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Feather   Listen
verb
Feather  v. t.  (past & past part. feathered; pres. part. feathering)  
1.
To furnish with a feather or feathers, as an arrow or a cap. "An eagle had the ill hap to be struck with an arrow feathered from her own wing."
2.
To adorn, as with feathers; to fringe. "A few birches and oaks still feathered the narrow ravines."
3.
To render light as a feather; to give wings to.(R.) "The Polonian story perhaps may feather some tedious hours."
4.
To enrich; to exalt; to benefit. "They stuck not to say that the king cared not to plume his nobility and people to feather himself."
5.
To tread, as a cock.
To feather one's nest, to provide for one's self especially from property belonging to another, confided to one's care; an expression taken from the practice of birds which collect feathers for the lining of their nests.
To feather an oar (Naut), to turn it when it leaves the water so that the blade will be horizontal and offer the least resistance to air while reaching for another stroke.
To tar and feather a person, to smear him with tar and cover him with feathers, as a punishment or an indignity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Feather" Quotes from Famous Books



... my design? The tall pine trees on either side mean friendship; the rocks underneath signify that my friendships have a firm foundation. The letters underneath read, 'Migwan, Her Book.' You have to carve the letters backward so they will print forward. The feather design around the letters is made from my symbol, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... an age since I saw Dr. lort. I hope illness is not the cause. You will be diverted with hearing that I am chosen an honourary member of the new Antiquarian Society at Edinburgh. I accepted for two reasons: first, it is a feather that does not demand my flying thither; and secondly, to show contempt for our own old fools.(419) To me it will be a perfect sinecure; for I have moulted all my pen feathers, and shall have no ambition of nestling into their ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... our sleep, have laid a coil of rigging down so as to keep us out of the water which was washing about decks, and stowed ourselves away upon it, covering a jacket over us, and slept as soundly as a Dutchman between two feather-beds. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... and he sed "what are you tryin' to do with that box?" So I told him I'd jist writ a letter home, and I wuz a tryin' to mail it. He sed "why you durned old green horn, you've called out the hull fire department of New York City." Wall I guess you could have knocked me down with a feather. I sed—wall you'r a purty healthy lookin' lot of fellers, it won't hurt ye any to go back, will it? Wall he sed, "thars your letter box over on thother corner, now you let this box alone." Wall ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart

... at all for personal ornamentation, any more than he allowed his dignity to be broken by anything resembling emotionalism. No tattoo marks, no ear ornaments, no rings nor bracelets. He never even picked up an ostrich feather for his head. On the latter he sometimes wore an old felt hat; sometimes, more picturesquely, an orange-coloured fillet. Khaki shirt, khaki "shorts," blue puttees, besides his knife and my own accoutrements: that was all. In town he was all white clad, a long fine linen ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... she stops every time she says a word and only pretends to be working. I tell you that industry is everything in a woman. My mother always used to say: 'A girl should never go about empty-handed, and should be ready to climb over three fences to pick up a feather.' And yet she must be calm and steady in her work, and not rush and rampage about as if she were going to pull down a piece of the world. And when she speaks and answers you, notice whether she is either too bashful or too bold. You may not believe ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... of one of the primeval passions. But he grew calm immediately after. "You want Separation for reasons of your own. I don't ask what they are. No doubt you and your crony Macdonald and the rest of them will feather your own nests; I don't ask. But help me to be a thorn in their sides—just a little—just a little longer. What do I put in your way? Just what you want. Have your Jamaica joined to the United States. You'll be able to come ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... of blue-bottle colored cloth, and a cunning little red waistcoat so short that it hardly came below his chin. The village tailor had made the sleeves so tight that he could not put his little arms together. And how proud he was! He had a round hat with a black and gold buckle and a peacock's feather protruding jauntily from a tuft of Guinea-hen's feathers. A bunch of flowers larger than his head covered his shoulder, and ribbons floated down to his feet. The hemp-beater, who was also the village barber and wig-maker, had cut his hair in a circle, covering his head with a bowl and cutting off ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... veil. The most prominent thing about her was a large and obtruding tooth, which gave her somewhat the appearance of a good-natured walrus; she held a morocco-leather satchel in her unoccupied hand, and wore a large feather-boa round her neck. ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... 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 ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... of a wand, they all stop short and listen. The sun is behind them, low and calm, there is not a breath of wind to stir their flax, not even the feather of a last year's bloom has moved, unless they moved it. Yet signal of peril has passed among them; they curve their soft ears for the sound of it, and open their sensitive nostrils, and pat upon the ground with one little foot to encourage themselves against the panting ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... for the good name of the house. She had learned to play the piano for the same reason. The mistress of the house helped her nobly, for both women were thoughtful and industrious, but Josephine was everywhere, for she was light as a feather. And the ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... rich and feather-brained young officer," I said to myself, "who treats everything in this farcical manner. He won't be the first of the species I have seen. They are amusing, but frivolous, and sometimes dangerous, wearing their honour ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... run from the smell of a mellow apple with greater precipitation than from a harquebuss-shot; others afraid of a mouse; others vomit at the sight of cream; others ready to swoon at the making of a feather bed; Germanicus could neither endure the sight nor the crowing of a cock. I will not deny, but that there may, peradventure, be some occult cause and natural aversion in these cases; but, in my opinion, a man might conquer it, if he took it in time. Precept has in this wrought so effectually ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... not to have known—it was she—Billy Strong's bewitching cousin, the girl from Orange. There she stood with her big, brown eyes searching, gazing here and there, as lovely, as incongruous as a wood-nymph strayed into a political meeting. The feather of her hat tossed in the May breeze; the fading light from the window behind her shone through loose hair about her face, turned it into a soft dark aureole; the gray of her tailor gown was crisp and fresh as spring-time. To Rex's eyes no picture had ever ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... dwarf that attended Ivanhoe at the tournament lifted the bleeding sufferer he staggered under his heavy burden. Weakness made him stumble and caused the wounded knight intense pain. When the giant of the brawny arm and the unconquered heart came, he lifted the unconscious sufferer like a feather's weight and without a jar bore him away to a secure hiding-place for healing and recovering. He who studies the great men of yesterday will find in the last analysis that gentleness has always been the test of gianthood, ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... to play in the water rather than to seek prey; the mad running of horses, dogs, etc., in free space. (3) Mimicry of hunting, i.e., playing with a living or dead prey: the dog and cat following moving objects, a ball, feather, etc. (4) Mimic battles, teasing and fighting without anger. (5) Architectural art, revealing itself especially in the building of nests: certain birds ornament them with shining objects (stones, bits of glass), by a kind of anticipation of the esthetic feeling. ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... the fluffy feathers beneath, all should be neatly folded in paper and marked; and this can be done in the evening or at odd times, but placing the feathers on the pages ought to be daylight work, that the colors may be studied. Now open the tail-feather packet, and with the razor carefully pare away the quill at the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various

... on my way through the country-side selling what maids most love—a bit of ribbon, a tie, a good serviceable apron, a feather for the hat, and many a pretty gown; but on my way from the village I met a friend from my own part of the country, which is not in this county, but two counties up north, who tells me that my wife is lying dangerously ill. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... the Yamkas and began to wreck house after house. They were joined by an innumerable mob that gathered on the run—men of the golden squad[31], ragamuffins, tramps, crooks, souteneurs. The panes were broken in all the houses, and the grand pianos smashed to smithereens. The feather beds were ripped open and the down thrown out into the street; and yet for a long while after—for some two days—the countless bits of down flew and whirled over the Yamkas, like flakes of snow. The wenches, bare-headed, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... latch, and then the door opened. Jane stood up straight, and, as luck would have it, the clouds parted, and the moon shone bright on King William in an old hunting-coat stuffed out with pillows, a pair of white-frilled knickerbockers, and a top hat with a peacock's feather in it. ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick

... could hear the water hammering into something that rang like a gong; and each time I rolled over in the musty trough of my feather-bed I fractiously asked myself why the mischief they had left the tap running all night. Next morning the matter was explained when, on demanding a bath, I was told that "there wasn't but one in the house, and 'twas undher the rain-down. But sure ye can have it," with which it ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... young English lady, whom he much admired for her pluck as well as beauty, that she had far better return to the carriage; that indeed, she need not have left it. Her extra weight would be but as that of a feather to the horses, which were used to carrying far heavier loads than that of to-day, up the steep mountain road to Alleheiligen in the "high" season of July and August, when many tourists from all countries came to rest for a night and see the wonderful view. He even grew voluble ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... doubt whether if I had taken the dismissal she gave, I should have been allowed to go far on my solitary way. Indeed I think she did but want to hear me say how that all she urged was lighter than a feather against my love for her, and, if that were her desire, she was gratified to the full; seeing that for a moment she frightened me, and I outdid every lover since the world began (it cannot be that I deceive myself in thinking that) in vehemence and ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... knew you was about all in, but I never CALLED you old. I wouldn't hurt your feelings. What did you do? You set around on your bony hips and criticized and picked at me. But you've picked my last feather off and I'm plumb ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... chanting softly, as magic-makers should. Faint and far across the desert sounded the intriguing rhythm long before the three dark faces were caught by the firelight. When they finally appeared, Jonas was bearing an eagle's feather. ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... outcast and a fugitive, yet he was not a prisoner; on the contrary, under the kindly cover of the Lady Auchterfardel, whose excellent and truly covenanted husband was a sore sufferer by the fines of the year 1662, he received great hospitality for the space of sixteen days, and was saved between two feather beds, on the top of which the laird's aged mother, a bed-rid woman, was laid, when some of Drummond's men searched the house ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... the world may one see such great picturesqueness, variety, and brilliancy of color in the costumes of the masses as then still prevailed in Mexico. Largely of more or less pure Indian blood, come of a race Cortez found habited in feather tunics and head-dresses brilliant as the plumage of parrots, great lovers of flowers, three and a half centuries of contact with civilization had not served to deprive them of any of their fondness for bright colors. Thus with the horsemen in ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... armies wore rich and conspicuous uniforms—a tight-fitting tunic of quilted cotton sufficient to turn the arrows of the native Indians; a cuirass (for superior officers) made of thin plates of gold or silver; an overcoat or cloak of variegated feather-work; helmets of wood or silver, bearing showy plumes, adorned with precious stones and gold ornaments. Their belts, collars, bracelets, and earrings were also ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... left arm straightens as the dexter bends, And his nerved knuckle with the gripe distends; Soft slides the reed back with the stiff drawn strand, Till the steel point has reacht his steady hand; Then to his keen fixt eye the shank he brings, Twangs the loud cord, the feather'd arrow sings. Picks off the pippin from the smiling boy, And Uri's rocks resound with shouts of joy. Soon by an equal dart the tyrant bleeds, The cantons league, the work of fate proceeds; Till Austria's titled hordes, with their own gore, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... shadow. The latter was also a full-grown male cotinga, known to a few people in this world as the dark-breasted mourner (Lipaugus simplex). In general shape and form it was not unlike its cousin, but in color it was its shadow, its silhouette. Not a feather upon head or body, wings or tail showed a hint of warmth, only a dull uniform gray; an ash of a bird, living in the same warm sunlight, wet by the same rain, feeding on much the same food, and claiming relationship with a blazing-feathered ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... to the blind signifies not a feather, Whose look and whose mind chime both together, Boreas, pray blow this vile rogue o'er the terry, For he is a disgrace and ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... out a soiled scarlet cloak, gaily spangled, which he threw over my shoulders, produced a half-mask with an enormous red nose, with which he concealed the upper part of my face, covered my head with a Spanish hat and feather, ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning

... goods of the said Richard Gyles, used daily to reprove and check the said Richard Gyles, and inquire of him where was more of his coin and money; and at the last the said abbot thought he lived too long, and made the sick man, after much sorry keeping, to be taken from his feather-bed, and laid upon a cold mattress, and kept his friends ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... this he crowed very loudly, like a cock of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious, because she had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn- out old feather-duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty. So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy neighbour, as she sunned herself under the bushes ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... mingles its waters with the great salt lake, which would be too salt, but for the innumerable rivers that pour themselves into its bosom, the mighty Aishkwagon-ai-bee, whose name, rendered into the language of the pale faces, is the 'Feather of Honor,' had erected his lodge. He was the war-chief of a tribe whose name is lost in the mists of antiquity. He boasted his descent from the great Ojeeg, of whom it is related that he opened a hole in the blue sky and ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... about 1,500 in all contrived to go, so that some of the caravels must have been overcrowded. The character of the company was very different from that of the year before. Those who went in the first voyage were chiefly common sailors. Now there were many aristocratic young men, hot-blooded and feather-headed hidalgos whom the surrender of Granada had left without an occupation. Most distinguished among these was Alonso de Ojeda, a dare-devil of unrivalled muscular strength, full of energy and fanfaronade, and not without generous qualities, but with very little soundness of judgment or ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... chart of the Pacific Islands," answered Brown. "Put a feather with a fossil and a bit of coral and everyone will think it's a specimen. Put the same feather with a ribbon and an artificial flower and everyone will think it's for a lady's hat. Put the same feather with an ink-bottle, a book and a stack of writing-paper, and ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... he's back in the finest feather from his holiday with the Staff, And we're sure that no one will grudge him the meed of this epitaph: "He went through the fiery furnace, but never a hair was missed From the heels of our ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various

... very grateful to the generous friar who never forgot to reserve her a good place. There never was a reception of pilgrims in Saint Peter's with a triumphal march of the Pope carried on a platform amid feather fans, at which Josephina was not present. At other times the good Father made the mysterious announcement that on the next day Pallestri, the famous male soprano of the papal chapel, was going to sing; ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... name will live. Perhaps the happiest day in his life was when, at the Shakespeare Jubilee, he entered the amphitheatre in the dress of a Corsican chief. "On the front of his cap was embroidered, in gold letters, "Viva la Liberta," and on the side of it was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant as well as a warlike appearance." "So soon as he came into the room," says the account in the "London Magazine," written, no doubt, by himself, "he drew universal attention." The applause ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... wind shake our flag like a feather, Like the plumes of the foam of the sea! * * * * * In the teeth of the hard glad a weather, In the blown wet face of ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... But the Man pausing to light his pipe, Emmy Lou, in the sudden respite thus afforded slid in a trembling heap beneath the desk, and on hands and knees went crawling across the floor. And as Uncle Michael came in, a moment after, broom, pan, and feather-duster in hand, the last fluttering edge of a little pink dress was disappearing into the depths of the big, empty coal-box, and its sloping lid was lowering upon a flaxen head and cowering little figure crouched within. Uncle ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various

... up on the heather And there I put inside my breast A moulted feather, an eagle-feather! Well, I ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... parties in couples or in bands, so that they may be a check upon one another. Doubtless, however, in spite of all precautions, the shower of gold does from time to time find its way to Danae's lap; and to be the favoured lover of a fashionable singer or dancer is rather a feather in the cap of a fast young Japanese gentleman. The fee paid to singing-girls for performing during a space of two hours is one shilling and fourpence each; for six hours the fee is quadrupled, and it is customary ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... antipathies of the public. In the present instance it was alleged that the Right Honourable A. and the Honourable B. had come to some truce together, and had ceased for a while to hit each other hard knocks. Such a truce was supposed to be a feather in the cap of the Honourable B., as he was leader of a poor party of no more than twenty; and the Right Honourable A. had in this matter the whole House at his back. But for the nonce each had come off ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... on the other side of the copse, and soon they saw coming through the trees a man in gay attire. He had a scalloped jerkin of orange leather, and his shoes and cap were of the same, but his sleeves and hose and feather were of a vivid green, like nothing in nature. He looked garish in the sun. Seeing the shepherds he took off his cap, and solemnly thanked heaven for having after all created something besides hills and valleys. "For," said he, "after being lost among them I know not how many hours, with ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... to hear. It's about the ghost," she whispered. "I know all about it. It was Flora herself! Yes, it was!" she continued quickly. "When we were in her room this morning I saw a big hat with a long feather on it, hanging on her closet door, and a long blue skirt, one of her mother's. They weren't there yesterday, for the door was open, just ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis

... why I brought you up here?" she asked. As she spoke she drew a little closer to him and her hand touched his as softly as a drifting feather or a blown cherry blossom might ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... I will dance and make music, but first let me put on my feather-robe for without it I ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... a strange procession met their eyes unawares, coming down the zig-zag path that led from the hills to the shore of the lagoon, where their huts were situated. At its head marched two men—tall, straight, and supple—wearing huge feather masks over their faces, and beating tom-toms, decorated with long strings of shiny cowries. After them, in order, came a sort of hollow square of chiefs or warriors, surrounding with fan-palms a central object all shrouded ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... Listen! I'm going to be perfectly frank. Why not? We're birds of a feather. And the pot can't call the kettle black. Maybe my similes are a bit mixed, but you'll excuse that, as we're both Irish. Why, my being Irish—and Italian—is an explanation of me in itself, if you'd take the trouble to study it. But ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... a man of the people of West Africa who had journeyed far and wide and traversed many a desert and a tide. He was once cast upon an island, where he abode a long while and, returning thence to his native country, brought with him the quill of a wing feather of a young Rukh, whilst yet in egg and unhatched; and this quill was big enough to hold a goat skin of water, for it is said that the length of the Rukh chick's wing, when he cometh forth of the egg, is a thousand fathoms. The folk marvelled at this quill, when they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... of them; and she often declared that she did wish some one would invent a new sort of fancy-work, since she had tried all the old kinds till she was tired of them. Painting china, carving wood, button-holing butterflies and daisies onto Turkish towelling, and making peacock-feather trimming, amused her for a time; but as she was not very successful she soon gave up trying these branches, and wondered if she would not take a little plain sewing for ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... French, and I had been as much entertained as instructed (I mean instructed in the language). Every one knows a Frenchman can infuse airy elegance into a button, bestow a marketable value upon a straw, breathe esprit into a feather, and make ten dishes out of a nettle-top. So the poet can transform any incident into an attractive vaudeville. The tender situation dramatique, the humorous coup de theatre, the jeu d'esprit sparkling up into music, the elevated sentiment, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... national independence; he will think they must have been pure fanatics who spilt their blood that they might have Christ's Kirk and Covenant regulated in their own peculiar way; and he will hold them as mere feather-brains who sacrificed their lands and their lives to an obstinate loyalty to the House of Stuart. Yet it is of such unreason, if unreason it be, that the warp and the woof of the historic annals of Scotland have been spun: it is this defiance ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... wore secretly on, her head night and day. The Sisters once accidentally saw this instrument of torture, and begged her to discontinue its use, but she smilingly told them, it caused her no more pain than a feather pillow should. ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... feeding one another, without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine the brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... prestance of a princely Vandyck. I should like to commemorate the portrait of a lady of a certain age and of an equally certain interest of appearance—a lady in black, with black hair, a black hat and a vast feather, which was displayed at that entertaining little annual exhibition of the "Mirlitons," in the Place Vendome. With the exquisite modelling of its face (no one better than Mr. Sargent understands the beauty that resides in exceeding fineness), ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... this difference between the fate of the pigeon and his human analogue, that, whereas the former is slain outright, the latter is often subjected to the prolonged agony of being plucked feather by feather. Not that he thinks it agony; on the contrary, he decidedly likes it, which is a wonderful proof of his simplicity, and the difference in people's tastes. But in order to pluck a human pigeon at leisure, you must first catch him. May is a good month for this operation. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... little answered the purpose of protecting the head, but served to exercise the ingenuity of the fair wearer, who had not failed, according to the prevailing custom of the mountain maidens, to decorate the tiny cap with a heron's feather, and the then unusual luxury of a small and thin chain of gold, long enough to encircle the cap four or five times, and having the ends secured under a broad medal of the same costly metal. I have only to add, that the stature of the young person was something ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various

... snow upon the ground, and the two little players, who stood with brush and ball in their hands, were clad in warm coats and gloves and winter boots, which Felix thought must prevent their running well. The girl had a scarlet feather in her felt hat, and the boy a long blue tassel hanging from his velvet cap. The girl was raising her brush to ward off the ball that the boy was ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... we got our new soldier scenery—a complete set from kicks to skypieces. Did you ever see a feather bed with a string tied around the middle, or a bale of hay with the middle hoop busted? That's what my appollonnaris form looks like now draped in the togs handed me by the "land of the free and the home of the brave." The pants must have been cut out with ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone

... 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

... 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 ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... others forming the opposition of the country, intend to "stand by our guns," to be patient and firm, and in the long run to beat you, whether you take him or not. We know that before we fairly beat you we have to beat you both together. We know that you are "all of a feather," and that we have to beat you all together, and we expect to do it. We don't intend to be very impatient about it. We mean to be as deliberate and calm about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... cases relate to dogs. Mr. Colquhoun winged two wild ducks, which fell on the farther side of a stream; his retriever tried to bring over both at once, but could not succeed; she then, though never before known to ruffle a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over the other, and returned for the dead bird. Colonel Hutchinson relates that two partridges were shot at once, one being killed, the other wounded; the latter ran away and was caught by the retriever, who on her return came across the dead ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... given. The thing was still there. It spoke in the brute strength of his powerful body as his marching feet struck the ground, in the iron look about his broad shoulders, the careless strength with which he carried his musket as if it were a feather, and above all in the hard cold glint from his shining eyes set ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... tough problem as well as an interesting one." Arcot smiled. "If the thing works, as I expect it to, you'll have a job that will certainly be a feather for your cap. Also it will be ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... of quetzalli, a beautiful feather, and tlalpiloni, the band which passed around the head to keep ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... ocean water made up amid picturesque rocks—shaggy and solemn. Here trees of the primeval forest, grand and lordly, looked down silently into the waters which ebbed and flowed daily into this little pool. Every variety of those beautiful evergreens which feather the coast of Maine, and dip their wings in the very spray of its ocean foam, found here a representative. There were aspiring black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy coronets of cones; there were balsamic firs, whose young buds breathe the scent of strawberries; ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... shall turn in, now, and try to dream that I am on a feather bed, and have had supper ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... niches where she could be told with proper gravity of the feelings her wit and beauty awakened in various masculine hearts. By twelve o'clock Susan wished that the ball would last a week, she was borne along like a feather on its ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... little bracket-like basket he fastens to the chimney wall. His feet are so small that he cannot perch as other birds do, so when he rests he clings to the side of the chimney and leans on his tail. Each tail feather is tipped with a stiff, sharp point ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... the hall for half an hour before she appeared. When she came tripping down the wide, softly descending stair, in her tight-fitting habit and hat and feather, holding up her skirt, so that he saw her feet racing each other like a cataract across the steps, saying as she came near him, "I have kept you waiting, but I could not help it; my habit was torn!" he thought he had never seen her so lovely. Indeed she looked lovely, ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald

... is nothing either on the skin or at the mouth of the wound. I have to withdraw the downy plug and dig to some depth before discovering the eggs. The ovipositor has therefore lengthened its extensible tube and pushed beyond the feather stopper driven in by the lead. The eggs are in one packet; they number about ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... little way, Tony," he said. "She's as light as a feather, even to poor old grandpa. I'd like to carry my little love a bit of the ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton

... 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

... thinks a riding habit should be worn over two or three skirts, and is consequently sitting with the aerial elegance of a feather bed, is riding with her snaffle rein, the curb tied on her horse's neck, and is clasping it by the centre, allowing the rest to hang loose, so that Clifton, supposing that she means to give him liberty to browse, is looking for grass among the tan. Not finding it, he snorts occasionally, ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... distinction for so young a woman," continued the trustee, "and because it means so much to each of the rivals, a feather's weight of evidence may turn the scales for one or the other. I am anxious to be impartial. I invite this discussion merely to assure myself of Miss Whiton's irreproachable record. I wish sincerely ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... guard issued from the shed, also burdened with a top-coat! Mr Sharp muttered something about, "birds of a feather," and was about to advance to meet the guard when that individual's eyes fell on him. He turned back at once, not in a hurry, but quietly as though he had forgotten something. The superintendent sprang through the open door, but was too late. The guard had managed to ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... just a man to expect she would let me off for nothing. Compensation to the woman when the man gets out of it, is one of the laws of England. In obedience to the laws, and after turning it over carefully in my mind, I offered Selina Goby a feather-bed and fifty shillings to be off the bargain. You will hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless true—she ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... seaport of Corinto by the Corinto-Managua railway. Pop. (1900) about 12,000. Chinandega is the centre of a fertile corn-producing district, and has a large transit trade owing to its excellent situation on the chief Nicaraguan railway. Its manufactures include coarse cloth, pottery and Indian feather ornaments. Cotton, sugar-cane and bananas are cultivated ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... with masses of gold embroidery about her, and she carries a large black and gold feather fan in her hands, which she moves rapidly, almost restlessly, up and down; her eyes wander often to the doorway, and every now and then she raises her hand with a short, impatient action to her blonde head, as though she were half weary of ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... Sara, who, in certain shimmering greens and blues, looked like a shining little peacock, an effect which was further emphasized by a slender feather caught by an emerald which she wore in her black hair. "Where did she live ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... carry any such duffle to sea in their dunnage-bags," snapped the skipper. "Moral suasion on them would be about like tryin' to whittle through a turkle's shell with a hummin'-bird's pin-feather. My rule most generally was to find one soft spot on 'em somewhere that a marlin-spike would hurt, and then hit that spot hard and often. That's the only way I ever got somewhere with a cargo and got ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... prisoners, are to be restored. Michilimackinac and Fort Niagara and Astoria on the Columbia go back to the United States; but of "impressment" and "right of search" and "embargo of neutrals" not a word. The waste of life and happiness accomplished not a feather's weight unless it were the lesson of the criminal folly of a war between nations akin in aim ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... with his fists, and thereby impelled his flight. After running thus three miles or more, a deep ditch opposed their progress. The horse and rider fell headlong into it, and did not find the bottom covered with feather-beds or roses. They got sadly bruised; but were lucky enough to escape without any ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... feather"), a magician, and the Man[)i]to of wealth. It was Megissogwon who sent the fiery fever on man, the white fog, and death. Hiawatha slew him, and taught man the science of medicine. This great Pearl-Feather slew the father of Niko'mis (the grandmother of Hiawatha). Hiawatha all day long fought with the magician without effect; at nightfall the woodpecker told him to strike at the tuft of hair on the magician's head, the only vulnerable place; accordingly, Hiawatha discharged his three remaining arrows ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... latter attempt came to me through the mother of "Goosie," as the children for years called a little boy who, because he was brought to the nursery wrapped up in his mother's shawl, always had his hair filled with the down and small feathers from the feather brush factory where she worked. One March morning, Goosie's mother was hanging out the washing on a shed roof before she left for the factory. Five-year-old Goosie was trotting at her heels handing her clothes pins, when he was suddenly ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... bed-rooms; but in the court-yard, where there are a large cistern, several towels and a negro in attendance. The sleeping-room usually contains from four to eight bedsteads, having mattresses and not feather-beds; sheets of calico, two blankets, and a quilt: the bedsteads have no curtains. The public rooms are, a news-room, a boot-room, (in which the bar is situated,) and a dining-room. The fires are generally surrounded by parties of ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... English in me that loves the soft, wet weather— The cloud upon the mountain, the mist upon the sea, The sea-gull flying low and near with rain upon each feather, The scent of deep, green woodlands where the buds are ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... fire of a brain burning high and kindling everything lighted up herself against herself.—Was one so volatile as she a person with a will?—Were they not a multitude of flitting wishes that she took for a will? Was she, feather-headed that she was, a person to make a stand on physical pride?—If she could yield her hand without reflection (as she conceived she had done, from incapacity to conceive herself doing it reflectively) was she much better than purchaseable stuff ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... little baby didn't wear anything at all except a loin cloth. When he looked up he saw the black faces and kinky black hair of his father and his mother. And when he was a little older he saw that they didn't wear any clothes either except a loin cloth and a feather skirt and some shells. Neither did this baby think any of this was queer,—not even when he grew older. He thought all the world looked and ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell

... 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 Robin Hood in ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls

... logs protected by an abattis. The light infantry advanced and poured in a brisk fire; on which the French threw down their arms and fled. About eighty of them were captured; but their commander, Herbin, escaped, leaving to the victors his watch, hat and feather, wine, liquor-case, and mistress. The English had six men wounded and nearly a ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... Feather eating is the result of idleness or a shortage of green feed. The best way to cure it is to furnish the fowls with exercise. Boil some oats until soft, and when cooked stir in salt enough to taste and about a quart of good beef scrap; feed this for breakfast several mornings together. ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... page 195.—Screens made of the feather of a roc. The screens and fans in the East, made of the plumage of rare birds with jewelled handles, are ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... open country. O nature! nature! I love thee so, but I came forth from thy womb good for nothing—not fit even for life. There goes a cock-sparrow, hopping along with outspread wings; he chirrups, and every note, every ruffled feather on his little body, is breathing with ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... man in all ways. It was known on the road that he was expected in Denver, and there were rumors that he was to organize the parties for the survey of an important "extension." Beside him sat his pretty young wife. She was a New Yorker—one could tell at first glance—from the feather of her little bonnet, matching the gray traveling dress, to the tips of her dainty boots; and one, too, at whom old Fifth Avenue promenaders would have turned to look. She had a charming figure, brown hair, hazel eyes, and an expression ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... plumage worth from twenty-five to thirty dollars each year. A Hottentot told Paul that many of the ostriches that then stood around in sight had been hatched by fat old Hottentot women who took two or three eggs away from the hens and lay with them in feather bed until they were hatched. The truthfulness of this ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... how much swamp and sea must have existed there a thousand years ago. Yes, in these respects the same was to be seen there as is to be seen now. The rushes had the same height, the same sort of long leaves, and blue-brown, feather-like flowers that they bear now; the birch tree stood with its white bark, and delicate drooping leaves, as now; and, in regard to the living creatures, the flies had the same sort of crape clothing as they wear now; and the storks' bodies were white, with black and red stockings. Mankind, ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... Wardrobe Accounts are extant, showing her expenses at this time (31/17 to 31/19); but the last is almost illegible. "Divers decoctions and recipes" made up at Northampton for the young Prince, came to 6 shillings, 9 pence. "Litter for my Lady's bed" (to put under the feather bed in the box-like bedstead) cost 6 pence. Either her Ladyship or her royal charge must have entertained a strong predilection for "shrimpis," judging from the frequency with which that entry occurs. Four quarters of wheat, we are told, made 1200 loaves. There is evidence of a good deal ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... Jock. "It's so long! I thought I'd get the feather-brush to sweep it up with, and the other end of it has been and gone through ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... eat," said Rob, "that's one thing sure. I'll tell you what—I've seen some dark-colored feather coats and blankets at the trader's store down below Valdez. I'll warrant they were made out of the breasts ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough

... from Tom. There was also a cloak upon one chair, and a crocheted cape tied by the tassels on another. There was a white tippet hanging on the stovepipe. There was a bandbox up in one corner with a pretty hat lying on the outside, its long, light feather catching the dust; it was three days now since Sunday. There were also two pairs of shoes, one pair of rubbers, and one slipper under the bed; the other slipper lay directly in the middle of the room. Then the wardrobe door was wide open,—it was too full to stay shut,—upon a sight ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... a great hullabaloo up the road, the beating of drums and the yelling of natives, and presently the procession hove in sight. There was Tommy on his horse, and on each side of him six savages with feather head-dress, and shields and war-paint complete. After him trooped about thirty of the great chiefs, walking two by two, for all the world like an Aldershot parade. They carried no arms, but the bodyguard shook their spears, and let yells out of them ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... a hat with a red feather stuck in it, and he's gone into competition with Mrs. Allen, who's kept the dry-goods here for the ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... the vessel was slackened, and hastily caught a rope which was thrown to him. Just at that moment a wave as high as a man rose between the steamer and the boat and separated them, and Doughby still maintaining his hold on the rope, he was dragged out of his skiff and tossed like a feather against the steamer's side, where he hung half in and half out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... jest finished a crazy-quilt, with seven thousand pieces of silk in it, and each piece trimmed with seven hundred stitches of feather stitchin': she counted 'em. And then I remembered seein' it. There wus some talk then about wimmen's rights, and a petition wus got up in Jonesville for wimmen to sign; and I remember well that Ardelia couldn't sign it for lack of time. She wanted to, but she ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... is in retard then!" this lady cried, when Susannah answered that, although she knew Dr. Clatworthy well, not a fur or feather of him had she seen that day (which was her way of putting it). "Ah, but how vexing! And Miss St. Maur was positive he ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... triumphant, over his enemies. It is probably in this capacity, i.e., as the friend of the dead, that the dog-headed ape appears seated upon the top of the standard of the Balance in which the heart of the deceased is being weighed against the feather symbolic of Ma[a]t; for the commonest titles of the god are "lord of divine books," "lord of divine words," i.e., the formulae which make the deceased to be obeyed by friend and foe alike in the next world. In later times, when Thoth came to be represented by the ibis bird, his ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... satisfied. To show Lily, that was all he asked for! He was quieter, now that she could practise. And Lily, also, was delighted and relieved. At first it was jolly, doing nothing; but to be always at home with Ma had its drawbacks; only the other day, because she had asked for a tam-o'-shanter with a feather in it, like those she saw the little girls wear in the street, she had nearly had a box on the ear, the extravagant little beast, who would bring them ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... was to catch a glimpse of the wretch who had fired the shot. But that seemed about impossible. He could detect something moving now and then, and once or twice there was a twinkle of something red, like the eagle feather in the hair of the warrior, but he could make ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... do all this with little effort; and yet, trifling as the act may seem, dear, it will do Mrs. Elder good: and you will have the pleasing remembrance of a kind deed. A child's hand is strong enough to lift a feather from an inflamed wound, even though it lack the surgeon's skill." The mother said these ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... proceeding thy son Duhsasana quickly pierced him with nine straight arrows. That mighty bowman then (Yuyudhana), pierced Duhsasana, in return, with five straight and sharp arrows equipped with golden wings and vulturine feather. Then Duhsasana, O Bharata, smiling the while, pierced Satyaki, O monarch, with three arrows, and once more with five. The grandson of Sini, then, striking thy Son with five arrows and cutting off his bow proceeded smilingly towards Arjuna. Then Duhsasana, inflamed with wrath ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... looking for fresh eggs, nor any dragons nor star-gazers lying in wait for the young fry. Instead there were nice, kind men, who kept the hatching troughs clean and the water at the right temperature, and who gently stirred up the troutlets with a long goose-feather whenever too many of them crowded together in one corner, trying to get away from the hateful light. Under this sort of treatment most of the thirty million babies in the hatchery lived and thrived. Only a few thousands of them were brook trout, but among ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert

... 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 ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston

... dear, Mr. Knapsack, I'm of so unfortunate a Stature, they'd trample me under their Feet; besides, I have no Genius to Fighting; I cou'd like a Commission in a Beau-Regiment, that always stays at home, because a Scarlet-Lac'd-Suit, a Sash and Feather command Respect, keep off Creditors, and make the Ladies fly ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... wonderfully smooth grass-plot, which is sometimes used as a tennis-court. Several stately peacocks strutted about displaying their magnificent feathers. They were very tame, and almost allowed Betty to come near enough to touch them. She was delighted when the largest most obligingly dropped a gorgeous feather ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... performance, though not good enough to win. The boxing tournament was held still later at St. Amand, and we sent two entries. In the heavy weights, Boobyer was beaten on points after a plucky fight, and in the feather weights, O'Shaugnessy knocked his opponent all over the place, and ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... tiresome! But they can come next Saturday I tell you! And I'll give you a prize! Yes, I'll give two prizes—for the two best new pictures that they bring me to think about! And the first prize shall be a Peacock Feather Fan!" said the Blinded Lady. "And the second prize shall be a Choice ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... until we might see his every lineament—every item of his trappings, even to the black-tipped eagle feather erect at the part in his braids. And he rode carelessly, fearlessly, to halt within easy speaking distance; sat a moment, rifle across his leggined thighs and the folds of his scarlet blanket—a splendid man, naked ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... individual carries the fundamental bases for both sexes. When Goodale changed a male bird into a female as to secondary characters and instincts by replacing one secretion with another, he was faced with the following problem: How can a single secretion be responsible for innumerable changes as to feather length, form and colouring, as to spurs, comb and almost an endless array of other details? To suppose that a secretion could be so complicated in its action as to determine each one of a thousand different items of structure, colour and behaviour would be preposterous. Besides, we know that some ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard

... [Dormitory.] and the cells of the priests, and we went into one; a very pretty little room, very clean, hung with pictures, set with books. The Priest was in his cell, with his hair clothes to his skin, bare-legged with a sandall only on, and his little bed without sheets, and no feather-bed; but yet I thought, soft enough. His cord about his middle; but in so good company, living with ease, I thought it a very good life. A pretty library they have. And I was in the refectoire, where every man his napkin, knife, cup of earth, and basin ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... me the way a man ought to be packed on a hoss. I weigh two hundred and thirty, son, and it busts the back of a horse in the mountains. Now, you ain't a flyweight yourself, and El Sangre takes you along like you was a feather." ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... truth must be told, I'm afraid she was taking it with a petit-verre and a cigarette. She wore an exceedingly simple black frock, with a bunch of violets in her breast, and a hat with a sweeping black feather and a daring brim. Her dark luxurious hair broke into a riot of fluffy little curls about her forehead, and thence waved richly away to where it was massed behind; her cheeks glowed with a lovely colour (thanks, doubtless, to Yorkshire breezes; sweet ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... they would all choose their own songs, but not more to set off themselves than to oppose or deprive another of an occasion to shine. Yet any one would sing a bad song, provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown together like so many feather'd warriors, for a battle-royal in a cock-pit, where every one was oblig'd to kill another to save himself! What pity it was these froward misses and masters of musick had not been engag'd to entertain the court of some King of Morocco, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... the thistles would be dead, and their huge hollow stalks as dry and light as the shaft of a bird's feather—a feather-shaft twice as big round as a broomstick and six to eight feet long. The roots were not only dead but turned to dust in the ground, so that one could push a stalk from its place with ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... wires, twice length of thickness of body, for wing pinning and feather wrapping, if either or both of these are found necessary. Make cornered points on wires. Sharpen neck- and wing-wires at both ends, leg, tail, and pinning-wires ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... inn—to put up at the sheriff's house. Mrs. Davidson herself could only offer him shares with Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, also a rising man, and Peter Cartwright, the noted preacher—on the floor, but on a feather bed. At that period the wild goose flew low. It may be supposed that the student of Shakespeare might quote "When shall we three meet again?" on rising between the famous border worthies in the dawn. The hospitality was so refreshing that the trio spent the next night there. ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... small potatoes beside the ostrich—merely a smaller and dingier camel-gander. But the emeu is a fine upstanding fellow, with his haughty sailing head and his great feather boa. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... previous day by Blanquette she had produced much property finery. A black velveteen jacket resplendent with pearl-buttons, velveteen knee-breeches tied with ribbons at the knees, and a rakish Alpine hat with a feather adorned my master's person. His own disreputable heavy boots and a pair of grey worsted stockings may not have formed a fastidious finish to the costume; but in my eyes he looked magnificent. Towards the transfiguration ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... 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 ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... positions of great peril from whizzing shot and bursting shell, but was never harmed during these dangerous visits. On one occasion, she was probably by reason of her black hat and feather, mistaken for an officer, as she for a moment carelessly showed the upper part of her person, from a slight eminence near the rifle pits, and was fired at by one of the enemy's sharp-shooters. The ball lodged in a tree, close by her side, from which she deliberately dug it ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... I'm sure I hope not!" exclaimed Phil, looking as if a new feather had been heaped on her ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... 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 so much, who was never willing to hear the Greenways praised. So she ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... soft a whisper that scarce had its breath stirred a feather on her lips, Meriamun spoke the Word of Fear which may not be written, whose sound has power to pass all space and open the ears of the dead who dwell in Amenti. Softly she said it, for in a shout of thunder it was caught up and echoed from her lips, and down the eternal halls ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... Khel simply signifies tribe, or clan. So similar to the Maya vocable Kaan, a tie, a rope; hence a clan: a number of people held together by the tie of parentage. Now, Kuki would be Kukil, or Kukum maya[TN-15] for feather, hence the KUKI-KHEL would be the ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon

... to tend a few sheep, To rise up and play, or to lie down and sleep: I was so good-humoured, so cheerful and gay, My heart was as light as a feather all day; But now I so cross and so peevish am grown, So strangely uneasy, as never was known. My fair one is gone, and my joys are all drowned, And my heart—I am sure it weighs more than ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... dresses were very magnificent. The Knights, before they were installed, were in white and silver, like the old pictures of Henry VIII., and afterwards they had a purple mantle put on. They had immense plumes of ostrich feathers, with a heron's feather in the middle."] ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... possession of Miss Carnochan. (See foot-note on page 64.) Persons interested in military matters will observe that the white ostrich plumes, which show very slightly, are placed under the flaps, only the white edges appearing. This new style of feather display was, it is stated, in compliance with an order from the War Office, issued shortly before Brock's death. Previously the plumes ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... treated her as a gentleman should treat his wife, and did his best to make her a lady. She was always clad in a rich fashion; and a fine show she made in her scarlet petticoat and white hat with a streaming scarlet feather in it, riding high on her pillion behind Willan Blaycke on his great black horse, or sitting up straight and stiff in the swinging coach with gold on the panels, which he had bought for her in Boston at a sale of the effects of one of the disgraced and removed ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson

... it, at once, for his own advantage. She, on her side, had always, ever since she could remember, been intrigued by him. She told me once that almost her earliest memory was being lifted into the air by her uncle and feeling the thick solid strength of his grasp, so that she was like a feather in the air, poised on one of his stubborn fingers; when he kissed her each hair of his beard seemed like a pale, taut wire, so stiff and resolute was it. Her Uncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison. Then, as she had grown older, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... my ideas were all martial: I was going to live with a military man; nay, to become one, for it was concluded I should begin with being a cadet. I already fancied myself in regimentals, with a fine white feather nodding on my hat, and my heart was inflamed by the noble idea. I had some smattering of geometry and fortification; my uncle was an engineer; I was in a manner a soldier by inheritance. My short sight, indeed, presented some little obstacle, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... What! was there really common sense on the side of bliss? and when Jean told him to join her party at Inch Coombe, or never look her in the face again, scales seemed to fall from his eyes; and, with a heart that turned in a moment from lead to a feather, he vowed he would ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... 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 ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... Carleton, "that contra haereticos etiam vere dictos (ne dum falso et calumniose sic traductos) there is neither sentence of death nor other corporal punishment, so that in order to attract to himself a great following of birds of the name feather he publishes to all the world that here in this country one can live and die a heretic, unpunished, without being arrested ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... back to the fire, holding on his arms the skirts of a gray surtout which he wore over his uniform; his legs were cased in the tall bottes a l'ecuyere worn by the chasseur a cheval, and on his head a low cocked hat, without plume or feather, completed his costume. There was something which, at the very moment of my entrance, struck me as uncommon in his air and bearing, so much so that when my eyes had once rested on his pale but placid countenance, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... knocked me down with a feather!" she resumed. "He telephones me awhile ago and says to be outside the back door at ten to-night, because he'd something he wanted to tell me. Of course he couldn't come in and tell it me here, because ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... look at scared me every time I saw it. It was a big, tall lady dressed in yellow and she had a feather fan. ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks

... cases lovely tints of colour adorn them. Nature has for once relaxed in their favour her rigid rules, by which she turns out things of this kind not only alike in shape, but with identical colour and ornament. Among humming-birds, for instance, each bird is like the other, literally to a feather. The lustre on each ruby throat or amethyst wing shines in the same light with the same prismatic divisions. But even in the London river, if you go and seek among the pebbles above Hammersmith Bridge ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... soldierly fashion and gazed unmoved. His two mates—one stocky, red faced and red headed; the other slender, bronzed and blond—betrayed their thoughts in their blue eyes. The red man squinted quizzically at the smoke feather as if it mattered little to him where he was. The blond watched it with the wistfulness of one who sees the last sign of ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel

... difficulties he imported certain principles: (1) He did not intend to be posted at Tattersalls. Sooner than that he would go to the Jews; the entail was all he could look to borrow on; the Hebrews would force him to pay through the nose. (2) He did not intend to show the white feather, and in backing his horse meant to "go for the gloves." (3) He did not intend to think of the future; the thought of the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... gentleman at the door of her abode, her peasant servant standing behind her, holding a flaring torch to light the entry of his Grace. She curtseyed deeply, and Monsieur de Zollern, having successfully hobbled from his coach, returned her salute with so tremendous a bow, that the long feather of his ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... east, and west he looked with wild questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. "Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence," he muttered, as he seated himself in the ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the beauty of her face enhanced by the marks of I know not what trials and emotions. Little, dark-pencilled lines under the eyes were nigh robbing these of the haughtiness I had once seen and hated. Set high on her hair was a curving, green hat with a feather, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... head-dress made of many tightly-wound crimson handkerchiefs bound together by a broad, thin band of polished silver. In the turban, now dyed a richer hue from the blood flowing from the warrior's shoulder, was stuck a large eagle feather, the insignia of a chief. At his feet, where he had crumpled down under the enemy's bullets, lay the Indian lad in a huddled heap. It did not need the tiny eagle feather in the diminutive turban to convince Charley's observant ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely



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