"Talon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... territory to add to the French dominions in America. And just before the end of his brilliant administration he commissioned the explorer Louis Jolliet to find and explore the Mississippi, of which so much had been heard from missionaries, traders, and Indians. Like Marquette, Talon believed that this river flowed into the Western Sea—the Pacific ocean—and that it would open a route to China and the Indies; and it was directed that Marquette should accompany ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... with a modified US coat of arms in the center between the large blue initials V and I; the coat of arms shows a yellow eagle holding an olive branch in one talon and three arrows in the other with a superimposed shield of vertical red and white stripes ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... other officer—the falconer. Falconry was the favourite pastime of the kings and nobles of the time; indeed, everybody found it very exciting to watch the long struggle in the air between the trained falcon and its prey, as each bird tried every skill of wing and talon that it knew. The falconer was to drink very sparingly in the king's hall, for fear the falcons might suffer; and his lodging was to be in the king's barn, not in the king's hall, lest the smoke from the great fire-place ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free— The herds are shut in byre and hut For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tush and claw. Oh hear the call!—Good hunting all That keep the ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... word, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder with the weight of an eagle's talon, and he heard a voice ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... wheeling With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed Incessantly—sometimes on high concealing 210 Its lessening orbs, sometimes as if it failed, Drooped through the air; and still it shrieked and wailed, And casting back its eager head, with beak And talon unremittingly assailed The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek 215 Upon his enemy's heart ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... bass and the mullet, the fin of a wallowing dolphin, Halting, he wheels round slowly, in doubt at the weight of his quarry, Whether to clutch it alive, or to fall on the wretch like a plummet, Stunning with terrible talon the life of the brain in the hindhead: Then rushes up with a scream, and stooping the wrath of his eyebrows Falls from the sky, like a star, while the wind rattles hoarse in his pinions. Over him closes the foam for a moment; and then from ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... commotion, with cries and exclamations from all. Quick as the others were, the old woman was at his side before them, snarling with rage. Her talon-like fingers sunk into his arm, and her gaze went darting about the room in a most convincing way. Some minutes passed before the old woman could be quieted. Then King explained his action. He swore solemnly, if sheepishly, that he could not have been mistaken, and yet the owner of that eye ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... not "comme il faut," they accounted me their equal, and actually patronised me in a sort of good-humoured fashion. What in particular excited in me this feeling was their feet, their dirty nails and fingers, a particularly long talon on Operoff's obtrusive little finger, their red shirts, their dickeys, the chaff which they good-naturedly threw at one another, the dirty room, a habit which Zuchin had of continually snuffling and pressing a finger to his nose, and, above all, their manner of speaking—that is ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... hated rival in his power at last, was determined to glut his hate. He secured a grip with the other iron talon, dragged Nickie down, and pulling him close to the bars, and pushing his short nose between the rods, bit at him with gleaming teeth, and all the time he clawed furiously, his nails tearing through the hide of the Missing Link, and ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... stellar systems; no thought, word or act of man but has sprung withal out of all men, and works sooner or later, recognisably or irrecognisably, on all men! It is all a Tree: circulation of sap and influences, mutual communication of every minutest leaf with the lowest talon of a root, with every other greatest and minutest portion of the whole. The Tree Igdrasil, that has its roots down in the Kingdoms of Hela and Death, and whose ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... stern-sheets and, uttering queer, gibbering sounds the while, scrambled forward into the eyes of the boat, with movements that somehow were equally suggestive of the very opposite qualities of agility and exhaustion, and held out its lean, talon-like hands for the rope which I was waiting to heave. As we drifted alongside the boat I hove the rope's-end; the man caught it, and collapsing, rather than stooping, with it, he made it fast to the ring-bolt in the stem. Then, uprearing himself once more, stiffly, and as though ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... trained hawk of crooked talon who Clutches the partridge, when about to eat, Is by the dog, she deems her comrade true, O'ertaken and defrauded of the meat; So on ill gain intent, the leech, in lieu Of the expected aid, received defeat. Hear, thus, what sovereign wickedness will dare, And be like ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the lioness charged. The tree was but a few paces away. A limb hung ten feet from the ground, and as the boy leaped for it the lioness leaped for him. Like a monkey he pulled himself up and to one side. A great forepaw caught him a glancing blow at the hips—just grazing him. One curved talon hooked itself into the waist band of his pajama trousers, ripping them from him as the lioness sped by. Half-naked the lad drew himself to safety as the beast turned and leaped for ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he did—with just such sunken cheeks and ashen lips and frozen eyes; with just such a collapsed and shuddering form; yet, withal, could not have shown that terrific look of utter, incurable despair! His fingers, talon-like in their horny paleness and rigidity, clutched his breast, as if to tear some mortal anguish thence, and his glassy eyes were fixed in unutterable reproach upon her face! Thrice he essayed to speak, but ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and a purple spot. Seven jewels of the eye's brilliance was either of his kingly eyes. Seven toes to either of his two feet. Seven fingers to either of his two hands, with the clutch of hawk's claw, with the grip of hedgehog's talon in every separate ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... only the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations, but the still more powerful league of New England and the other English Colonies. There, also, were seen the sharp intellectual face of Laval, its first bishop, who organized the church and education in the colony; and of Talon, wisest of Intendants, who devoted himself to the improvement of agriculture, the increase of trade, and the well being of all the King's subjects in New France. And one more portrait was there, worthy to rank among the statesmen and rulers of New France—the pale, calm, intellectual features of ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... struck the tents, there could not have been fewer than 150 vultures, hissing and spitting at each other like angry cats; trampling each other to the dust to get at the carcases; and tearing wildly with talon and beak for a place. In a very short time nothing but mangled bones remained. A great number of the vultures got on to the rotten limb of a huge mango tree. One other proved the last straw, for down ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... in 1672 that Talon, the Superintendent of "La Nouvelle France," having heard from the Indians of the existence of a great river, sent out an expedition to discover it under Father Marquette, who had great influence over the Indian tribes. Crossing the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... to sycophancy,—a disgusting trait, I admit,—we should consider the age, when everybody cringed to sovereigns and their favorites. Bacon never made such an abject speech as Omer Talon, the greatest lawyer in France, did to Louis XIII, in the Parliament of Paris. Three hundred years ago everybody bowed down to exalted rank: witness the obsequious language which all authors addressed to patrons in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... gazed for a moment ironically at Juliette. He had held, between his talon-like fingers, that very morning, a thin scrap of paper, on which a schoolgirlish hand had scrawled ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... being more thickly covered with hair beneath; the fur too is longer and the colour browner on the back; the tail is more rufous, and the tip blacker; the skull is larger and broader; the nasal portion more elongate and less concave above, and the hind upper molar has a distinct talon, or rudimentary second transverse ridge, in young specimens, traces of which may be detected in the form of the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... One,"—or one nation made up of many states,—was adopted June 20, 1782. The spread eagle signifies strength; the thirteen stars above his head, and the thirteen stripes on the shield on his breast, represent the thirteen original states; the olive branch, held in the eagle's right talon, shows that America seeks peace, while the bundle of arrows in his left talon shows that we are prepared for war. This seal is used in stamping agreements or treaties made by the United States with other nations, and also ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... strangely distorted talon and gripped my fingers. The thing was almost like the hoof of a deer produced into claws. I could have yelled with surprise and pain. His face came forward and peered at my nails, came forward into the light of the opening of the hut and I saw with a quivering ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... sent as a proof of the intention of the King to defend his long-neglected colony. In a few weeks, more than two thousand persons, soldiers and settlers, had come to Canada. Among {153} the number were M. de Courcelles, the first governor, and M. Talon, the first intendant, under the new regime. Both were fond of state and ceremony, and the French taste of the Canadians was now gratified by a plentiful display of gold lace, ribbons, wigs, ornamented swords, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... with a gesture of restrained humility which contrasted oddly with the hauteur of his expression, and striding up to the American, laid his two thin, talon-like hands upon the other's shoulders, and turned him round until Earle fully faced the light. Then, bending forward, he intently scrutinised the queer jewel, or talisman, which Earle now wore fully exposed to view. And as he did so, the expression of almost defiant pride which ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... sense, Tau.) But I return from that digression, to plead the cause of mankind and its wrongs. The prisoner's designs include the constraint, racking, and mutilation of their utterance. A man sees a beautiful thing, and wishes to describe it as kalon, but in comes Tau, and forces the man to say talon he must have precedence everywhere, of course. Another man has something to say about a vine, and lo, before it is out, it is metamorphosed by this miserable creature into misery; he has changed slaema to tlaema, with a suggestive hint of tlaemon. And, not content with middle-class victims, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... his throat like an angered cur, and his hands were jerked to the level of his breast, the fingers bending talon-wise. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his teeth. In the momentary respite afforded by the powerful stimulant, he lifted his yellow, claw-like hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gathered upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the painter saw, on one bony, talon-like finger, the gleaming flash of ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... this Sovereign Council became and remained the paramount civil authority in French America. At the outset it consisted of seven members, the governor and the bishop ex officio, with five residents of the colony selected jointly by these two. Beginning with the arrival of Talon as first intendant of the colony in 1665, the occupant of this post was also given a seat in the Council. Before long, however, it became apparent that the provision relating to the appointment of non-official members was unworkable. The governor and the bishop could not agree in their selections; ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... Cayla had been the soi-disant mistress of Louis XVIII., or rather the favourite of his declining years. 'Il fallait une Esther,' to use her own expression, 'a cet Assuerus.' She was the daughter of M. Talon, brought up by Madam Campan, and an early friend of Hortense Beauharnais. Her marriage to an officer in the Prince de Conde's army was an unhappy one; and she was left, deserted by her husband, in straitened circumstances. After the assassination ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... extends to the hoist side; a brown and white American bald eagle flying toward the hoist side is carrying two traditional Samoan symbols of authority, a war club known as a "Fa'alaufa'i" (upper; left talon), and a coconut fiber fly whisk known as a "Fue" (lower; right talon); the combination of symbols broadly mimics that seen on the US Great Seal and reflects the relationship between the United States and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... midst of them, the phantom troop dropped into formless masses, while the monsters advanced. They came close to me; and I alone, of all the myriads around, changed not at their approach. Each laid a talon on my shoulder—each raised a veil which was one hideous net-work of twining worms. I saw through the ghastly corruption of their faces the look that told me who they were—the monstrous iniquities incarnate in monstrous ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... promise you, the ancient freedom come down, O happiness, upon the smallest city, and love alone bind the races together; and if ever the black talon of the tyrant is seen, all the races will bound up to drive ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... hieroglyphics well she knew, For there exposed to public view Each debtor's tally great and small Appeared upon the bar-room wall. A short stroke for a half-pint stood, A longer for a quart was good, While something like an Eagle's talon Upon her blackboard was a gallon. And woe to him, who soon or late His tally did not liquidate; For when her goodly company Were all assembled for a spree, She read off each delinquent's score, And at his meanness loudly swore, And threatened when he next appeared, Unless the ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... nations so long settled on the sea board," wrote the Intendant Talon in 1671, "are trembling with fright in view of what your Majesty has accomplished here in the last seven years." In fact, the thrifty and unadventurous farmers along the Atlantic were as yet only too indifferent to the importance of Canada; still less did they foresee ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... O Zeus! in the Gasteres. Wild birds were they, strong of talon, clanging of wing, and clamorous of gullet. Wild birds, O Zeus! wild birds; now cropping the tender grass by the river of Adonis, and breaking the nascent reed at the root, and depasturing the sweet nymphaea; now again ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... take him as at the period in which he is represented to us. If we see him dissipated, fat,—it is enough;—we have nothing to do with his youth, when he might perhaps have been modest, chaste, "and not an Eagle's talon in the waist." But Constitutional Courage extends to a man's whole life, makes a part of his nature, and is not to be taken up or deserted like a mere Moral quality. It is true, there is a Courage founded upon principle, or rather a principle independent of Courage, which will ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... making no sound. But I gat not home the blow; for the Man dropt sudden down upon the hands, and the blow went overwards. And the Brute-Man caught me by the legs, to rip me; and I cut quick with the Diskos, and it did have but one monstrous talon left unto it. And immediately, it cast me with the other, half across the hollow, and I fell with mine armour clanging mightily, and the Diskos did ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... have held a wildcat, or captured with his bare hands a wild eagle, strong of talon and beak. She tore and raged ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... cried Jennet, whose quick ears had caught the words, "Tak care whot ye do to offend me, lass," she added, shaking her thin fingers, armed with talon-like claws, threateningly at her, "or ey'll ask my granddame, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... all the points that he ought to speak or be silent upon. His text was "Fallax pulchritudo, mulier timens Deum laudabitur." Assuredly many delicate points must have presented themselves in the life of a princess who had been a politician and a Frondeuse, a gallant woman, and a Jansenist. Yet Father Talon, a Jesuit, who was present at her death, was fond of repeating on fitting occasions: "Jansenist as much as you will, she died the death ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... second Chief Crown Governor, or Viceroy. He was not fettered with a Council of Advice, but he was more absurdly hampered with almost co-equals in the shape of assistants. The Seigneur de Courcelles was appointed Governor of the Colony, and Mon. De Talon, Intendant. De Tracy brought with him as settlers the then newly disbanded regiment of Carignan-Sallieres, which had returned from fighting, not for the Turks in Hungary, but against them. They had been ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... long, talon-like fingers, with their sharp, grimy nails, closed and unclosed like those of feline creatures when they ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... is angry. There is something stupid, absurd, in the hard, talon-like eyes watching so fiercely and so confidently in the doorway, sure, unmitigated. Has ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... objection to replacing the broken dishes, yet a present of food aroused her to violent anger. Her temper was positively something terrible in so small a person and remembering her story of how Old Swallowtail had clenched his talon-like fingers and twisted Ingua's arm till she screamed with pain, Mary Louise could well believe the statement that the child was "a Cragg to ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... shrieks, and dying groans, the desart fill; They rage, they rend; their rav'nous jaws distill With crimson foam; and, when the banquet's o'er, They stride away, and paint their steps with gore; In flight alone the shepherd puts his trust, And shudders at the talon in the dust. Mild is my behemoth, though large his frame; Smooth is his temper, and represt his flame, While unprovok'd. This native of the flood Lifts his broad foot, and puts ashore for food; Earth ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... it, and both gulf and islet are called Marza Muscat. The gulf to the east, called the Grand Port, was again divided by three fingers of rock projecting from the mainland, at right angles to the tongue that bore Fort St. Elmo. Each finger was armed with a strong talon—the Castle of La Sangle to the east, the Castle of St. Angelo in the middle, and Fort Ricasoli to the west. Between St. Angelo and La Sangle was the harbour where all the ships of war were shut up at night by an immense chain; ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... circle. A certain rude rhythm characterized his frenzy, and when all were under its sway, swinging their bodies in accord with his and venting their cries in unison, he sat bolt upright, with arm outstretched and long, talon-like finger extended. A low moaning, as of the dead, greeted this, and the people cowered with shaking knees as the dread finger passed them slowly by. For death went with it, and life remained ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... the shadow emerged from beneath its mantle and descended upon the arm of Phoebus with the grip of an eagle's talon; at the same ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... which ordains that they shall intrust themselves completely to the guardianship of the High Gods during the hours of sacrifice. The great bird swooped down, settling on the wood pyre, and attacked the sacrifice with beak and talon. My poor superior here, still strong in his faith, called loudly on our Lord the Sun to lend power to his arm, and sprang up on the altar with naught but his teeth and his bare arms for weapons. It may be that he expected a miracle—he has ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... exclaimed Madame Talon, shaking the rough board door with all her meagre weight, "and I have walked eight kilometers to get a jupon, and ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... only strong as tigers are strong—just the strength of the talon and fang. I do not know. I was weak as water once; I may be ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... hand, Squire," said she, stretching out her left arm, and working about her talon-like fingers, as if in eagerness to grasp Mr. Aubrey's hand, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... him in a sleigh, "Drive on!" the cheerful cry goes forth, His furs are powdered on the way By the fine silver of the north. He bends his course to Talon's, where(8) He knows Kaverine will repair.(9) He enters. High the cork arose And Comet champagne foaming flows. Before him red roast beef is seen And truffles, dear to youthful eyes, Flanked by immortal ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Mrs. Micawber confie David qu'elle n'a plus un sou et que, pour subvenir aux besoins de la famille, ii ne lui reste qu'un talon de fromage. ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... pomp and sickening at the light, He stagger d wild on this delirious height; Forgot the plainest truths he learnt before, And barter'd moral for material power. From Calpe's rock to India's ardent skies, O'er shuddering earth his talon'd Eagle flies, To justice blind, and heedless where she drove, As when she bore ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... and he descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, to gain the countenance of the Governor to his intended exploration. Few men were more skilled than he in the art of clear and plausible statement. Both the Governor, Courcelles, and the Intendant, Talon, were readily won over to his plan; for which, however, they seem to have given him no more substantial aid than that of the Governor's letters patent authorizing the enterprise. [Footnote: Talon, in his letter to the king, of 10 Oct. 1670, expresses himself as if the enterprise ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... be days in dying, They stretch out their necks along the ground, and roll up their slow eyes at longer intervals. The buzzards have all the time, and no beak is dropped or talon struck until the breath is wholly passed. It is doubtless the economy of nature to have the scavengers by to clean up the carrion, but a wolf at the throat would be a shorter agony than the long stalking and sometime perchings of these loathsome ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... far as Dave got, for at that moment he witnessed a transformation and found himself gazing into the same unspeakably ferocious blue eyes of the night before, at the same clutching talon-like hands, and at the same formidable bulk in the act of springing upon him. But this time Dave had no night-stick to throw, and he was caught by the biceps of both arms in a grip so terrific that it made him groan with pain. He saw the large white teeth exposed, for ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... into a cocked hat—your own child, think of that! I've laughed till I was sick over it. First one report come, then another, till your three staggering, knock-out blows was made public. I don't know how true it is"—Henderson wrung his talon-like hands together tightly—"but business men say there isn't much left of your ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... nails of thy fingers constantly and neatly pared, nor suffer them to grow as some do, who ignorantly imagine that long nails beautify the hand, and account the excess of that excrement simply a finger-nail, whereas it is rather the talon of the lizard-hunting kestrel,—a foul and unsightly object. A slovenly dress betokens a careless mind; or, as in the case of Julius Caesar, it may be ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... He laid his talon-hand, hardened and misshapen by manual labor, but if ugly, then ugly with the majesty of the twisted, tempest- defying oak, over hers. "Believe me, Margaret, you love me. You have loved me all along....And ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... every rank and class, the deputies and senators, whom the new Government had brought from the provinces; and, in particular, of the voracious hawks who had swooped down upon Rome, the Pradas, the men of prey from all parts of the kingdom, who with beak and talon devoured both people and aristocracy. For whom, then, had one laboured? For whom had those gigantic works of new Rome been undertaken? A shudder of fear sped by, a crack as of doom was heard, arousing pitiful ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... brown bird had been gashed in the breast by a sharp talon. Jean was much concerned over the wound, even though it did not reach any vital organ. She was afraid of septic poisoning, she told the bird; but added comfortingly: "There—you needn't worry one minute over that. I'm almost sure there's a bottle of peroxide down at the house, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... step was to take over from the trading Company the direct government of the colony. The next was to get the right men to do the work in New France. An excellent start was made when, in 1665, Jean Talon was sent out to Canada as Intendant. He had a genius for organization. Though in rank below the Governor he, with the title of Intendant, did the real work of ruling; the Governor discharged its ceremonial ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... of his parish. The press groaned under large volumes of theological, metaphysical, and psychological disquisition, the very thought of which is now "a weariness to the flesh;" in rapid succession pamphlet encountered pamphlet, horned, beaked, and sharp of talon, grappling with each other in mid-air, like Milton's angels. That loud controversy, the sound whereof went over Christendom, awakening responses from beyond the Atlantic, has now died away; its watchwords no longer stir the blood ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Miss Gripe called upon me, in a chariot bought with my money, and loaded with trinkets that I had, in my days of affluence, lavished on her. Those days were now over; and there was little hope that they would ever return. She was not able to withstand the temptation of ten pounds that Talon the bailiff offered her, but brought him into my apartment disguised in a livery; and taking my sword to the window, under pretence of admiring the workmanship, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... sharp thrill of pain. Fortunately, his speed saved him—but only by an inch. The claws of the great brown owl, shutting like a vice as the bird "stooped" on her prey, laid hold of nothing but earth and grass, though one keen talon cut the vole's tail as with a knife, so that the little creature squealed lustily as he ran along the gallery to seek solace from his mother's companionship in the central chamber beyond. Yet even there he was not allowed to remain in peace. Maddened by the scent ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... and recent events had added to his difficulties. Discontent had long pervaded the lower ranks of society in France. Crushed and impoverished by taxation—imposed by Mazarin, whose avarice impelled him to grind them down to the very dust—the people, as the Advocate-General Talon described it, had nothing left to them except their souls; and as those could not be sold by auction, they began to murmur. Patience had in vain been recommended to them by reports of brilliant victories gained by France; laurels, however, were not meat and drink, and the people had ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... eloignes du globe les traits de foudre.' Ce sont ici des haches de l'age neolithique ou de la pierre polie, dont la plupart appartiennent au type repandu en toute la terre. D'autres de ces celtes, dits epaules, parcequ'ils possedent un talon d'une forme particuliere, paraissent appartenir en propre a l'Indo-Chine et a la presqu'ile dekkhanique. Its fourniraient donc un premier indice, non negligeable, d'une communaute d'origine des populations primitives des deux peninsules, cis ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... into the strength of England, as the tide gnaws into a shore. Merciless were they in their ravages on our borders, and ghastly and torturing their fell revenge. But it is one thing to grapple with a foe fierce and strong, and another to smite when his power is gone, fang and talon. And when I see before me the faded king of a great race, and the last band of doomed heroes, too few and too feeble to make head against my arms,—when the land is already my own, and the sword is that of the deathsman, not of the warrior,—verily, Sir Norman, duty releases its iron tool, and ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stood with respect to our pretty hostess; but, before proceeding further, it may be well to give a more complete description of the two birds of prey by whom she was threatened with beak and talon. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... I may learn 515 Who thus afflicts the Trojan host, of life Bereaving numerous of their warriors bold. He said, and with his arms leap'd to the ground. On the other side, Patroclus at that sight Sprang from his chariot. As two vultures clash 520 Bow-beak'd, crook-talon'd, on some lofty rock Clamoring both, so they together rush'd With clamors loud; whom when the son observed Of wily Saturn, with compassion moved His sister and his spouse he thus bespake. 525 Alas, he falls! my most beloved of men Sarpedon, vanquished by ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Halloo! And Hullabaloo! There is only one more thing to do— And seized by beak, and talon, and claw, Bony hand, and hairy paw, Yea, crooked horn, and tusky jaw, The four huge Bodies are haul'd and shoven Each after each in the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... up in the east. The white turned to red, the red to gold, and the gold at last became blue. An eagle, in an early search for food, sailed far above Henry's head, outlined—wing, beak and talon—against the blue. The whole world, grass and leaves wet with dew, basked in the morning light, ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... drink; there was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool. In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... Searle, one of his mother's pupils at the fashionable Bath boarding-school, the living image of Scott's Fenella, the smallest woman that I have ever seen, with fairy feet and tiny hands, the extraordinary power of which was like that of a steel talon. On one occasion, when Horace Twiss happened to mention that his bright little spark of a wife sat working in his library by him, while he was engaged with his law or business papers, my mother suggested that her ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... voice began to tremble, for the animation of his look grew wilder and stranger. It was as if all the life in his body was burning in those hungry eyes. The hand on her shoulder clutched like a talon, the muscles informed with an unnatural force. Was it the end coming with a last influx of strength and fire? Her tears began to fall upon his face, and she saw it through them, ravaged and fearful, with new life struggling under the ghastliness of dissolution. There was an awfulness in this ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... room and threw himself with emphasis into a Morris chair. But the other man was swiftly upon him. The talon-like fingers gripped his shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... Indian seemed but a trifle better, though that came through compression rather than any actual wounds from tooth or talon. And the brothers themselves were ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... repeating to herself that phrase, "the hands of the successful cocotte," which somehow seemed oddly illuminating. Lady Clifford's hands had a meaning for her now. The soft cushioned palms spelled love of luxury, the stumpy, curving fingers and talon-like nails indicated acquisitive greed. She could see ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... of guilt: Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be spilt. Peace, old men! and pass away unto the homes by Fate decreed, Lest ill valour meet our vengeance—'twas a necessary deed. But enough of toils and troubles—be the end, if ever, now, Ere thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow. 'Tis a woman's word of warning, and ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... and brambly rocks "She roves: exhorts the dogs, and drives such game "As threaten not with danger; fearful hares, "High-antler'd stags, and rapid-flying deer. "Fierce boars she shuns, and shuns the robber-wolf, "Strong-talon'd bears, and lions slaughter-gorg'd. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... mated tigers, which even in their raptures of affection, rend with the fang, and clutch with the unsheathed talon, until the blood and anguish testify the fury of their passion, than to beings of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the foothills I came across the body of a large eagle suspended by one leg from the crotch of a limb. The bird's talon had missed its grip, probably on alighting, the tarsus had slipped through the crotch beyond the joint, the eagle had fallen forward, and had never been able to flop itself back to an ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... a dream, moving slowly, right hand outstretched like a talon, with the fingers drawn downward, he advanced on the second mate with the evident intention of thrusting his fingers into that cleft and of clawing and tearing at the brain-life beneath that pulsed under the thin film ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... cruelty his look bespake! In act how bitter did he seem, with wings Buoyant outstretch'd and feet of nimblest tread! His shoulder proudly eminent and sharp Was with a sinner charg'd; by either haunch He held him, the foot's sinew griping fast. "Ye of our bridge!" he cried, "keen-talon'd fiends! Lo! one of Santa Zita's elders! Him Whelm ye beneath, while I return for more. That land hath store of such. All men are there, Except Bonturo, barterers: of 'no' For lucre there an 'aye' is quickly made." Him dashing down, o'er the rough rock ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... mortal terror; he turned back, and plunged the sharp steel blade between the head of Baptist and the hands of the Muscovites. They withdrew, uttering piercing cries, but one hand, more firmly entwined in the hair, remained hanging and spurted forth blood. Thus an eagle, when it buries one talon in a hare, catches with the other at a tree, in order to hold back the beast; but the hare, pulling, splits the eagle in two; the right talon remains on the tree in the forest; the left, covered with blood, the beast bears away ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... forth the eagle hovered, And again he made an effort, And he struck one talon fiercely In the pike's terrific shoulders, In the water-dog's great backbone, And he fixed the other talon Firmly in the steel-hard mountain, In the rocks as hard as iron. 260 From the stone slipped off the talon, Slipped from off the rocky mountain, And the ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... of the country visited by Messrs. Dollier de Casson and de Galinee, missionaries of St. Sulpice, drawn by the same M. de Galinee. (See M. Talon's letter 10th November, 1670)." L. Huron: "Michigan or Fresh-Water Sea of the Hurons." (These lakes were erroneously supposed to be but one). N. End: "Bay of the Pottawatamies." Islands near Mackinac: "I entered this bay only ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... in his bloodshot eyes! Madness gives new strength to his nerveless limbs as he rises and bends over his companion. As he slowly uplifts his arm its shrunken muscles swell beneath the skin as though they would burst it, his talon- like fingers close with a grip of steel round the haft of the upraised knife, Sibylla closes her eyes in patient expectancy of the stroke, the blade quivers and flashes in the sunlight, and Captain Blyth, with ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... judicial rather than legislative; made up of pedantic and aristocratic lawyers, who could be troublesome. We get some idea of the humiliation of this assembly of lawyers and nobles from the speech of Omer Talon,—the greatest lawyer of the realm,—when called upon to express the sentiments of his illustrious body to the King, at a "bed of justice": "Happy should we be, most gracious sovereign, if we could obtain any favor worthy ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... 1720: "Il est certain que ces mines de fer, que l'oeil percant de M. Colbert et la vigilance de M. Talon avoit fait decouvrir, apres avoir presqu entierement disparu pendant plus de soixante dix ans, viennent d'etre retrouvees par les soins de ceux qui occupent aujourd'hui leur place."—Charlevoix, tom. ii., ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... reason to believe. The young king and his minister Colbert had labored in earnest to build up a new France in the west. For years past, ship-loads of emigrants had landed every summer on the strand beneath the rock. All was life and action, and the air was full of promise. The royal agent Talon had written to his master: "This part of the French monarchy is destined to a grand future. All that I see around me points to it; and the colonies of foreign nations, so long settled on the seaboard, are trembling with fright ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... the eagle made a swoop downward to pick up the Sampo in its talons. But Lemminkainen raised his sword, and no sooner had the eagle grasped the Sampo than he brought down his sword with such force that every talon was ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... which may at all events be compared with the little we know of the Shakespearian Morris dance, seems to have been very violent exercise for the heels (talon). Arbeau mentions that it is bad for the gout. The reader will notice that there is a separate movement for each ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... claws, disclosing to their sight The glorious meed of high heroic might. For with insatiate vengeance he pursued, And never-ending hate, the feathery brood. 110 Unhappy they, confiding in the length Of horny beak, or talon's crooked strength, Who durst abide his rage; the blade descends, And from the panting trunk the pinion rends: Laid low in dust the pinion waves no more, The trunk disfigured stiffens in its gore. What hosts of heroes fell beneath his force! What heaps of chicken carnage mark'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... long; resin-ducts medial, hypoderm multiform. Conelets large, their scales tapering to a sharp point. Cones from 15 to 25 cm. long, reflexed, ovate, slightly oblique, persistent; apophyses chocolate-brown, very prominent, the curved umbo confluent with the apophysis and with it forming a very large talon-like armature with a sharp apex and a broad thick base; seed-wing very thick, with a short membranous margin, the dorsal surface of the ...
— The Genus Pinus • George Russell Shaw
... "you will catch the four-o'clock limited to New York. Talon & Trehawke, Attorneys, Temple Court, have on sale a majority of the stock of the Daily Tory. Buy it; notify those in present charge of the editorial and business departments of the new proprietorship. There will be no changes in the personnel of ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... "avaunt! Enchanters dire and goblins could alone this arduous task perform; to rout the knight of Mancha, foul defeat, and war, even such as ne'er was known before. Then hear, O del Toboso! hear my vows, that thus in anguish of my soul I urge, midst frogs, Gridalbin, Hecaton, Kai, Talon, and the Rove! [for such the names and definitions of their qualities, their separate powers.] For Merlin plumed their airy flight, and then in watery moonbeam dyed his rod eccentric. At the touch ten thousand frogs, strange metamorphosed, croaked ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... and talon, until the nest was ready. And as the first tints of dawn began to streak the east, the Phoenix rose once, high into the air, gazing with wistful eyes over the world which he had loved; then, slowly sinking to the palm, he poised his gorgeous body upon ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... pistol bark four times more as the things closed in. Then the gun was knocked from the gangster's grip by a groping talon-armed hand. Mapes tried to batter back his assailants with his naked fists, but the flailing arms of the horde knocked him from his feet. His limp body was promptly tramped into unconsciousness by the milling ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... the eagle that he could not stay on his back another minute, but must sleep awhile. Gorgo had promptly swooped to the ground, where the boy had dropped down on a moss tuft. Then Gorgo put a talon around him and soared into the ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... forming certain geniuses. Further, it is possible that the government of Athens, by seconding the climate, put into Demosthenes' head something that the air of Climart and La Grenouillere and the government of Cardinal de Richelieu did not put into the heads of Omer Talon and Jerome Bignon. ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... was sentenced to be hanged, the obstinacy with which the Queen exposed to danger her son's crown, by retaining a minister detested by all, would be naturally explained by a reason other than that of a reason of state. The advocate-general Talon, Madame de Motteville, and the Duchess de Nemours exculpate Anne of Austria on this head. They are three respectable and trustworthy witnesses; and, without any doubt, that which they said they thought. But the ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies |
