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Lair   Listen
noun
Lair  n.  
1.
A place in which to lie or rest; especially, the bed or couch of a wild beast.
2.
A burying place. (Scot.)
3.
A pasture; sometimes, food. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Lair" Quotes from Famous Books



... the great golden flame lying prone upon the earth, swaying and swirling with the wind in every direction, was most startling. The great beast Apollyon, minus the smoke, seemed to have come forth from his lair again. The cost of piping is now estimated, at the present extremely low prices, with right of way, at L1,600 sterling per mile, so that the cost of a line to Pittsburg may be said to be about L27,000 sterling. The cost of drilling is about L1,000, and the mode of procedure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various

... he fondled in the house, and that was the ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a singular partiality for him—a partiality so marked that sometimes, when Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed, Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet and betake himself to the taciturn tutor. Once—but once—she noticed the desertion, and holding out her white hand, and speaking softly, tried to coax him back. Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but yet disregarded ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... solemn vanished life, sweep over you; for so surely as you live, know that in ancient days the footsteps of the rose-bearing worshipper went before you through that narrow pass, performing, by so doing, the rite typical of new birth, revival, and the Covenant. She is the cavern, the secret lair of life and the casket in which that one great arcanum and impenetrable secret of motherhood is forever concealed—forever and forever. They found it hidden—those priests of old—in Woman and in the Rose, in fruits, and in all that lives or grows; they traced the mystery up to ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... contemplate it. In some griefs there is a wonderful power of self-contemplation, which indeed forms their only solace; the moment it can set the sorrow away from itself sufficiently to regard it, the tortured heart begins to repose; but suddenly, like a waking tiger, the sorrow leaps again into its lair, and the agony commences anew. The dagger was the type of my grief and its torture: might it not, like the brazen serpent, be the cure for the sting of its living counterpart? But alas! where was the certainty? Could I slay myself? This outer ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... the temporary illness of this dragon (whose bed or lair was placed absolutely across the door of egress from her closet, so as to block the way or make it difficult of access), the Creole, in an unavoidable contingency like this, came with a pile of clothing in her arms to lay the pieces herself in the bureau, by direction of my jailer, and ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... gunshots from a distant peak, he had risen from the rock where he sat with Sally. He had said nothing of the issue he must go to meet; nothing of the enemies who had brought dogs, confident that they would make their run straight to his lair. That subject had not been mentioned between them since he had driven Tamarack away that afternoon, and reassured her. He had only risen casually, as though his action had no connection with the signal of the rifles, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... party of his friends and five hundred runaway slaves. The discontented Romans formed another army under Quintus Sertorius, and the Samnites, who had begun the war, overpowered the troops sent against them, and marched to Rome, declaring they would have no peace till they had destroyed the wolf's lair. Cinna and an army were advancing on another side, and, as he was really consul, the Senate in their distress admitted him, hoping that he would stop the rest; but when he marched in and seated himself again in the ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... a delicious morning, brilliant with sunshine, but cool and fresh and inspiring. The army was in great form, and fine to see, as it uncoiled from its lair fold by fold, and stretched away on the final march of ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... nevertheless, Jurgis did not even lift his eyes—he had lived two years and a half in Packingtown, and he knew what the police were. It was as much as a man's very life was worth to anger them, here in their inmost lair; like as not a dozen would pile on to him at once, and pound his face into a pulp. It would be nothing unusual if he got his skull cracked in the melee—in which case they would report that he had been drunk ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... whatso thy shape or name O Mountain Bull, Snake of the Hundred Heads, Lion of Burning Flame! O God, Beast, Mystery, come! Thy mystic maids Are hunted!—Blast their hunter with thy breath, Cast o'er his head thy snare; And laugh aloud and drag him to his death, Who stalks thy herded madness in its lair! [Enter hastily a MESSENGER from the Mountain, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres! Haggard as spectres—vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow, Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... the stranger who would violate it; that throne of love shall swim in the blood of the rash or of my own. Tranquillity, honor, happiness, the ties of home, the fortune of my children, all are at stake there; I would defend them as a lioness defends her cubs. Woe unto him who shall set foot in my lair!" ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac

... shifting his lair. Push on, Maid Elliot." The horses advanced, when, by the blessing of the saints, the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... humpy, bumpy cattle, The tiger from his lair, Go down into the battle Beside the timid hare. The elephant and camel, The ostrich and emu, Weird things, both bird and mammal, And ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... we decide to go ashore hunting. Within a few yards of the bank is the lair of a hippopotamus and the spoor of elephants. It is however, very difficult walking, for patches of land are covered with long grass seven or eight feet high and the rest is bog. After struggling along ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... in a wood that was hard by the sheep-run. Hercules would not wait to be attacked by him. Arming himself with a heavy club and with a bow and arrows, he went in search of the lion's lair and soon found it. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... the cliff, close to the pile of stones where the Hillmen were making their last stand, there was a cave which looked more like the lair of some wild beast than a ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... innumerable. It is not given to all men to be light-brained, light-limbed, light-fingered. A courage which shall face an enemy under the starlight, or beneath the shadow of a wall, which shall track its prey to a well-defended lair, is far rarer than a law-abiding cowardice. The recklessness that risks all for a present advantage is called genius, if a victorious general urge it to success; nor can you deny to the intrepid Highwayman, whose sudden resolution triumphs at ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... story came to his ears: that far away in a dark cave lived a terrible dragon. The way to his lair was rough and steep. In this cave was much treasure, and the dragon ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook

... cretonne curtains, but through their chinks streaks of bluish, shadowy light presaged the coming day. From his lair the boy looked out at these ghostly fingers of the morning, then his eyes travelled round the dark room until at last they rested upon his clothes lying, as he had thrown them, on the floor. He looked at them—the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... looks not after brother, no man for another cares. The gods in heaven are frightened, refuge they seek, Upward they mount to the heaven of Anu. Like a dog in his lair, So cower the gods together at the bars of heaven. Ishtar cries out in pain, loud cries the exalted goddess:— All is turned to mire. This evil to the gods I announced, to the gods foretold the evil. This exterminating war foretold Against my race of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... face. "Perhaps. I hope you are right. I don't think I could ever really lose faith in that star." She was thinking: Oh, yes! I'll go back to California as quickly as I can get there—as a wounded animal crawls back to its lair. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... hear the truth? Which of them is worthy to listen to an honest man? Which of them will dare to meet his gaze? But what do I say? They all know the truth. They carry it in their guilty breasts; it stings their hearts like a serpent. They tremble in their lair, where doubtless they are devouring their victim; they tremble because they have heard the cries of three deluded women. What was I about to do? I was about to speak in behalf of Urbain Grandier! But what eloquence could equal that of those unfortunates? What words could better have ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... that I found! Oh strange and shaking thoughts that touched me there, Ere I beheld the bright returning wings That came to spoil my secret, silent lair! ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay

... to the turmoil a large herd of Bladud's pigs, disturbed from their lair, were driven into the hot water, where they swam about in a frantic state, filling the whole region with horrid yells, which, mingling with those of the human sufferers, and the incessant barking of ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... Valley of the Californian Sierra. He was being reported pretty well all over the United States now, but the first news in all probability were the only valuable clew. They were desolately vague though. A man who flies covers much ground. Where did he sleep? Where was his lair—or his nest, rather? It was sleeping, not flying, that he was to be caught. How could she locate him? It would take time, to do this, and money. And the ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... quite ready for sea, and there was therefore nothing to wait for except a few necessary articles of clothing for myself. Accordingly, within forty-eight hours of my arrival in Port Royal, aboard the Barracouta, I was at sea again in the schooner, on my way to demolish the lair of the pirates. Carrying on heavily we arrived in the bay on the afternoon of the second day out, and anchored in such a position that not only the wharf and the various sheds, but also the bungalow, were within range of the schooner's guns. ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... he could find it nearer home. Is n't it like him, though, with his German education, to hunt a thing to its lair? I suppose when next I hear from him, he will have disappeared into some marmot hole at the foot of a tree in ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... few Australian eagles are occasionally seen far up in the azure sky, hovering with astonished gaze, over the unwonted forms below; and as the leading camels of the caravan frighten some wretched little wallaby from its lair under a spinifex bunch, instantly the eagle swoops from its height, and before the astonished creature has had time to find another refuge he is caught in the talons of his foe. We also are on the watch, and during the momentary struggle, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... bathing-cabins. We are staying at the most spotlessly clean of all clean French hotels. There are no carpets on the stairs; but if one mounts them in muddy boots, an untiring chambermaid emerges from a lair below, with hot water and scrubbing-brush and smilingly removes the traces of one's passage. Carlotta and Antoinette have adjoining rooms in the main building. I inhabit the annexe, sleeping in a quaint, clean, bare ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... suffic'd, did late repair To ferny heaths and to their forest lair, She made a mannerly excuse to stay, Proff'ring the hind to wait her half the way; That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk Might help her to beguile the tedious walk. With much good-will the motion was embrac'd, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... lingering wanderer of the race which the Romans worshipped; hither I followed their victorious steps, and in these green hollows have I remained. Sometimes in the still noon, when the leaves of spring bud upon the whispering woods, I peer forth from my rocky lair, and startle the peasant with my strange voice and stranger shape. Then goes he home, and puzzles his thick brain with mopes and fancies, till at length he imagines me, the creature of the South! one of his northern demons, and his ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... five murderous accomplices; and as for the savages seen in ambush at the Ford, the shaking of the cane-brake by the breeze, or by some skulking bear, would as readily account for them. The idea of his being allowed to pass a crew of Indians in their lair, without being pursued, or even fired upon, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... creeping out of my lair, and peeping from the door of the barn, which looked into the cornyard, found that the sun was going down. I had already discovered that I was getting hungry. I went out at the other door into the close ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... so long and so long that I feared with shamed misgiving I must have let him slip, when at length, on the very stroke of eleven, he sauntered forth. He was yawning prodigiously, but set off past my lair at a smart pace. I followed at goodly distance, but never once did he glance around. He led the way straight to the sign of ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... world are on their feet. It is then that the first cock crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of the night. Cattle awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on the dewy hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... of olfactory antipathies (Fisiologia dell' Odio, p. 101), and mentions that once when ill in Paraguay he was nursed by an Indian girl of 16, who was fresh as a peach and extremely clean, but whose odor—"a mixture of wild beast's lair and decayed onions"—caused nausea and almost made ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... been tracked to its lair and done to death, or at least that one of its heads had been smitten off which ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... city, Loves foemen brisk and game, Tho', just to please the angels, He may send down his flame. God loves the golden leopard Tho' he may spoil her lair. God smites, yet loves the lion. God ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

... and each year sinking lower in the scale, why are we driven from our innocent and happy homes, our country cottages that we loved, first to bide in close towns without comforts, and gradually to crouch into cellars, or find a squalid lair like this, without even the common necessaries of existence; first the ordinary conveniences of life, then raiment, and, at length, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... Come on, Con!" was the instant answer. And the three went bounding back along the bank, pursued and spurred by the savage shouting from below, but, as God so willed it, without so much as a glance. Over the lair of the picket they flew, with only the orders "Come on!" Away over the elastic "bench" they dashed, hot-foot for the bivouac, and Drum, the veteran, saw them coming like the wind, and read their tale and the instant need. "Saddle up!" he shouted, while the group ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... addiction to the pleasure of the chase. Lion-hunting was his especial delight. Sometimes along the banks of reedy streams, sometimes borne mid-channel in his pleasure galley, he sought the king of beasts in his native haunts, roused him by means of hounds and beaters from his lair, and despatched him with his unerring arrows. Sometimes he enjoyed the sport in his own park of paradise. Large and fierce beasts, brought from a distance, were placed in traps about the grounds, and on his approach ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... forgot even to refer to the remarkable visit you paid to the Emperor of the French. How could you, who so recently in public addresses had called upon every one to rise against the usurper—how could you dare to enter the lion's lair without fearing lest he strike you dead by a single blow? Napoleon Bonaparte might invite me twenty times in the most flattering manner, I should still take care to refuse, for I feel convinced that I should never return. The bullets that struck Palm's breast would be ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... and hills are bare, And early bees hum round the hive, When woodchucks creep from out their lair Right glad to find themselves alive, When sheep go nibbling through the fields, Then Ph[oe]be oft her name reveals, "Ph[oe]be, Ph[oe]be, ph[oe]be," a plaintive cry, While jack-snipes call ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... Wong-lih had his quarters, steamed down the river Pei-ho, past the Taku forts at its mouth, and out into the open sea on her way to the mouth of the Hoang-ho, some three hundred miles up which lay the village of Tchen-voun-hien, at or near which the pirates' lair was said to be situated. During the hundred-mile run across the gulf of Chi-lih, Frobisher set his men to clean ship thoroughly, overhaul and polish the guns, and make things in general a little more shipshape than they ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... utmost limits of human endurance were fast being reached. There were, however, many that had already gone beyond this point, and they returned an answer that made the hearts of the people stand still with horror. It was the answer of a wild beast that had been hunted to its lair, and that turns with savage ferocity on its pursuers. It was an answer framed not in words, but in deeds. It said, "We have come to an end. We have been robbed of the rights guaranteed to us by the Kansas-Nebraska ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... a strike; he trusted his new friend; and his friend tricked, betrayed and robbed him. This blow and others came with the gaunt years. At the end of them David Drennen was the man who sought to quarrel with Kootanie George; he was a man like a lone wolf, hunting alone, eating alone, making his lair alone, his heart filled with hatred and bitterness and distrust. He came to expect the savagery of the world which smote and smote and smote again at him, and he struck back and snarled back, each ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... to sleep, but in reality to keep himself "out of mind," by remaining "out of sight"; reserving, in petto, an intention to jump overboard, should the ship go near enough to the land to give him a chance for his life, after the moon set. In this situation he was found, aroused from his lair, and led ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of our study to account for this sad and unwarrantable change on the part of the Boers we will be following the trail of the serpent and track it right up to its Hollander lair and to its at first unsuspected product, the ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... forever. The desert will call to you, 'March;' and the sea will snarl, 'Further yet.' The gates of cities will deny you, and the doors of hamlets be closed. The eagles may return to their eyrie, the panthers retreat to their lair, but you will have no home, no rest, and, ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... adventurers—you will notice this ponderous, inevitable quality of rolling stones—and though men talked with humor not too fine of "travelin' up Lone River for John's gel," not a man had got there. Perhaps the men knew John Carver for a coward, that most dangerous animal to meet in his own lair. ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... of Bliss Apollo's music fills the air; In what green valley Artemis For young Endymion spreads the snare: Where Venus lingers debonair: The Wind has blown them all away— And Pan lies piping in his lair— Where are the Gods ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... the waters of the Cumberland; the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns what ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... there being an abundance of water on it, as I myself saw. After breakfast we walked round the cattle lair, where a large portion of his 200 head of cattle were collected. I was much impressed with the fine appearance of the stock. Large-framed, stalwart oxen, and fat milch cows were round me on every side during my inspection. I did not notice a single animal that was not in capital condition, ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young

... left his lair one evening in fine spirits and an excellent appetite. As he ran, the setting sun cast his shadow far out on the ground, and it looked as if the wolf were a hundred times bigger than he ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop

... Before us thick they gather, and unto the death they go. They fare as lads with their cur-dogs who have stopped a fox's earth, And standing round the spinny, now chuckle in their mirth, Till one puts by the leafage and trembling stands astare At the sight of the Wood wolf's father arising in his lair— They have come for our wives and our children, and our sword-edge shall they meet; And which of them is happy save he of ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... months before the last of the monsters had been obliterated, and then Kay, now one of the highest officials in the Federation's service, was granted a lunarian's leave of absence pending his taking command of an Antarctic expedition for the purpose of destroying the remaining monsters in their lair. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... When he at last entered the Nemean wood, he looked carefully in every direction in order that he might catch sight of the monster lion before the lion should see him. It was mid-day, and nowhere could he discover any trace of the lion or any path that seemed to lead to his lair. He met no man in the field or in the forest: fear held them all shut up in their distant dwellings. The whole afternoon he wandered through the thick undergrowth, determined to test his strength just as soon as he should encounter ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... the den affair, And other stories rich and rare, Were writ to make old doctrine wear Something of a romantic air: That the Nain widow's only heir, And Lazarus with cadaverous glare (As done in oils by Piombo's care) Did not return from Sheol's lair: That Jael set a fiendish snare, That Pontius Pilate acted square, That never a sword cut Malchus' ear And (but for shame I must forbear) That — — did not reappear! . . . - Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair, All churchgoing will I forswear, And sit on Sundays in my chair, And read that ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy

... defiant, untakable save by long siege and famine, held for King George by a garrison of a few hundreds, spread itself like a rock lion in a high-lifted rock lair. Bands of Highlanders watched its gates and accesses, guarding against Hanoverian sallies. From the castle down stretched Edinburgh, heaped upon its long, spinelike hill, to the palace of Holyrood, and all its tall houses, tall and dark, and all its wynds and closes, and all its strident ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... this universal discontent with "being governed." The secret meetings held to agitate for responsible government, Tom Talbot regards as "a pestilence" leading on to the worst disease from which humanity can suffer, namely, democracy. The old bear stirs uneasily in his lair, as reports come in of louder and louder demands that the colony shall be permitted to govern itself. What would become of kings and colonels and land grants by special favor, if colonies governed themselves? Colonel Tom Talbot doffs ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... conducted us to it, and disappeared up the hill in the woods beyond. A loose boulder lay in the middle, and on the edge next the stream were three or four large natural wash-basins scooped out of the rock, and ever filled ready for use. Our lair we carved out of the thick brush under a large birch on the bank. Here we planted our flag of smoke and feathered our nest with balsam and hemlock boughs and ferns, and laughed at your four ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... scale were the different calibers of guns. Those with the largest reach were set farthest back. Fifteen-inch howitzer dukes or nine-inch howitzer earls, with their big, ugly mouths and their deliberate and powerful fire, fought alone, each in his own lair, whether under a tree or in the midst of the ruins of a village. The long naval guns, though of smaller caliber, had a still greater reach and were sending their shells five to ten ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... disappear, and then hunger, thirst, and the feverish delirium of the sergeant, who was tortured for want of water, drove Stanley forth in hopes of reaching the canyon. Fired at, as he supposed, by Indians, he was speedily back in his lair again, but was there almost as speedily tracked and besieged. For a while he was able to keep the foe at bay, but Lee had come just in the nick of time; only two cartridges were left, and ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... "Shub-Internet gulps down the tac nuke and burps happily.") Also cursed by users of the Web, {FTP} and {TELNET} when the system slows down. The dread name of Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as it is said that repeating it three times will cause the being to wake, deep within its lair beneath the Pentagon. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... to guess whare he could hae gotten it. Indeed, 'am of opinion that he's no without a hantle o' book lair; for, to do him justice, de'il a question I spier at him, anent the learned names o' the rare plants, that he hasna at his finger ends, and gies to me off-hand. Naebody but a man that has gotten book lair could ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... not know the things that we do. There was manhood, and honor, and decency in Schuyler yet—a little, of a sort. He struck her in the face—full upon the vivid, crimson lips—and a little of their crimson seemed to leave its lair. It trickled down upon the dead whiteness of her skin.... But she still smiled. Her white arms went forth languorously. Her lithe, slender, beautiful body undulated. Her eyes were on his.... ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne

... the Princess caught the idea eagerly, and, becoming active, presented a picture of a Moslem lair without women or apartments for women. Her mind ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... stolen away (probably on a love-tryst): however, if the shepherd was gone, his sheep were not: and we found about fifty of them in the stall, which had recently been littered with fine clean straw. We clambered over the hurdle at the door; and made ourselves a warm cozy lair amongst the peaceful animals. Many times after in succeeding years Mr. Vanley assured me—that, although he had in India (as is well known to the public) enjoyed all the luxuries of a Nabob whilst he served in those regions under Sir Arthur Wellesley, yet never had any Indian ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... does not allow me to follow the worker's methods. I see the result; and that is all. Were I to visit the building-yard by the light of a lantern, I should be no wiser. The Spider, who is very shy, would at once dive into her lair; and I should have lost my sleep for nothing. Furthermore, she is not a very diligent labourer; she likes to take her time. Two or three bits of wool or raphia placed in position represent a whole night's work. And to this slowness we must add ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... burrow keeps No guarded watch, in peace he sleeps; The wolf that howls in challenging night Cowers to her lair at morning light; The simplest bird entwines a nest Where she may lean her lovely breast, Couched in the silence of the bough. But thou, O man, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... in their peace, returned to the brow of the hill, and then walked slowly down the other side. He heard a woof, a sound of scrambling, and a black bear, big in frame, but yet lean from the winter, ran from its lair in the bushes, stopped a moment at fifty or sixty yards to look hard at him, and then, wheeling again in frightened flight disappeared among the trees. Henry once more laughed silently. He would not ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns what a large part ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... fair, chair, hair, lair, pair, care, dare, bare, share, bear, fairy, compare, parent, prayer, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... sinew'd soe'er, Seeks the refuge of shelter; The race of the antler They snort and they falter, A-cold in their lair; And the fawns they are wasting Since their ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... when the land was still overshadowed with the forest, and the harvest was overrun with the lion and the panther, would naturally give place to a less daring and lofty generation, when the forest had given way to the field, and the lair of the wild beast had become the highway and the bower. But if the evil day should again return, the guardian power of intellect and virtue will again come forth in the human shape, and vindicate the providence that watches over the progress of mankind. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... lady, but he 'most never saw her, the Julie dame did all the orderin' an' payin' s'far's he was concerned. Good pay, but irregular work. She'd be here a day or two, an' then like's not go 'way for a week. Well, we knew that before. Then, next, I tracked to his lair the furnace man. Same story. Here to-day an' gone to-morrer, as the song says. 'Course, he ain't only a stoker, he's really an odd job man—ashes, sidewalks, an' such. Well, he didn't help none—any, I mean. But," and the shock of red hair seemed to bristle with triumph, ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... bravado, perhaps a final test of his own highly strung nerves. The men, of course, were not watching him or any other individual in the hurrying throng. They had a sharp eye for Furneaux, however, and when he nodded and hurried from his lair one of them grabbed Fenley by ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... with the platoon commander back to his lair. An excellent fellow he was. No one in this war could have hated it all more than he did, and no one could have more conscientiously done his very best at it. Poor fellow, he was afterwards killed ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather

... paid no attention to the monotonous voices that growled softly over his head, but one or two words that he caught induced him to open his eyes very wide, rise softly from his lair and sit down on the seat, cock one ear intelligently upward, and remain so absolutely motionless that Dick, had he seen him, might have mistaken him for ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... the bank of the Jumna to drink water, and just as he was about to lap it, the bellow of Lusty-life, awful as the thunder of the last day, reached the imperial ears. Upon catching the sound the King retreated in trepidation to his own lair, without drinking a drop, and stood there in silence and alarm revolving what it could mean. In this position he was observed by the sons of his minister, two jackals named Karataka and Damanaka, who ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... glen in the gloomy forest close to Fafner's lair. Alberich is watching in the darkness, in the vain hope of finding an opportunity of recovering his lost treasure. Wotan appears, and taunts him with his impotence, telling him meanwhile of Siegfried's speedy arrival. Mime and Siegfried soon appear. The dwarf tries to excite the feeling of ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... to pretend we have been captured by brigands,' said Peter at last. 'Are you listening? There were three of them, great big men with beards, and they crept up behind me and snatched me up and took me out here to their lair. This is their lair. One was called Dick, the others' names were Ted and Alfred. They took hold of me and brought me all the way through the wood till we got here, and then they went off, meaning to come back soon. And while they were away, ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... unclouded happiness. For the segnatura, which took place on certain days of the week, he selected on each occasion some new shady retreat "novas in convallibus fontes et novas inveniens umbras, quae dubiam jacerent electionem." At such times the dogs would perhaps start a great stag from his lair, who, after defending himself a while with hoofs and antlers, would fly at last up the mountain. In the evening the Pope was accustomed to sit before the monastery on the spot from which the whole valley of the Paglia was visible, holding lively conversations with the cardinals. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... which is to-day dotted with such magnificent cities as Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis. Unhappily, England made no effort to colonize this wilderness empire. Indeed, as Edmund Burke has said, she made 'an attempt to keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth which God, by an express charter, had given to the children of men.' She forbade settlement in the hinterland. She did this ostensibly for the Indians, but in reality for the merchants ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... mountains a wail,(400) 10 For the meads of the pasture a dirge! They are waste, with never a man(401) Nor hear the lowing of cattle. From the birds of heaven to the beasts They have fled, they are gone. I will make Jerusalem heaps, 11 Of jackals the lair, And the townships of Judah lay waste, With never a dweller. Who is the man that is wise 12 To lay this to mind, As the mouth of the Lord hath told him, So to declare— The wherefore the country is perished, And waste as the desert, With ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... Titan power, while yet the world was young, Within the woodland's shady heart had flung The green earth open, and a dark ravine, Through which a streamlet purled o'er mossy-green, Gigantic boulders, formed the chosen lair For ravening beasts that through the forest fare. At night or morn the deer were wont to seek The freshening nectar of the crystal creek; At night or morn the pard, with stealthy tread, Crept softly out upon the ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... sleep in a moment from a circuit of many miles. It not only startled the ladies of the family from their beds; but every fisherman rushed from his hut upon the shore. Christophe and Placide were galloping to Pongaudin almost before they had drawn a breath. Every beast stirred in its lair; and every bird rustled in its roost. Rapid, however, as was the spread of sound, it was too ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... cheated to the last; a score of victims had been pushed into his lair to tempt him. He had stalked them in play at first, then more earnestly, finally with a mad desire for blood. But always his prey escaped him, invisible hands showed the means of escape; the crimson ladders seemed to multiply their numbers until all round the walls they showed ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... into the torture-chamber and only left it hanged. I can well imagine Erik dragging the body, in order to get rid of it, to the scene from the Roi de Lahore, and hanging it there as an example, or to increase the superstitious terror that was to help him in guarding the approaches to his lair! Then, upon reflection, Erik went back to fetch the Punjab lasso, which is very curiously made out of catgut, and which might have set an examining magistrate thinking. This explains ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux

... but in reality pursuing a circuitous route and taking sudden twistings and turnings to throw pursuers off the scent. Ever deeper into the wilderness she penetrated, but with the sly caution of an old fox returning to its lair, for she was always being followed by wicked people, such, for instance, as minions of the law, members of the Black Hand, foreign spies, gen-darmys, and detectifs. Having baffled them all, she laughed scornfully, flung deceit to the winds, then hurried straight to the "fastness," and ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... fell, these harmless sporting accessories were changed by some mysterious and malign agency into grizzly bears, and grizzly bears are notoriously the fiercest of their species. It was advisable to walk very quickly, but quietly, past the lair of the grizzlies, for they would have gobbled up a little boy in one second. Immediately after the bears' den came the culminating terror of all—the haunt of the wicked little hunchbacks. These malignant little beings inhabited an arched and recessed cross-passage. It was their horrible ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... extricate himself; but his voice was not recognised by the lieutenant, and, before he could get clear of his envelope, the handspike had again descended; when up rose the corporal, like a buffalo out of his muddy lair, half-blinded by the last blow, which had fallen on his head, ran full butt at the lieutenant, and precipitated his senior officer and commander ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... ever and always slaves of these, Of the suns that scorch and the winds that freeze, Of the faint sweet scents of the sultry air, Of the half heard howl from the far off lair. These chance things master us ever. Compel To the heights of ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... hunter proceeds to the woods on horseback, in the day-time, selecting particularly certain hours, which are thought to be most favourable. It is said, that, during the season when the pastures are green, this animal rises from his lair precisely at the rising of the moon, whether in the day or night; and I suppose the fact to be so, because such is the testimony of experienced hunters. If it be true, it is certainly a curious display of animal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... to the necessity of groping his way with his hands (it had grown so dark and the fog had so much increased), he returned to his lair; and, after musing for some time over the fire, busied himself in preparations for a ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... recalled, with a wave of self-pity, the feeling of exaltation with which she had first looked upon that splendid purple-walled canyon rising to the west. It had appealed to her at that time as the gateway to a mystic sanctuary. Now it was but the lair of thieves and murderers, ferocious and obscene. Only one kindly human soul dwelt among ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland

... Captain Hopwood hunted a small pack of hounds very similar in character on the fitch or pole-cat; the modus operandi being to find the foraging grounds of the animal, and then on a line that might be two days old hunt him to his lair, often enough ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... ye, thou silly auld carle? And what do you carry there?' I'm gaun to the hillside, thou sodger gentleman, To shift my sheep their lair.' ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... to just what the telephone would not do. Terry was gone, was already at the fork of the roads, turning northward, hasting alone on a forty-mile drive over lonely roads and into the very lair of the old mountain-lion himself. ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... warrior skilled enough to dare Surprise that human tiger in his lair? Sure of his strength, unconscious of his fame Out from the quiet of the camp he came; And stately as Diana at his side Elizabeth, his wife and alway bride, And Margaret, his sister, rode apace; Love's clinging arms he left to meet ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... said, "that I mean to stay at the Savoy myself. Even if I'd been stopping there, I should move if I were going to put you in the hotel. But I have my own lair in London. I've been over here a number of times. Indeed, I'm partly English, born in Canada, though I've spent most of my life in the United States. Nobody at the Savoy but the Countess de Santiago knows ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... The dog doth bark, That watches the wild deer's lair. The hunter awakes at the peep of the dawn, But the lair it is empty, the deer it is gone, And ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... long, And pil'd in bloody heap the host of France. "The' old mastiff of Verruchio and the young, That tore Montagna in their wrath, still make, Where they are wont, an augre of their fangs. "Lamone's city and Santerno's range Under the lion of the snowy lair. Inconstant partisan! that changeth sides, Or ever summer yields to winter's frost. And she, whose flank is wash'd of Savio's wave, As 'twixt the level and the steep she lies, Lives so 'twixt tyrant power and liberty. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... because the Cofachiquans, who were at war with Cofaque, had hidden it as a fox covers the trail to her lair. But after beating about among the sloughs and swamps like a rabbit in a net, and being reduced to a ration of eighteen grains of corn, the Spaniards came to the river about a day's journey above the place where Lucas de Ayllon's men had died. They caught a few ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... the old man seldom joined in these wild orgies, but when minstrel, or troubadour, or storyteller wandered to his grim lair, the Outlaw of Torn would sit enjoying the break in the winter's dull monotony to as late an hour as another; nor could any man of his great fierce horde outdrink their chief when he cared to indulge in the pleasures of the wine cup. ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the realms of fantasy. There are no forms, no cumbrous reality—only a vision woven of silver and violet ether, rising up from earth and floating out into infinity.... But this eternal day, with its oppressive actuality, interests me no longer—does not entice me out of my lair. Life is one incessant hurrying from one task to another; everything must be done and nothing neglected, day after day, week after week; and the working-day is long, seldom ending till far over midnight. But through it all runs the same sensation of longing and emptiness, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... General Patterson is fearful the Capuan delights of Stockbridge will sap our martial vigor, and is going to lead us against the foe in his lair at dawn to-morrow." ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... it's owre true, John," replied my father in a very mournful manner; and while they were thus speaking, Nahum Chapelrig came ben. He was a young man, and his father being precentor and schoolmaster of the parish, he had more lair than commonly falls to the lot of country folk; over and aboon this, he was of a spirity disposition, and both eydent and eager in whatsoever he undertook, so that for his years he was greatly looked up to amang all his acquaintance, notwithstanding a small ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... much better already, and get up to a seven o'clock breakfast without difficulty. It is quite comfortable—in the fashion that I like. I have a log cabin, raised on six posts, all to myself, with a skunk's lair underneath it, and a small lake close to it. There is a frost every night, and all day it is cool enough for a roaring fire. The ranchman, who is half-hunter, half-stockman, and his wife are jovial, hearty ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... prowling beasts and birds of prey, after their first look, gave Dick all the berth he needed, and he did not awake until a bright sun was well above the edge of the earth. Then he rose, shook himself, much like an animal coming from its lair, and bathed his face in a little stream which ran down the hill into the swamp. It was swollen and painful from the mosquito bites, but he resolved not to think of them, and ate breakfast from the saddlebags, after which he studied his map ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... must know how to trace this Germanic spirit to its lair beneath its many modern dressings, or even beneath heaps of ruins; one must love it so that one is not ashamed of it in its stunted form, and one must above all be on one's guard against confounding it with what now disports itself proudly as 'Up-to-date German culture.' The German spirit ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... from His holy, dazzling throne above He gives the word, commanding, yet in love,— "Ye fogs of heaven, ye stagnant, sluggard forms That float so laggardly amid the storms! Disperse! And hie you to yon dormant shores! Your black lair lies where ocean's caverns roar!" The fogs of heaven o'er yonder sun-tipped hill Their orcus-journey rush, and all is still. In brilliant brightness breaks the broad expanse Of firmament! Heaven opens to ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... up and went into the passage. Another girl stood in the doorway, in a peignoir the exact counterpart of my first visitor's, but rose-coloured. And this one, too, was languorous and had honey-coloured locks. It was as though the mysterious house was full of such creatures, each with her secret lair. ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... agitated reservoirs of electricity trembling in the bosom of yet distant clouds? Do not our own highly charged nervous batteries occasionally give the first premonition of coming thunderstorms? Long before the low angry growl that came suddenly from some lightning lair in the far south, below the sky-line, Regina anticipated the approaching war of elements, and settled ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... who joined the ship at Singapore, related a tiger adventure, which had occurred here not long previous to our visit. There was ample evidence that one of these much-dreaded creatures had made his lair not far away from the town. Our informant had come hither with a friend on a hunting excursion, and resolved, if possible, to secure the creature's hide. Three or four days before a native woman had disappeared from the suburbs, and it was resolved ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... hunter, as however careful the latter may be, a dead twig or something of the sort is sure to crackle just at the critical moment and so give the alarm. Still I never gave up hope of some day finding their lair, and accordingly continued to devote all my spare time to crawling about through the undergrowth. Many a time when attempting to force my way through this bewildering tangle I had to be released by my gun-bearer from the fast clutches of the "wait-a-bit"; ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... lies heavy on my heart; you have vulgarized life for me. What need have I for finessing? Am I not mistress for all time of this lion whose roar dies out in plaintive and adoring sighs? Ah! how he must have raged in his lair of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin! I know where he lives, I have his card: F., Baron ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac



Words linked to "Lair" :   habitation



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