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Feather   Listen
noun
Feather  n.  
1.
One of the peculiar dermal appendages, of several kinds, belonging to birds, as contour feathers, quills, and down. Note: An ordinary feather consists of the quill or hollow basal part of the stem; the shaft or rachis, forming the upper, solid part of the stem; the vanes or webs, implanted on the rachis and consisting of a series of slender laminae or barbs, which usually bear barbules, which in turn usually bear barbicels and interlocking hooks by which they are fastened together. See Down, Quill, Plumage.
2.
Kind; nature; species; from the proverbial phrase, "Birds of a feather," that is, of the same species. (R.) "I am not of that feather to shake off My friend when he must need me."
3.
The fringe of long hair on the legs of the setter and some other dogs.
4.
A tuft of peculiar, long, frizzly hair on a horse.
5.
One of the fins or wings on the shaft of an arrow.
6.
(Mach. & Carp.) A longitudinal strip projecting as a fin from an object, to strengthen it, or to enter a channel in another object and thereby prevent displacement sidwise but permit motion lengthwise; a spline.
7.
A thin wedge driven between the two semicylindrical parts of a divided plug in a hole bored in a stone, to rend the stone.
8.
The angular adjustment of an oar or paddle-wheel float, with reference to a horizontal axis, as it leaves or enters the water. Note: Feather is used adjectively or in combination, meaning composed of, or resembling, a feather or feathers; as, feather fan, feather-heeled, feather duster.
Feather alum (Min.), a hydrous sulphate of alumina, resulting from volcanic action, and from the decomposition of iron pyrites; called also halotrichite.
Feather bed, a bed filled with feathers.
Feather driver, one who prepares feathers by beating.
Feather duster, a dusting brush of feathers.
Feather flower, an artifical flower made of feathers, for ladies' headdresses, and other ornamental purposes.
Feather grass (Bot.), a kind of grass (Stipa pennata) which has a long feathery awn rising from one of the chaffy scales which inclose the grain.
Feather maker, one who makes plumes, etc., of feathers, real or artificial.
Feather ore (Min.), a sulphide of antimony and lead, sometimes found in capillary forms and like a cobweb, but also massive. It is a variety of Jamesonite.
Feather shot, or Feathered shot (Metal.), copper granulated by pouring into cold water.
Feather spray (Naut.), the spray thrown up, like pairs of feathers, by the cutwater of a fast-moving vessel.
Feather star. (Zool.) See Comatula.
Feather weight. (Racing)
(a)
Scrupulously exact weight, so that a feather would turn the scale, when a jockey is weighed or weighted.
(b)
The lightest weight that can be put on the back of a horse in racing.
(c)
In wrestling, boxing, etc., a term applied to the lightest of the classes into which contestants are divided; in contradistinction to light weight, middle weight, and heavy weight.
A feather in the cap an honour, trophy, or mark of distinction. (Colloq.)
To be in full feather, to be in full dress or in one's best clothes. (Collog.)
To be in high feather, to be in high spirits. (Collog.)
To cut a feather.
(a)
(Naut.) To make the water foam in moving; in allusion to the ripple which a ship throws off from her bows.
(b)
To make one's self conspicuous. (Colloq.)
To show the white feather, to betray cowardice, a white feather in the tail of a cock being considered an indication that he is not of the true game breed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Feather" Quotes from Famous Books



... likely to behave rude to a lady, but my suspicions were soon removed, when I saw Old Betty was a buoy, floating on the waters, adorned with a furze bush. Old Betty danced merrily on the rippling wave with her furze bush by way of a feather, with shreds of dried sea weed hanging to it forming ribbons to complete the head dress of the lady buoy. The nearer we approached, the more rapid did Betty dance, and when we passed close alongside of her, she curtsied up and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various

... natural history, and the cougar, mountain lion, puma, panther, and painter are all the same beast. Years ago they were common all over the United States, but now they are to be found only in the Far West and in the South. I think we can count it a big feather in our cap that ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer

... herself sadder when he was gone, and she threw herself upon the old feather-cushioned lounge to enjoy a reverie in keeping with the dreary storm outside. Was it for this that she had left Rome? She had felt, as every American of conscience feels abroad, the drawings of a duty, obscure and ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... smooth as satin, as blue as the sky, and they are slashed in every direction with the silver wakes left by numberless ferryboats. Those ferryboats, by the way, are extremely graceful; they look like white peacocks dragging enormous white-feather tails. By night the bay view from the central hill-spine shows the cities of Berkeley and Oakland like enormous planes of crystal tilted against the distance, the ferryboats illuminated but still peacock-shaped, floating on the black waters like monster toys ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin

... twinklings of the frost. And on his airy race, Its tingles beat to redder heat The rapture of his face:— The colder, keener is the air, The less he cares a feather. But, there! he's gone! and I gaze on The wintriest ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... you that you felt the whole experience as unreal, a mere masquerade; as I myself might feel it if, by some fantastic luck in the old fantastic civilisation of China, I were raised from the Yellow Button to the Coral Button, or from the Coral Button to the Peacock's Feather. Precisely because these things would be grotesque, I might hardly feel them as incongruous. Precisely because they meant nothing to me I might be satisfied with them, I might enjoy them without any shame at my own impudence as an alien, adventurer. Precisely because ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... facts about "brother Amyas" kept breaking out. Brother Amyas had beautiful gold lace, brother Amyas had a red and white feather; brother Amyas had given Fay and Letty each a ride on his shoulder, but Amy was afraid; brother Amyas said their papa would love them very much. He had given them each a new silver shilling, and Amoret had in return presented him with her doll's beautiful pink back-string ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... quickness. Ping Pong Football is excellent as a lung developer. That is the choosing of sides and trying to blow a ping pong ball between the goal posts formed by a pair of salt shakers at opposite ends of a table. Or blowing a feather across a sheet by opposing sides. Encourage good, romping, noisy games in which the children naturally laugh and shout. They are the best of voice-developing exercises, and by such means, and his long-distance shouting and calling to his playmates, the ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright

... day is done, and the darkness Drops from the wings of night As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... came back, dressed as carefully as if she had been going for a morning lounge in Hyde Park, hat and feather, pongee sunshade, mousquetaire gloves. The Wendovers all wore their gloves in their pockets, and cultivated blisters on the palms of their hands, as a mark of distinction, which implied great feats in rowing, or the pulling in ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... browbeat the press. He next narrated the plans he had adopted, and was adopting, for the benefit of all who became Chartists. He anticipated great results from his scheme of labour palaces—denied the propriety of being placed in the election returns as a feather in the quill of Whiggery—was an earnest advocate for the amelioration of Ireland, and still willing and determined to agitate for their cause. He would go to parliament, and record his first motion for 'The people's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... everlasting Dick, I suppose! You fuss over him like a hen with one chick. Let him run riot if he thinks it'll amuse him. You can whip a young pup off feather, but you can't whip a ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... of May before they started up the Peace, three days after the fur barges had gone down the Athabasca. David had never seen anything like Hatchett's big war canoe, roomy as a small ship, and light as a feather on the water. Four powerful Dog Ribs went with them, making six paddles in all. When it came to a question of Baree, Hatchett put down his foot with emphasis. "What! Make a dam' passenger of a dog? Never. Let him ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... that dashing young robber-captain that has been round our town so much lately. All the girls are wild after these mountain fellows. A good, honest boy like me, that hammers away at his trade, they think nothing of; whereas one of these fellows with a feather in his cap has only to twinkle his finger at them, and they are off like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... of course. I am very sensitive. I started, the jug went over, and the milk ran on to the cloth, and down on the new carpet. You will hardly believe it, but that servant, to conceal her own carelessness, beat me with a feather brush, and threw me out of the back door; and cook, who was always a heartless person, though stout, gave me no dinner. Ah! if my fishmonger had only known that I never tasted his ...
— Pussy and Doggy Tales • Edith Nesbit

... that incomparable lady, who bore us no malice for refusing her rooms, generously provided for a small sum three bedsteads and an amazing, and what appeared to us superfluous, amount of bolsters, pillows, feather beds, winter counterpanes; but she would hear no nay, declaring, "It often turned very chilly in the Pusterthal, and at such times a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... up to see her? She does look so pretty in her new pink muslin, with a double skirt, and her little hat and feather, that came from London; and there's Puck poking in the hay—he's looking for a mouse! And she's showering the hay over him with her parasol! Oh, look, Alfred!' and she was going to lift him up, but he only murmured a cross 'Can't you be quiet?' and she let him alone, but went ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... himself as close as he could, and nestling among the fir-needles. "Here," he muttered; "and I was grumbling because I had to carry this here coat. Why, it's a patent feather-bed, wool mattress, and blankets, all in one. Scrumptious!—How my trotters aches!—And if one comes supper-hunting he'll wake us by pawing us about and sniffing. 'Use your revolver then, only make sure of his head,' he says. Just as if I was going to fire at his ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn

... hour later, deliciously caressed by garments of soft white silk beneath a feather-weight robe-de-chambre, she sat before the dressing-table, drying her hair in the warm draft of an electric fan and anointing face, hands, and arms with creams and delicately ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... hushed to silence, and the orchestra played the symphonic prelude which introduces the contralto air "Eccomi alfin in Babilonia." Alboni glided from the side and walked slowly to the footlights. Let an eye-witness complete the story: "There was a sudden pause," says one who was present; "a feather might almost have been heard to move. The orchestra, the symphony finished, refrained from proceeding, as though to give time for the enthusiastic reception which was Alboni's right, and which it was natural to suppose Alboni would receive. But you may imagine ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... bas-reliefs. "The idea is that of conducting the king to the world of death. The further you advance into the tomb, the deeper you become involved in endless processions of jackal-headed gods, and monstrous forms of genii, good and evil; and the goddess of Justice, with her single ostrich feather; and barges carrying mummies, raised aloft over the sacred lake; and mummies themselves; and, more than all, everlasting convolutions of serpents in every possible form and attitude—human-legged, human-headed, crowned, entwining mummies, enwreathing ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... right at that there lawn-feet where I took him? What for do you jump on me then? I took him and he done it; he done it good. Bill's a born mixer. Why, he had all them North Side society dames stung the minute I flashed him; after him quicker than hell could scorch a feather; run out from under their hats to get introduced to him—and now you all turn on me like a passel of starved wolves." He finished with a note of genuine irritation I had never heard ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... back to Norway, taking their wives with them. For the women could not be torn from the side of their husbands, either by distance of journey or by dread of peril, but declared that they would stick to their lords like a feather to something shaggy. They found that Ragnar was dead, and that Kraka had already married one Brak. Then they remembered the father's treasure, dug up the money, and bore it off. But Erik's fame had gone before him, and Gotar had learnt all his good fortune. Now when Gotar learnt that he ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... been taken off and the guests were all seated at the table the supper went swimmingly. The oysters were delicious, the salad sufficiently "chunky" to please Roger, the biscuits as light as a feather and the fruit melange as good to look at as if it was ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... sprang like an arrow shot straight from the bow. I tighten the reins on Prince Charlie's great son— He is off like a rocket, the race is begun. Half-way down the furlong, their heads are together, Scarce room 'twixt their noses to wedge in a feather; Past grand stand, and judges, in neck-to-neck strife, Ah, Salvator, boy! 'tis the race of your life. I press my knees closer, I coax him, I urge, I feel him go out with a leap and a surge; I see him creep on, inch by inch, stride by stride, While backward, still ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... shooting-butts, the provision of bows and arrows, and the enforcement of constant practice by all young men and apprentices. The monk's mixture of brimstone, charcoal, and salt-petre, however, in course of time left the old English clothyard shaft with its grey goose feather and the accompanying six-foot bow of yew to be playthings only, or but fit to use in shooting squirrels or other small deer. The "Woodmen of Arden" is the oldest society (in this county) of toxopholites as the modern drawers of the long bow are called, which society was "revived" in 1785, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... feathers that you see here,' said she, 'you must get finished before I come home in the evening, otherwise you shall be set to harder work.' He started to the feathers, and picked and picked until there was only a single feather left that had not passed through his hands. But then there came a whirlwind and sent all the feathers flying, and swept them along the floor into a heap, where they lay as if they were trampled together. He had now to begin all his work over again, but by this time it ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... had recovered the first shock; and the order to crowd sail on the ship galled his pride and his manhood; he muttered, indignantly, "The white feather!" This eased his mind, and he obeyed orders briskly as ever. While he and his hands were setting every rag the ship could carry on that tack, the other officers, having unluckily no orders to execute, stood gloomy and helpless, with ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... urging, but raced across Aunt Judith's lawn, out of the gate, and down the avenue, the tuft of red hair waving like a flaming feather on the crown ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks

... and her eyes shone with an unusual brilliancy as she greeted us, but the proverbial feather would have felled any one of her guests when Payson offered his arm to Mrs. Frank Mayo, who rose out of a shadowy corner in a high-throated gown and led us to the dining-room. I caught Sallie's eye as she laid ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... rafts make the waters shiver, Laughing in the sibilance of the silver spray. Yea, and up the woodlands, staunch in moonlit weather, Go the ghostly horsemen, adventuresome to ride, White as mist the doublet-braize, bandolier and feather, Fleet as gallant ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls

... beasts will make closer approach to a person clothed in dun-colored garments; therefore it was not odd that the hawk should not notice my presence on the pine needles near the crest of the hill. After steering without visible rustle of a feather through the lake of air before me, he stooped all at once, grasped a hedge-sparrow that had been shaking the top of a bush far down the slope, and, rising, bore it to the low branch of a pine not far ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... of pieces of glass joined together and retouched with the chisel, in imitation of bas-relief. Thus the face, hands, and feet of the goddess Ma are done in turquoise blue, her headdress in dark blue, her feather in alternate stripes of blue and yellow, and her raiment in deep red. Upon a wooden shrine recently discovered in the neighbourhood of Daphnae,[58] and upon a fragment of mummy-case in the Museum of Turin, the hieroglyphic forms of many-coloured glass are ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... feather broom and gently smoothed the flour till it looked like a fall of snow, retreating step by step as he did so, followed by the king, who seemed much amused by the operation. When they reached the door Louis XI. said to his silversmith, "Are ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... shut in the slumbers of dead and gone Contessas, and she watched the square of moonlight travel over the painted cherubs on the ceiling. There was always a lump in her throat to be swallowed, and often the tears soaked into the big feather pillows, but there were no ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... a hard mattress. The old-time feather bed was dangerous. There should be light-weight covers, and the room cool. Children should sleep on either side, rarely in the unnatural back position. Aim to have regular sleeping hours; but do not ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... old Nokomis now set him a difficult task. "In a land lying westward, a land of fever and pestilence, lives the mighty magician, Pearl-Feather, who slew my father. Take your canoe and smear its sides with the oil I have made from the body of Nahma, so that you may pass swiftly through the black pitch-water and avenge my father's murder." Thus spoke old Nokomis, and Hiawatha did as she bade him, smeared ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman

... word he leaped forward at a pace that gave Williams an idea of how he had gained his name. He flashed by the head of the moving columns and vanished into the growing darkness, running with long, swift, sure leaps that took him over the ground like a feather ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... little here and there and Colin watched them. They brought him things to look at—buds which were opening, buds which were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing green, the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the empty shell of some bird early hatched. Dickon pushed the chair slowly round and round the garden, stopping every other moment to let him look at wonders springing out of the earth or trailing down from trees. ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Then one of us will be a Queen, And sit on a golden throne, With a crown instead Of a hat on her head, And diamonds all her own! With a beautiful robe of gold and green, I've always understood; I wonder whether She'd wear a feather? I ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... winter cloak, wear a blue woollen gown. On your head, a toque with red leaves on it. Round your neck, a feather boa. No ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... fellows," interposed Frank; "for my part, I am glad the Butterfly had it all to herself. She has just come out, and it will be a feather ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic

... water perfumed with roses; in the comers of the room were statues of gods; on the walls were depicted the deeds of the renowned nomarch. Standing near his head was a black slave who cooled his master with an ostrich feather fan; on the pavement sat the scribe of the province reading ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... suggest, As if the Doves were to be dispossess'd; Nor sighs, nor groans, nor goggling eyes did want; For now the Pigeons too had learn'd to cant. The house of prayer is stock'd with large increase; 1210 Nor doors nor windows can contain the press: For birds of every feather fill the abode; Even Atheists out of envy own a God: And, reeking from the stews, adulterers come, Like Goths and Vandals to demolish Rome. That Conscience, which to all their crimes was mute, Now calls aloud, and cries to persecute: No rigour of the laws to be ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... continue—every day brings some new deposit to light. It has been found in large quantities on the Sacramento, Feather River, Yerba River, the American fork—North and South branches—the Cosamer, and in many dry ravines, and indeed on the tops of high hills The tract of country in which it is ascertained to exist, extends some two hundred miles ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... her, because she isn't just exactly what I should call ladylike. Of course I wouldn't breathe this to any other living soul, but I thought her entirely too free and easy in her manner, and she dresses in such very bright colours. Why, she had a red feather in her hat, and she must have been married at least fifteen years. Oliver says he doesn't believe she's a day under forty-five. He says he likes her well enough and thinks she's a good sort, but he is awfully glad that I'm not that kind of woman. I feel sorry for ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... away from him and went back to the drawing-room again, where she began to dust the furniture with a feather-broom. ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... walked, or crept, or perched, or flew. Anon the face, as, when a gust hath blown, Unruffling waters re-collect the shape Of one that in them sees himself, returned; But at the slot or fewmets of a deer, Or even a fallen feather, vanished again. ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... keep himself at home; and he did, shutting himself up among his books, and not even making a pastoral call on Lucy when he heard that she was sick. And so Lucy came to him, looking dangerously charming in her green riding-habit—with the scarlet feather sweeping from her hat. Very prettily she pouted, too, chiding him for his neglect, and asking why he had not been to see her, nor anybody. There was the Widow Hobbs, and Mrs. Briggs and those miserable Donelsons—he had not been near them for a fortnight. What was the reason? she asked, beating ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... times sought refuge in the room which was not being attacked. Today Rateau launched his offensive against the workroom, so Durtal fled to the bedroom. From there, through the half open door, he could see the enemy, with a feather duster like a Mohican war bonnet over his head, doing a ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... not; but I don't see any particular need of breaking your neck or limbs by making the attempt; and it would be a feather in your cap to manage the colt. Suppose we try;" and this proposition was made by George's companion ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... fascinated by the intense earnestness of the Methodist local- preacher, listened with quiet attention. Even the Indian scout seemed to have some appreciation of his meaning, and muttered assent between the whiffs of tobacco-smoke from his carved-stone, feather-decked pipe. The moral elevation which Christian-living and Bible-reading will always give, commanded their respect, and the dauntless daring of the old man—for they knew that he was a very lion in the fight, and as cool under fire as at the mess- ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow

... struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... often heard it before when he lay in his berth. Dave was a remarkably neat person, and he was always dusting the cabin and stateroom when he had nothing else to do. He was sure that the rapping was caused by the steward's feather duster. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... child on his back, the animal gave a leap into the air, and came down so like a feather that Europa did not know when his hoofs touched the ground. He then began a race to that part of the flowery plain where her three brothers were, and where they had just caught their splendid butterfly. Europa screamed ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... generation, had fallen beneath the weight of years, been buried in green moss, and nourished the roots of others as gigantic. Hark! A light paddle dips into the lake, a birch canoe glides around the point, and an Indian chief has passed, painted and feather-crested, armed with a bow of hickory, a stone tomahawk, and flint-headed arrows. But the ripple had hardly vanished from the water, when a white flag caught the breeze, over a castle in the wilderness, with frowning ramparts and a hundred cannon.... A war party of French and Indians were issuing ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... nor table, nor chair, nor any furniture whatever, except a bucket—the use of which may be guessed, and a bench fixed in the wall a foot wide and four feet from the ground. On it I placed my cloak, my fine suit, and my hat trimmed with Spanish paint and adorned with a beautiful white feather. The heat was great, and my instinct made me go mechanically to the grating, the only place where I could lean on my elbows. I could not see the window, but I saw the light in the garret, and rats of a fearful size, which walked ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the east, and a quarter of a mile passed, his eye was caught by the red gleam of a feather in the grass. He retrieved it, and saw at once that it was painted. Hence, it had fallen from the scalplock of an Indian. It was not bedraggled, so it had fallen recently, as the winds had not beaten it about. It was sure, too, that a warrior or warriors ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... born, I wanted to send him away to the Foundling Hospital, you remember that, but, my God, how can that time be compared with now? Then I was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed, but now I am a mother, do you understand? I am a mother, and that's all I care to know. Between the present and the past ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... lurk a thousand more desires; Some from their tiny prisons peeping, And some in formless embryo sleeping. Thus peopled, like the vernal groves, My breast resounds, with warbling Loves; One urchin imps the other's feather, Then twin-desires they wing together, And fast as they thus take their flight, Still other urchins spring to light. But is there then no kindly art, To chase these Cupids from my heart; Ah, no! I fear, in sadness fear, They will for ever ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... be a real pretty dress, she thought, with the pink sprigs and the pink feather-stitching in mercerized cotton she was going to put on it. Addie would look sweet in it. And if it was washed careful and dried in the shade it wouldn't fade so much. It was a good bright pink to start with. Only Addie ought to have a new hat to wear with it. A white straw with pink flowers on ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... warfare, if a Pygmy chanced to pluck out a crane's tail feather, it proved a very great feather in his cap. Once or twice, if you will believe me, a little man was made chief ruler of the nation for no other merit in the world than bringing home ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of that. The monsieurs are brave fellows, though we can lick them, and it is not often they show the white feather," remarked Harry. "I really think that I am right. They look to me like two frigates, and one I am sure is French. We'll rouse up the old man, and hear what he has to say about the matter. He'll not thank us for letting him ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston

... reputation of his grandson—the spoiled child of the House of Commons, as Burke called him—that Charles Townshend of the famous "Champagne Speech;" the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of whom we shall hear a good deal later on, and who, by the sheer force of animal spirits, feather-headed talents, and ignorance, became, in a certain perverted sense, the father ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... protruding ever so slightly and rightly from a breast pocket, was hewn and honed in the image of youth. His the smile of one for whom life's cup holds a heady wine, a wrinkle or two at the eye only serving to enhance that smile; a one-inch feather stuck upright in ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... Her name is Betty Medill, and she would take well in the movies. Her father gives her two hundred a month to dress on and she has tawny eyes and hair, and feather fans of three colours. Meet her father, Cyrus Medill. Though he is to all appearances flesh and blood he is, strange to say, commonly known in Toledo as the Aluminum Man. But when he sits in his club window ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... reefed top-sails of a dark night, and I found myself hanging over the yard with eleven others, the ship plunging and rearing like a mad horse, till I felt like being jerked off the spar; then, indeed, I thought of a feather-bed at home, and hung on with tooth and nail; with no chance for snoring. But a few repetitions, soon made me used to it; and before long, I tied my reef-point as quickly and expertly as the best of them; never making what they call a "granny- knot," and slipt down on deck by the bare ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... launched there. The burgomaster's daughter had christened her. Country people drove in carts from miles around to see her. He told me all this. He got the berth as what we should call a chief mate. He seemed to think it had been a feather in his cap; and, in his own corner of the world, this lover of life was ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... reform yet," Mrs. Berry apostrophized her. "You don't look to me one that'd come the Fair Penitent till you've left off bein' fair—if then you do, which some of ye don't. Laugh away and show yet airs! Spite o' your hat and feather, and your ridin' habit, you're a Belle Donna." Setting her down again absolutely for such, whatever it might signify, Mrs. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... In high feather at the effect he was producing, counsel inserted his left arm under his gown, and held the stuff out from his back with the tips ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... that they'd corner you and beat you to death with feather-dusters," he lamented. "And the only thing I can say will make matters worse instead of better. I have it pretty straight that Gryson has been fired—shooed out of town, and ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... you feather-brain you," drawled Scott. "I told Charleton, Jude. He paid me for the information. I never supposed he'd hold ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... the meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later on. On the morning of the 17th of February, it was a little past midday when Basque, with napkin and feather-duster under his arm, busy in setting his antechamber to rights, heard a light tap at the door. There had been no ring, which was discreet on such a day. Basque opened the door, and beheld M. Fauchelevent. He introduced him into the drawing-room, still encumbered and topsy-turvy, and which bore ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... we'd have to earn our tree, and only be able to get a broken branch, after all, with nothing on it but three sticks of candy, two squeaking dogs, a red cow, and an ugly bird with one feather in its tail;" and overcome by a sudden sense of destitution, Polly sobbed even ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... those words, Prince Certainpersonio's face left off being stickey, and his jacket and corduroys changed to peach-bloom velvet, and his hair curled, and a cap and feather flew in like a bird and settled on his head. He got into the carriage by the Fairy's invitation, and there he renewed his acquaintance with the Duchess, whom he had ...
— The Magic Fishbone - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird, Aged 7 • Charles Dickens

... opportunity of improving her style of living. The old Wales house was quite a pretentious edifice for those times. All the drawback to her delight was, that Grandma should have the southwest fire-room. She wanted to set up her high-posted bedstead with its enormous feather-bed in that, and have it for her fore-room. Properly, it was the fore-room, being right across the entry from the family sitting room. There was a tall chest of drawers that would fit in so nicely between the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... bands of blue (top), red (triple width), and blue; the red band is edged in yellow; centered in the red band is a large black and white shield covering two spears and a staff decorated with feather tassels, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... woods, which had a southeastern exposure, I first began to notice the wood thrush. In coming up the other side I had not seen a feather of any kind, or heard a note. Now the golden trillide-de of the wood thrush sounded through the silent woods. While looking for a fish-pole about half way down the mountain, I saw a thrush's nest in a little sapling about ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... until they came to a small outhouse, long and low. On the sheltered side of it they paused to take breath, and Feather Victor explained: "This is his hour in the gymnasium. To make the body strong required thought and care. Mere riding and running and swinging of the ax will not develop every muscle. So I made this gymnasium, and here Pierre works every day. ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... the scar, and drew the sleeve gently over it. As she bowed her head, and I saw the silver shadow on her late dark, brown hair, I felt how intense must have been the suffering that wrought this wondrous change,—and I resolved to bear unmurmuring my own sorrows, rather than add a feather's weight ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... was resolved upon a rupture at the first convenient opportunity, while the nation was, if possible, even more bellicose than the king. The apparently insuperable difficulties of Sweden in Poland was the feather that turned the scale; on the 1st of June 1657, Frederick III. signed the manifesto justifying a war which was never formally declared and brought Denmark to the very verge of ruin. The extraordinary details ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... of belch, or a sneaker Of punch, could not wrangle more over their liquor. And you that are Goddesses, thus to be squabbling, As if you were bred up to scow'ring and dabbling! And all for a fig, or a fart, or a feather, Or some silly thing that's as trivial as either! For shame, my Fair Goddesses, bridle your passions, And make not in heaven such filthy orations About your bumfiddles; a very fine jest! When the ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous

... man! what canst thou do? Thy threats I hold lighter than the breath that makes them; thy cajolments I value less than these; and thy rewards—why, the uttermost wealth that thou couldst boast would weigh but as a feather against the riches at ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... busy night of it. With the going down of the sun the wind had continued to blow east-southeast—its old course for weeks—and the little sentinel, lulled into inaction, had fallen into a doze, its feather end fixed on the glow ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... said Dahlia, checking her, "promise me. Put a feather on my mouth; put a glass to my face, before you let them carry me out. Will you? Rhoda promises. I have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of sin and of the need of pardon. The better a man is, the more clearly he sees, and the more deeply he feels, his own badness. If a shoe is all covered with mud, a splash or two more or less will make no difference, but if it be polished and clean, one speck shows. A black feather on a swan's breast is conspicuous. And so the less sin a man has the more obvious it is, and the more he has the less he generally knows it. But whilst this consciousness of transgression and cry for pardon are inseparable and permanent accompaniments of a devout life ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... the whites have got between feather-beds to be safe from the lightning, I have often seen negroes, the aged as well as others, go out, and, lifting up their hands, thank God that judgment was coming at last. So cruelly are many of them used, that judgment, they think, would be a happy ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy

... she said, half hiding her face with a feather screen to protect it from the fire. "No commonplacisms, mind! I have heard nothing else all my life, and I am weary of them. And, first, please to light a cigarette. You will find some in the silver box by your side. ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... burnt stick on the fence or floor. We got a little paper at the country town, and I made some ink out of blackberry briar-root and a little copperas in it. It was black, but the copperas ate the paper after a while. I made Abe's first pen out of a turkey-buzzard feather. We had no geese them days. After he learned to write his name he was scrawlin' it everywhere. Sometimes he would write it in the white sand down by the crick bank and leave it there till the waves would blot it out. He didn't take to books in the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... let us not despair. Did not the Simurgh promise that whenever I might be overcome by adversity, if I burned one of her feathers, she would instantly appear? Shall we not then solicit assistance in this awful extremity?" So saying, Zal went up to a high place, and burnt the feather in a censer, and in a short time the Simurgh stood before him. After due praise and acknowledgment, he explained his wants. "But," said he, "may the misfortune we endure be far from him who has brought it upon us. My son Rustem is ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... the Mameluke had opened the door, and two ladies had entered the room. The first was tall and graceful, with a smiling face, and an affable though dignified manner. She was dressed in a black velvet cloak with white lace at the neck and sleeves, and she wore a black hat with a curling white feather. Her companion was shorter, with a countenance which would have been plain had it not been for the alert expression and large dark eyes, which gave it charm and character. A small black terrier dog had followed them in, ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... talking to Anne. His face wore a sad expression, as she glanced up at him from beneath the white feather of her rather large-brimmed straw hat. Anne had been a great deal at Hartledon that week, and was as interested in the race as any of ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... speculations: for the story went that a brother of the old Doctor's— the scapegrace of the family—had hung it (the key of his quadrant) there, with strong injunctions that no one should take it down until he returned—which he never did. So Mrs Penhaligon's feather-brush always spared this one spot in the room, every other inch of which she kept scrupulously dusted. She would not for worlds have exchanged lodgings with Nicky-Nan, though his was by far the best bedroom (and far too ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... the World its Being draws; By whom Earth's plenteous Table's spread, At which each living Creature's fed; Who gave the Breath of Life, and whence This fine Variety of Sense; Whose Hands unfold the azure sky, Sublimely pleasing to the Eye; Who tun'd the feather'd Songster's throat, Giving such softness to his note, To fill the Ear with dulcet sound, And pour sweet Music all around; Who on the teeming Branches plac'd Such various Fruit to please the Taste; What bounteous Hand perfum'd the Rose, And ev'ry scented Flow'r that blows, ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd

... has a white feather; he is a coward; an allusion to a game cock, where having a white leather is a proof he is not of the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... upon the arrow. He started, a flush of excitement rushed across his face, and his hands and lips trembled as he closely examined the feather. ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... tall as a man's head and some two feet thick, adzed flat on one side and painted in two sections, perpendicularly, one half in red, the other in black. A medicine man, hideous in adornments of buffalo horns and bearskin, approached De Courtenay and with a feather painted on his bare breast a circle of black ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... the 'Flamingo Room' had a most enticing sound. He hoped I would find it so; said the idea was his own, and that, to him, the tint of a flamingo feather was the fairest of all tints—save one, to be found in the cheeks of an American girl. I answered that it was very clear to me now whose sense of beauty had made The Pleiad and its gardens the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... rather than to God's, and the difficulty of coming untarnished from contact with the actions and criticisms of a crooked and perverse generation is emphasised by the very fact that such blamelessness is the first requirement for Christian conduct. It was a feather in Daniel's cap that the president and princes were foiled in their attempt to pick holes in his conduct, and had to confess that they would not 'find any occasion against him, except we find it concerning the laws of his God.' God is working in us in order that our lives ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... then—Daisy hardly believed it while she was doing it,—but there she was, going down that bank in an upright position; not falling nor stumbling, though it is true she was not walking neither. The Captain did not let her fall, and his strong hand seemed to take her like a feather over the stones and among the trees, giving her flying leaps and bounds down, the hill along with him. How he went and kept his feet remained always a marvel to Daisy; but down they went, and at the bottom they were in ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner

... come into the room, a little forlorn sparrow of a creature, signifying, by a dejection in which his very clothes took part, that he was out in the east wind of circumstance and no one in the world cared a shabby feather for him. He would stand shivering in a corner, and look timorously from side to side, till at last he would pretend she had warmed him with her kisses, and generally made ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... maybe there's trout. But they won't bite. Not even before breakfast. Anyhow, they won't go for a bare hook, with a feather on it." ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... it is a fact, it cannot be minute, cannot be unimportant; that it must be a fact of God; a message from God; a voice of God, as Bacon has it, revealed in things; and which therefore, just because it stands in solemn awe of such paltry facts as the Scolopax feather in a snipe's pinion, or the jagged leaves which appear capriciously in certain honeysuckles, believes that there is likely to be some deep and wide secret underlying them, which is worth years of thought to solve. That is reverence; a reverence ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... the practice of some to turn the stone away from the tool. The stone should always move toward the tool, so as to prevent forming a feather edge. ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... early spring, high up in the branches of her tree, and how she had watched it day after day flying back and forth in the forest, its yellow breast flashing among the green leaves. It had a long golden bill, and its tail was black as jet; and its wings were the softest gray in the world with a feather of jet in either one. Its song was the clearest, the highest, the purest of all the bird songs in the forest. It was a wonderful bird, and she ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot

... team substitutes. That was a glorious afternoon for the second team, for they held the 'varsity scoreless in the first period and allowed them only the scant consolation of a field-goal in the second. "Boutelle's Babies," as some waggish first team man had labelled them, went off in high feather and fancied themselves more ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... who had been in attendance on the convention at Milledgeville had arrived during the night, bringing the information that the ordinance of secession had been adopted, and that Georgia was now a sovereign and independent government. The original secessionists were in high feather, and their hilarious enthusiasm had its effect on all save a few of the ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... credit to this place that when between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and eighty strange boys have been put into your cottages and homes, there has not arisen a single difficulty for the whole year? I say it is quite as much a feather in your caps as in ours. I am proud of it—very proud of it. (Applause.) I would also refer to the extensive power which lies in a great school. It is quite true that some few years hence, these boys whom you have looked on with interest will be ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... a crushing rebuke. The crowded bar turned and looked at their comrade as though they expected him to sink through the floor. But he sat pale and rigid, tearing off the feather of a quill with his teeth, but showing no other sign that he had heard ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... the Pope. Not the popinjay, but the Pope in white. What a very marvellous bird! He has a feather fan like a peacock's tail; he speaks like the cockatoo, only he differs from them in being infallible; and he is infallible, because another bird, also marvellous, which is called the Holy Ghost, tells him by night everything that takes place on earth and in heaven. What very ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... appears in the second act as Phoebe, a graceful and beautiful young light-o'-love from Rome, whose soul is all for the shows and luxuries and delights of this life—a dainty and capricious feather-head, a creature of shower and sunshine, a spoiled child, but a charming one. In the third act, after an interval of many years, she reappears as Persida, mother of a daughter who is in the fresh ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... have heard together The North Sea sing his tune, And felt the wind's wild feather Brush past our cheeks at noon, And seen the cloudy weather ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... flies against the opening of the trout season next month. With bits of feather, hair, and thread he was turning out wonderfully lifelike specimens—not according to the conventional varieties, but as a result of his own half-century's experience on neighbouring streams. A row of the completed product was stuck in a ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... ardent love, which will not be repressed, Plead with thee for acceptance of my suit; For I do love thee with such passionate love, That life itself, if weighed against that love, Were scarce a feather in the scale. ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands

... useless ambition, but she could not help desiring it, Agnetta was such a beautiful object to look upon, with her red cheeks and the heavy fringe of black hair which rested in a lump on her forehead. On Sundays, when she wore her blue dress richly trimmed with plush, a long feather in her hat, and a silver bangle on her arm, Lilac could hardly keep her intense admiration silent; it was a pain not to speak of it, and yet she knew that nothing would have displeased her mother ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... taller than the other Indians, but seemed so on account of his feather headdress which was built up in front with a curious cut-out copper ornament. They thought they recognized the broad banner stone of greenish slate which he carried, the handle of which was tasseled with turkey beards and tiny tails of ermine. He returned the children's stare ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... Radical nigger and de case come up befo' him for trial. Great 'citement 'bout it, over de whole county. Court house packed dat day. Solicitor rise and say: 'Please your honor, de 'fendant, Lindsey, put in a plea of guilty.' You might have heard a breast feather of a chicken fall, so very still was de people in dere, though de niggers and 'publicans was a grinning wid joy. Then Judge Mackey 'low: 'Let de 'fendant stand up.' Wid a solemn face and a solemn talk, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... here I had not ten doubloons in my pocket. He would indeed be a poor sort of leader who, in the midst of calamities he has not been able to avert, has found means to feather his own nest. For the vanquished Moor there remains a horse and the desert; for the Christian foiled of his hopes, the cloister ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... had a long coat of fine white broadcloth, made with a double cape-collar, and trimmed all round with white fur. A broad-brimmed white felt hat, with white ostrich plumes and a fleecy white feather boa, white gloves, and a white muff were there too; and even white shoes and white cloth leggings, so that when the cousins were dressed, there was not a touch of color about them, save their rosy faces and golden hair, and ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... tree to be marked, as he leads forward. Let the Mole repeat the blow unless otherwise checked. Then shall the Oneida, Grey-Feather, mark clearly the tree so doubly designated. The Oneida, Tahoontowhee, covers our right flank, marching abreast of the Mohican; the Wyandotte, Black-Snake, covers our left flank, keeping the river ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... placed the body of the deceased in a rich closed litter. Eight stood at the poles of the litter; four took ostrich feather fans in their hands, others censers, and they ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... in one hand with as much care as if it had been a young child, he descended with the other. It was a bird as large as a pigeon, but without a single feather on any part of its body. It was wonderfully plump and soft, with a skin almost transparent, so that it looked more like a bag of jelly than any living thing, with a head and feet and commencement of wings stuck on to it. The little ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... red as a rose from the waist down, and white as snow from the waist up; a cape of green on my shoulders; and a hat on my head with a red, a white, and a green feather in it; and shoes for my feet with the toes red, the middle white, and the backs and ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... aged four, also old enough to knit a stocking and sew a seam, and read her chapter in the Bible with the best. Dorothy and Sarah could take even more active part, yet even the mature ages of eight and ten did not hinder surreptitious tumbles into heaped up feather beds, and a scurry through many a once forbidden corner of the Ipswich home. For them there was small hardship in the log house that received them, and unending delight in watching the progress of the new. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... the same way. She hasn't a mite of taste. I saw her downtown shopping the other day with a sport skirt, very wide scarlet stripes, and a dress hat trimmed with a single pink rose—the most delicate pink—and a light blue feather! Oh, yes, and a ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... in three heats: — Ah, my sonny, The horses in those days were stout, They had to run well to win money; I don't see such horses about. Your six-furlong vermin that scamper Half-a-mile with their feather-weight up; They wouldn't earn much of their damper In a race like the ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... hour. I don't need to tell you what you'll have to expect if they take us. We must beat 'em off or die; for it's better to die sword in hand than to be tortured or strangled. Those of you, however, who prefer the latter modes of going under may show the white feather and enjoy yourselves in your own way. Now, lads, you know me. I expect obedience to orders to the letter. I hate fighting and bloodshed—so don't kill unless you can't help it. Also, take care that you don't touch these copper wires on the sides with either finger ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne

... Austerlitz. He is a Frenchman, born a Dutchman, and naturalized a Swiss; he is a Bonaparte crossed with a Verhuell; he is only celebrated for the ludicrousness of his imperial attitude, and he who would pluck a feather from his eagle would risk finding a goose's quill in his hand. This Bonaparte does not pass currency in the array, he is a counterfeit image less of gold than of lead, and assuredly French soldiers will not give us the change ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... five, THEY vanished! Then there was those people in Ireland—no, I forget their names. Everybody said they could fly. THEY went. They ain't dead that I've heard tell; but you can't say they're alive. Not a feather of 'em can you see. Then that chap who flew round Paris and upset in the Seine. De Booley, was it? I forget. That was a grand fly, in spite of the accident; but where's he got to? The accident didn't hurt him. ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... they are alert and vigorous and active as cats. The funniest thing is their love for the Highlanders; if a Highland regiment comes up the two meet and mingle as if they were brothers. You'll see a great Highlander in his kilt and feather bonnet arm in arm with one of these little chaps, hobnobbing as if they had known each other all their lives. And the Ghurkas won't have anything to say to the other Indian regiments; they despise them all except the Sikhs—they get on with ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... retained throughout life a fondness for clubs; often, too, in the course of his checkered career, he looked back to this period of rural sports and careless enjoyments as one of the few sunny spots of his cloudy life; and though he ultimately rose to associate with birds of a finer feather, his heart would still yearn in secret after the ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... the air, and the things that creep over the earth, the leviathan in his nature element, and his warmer-blooded brother whose passage causes the earth to tremble beneath his tread, all the multitudinous expressions of the animal kingdom, that disport themselves in fur, or feather, in filament of scales, or covering of hair, each and all recognize the approach of their final experience on earth, and hie themselves to their appointed coverts, to keep their tryst with their old mother in utter privacy. How well she loves her children! ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... the town-crier came with a message from the Demoiselle, inviting his English guests to a "feather dance," which Gist thus describes: "It was performed by three dancing-masters, who were painted all over of various colors, with long sticks in their hands, upon the ends of which were fastened long feathers of swans and other birds, neatly ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... of the furniture-room, was also called, who examined mattress, feather-beds, and covering, turned and returned them in every direction; other persons did the same, and each was convinced that there was no odor about his Majesty's bed. In spite of so many witnesses to the contrary, the Emperor, not because he ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... passing through a thicket of hawthorn and honeysuckle, we started from its perch a linnet that had been filling the air with its melody, I could hear him exclaim, in a subdued tone of voice, "Bonny, bonny birdie! why hasten frae me?—I wadna skaith a feather o' yer wing." He turned round to me, and I could see that his eyes ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... fed in course; and when we ab more nor we wants for you and me, den I take 'em to market and sell 'em; and if dey will steal 'em arter dat, Missus, we must try ticklin'; dere is nuffin' like it. It makes de down fly like a feather-bed. It makes niggars wery sarcy to see white tief punished tree times as much as dey is; dat are a fac, Missus. A poor white man can't work, and in course he steal. Well, his time bein' no airthly use, dey gib him six month pensiontary; and niggar, who can airn a dollar ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... anything brought him. She ordered every ray of light to be shut out of his room; but by means of this he got a little used to the darkness. She would take one of his arrows, and now tickle him with the feather end of it, now prick him with the point till the blood ran down. What she meant finally I can not tell, but she brought Photogen speedily to the determination of making his escape from the castle: what he should do then he would think afterward. Who could tell but he might find his ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various



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