"Prey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... therefore room for difference of opinion, and Professor Bianconi of Bologna, who has written much on the subject, concludes that it was most probably a bird of the vulture family. This would go far, he urges, to justify Polo's account of the Ruc as a bird of prey, though the story of it's lifting any large animal could have had no foundation, as the feet of the vulture kind are unfit for such efforts. Humboldt describes the habit of the condor of the Andes as that of worrying, wearying, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... of his predatory stamp are prone to do, and with a Russian facility for tongues spoke English, German, French, and half the languages of Europe. The instinctive purpose of Storri's existence was to make money. To him, money was a prey, and stood as do deer to wolves; and yet, making a fine distinction, he was rapacious, not avaricious. Avarice includes some idea of a storekeeping commerce that amasses by buying for one dollar and selling ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the unpleasant alternative of being eaten, is a motive that goes far and explains much. The haps and mishaps of the hungry make up natural history. The eye of the eagle is developed that it may see its prey from afar, its wings are strong that it may pounce upon it, its beak and talons are sharpened that it may tear it in pieces. By right of these superiorities, the eagle reigns as king ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... do business in Boston sometimes, and a character in THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY takes accurate note of pathetic effects wrought by them upon the aspects of a street of once dignified and elegant homes whose occupants have moved away and left them a prey to neglect and gradual ruin and progressive degradation; a descent which reaches bottom at last, when the street becomes a roost for humble professionals of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sacked times out of number. Its riches were beyond compare; and for hundreds of years it had been the prey, not only of every conqueror who invaded India from the north-west, but also of every race which, during the perpetual wars in Hindostan, happened for the time to be predominant. Tartars, Turks, Afghans, Persians, Mahrattas and Rajpoots, each in turn ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... until a dim shape emerged from the opposite blackness. It came unheard, growing from nothing into something with ghostly subtlety. Iris, a prey to many emotions, managed to stifle the exclamation of alarm that rose unbidden. But Hozier read her distress in ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... whirlwind those red demons came,—howling wolves now certain of their prey. From rock and hill, ridge, ravine, and coulee, lashing their half-crazed ponies, yelling their fierce war-cries, swinging aloft their rifles, they poured resistlessly forth, sweeping down on that doomed remnant. On both flanks of the short slender line struck Gall ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... own hardy ancestors. After having been for hundreds of years subject to the Roman yoke, and having no occasion to use arms, they lost their manly virtues, and when the Romans left them were an easy prey for the first comer. Our fathers could not foresee that the time would come when they too in turn would be invaded. Had they done so, methinks they would not have set up so broad a line of separation between themselves and the Britons, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... day after the signature of the preliminaries of peace. These preliminaries resembled in no respect the definitive treaty of Campo Formio. The still incomplete fall of the State of Venice did not at that time present an available prey for partition. All was arranged afterwards. Woe to the small States that come in immediate contact with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... than forty leagues beyond the foremost of these newly discovered islands, on the side nearest to Spain. We believe this to be the case, because two days before we saw land we observed some birds called rabihorcados,[295-1] marine birds of prey which do not sit or sleep upon the water, making circumvolutions in the air at the close of evening previous to taking their flight towards land for the night. These birds could not be going to settle ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... no use pretending that this hasn't got to be finished before we go back to school, because it has." Sophia wandered about, a prey ripe for the Evil One. "Oh," she exclaimed joyously—even ecstatically—looking behind the cheval glass, "here's mother's new skirt! Miss Dunn's been putting the gimp on it! Oh, mother, what a proud thing you will be!" Constance heard ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... plants that vegetate, stones devoid of feeling, are in many respects beings more highly favored than man: they are at least exempted from the sorrows of the mind—from the torments of reflection—from that devouring, chagrin to which he is so frequently a prey. Who is he who would not be a plant or a stone, every time reminiscence forces upon his imagination the irreparable loss of a beloved object? Would it not be better to be an inanimate mass, than a restless, turbulent, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... shall learn, at least, the spirit in which this pamphlet, for which your poor husband will have to suffer, perhaps, a few days' imprisonment, is written. Just listen to me! The author is speaking here of Bavaria, and of the oppressions to which she is a prey since we have concluded an alliance with France. He says: 'Since that time the Bavarian states have become the winter quarters, and been treated in a manner unheard of since the Thirty Years' War. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... to prevent the deer when they had taken the water from landing. It would appear that as soon as a herd of deer, few or many, enter the water, the Indians who are upon the watch, launch their canoes, and the parallel fences preventing the re-landing of the deer, they become an easy prey to their pursuers, and the buildings before described are ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... him threshed the air in tremendous power, as the unseen monster started away with its prey. Then the tentacles from which he was dangling shifted their grip slightly, turning Powell's body in the air so that he could look up and get his first glimpse of the thing that had captured him. He shuddered ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... whole country which was to be hunted over. The men were armed with long poles and spears, with which they beat up game of every description lurking in the woods, the valleys, and the mountains, killing the beasts of prey without mercy, and driving the others, consisting chiefly of the deer of the country, and the huanacos and vicunas, towards the centre of the wide-extended circle; until, as this gradually contracted, the timid inhabitants ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... ten years, the political history of Canada is a reductio ad absurdum of the older party system. Government succeeded government, only to fall a prey to its own lack of a sufficient majority, and the unprincipled use by its various opponents of casual combinations and {301} alliances. Apart from a little group of Radicals, British and French, who advocated reforms with an absence of moderation which ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... with new adventures to Eurystheus; but the latter would not give him credit for the task because Hercules had demanded a reward for his labor. He sent the hero forth upon a sixth adventure, commanding him to drive away the Stymphalides. These were monster birds of prey, as large as cranes, with iron feathers, beaks and claws. They lived on the banks of Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia, and had the power of using their feathers as arrows and piercing with their beaks even bronze coats of ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... reply to him immediately. It had 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 had even ceased ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... in green, a bladder under his arm and a tankard at his belt, with which latter he begged that sort of alms that flows from a spigot. As vagrant followers hover on the verge of a camp, or watchful vultures circle around their prey, so these lower parasites (distinct from the other well-born, more aristocratic genus of smell-feast) prowled vigilantly without the castle walls and beyond the limits of the royal pleasure grounds, finding occasional employment from lackey, valet or equerry, who, imitating ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... suddenly invaded the country of a great Saracen lord, named Suet, on the frontiers of the territory of Damascus, where he took a rich booty of gold and silver and many cattle, which would have proved of great importance in assisting the army at the siege of Sidon. On his return with this prey by the city of Belinas, otherwise called Caesaria Philippi, the Turks of Damascus, with the Saracen inhabitants of the country, gathered together in great numbers, and pursued the troops of Hugh, that they might recover the booty. Coming up with them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... a burst of applause rather frightened than reassured her, and a prey to a sort of dull dream, she sang her first lines. But she was a little behind the beat. Montgomery brought down his stick furiously, the repliques of the girls buffeted her ears like palms of hands, and it was not ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... counterpane, and clinched the hand that held it. Her eyes suddenly riveted themselves on a little crayon portrait of her husband hanging on the opposite wall; they looked at the likeness with the hard and cruel brightness of the eyes of a bird of prey. "Red is your taste in your old age is it?" she said to the portrait. "Red hair, and a scrofulous complexion, and a padded figure, a ballet-girl's walk, and a pickpocket's light fingers. Miss Gwilt! Miss, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Troy and bring back the stolen Helen. But at the bidding of Artemis, whose temple crowns the coast, fierce, contrary blasts keep it prisoner in the harbor. Hellas cannot avenge itself on the Phrygian barbarians who have carried off a free Greek woman. Artemis holds back the hunters from the prey. Why? Because, as goddess of the land, she claims her toll, the toll of human blood. Agamemnon, the leader of the host, distracted by fears of revolt and of the break-up of the army, has vowed to Artemis the dearest ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as a sly bat listens to the merry whistling of an innocent bird, and watches the propitious moment to spring upon her prey. It was an adagio which the king played upon his flute, and he was indeed a master in the art. Slightly trembling, as if in eternal melancholy, sobbing and pleading, soon bursting out in rapturous and joyful strains of harmony, again sighing and weeping, these melting tones fell like ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... ordained,—much less that, because the higher races happen to be on the winning side in the world-struggle, might can ever constitute right. Human progress has been achieved by denying the law of the stronger,—by battling against those impulses to crush the weak, to prey upon the helpless, which rule in the world of the brute, and are no less in accord with the natural order than are the courses of the stars. All virtues and restraints making civilization possible have been developed in the teeth of natural law. Those races which lead are the races ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... presence in Madrid, far from producing a good effect, had only increased the disorder. I obtained this information from a merchant of Lubeck who came to Hamburg on purpose to show me a letter he had received from his correspondent in Madrid. In this letter Spain was said to be a prey which Murat wished to appropriate to himself; and all that afterwards came to my knowledge served only to prove the accuracy of the writer's information. It was perfectly true that Murat wished to conquer Spain for himself, and it is not astonishing that the inhabitants of Madrid should have ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... they candid, and what, after all, is simply true. Let any man of sound understanding look at France now, and say what she has gained, or the world through her, from the last outburst of popular fury; which has not only left her the prey of charlatanism, but made her the victim of the grossest passions. Talleyrand was, undoubtedly, right in his retrospect, but his healthy convictions came too late to be ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... lizard eyed him unblinkingly, its tremendous jaws gaping to reveal a cavernous mouth that was hideously lined with bright orange colored membrane. Then, squatting lower with every step it took, like a mountainous cat about to spring on its prey, it began to stalk on its tree-like legs toward the tiny creature that had leaped ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... of such a spirit. His simple views of society and government were in a measure sufficient for the people while they dwelt apart from the rest of mankind. His practical lessons were better than if they had been left, which but for him they probably would have been, to fall a prey to the influences of Taoism and Buddhism, but they could only subsist while they were left alone. Of the earth earthy, China was sure to go to pieces when it came into collision with a Christianly-civilized power. Its sage had left it no preservative ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... of Edith Walter was borne to its last resting-place, Florence was among the mourners. After looking his last look upon the coffin that contained the body, he went away, sadder in heart than he had ever been in his life. He was not only a prey to sadness, but to painful self-accusation. In his perfidy lay the cause of her death. He had broken the heart that confided in him, and only repented of his error when it was too late to repair ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... At Entrammes, his next benefice, he entered into his full inheritance of villainy, and here it was—despite his own protest—that he devised the grey suit which brought him ruin and immortality. To the wild, hilarious dissipation of Laval, the nearest town, he fell an immediate and unresisting prey. Think of the glittering lamps, the sparkling taverns, the bright-eyed women, the manifold fascinations, which are the character and delight of this forgotten city! Why, if the Abbe Bruneau doled out comfort and absolution at Entrammes—why ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... the inhabitants of Terneuse and the surrounding country remained alive, and those who had recovered were in a state of exhaustion, which prevented them from returning to their accustomed occupations. They had combated disease, but remained the prey of misery and want; and Philip mentally vowed that he would appropriate all his savings to the relief of those around him. It was not until more than two hours had passed away that Philip returned to the cottage. On his arrival he found that Amine still slumbered, and the ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... finish," he was fond of saying whenever he had the chance, "and sooner or later we'll get him. The boys of the Wolf Patrol mean to stick to their name, and run the prey to the earth. He just can't get away nohow. All we've got to do is to keep moving, and believe the game is going to come our way. Everybody put his best foot forward again. It's for the honor of the patrol, boys, that we get hold of Hen Condit ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... crowded as they always are with men, would prove serious opponents, yet we might engage them with a fair hope of victory. But we may be seriously disabled in the fight, and should be, perhaps, unable to carry the news to Genoa that there are many pirate ships gathering on the coast of Sardinia to prey upon ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... for he is guilty of fornication, and God will bring it to light ere that time.—This likewise came to pass. He often said to a person of quality (my lord Kenmuir) that he was a rough wicked man, for which God would shake him over hell before he died; and yet God would give him his soul for a prey: which had its accomplishment at last, to the no small comfort and satisfaction of all ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... sea-shore, and feed upon fish. Their sight is so piercing that they can mark a fish swimming far below them as they hover over the water, and, pouncing down, will strike their strong talons into it, and steer themselves and their prey ashore by their great outspread wings. The African Eagle is said to be very generous in his disposition, and certainly deserves to be called kingly. Although he will not allow any large bird to dwell in peace too near him, yet he never harms the little ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... lingered alone in his cabin, enamored of the solitude and the wild pursuits to which a hardly gentler industry had introduced him. Such lumber as could be drifted down the streams had long been cut and driven out, and the woods were left to the hunter and his prey, and to the incursions of sportsmen and seekers for health, to whom the rude residents became guides, cooks, and servants of all work, for the sake of occasional society, and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... improved; very gradually, it is true, but still sufficiently to inspire me with hope that he might yet be spared to us. Of the state of his mind or thoughts I knew little, but I could see that he was at times a prey to nervous anxiety. This showed itself in the harassed look which his pale face often wore, and in his marked dislike to being left alone. He derived, I think, a certain pleasure from the quietude and monotony of his life at Worth, and perhaps also from the consciousness that he ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... merchants do lade, And send their ships into Spain; No pirates at sea To make them a prey, For the King enjoyes ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... drew nearer to Lens, the noise of the cannon sounded louder. The prince kept his gaze fixed in the direction of the sound with the steadfastness of a bird of prey. One would have said that his gaze could pierce the branches of trees which limited his horizon. From time to time his nostrils dilated as if eager for the smell of powder, and he ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Monckton, with some emotion, "are there not sharpers, fortune-hunters, sycophants, wretches of all sorts and denominations, who watch the approach of the rich and unwary, feed upon their inexperience, and prey upon their property?" ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... anchoring-place. Here we found the Andromeda tetragona growing in tolerable quantity, on the banks of a lagoon of fresh water. The face of the country was unpleasant, with many steep rocks. On a precipice behind our tent we perceived nests of birds of prey. The naked rocks had singular shapes, and presented to the imagination the ruins of a destroyed town. In the vallies we saw many small lagoons, but little grass, and the excrements of geese. It was about full moon, and the tide rising here five ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... growing distinctly out of breath. In another moment Tommy will have her. By this time he has fully worked himself into the belief that he is a Red Indian, and she his lawful prey, and is prepared to make a tomahawk of his fork, and having felled her, to scalp her somehow, when Providence shows her a corner round a rhododendron bush that may save her for the moment. She ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... Navigation Act and to try to negotiate a new treaty of commerce on the basis of the Magnus Intercursus. They were also to protest strongly against the action of English privateers, who, having been given letters of marque to prey upon French commerce, had been stopping and searching Dutch merchantmen on the ground that they might be carrying French goods. The English government, however, met the Dutch complaints by raking up the long list of grievances that had stirred up a bitter feeling of popular hatred against ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... "I don't prey on widows and orphans," replied Aaron, dismissing the matter with a curt wave of the hand. "Least of all, on the widow and orphan ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... little satisfaction from his sudden terrified cry. The poor soldier in the greatest anguish of mind looked round him on every side, and at last, about twenty paces behind him, he perceived the blessed envelope. He pounced on it like a falcon on its prey. The envelope was certainly a little dusty, and rather crumpled, but at all events the letter itself was found again. D'Artagnan observed that the broken seal attracted the soldier's attention a good deal, but he finished apparently ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... at them, and then sniffing disdainfully went away to hunt for roots. The great wings of the eagle almost brushed the cane that hung over Henry's head, but the little red eyes were satisfied that what they saw was not living, and the dark body flashed on in search of its prey. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not seek in the first place the spread of their sects, but the elevation of the Negro. They realized that the Negro needed to be developed into strong, self-reliant, and independent characters; that the masses were not moved by duty and did not appreciate the obligation of duty. They are a prey to their feelings, which sway them to the right hand and to the left. They live on their feelings. So engrossed are they in their feelings that they neglect duties and ignore obligations. That is why the religion ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... Mrs. Friend once more a prey to anxieties. She recalled the threat of the night before. But no, impossible! After all the kindness and the forethought! She dismissed ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... peak Whilst the Carlist privateer was motionless in fancied security—there was some want of prudence or vigilance there, surely—the gun-brig crept down and overhauled her before alarm could be given, and the rakish schooner-yacht, the skimmer of the seas, had the humiliation of falling a prey to a wretched slow boat that she could laugh at with steam up in the open sea. The arrest was made in the usual manner, and the captors behaved with the customary naval courtesy. They were over-joyed at their good fortune, and gave their prisoners to eat and to drink—champagne ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... wreaths intended to represent umbrellas of dignity. Sometimes a man riding on a wooden horse is carried, horse and all, by his friends as the Raja, and others assume the form of or paint themselves up to represent certain beasts of prey. Behind this motley group the main body form compactly together as a close column of dancers in alternate ranks of boys and girls, and thus they enter the grove, where the meeting is held in a cheery dashing style, wheeling and countermarching and forming lines, circles and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Denmark, Gotland was under the control of Norby, who continued after his master's fall to make depredations along the coast of Sweden and seize all merchantmen that came within his grasp. Danish, Swedish, and Hanse vessels were alike his prey, till Gotland came to be known by all as a "nest of robbers." Fredrik and Lubeck, unwilling though they were that Gotland should fall to Sweden, welcomed any movement intended to root out this impediment to the Baltic trade, and raised no ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... his kingdom, but also of his life. Besides this, they excommunicated and cursed king Henry the Eighth, that most famous prince, and stirred up against him, sometime the Emperor, sometime the French king: and as much as in them was, put in adventure our realm to have been a very prey and spoil. Yet were they but fools and mad, to think that either so mighty a prince could be scared with bugs and rattles; or else, that so noble and great a kingdom might so easily, even at one morsel, be devoured and ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... Marian was becoming more and more a prey to that secret doubt, whether it might not be a duty to give up her cherished hope of a home at Fern Torr. She did not see how she could be spared. Clara was an admirable attendant on her mother, and was becoming a better mistress of the house; but she ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... those means, though she seems to doat upon him, used to confirming her hypocrisy with crocodile tears, vows and swoonings, when her cully has to depart awhile, or seems but to deny immediate desires; yet this lasts no longer than she can gratify her appetite, and prey upon his fortune. ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... I leave the world to taste a blessing which we mysterious writers can seldom reach till we have got into our graves, whether it is that fame being a fruit grafted on the body, can hardly grow and much less ripen till the stock is in the earth, or whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured among the rest to pursue after the scent of a carcass, or whether she conceives her trumpet sounds best and farthest when she stands on a tomb, by the advantage of a rising ground and the echo of a ...
— English Satires • Various
... strong, and swift of foot were they, Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions: Because their thoughts had never been the prey Of care or gain: the green woods were their portions. No sinking spirits told them they grew grey, No fashion made them apes of her distortions; Simple they were, not savage, and their rifles, Though very true, were ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy." Zeph. iii. 8. "Now also ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... if we are not able to hunt the good with one idea only, with three we may catch our prey; Beauty, Symmetry, Truth are the three, and these taken together we may regard as the single cause of the mixture, and the mixture as being good by reason of ...
— Philebus • Plato
... Greeks and Turks and Circassians, Albanians (Tosks and Ghegs), Jews whose ancestors came from Spain, gipsies and Kutzo-Vlachs. A French observer said some years ago that Macedonia was a school of brigandage and ethnology. He said it was the prey of the Albanians and the professors—that is, of unconscionable savages and of laborious agents of all kinds of foreign propaganda. Even the Kutzo-Vlachs, which in Greek signifies "Limping Roumanians," made their propaganda, or had it ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... terrible evening Peter stepped into a blind 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 no ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... choose a creature more fit for a national emblem? I believe not. For would any wise man compare a useless, screeching eagle, or a useless, roaring lion—each a creature of prey—to a silent, hard-working, and useful beaver who remains true to his wife all his life, who builds a comfortable home for his children, provides them well with food and teaches them . . . not how to kill other creatures . . . but how to work, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... not leave me quickly, O thou dog without a mother, I will take the eagles' talons And the claws of the blood-suckers, And of birds of prey the talons, And of hawks the talons likewise, 490 That I thus may seize the demons, Utterly o'ercome these wretches, That my head may ache no longer, Nor my breathing ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... in manifold splendours, is the true season of poetry for the toilers. The birds of passage who are now crowding out of the towns have had little pleasure in the spring, and their blissful days are only now beginning. What is it to them that the seaside landlady crouches awaiting her prey? What is it to them that 'Arry is preparing to make night hideous? They are bound for their rest, and the surcease of toil is the only thing that suggests poetry to them. Spring the season for poets! We wipe away that treasonable suggestion just ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... handsome person, facile manner, and ready wit, he had added to these natural advantages some skill at billiards, some knowledge of gambler's legerdemain, and the useful consciousness that he must prey or be preyed on. John Rex was no common swindler; his natural as well as his acquired abilities saved him from vulgar errors. He saw that to successfully swindle mankind, one must not aim at comparative, but superlative, ingenuity. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... language against the Guises. Katharine stirred her son into a sudden panic. The attack on the Admiral had taken place on August 22nd; with the booming of a bell on the early morning of the 24th, St. Bartholomew's day, the most recklessly devastating mob in the world found itself let loose on its prey, headed and urged on by the Guises and other Catholic chiefs. The Huguenots, utterly surprised, were slaughtered from house to house; with the taste of blood the populace went mad; Paris was a shambles. How ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... the present day. He built a palace and a temple, and around them he constructed a new city with a reservoir to supply it with water, possibly because the slopes of Toprak Kala rendered it easier of defence than the city in the plain (beneath the rock and citadel) which had fallen an easy prey to Tiglath-pileser III. The site of the temple on Toprak Kala has been excavated by the trustees of the British Museum, and our knowledge of Vannic art is derived from the shields and helmets of bronze and small bronze figures and fittings which were ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... long enough, Mr. Cartwright, to know that if you want to go into the question of morals in North Valley, the place for you to begin is with the bosses and guards you put in authority, and allow to prey upon women." ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... with a caution that restrains from doubtful attempts, and almost secures them from capture. They are not like the pirates of the nautical novels, who embark in a sea-going ship, and stand by to fight it out with any cruisers they may meet. Like cautious sportsmen, they mark down their prey first, and do not waste powder and shot. In a breeze there is no danger on their coast. But wo betideth the trabaccalo or short-handed merchantman that may happen to be becalmed in their sight. Incontinent they launch their boats,—terrible vessels that hold twenty or thirty armed men besides ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... taking entire possession of him. But he no longer found pleasure even in vice; once it had been his amusement, now it was his occupation. It was the only thing that seemed to ease the horrible nervousness that of late had begun to prey ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... solitary survivor of the third who had confirmed the amazing story. The giant monsters, actuated by some flickering human intelligence, had found their way out of the central valley, where they had subsisted by enfolding their vegetable and small animal prey with pseudopods, that it to say, temporary projections of arms from the gelatinous ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... the prey of one of the common soldiers,' he continued; 'but I, with a few pieces of gold, rescued her from him, picturing to myself the gratification you would feel at being so fitly attended. And that you might the better appreciate the gift, I have retained her till to-day before showing her ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... remnants, the conditions of life of our first ancestors, has long ago shown the error of this doctrine. Primitive man has become an ignorant and ferocious brute, as ignorant as the modern savage of goodness, morality, and pity. Governed only by his instinctive impulses, he throws himself on his prey when hunger drives him from his cave, and falls upon his enemy the moment he is aroused by hatred. Reason, not being born, could have no hold over ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... relations, and some texts recently discovered make distinct allusions to funerary rites.[424] We can hardly agree to the suggestions of M. Place, who asks whether it is not possible that the Assyrians committed their corpses to the river, like the modern Hindoos, or to birds of prey, like the Guebres.[425] Usages so entirely out of harmony with the customs of other ancient nations would certainly have been noticed by contemporary writers, either Greek or Hebrew. In any case some allusion to them would survive ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... telescope, a black speck like an insect posed on the hard edge of the offing. She emerged rapidly to her water-line and came on steadily, a slim hull with a long streak of smoke slanting away from the rising sun. We embarked in a hurry, and headed the boat out for our prey, but we hardly ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... white flowers. They were the egretta flavirostris. Vast flocks of huge pelicans were swimming along the stream, dipping their enormous bills into the water, and each time bringing up a fish. They have enormous pouches, capable of containing many pounds of their finny prey. ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... felt thankful there was but one old one in the company, and waited in silence to see the exploits of the old panther, which advanced steadily towards the bunch of leaves with cautious steps, as if she feared to wake her prey until she came within leaping distance; then, settling down on the ground, waited until her young ones came to her side; then springing forward with one tremendous bound, she struck upon the log covered with leaves. The rotten wood-bark ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... he had been enduring. As the small boy who has been kicked by the bully will with delighted relief rush to the bully's aid when the kicks are at length turned to another, urging him on so that he may forget his first prey, so Mr. Chater, delighted at his fortune, eagerly joined in turning his wife's wrath to Mary's head. For self-preservation, at whatever cost to another, is the most compelling of instincts: its power great in proportion as we have allowed our fleshly ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... guests, not so much for charity as for comprehension. Certainly, The Flight of Mariette will do much to further such understanding. I think I need only add that half the proceeds of its sale will go to feed the seven million Belgians still in Belgium (prey to the twin wolves of Prussia and starvation) for you to see that three shillings and sixpence could hardly be better used than in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... oaths of submission which they had sworn to a power which they loathed. Once before, in the first reaction against Protestant excesses, the Bishop of Winchester had seen the Six {p.119} Articles Bill carried—but his prey had then been snatched from his grasp. Now, embittered by fresh oppression, he saw his party once more in a position to revenge their wrongs when there was no Henry any longer to stand between them and their enemies. He would take the tide ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... brings His angel to our help, and the deliverance, which is ultimately to be ascribed to His hand muzzling the gaping beasts of prey, may also be ascribed to the faith which sets His hand in motion. The true cause is God, but the indispensable condition without which God will not act, and with which He cannot but act, is our trust. Therefore all the great things which it is said to do are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... There is not the same tremendous strength in his appearance as in the lion's, but there is something almost more terrible in his long, gliding body and catlike movements, more ferocious altogether. In the wild state the lion prefers to prey upon animals, and will not turn on man unless he is desperate. But a tiger sometimes takes to the life of a man-eater for no reason but because he likes the taste of human flesh; and once he has begun to eat human beings, ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... must there be subject to; they will not embrace our holy religion; they will not adopt our manners; our people will not pollute themselves by intermarrying with them. Must we maintain them as beggars in our streets, or suffer our properties to be the prey of their pillage? For men accustomed to slavery will not work for a livelihood when not compelled. And what is there so pitiable in their present condition? Were they not ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... flank movement; positions, in short, constructed for the enactment of a second Thermopylae. No signs of humanity were to be found in that barren region. Here and there the carcass of a stray horse, which had died probably of pure inanition, and afforded a scanty meal to the birds and beasts of prey, was the only sign of aught that had ever beat with the pulse of life. Leaving the main body, I came up with a small party of engineer officers, employed in taking the angles on the line of march. The serious inconvenience resulting from the want of a good map ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... The provinces, a prey to anarchy and civil war, were continually threatened with foreign invasion. Almost all the south presented the melancholy spectacle of one-vast arena of conflicting factions. The nation groaned beneath the yoke of tyrannical laws; despotism ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... aspects of nature that the poets evidently enjoyed are often described in the most conventional of words and phrases. More than half of so fine a poem as The Battle of Brunnanburg is taken bodily from other poems. No description of a battle was complete without a picture of the birds of prey hovering over the field. Heroes were always assembling for banquets and receiving rewards of rings at the hand of the king. These conventional phrases and situations, added to a thorough knowledge of a large number of old Germanic myths, constituted a great part of the ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... frightful to her to think, to be obliged to think, that Arabian all this time had looked upon her as a prey, had marked her down as a prey. She understood everything now, his fixed gaze at her in the Cafe Royal when she had seen him for the first time, his coming to Garstin's studio, his subtle acting ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... And thus, the very night on which Catherine had died, broken down, and worn out, upon a strange breast, with a feeless doctor, and by the ray of a single candle, the heir to the fortunes once destined to her son wrestled also with the grim Tyrant, who seemed, however, scared from his prey by the arts and luxuries which the world of rich men raises up in defiance of ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Antiquity is so plain to this inhuman Kind of Proceeding, that when Eteocles and Polynices had kill'd each other upon the important Quarrel of disputed Empire, the Government order'd the Challenger's Body to be thrown out as a Prey to the Dogs and Birds, and made it Death for any one to sprinkle Dust over it, or give it the least honorary Marks ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... their freedom. Again, can we forget the unfavourable circumstances, in which the slaves of St. Domingo were placed, for a year or two before their liberation, in another point of view? The island at this juncture was a prey to political discord, civil war, and foreign invasion, at the same time. Their masters were politically at variance with each other, as they were white or coloured persons, or republicans or royalists. They were quarrelling and fighting with each other, and shedding each ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... out. I won't do it, Stephen, I won't do it. End this if you like, break our hearts and throw them away and go on without them, but to turn all our lives into a scandal, to give ourselves over to the mean and the malicious, a prey to old women—and you damned out of everything! A man partly forgiven! A man who went wrong ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... comprehensive glance. It also seemed to her that the French girl's face wore an expression of mocking triumph. And was it her imagination, or had Mary glanced up as she entered and then turned away her eyes? What did it all mean? Marjorie took the nearest vacant seat at hand, the prey of many emotions. Then, as Miss Nelson stepped forward to address the class, she resolutely put away all personal matters and, with the fine attention to the business of study which had endeared her to her various teachers during her freshman ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... of the storm is allayed, Iphigenia recounts her dream of Agamemnon's death, and laments the woes of her house. She calls upon Diana to put an end to her life, which already has lasted too long. Thoas, the king of the country, now enters, alarmed by the outcries of the priestesses. He is a prey to superstitious fears, and willingly listens to the advice of his followers, that the gods can only be appeased by human blood. A message is now brought that two young strangers have been cast upon the rock-bound coast, and Thoas at once decides that they shall be the victims. ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... glared at the thicket. Not a sign nor a sound came from in there. The willows, with the gentle tints of winter veiling their misty twigs, looked serene and even innocent, fitted to harbor birds—not birds of prey—and the quiet smoke threaded upwards through the air. Of course the liniment-drinkers ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... mother, Jane Johnson, availing herself of this knowledge, took possession of her own person and her own children; and their astonished master suddenly discovered that his power to hold them was gone forever. No judge, commissioner, or lawyer, however willing, could help him to recapture his prey. But a judge of the United States District Court could assist him in obtaining a mean revenge upon the brave man who had enlightened an ignorant woman respecting her legal right to freedom. Judge Kane, usurping jurisdiction in the case, and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... 'I am a man of the world. And yet - once an artist always an artist. All of a sudden a thought takes me in the street; I become its prey: it's like a pretty woman; no use to struggle; I ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hunted in bright blue tailed coats with brass buttons, scarlet waistcoat, tight breeches and top hat! We refer to the same class of man who to-day wears rough, natural coloured tweeds, leather coat and close cap that his prey ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... can Germany manifest a better-grounded feeling of national pride than in this, its university system. Politically inert, divided into petty states, powerless, the ever-ready prey of more active or ambitious neighbors, it has played a pitiful role in the world's history, with annals made up of petty feuds and jealousies and tyrannical meannesses, never working as one people, save when driven to extremity. With countless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... bear dance and a buffalo dance to call the attention of the Great Spirit to the needs of His people, that He might send plenty of prey nearer the village? Or should the band first move to a different part of the country, where no red man dwelt and where the buffaloes, at least, ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade
... vessel, whether a merchantman or a man-of-war, is at the mercy of a submarine, which hunts the seas for this kind of target. It has only to lie in wait on the trade routes until its prey appears, submerging in case of danger. Then a torpedo sent home and a valuable piece of property goes to the bottom of the sea. What resourceful brigandage is to traffic on the highways, the German submarine became to British traffic on the seas. It is the sniper of naval warfare, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... their prey by night is true of most wild beasts, particularly the lion. Ps. cvi. 20. The Arabians have one among their five hundred names for the lion, which signifies "the hunter ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... huddled together; one could see nothing but swollen, stupid faces, inflamed nostrils, and twisted mouths; old women as fat and clumsy as melancholy whales; little wizened, cadaverous hags with sunken mouths and noses like the beak of a bird of prey; shamefaced female mendicants, their wrinkled chins bristling with hair, their gaze half ironical and half shy; young women, thin and emaciated, slatternly and filthy; and all, young and old alike, clad in threadbare garments that had been mended, patched and turned inside out until there wasn't ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... Never before or since have pirates had such a splendid time. After the discovery of America, the number of ships sailing the seas increased rapidly, until all the chief countries of Europe had far more ships afloat than they could possibly protect with their navies. So they readily became a prey to pirates. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... of his life, he seemed to present, in his carriage and person, some of that New Hampshire ruggedness, and even rustic simplicity, that attracted and lured, while it foiled and disgusted those hunters of human prey who, in every large city, wait to take in the wayfaring man, whether he be fool or wise. Because he wore comfortable shoes, and cared next to nothing about conformity to the last new freak of fashion, the bunco man was very apt to make a fool of himself, ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... concessions to give or the means of influencing legislation, whether directly or indirectly. The very inexperience of the Boer ranchman who came up as a member of the Volksraad made him an easy prey. All sorts of abuses sprang up, while the primary duties of a government were very imperfectly performed. Hardly any administration was needed while the Transvaal had a population of wandering stock-farmers. But ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... was in no hurry to commence. She had her prey so that there was no possible chance of escape, and the officers and men ate breakfast and walked about the deck, talking and joking on the work before them. Through a powerful glass, which Captain Lane furnished him, Fernando recognized Captain ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... that work was done she could not be still. Like an uneasy beast of prey, she must needs ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... with fresh stores of ammunition or provisions. They therefore set out upon their return soon after this engagement, having first erected a little stockaded fort, at the hither end of Lake George, in which they left a small garrison, as a future prey for the enemy; a misfortune which might easily have been foreseen, because this whole army being country militia, was to be disbanded, and return to their respective homes, as they actually did soon after their retreat to Albany. This was all the glory, this all the advantage, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the 16th to the 19th of October began exactly upon and between my two estates of Stoermthal and Liebertwolkwitz. All that the oppressive imposts, contributions, and quarterings, as well as the rapacity of the yet unvanquished French, had spared, became on these tremendous days a prey to the flames, or was plundered by those who called themselves allies of our king, but whom the country itself acknowledged as such only through compulsion. Whoever could save his life with the clothes upon his back might boast of his good fortune; for many, who were obliged, with broken ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... Francisco, there is an abundance of birds hovering constantly about the harbor of Nagasaki, not sea-gulls, but a brown fishing-hawk, which here seems to take the place of the gull, swooping down upon its finny prey after the same fashion, and uttering a wild, shrill cry when doing so. Another peculiarity about this feathery fisherman is that he affects the rigging of ships lying at anchor, and roosts in the shrouds or on the spars, which a sea-gull or other ocean bird ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... {now} passed Maenalus, to be dreaded for its dens of beasts of prey, and the pine-groves of cold Lycaeus, together with Cyllene.[44] After this, I entered the realms and the inhospitable abode of the Arcadian tyrant, just as the late twilight was bringing on the night. I gave a signal that a God had come, and the people commenced ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Hagar. When Hagar heard the whoop of the savages she seized the children, ran with them into the cellar, and, after concealing them under two large washtubs, hid herself. The Indians ransacked the cellar, but missed the prey. Elizabeth, the younger of the two girls, grew up and married the Rev. Samuel Checkley, first minister of the "New South" Church, Boston. Her son, Rev. Samuel Checkley, Junior, was minister of the Second Church, and his successor, Rev. John Lothrop, or Lathrop, as it was more ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Eastern world worshiped fire. He adored it—blessed, blessed fire—the sign of God, the beacon of the human. Hark! What half-human—or rather wholly inhuman—sounds are these that alternate in unearthly measure? Surely animal nature has no voice so strident, vengeful, odious. Can it be animals of prey? No. The Virginia forests are dangerous only in snakes. Snakes? Ah, yes! He shrinks into shadow against the oak at this suggestion; snakes? the deadly moccasin, that prowls as well by night as day. Ugh! what's this at his feet—soft, clammy, shining in the flaring light? He leaps upon the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... and shot forward to take his prey, while the waves foamed white behind him, and before him ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... but when he had been a few days on this perilous journey he was treacherously murdered by some of his companions near the southern branch of Trinity River. His body was left to the beasts and birds of prey. Two of the murderers were themselves killed by their accomplices, none of whom appear ever to have been brought to justice for their participation in a crime by which France lost one of the bravest and ablest men who ever struggled for ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... should she face but the Alcalde! How he escaped the trench, who can tell? He had no time to write memoirs; his horse was too illiterate. But he had escaped; temper not at all improved by that adventure, and now raised to a hell of malignity by seeing that he had lost his prey. In the morning light he now saw how to use his sword. He attacked Kate with fury. Both were exhausted; and Kate, besides that she had no personal quarrel with the Alcalde, having now accomplished her sole object in saving the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... speeds along at the rate of six miles an hour from one fishing ground to another. Arriving at some likely spot the eager aspirant for finny prizes rests on his oars, and allows his aquatic confederates to take to the water in search of their natural prey, the fishes. A ring around the cormorants' necks prevents them swallowing their captives, and previous training teaches them to balance themselves on the propelling pole that the watchful fisherman inserts beneath them the moment ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... lips were of a livid blue, and were drawn up and down above and below the teeth in a kind of fixed grin, while the dense brilliance of his eyes was so fierce and fiery as to suggest those of some savage beast athirst for prey. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... an hereditary sovereign." This proposition was promptly declined. It was renewed, in 1838, in a modified form, but again England, France, and Austria would not listen to the viceroy's reasoning. Mehemet Ali became a prey to despair. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... the theorists are well-founded, going on strike and living by shifts was not always enough to assure parasitism. In certain cases, the animal must have had to change its diet, to pass from live prey to vegetarian fare, which would entirely subvert its most essential characteristics. What should we say to the Wolf giving up mutton and browsing on grass, in obedience to the dictates of idleness? The boldest would shrink ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... the iron-sceptred Skeleton, Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres, 10 To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form, Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, whose azure veins Steal like dark streams along a field of snow, 15 Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed In light of some sublimest mind, decay? Nor putrefaction's breath Leave aught of this pure spectacle ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... successful attacks upon Caesar's lines, by which he broke away in his turn from his enemy's grasp, and the two armies moved slowly back into the interior of the country, hovering in the vicinity of each other, like birds of prey contending in the air, each continually striking at the other, and moving onward at the same time to gain some position of advantage, or to circumvent the other in such a design. They passed on in this manner over plains, and across rivers, and through mountain passes, until ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... and ate the vulture, and it is probable that they devoured that meal with fully as much eagerness and satisfaction as the ravenous bird itself ever devoured its prey. It was but a light breakfast, however. After being skinned, the bird was divided into ten portions, and every man cooked his own as he thought fit, but each did not receive above three mouthfuls. Nevertheless it strengthened them enough to enable them to return ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... line of rifle-pits, they entered in and took possession; and when I made my last visit to the Army of the Mississippi, there they were ensconced as conies in the rock, enduring the heat of a vertical sun, and crouching, like beasts of prey, to escape the rebel bullets from the earthworks, almost within touching distance. The fierce and bloody struggle had filled long lines of field-hospitals with mangled victims, whose sufferings were soothed and relieved beyond what I could have conceived possible, and it rejoiced my heart to ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... killed, they Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous Spaniards, These are here still,—how long, O ye Heavens, in the country of Dante? These, that fanaticized Europe, which now can forget them, release not This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here you can see them,— Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesu, Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,— Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,— Here, overcrusting with shame, perverting, defacing, debasing, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... Rivo-Torto one reaches them in an hour by way of rugged and slippery paths where the very goats do not willingly venture. Once arrived, one might fancy oneself a thousand leagues from any human being, so numerous are the birds of prey ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... the obstruction in a tumbling heap and sprang at the flag as a panther at prey. He pulled at it and, wrenching it free, swung up its red brilliancy with a mad cry of exultation even as the color bearer, gasping, lurched over in a final throe and, stiffening convulsively, turned his dead face to the ground. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... water diving together, and exerting themselves against each other in their efforts to catch the best fish, whilst the affrighted inhabitants of the water swim wildly and confusedly about, seeking shelter in the mud and weeds, only to become an easier prey. I have even seen natives dive down in the river, without net or implement of any kind, and bring up good-sized fish, which they had caught with their ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... East will never understand the merit and magnitude of the present political movement, until they give the farmer credit for intelligence of a superior order. Those who think of him as the easy prey of demagogues are mistaken. He has been such in the past. We have convincing proof that it is otherwise now. Those who are familiar with the campaign plans of the dominant parties in these days, the shameless misrepresentation of facts by party organs, the open use of large sums of money to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... then thou, Lord, didst hear my complaints, pity my condition, and art now become my deliverer; and as long as I live I will hold up my hands in this manner, and magnify thy mercies, who didst not give me over as a prey to mine enemies: the net is broken, and they are taken in it. Oh! blessed are they that put their trust in thee! and no prosperity shall make me forget those days of sorrow, or to perform those vows that I have made to thee in the days of my affliction; ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... Crown. Hence, the delight of such as wish ill to the Throne, and the anguish of such as are loyal to Your Majesty. The fidelity of the army, too, is threatened. Ere long, the forces of the Crown will become a prey to profound disaffection; and where could we look for help, should this occur and this ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... girl. What womanhood she might expect was slow in coming to her. Even with the halo of the Clark inheritance she could arouse slight amorous interest in any man. And thus Adelle's insignificance again saved her—shall we say?—from the mean fate of becoming the prey of ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... to show him the ring, and confront him then with his horrid crimes, but he looked so fiercely I dared not. It is well that I did not. I know not what might have been the result. Justice might have been cheated of her proper prey, and I not have been here to write this tale. I made my escape from the room, and left him with his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... gluttonous despatch of business, and had so frequently admired his iron punctuality, the fact spoke volumes. The twenty minutes slowly stretched into an hour; the hour had nearly extended to a second; and I still sat in my corner of the office, or paced the marble pavement of the hall, a prey to the most wretched anxiety and penitence. The hour for lunch was nearly over before I remembered that I had not eaten. Heaven knows I had no appetite; but there might still be much to do—it was needful I should keep myself in proper trim, if it were only to digest the now too probable bad ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mountains and forests, and are the objects of special dread. Homage is paid to them to secure their goodwill and avert their vengeance. The people greatly dislike travelling at night, as that is the season when the Bhoots roam about and fall on their prey. When they must move about they break off the branches of the pine-tree, and turn them into torches to frighten off both the wild beasts and the evil spirits. In the imagination which peoples hills and forests with beings outside the circle of humanity, that make their presence ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... across the Dead-Boy, hoping to gain the ridge before the madman and cut him off. The rest, whom I led by a few yards, breasted the height above and thundered past the grey churchyard wall. Inside it I caught a flying glimpse of the yellow pony quietly cropping among the tombs. We had our prey, then, enclosed in that peninsula as in a trap; but ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... am sure he is good; I like him much better now than I did at first; but if he runs away to Norminster and leaves us a helpless prey to Mr. Logger, that is not delightful," ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... it went roaring up the side of the mill, swift as falls the lightning; and I yelled and laughed in my torture and despair, and pierced more barrels and the very tar-barrels, and flung them on. The fire roared like a lion for its prey, and voices answered it inside from the top of the mill, and the feet came thundering down, and I stood as near that awful fire as I could, with uplifted sword to slay and be slain. The bolt was drawn. A tar-barrel caught fire. The door was opened. What followed? ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... head. "I see, I see it all," said he. "You will liberate yourself from one tyrant, your highness, to become the prey of another. The eyes of the dying see clear, and I tell you, duchess, you were already on the point of giving away the power you have attained. Know you what Munnich's demand ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... shedding disastrous darkness upon the other. Pharaoh, obdurate and furious, led on his troops into the new-formed channel; and already by anticipation seized in the grasp of his mighty malice, the prey which he intended to tear and devour. "And it came to pass, that in the morning-watch the Lord looked upon the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot-wheels, that they drave heavily: so ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... for boys, who have still to know themselves, and for poets, who can turn their suffering into song. But to him it meant only hindrance. Because he had been a prey to frantic desires, did he look upon earth's beauty with a clearer eye, or was his hand endowed with subtler craft? He saw no reason to suppose it. The misery of those first months of northern exile—his battling with fierce winds ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... of their first taking on orbicular shape, and when it might be supposed their hardness and acidity would repulse all save elephantine tusks and ostrich stomachs, they were the prey ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... on—glancing over my shoulder, what did I espy but two fiery eyes gleaming through the darkness, as did poor hapless William, and the rush of some eager animal bent on prey, which would not be driven back, came distinct and clear. I did not tell Jemmy what my startled eyes beheld, ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... would thank a serpent which had wound itself around me and unwound itself and sprung away again, because another prey enticed it. I know that I have been bitten, I know that it deserts me only because it does not seem worth the trouble to suck out what little marrow there is left in my bones. But still I thank the snake, for now I shall have a quiet death. Yes, man, I am not mocking; to me it is as if ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... for our part, are glad that she did not wear her heart upon her sleeve, there being other worlds to conquer. Indeed, even then, several suitors were at Mademoiselle Curchod's feet, among them a young parson,—her father being a pastor, young parsons were her legitimate prey,—and still greater triumphs were reserved for her in the gay world of Paris which she was soon to enter. As dame de compagnie, Mademoiselle Curchod journeyed with Madame Vermenoux to the French capital, and carried off one of her lovers, M. Necker, ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... this was no place for me, and hastily withdrew. For ten long minutes I paced the floor of the reception room, a prey to a thousand doubts and conjectures. What was the secret of this home? What had given rise to the deadly mistrust continually manifested between these cousins, fitted by nature for the completest companionship and the most cordial friendship? It was not a ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... carrying off the flower of our youth. He has devoured the child Elo and seven young boys; he has mangled the maiden Orberosia, the fairest of the Penguins with his teeth. There is not a village in which he does not emit his poisoned breath and which he has not filled with desolation. A prey to this terrible scourge, we come, O Mael, to pray thee, as the wisest, to advise us concerning the safety of the inhabitants of this island lest the ancient race ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... suicides this has undoubtedly been the real cause. "Week after week," writes the British Medical Journal in an editorial ("Dangerous Quack Literature: The Moral of a Recent Suicide," Oct. 1, 1892), "we receive despairing letters from those victims of foul birds of prey who have obtained their first hold on those they rob, torture and often ruin, by advertisements inserted by newspapers of a respectable, nay, even of a valuable and respected, character." It is added that the wealthy proprietors of such newspapers, often enjoying a reputation ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... amiss,—TAKE TIME. Take a year in which to thread a needle, rather than go dabbing at the texture with the naked thread. And observe, that there is an excellence and an efficacy of slowness, no less than of quickness. The armadillo is equally secure of his prey with the hawk or leopard; and Sir Charles Bell mentions a class of thieves in India, who, having, through extreme patience and command of nerve, acquired the power of motion imperceptibly slow, are the most formidable of all peculators, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... a venomous snake," went on the professor. "None of the constrictor type of serpents is, though their power to crush their prey in their folds is enormous. They depend on that power, while the poisonous snakes kill their prey by the use of their venom. But Ticula and I ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... his despair, like a scorpion in a circle of fire, he inflicted a deadly wound on himself by calling in the fatal help of Assyria. Nothing loth, that warlike power responded, scattered his less formidable foes, and then swallowed the prey which it had dragged from between the teeth of the Israelites and Syrians. The result of Ahaz's frantic appeals to false gods and faithless men may still be read on the cuneiform inscriptions, where, amidst a long list of unknown tributary ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... from it? The thought came to her that such a menace would follow one day after day; that it would wait and wait; that in the end it knew its time would come when sleep or exhaustion broke down its prey's guard. Then it would leap ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... United States on this bill, I tell you society is marching on to it, and as I remarked before, it will not be ten years before there will be no voice in this Senate against female suffrage. It is necessary for women, if they are to be protected in society and not to be the prey of man, that they shall have the ballot to protect themselves. It is the only thing in a free government that can protect any one; and whether it is a natural right or an artificial right it is nonsense to discuss. It is a necessary right; it is necessary to freedom; it is necessary to equal ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sensation of doubt, almost of apprehension, came to her. She was overtaken by a terror of the desert. For a moment it seemed to her that he was right, that it were better never to be the prey ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... now that those who first organised the parliamentary institutions which now are the ruling institutions of the greater part of mankind fell a prey to certain now very obvious errors. They did not realise that there are hundreds of different ways in which voting may be done, and that every way will give a different result. They thought, and it is still thought by a great number of mentally indolent people, that if a country ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... made, and the deck and skylights were covered with mats and mattresses on which 170 natives sat, slept, or smoked,—a motley, parti-coloured mass of humanity, in the midst of which I recognized Bishop Willis in the usual episcopal dress, lying on a mattress among the others, a prey to discomfort and weariness! What would his episcopal brethren at home think of such ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... incited the islanders to rise against the Turk. They laid siege to the citadel held by a Turkish garrison. Had the fleet of the Hydriotes helped them, they might have prevailed. As it was they rendered themselves a prey to the Turkish troops on the mainland. An army of nearly 10,000 Turks landed in Chios, and relieved the besieged garrison. Then the fanatical Moslems were let loose on the gentle inhabitants of the little island. Thousands were put to the sword. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... still talking, stood at the foot of the stairs so that his son could not pass him. Sam yawned, then noticed how in oratorical denunciation his father's long upper lip curved like the beak of a bird of prey; behind his hand he tried to arch his own lip in the same manner. He really did not hear what was said to him; he only sighed with relief when it was over and he was allowed to go up-stairs and tumble ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... them, as he passed, with an unpleasant light in his eyes, and the drummers a few seats ahead turned to look at them. The tip had passed along from lip to lip. They were like wild beasts roused by the presence of prey. Their eyes gleamed with relentless lust. They eyed the little creature with ravening eyes. Her helplessness ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the right and left, gave access to these seats, at either end of the oval arena, were also the entrances for the combatants. Strong palings at these passages prevented any unwelcome eccentricity in the movements of the beasts, and confined them to their appointed prey. Around the parapet which was raised above the arena, and from which the seats gradually rose, were gladiatorial inscriptions, and paintings wrought in fresco, typical of the entertainments for which the place was designed. Throughout the whole building wound invisible pipes, from ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... and fro. As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: And underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. The atones thereof are the place of sapphires, And it hath dust of gold. That path no bird of prey knoweth, Neither hath the falcon's eye seen it: The proud beasts have not trodden it, Nor hath the fierce lion passed thereby. He putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock; He overturneth the mountains by the roots. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the laity: "Some among you are like your own maccacos or monkeys amongst us who, keeping possession of anything they have stolen, will sooner suffer themselves to be taken and killed, than to let go their prey. So impure swine wallow in their filth and care not ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Monster Man-trap leaps from bough to bough with horrible agility, and eventually secures his prey, and leaps with it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... Turco, Ben-Ahmed, dark arms naked to the shoulder, bounded behind the frightened wretches, cornering, hunting them through flower-beds and bushes, stealthily, keenly, now creeping among the shadows, now springing like a panther on his prey, until his blue jacket reeked ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... all licenses to trade with the Red Sea. Even when such a powerful ruler as the king of Gujarat asked permission to send ships to Aden, Albuquerque refused, and every vessel carrying merchandise in that direction was regarded as legitimate prey. The next step to closing the sea by means of {152} the superiority of the Portuguese vessels was to build fortresses in spots commanding the trade routes. This was why Albuquerque laid such weight on the necessity ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens |
