"Tail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... formed of polished steel, but when it happens to stick its head into a ship's stern, it is not a 'joy' even for a moment, and it effectually stops, for ever, all consideration of its qualities by those who chance to feel them. It is shaped like a fish, and has a tail. Its motive power is in its tail, which is a screw propeller. It has lungs, consisting of a tank for holding compressed air. It has a stomach, composed of a pair of pneumatic engines which drive it through the water. Its body is fourteen feet long, more or less. Its head contains ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... small dark spots were to be seen marking the position of the eyes, and a longitudinal streak indicated the dorsal ridge. Presently everything became more distinct; the mouth and the nasal opening, the eyes and the tail, which lay in a half circle around the body; the skin was so transparent that the beating of the heart and the blood in the vessels could be easily distinguished; the yolk and the yolk sac were meanwhile ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... that he was not able to catch the ox by the horns and hold it until he could cut its throat, so the next plan was to get hold of the animal's tail with one hand, and with the big knife in the other cut his hamstrings so as to disable him, and then cut his throat. The ox seemed fond of being rubbed and petted, so after a little time a firm hold on the ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... some day; gin I cud only get a grainie saut to pit upo' the tail o' the bird that kens the tune o' 't. What ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... result if other Flippers were to follow him into the army and help to dull the edge of the innovation. Just what Flipper is to do with himself does not seem altogether clear. Even the excitement of leading his men among the redskins will be denied him, now that Spotted Tail has pacified the malcontents and Sitting Bull has retired to the Canadas. It is to be presumed that those persons who patronized Flipper and had him sent to West Point are gratified at the conclusion, and there is a sort of reason ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... thing with her tail, but she was very busy with all the rest of her. Her tail was pointed right toward ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... treasure safe. A tackle was passed down to them; to this they made fast the invaluable chest, and gave the word to heave. But the unexpected weight brought the hand at the tackle to a stand; two others ran to tail on and help him, and the thing caught the eye ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was, indeed, a most ludicrous-looking affair; Joseph with a face (if such it might be called) of purple flowers and a flaxen wig, dressed in a coarse pilgrim's cape studded over with yellow flowers, was leading by a hay band a green donkey, made of a kind of heath grass, with a tail of lavender and hoofs of cabbage leaves. Of this latter composition were also the sandals of Mary, whose face, as well as that of the bambino, was also of purple flowers and shapeless. The frock of the infant was of the gaudiest red poppy. It excited the laughter of almost all who saw it, except ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... had watched the proceedings of the visitors with great attention. During the poor baby's fit of coughing, he was so absorbed that the sandy kitten slipped through his arms and made off, with her tail as stiff as a sentry's musket; and now that the miller took the baby into his arms, Jan became excited, and asked, "What ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... whirled in the air and fell with a resounding crack, but the stallion merely switched his tail and started forward at a clumsy stumbling trot. The thunder of the host was too hoarse for applause; they saw a victory and a defeat but what they had wanted was blood, and a death. They had had a promise and a taste; now they hungered for ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... the father; "I know you can't make an angel without a man to start with, and I'll do what I can to furnish the man, seein' I'm responsible for you bein' born in the shape of one, and the preachers may put in the wing and the tail feathers if they can! Now ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... but at the same moment it was capsized into the ditch by the impact of the cavalry column. The enemy had no time to right the gun or carry it off, nor to stop for prisoners. They forced Moor on another horse, and turned tail as the charging lines of infantry came up on right and left as well as the column in the road, for there had not been a moment's pause in the advance. It had all happened, and the gun with a few dead and wounded of both sides were in our hands, in less ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... mules and turned them about to the other end of the car, in readiness for the return journey. Matters having progressed this far, the mules fell at once into a deep state of dejection and somnolence, their ears lopping down, their bodies drooping and motionless, save as now and then a faint swish of tail or wag of a weary ear bespoke the knowledge of some bold, marauding fly. The driver, perched upon his seat, his feet upon the rail, his knees pushed toward his chin, sat with his broad hat drawn down ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... volume of gusty sound, hurled aloft by these thousands of sky-pointing mouths, created an air-pocket in which the bombing plane tilted dangerously. For a moment, Bleak, who was watching the plane, thought it was going to careen into a tail-spin and crash down fatally. Then he saw Quimbleton, still recognizable by an adhering shred of whisker, lean over the ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... the river, swim out to the big log, and catch your own fish," called the fox. "It's very easy! Just drop your tail into the water. Hold it there till a fish comes along and bites, then pull it up. That is the way I catch my fish. You can catch all the fish you want ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... giving her friends the embarrassment of installing her, and Mr. Hope was in such a state of transparent admiration, that Albinia could not help two or three times noiselessly clapping her hands under the table, and secretly thanking the rioters and their tag-rag and bob-tail for having provided a home for ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... until her sides shook, and exclaimed: "I see how it is: that old thief of a Cuckoo has laid an egg in our nest. I will throw her ugly child out, and she can look after it herself;" and he made a dive for the little Cuckoo, but Linny caught him by his tail-feathers, saying: ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... what was happening. Daddy Longlegs was all ready for a fright. He was so upset, on account of being caught away from home on a windy day, that he was unusually jumpy and fidgety. But—as it often happens at such times—he met with a pleasant surprise. For there sat Sandy Chipmunk, with his long tail curled over his back, and something very like a smile on his ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... when the whip is lifted up; he possesses also an art by which he procures the things that are suitable for him, the art of hunting. He is not also without virtue; since the 67 true nature of justice is to give to every one according to his merit, as the dog wags his tail to those who belong to the family, and to those who behave well to him, guards them, and keeps off strangers and evil doers, he is surely not without justice. Now if he has this virtue, since the virtues follow 68 each other in turn, he has the other ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... female. The fur on her belly and flanks was glistening white; many small marks like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round her feet; her sinuous tail was also white, ending with black rings; the overpart of her dress, yellow like burnished gold, very lissome and soft, had the characteristic blotches in the form of rosettes, which distinguish the panther from every other ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... about practically naked, and owning nothing of any value except their boats and their fishing-nets. He noted that their heads were shaved except for a tuft 'on the top of the crown as long as a horse's tail.' This, of course, was the 'scalp lock,' so suggestive now of the horrors of Indian warfare, but meaning nothing to the explorer. From its presence it is supposed that the savages were Indians of the Huron-Iroquois tribe. Cartier thought, from their destitute state, that there ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... drew the Cossack's attention. A pied mongrel half-setter, searching for a scent and violently wagging its scantily furred tail, came running to the cordon. Lukashka recognized the dog as one belonging to his neighbour, Uncle Eroshka, a hunter, and saw, following it through the thicket, the approaching figure of the ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... him a deed giving up all claims upon him—settling our accounts, so to speak, and saying that I wouldn't expect anything more. I didn't understand a word of it at the time. Until I came here, Alyosha, till the last few days, indeed, perhaps even now, I haven't been able to make head or tail of my money affairs with father. But never mind that, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... himself, he never would get into so much trouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head swims; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is impossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the sufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to request that the next time anything happens ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... sometimes covered with Runic inscriptions; and this inscribed serpent, later, is twined round or heaped at the foot of the peculiar Scandinavian-shaped cross, the type of conversion. The serpent was sometimes altered into the partial semblance of a four-footed animal, the body and tail being lengthened and twined, and sometimes split, to give a new turn to the pattern. (Fig. 3.) All these zoomorphic patterns, as well as the human figures seen in the Book of Kells, the missal at Lambeth, and the Lindisfarne Book (which is, however, more English ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... feelings to Milo. About three o'clock, as though at a given signal, the Clodians began spitting at our men. There was an outburst of rage. They began a movement for forcing us from our ground. Our men charged: his ruffians turned tail. Clodius was pushed off the rostra: and then we too made our escape for fear of mischief in the riot. The senate was summoned into the Curia: Pompey went home. However, I did not myself enter the senate-house, lest I should ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... or a boa-constrictor, in my bed. Sometimes I fancied myself buried in one of the pyramids of Egypt, breaking my shins against the bones of a sacred cow. Then I thought myself a kangaroo, unable to move because somebody had cut off my tail. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... given it, or an old horse, to prevent its taking the more valuable cattle. When, however, the bull calf was three years old, it was strong enough to combat the Lindorm, and killed it; but when the combat took place, the snake struck a large stone with its tail, and cut thereby a furrow in it, and the stone is shown to this day as a proof of ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... is the essential evening dress of a gentleman, is simply the English dinner coat. It was first introduced in this country at the Tuxedo Club to provide something less formal than the swallow-tail, and the name has clung ever since. To a man who can not afford to get two suits of evening clothes, the Tuxedo is of greater importance. It is worn every evening and nearly everywhere, whereas the tail coat is necessary only at balls, formal dinners, and in a box at the opera. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... labourer earning perhaps 25s. a week. He paid his fare, and then he took from his pocket a packet tied up in a handkerchief. He untied the knot, and there came forth a neat pocket-book with pencil attached. He opened it, and began to write. My curiosity was too much for my manners. Out of the tail of my eye I watched the motion of his fingers, and this is what he wrote: "Tram 1-1/2 d." In a flash I seemed to see the whole orderly life of that poor labourer. He had an anchorage in the tossing seas of this troublesome world. He had got hold of a lesson that ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... Scoop shovel snout and a stern ugly as a battle-ship's, and the Lord knows there was overhang and to spare to tail her out decent. Cut out the yellow and the red and the whole lot of gold decorations and she's as homely ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... appointed stations, and when the blockade-runners came dashing down through the Swash Channel in the hope that the vessels usually stationed there would be withdrawn in the excitement, they were met by a deadly fire from the rifled guns, which rendered it impossible for them to proceed. They turned tail and fled. Two of them succeeded in returning to the harbor. One of them never came back. She was set on fire and burned by the shells of the ships. The monitors and ironclads joined in the battle, the forts returned the fire, and the quiet ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... got out of it some easier than I. I had picked out a rangey lank bronco; he would quit the earth and climb the sky like a flying machine; and drop down and strike the rocks with his legs stiff as a post. He would then spin like a top several hundred times play razor back and sun-fish, His head and tail would touch one instant between his legs; and the next instant over his back. I held my breath while he exercised all his tricks then he plunged off while I pounded him with my broad brimmed sombrero. The foreman said Erve Bullard could not play glue much better than I. We had many daring ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of its tail. "As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always hated cats—nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the ...
— Alice in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... caught hold of our legislators in Peking, who, having fallen under the spell of clothes, in solemn conclave decided that the frock coat, with the tall-top hat, should in future be the official uniform; and the swallow-tail coat with a white shirt front the evening dress in China. I need hardly say that this action of the Peking Parliament aroused universal surprise and indignation. How could the scholars and gentry of the interior, where foreign tailors are unknown, be expected to dress in frock coats at formal ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... expended some money on a quantity of stuff rolled up like balls of black ropeyarn. I exclaimed with astonishment, "In the name of goodness, are you going to chew or smoke all the way to Australia?" for the commodity was the good old pig-tail tobacco. He said, smiling, "This is to make friends with the sailors: I intend to learn something about a ship by the time we reach our destination." I dare say the worthy skipper of the good ship Janet Mitchell, should he be still alive, has some recollection of him. His mode of proceeding, as ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... was allowed to help you with a lesson. You were unable to make head or tail of a problem in fractions; I don't think figures were your strong point! Miss Edgewood began to show you; an interruption came along. I happened to be at her elbow—I had a sort of reputation for ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... cats by the hundreds; and most important of all, a mysterious five-hundred dollar rose-colored cat. Then comes the lamentable accident to Lady Victoria's aristocratic tail; the operation; the over-dose of chloroform; the funeral. There is a ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... from a strip of birch bark that marks the beginning of a fire. It is time to get the fish. So I set up my rod and walk upstream perhaps a hundred yards, casting on the current where it cuts under the farther bank. Almost every cast evokes a trout; this one takes the tail fly, a Silver Doctor, the next one strikes the Bucktail dropper; any other flies would serve. The largest fish is taken on my return, from under the stern of one of the canoes. Where trout are so plentiful and so unwary, there is no call for the preparatory ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... like full-laden thunder-clouds, which reflect the rays of the descending sun. The noise of his breath was like the rushing of the tempest-blast. The earth groaned beneath his iron feet. The storm rustled in his hair, which waved round his head like the tail from the threatening comet. Faustus lay before him like a worm; for the horrible sight had deprived him of his senses and his strength. The Devil uttered a contemptuous laugh, which hissed over the surface of the ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... induced me to open my eyes, and look about me. We were in Hechingen, the capital of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, an independent state, with a prince of its own; who is the head of his family, in one sense, and its tail in another; there being, besides the King of Prussia, a Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen adjoining, who is his junior in rank, and his better in power; having some 40 or 50,000 subjects, while he of Hechingen has but 15,000. ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... It's an old trick, but one seldom tried. This hair came from the tail of a white horse. It was threaded into a long, keen needle. The fellow who got at your horse yesterday was an expert. With one jab of that needle he passed the hair through the flesh just back of this cord. It went in at one side, and came out on the other. After that, while he was pretending to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... turning to her husband, who was still lounging in the doorway, "I'm going to put you out. And Bruce, too. I have enough to do without having a husband who makes fun of me and a dog who sticks his tail into everything under my feet all the time. Hurry on," and she pushed her protesting, laughing husband and the reluctant dog out through the open door and into ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... written. None of them had been printed when this was said of them. They were first collected and published in 1609; the collection being arranged, I think, in "most admirable disorder," so that it is scarce possible to make head or tail to them. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... men o' the best character in their place. He cleared off the forests and planted the ground with cocoa-nut palms. Got out steam mills, circular saws, lathes, etc., and established a system of general education with a younger brother as head-master—an' tail-master too, for I believe there was only one. He also taught the men to work in brass, iron, and wood, and his wife—a Cocos girl that he married after comin' out—taught all the women and girls to sew, ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... bone whole from the fish, detaching, as you do so, any flesh still retaining the bone. Then you have two halves of the fish, and you have four quarters of solid fish. To remove the skin, take the tail end firmly between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, hold the skin side downward on the board, and with your knife make an incision across the flesh, then, keeping the skin firmly between your thumb and finger, push the knife ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... content, your Honor! We notaries are privileged to wear furred cloaks in the Palais de Justice, and black robes in the country when we can get them! Look here at my robe of dignity!" He held up the tattered tail of his gown with a ludicrous air. "The profession of notary is meat, drink, and lodging: every man's house is free to me—his bed and board I share, and there is neither wedding, christening, nor funeral, in ten parishes that can go on without me. Governors and intendants flourish ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... street—it blazed—it rose higher and higher. I could see shadowy figures moving around it, heaping boxes, barrels and other combustibles upon the flame. It was a bonfire, kindled to light the work of building a barricade at that point. Across the street a line of wagons had been placed; the tail of each one touching the front of another, the horses having been withdrawn. And then hundreds of busy figures were to be seen at work, tearing up the pavements of the street and heaping the materials under the wagons; and then shovels flew, and the earth rose over ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... gratitude is all the other way. It is I who am under obligations to him,—not he to me. As for Lord L'Estrange, I can't make head or tail of his real intentions; and why he should have attacked Leonard in that way puzzles me more than all, for he wished Leonard to stand; and Levy has privately informed me that, in spite of my Lord's friendship for the Right Honourable, you are the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for the cows, didn't he take old Prince? There was just a chance that Prince wasn't in the hay-field. She ran down the steps calling, "Prince! Prince!" The old dog rose deliberately from his place on the shady side of the barn and trotted toward her, wagging his tail. "Come, Prince!" cried Elliott, and ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... where it is said, "Soma goes through the purifying sieve," by analogy with the drink of the plant soma passing through the sieve the poet may be supposed to imagine the moon passing through the sieve-like clouds; and even when this sieve is expressly called the 'sheep's-tail sieve' and 'wool-sieve,' this may still be, metaphorically, the cloud-sieve (as, without the analogy, one speaks to-day of woolly clouds and ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... pretty dog," said the girl, and with a look out of one eye and with a slight wag of the tail ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... edge of a sixpence except me and you. Nobody has an idee the perfect filament's more than just a bit of theorising. Fifty tons of quap and we'd turn that bit of theorising into something. We'd make the lamp trade sit on its tail and howl. We'd put Ediswan and all of 'em into a parcel without last year's trousers and a hat, and swap 'em off for a pot of geraniums. See? We'd do it through Business Organisations, and there you ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... be That One who could make Michael should make thee. O, foolish Man, meting things low and high By self, that accidental quantity! With this conceit, Philosophy stalks frail As peacock staggering underneath his tail. Who judge of Plays from their own penny gaff, At God's great theatre will hiss and laugh; For what's a Saint to them Brought up in modern virtues brummagem? With garments grimed and lamps gone all ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... thing we ever fall out about is what my aunt calls propriety. I had a French governess once who left because I pinned the tail of Cousin John's kite to her skirt, and put white mice in her work-box; and she was always lecturing me about what she called "les convenances." Aunt Deborah don't speak much French, though she says she understands it perfectly, and she never ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... half in dream, upon the stair I hear A patter coming nearer and more near, And then upon my chamber door A gentle tapping, For dogs, though proud, are poor, And if a tail will do to give command Why use a hand? And after that a cry, half sneeze, half yapping, And next a scuffle on the passage floor, And then I know the creature lies to watch Until the noiseless maid will lift the latch. ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... ends now, prematurely, in an abyss of blue clay; and which signify, in their silvery expiring between the successive trunks of wintry trees, that some human beings, thereabouts, are in a hurry as well as the sticks and straws, and, having fastened themselves to the tail of a manageable breeze, are being blown ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... been able, with any degree of positiveness, to answer the question as to whether or not he was provided with a caudal appendage—a question which I am prepared to answer definitely, at any moment, if called upon by the proper authorities, and, if need be, to produce not only the tail itself, but the fierce and untamed pterodactyl that bit it off upon that unfortunate autumn afternoon when he and I had our first and ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... said Aneta, "you are in the midst of a terrible battle, and you mean to give in and turn tail, and let the enemy walk over the field. That is not a bit what I should have expected at one ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... waving their shadows below them on the parched plain; but there was no dinner for them that day—not even a horse was hit. And so always, when these field guns stop barking and limber up, it reminds one of pulling a dog out of a fight by the tail as they are dragged slowly, as if reluctantly, away; while the drivers don't bother to look round, and don't look a bit like heroes full of courage at the magnificent price of one and twopence ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... with drooping, bushy tail; long ears, half erect; long, sharp muzzle; black and fulvous in colour, often mingled with brown and white, the Shepherd's Dog yields to none in fidelity and sagacity. In his own peculiar calling, nothing can exceed his vigilance, his quick comprehension, and his intimate knowledge ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... ye, sargeant dear," said Betty, removing the mug from her mouth, "'tis no r'asonable to think it was more than the piddler himself; sure now, where was the smell of sulphur, and the wings, and the tail, and the cloven foot? Besides, sargeant, it's no dacent to tell a lone famale that she ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... and out of the window. Poor Scrapefoot was so frightened, and he thought every bone in his body must be broken. But he got up and first shook one leg—no, that was not broken; and then another, and that was not broken; and another and another, and then he wagged his tail and found there were no bones broken. So then he galloped off home as fast as he could go, and never went near the ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... of passion and character in each. The little fellow began throwing the bright grain from the basin to a great strutting turkey which went marching and gobbling up and down the door-yard, swelling his feathers, spreading his tail, and shaking his red neck-tie with a boundless pretence and restlessness; like many a hero he was proud of his uniform, although the fatal hour which was to lay him low was not far off. It was the ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... who smiled, as if in gratitude; but his attention was called away by the Newfoundland dog, who fawned upon him, and after having received his caresses, squatted down upon the sand, which he beat with his tail as he looked ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the renowned Tom Petty arrived and absorbed all the three brothers, and even their father, in delights as mysterious to me as to Emily. How she shrieked when Martyn rushed triumphantly into the room where we were arranging books with the huge patriarch of all the rats dangling by his tail! Three hopeful families were destroyed; rooms, vaults, and cellars examined and cleared; and Petty declared the race to be exterminated, picturesque ruffian that he was, in his shapeless hat, rusty velveteen, long leggings, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it was only the very wealthy who could face such extravagance. At one end of the pie the peacock's head, in all its plumage and with beak richly gilt, appeared above the crust, while at the other end the tail with feathers outspread made a brave show. The dish, however, was regarded more in the light of a superb ornament to the table, for it ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... extravagant requests. I think this evil increases rather than diminishes. On the other hand, I must fairly own that I have received many communications in this way worth all the trouble and expense that the others cost me, so I must "lay the head of the sow to the tail of the grice," as the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... throwing-off subjects for his tail-pieces (as I named them), which were always his favourite exercise; the bird or figure he did as a task, but was relieved by working the scenery and back-ground; and after each figure he flew to the tail-piece with avidity, for in the inventive ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... points of difference from a common engine lathe are readily distinguished, among which may be mentioned the absence of centers and tail stock, a traveling head with hollow driving spindle, and a stationary tool rest and water tank. By dispensing with a tail stock a much shorter bed may be used, and the hollow driving spindle enables ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... waiting," he muttered, "sorry to see you standing. Ah! Dusty, I see;" and with the long tail of his dressing-gown he proceeded to raise a cloud of dust from four massive oak chairs, much to the disturbance of Mark's equanimity, who succeeded with some difficulty in maintaining his gravity. "Sorry," added Mr Tankardew, "to appear in this dishabille, ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... according to these instructions, and found himself, to his intense amazement and the delight of the bystanders, sitting with his face to the mule's tail. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... the Asuras made of Mandara a churning staff and Vasuki the cord, and set about churning the deep for amrita. The Asuras held Vasuki by the hood and the gods held him by the tail. And Ananta, who was on the side of the gods, at intervals raised the snake's hood and suddenly lowered it. And in consequence of the stretch Vasuki received at the hands of the gods and the Asuras, black vapours ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... shouted for joy, when they saw that the southern heavens, which had been so clear and beautiful but a moment before, were suddenly whitened with clouds of vapor upon which the rays of the western sun produced a most charming effect. A gentle breeze gave to each spouting jet, a misty tail, comet-like in appearance ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... watch and see who it was who swept up their sleeping place. The cow pretended to be too ill to rise, and Ledha after watching for some time came out and swept the ground as usual, and then tried to pull the sick cow up by the tail; but she would not move so he went back to his hollow tree. When the buffaloes returned they heard that it was a kindhearted man who cleaned their sleeping place; so they called Ledha out and said that they would keep him as their servant to clean their ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... senses, an' got daddy to be regarded as a great medicine-man. Of course he kep' it secret how he produced the surprisin' fires—an', to say truth, I think from my own experience that if he had tried to explain it to 'em they could have made neither head nor tail o't. For a long time arter that he did nothin' more in that way, till one time when the Blackfeet came an' catched daddy an' me nappin' in this very hut and we barely got off wi' the scalps on our heads by scrambling down the precipice where the reptiles didn't like ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... There had been all sorts of unpleasantness between them; and if any discontent or difference between himself and the crew prevailed, Salve was sure to be at the bottom of it. He had found a rancid salt-herring, set up on four legs with a tail, as he was walking on the poop one evening in the moonlight; and as complaints had been recently made about the food, a good deal of which had become worse than bad from the effects of the hot climate, he had at once attributed to Salve this pointed method of drawing ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... who, finding matters so backward at Frankfurt, and nothing to do there, has been out, in the interim, touring to while away the tedium; and is here only as sequel and corroboration of Belleisle,—say as bottle-holder, or as high-wrought peacock's-tail, to Belleisle:—of the eminent Montijos I have to record next to nothing in the shape of negotiation ("Treaty" with the Termagant was once proposed by him here, which Friedrich in his politest way declined); and shall mention only, That his domestic arrangements were sumptuous and commodious ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... stop here. What can we treat ourselves to in this place, excepting bad brandy and cards? Let's go over to the old country, where there ain't nothing we want that we can't get for our money; and, when it's all gone, let's turn tail again, and work for more.' He wrought upon me, like that, till I went back with him. We quarreled aboard ship; and when we got into port, he went his way and I went mine. Not, mind ye, that I started off at once for the old place as soon as I was ashore. That fog in my mind, I told you of, seemed ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... she'd like to ask Just why other mothers should find it a task To care for one baby. Why, here she has four, And there's plenty of room on her tail for some more! ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... a club and swinging a lantern, majestically posed at the nearer entrance to the garden. With a swallow-tail coat over his night-shirt and his nightcap tipped over one ear, he was an enthralling figure. As he strode toward me his slippers flapped weirdly upon the brick walk. "There's somebody in the garden, sir," he whispered huskily. ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... which had set the Council by the ears and had stopped his examination. Luke does not tell us what the Council said to the conspirators, but we learn from what Paul's nephew says in verse 20 that it 'agreed to ask thee to bring down Paul.' So once more the tail drove on the head, and the Council became the tool of fierce zealots. No doubt most of its members would have shrunk from themselves killing Paul, but they did not shrink from having a hand in his death. They were most religious and respectable ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... and dark areas of the eggs, the dark area gradually increasing in size; the increase in the length of the egg; the gradual change of the dark area into the general shape of a tadpole with head and tail, the first appearance of the gills, the separation from the jelly, the movement by means of the tail, the disappearance of the gills, the growth of the hind legs and, later, of the forelegs, and the disappearance ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... almost white beam that poured out of the open door of the engine firebox. Then, the steam clearing, there appeared a strip of faintly lit ground on either side of the flying carriage roofs; it promptly vanished; red tail Lamps appeared, leaping away; there was a rattle of wheels over siding connections, and with a rapidly decreasing roar the visitation was past. For a moment there remained the quickly moving spot of lighted ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... came into this place with my tail between my legs already, and hungry besides; and then you get to flourishing, and it depresses me worse than ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... from my heart to the tips of my toes and the top of my head. I needed nothing more to hold me back, but there before my eyes was the other visitor to this pleasant sunny spot, his head rising from his coiled body, his tail erect and ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... Pacific. But he loaded her with pitch-pine deals and sent her off to hunt for her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I fancy. It doesn't matter, because in latitude 44 d south and somewhere halfway between Good Hope and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... then there was a peculiar splashing and wallowing sound from some distance farther in, and it ended with an echoing report, as if one of the animals had given the surface of the water a heavy blow with its tail. ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... he vaulted over the fence and approached the bull. Instantly that animal saw him, down went his head, of course, and up went his tail, as he charged upon the sauntering figure. But Jack dodged the rush with the nimbleness of a practised picador; and the bull crashed against the fence. Again and again the same performance was repeated, while we all watched round the fence, calling to Jack at intervals ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... to flow back into it. Mary Magdalen had brought a dog with her—a yellow dog of unknown ancestry, of shamefaced demeanor, a ropy tail, splay feet, and a rolling eye; named, she and heaven ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... the kind called a Great Dane, came stalking into the hall where the Bunker family was gathered. The dog seemed pleased when he saw the children, and wagged his tail. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope
... coats of mail, Shone with a most attractive lustre; Strong claws, long limbs, a longer tail— They pinned their faith to bulk and bluster; They laid their eggs in every land And hid them deftly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... also molested by a terrific animal which they called Ro-qua-ho —a variegated lizzard—a swift runner and strikes very violent blows with its tail, which destroyed many hunters while lying in lurk for them. One day while a party of hunters were on their journey to camp-out for the purpose of hunting, the party consisting of four, they came to a very large hollow tree where they ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... guarded the fruits of the Hesperides. Are not "soys" and "chou meins" and other such treasures of the East laid out above? And yet the dragon dozes at its post like a sleepy dog. No flame leaps up its gullet. The swish of its tail is stilled. If it wag at all, it's but in friendship or because a gust of wind has stirred it from ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... me with you, Miss Lady," the Stray pleaded, as he ran along beside me, trying to keep up with my long steps. "I've got me a dog now to keep off turkles from me and you." And the slinking brindle bunch of ears and tail and very little else, at our heels, regarded me with the same brave entreaty. He and the Stray, indeed, presented a picture of chivalrous attention ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... story for its plot; it should represent heroic or godlike characters and good deeds; it should be written in an elaborate style, and be full of noble sentiments. Moreover, it should be composed like the end of a cow's tail; so that each of the ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... slowly around the corner of the house, stopping a moment to pat the friendly collie that wagged his tail, welcomingly, in the path. A large mixed orchard-garden, surrounded by a row of sturdy soft maples, opened up before him; and, coming up its side path, with the most cautious of gingerly treads, was the big hired man, bearing a huge striped watermelon. He nodded ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... with handkerchiefs, and through streets black with people thronging to see the man who had solved the riddle of Africa. And then it would be pleasant, too, to make a neat little speech to the Common Council,—letting the brave show catch its own tail in its mouth, by proving, that, if America did not achieve everything, she could appreciate—yes, appreciate was the word—those who did. Yes, this would be a fitting consummation; I would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... far in advance of us and our colonial kinsmen in their treatment of horses and other animals. This was very apparent with regard to this Texan herd. There were no stock whips, no needless worrying of the animals in the excitement of sport. Any dog seizing a bullock by his tail or heels would have been called off and punished, and quietness and gentleness were the rule. The horses were ridden without whips, and with spurs so blunt that they could not hurt even a human skin, and ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... lobster. When I examine it, what appears to be the most striking character it presents? Why, I observe that this part which we call the tail of the lobster, is made up of six distinct hard rings and a seventh terminal piece. If I separate one of the middle rings, say the third, I find it carries upon its under surface a pair of limbs or appendages, each ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... companion: is not her younger sister fairer than she? take her, I pray thee, instead of her. And Samson said unto them, This time shall I be blameless in regard of the Philistines, when I do them a mischief. And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between every two tails. And when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks and the standing corn, and also the ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... am going to reprint one of my own papers. The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. I have done my best to straighten its array, I have pruned it fearlessly, and it remains invertebrate and wordy. No self-respecting magazine would print the thing; and here you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of its own, but for the sake of the man whom ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... love Roman inscriptions in lieu of our own language, though, if any where, proper in an university; neither can I approve writing what the Romans themselves would not understand. What does it avail to give a Latin tail to a Guildhall? Though the word used by moderns, would mayor convey to Cicero the idea of a mayor? Architectus, I believe, is the right word; but I doubt whether veteris jam perantiquae is classic for a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... aspect of the moon's visible surface in the five rude woodcuts representing the curious features he perceived thereon, whose form and arrangement, he tells us, reminded him of the "ocelli" on the feathers of a peacock's tail,—a quaint but not altogether inappropriate simile to describe the appearance of groups of the larger ring-mountains partially illuminated by the sun, when seen in a ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... the pipe into his plates. In the tail-piece to his works, which he prepared a few months before his death, and which he called The Bathos, or Manner of Sinking in Sublime Paintings, the end of everything is represented. Time himself, supported ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... either, nor all the waters thereof; but the most astonishing thing is, he doesn't want the Snow Bank! He not only doesn't want it himself, but is perfectly willing that Tom should have it. In fact, do what we will, it seems to be impossible for us to tread on the tail of that young man's coat. But having heard a little bird whisper that he is in love, and successfully so, I am not so surprised at his amiability. Neither am I altogether unprepared, if the little bird's whisper be true, for the fact that Miss Malcolm ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... good deal of this time he devoted to Henley and Morris and Walt Whitman, an ancient brier between his teeth and a canister of excellent tobacco at his elbow. Odd, isn't it, that an Englishman without his pipe is as incomplete as a Manx cat, which, as doubtless you know, has no tail. After all, does a Manx cat know that it is incomplete? Let me say, then, as incomplete as a small ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... night, and just at daylight, as we ascended a steep part of the mountains, I caught sight of a pony's head looking over a bush. We advanced rapidly, only to find the horse grunting from a stab wound in the belly, and the little camp scattered around about him. The shirt tail flickering in the brush was all of Massai. We followed on, but he had gone down a steep bluff. We went down too, thus exposing ourselves to draw his fire so that we could locate him, ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... side. Its neck was covered with long blue hair, its sides with scales of green and gold. Its back was of corrugated skin, of a purple hue. Its belly was similar in nature, but its colour was leaden, dashed with blotches of livid blue. Its skinny, bat-like wings and its tail were of a dull gray. It was strange to see how so many gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and such beautiful things as wings and hair and scales, combined to form the horrible creature, intense ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... further described thus: "They are as large as a Calf, they have Horns on their heads like those of deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a fish's tail." These figures were on the face of a bluff near ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and girls. That was his way of talking. My voice is not so harsh as his. I have a note which some people think is quite sweet; then my throat gets rusty and I have some trouble in finishing my tune. I puff out my feathers, spread my wings and tail, then lifting myself on the perch force out the other notes of my song. Maybe you have seen a singer on the stage, instead of a perch, do the same thing. Had to get on his tip-toes to reach a high ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... side of a fallen log the chipmunk peeps warily, comes out quickly, but whisks back again in fancied fright. Soon he returns and sits on the log awhile, barking his bird-like "chip, chip," and flirting his tail with each note. Then he sets about gathering the old oak leaves which were piled near the log by the winds last March and have lain undisturbed through the summer. Grabbing two or three in his mouth, he pushes them into his pouches with his paws and ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... which is distinctly womanly is that which leads a man to do with energy, enthusiasm and devotion the very thing which he has always assured everybody that he will not think of doing. The old-fashioned way of making a pig go to market is to pull his tail steadily in the opposite direction. If you do that, nothing can save him from his fate; for he will drag you off your feet in his effort to do what he does not want to do at all; and there is more 'psychology' in that plain fact than in volumes of ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford |
