"Bird of paradise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... diagonally from upper hoist-side corner; the upper triangle is red with a soaring yellow bird of paradise centered; the lower triangle is black with five white five-pointed stars of the Southern ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and her companion entered the cottage, and to Ser Federigo's dazzled gaze everything seemed transformed. The little room became a stately banqueting-hall, the rustic chair on which his lady sat was transformed into a throne, and the poor falcon seemed a peacock or a bird of paradise. ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... known the map of New Guinea as we know it nowadays they would, no doubt, have described it as a Guinea fowl, Bird of Paradise or some such creature, as delineated above, in the same way as they described Java and other islands in ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... splendidly robed, who also bore gold vases, lotos-shaped, in which nestled the bird of paradise called Nok Kurraweek, the sweetness of whose song is supposed to ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... is so, until the resurrection; the seen material form is the last idea which each one hath given to the world, but the glorified body of each shall be as diverse from this, yet being the same, as the gorgeous tulip from its brown bulb, the bird of paradise from his spotted egg, or the spreading beech from the hard nut that had imprisoned it.—Then Imagination stood with me as an equal friend, and spake to me soothingly, saying, 'Knowest thou any of these?'—and I answered, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the two women, but she had her way. The Bonnie Lassie always does. So the bare studio was from time to time irradiated with Bobbie Holland's youthful loveliness and laughter. For there was much laughter between those two. Shrewdly foreseeing that this bird of paradise would return to the bare cage only if it were made amusing for her, Julien exerted himself to the utmost to keep her mind at play, and, as I can vouch who helped train him, there are few men of his age who can be as absorbing a companion as Julien when he chooses to exert ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... see how the constant minute variations, which are sufficient for Natural Selection to work with, could be sexually selected. We seem to require a series of bold and abrupt variations. How can we imagine that an inch in the tail of a peacock, or a quarter of an inch in that of the bird of paradise, would be noticed ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... pelican fed upon the blood of its mother whose beak is tipped with red, or that of the barnacle goose, of which the name suggests the mollusc,[1] the barnacle, and which was said to proceed from the mollusc or that of the bird of paradise, the feet of which were cut off by the Malay traders who sold the skins, and which were commonly reported never to have had feet, but to float perpetually ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... Schatz-Kammer at Vienna. The contrasts of tint were well attended to. Pedro was in white and gold, Claudio in blue and silver, Leonato in red; while our handsome Benedick, a youth of dark Italian favour, in doublet of orange, a broad black velvet sash, and scarlet cloak, shone like a bird of paradise. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... evidently formed the larder of various kinds of beautiful birds. We could have shot enough in that walk to have kept us busy making skins for days, but we kept to the determination my uncle had made, not to shoot any more that day, except once, when the curious hoarse cry of some bird of paradise, answered by others at a distance, tempted ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... most beautiful plumage fluttered among the branches, and I had the good fortune to bring down a gorgeous bird of paradise with my rifle. Mac, like the ancient mariner, insisted on carrying this bird round his neck rather than leave it for the tigers and bisons, though he repented of his resolution before he had gone far. Of the wild animals encountered on this march I could write much. Fortunately ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... dead leaves nestled close to the trees, mute witnesses of a lost beauty; while here and there an ox-eyed daisy glowed from out its somber company as a firefly shines through the dusk of twilight. In the midst of all this sat Nannie in her pretty suit trimmed in scarlet, looking like a bird of paradise amid a flock of sparrows and other soberly clad creatures. Indeed, she reminded one of a bird, with her head cocked on one side and ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... all interesting, and many of them are beautiful, but the Scissor-tailed species of Texas is especially attractive. They are also known as the Swallow-tailed Flycatcher, and more frequently as the "Texan Bird of Paradise." It is a common summer resident throughout the greater portion of that state and the Indian Territory, and its breeding range extends northward into Southern Kansas. Occasionally it is found in southwestern Missouri, western Arkansas, and Illinois. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... to Clarinda would have been unwritten, and the thrush would have been untaught in "the style of the Bird of Paradise." ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... bedizened—"Fop-Indian!" "Jack-Monkey!" would have been the first thoughts to pop into her judicious little head, and Sprigg might have chased her till he had worn his red moccasins slip-shod, and no more have caught her had he, indeed, been a monkey, chasing a dove or a bird of paradise. That he was spared such a humiliation was because he had become by strange chance an object of Manitou interest, and was not allowed to carry out the ridiculous programme he had proposed to himself. What a pity it is that many of us grown-up ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... whatever height he soared he could detect the slightest movement of a fly on the earth. But the birds objected to him on account of his predatory habits, and then each in turn stated his own case as a claimant for the kingship—the ostrich could run the fastest, the bird of paradise and the peacock could look the prettiest, the parrot could talk the best, the canary could sing the sweetest, and every one of them, for some reason or other, was in his own opinion superior to his fellows. After several days ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... judgment, and in that of SOME GOOD JUDGES likewise, to that humbug Clarence Bulbul's ballads,)—to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear little Fanny Dixon! she was like a little chirping bird of Paradise. It was a shame that storms should ever ruffle such a ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of a Bird of Paradise in Mrs. Snitchey's turban, trembled as if the Bird of Paradise were alive again, when she said that doubtless Mr. Craggs knew. ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then, submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being. Let us not condemn, but rejoice in the expression by man of his own rest in the statutes of the lands that gave him birth. Let us watch ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... several of the gallants of Whitehall, of which there were many staying to see the Chancellor's return, did talk to her in her bird cage; amongst others Blancfort (the Marquis de Blanquefort), telling her she was the bird of Paradise."] ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... dresses at luncheons has gone entirely out of fashion; and yet one does once in a while see an occasional lady—rarely a New Yorker—who outshines a bird of paradise and a jeweler's window; but New York women of distinction wear rather simple clothes—simple meaning untrimmed, not inexpensive. Very conspicuous clothes are chosen either by the new rich, to assure themselves of their own elegance—which is utterly ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... says Pompey, a little grinning negro Lord Peterborow gave her, with a bird of Paradise in his turbant, and a collar with his mistress's ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cinnamalker which makes its nest with sticks of cinnamon, the rhintacus that Parysatis used in the manufacture of his poisons, the manucodiatas which is the bird of paradise, and the semenda, which has a threefold beak, have been mistaken for the phoenix; ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... thence such as his life is, so that to transmute this life into the opposite is altogether to destroy the spirit. It were easier, says Swedenborg, to change a night bird into a dove, an owl into a bird of paradise, than to change a subject of hell into a subject of heaven after the line of death has been crossed. But why the crossing of that line should make such an infinite difference he does not explain; nor does he prove ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... grace her arrival at the court of Tunis. The princess was arrayed in bridal robes, woven in the most costly looms of the orient; her diadem sparkled with diamonds, and was decorated with the rarest plumes of the bird of paradise; and even the silken trappings of her palfrey, which swept the ground, were covered with pearls and precious stones. As this brilliant cavalcade crossed the bridge of the Tagus, all Toledo poured forth to behold it; and nothing was heard throughout the city but praises of the wonderful ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... it tries And doth,—and with what motive, for what end. Clouds clothe them like realities, and shine Even so to human eyes; yet, not the less Are only mockeries of the things they seem, And melt as we survey them. Let us not The shadow for the substance take, the Jay For the true Bird of Paradise. A crust Dealt, by the poor man, from his daily loaf, To the wayfarer, poorer than himself— A cup of water, in the Saviour's name Proffered, with ready hand, to thirsting lips,— Seem trifles in themselves, yet weigh for wine, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... know why a man who possessed the most beautiful and noble Bird of Paradise—a bird of rare plumage and wonderful qualities—should suddenly see more beauty in an ordinary Cockatoo, whose only attraction was its yellow feathers—a Cockatoo that screamed monotonously as it swung backward and forward on its perch, and would eat sugar out of the hand of ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... force for the subject. It is as if a railroad should be built and a locomotive started to transport skeletons, specimens, and one bird of Paradise." ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... own element; but on shore he goes about in his holiday spectacles, and sees a bird of paradise ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... course," said Oliver impatiently. "That's the cry of the great bird of Paradise. Come along quietly, we must have some specimens ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... court, representing their Majesties; on each side of which were six obelisks, painted with emblems, and illuminated; mottoes beneath in Latin and English: 1. For the Prince of Wales, a ship, Multorum spes. 2. For the Princess Dowager, a bird of paradise, and two little ones, Meos ad sidera tollo. People smiled. 3. Duke of York, a temple, Virtuti et honori. 4. Princess Augusta, a bird of paradise, Non habet parem—unluckily this was translated, I have no peer. People ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... and clear. Mrs. Malvina Weight, sweeping her front chamber, with an anxious eye on the house opposite, saw the door open and Mrs. Tree come out, followed by a tall young man. The old lady wore the huge black velvet bonnet, surmounted by a bird of paradise, which she had brought from Paris forty years before, and an India shawl which had pointed a moral to the pious of Elmerton for more than that length of time. "Adorning her perishing back with what would put food in the mouth of twenty Christian ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her, as, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of frangipanni. Then he lit a cigarette, and flung himself ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... dexterous captain proceeded to describe Mrs. Major O'Dowd packing her own and her Major's wardrobe, and how his best epaulets had been stowed into a tea canister, whilst her own famous yellow turban, with the bird of paradise wrapped in brown paper, was locked up in the Major's tin cocked-hat case, and wondered what effect it would have at the French king's court at Ghent, or the great military ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plumage. This presented remarkable combinations of colour, far surpassing in brilliancy and in variety of pattern the tail of the peacock, and often rivalling in length and delicacy, while exceeding in beauty of colouring, the splendid feathers which must have embarrassed the Bird of Paradise, even before they rendered him an object of pursuit by those who have learnt the vices and are eager to purchase the wares of civilised man. Immediately across our course, at a distance of some thirty miles, stretched a range of mountains. I inquired of Esmo how the river turned in order to avoid ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... bowers on the ground, ornamented with shell, feathers, bones and leaves. Both sexes take part in the building of these abodes of love, which are used for the courting parades. But an even more delightful example of the rare sexual delicacy in courtship is recorded by M.O. Beccari of a bird of Paradise of ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... vested rights and time-hallowed interests. They often wear an unlovely, forbidding aspect. Their office corresponds to that of Nature's sanitary commission for the removal of material nuisances. It is not the butterfly, but the beetle, which she employs for this duty. It is not the bird of paradise and the nightingale, but the fowl of dark plumage and unmelodious voice, to which is entrusted the sacred duty of eliminating the substances that infect the air. And the force of obvious analogy teaches us not to expect all the qualities which please the general taste in those ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Samuel. "The dress helps out, but it is the girl herself. I have seen it for a long time. Look at her. Isn't she a bird, a bird of Paradise, eh?" ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... I cannot offer you a better variety for your breakfast. It is only the supper over again," he explained, after she had returned, and had perched like a fluffy bird of paradise on the log. Her cheeks were very pink from the cold water, and her eyes were very beautiful from the dregs of dreams, and her hair very glittering from the kissing of the early sun. And, wonderful to say, she forgot ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... an archduke. To-day she was married, tomorrow she was single. To-day her husband was a prince incog., to-morrow a drum-major well known. Even her name was a mystery; and she was known and worshipped throughout the whole civilised world by the mere title of 'The Bird of Paradise!' ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... and more frequently: he was seeing living people, anyway. His vanity was gratified by Emilie's continuing to call him Florestan, considering him exceptionally handsome and declaring that he had eyes like a bird of paradise, "wie ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... confess That love pays dearly for success! No blame to beauty! Let's complain Of the heart, which can so ill sustain Delight. Our griefs declare our fall, But how much more our joys! They pall With plucking, and celestial mirth Can find no footing on the earth, More than the bird of paradise, Which only lives the while it flies. Think, also, how 'twould suit your pride To have this woman for a bride. Whate'er her faults, she's one of those To whom the world's last polish owes A novel grace, which all who aspire ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... sick, darling Isabel, very sick, to talk so wildly," said Mary, striving to soothe her excitement; "why, you would seem like a bird of paradise in a robin's nest here at the Old Homestead—yes, yes you are sick, Isabel, your hands are burning, your lips mutter these things strangely; ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... stream below, serene the orb above! Ever the soul the senses shall deceive; Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave: For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows! And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows! We seek to make the moment's angel guest The household dweller at a human hearth; We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest Was never found amid ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... oldest women were the most decorated, and the ugliest the most conspicuous. If there was a beautiful lily, or a sweet rose, you had to search for it, concealed in some corner behind a mother with a turban, or an aunt with a bird of paradise. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... would you ever have thought it? The lovely and brilliant Bird of Paradise, I'm told, is "own first cousin" to the—Crows. And the Crows are not one bit ashamed to own the relationship! Very condescending of them, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... of the attendants beating the coverts for game, the baying of the dogs, the hiss of lances and whir of arrows. Bright-hued birds, roused by the tumult, flew wildly hither and thither, now and then the superb plumage of a bird of paradise flashing like a jewel among the dense foliage of ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... under the winter sun. Now and then they lunched uptown at some inexpensive restaurant that was still quiet and refined. The big hotels were far too costly but there were several pretty lunchrooms, "The Bird of Paradise," "The London Tearoom," and, most popular ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... a private room; this ward is so full already, and there'll be more coming right along. A boy who wears velvet and feathers must belong to some rich family, who'll gladly pay for every attention. Poor, little, bedraggled bird of paradise!" ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... view of them. . . . . Their voice is most extraordinary. At early morn, before the sun has risen, we hear a loud cry of 'Wawk—wawk—wawk, w k—w k—w k,' which resounds through the forest, changing its direction continually. This is the Great Bird of Paradise going to seek his breakfast. . . . . The birds had now commenced what the people here call 'sacaleli,' or dancing-parties, in certain trees in the forest, which are not fruit-trees as I at first imagined, but which have an immense head of spreading ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... girl. "There is my flying station! See that precipice?" pointing to a cliff far out on the ledge of the hill over which they were walking. "Just over there is my station. I told you I was Bird of Paradise. I am not—I am Madam Fly-Fly, the French balloonist. Now ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... The bird of paradise June brought, and placed as ordered. It was a bird of spun glass only, but a great beauty in Daisy's eyes. Its tail was of such fine threads of glass that it waved with the ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... clearness of her ordinarily calm judgment, that, instead of the plain and quiet style, in which, as a woman of tact and taste, she was generally attired, she now committed the folly of wearing a dress of changing hues, and a crimson hat, adorned with a magnificent bird of paradise. Hate, envy, the pride of triumph—for she thought of the skillful perfidy with which she had sent to almost certain death the daughters of Marshal Simon—and the execrable hope of succeeding in new plots, were all expressed in the countenance of the Princess de Saint-Dizier, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... dress, ribbons, laces, feathers, and other small ornaments. In one of the old translations of Moliere petite oie is rendered by "muff," and Perdrigeon (see next note), I suppose, with a faint idea of perdrix, a partridge, by "bird of paradise feathers!!"] ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... on the other hand, she had a more thorough conviction of his talents now that he gained a good income, and instead of the threatened cage in Bride Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of paradise that she resembled. In brief, Lydgate was what is called a successful man. But he died prematurely of diphtheria, and Rosamond afterwards married an elderly and wealthy physician, who took kindly to her four ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... all, though the Hindu occupied the position of honor in the social stage, Norris found it hard to keep his attention fixed on that bird of paradise, who, at best, was sure to be but a temporary interest in these western states of America, where facts, not theories, loom large. The new young man's eyes wandered to the audience, made up of people like himself. The unknown catches us for an instant, ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... with an inquisitorial air, after the girls had decided that the slides on the bows of Lilly's dress were too small, and that her 'Bird of Paradise' was lovely enough to fly away with them all, 'Fanny, are you the 'bright, particular star' of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with vegetation of truly tropical luxuriance. Cane stalks grow fifty and sixty feet high, the grass is fifteen feet deep, beautiful bamboo trees, whose foliage is as fine as feathers, and palms which have plumage like a peacock and a bird of paradise, lift their proud and haughty heads above an impenetrable growth which, the guides tell us, is the home of tigers, rhinoceroses, panthers, bears, wild hogs, buffaloes, deer and all sorts of beasts, and snakes as big ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... a week ahead of up-to-date, his shoes shined till they lit up the lower half of his legs, and his pants was creased so's you could mow with 'em. Cool and slick! Say! in the middle of that deadliness and compared to Jonadab and me, he looked like a bird of Paradise in ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... when, from behind the tree, was heard the shrill, brief, sonorous note, which the bird of paradise titters when it takes its flight—a cry which resembles that of the pheasant. This note was soon repeated, but more faintly, as though the brilliant bird were already at a distance. Djalma, thinking he had discovered the cause ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... with rich crimson wings, and a long pendant tail like strips of satin. The head, and back, and shoulders were covered with the richest yellow, while the throat was of a deep metallic-green. The end of the side plumes had white points. I had little difficulty in recognising the bird of paradise, and I remembered Mr Hooker speaking of one which he called the red bird of paradise. This, I had little doubt, was the bird before us. Away he flew, however, followed by a smaller bird of a sombre brown plumage, which I could scarcely have supposed ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... for the protection of the birds of attractive plumage, we must not forget those of the tropical jungles. Remote as many of these jungles are, the plumage hunter is devastating them already. The bird of paradise, found in the East India islands, will soon be ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... 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, trimmed with ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... over, he was able to see facts clearly. He wondered whether it was not, after all, the old mama who had been the real true Phoenix, rising, calm and beautiful, from the ashes of the fourteen year old bird of paradise, laying its eggs, plucking the feathers from its breast to line the nest for the young ones, and nourishing them with ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... of which career, indeed, his approaching departure was to be the commencement, the association of ideas led his recollection to those beings from whom he was about to depart. His fancy dropped like a bird of paradise in full wing, tumbling exhausted in the sky: he thought of his innocent and happy boyhood, of his father's thoughtful benevolence, his sweet mother's gentle assiduities, and Glastonbury's devotion; and he demanded aloud, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... took a seat offered him near a window overlooking the garden. While the commonplaces of conversation were interchanged, he could not but notice the floral appearance of the room. The ample white lace curtains were surmounted by festoons of artificial roses, caught up by a bird of paradise. On the ceiling was an exquisitely painted garland, from the centre of which hung a tasteful basket of natural flowers, with delicate vine-tresses drooping over its edge. The walls were papered with bright arabesques of flowers, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... to draw to you Where, amid radiant skies, Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue, My Bird of Paradise. ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... Doc Hoover, just after his wife died, bought a mighty competent nigger, Aunt Tempy, to cook and look after the house for him. She was the boss cook, you bet, and she could fry a chicken into a bird of paradise just as easy as the Doc could sizzle a sinner into a pretty ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... being so happy, and she wondered why she was so happy; and while asking herself these questions she noticed her dress. Mademoiselle Helbrun's plump figure was set off to full advantage in a black and white check silk dress, and she wore a wonderful arched hat with flowing plumes of the bird of paradise. She was a prima-donna every inch of her, standing on the steps of her hotel, whereas the operatic stage could hardly be distinguished at all in Evelyn's dress. With the black crepon skirt she wore a heliotrope blouse, and she stood, one foot showing beyond the skirt, in a statue-like ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... an unwonted alacrity to his movements, waddling grotesquely like a hastening waterfowl. Between him and the secretary they dressed my Lord the Seneschal, and decked him out till he was fit to compare with a bird of paradise for gorgeousness of colouring if not for harmony of hues ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... off without interruption. At the fourth act, however, the storm burst, as Frederick Lemaitre, who evidently felt qualms about the success of his part, had determined to make it comic, and appeared in the strange costume of a Mexican general, with a hat trimmed with white feathers, surmounted by a bird of paradise. Worse still, when he took off this hat he showed a wig in the form of a pyramid, a coiffure which was the special prerogative of Louis Philippe! The play was doomed. The Duke of Orleans, who was in one of the boxes, left the theatre hurriedly; and it was ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... assembled the expected guests. His Grace and the Bird of Paradise arrived first, with their foreign friends. Lord Squib and Lord Darrell, Sir Lucius Grafton, Mr. Annesley, and Mr. Peacock Piggott followed, but not alone. There were two ladies who, by courtesy if no other right, bore the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... and lowering a lout as you would readily find. But it meant that he became more and more unpunctual, did his work worse month by month, came home later at night, and was continually seen, when not in the shop, with a gang of low ruffians, whose head-quarters were in a den called the "Bird of Paradise," on the lake shore. When his father remonstrated with him, he met everything with sullen silence. If Saul lost his temper at this mute insolence and spoke sharply, the boy would retort with an evil grin that made the ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... long ago arrived. For an instant Vanno's eyes were fixed upon the glittering figure, and the bowed face shadowed by an eccentric hat, without recognizing it. But it was only for an instant. Then, with a shock of surprise which was almost horror, he realized that this lovely, low-necked bird of Paradise creature was the same gentle ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a poet to write prose, however good, for it is a charming illusion of the public that, comparatively speaking, any one can write prose. It is an earthly accomplishment, it is as walking is to flying—is it not stigmatised 'pedestrian'? Now, your true Bird of Paradise, which is the poet, must, metaphorically speaking, have no legs—as Adrian Harley said was the case with the women in Richard Feverel's poems. He must never be seen to walk in prose, for his part is, 'pinnacled dim in the intense inane,' to hang aloft and warble the unpremeditated ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... sort of a blue thing, with a confounded bird of Paradise in it, that kept whisking into my face every time she ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... spoken, the King had turned the next page, and there was a shining bird complete and beautiful in every blue feather of him. Under him was written, "Blue Bird of Paradise," and while the King gazed enchanted at the charming picture the Blue Bird fluttered his wings on the yellow page and spread them and flew out ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... expedient to impress what we want upon the mind, without caring about the mere literal accuracy of such expedient. Suppose, for instance, we have to represent a peacock: now a peacock has a graceful neck, so has a swan; it has a high crest, so has a cockatoo; it has a long tail, so has a bird of Paradise. But the whole spirit and power of peacock is in those eyes of the tail. It is true, the argus pheasant, and one or two more birds, have something like them, but nothing for a moment comparable to them in brilliancy: express the gleaming of the blue eyes through ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the sun set exactly behind the purple island of Imbros, and as it disappeared sent out long flame-coloured streamers into the sky. The effect was that of a bird of Paradise bringing balm ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... as enchanted swords which had magically flowered, lilied the desert stretches, and there were strange red blossoms like drops of blood clinging to the points of long daggers. Bird of Paradise plants were there, too, well named for their plumy splendour of crimson, white, and yellow; and as the spring advanced the China trees brought ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... She held it gathered closely about her, so that it fell in soft folds, revealing and at the same time concealing her figure. He was anxious to read her face, but the lower part was snuggled into the fur of the deep collar and the upper part was shadowed by a broad-brimmed tulle hat, from which two bird of paradise plumes spread back like wings on the helmet of a viking. For the rest, she had white kid gloves, which reached up to her elbows. Outside the glove of the left hand she wore a bracelet; every time she stirred the stones struck ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... varieties of bird-life known in these latitudes, from the bird of paradise down to the tiny scarlet-beaked love-birds. There were always parrots and parrakeets screaming in the ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... visit to the clergyman's house leaped hot and instant as flame from oil and fire brought together. The girl was parched with thirst for life, yet despised all around her. The man was dazzled by a beauty and mentality foreign as a bird of paradise found nested in Connecticut snow. A mad, wild passion linked them that was more than half a duel. For Sir Austin was already betrothed. Honor might not have chained him for long, but his need of his betrothed's ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... vermilion; rain-birds as the Malays call them, in claret and white, with blue and orange beaks; parrots without number, and finches, swallows, and starlings of lovely metallic hues; but the greatest prizes were the birds of paradise, of which several kinds were secured, from the grandly-plumaged great bird of paradise to the tiny king. Whenever one of these was shot in some great grove at daybreak, Jack hesitated to have it skinned for fear of injuring the lovely feathers, over which adornments Nature seemed to ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... how Cocky came. Lettice's airs and graces bewitched the old lady who called in the yellow chariot, and was so like a cockatoo herself—a cockatoo in a citron velvet bonnet, with a bird of Paradise feather. When that old lady put up her eye-glass, she would have frightened a yard-dog; but Lettice stood on tip-toes and stroked the feather, saying, "What a love-e-ly bird!" And next day came Cocky—perch ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... balcony descended directly to the pavement. The Infanta mounted them, gliding upward with the grace of a bird of paradise, followed by her train-bearers. Directly after she was seated, the balcony filled from a room beyond it, into which the royal party had assembled. Le Duc de Montpensier, his sister, Princess Clementina, and her husband, the Duke of Saxe Coburg, the cousin ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... a hotel maid had to hook her up the back, and was ready for her evening's escort at eight. There wasn't a hat in a grill room from one end of the Crooked Cow-path to the other that was more wildly barbaric than Hattie's, even in these sane and simple days when the bird of paradise has become the national bird. The buyer of suits for a thriving department store in a hustling little Middle-Western town isn't to be neglected. Whenever a show came to River Falls Hattie would look bored, pass a weary hand over her glossy coiffure and say: "Oh, yes. Clever ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... a bird of paradise in her gay habiliments, leaning forward from the further steps of Baston's store where she had slipped up unnoticed, cupped her white hands to her scarlet mouth, and sent out a cry ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... island. Trincomale and Columbo are its other great towns. I forgot to tell you that elephants of the most handsome and valuable kind run here in herds, as the wild boars do in the forests of Europe; while the brilliant peacock and bird of paradise occupy the places of our ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... which probably is of the same species with the bird of Paradise, receives its name from the ideas the Indians have of its superior excellence; the Wakon-Bird being, in their language, the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sound or refreshing. Lovel's was disturbed by a thousand baseless and confused visions. He was a birdhe was a fishor he flew like the one, and swam like the other,qualities which would have been very essential to his safety a few hours before. Then Miss Wardour was a syren, or a bird of Paradise; her father a triton, or a sea-gull; and Oldbuck alternately a porpoise and a cormorant. These agreeable imaginations were varied by all the usual vagaries of a feverish dream;the air refused to bear the visionary, the water seemed to burn himthe rocks felt like ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Massachusetts—vulgar ungrammatcal shovel-maker—greasy knave of spades. I don't like this sort of thing. She doesn't appear to be much distressed about me—she hasn't looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I'll go to smiling around a little, too, and see what effect that will have ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... tells us, about the bird of Paradise, agrees perfectly with the account here given of the preserved red-birds. Speaking of the Papous, he proceeds thus: "Ils nous presenterent plusieurs especes d'oiseaux, aussi elegants par leur forme, que brillants par l'eclat de leur couleurs. La depouille des oiseaux sert a la parure ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... Virginia nightingale, orioles of several species, and doves of two distinct kinds. There were also several Carolina paroquets; and Frank had succeeded in capturing a bird of a very rare kind, which, I believe, is known to the Indians as the 'wakon.' It was the American bird of paradise; and, like those of the Eastern world, had several long feathers growing from its tail, and stretching away gracefully behind it. In the cage were also finches of different varieties, and beautiful bright plumage. Among others were the green bird, the redstart, and the ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... genius it is the most expensive to succumb and conform to the ways of the world. Genius is the worst of lumber, if the poet would float upon the breeze of popularity. The bird of paradise is obliged constantly to fly against the wind, lest its gay trappings, pressing close to its body, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... sometimes a bird of paradise. Most girls are sparrows, of course—see that row of nurse-maids over there? They're sparrows—or are they magpies? And of course you've met canary ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... diminutive rocker to the stove and settled back against its gay cretonne cushions—a vivid bird of Paradise flamed just where her aching ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... face, your humility and forgetfulness of self. The Achaemenidae, and even the Magi, will beg him to take a queen from his own family; and where in all Persia is there a woman who can boast of better birth than you? Who else can wear the royal purple but my bright bird of Paradise, my beautiful rose Phaedime? With such a prize in prospect we must no more fear a little humiliation than a man who is learning to ride fears ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tail. The very frequent presence of neck-ruffs or breast-shields in the males of birds with accessory plumes may be partly due to selection, because they must serve as a protection in their mutual combats, just as does the lion's or the horse's mane. The enormously lengthened plumes of the bird of paradise and of the peacock can, however, have no such use, but must be rather injurious than beneficial in the bird's ordinary life. The fact that they have been developed to so great an extent in a few species is an indication of such perfect adaptation to the conditions ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... troubled. There was a being at his side whom he did not know. He thought of the sober-hued plumage that this bird of paradise was accustomed to wear in her cage, and this winged revelation puzzled him. In some way she reminded him of the Delia Cullen that he had married four years before. Shyly and rather awkwardly he stalked at ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... thou not know it? The bird of Paradise, song's sacred swan! It sat on the car of Thespis, like a croaking raven, and flapped its black, dregs-besmeared wings; over Iceland's minstrel-harp glided the swan's red, sounding bill. It sat on Shakspeare's shoulder like Odin's raven, and whispered in his ear: "Immortality!" It ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... to have an Easter hat or an Easter coat or an Easter pair of pants. I saw him at the Opera lately and his wife had on a seal skin sacque, and plain X. himself had on no gloves. Why should X. be compelled to carry through life a bird of paradise, while he appears in the sombre and often shiny costume of the more humble crow? And now that I have asked that audacious question, let me ask another: Why is it that as soon as the frost of age touches a man he commences to ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... hen who has brought a strange, intrepid duckling into the world; but her situation was still more wonderful, for she could only compare her sensations to those of some quiet brown Dorking who has brooded an ordinary egg and hatched a bird of paradise. Such an idea had crossed her mind more than once during the past fortnight, and it flashed to and fro this mellow October morning when Rebecca came into the room with her arms full of goldenrod and ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... could be made happy. But when the counsellors are so many, the decision is but slow; and so numerous were the meetings, the canvassings, the debates, the discussions, the harangues, and the variety of objections raised by the grandees of the country, that at the age of eighteen the beauteous bird of paradise, still unmated, warbled her virgin strain in the loneliness ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... gosh!' in a tone of such despair that we turned round to see if it was the shellac man in person. It was little Bean, the pitcher of the Corners team, all dressed up in his baseball togs, scarlet breeches and blue shirt, quite the bird of paradise, and reading a yellow telegram, and his face black as thunder. He was an impressionist study, wasn't he, Fergy? We asked what was up, or rather down, for elevation had no part in him. It appeared that a match was on for this afternoon, ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... the marvelous freaks in the arrangement of the plumage are more specially interesting. So extraordinary a variety of forms, so unique and fantastic in disposal, are without parallel in the animal world. Some species are adorned with long, drooping tufts of plumes light as air, as the Red Bird of Paradise, and others bear strange-shaped, movable shields; part of the family wear ruffs, and others display fans on shoulders or breast; a few sport extravagant length of tail, and one or two show bright-hued wattles; one species is bare-headed, and—other vagaries ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... Captain Nabob; the Tortoise snow, from Lapland; the Pet-en-l'air, from Versailles; the Dreadnought, from Mount Etna, Sir W. Hamilton commander; the Tympany, Montgolfier; and the Mine-A-in-a-bandbox, from the Cape of Good Hope. Foundered in a hurricane, the Bird of Paradise, from Mount Ararat. The Bubble, Sheldon, took fire, and was burnt to her gallery; and the phoenix is to be cut down to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... to preserve mud in crystal. Like a man of a kind nature, he is the first good to himself, in the next file to his French tailor, that gives him all his perfection; for indeed, like an estridge, or bird of paradise, his feathers are more worth than his body. If ever he do good deed (which is very seldom) his own mouth is the chronicle of it, lest it should die forgotten. His whole body goes all upon screws, and his face is the vice that moves them. If his patron be given ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... my bird of paradise first. You can put a big book here for it to stand on, where ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... were clothes with a past. The dresses held an atmosphere of evaporated frivolity; flirtations lingered in every frill, and memories of old larks lurked in every furbelow. The hats had a jaunty list to port, and the colored slippers still held a dance within their soles. One old bird of paradise on Miss Jim's favorite bonnet had a chronic wink for the wickedness he ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... "Thou feathered clay—thou scum of birds!" Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes— "Look here, thou vile predestined sinner, Doomed to be roasted for a dinner, Behold these lovely variegated dyes! These are the rainbow colors of the skies, That heaven has shed upon me con amore— A Bird of Paradise?—a pretty story! I am that Saintly Fowl, thou paltry chick! Look at my crown of glory! Thou dingy, dirty, dabbled, draggled jill!" And off goes Partlett, wriggling from a kick, With bleeding scalp ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... exceedingly heavy loads up these steep hills. Yesterday one woman had two large kits of taro, and a child of about two years on the top of all. Ruatoka shot eight blue pigeons and one bird of paradise to-day: the latter must be eaten with the best of all sauces—hunger. The natives pick up heads, legs, and entrails, turn them on ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... second-best lordship. Ay, and he would have it, because it pleased him to have it—like his father before him. A poor sparrow on a tree-top, if you tell him he must not have it, he will hunt it down the world till it is his, as though it was a bird of paradise. And when he's seen it fall at last, he'll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get to its tree-top again—if it can—if it can—if it can, my lord! That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is who left my door ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... don't eat— That Nose of yours requires both wine and meat— Fall to, and welcome, without more ado— You see your fare—what shall I help you to? This dish the tongues of nightingales contains; This, eyes of peacocks; and that, linnets' brains; That next you is a Bird of Paradise— We fairies in our food are somewhat nice.— And pray, Sir, while your hunger is supplied, Do lean your Nose a little on one side; The shadow, which it casts upon the meat, Darkens my plate, I see not what ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... majesties; on each side of which were six obelisks, painted with emblems, and illuminated; mottoes beneath in Latin and English: 1. For the Prince of Wales, a ship, Mullorum spes. 2. For the Princess Dowager, a bird of paradise, and two little ones, meos ad sidera tollo. People smiled. 3. Duke of York, a temple, Virtuti et honori. 4. Princess Augusta, a bird of paradise, Non habet paren—unluckily this was translated, I have no peer. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... new friend is always a miracle, but at thirty-three years old, such a bird of paradise rising in the sage-brush was an avatar. One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim. King, like Adams, and all their generation, was at that moment passing the critical ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams |
