"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you want to be talking that way for?" he said. "Didn't we all give them hell? Didn't I bring back three prisoners myself. Three? It's five I would have had, only for a stray shell that bursted alongside of the communication trench and lifted two of them off me. Bad luck to that same shell, for a bit of it took me under the knee. But what matter? Only, mind this, what you did to the Prussian Guard wasn't in it with what that shell did to them two Boches. ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... among beautiful and captivating women much as a harmless domestic animal is admitted among them. This guardian experience I had gained early; this guardian experience had sternly and strictly guided me straight along my own poor narrow path, without once letting me stray aside, to the right hand or to the left. And now I and my trusty talisman were parted for the first time. Yes, my hardly-earned self-control was as completely lost to me as if I had never possessed it; lost to me, as it is lost every day to other men, in other critical situations, where ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... centre of the porch and stood sunning herself in a stray shaft of light, like a very bird of paradise. The "tempestuous petticoat," sky-blue and laced with silver, swelled proudly outwards, the gleaming satin bodice slipped low over the snowy shoulders and the heaving bosom, and the sleeves, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... mortal life such charms? The moon grows sickly at the sight of day, And early cocks have summoned me away: Yet I'll appoint a meeting place below, For there fierce winds o'er dusky vallies blow, Whose every puff bears empty shades away, Which guidless in those dark dominions stray. Just at the entrance of the fields below, Thou shalt behold a tall black poplar grow; Safe in its hollow trunk I will attend, And seize thy spirit when thou ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... like to note for instance, for my own satisfaction (though no fellow, thank God, was ever less a prey to the ignoble fear of inconsistency) that poor Mother's impugnment of my acquisition of Lorraine didn't in the least disconcert me. I did pick Lorraine—then a little bleating stray lamb collared with a blue ribbon and a tinkling silver bell—out of our New York bear-garden; but it interests me awfully to recognize that, whereas the kind of association is one I hate for my small ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Shoulthwaite Moss, following his occupations with constancy, and always obsequious in the acknowledgment of his obligations. It was observed that he manifested a peculiar eagerness when through any stray channel intelligence was received in the valley of the sayings and doings in the world outside. Nothing was thought of this until one day the passing pedler brought the startling news that the Lord Protector was dead. The family were at breakfast in the kitchen of the old house when this tardy ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... been in the habit of flying from his nest in the early morning for a brief survey of the Piazza. First, he would make his way to the famous well and, after a refreshing bath, would walk about on the ground for a while in search of stray morsels of food, perchance left by tourists the day before. Then, on the way back to his ledge, he would stop for a moment here and there among the statuary for a gossipy "coo" with one and another pigeon friend. But no matter how interested he became in the sights and ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... certainly summon fortitude to endure five years' deprivation of his society; sustained by the hope that having thereby purchased his security, you may yet reap the reward your heart demands, reunion with its worthless, degraded idol. I have watched, weighed, studied you; searched every stray record of your fair young life, found the clear pages all pure; and I have doubted, marvelled that you, lily-hearted, lily-souled, lily-handed, could cast the pearl of your love down in the mire, to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the air, the rim or margin of the sun appears to be a perfect circle, as defined, in outline, as if carved. By interposing an adjusted circular card, to cut off the direct rays of the sun, thus improvising an eclipse, not a stray ray of light is seen to dart in any direction from the sun, except what is reflected to the instrument, diffusively, from our atmosphere; thus proving that the corona, the coruscations or flashes of light, seen during a total or nearly total ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... eight years old, whom Mrs. Stewart was under the necessity of entrusting with this commission; for her own motions, and those of all her elder inmates, were closely watched. With ingenuity beyond her years, the child used to stray about among the soldiers, who were rather kind to her, and thus seize the moment when she was unobserved and steal into the thicket, when she deposited whatever small store of provisions she had in charge at some marked spot, where her father might find it. Invernahyle supported life ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in his art, and that shining in the power of deft and delightful expression, there is another sphere in which it would be expected that his power would prevail, but in which he had either no actual talent or very little. However we may admire The Haunch of Venison and other stray pieces, Goldsmith was really not a writer of what is now called "Society verse." In that delightful sphere Austin Dobson has no rival. In the higher realms of poetry there are many who will regret that necessity forced Goldsmith to turn almost exclusively to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... with a certain roundness about them such as one sees in a faultlessly sculptured statue, while unusual strength of character was written indelibly upon them. Her hair was slightly curly, and arranged with a careful carelessness that was very becoming, while here and there a stray ringlet, that had escaped the silver pin that confined it, seemed to coquet with the delicate fairness of ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... it, as there is nothing to show for any spiteful remark that has ever been made. Perhaps the man who said the thing had a gleam of satisfaction at the idea of taking a complacent-looking fool down a peg, but it is just as possible he did not know at the time that his stray shot had hit. He had thrown it as a boy throws a stone at a bird. And it not only demolished a foolish, happy conceit, but it wounded. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... readied ourselves for the final last long climb upward. If we were fortunate, we could cross Dammerung before nightfall; at the very least, we should bivouac tonight very near the pass. Our camp had been made at the last level spot; we partially hobbled the pack animals so they would not stray too far, and left ample food for them, and cached all but the most necessary of light trail gear. As we prepared to start upward on the steep, narrow track—hardly more than a rabbit-run—I glanced at Kyla ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... neither washing-day, nor cleaning-day nor marketing-day, nor Saturday, nor Monday—upon which consequently Diamond could be spared from the baby—his father took him on his own cab. After a stray job or two by the way, they drew up in the row upon the stand between Cockspur Street and Pall Mall. They waited a long time, but nobody seemed to want to be carried anywhere. By and by ladies would be going ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... to this poet's soul as meat and drink were to his body, and in the No Man's Land, "out of space, out of time," which his fancy created and where it loved to stray, he fashioned for himself the weirdest, strangest lady ever loved by mortal. The name he gave her was "Ligeia." She laid upon him no exactions, chastened him with no rebukes, demanded of him no service save that he should dream—and dream—and dream; for was not she herself formed ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... a body of cavalry was seen riding down from the direction of the Old Town. The Turks took them to be the long-expected reinforcements from Sicily. They are seen to fall upon stray parties of Turks; they must be the advance guard of Philip's army. Pi[a]li in alarm runs to his galleys; the Turks who had all but carried the long-contested bastion pause in affright lest they be taken in rear. In vain Mustafa, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... the difficulty of procuring wood, which they could only get from stray whaling ships, the islanders are obliged to build their dwellings of stone, in order to prevent their being demolished by the fierce and frequent hurricanes that assail the isolated little spot, exposed as it is to all the rude blustering blasts that career over the expanse of the Atlantic. ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Every now and then the man turned round to encourage the dog, and at last, as he did this, a gust of wind blew off his hat, which went careering down the road by the side of the omnibus. Quick as thought, the dog darted after the hat, chased it and 'rounded it up,' as if it were a stray lamb or sheep, and by the time his master had descended from the top of the omnibus to get his lost property, the dog was waiting for him, wagging his tail, with the hat safely ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... stray camel, a camel escaped from a circus and seeking the only human companionship he could discover,—in that case such an unusual apparition would have scared the laziest of Peasants into prompt resistance. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... understand the loving Lord the Holy Ghost, the leader and guide of Christ's people. When they err and stray from Jesus the way, and are drawn from Him as the truth, the Spirit comes with His rod of convic-tion and chastisement, to whip souls for their self-righteous pride and folly, back to Christ, to trust wholly in Him, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that was searching for sweets one day Through the gate of a rose garden happened to stray. In the heart of a rose he hid away, And forgot in his bliss the light of day, As sipping his honey he buzzed in song; Though day was waning, he lingered long, For the rose ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the wild duck cries, But in the love-light of thine eyes I, trembling, loose the trap. So flies The bird into the air. What will my angry mother say? With basket full I come each day, But now thy love hath led me stray, And I have ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... upon the Banking Department of the Bank, the principal statesmen (if not Parliament itself) would have enjoined on them to perform it. But no distinct resolution of Parliament has ever enjoined it; scarcely any stray word of any influential statesman. And, on the contrary, there is a whole catena of authorities, beginning with Sir Robert Peel and ending with Mr. Lowe, which say that the Banking Department of the Bank of England is only a Bank like any ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... then the provisions is excellent. Who would not take a trip to Margate? There's only one thing that rather adulterates the felicity—a drop of gall in the cup of mead!—and that is the horrid sea-sickness! learnedly called nostalgia; but call it by any name you please, like a stray dog, it is pretty ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... cats and unclean beasts as still remained for the consumption of the wealthier classes were sold to the populace. Over the doorways of these flesh markets might be read "Haec runt munera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo profuderunt." Men stood in archways and narrow passages lying in wait for whatever stray dogs still remained at large, noosed them, strangled them, and like savage beasts of prey tore them to pieces and devoured them alive. And it sometimes happened, too, that the equally hungry dog proved the more successful in the foul encounter, and fed upon the man. A ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... after you. It was a great success, and he made a rattling good speech, and you missed the whole thing; and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. We've asked half the people in front to supper—two stray Englishmen, all the Wilton girls and their governor, and the chap that wrote the play. And Seldon and his brother Sam are coming as soon as they get their make-up off. Don't stand there like that, but hurry. ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... the days of the new year lengthening. Then she fell into the weakness, to which humanity is prone, of hoping eagerly for some external circumstance that should lighten the inner darkness. A bit of stray news one day came to her with the shock of an apparent fulfilment of her vague expectation. Finney was passing through that part of the country preaching. Of all human beings she had ever met, this remarkable evangelist most impressed ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... surround him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts, torn from their connection; not by partial and imperfect glimpses caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... and gloved—not a hint of the ostrich egg or shaggy shutters visible, but a well-preserved bachelor of forty or forty-five; strictly in the mode and of the mode, looking more like some stray diplomat caught in the wiles of the Street, or some retired magnate, than a modest bank clerk on three thousand a year. The next instant he was tripping down the granite steps between the rusty iron railings—on his toes most of the way; the ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Diet then rose in their seats; they were as silent and shy as night-owls startled from their dark hiding- places by a stray sunbeam. They left the old session-hall at Ratisbon in gloomy silence, and when the door closed behind them, the German Diet had been buried, and the lid on its coffin ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of the storm," or "the roar of the waves," as poetical hyperboles; whereas they are very literal and expressive renderings of the sounds of horror incessant throughout a gale at sea. Our cabin, though very nice and comfortable in other respects, possessed an extraordinary attraction for any stray wave which might be wandering about the saloon: once or twice I have been in the cuddy when a sea found its way down the companion, and I have watched with horrible anxiety a ton or so of water hesitating which cabin it should enter and deluge, and it always seemed to choose ours. All these miseries ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... long after I first went to sea in the Breeze, and subsequently when removed to the old Kraaken line—of—battle ship, both of which were constantly part of blockading squadrons, could be compared to nothing more fitly than a dish of trifle, anciently called syllabub, with a stray plum here and there scattered at the bottom. But when, after several weary years, I got away in the dear old Torch, on a separate cruise, incidents came fast enough with a vengeance—stem, unyielding, iron events, as I found to my heavy ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... at her in a futile manner. Beads of perspiration were gathering upon his brow and he seemed upon the verge of swooning. As if from habit, however, he reached forth a trembling hand and deftly replaced a loose hairpin, then tucked in a stray lock which ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... he mused, as he picked it up. "Unless it's from Shag, telling me the fish are biting unusually well. I hope they're not, for I must do considerable to-day, and I don't want to be tempted to stray to the fields. ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... will not stray far away. There's half an acre of grass here, with bare rocks all around it. Your appetite will be leash enough to ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... with a curious fact. It is the farthest point that the limestone deposit extends in that direction. Beyond that, to the east and north, lie the primitive rocks of the Barren Grounds, into which the buffaloes never stray. Thus we observe the connexion that exists between the fauna of a country ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... seen old Mr. Govers stray an inch aside from the straight path of fidelity; but his wife had enhanced him with a lifelong suspicion that eventually ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... Fossie's dog looked down upon the world, sitting erect, with his golden padlock and chain glittering in any stray gleams of sunshine; his white coat evenly spotted with black, his long drooping ears, neat row of carefully-painted black curls across the forehead, and that proud smile which, though the whole village had been smitten down before him, would still ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... monsters learn of the presence of her boys, Yolkai Estsan kept them hidden away on the mountain side, but they chafed under confinement, so she made them bows and arrows and let them play about, but admonished them not to stray far from home. The boys promised to obey, but not long afterward, because in reply to their questions their mother told them she did not know who their father was, they became sulky and broke their promise, going off toward the east. They would go and search for someone who knew. When on a small ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... allowed to grow fainter; the dim groups gathered more and more round the great cauldrons, or passed, laughing and clattering, into the inner passages of that ancient house. Soon there were only some ten loiterers in the garden; soon only four. Finally the last stray merry-maker ran into the house whooping to his companions. The fire faded, and the slow, strong stars came out. And the seven strange men were left alone, like seven stone statues on their chairs of stone. Not one of them had spoken ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... dainty little catch-all upon the bureau, or hanging near it, and whenever you see a stray thread or bit of dirt, which you can pick up, don't neglect it, but let it's place be in the catch-all. This precaution will make sweeping an easy task and save your room from ever having a littered look. There will be no days of ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... Julius, or even Frank, and her amiable wishes prevailed to have them invited to Dunstone; but at the times specified there were hindrances. Anne had engagements at home, and Rosamond appeared to the rest of the family to be a perpetual refuge for stray De Lanceys, while Frank had to make up for his long enforced absence by a long unbroken spell ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to see the President. I said I should be very glad; so we entered. I supposed that the President would be in the midst of a crowd, and that I could look at him in peace and security from a distance, as another stray cat might look at another king. But it was in the morning, and the Senator was using a privilege of his office which I had not heard of—the privilege of intruding upon the Chief Magistrate's working hours. Before I knew ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... more day in which to finish his picture of Etna, and this was allowed him. Uncle John nevertheless confessed to being uneasy as long as they remained on the scene of his recent exciting experiences. Mr. Watson advised them all not to stray far from the hotel, as there was no certainty that Il Duca would not make another attempt to entrap them, or at least to be revenged for their escape ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... deployed a line of skirmishers, resting on our right and left flanks encircling our rear, in order to prevent a surprise from any detached force of the enemy that might approach us from that direction and to prevent any straggling of either stray animals or ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... a stray deer or two!" is the reply, as he passes his horn and flask to Romescos, who helps himself to a dose of the liquid, which, he says, smacking his lips, is ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... plagues them, the rocks, Rising all round, overawe; Factions divide them, their host Threatens to break, to dissolve— Ah, keep, keep them combined! Else, of the myriads who fill That army, not one shall arrive; Sole they shall stray; on the rocks Batter forever in vain, Die one by ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... once thought of) and settling down in that equable retreat to the congenial task of compiling his personal and military Memoirs. If he ever intended to live as a country squire in England, there were equal facilities for such a life in St. Helena, with no temptations to stray back into politics. The climate was better for him than that of England, and the possibilities for exercise greater than could there have been allowed. Books there were in abundance—2,700 of them at last: he had back files of the "Moniteur" for his writings, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... very old. The damp haze had entered the building, and obscuring half the clearstory it enhanced its stateliness, for the great carved pillars and arches led the wandering eye aloft and lost it in a mystery, while far up at the western end above the organ a gilded Gloria caught a stray shaft of light and blazed out of the gloom. I saw Grace's eyes rest on it, and then I followed them down across the sea of faces, along the quaint escutcheons, and over two marble tombs, until she fixed them on her father, who with his party sat in a high-backed ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... work, and it must be confessed that all were more or less worried. In the last town at which they had stopped, they had met a number of undesirable characters, and one man had told Dick that not a few outlaws were roaming around, ready to pick up stray horses, or money, or whatever they could get ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... and orchids far back in the moist shades, and creeping vines tangled in and out amongst the palms, and a strong sun, going down in an orange and crimson sky, and a cool, welcome breeze from the sea, that just lifts up the fans of the palms, and a stray curl on the forehead of a girl—for she was hardly more than a girl—who sat out on the tiny lawn, and at her feet the young naval officer, who had carried off his bride at the last season at the Castle and brought her here under southern skies, and believed that ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... found the body of Checkers lying beside the fatal red car not far from the scene of the holdup. He had been killed by a stray shot fired by one of his ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... the war, To the war so full of prey, Pleasure of the Haidamack! But the steward bids me stay, Lest the proud Pole's cows should stray! ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... Their talk, stray as it might, always came back to two subjects. They seemed never to tire of them. Three talked of their daughters-in-law, and bitterness rasped their throats. One talked of her son, and her voice ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... the lantern and the stars, there was light enough for William King to see the stray curl that blew across her forehead— brown, was it? And yet, William remembered that in daylight her hair was too bright to be called brown. He was solicitous lest he was making her walk too fast. "I don't want your brother ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... blacksmith's shop nor at the store across from it was there anything to awaken even a passing interest. Some farmers' teams and dogs, Pat Larkin's milk wagon with its load of great cans on its way to the cheese factory and some stray villagers here and there upon the street intent upon their business. Up the street his eye travelled beyond the crossroads where stood on the left Cheatley's butcher shop and on the right McKenny's hotel with attached sheds ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... calf. That's the worst of cattle raising. Now, take the buffalo. Do you suppose those wolves could have gotten a buffalo calf out from under the mother? Never. Neither could a whole band of wolves. Buffalo stick close together, and the little ones do not stray. When danger threatens, the herd closes in and faces it and fights. That is what is grand about the buffalo and what made them once roam the prairies ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... the variety of baked meats and the refined sauces and dishes of fish. Of the riddles and drinking songs, of the Greek rhetoric and philosophy, which played so great a part in the originals, we meet only a stray trace now and then in the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... proper, because it is the prerogative of children to "nash" on these occasions. But as the meal progressed, each father from time to time, while talking briskly to his neighbor, allowed his hand to stray mechanically into the plates and thence negligently backwards into the hand of his infant, who stuffed the treasure into his pockets. Sugarman fidgeted about uneasily; not one surreptitious seizure escaped him, and every one pricked him like a needle. Soon his soul grew punctured ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with a long, polished bamboo, and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze the cattle by themselves, while he went on with the buffaloes, and to be very careful not to stray ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... LADY KIRSTEN. Yet a stray one here and there! There is many a solitary family still dwells among the mountains since ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool, sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital in advance of the tidings of ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... returned towards the fatal rocks, against which the furious waves were beating, in order to save any stray waifs from the wreck. This man was always practical and thoughtful. I could not utter a word; I was quite overcome with emotion; my whole body was broken and bruised with fatigue; it took hours before ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... seized the Church of Saint-Roch; has seized the Pont Neuf, our piquet there retreating without fire. Stray shots fall from Lepelletier; rattle down on the very Tuileries staircase. On the other hand, women advance dishevelled, shrieking, Peace; Lepelletier behind them waving its hat in sign that we shall fraternise. Steady! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... now again left to their solitude and silence, a few stray persons visiting them only from curiosity, to see the place and its productions which had caused such excitement. But the mania did not abate all at once. A village patriarch, skilled in fairy lore, entertained ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... the most interesting incidents of the Revolutionary War are buried in old state documents, in family records, or in stray personal letters. Others are largely traditional; for our ancestors of pioneer days were doers rather than chroniclers ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say: Who shall go up for us to heaven or over the sea, and bring it unto us? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it' (xxx. 11-14). And there are here exquisite injunctions—to bring back stray cattle to their owners; to spare the sitting bird, where eggs or fledglings are found; to leave over, at the harvest, some of the grain, olives, grapes, for the stranger, the orphan, the widow; and not to muzzle the ox when treading out the corn (xxii. 1, ...
— Progress and History • Various
... felt the solemnity of the moment. It was as if the whole world—for all experience seemed at that instant concentrated in his own consciousness—were listening to the grating noise of that key. A stray puff of wind wandering down the empty street woke a momentary rustling in the trees behind them, but otherwise this rattling of the key was the only sound audible; and at last it turned in the lock and the heavy door swung open and revealed ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... him go, but when I spoke again there was no answer, and I devoted all my energy to my task, though it had become so monotonous that my thoughts began to stray, and I found myself wondering how matters were going in the cabin—whether they were very much alarmed by the noise of the steam, or whether they felt as confident as the mate did about our ultimate mastery of the fire, and how ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away: For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill were over the country side For the wonderful way that he fed his sheep, and the dodges and tricks he tried. He would lose his way on a Main Stock Route, and stray to the squatters' grass; He would come to a run with the boss away, and swear he had leave to pass; And back of all and behind it all, as well the squatters knew, If he had to fight, he would fight all day, so long as his sheep got through: But this is the story of Stingy Smith, the owner ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Charles Gould murmured, letting his glance stray away a little vacantly from the round face, with its hooked beak upturned towards him in an almost childlike appeal. "If it was the Capataz de Cargadores you met—and there is no doubt, is ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... He was a tired, worn-out beast, glad to rest when and where he could. He was unlikely to move until his master roused to make him, and the dawn might be no longer young when that happened, unless some stray pedestrian should chance ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... to beg you to communicate this to Nicholas Ivnovich. I greatly regret the error which led me openly to stray from the Holy Orthodox Church, to which I rejoice to have now returned. I hope you and Nicholas Ivnovich will follow the ...
— The Light Shines in Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... he felt drawn by a vague but strong attraction. He recognised the defects of his education, and formed the resolution, as far as possible, to regain lost ground. In the last five years he had read much and seen something; he had many stray ideas in his head; any professor might have envied some of his acquirements, but at the same time he did not know much that every schoolboy would have learnt long ago. Lavretsky was aware of his limitations; ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... with scarcely a change of feature, and tried to withdraw some stray fold of her garments from his grasp. He resisted; he would not let her go. His heart was aching with his own trouble, and with the consciousness of her loss—Angela's loss—all the suffering that Richard's death would inflict upon these two women who had ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... so; it is pleasant to feel the power, though at present I think it superfluous; wherever I look, I can only see rogues and fools, with a stray honest man now and then, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... catching a few stranger drakes and pinioning them. These birds, if kept up until their wound is healed, and then enlarged in good time, will pair with your own birds and often become very tame. I did not find that pinioning strange ducks answered so well, as they were very prone to stray and lay their eggs at a distance, and their young were always shy and difficult to tame; moreover, the ducks never bred the first year after pinioning, whereas the drakes did. It is quite a simple ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... low valley and the mountain peaks that shut it in. He felt his relation, too, not alone to all human life but to all created things. With everything that lived he felt himself kin. With the very dray horses on the street, dragging with patient courage their heavily loaded trucks; with the stray dog that dodged in and out among the wheels and hoofs of the crowded traffic; even with the sparrow that perched for a moment on the ledge outside the window near his desk, he felt a kinship that was ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... weight of her fur tippet, the pale face under the plumy hat took an unusual pink bloom; her eyes shone with a moist radiance. Rupert, glancing up at her, as, bent upon one knee, he sought for stray violets amid the thick green leaves, thought it was thus a maiden looked who waited to be won; and though all of true love that he could ever give to woman lay buried with his little bride, he felt his pulses quicken with a certain aesthetic pleasure in the situation. Presently he rose, and, after ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the Potomac," they say, "Except now and then a stray picket Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket. 'Tis nothing—a private or two, now and then, Will not count in the news of the battle; Not an officer lost—only one of the men, Moaning out, ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... upon her of the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a certain half-pleasing sense of the solemnity of the position and of its difficulties; but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or suffering her fancy to stray further than the facts justified; neither was she troubled by any idea of going beyond her sphere by interfering thus energetically in her friend's affairs. Phoebe did not easily take any such idea into her head. It seemed natural to her to do whatever might ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed the stone hard by—made ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... rain, which had continued ever since the skirmish at Clifton Wall. The guides who conducted Lord George's division led them off the road; this was, however, a necessary precaution in order to shun houses, the lights from which might have tempted the drenched and hungry soldiers to stray, and take shelter. Then the hardy and energetic general of his matchless forces first felt the effects of this laborious march in unusual ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... ruler of the queen's navee," he declared, laughing and following the dancing boy about in a wide circle. "He is a little mole that works underground intent upon worms. The trick he has of tilting up his nose is only his way of smelling out stray pennies. I have it from Banker Walker that he brings a basket of them into the bank every day. One of these days he will buy the town and put ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... re-combinations, by which the earth is made to bear its fruits, and to sustain its myriad life. The chief demand of this laboratory is for free ventilation. The raw material for the work is at hand,—as well in the wet soil as in the dry; but the door is sealed, the damper is closed, and only a stray whiff of air can, now and then, gain entrance,—only enough to commence an analysis, or a combination, which is choked off when half complete, leaving food for sorrel, but making none for grass. We must throw open door and window, draw away the water in which all is ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... that little arroya is crossed, he knows the prairie to be level and unimpeded, fit for a race; but he needs to make a detour to pass the Indians guarding it, get way beyond them, cross it to the west far behind them, and then look out for stray parties. Dandy ambles lightly along, eager for fun and little appreciating the danger. Ray bends down on his neck, intent with eye and ear. He feels that he has got well out east of the Indian picket unchallenged, when suddenly voices ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Field, Stray. The portion of a field of force outside of the regular circuit; especially applied to the magnetic field of force of dynamos expressing the portion which contributes nothing to the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... xl. 3) belongs to that part of the book which our critic and his fellow critics have decided was predicted by some stray prophet, unknown to the world, to the Jewish people or the church. We prefer the statement of John the Baptist, and its indorsement by John ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard
... another word on his own behalf, expressing thanks for the counsel that had been given to him, and assuring the poet that he would endeavour to profit by it. Then he walked away, over the very paths on which he had been accustomed to stray with Anna Lovel, and endeavoured to digest the words that he had heard. He could not bring himself to see their truth. That he should not force the girl to marry him, if she loved another better than she loved him, simply by the strength of her own obligation ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... lies the critical point which most of all distinguishes this faith. Words took effect, not merely in default of a serious use, but exactly in consequence of that default. It was the chance word, the stray word, the word uttered in jest, or in trifling, or in scorn, or unconsciously, which took effect; whilst ten thousand words, uttered with purpose and deliberation, were sure to prove inert. One case will illustrate this:—Alexander of Macedon, in the outset of his great expedition, consulted the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the Home. They were called "workhouse children." They had a metal plaque hung round their necks with a number on it. They were badly dressed, and so dirty! All the other children made fun of them and threw stones at them. They chased them like boys chase a lost dog, for fun, and because a stray dog has no one to protect it. Oh, I did not want to be like those children. I did not want to have a number hung round my neck. I did not want them to call after me, "Hi, Workhouse Kid; Hi Foundling!" The very thought of it ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... when we have a mind to, take a stray sheep now and then, or even a bullock would scarcely be missed, especially if our pals in the settlement will lend us a helping hand, which you may be sure they will do; in fact, they would know better than to refuse. Then ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... at the bottom of three desperate attempts upon his life, as well as of four efforts that had been made to rob him, and Elam thought he couldn't stand it any longer. He rode along just outside of the willows that skirted the foot-hills, so that he could not be picked off by a stray rifle shot, and keeping a close watch of the prairie on all sides of him, and when night came he hadn't seen anything of the robbers. When darkness fell, he allowed his horse to browse around him while he ate some ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... book of life, one would require the scrolls of eternity. War throws light on some of its stray pages as they flutter for a second on the wings of time and then disappear, but not before it has flung its cressets of light upon the black pall of doubt. Everyone now talks of psychic phenomena. In ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... carelessly by the captain, like a stray stone, whose fall one does not even watch, Colombe began to laugh, as well as Diane, Amelotte, and Fleur-de-Lys, into whose eyes at the same time a ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... next night he left for London, it was no light journey in those days for a man of his years, and who had never in all his life been farther away from Perthshire than Edinburgh. But he feared nothing. He was going into the wilderness after his own stray sheep, and he had a conviction that any path of duty is a safe path. He said little to any one. The people looked strangely on him. He almost fancied himself to be Christian going through ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... on the scattered coast guard stations, a signal of danger sent on from the Corbieres Lighthouse. But now not a single sail was to be seen, and huge banks of heavy blackening mists were rolling over the stormy channel. Not a stray sail was in sight! ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... I refuse?" he demanded hardily, but keeping his back to Garnache. The men stirred, and stray words of mingling wonder and anger ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... jib over, you Oofty!" Wolf Larsen commanded, the very second we had finished with the boat. "Kelly, come aft and slack off the main-sheet! You, Kerfoot, go for'ard and see what's become of Cooky! Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut away any stray stuff on your way!" ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... the girl made answer then: "Never played I yet with men; Cruel to me are my kin: My old mother scolds me when In some little thing I stray:— ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... whose peaceful bringing up the mother so cunningly provides, do not imitate her caution. They begin their hunting by lying in ambush about the nearest farm; the first stray chicken they see is game. Once they begin to plunder in this way, and feed full on their own hunting, parental authority is gone; the mother deserts the den immediately, leading the cubs far away. But some of them go ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... devoted to each other and quite happy together. Little Geoff from the first had adopted a protecting attitude toward his smaller cousin, and had borne himself like a gallant little knight in the one adventure of their lives, when a stray coyote, wandering near the house, showed his teeth to the two babies, whose nurse had left them alone for a moment, and Geoff, only two then, had caught up a bit of a stick and thrown himself in front of Phillida with such a rush and shout ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... of steel rails placed one above the other, and on these were sheets of corrugated iron and a huge tarpaulin to keep out the rain. Above, again, were 9 feet of solid earth, while rows upon rows of sandbags were piled outside the entrance to guard against splinters and stray bullets. The weighty roof was supported, as an additional precaution, on the inside by three stout wooden posts, which, together with the rather dim light, most apparent when descending from the brilliant sunshine outside, gave the bomb-proof the appearance of a ship's cabin; in fact, one of ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... now to see signs of settlements in the river bottoms where the forests grew. There were stray little log cabins, almost hidden among the oaks and pecans. Women and children came forth to see the riders go by. The women were tanned like the men, and often they, too, were clothed in buckskin. The children, bare of foot and head, seemed half wild, ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... POEMS. "Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace" "——————I yet remain" To the Rev. W. J. Hort To Charles Lamb To the Nightingale To Sara To Joseph Cottle Casimir Darwiniana "The early year's fast-flying vapours stray" Count Rumford's Essays Epigrams. On a late Marriage between an Old Maid and a French Petit Maitre On an Amorous Doctor "There comes from old Avaro's grave" "Last Monday all the papers said" To a Primrose, (the first seen in the season) On the Christening ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... it. They'll back into the station in a minute, and then we're done for." And suiting the action to the word, he rushed down the car towards the front of the train. The rest followed him with the best speed they could muster, falling over boxes and bundles, getting entangled in stray shoes, and running foul of swinging portieres. Fortunately the cars were vestibuled, so the platforms offered no impediment. The train seemed absolutely interminable, for as they dashed through sleeper after sleeper, one more always appeared ahead, and Banborough ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... under way. It was the same forest, admitting, on the narrow line which we threaded, but one man at a time. Its view was as limited. To our right and left the forest was dark and deep. Above was a riband of glassy sky flecked by the floating nimbus. We heard nothing save a few stray notes from a flying bird, or the din of the caravans as the men sang, or hummed, or conversed, or shouted, as the thought struck them that we were nearing water. One of my pagazis, wearied and sick, fell, and never rose again. The last of the caravan passed him ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... bore! How should this one live through the winter and know of all increase! How should that one spring to the sunlight and bear the blossom of peace! No more should the long-lived wisdom o'er the waste of the wilderness stray; Nor the clear-eyed hero hasten to the deedless ending of day. And what if the hearts of the Volsungs for this deed of deeds were born, How then were their life-days evil and the end of ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris |
