"Preen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were sign'd—and kiss'd the kiss: And the Bride, who came from her coach a Miss, As a Countess walk'd to her carriage— Whilst Hymen preen'd his plumes like a dove, And Cupid flutter'd his wings above, In the shape of a fly—as little a Love As ever look'd in at ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... sit, lurching and half asleep. The boatmen shout one to another in nasal discords. Lazily you preen your great wings, eagle wings, built for ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... (which may be sherry wine), whilst the ear is lulled with the sound of fountains dispensing perfumes as of Araby. In an alcove, chastely draped with violent violet velvet, the grey apes swing, and the peacocks preen, on fretted pillar and jewelled screen. Horologes, to chime the hours, and even the quarters, uprise from tables of ebony-and-mother-of-pearl. Cabinets from Ind and Venice, of filligree gold and silver, enclose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... movement as regards other gay pastimes) watch them with quiet approbation. Many a New York husband is quite willing that his wife shall cut her own grandmother if that relative be not "desirable." The men have not time to preen their social plumes quite so strenuously; they are too busy in money-getting, and of a sort which nearly always concerns the hazard of the Wall Street die. And yet quite a number of the men are arrant snobs, refusing to associate with, often even to notice, others whose dollars count ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... merely a white speck against the blue vault, and then, true to her sex, having proved her liberty only to tire of it, with a flight so swift that the eye could scarcely follow her, she came back again and rested upon the farther end of the balcony, where she immediately began to preen herself and to affect an air of nonchalance ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith
|
