"Tabby" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... liberate Pharaoh's slaves right under his very nose, and to lead them across that great and terrible wilderness. A WILD-CAT AFFAIR, if ever there was one! When were God's schemes otherwise? Look at Jordan, Jericho, Gideon, Goliath, and scores of others. Tame tabby-cat schemes are stamped with another hall mark—that of the Chocolate Brigade! How dearly they love their tabbies yet think themselves wise men! REAL CHRISTIANS REVEL IN DESPERATE VENTURES FOR CHRIST, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with exhilaration. History cannot ...
— The Chocolate Soldier - Heroism—The Lost Chord of Christianity • C. T. Studd
... against the knife-blade. The boy then began to manipulate the knife with extreme caution as he kept on making a soft purring noise, ah-h-h-h-ha! full of triumphant satisfaction, while a big curled-up tabby tom-cat, which had taken possession of the fellow chair to that occupied by Aleck, twitched one ear, opened one eye, and then seeing that the purring sound was only a feeble imitation, went off to ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... Pit of Tophet, sprang with a bound upon the table and stood there steadfastly regarding me, its eyes flashing and its back arched. I have seen cats without number, Chinese, Persian, Manx, the Australian wild cat, and the English tabby, but never in the whole course of my existence such another as that owned by Dr. Nikola. When it had regarded me with its evil eyes for nearly a minute, it stepped daintily across to its master, and rubbed itself backwards and forwards against his arm, then ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast! Thumps, kicks,—no manner of use!—spite of them rolls at last Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too: Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils—snouts that sniffed Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame! Horrified, hideous, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... stood in a solitary corner under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering Sir ROGER winked to me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself; for, besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the cat ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... that a secretary in a tabby-gray dress and gold eye-glasses was venturing to appraise her, Miss Joline remarked, in a high, clear voice: "Beastly bore to have to wait, isn't it! I suppose you can rush right in to see Mr. Truax any time you want to, ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Almanack of years— The prim old maid, and, by her side, her Niece, Full of bewitching beauty, health, and love. See, how the tabby watches Laura's eyes, Lest they should smile upon some pleasing spark, And violate grim prudery's tyrant ties. With icy finger, she her charge directs, To view the faithful dial of the sun, Whose moral tells how tide and time pass on. See, there—the fated victim of mischance; Read, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... had just been swept up, there was a smell of hot bread, and a row of freshly-baked loaves were cooling on the dresser; the firelight shone on the gleaming pewter and brass utensils, and a great tabby cat sat purring on the elbow of Nathaniel's chair. I thought he seemed a little confused at my entrance, for he got up rather awkwardly and shuffled his papers together, so I took pity on his embarrassment, and only spoke ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... then Has it in her power again: Now she works with three or four, Like an Indian conjurer; 30 Quick as he in feats of art, Far beyond in joy of heart. Were her antics played in the eye Of a thousand standers-by, Clapping hands with shout and stare, 35 What would little Tabby care For the plaudits of the crowd? Over happy to be proud, Over wealthy in the treasure Of her ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... to hear it," replied he. "What is it? and whom threatens it? The red cow or the tabby cat? Poor puss!" and he stooped down and stroked her as ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... down, to cuddle the darling little woolly lambs of sleep. Then the first inhabitant appeared; it was the Burnells' cat Florrie, sitting on the gatepost, far too early as usual, looking for their milk-girl. When she saw the old sheep-dog she sprang up quickly, arched her back, drew in her tabby head, and seemed to give a little fastidious shiver. "Ugh! What a coarse, revolting creature!" said Florrie. But the old sheep-dog, not looking up, waggled past, flinging out his legs from side to side. Only one of his ears twitched to prove ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... shimmering in cream satin was the animated heart of another group. His love for scandal and his facility for acquiring the latest tidbit made him the delight of many an old tabby cat. Now his eyes shone with the joy of imparting a ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... other boys into all sorts of scrapes and trouble. One day they would hide poor Jenny's spectacles, and then when search was made the lost treasure would be found in some one else's desk. Or they would tie cotton reels on the four feet and tail of the old tabby cat, and launch her, with a horrid clatter, right into the middle of the room, just as I or one of the others happened to be scampering out. Or they would turn the little boys' forms upside down, and compel them with terrible threats to sit on the iron feet, and ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... everybody wore and said. I was told that Lady Caroline Lamb was there, enveloped in the folds of an ermine cloak, which she called a 'cat-skin,' and that she talked a great deal about a periodical she wished to get up, to be called 'Tabby's Magazine'; and with her was an exceedingly haughty, brilliant, and beautiful girl, Rosina Wheeler,—since well known as Lady Bulwer Lytton,—and who sat rather impatiently at the feet of her eccentric 'Gamaliel.' Miss Emma Roberts was one of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... vase's side Where China's gayest art had dy'd The azure flowers, that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima reclin'd Gazed on the ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... lass? I bear you no ill-will: you set me free. I'm a wildcat, all bristling fur and claws: At Krindlesyke, I've been a wildcat, caged: And Michael never twigged! Son, don't you mind The day we came—was I a tabby then? The day we came here, with no thought to bide, Once we had got the plunder; and were trapped Between these four white walls by a dead woman? She held me—forced my feet into her shoes— Held me for your sake. Ay: there seemed some link 'Twixt your dead grannie and you, too strong for ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... ever-present fear was very little comforted by prayer. But she found comfort in Mrs. Grayson. She liked to stay on in the old kitchen, watching Mrs. Grayson's household ways, making friends with the stolid tabby cat, or listening to stories of Jim as a child. Sometimes she would read parts of George's letters to this new friend. Bridget never cared to hear them; and she was more completely at ease with the farmer's wife even than ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... only the souls of the departed who are supposed to be hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale year." Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping through the air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on tabby-cats, which for that evening are turned into coal-black steeds.[575] The fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about In South Uist and Eriskay there ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... all these ideas from books, and great trouble I found myself in one day for playing at tiger-hunting in the garden at home with Buzzy, my aunt's great tabby tom-cat; and for pretending that Nap was a lion in the African desert. But I'll tell you that in a chapter to itself, for these matters had a good deal to do with the alteration in my ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... heartily. "Partner, if it wasn't for something funny about his eyes, I wouldn't be no more afraid of that gunman than I am of a tabby-cat. And me a weak woman. The quietest lookin' sort that ever come to Brownsville. But there's something queer about him. He knows that Mac Strann is here in town. He knows that Mac Strann is waiting for Jerry to die. He ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... womans gown, of printed cotton of the sort called brocade print, very remarkable, the ground dark, with large red roses, and other large and yellow flowers, with blue in some of the flowers, with many green leaves; a pair of womens stays covered with white tabby before, and dove colour'd tabby behind, with two large steel hooks and sundry ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair—her muffled words, And how she'd open her green eyes, As if in some immense surprise, Whenever as we sat at tea, She made ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... native deserts. Let it once become a fashion for sovereigns and other great men to keep and to caress them, we shall see camels as variegated as cats, which in the woods are all of the uniformly-streaked tabby—the males inclining to the brown shade—the females to blue among them;—but being bred down, become tortoise-shell, and red, and every variety of colour, which domestication ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... glad I am, that the ould craythur is fairly off—for divil a bit of comfort did she give the laste of us with her time-saving orderly ways. And it's not an owld maid ye must ever be, darlint Miss Enna, or ye'll favor the troublesome aunty with her tabby notions." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... think last Tuesday I'd be begging to-day, Emma," interrupted a young man from across the stream of water which ran down the centre of Main Street. "I'm sitting on your aunt Tabby's trunk." The girl gave a cry, half of pained remembrance, half of pleasure. "Oh, my dear Aunt Tabby!" she cried, and, rushing across the rivulet, she threw herself across the battered leather trunk—sole surviving relic of Aunt Tabby; but Aunt Tabby and the finding ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... chirps, and a playful peck upon the head, whereupon he resigned his place, into which the other immediately settled, with a soft, complacent, cooing note, as expressive of perfect content as the purring of a well-fed tabby, stretched cosily upon the earth-rug before a cheerful winter evening fire. This transfer was effected so quickly, that Johnny was baffled in an ill-bred attempt which he made to pry into the domestic concerns of the affectionate pair, and he ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and get on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... arrived, and has not re- appeared: but I must wait some time longer for him. Thank Miss Barton much for the kit; if it is but a kit: my old woman is a great lover of cats, and hers has just kitted, and a wretched little blind puling tabby lizard of a thing was to be saved from the pail for me: but if Miss Barton's is a kit, I will gladly have it: and my old lady's shall be disposed of—not to the pail. Oh rus, quando te aspiciam? Construe that, Mr. Barton.—I ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... moment the latter stood his ground with arched back and snarling face, for all the world like a great, spotted tabby. ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Steve kept his face turned toward the spot where the last savage snarl had been heard. He had a vague suspicion that perhaps the beast might try to stalk them, just as he had seen a domestic tabby do ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... counteracted the bulk of her body, and betrayed the fact that in reality she was both vigorous and alert. When he first caught sight of her she was knitting in a low chair against the sunlight of the wall, and something at once made him see her as a great tabby cat, dozing, yet awake, heavily sleepy, and yet at the same time prepared for instantaneous action. A great mouser on the watch occurred ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... entertainment while he talked to Madge. Tania was watching him, breathless with admiration and terror. The captain would take hold of one of the great, crawling things, rub it softly on its horned head as one would rub a tabby cat to make it purr. He would then set the lobster up on its hind claws and the funny crustacean would fall quietly asleep, as though it ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... are whitish,' or 'Most domestic cats are tabbies' (but this probably is the ancestral colouring). We may then resort to statistics for greater definiteness, and find that in Hampshire (say) 90 per cent. of the domestic cats are tabby. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... states that domestic cats coloured nearly like F. chaus, but not resembling that species in shape, abound in {45} Bengal; he adds, "such a colouration is utterly unknown in European cats, and the proper tabby markings (pale streaks on a black ground, peculiarly and symmetrically disposed), so common in English cats, are never seen in those of India." Dr. D. Short has assured Mr. Blyth[92] that at Hansi hybrids between the common cat and F. ornata (or torquata) occur, "and that many of ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... meadow-brook Reading, and oh, it was too lovely; I never saw such a charming book." The charming book must have pleased her, truly, There's a happy light in her bright young eyes And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor, To staid old Tabby's intense surprise. ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... in a sunbeam Where Tabby's babies play. The hen is softly brooding, Her chickens came to-day. Up in the crimson maple The mother robin sings; The world is full of caring For little helpless things. MARY E. WILKINS. From "Songs of Happy ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... for a bit. I'll find the money somehow. I won't have you baited by all the old tabby-cats ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Prince of Wales Brantford's Welcome to the Prince of Wales, 1860 A Call for Help to Garibaldi Lines suggested by New York Tribune's Account of Lincoln's Departure from Springfield for Washington "Sumter has Fallen, but Freedom is Saved!" Song, "My Love is no Gay, Dashing Maid" The Sewing Machine Tabby and Tibby Lines Composed ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... Wienerwurst was biting the tails of the Pretty Pink Pigeons again; and Brownie was chasing the rabbits; and the Geese were flapping their wings and crying, "hiss, hiss!"; and the Pigeons were flying back to their home on the roof; and Rover had his mouth full of White Geese feathers; and Tabby was swallowing the little fish—and—and—Marmaduke ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... old house, set in the midst of a wide lawn, brown and sere now with approaching winter, and surrounded by huge, knotted, gnarled, old oaks, whose dry leaves still clung to the twisted branches and rustled in the crisp air. A fat, sleek, black Tabby lay asleep on the warm porch-rail; a gaunt, ungainly greyhound lay sunning himself on the door mat, and from inside somewhere came the sound of a canary's riotous song. The whole place breathed of home, and with a deep sigh ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... time away; town-bred puppies, with insolent stare, were lounging at every turn, their delicate paws proving how little they were used to labour. On one side Bruin observed a gracefully-proportioned white cat, veiled, gliding demurely along, whilst a strong tabby, her nurse, purred behind, with three little kittens in her arms, mewing to their hearts' content; and on the other several huge mastiffs, stalking gravely in a row, like policemen in our London streets going to their beats, the ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... old tabby that I set such store by? She died along in March, and I buried her under the sugar-maple side of the barn. The maples didn't do as well ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... high standing in society, the pride of her husband, and the mother of an infant daughter, only a few miles from us, ay, in D- County, too, was actually beating in the skull of a slave-woman called Tabby; and not content with that, had her tied up and whipped, after her skull was broken, and she died hanging to the bedstead, to which she had been fastened. When informed that Tabby was dead, she answered, 'I am glad of it, for she has worried my life out of me.' But Tabby's ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... triumphed. "I always knew that she was a dreadful old tabby. I wish you were safely out of her clutches. Come and live with me, my dear, when Mrs. Lander gets tired of you. But she'll never get tired of you. You're just the kind of helpless mouse that such an old ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cat to yourself; and after all, you are cherished here chiefly because it was Lily's wish. Peggy can easily find another kitten; and you know she has often said that white cats were not to her taste, and she should much prefer a tabby." ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... scion of the peerage, but had never before seen one in her own house, had not a minute to spare for her, being far too much engrossed in observing the habits of the animal. These certainly were peculiar, since she insisted on a waltz round the room with the tabby cat, and ascended a step-ladder, merrily spurning Jasper's protection, to insert the circle of tapers on the crowning chandelier. There was nothing left for Dolores to do but to sit by in the window-seat, philosophizing ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that the Dey was greatly annoyed by rats, and loaned him the cat. The rats disappeared so rapidly that the Dey wished to buy the cat, but the captain would not sell until a very high price was offered. With the purchase-money was sent a present of valuable pearls for the owner of Tabby. When the ship returned the sailors were greatly astonished to find that the boy owned most of the cargo, for it was part of the bargain that he was to bring back the value of his cat in goods. The London ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... mod'rate, he quits winner. He travels back to Sni-a-bar as tame as tabby cats in persooance with Enright's commands, an', once thar, old man Parks an' the rest of 'em whistles him through the marital chute a heap successful. When he shows up among us, his blushin' Peggy bride on his arm, he's wearin' all the brands an' y'ear marks of a thor'ughly ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Moore no time to throw a gun on Cherokee where he's consoomin' flapjacks at the O. K. House, an' tell him the committee needs him at the New York Store. Cherokee don't buck none, but comes along, passive as a tabby cat. ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... went on. "How is this, Sally, dear?— 'A handsome orange male Persian cat, also a tabby, immense coat, brushes and frills, is offered in exchange for an electro-plated revolving covered dish or an ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... feels the need of a bath he hangs a musk bag round his neck—and then, as the saying is, the warmer the sweeter. His companion of the gentler sex apparently has the same idea of performing daily ablutions that a tabby cat has. You recall the tabby-cat system, do you not?—two swipes over the brow with the moistened paw, one forward swipe over each ear, a kind of circular rubbing effect across the face—and call it a day! Drowning must be the most frightful death that a Parisian sidewalk favorite ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Beatrice's quilt now, her chair drawn up as usual to face the sunny garden, and on the footstool at her feet her favorite tabby ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... brilliant society queen full of tyrannical whims and capricious demands. When this was commented on as surprising, he explained that after playing with a squirrel one likes to take a cat in his lap. Really, it is so restful that the building suggests a big yellow tabby purring sleepily in the sunshine. I sat on the veranda, or piazza, taking a sun-bath, in a happy dream or doze, until the condition of nirvana was almost attained. What day of the week was it? And the season? Who could tell? ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... play a scarcely noticed but undoubtedly beneficial part in the education and life of children. Which of us does not remember powerful but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds dying in captivity, dull-witted but haughty turkeys, mild old tabby cats, who forgave us when we trod on their tails for fun and caused them agonising pain? I even fancy, sometimes, that the patience, the fidelity, the readiness to forgive, and the sincerity which are characteristic of our domestic animals have a far stronger and more definite effect on ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... learned to understand their language, and often she did not know what they wanted her to do. However, as she was a good, kindhearted girl, she set to work to pick up the little kittens which tumbled about on the floor, she patched up quarrels, and nursed on her lap a big tabby—the oldest of the community—which had a lame paw. All these kindnesses could hardly fail to make a favourable impression on the cats, and it was even better after a while, when she had had time to grow accustomed to their strange ways. Never had the house been kept so ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... (have you not observed it?) I am altered of late!—I, that was ever light of heart, the very soul of gayety, brimfull of glee, am now demure as our old tabby—and not half as wise. Tabby had wit enough to keep her paws out of the coals, whereas poor I have—but no matter what. It will never come to pass, I see that. So many reasons for every thing! Such looking forward! Arthur, are not men sometimes ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... as he rose and went to carry the milk-pails into the pantry, calling coaxingly, as he did so, "Kitty! kitty! You had your milk? Don't you joggle, now!" For one eager tabby rose on her hind legs, in purring haste, and hit her nose against ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... and that gang. Pick out the fellows that count, as you go along, and just remember this, if you forget the rest: if you want to put ducks in Tabby's bed or nail down his desk, do it because you want to do it, not because some other fellow wants you ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... Queen; to count up to five in chips of fire-wood, and to seven in mutton bones; to howl for all deaths in the family above the degree of second cousin; to post letters, and refuse them when they have been insufficiently stamped; and last, and most intolerable, to show a tender solicitude when tabby is out of sorts." The dog, indeed, for the most part, has become as sentimental and conventional a figure in current fiction as the ghost who haunts the ouija board or the idealistic soldier returned from the wars to reconstruct his ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... that we would find him by pounding hard on the gateway leading to the Avenue de la Gare, we hastened away, leaving her to babble her imprecations to a lazy tabby cat who lay sunning itself ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... both clothed in white tabby, his suit laced with a very broad gold and silver lace. The bride had on her head a coronet set full of diamonds, with a diamond collar about her neck and shoulders, a diamond girdle of the same fashion, and a rich diamond jewel at her breast, which ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... dress in which I shall dance with you at the party at Green Spring which the governor is to give in your honor—if you ask me, sir. Oh, I take it for granted that you will, so spare us your protestations. 'Tis to have a petticoat of blue tabby and an overdress of white satin trimmed with yards and yards of Venice point. The stockings are blue silk, and come from the French house in Covent Garden, as doth the scarf of striped gauze and the shoes, gallooned with silver. Then there ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... not be expected to show, in painful precocity, feelings which ought never to be experienced till they come at the proper age. Our kittens play at cat-sports, little Tom and Tabby together; but little Tabby does not play she ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... a deal of it on myself," Mrs. Tugwell began to moan, as soon as he was gone; "for I have cockered Dan up, and there's no denying it, afore Tim, or Tryphena, or Tabby, or Debby, or even little Solomon. Because he were the first, and so like his dear father, afore he got on in the world so. Oh, it all comes of that, all the troubles comes of that, and of laying up of money, apart from your wife, and forgetting almost of her Christian ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... among books as he is among flowers. No poet of today seems more self-sufficient. Although a lover of humanity, he seems to require no companionship. He is no more lonely than a cat, and has as many resources as Tabby herself. Now when he talks about books, his poetry becomes intimate, and forsakes all objectivity. His humour, a purely intellectual ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... pending. The Allies were allied only in name; they gnashed their teeth at one another across the council-table in Paris. The lying game of diplomacy had been revived. Poison-notes were being exchanged. The tabby-cat statesmen who had been too old to fight, were busy sowing the seeds of future wars. The politicians who had nailed mankind to the cross, were casting lots for the raiment which had survived the sacrifice. No one asked, "Is this righteousness?" ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... close the outer door softly behind her, the girl's heart throbbed in response to the old woman's sorrow. While she sat on the bench to lace her shoes the cat, old Tabby, came rubbing and purring about her skirts. Muffled, as though from a great distance, a rooster vented a questioning crow as though he doubted that it was yet time to announce the birth ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... in a magnificent shrine to public admiration. Every knee was bent, every hand strewed flowers or poured incense, and grimalkin was treated in all respects as the god of the day. But on the festival of St. John, poor tom's fate was reversed. A number of the tabby tribe were put into a wicker basket, and thrown alive into the midst of an immense fire kindled in the public square by the bishop and his clergy. Hymns and anthems were sung, and processions were made by the priests and people in honour of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... smoky, creaking, groaning, dismal old house. I shall feel like a younger man when we get into my splendid brick mansion, as, please Heaven, we shall by this time next autumn. You shall have a room on the sunny side, old Tabby, finished and furnished as best may suit ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... drained a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and was priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's quick stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is grey, or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at dinner sat, Did beckon to his hussar, And bid him bring his tabby cat For charming Nell to ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... proudly forth they went On sport intent. "Oh, Tom! if we should shoot a hare," Cried one, The elder son, "How father, sure, would stare!" Look there! what's that?" "Why, as I live, a cat," Cried Bill, "'tis mother Tibbs' tabby; Oh! what a lark She loves it like a babby! And ain't a cat's eye, Tom, as good a mark As any bull's eyes?" And straight "Puss! puss!" he cries, When, lo! as Puss approaches, They hear a squall, And see a head and fist above ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... day dawned, the shower of kittens began. Some were white and some were tabby, and all were about the same loathsome age. Three were on his hearth-rug, three in his bath-room, and the other six turned up at intervals among the visitors who came to see the prophecy break down. Never was a more satisfactory Sending. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... gave Shock cream; and she often made me carry him when I went out a-walking. For this reason I hated him, and when we were out of my aunts' hearing I used to pull his tail and his ears and make the poor little thing howl sadly. My Aunt Penelope had a large tabby cat, which I also hated and used ill. I remember once being sent out of the dining-room to carry Shock his dinner, Shock being ill, and laid on a cushion in my aunts' bedroom. As I was going upstairs I was so unfortunate as to break the ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... analyzing, every word I came across—noun, genitive, singular, feminine—when its meaning was quite plain. I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it—order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby. But as I got deeper into the subject, I became more interested, and the beauty of the language delighted me. I often amused myself by reading Latin passages, picking up words I understood and trying to make sense. I have never ceased ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... all the day I give and take delight, Doubt not, sufficient will be left at night. 'Tis but a just and rational desire To light a taper at a neighbour's fire. There's danger too, you think, in rich array, 140 And none can long be modest that are gay. The cat, if you but singe her tabby skin, The chimney keeps, and sits content within: But once grown sleek, will from her corner run, Sport with her tail, and wanton in the sun: She licks her fair round face, and frisks abroad To show her fur, and ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... postures, that even a pair of frisky kittens, that had been chasing each other round the grassplot and up and down the stems of the cherry-trees, ceased their gambols and lay still, crouching in the grass, and watching her graceful motions, as if taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... from shore with his paddle. The impetus took her at unawares, and she fell forward; her basket struck against the boat's gunwale, its cover flew open, and forth from it, half-demented with fright, sprang her tabby cat, Methuselah. The poor brute lit upon the parrot's cage, which happened to be balanced upon an unstable pile of cooking utensils at the end of Nicky Vro's thwart. Cat, cage and parrot, a gridiron, two cake tins, a bundle of skewers, and ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I can tell you! and she handled the matter shrewdly too. So was Esdras and Silas, and a sort more lads, a-crying, 'Scratch him, Tabby!' and she ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... basement, and from cellar-stone to eaves was forty-five feet. There were four chimneys and sixteen fireplaces, and twenty rooms above the first floor. The walls at the base were six feet in thickness, and above the ground four feet. They were composed of the material known as "tabby," a mixture of shells, lime and broken stone or gravel with water; which mass, being pressed in a mould of boards, becomes when dry as hard and durable as rock. The walls are now as solid as stone itself. The second story above the terrace contained the principal rooms: the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... upon his past and wonder what he should have become in life if this or that crucial event had not occurred to set his destiny. It seems to me that if it had not been for the sudden death of my father I, too, might have found our jungle beast a domestic tabby, and have fed it its prey without realizing what I was about. I should have been a lawyer, I know; for I had had the ambition from my earliest boyhood, and I had been confirmed in it by my success in debating at school. (Once, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... Tutt," returned the judge good-naturedly. "Your client seems to have loved not wisely but too well." And they all poured out happily into the corridor—that is, all of them except Caput and the two ladies, who remained seated upon their bench gazing fiercely and disdainfully at each other like two tabby cats on a fence. ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... treatment of the Misses Perley was not imitated by them. They never alluded to their affluent neighbor, never suffered gossip concerning the Boones in what Olympia humorously called the "Orphic adytum," the "tabby-shop," as Wesley named the Perley parlors. Young Dick, however, had none of the scruples that kept his aunts silent. One dreadful day, when he had been nagged to fisticuffs with Wesley, whose dudish ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... expressions of the interplay of all the internal secretions. It used to be said by smart cats and accepted by the tabby cats, that a woman was a woman because of her ovaries alone. It is being said by some great discoverers of the day that man is a man because of his testes alone. Neither of these dogmas is true. There are individuals ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... misfortune! direful calamity! Why? Read, and you will be as wise as myself. In the middle watch of this night, our two cats—have I told you that we brought two cats from England with us?—as was their wont, were skylarking and cutting capers on the hammock nettings and davits, when tabby the lesser, instead of jumping on something palpable, made a leap on space with the natural result, for he lighted on water and was rapidly whirled astern by the inky waters of the Tartar gulf. Poor pussy, little did we dream, or you either, that Siberian waters were to sing your requiem! We feel ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... a dangerous man. He was thin and pale, with light blue eyes and sleek fair hair; and as weak physically as he was strong mentally. In his neat clerical garb, with a slight stoop and meek smile, he looked a harmless, commonplace young curate of the tabby cat kind. No one could be more tactful and ingratiating than Mr Cargrim, and he was greatly admired by the old ladies and young girls of Beorminster; but the men, one and all—even his clerical brethren—disliked and distrusted him, although there was no apparent reason for their ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... scarlet tabby negligee,—a sort of undress, or sack, then much in vogue,—which suited her to admiration, and upon her head had what was called a fly-cap, with richly-laced lappets. Mrs. Maggot was equipped in a light blue riding-habit, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... coyote swells a chorus from the cliffs, and the rich note of the night-storm is accentuated by the long screech of the puma prowling on the heights. In daylight his brother, the wild-cat, reminds one of Tabby at home by the fireside. There is the lynx, too, among the rocks; and on the higher planes the deer, elk, and bear have their homes. In Green River Valley once roamed thousands of bison. The more arid districts have the fewest large animals, and conversely the ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... step and shining, rosy face, rejoicing at once in the odor of sanctity and of a good dinner. The sight of this placidly lazy and provokingly comfortable churchman had upon the man of law the same effect that the sight of a sleek tabby has upon a terrier. In two minutes Master Geoffrey has jostled against the friar and contrived to pick a quarrel with him. Hereupon followed a lively game at single-stick, in which, no doubt, Chaucer's fellow-students ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... washing her kitten, or keeping it warm. She can even play with it and so educate it, in so far as it needs education. There are mothers in all classes of the community who should be ashamed to look a tabby ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... "Sweet Home" in his ears, it would have brought the tears to his eyes. He thought of everything connected with his hallowed home: of the good-natured spinster who was his housekeeper, and of the ten-acre lots upon his farm; of the red steers and the gray mare; of the shaggy watch-dog and the tabby-cat; of home in all its minutiae. Its familiar scenes visited him with a vividness which added ten-fold to their influence. He was as far abstracted as the mosquitos, which gathered in swarms upon every tenable spot of his flesh, would permit, when his meditations ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... her food and shelter from her birth, Who joined in all her harmless youthful mirth; But, when they went for holidays to roam, Shut-to the door of what had been her home, And thoughtless left to die upon the mat, Their faithful but forgotten Tabby-cat." ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... time of the Brontes the village women dried their linen on these graves. Close to the wall which divides the churchyard from the vicarage is a plain stone set by Charlotte Bronte to mark the grave of Tabby, the faithful servant who served the Brontes from their childhood till all but Charlotte were dead. The very ancient church-tower still "rises dark from the stony enclosure of its yard;" the church itself has been remodeled and much of its romantic interest destroyed. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... at equable temperature, should wear light colours. Light colours are far the best for sporting purposes, as they are usually much less conspicuous than black or rifle-green. Almost all wild beasts are tawny or fawn-coloured, or tabby, or of some nondescript hue and pattern: if an animal were born with a more decided colour, he would soon perish for want of ability to ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... parson in his silk cassock, and his helpmate in brown damask. Old General Atkinson in scarlet velvet, and his wife and daughters in white damask. The Governor in black velvet, and his lady in crimson tabby trimmed with silver. The ladies wore bell-hoops, high-heeled shoes, paste buckles, silk stockings, and enormously high head-dresses, with lappets of Brussels lace hanging ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on all the same, pore wurkhus ijets as me an' Bart are, not bein' able to make you an' Miss Sylvia 'appy. Miss Sylvia Krill an' Norman both," ended Deborah with emphasis, "whatever that smooth cat with the grin and the clawses may say, drat her fur a slimy tabby—yah!" ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... fixed on the back of the seat opposite, and never turned to the window even when a station was reached and called. On the other seat were two or three passengers, one of them a working woman who held a basket on her lap, in which was a tabby kitten. The woman opened the cover now and then, whereupon the kitten would put out its head, and indulge in playful antics. At these the fellow-passengers laughed, except the solitary boy bearing the key and ticket, who, regarding the kitten with his saucer eyes, seemed ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... a thing she said about men once (in the boarding house now) and often repeated. "They're very fond of saying women are cats," she once said. "Fools! It's men that are the cat tribe: tame cats, tabby cats, wild cats, Cheshire cats, tomcats and stray cats! Aren't they just? And look at them—tame cats are miserable creatures, tabby cats the sloppy creatures, wild cats ferocious creatures, Cheshire cats fool creatures, tomcats disgusting creatures, stray cats—on ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... cat trotted lordly down the path, waving his tail. He was an ordinary tabby with white paws, a slender young gentleman. A crouching, fluffy, brownish-grey cat was stealing up the side of the fence. The Mino walked statelily up to her, with manly nonchalance. She crouched before him and pressed herself on ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... this Mrs. Billings wasn't happy at home? We'll say she and her husband didn't gee worth a cent. They've got incompatibility to burn. The things she likes, Billings wouldn't have as a gift with trading-stamps. It's Tabby and Rover with them all the time. She's an educated woman in science and culture, and she reads things out loud at meetings. Billings is not on. He don't appreciate progress and obelisks and ethics, and things of that sort. Old Billings is simply a blink when it comes to such things. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the fish, or cuts the necks of hens, ducks, or geese which struggle and gurgle in their own blood; when pretty Fridoline, with her rosy little mouth and her long fair hair, leans out of her window to tend the honeysuckle, and over her head the neighbour's tabby cat is gently swaying her tail and watching, with her cunning green eyes, the swallow circling in the deepening purple—I do assure you that a man must be utterly devoid of taste for the picturesque not to stop and ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... up their minds to try no longer, and instead they lay on their backs on the grass and grumbled. It was clear that the world was against them, and what is the good of fighting in the face of such opposition? Bertram began the grumbling. 'Old Tabby,' he said,—that being the way in which he spoke of Miss Tabitha, his governess,—'is a beast. She makes me learn heaps of things which nobody can ever need ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... bow, and advanced to Mrs Lambert's chair, unhappily treading as he did so on the paw of a tabby cat, who resisted the indignity by a very prolonged yell and an angry ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... developed turned out well. They had occasion to enter one of the unoccupied huts down there and found a wild cat a little more than half grown, which they caught and carried home with them. He was of the usual tabby colour and by no means fierce, quickly yielding to the coaxing treatment of his captors. He made himself quite at home in the Shack, and we looked forward to a display of his ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... throat open, they walk round the prostrate carcase of their prey, growling and spitting like 'tabby' cats. They begin their operations in earnest, invariably on the buttock. A leopard generally eats the inner portion of the thigh first. A wolf tears open the belly, and eats the intestines first. A vulture, hawk, or kite, begins on the eyes; but a tiger invariably begins on the buttocks, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... mamma gave me that ribbon—I was playing out in the yard— She said to me most expressly: "Here's a ribbon for Hildegarde." And I went and put it on Tabby, and Hildegarde saw me do it; But I said to myself, "Oh, never mind, I don't believe she ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... my old tabby cat, who had just lost her kittens, and there were the little ducklings all cuddled ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... her calling you a hideous cat! Doesn't that show how angry she is? People should not get angry—should they, Pussy? She will box our ears next. I really think we had better go, my darling tabby." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... he tried a tender strain that melted in our ears, Thet brought up blessed memories and drenched 'em down 'ith tears; An' we dreamed uv ol' time kitchens, 'ith Tabby on the mat, Uv home an' luv an' baby days, an' Mother, an' ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away the stranded adventurer ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer |
