seventy miles north, at the head of the swamp in Noble county, where there ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... a Joan of Arc when the Americans sweep down upon us. But that would be only for a day; we should be such easy prey. If I could put you to sleep and awaken you fifty years hence, when California was a modern civilization! God speed the Americans: Therein lies our ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... little of you, Diego, as to imagine you would not have staid one day in Valadolid to have given ease to my doubts?—Was I to be abandoned, Diego, because I was deceived? or was it kind to take me at my word, whether my suspicions were just or no, and leave me, as you did, a prey to much ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... and then it's fellow Just as light and just as yellow; 20 There are many now—now one— Now they stop; and there are none— What intenseness of desire In her upward eye of fire! With a tiger-leap half way Now she meets the coming prey, Lets it go as fast, and then Has it in her power again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian Conjuror; 30 Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics play'd in the eye Of ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... cautious man, and came on with the leadsman working like a clock. He was a man who moved slowly. And at sea, as in life, he who moves slowly often runs many dangers which a greater confidence and a little dash would avoid. He who moves slowly is the prey ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... caused by the absence of all his friends from Ravenna, was still further augmented by the occurrence of intermittent marshy fevers, which every body endeavors to avoid by flying from Ravenna at the close of summer, and to which he fell a prey. This fever, that seized hold of him, and even prevented his departure, might alone have sufficed to render him melancholy, for nothing more inclines to sadness. But so intimate was his persuasion that when sadness ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli |
