"Raven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he always wore a long woolen frock made by his wife, and a cap of woodchuck skin. Folks said it was like to be a hard winter when he put on his overcoat. His complexion was as dark as an Indian's; eyes as black as night, and he had straight raven hair. He used much tobacco, always a quid in his mouth except when it was a pipe. He mostly refrained on the Sabbath until the evening when a long quiet smoke compensated him for abstinence during two sermons. His voice was rich and ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... had a smack of this disease; for when he was to go home as far as Abdera, and some other remote cities of Greece, he writ to his friend Dionysius (if at least those [6056]Epistles be his) [6057] "to oversee his wife in his absence, (as Apollo set a raven to watch his Coronis) although she lived in his house with her father and mother, who be knew would have a care of her; yet that would not satisfy his jealousy, he would have his special friend Dionysius to dwell in his house with ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... bright fatherland! O German love, so true! Thou sacred land, thou beauteous land, We swear to thee anew! Outlawed, each knave and coward shall The crow and raven feed; But we will to the battle all— ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Tohfah they have captured and Jamrah is slain and they have taken the palace, all of it." At these ill tidings Maymun buffeted his face and head and said, "Oh! Out on it for a calamity!" Then he cried aloud. Now Kamariyah had sent to her sire and reported to him the news, whereat the raven of the wold[FN252] croaked for the foe. So, when Maymun saw that which had betided him (and indeed the Jinn smote upon him and the wings of eternal severance overspread his host), he planted the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... forth in search of the dangerous walrus and white bear and the monstrous whale. Here they made strange fire to the spirits of the monsters they had slaughtered, and spoke in grave tones of the great spirit that had come down from the moon in the form of a raven with ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... of that wild resounding clang Came hooting o'er the margin of the dusky moors that hang Like palls of inky darkness where the hoarse, weird raven calls, And the bhang-drunk Hindoo staggers on and on ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... young Mechmed said: Mother, how long will you mourn for me? —Till I step down to you in darkness. Father, how long will you mourn for me? —Till the raven's wing is white And I see grapes on the willow-tree. Sisters, how long will you mourn for me? —Till we have babes to sing asleep. How long will you mourn, my beloved? —Till I go down among the flowers And bring a ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... perfectly unavailing. I could not find my debtor at home, and if I had I was told it would take three weeks before the Russian law would assist me to recover my claim. Determined, however, to have some compensation, I carried off a raven, who had been croaking angrily at my intrusion. Before we had been long on our homeward journey, however, Lieut. C—— sat upon it, of course accidentally, and we threw it to ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... mainly came from the Roman city of Uriconium, we planned a side-trip to this place, together with Buildwas Abbey and the old Saxon town of Much Wenlock, all of which are within twenty miles of Shrewsbury. When we left the Raven Hotel it was raining steadily, but this no longer deterred us, and after cautiously descending the steep hill leading out of the town we were soon on the road to Wroxeter, the village lying adjacent to the ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... attitudinizing, she had made herself thoroughly comfortable; and as the light streamed full upon her, all the marvellous beauty of the delicate face and the perfect modelling of the small hands and feet were clearly revealed. The glossy raven hair clung in waving masses around her white full forehead, and the long silky lashes lay like jet fringe on her exquisitely moulded cheeks; while the remarkably fine pencilling of her arched brows, which had attracted her guardian's notice when he first saw her ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... form of the soul after death is still a current belief in the Hebrides. Butterflies in Ireland, and moths in Cornwall, and in France bats or butterflies, are believed to be souls of the dead.[1225] King Arthur is thought by Cornishmen to have died and to have been changed into the form of a raven, and in mediaeval Wales souls of the wicked appear as ravens, in Brittany as black dogs, petrels, or hares, or serve their term of penitence as cows or bulls, or remain as crows till the day of judgment.[1226] Unbaptized infants ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... child, her last, her only treasure, and blessing God that this comfort was still spared, she resolved to exert every energy in the endeavour to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Great was her adversity, but He who watches over the sparrow and feeds the raven had raised up friends ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... and vowed that his sister should never wed a Montfort, he knew not what he did. He and his proud wife could flout and scorn my Isabel—they might not break her faith to me. Thou knowst, perhaps, Richard, since thou art hand and glove with our foes, that like a raven to the slaughter, the Lady Mortimer came as near the battle-field as her care for her dainty person would allow; and there was one whom she brought with her. And, gentle dame, what doth she do but carry her sister-in-law ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tears and entreaties, prayed that the victim might be spared. The royal savage rejected her suit, and commanded her to leave Smith to his fate. Grown frantic at the failure of her supplications, Pocahontas threw her arms about Smith, and laid her head on his, her raven hair falling around his neck and shoulders, declaring she would perish with or save him. The Indians gasped for breath, fearing that Powhatan would slay his child for taking such a deep interest in the fate of one he considered ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... success, from an antiquated cookery book which she had discovered at the back of my bookshelves. At other times, when I expected her to be upstairs, languidly examining her finery, and idly polishing her trinkets, I heard of her in the stables, feeding the rabbits, and talking to the raven, or found her in the conservatory, fumigating the plants, and half suffocating the gardener, who was trying to moderate her enthusiasm in ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... certain prosiness of speech, which might, in its monotony, be likened to the cooing of that bird. He was very inquisitive; and when he stood at his shop-door in the evening-tide, watching the neighbours, with his head on one side, and his eye cocked knowingly, there was a dash of the raven in him. Yet there was no more wickedness in Poll than in a robin. Happily, too, when any of his ornithological properties were on the verge of going too far, they were quenched, dissolved, melted down, and neutralised ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... an idea of the serious nature of their apprehensions, he triumphed over their fears with an evident relief, which proved how much his glimpse into the nature of them had affected him. Only Dixon croaked for ever into Margaret's ear. However, Margaret defied the raven, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... then, shrugging my shoulders, I walked lazily back to the copse, with no definite object in my mind. It was dreadfully dark in the copse. Here and there between the trees the windows of the summer villas glowed a dull red. A raven, disturbed by my steps and the matches with which I lighted my way to the summer-house, flew from tree to tree and rustled among the leaves. I felt vexed and ashamed, and the raven seemed to understand this, and croaked 'krrra!' I was ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the name of Tom Rowley (after one of the officers of the regiment). He had accompanied Mr. Raven, in the Britannia, to Bengal, in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... laughed,—sourly enough at first, it is true, but in time growing careless and merry by reason of his deep draughts. His hand trembled less weakly as the wine gave him back his lost strength, and more than once his fingers toyed playfully with the raven locks and the heavy earrings of the magnificent princess at his elbow. Some word of hers roused a thought in his ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... of 'Little Breeches,' and giving it with due pathos. I am bound to say that a sort of balcony which hung out at the end was well filled by the unwashed takers, or at least donees, of sixpenny tickets. There was a purpose in this, as will be seen. After being taken through 'The Raven,' and 'The Dying Burglar,' the competition began. This was certainly the most diverting portion of the entertainment, from its genuineness, the eagerness of the competitors, and their ill-disguised jealousy. There were four candidates. A doctor-looking man with a beard, and who ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... "it is a—what shall I call it?—a puerile delusion, which their mammas can always defeat when they choose by a formidable list of colds and coughs; but I won't put you in mind of how often you have sat with your feet on the fender croaking like an old raven, and solacing yourself with stick-liquorice ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is easily done,' said the eldest brother, jumping into the basket, which at once began to move—up, and up, and up—till he had gone about half-way, when a fat black raven flew at him and pecked him till he was nearly blind, so that he was forced to go back the ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... gaze around me, I note the silver tops of many men whose hair was as black as the raven's wing when we trod these old hills together. I note cheeks even whiter now than the hair that shades them—cheeks then flushed with the bloom that only comes to youth. I know many of you here tonight expect me to discuss the issues of the day. I hope you will excuse me ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... the boy from the telegraph office." Mrs. Triplett spoke with such a raven-like note of foreboding in her voice that Georgina, practising her daily scales, let her hands fall limply ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... opposing forces being only separated from each other by a peat moss, full of deep pits and deceitful bogs. Kenneth, fearing a siege, had shortly before this prevailed upon his aged father to retire to the Raven's Rock, above Strathpeffer, to which place, strong and easily defended, he resolved to follow him in case he were compelled to retreat before the numerically superior force of his enemy. This the venerable Alexander did, recommending his son to the assistance and protection ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... sad-presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, [54] And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings, Vex'd and tormented runs poor Barabas With fatal curses ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... son, you must be careful not to disturb the little tell-tale creatures of the woods or success that seems so near may vanish in a moment; for a raven may fly overhead, and spying you, circle about—just as the pigeons used to do—and then crying out may warn the moose of your presence. Or you may flush a partridge; or a squirrel, taking fright, may rush up a tree and begin chattering about you; or a rabbit may go drumming into ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... first thing I have to do in this story is to get rid of Charlie Seabury. That's easy. Then the next thing I have to do is to tell you about Pee-wee Harris. Gee whiz, I wish we could get rid of him. That kid belongs in the Raven Patrol and when those fellows went up to Temple Camp they wished him on us for the summer. They said it was a good turn. Can you beat that? I suppose we've got to take him up to camp with us when we go. Anyway the crowd up there will have ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... day, and sat on the organ enjoying the music; for every one was singing, and I joined in, though I didn't know the air. Opposite me were two great tablets with golden letters on them. I can read a little, thanks to my friend, the learned raven; and so I spelt out some of the words. One was, 'Love thy neighbor;' and as I sat there, looking down on the people, I wondered how they could see those words week after week, and yet pay so little heed to them. Goodness knows, I don't consider myself a perfect bird; far from it; for I ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... distinguished Roman family earned its surname from a single combat with a Gaul. Here again a Gallic warrior of gigantic size challenged any one of the Romans to single combat. His challenge was accepted by M. Valerius, upon whose helmet a raven perched; and as they fought, the bird flew into the face of the Gaul, striking at him with its beak and flapping his wings. Thus Valerius slew the Gaul, and was called in consequence "Corvus," or ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... some sort of Genius in all things; they all believe there is a Master of Life, as they call him, but hereof they make various applications; some of them have a lean Raven, which they carry always along with them, and which they say is the Master of their Life; others have an Owl, and some again a Bone, a Sea-Shell, or ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... Archduke's first perception of calamity was not that royal blood was to flow, but that it was to flow obscurely. Even the ancient raven curse, the curse of the Habicht which had given his House its very name, was now fulfilled by unclean buzzards. He saw them each day, ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... sheep on the hill sides. His father was a hard working farmer, who every year tried to coax to grow out of the stony ground some oats, barley, leeks and cabbage. In summer, he worked hard, from the first croak of the raven to the last hoot of the owl, to provide food for his wife and baby daughter. When his boy was born, he took him to the church to be christened Gruffyd, but every body called him "Gruff." In time several little sisters came to keep the ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... turned their steps to the forest depths, where the Tinker was to live henceforth. For many a day he sang ballads to the band, until the famous Allan a Dale joined them, before whose sweet voice all others seemed as harsh as a raven's; but of him we will ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... she stood again in the New York attic, and combed, and brushed, and braided those raven locks, and saw the wan face of the beloved invalid, and the jasmine and violets she had pinned at ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... then lay horizontally above the Ship, whose masts reached it, we may well believe that this part of the picture of the heavens showed a sea-horizon and a ship, the great sea serpent lying along the horizon. On the back of Hydra is the Raven, which again may be supposed by those who accept the theory mentioned above to have suggested the raven which went forth to and fro from the ark. He is close enough to the rigging of Argo to make an easy journey of it. The dove, however, must not be confounded with the modern constellation ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... have looked long enough where this wise old raven came flying; he was, and remained, alone. And without troubling about anything or uttering a sound, he sped on his strong coal-black wings through the dense ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... morning. Presently she stopped, and seemed to be gazing curiously at the cliff side. Brice followed the direction of her eyes. On a protruding bush at the edge of one of the wooded clefts of the mountain flank something was hanging, and in the freshening southerly wind was flapping heavily, like a raven's wing, or as if still saturated with the last night's rain. "That's mighty queer!" said Flo, gazing intently at the unsightly and incongruous attachment to the shrub, which had a vague, weird suggestion. "It ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... as ever, with its handsome rooms, its extensive grounds, its winding walks, its bubbling fountains and its wealth of flowers, but there is a shadow over all—a plague-spot which has eaten into the heart of Graham Thornton, and woven many a thread of silver among his raven locks. It has bent the stately form of his lady mother, and his once gay-hearted wife wanders with a strange unrest from room to room, watching over the uncertain footsteps of their only child, whose large, dark eyes, so much like those which, four long years ago flashed ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... was reflected by the westward cliffs. It showed a huge undulating plain, cold and gray, a gray that deepened eastward into the absolute raven darkness of the cliff shadow. Innumerable rounded gray summits, ghostly hummocks, billows of snowy substance, stretching crest beyond crest into the remote obscurity, gave us our first inkling of the distance of the crater wall. These hummocks looked like snow. At the time I thought they were snow. ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... his merry life at the [Pg 103] Compartments till finally he fell in love with one of the noble ladies who haunted them. She was not so pretty as Ethel as she had rarther a bulgy figure and brown eyes but she had lovely raven tresses a pointed nose and a rose like complexion of a dainty hue. She had very nice feet and plenty of money. Her name was called Lady Helena Herring and her age was 25 and she mated well with ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... in seals and penguins, that they might have laden all their five ships with them in a short time. The penguins are a black, heavy, unwieldy fowl, extremely fat, covered with a sort of down instead of feathers, and having a bill like that of a raven; drawing their entire subsistence from the sea, as fish ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... the raven wing His sable plume waves there, And writhing on his silken couch, Lies ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... him, she said, "Good sir, if you are alive, awake." Upon this Lysander opened his eyes, and, the love-charm beginning to work, immediately addressed her in terms of extravagant love and admiration, telling her she as much excelled Hermia in beauty as a dove does a raven, and that be would run through fire for her sweet sake; and many more such lover-like speeches. Helena, knowing Lysander was her friend Hermia's lover, and that he was solemnly engaged to marry her, was in the utmost rage when she heard herself addressed in this manner; for ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... troops, Could vaunt of the war Of the clashing of spears. Or the crossing of swords, with the offspring of Edward. The Northmen departed In their mailed barks, Sorrowing much; while the two brothers, The King and the Etheling, To Wessex returned, Leaving behind The corpses of foes To the beak of the raven, The eagle and kite, And the ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... man of the crow, or raven. I suppose that your John, when a boy, climbed up to a crow or raven's nest, and stole the young; a bold feat, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... dined at Raven's Nest, where one Michael Mahoney, Sr., kept a small store and the post-office, running also—with the aid of a young son and a son-in-law—a farm. The store was managed by Michael Mahoney, Jr., a married son, who happened to be absent both when the special agent ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... the two chasms called respectively Almanna Gja, [Footnote: Almanna may be translated main; it means literally all men's; when applied to a road, it would mean the road along which all the world travel.] or Main Gja, and Hrafna Gja, or Raven's Gja. In the act of disruption the sinking mass fell in, as it were, upon itself, so that one side of the Gja slopes a good deal back as it ascends; the other side is perfectly perpendicular, and at the spot I saw it ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... a raven's wing, but I am certain that I can start from the first tee and retrace every step made by Miss Harding over the fourteen holes played, and I will admit that it was far from a straight line. I will wager that I can place my hand on every place where her club tore up the turf, and can locate ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... or Scandinavian with Kurt or Knut; a blend of Syrian or Armenian with Kahalil or Kassim? The blue in his fine eyes seemed to preclude the last, but there was an encouraging curve in his nostrils and a raven gleam in his auburn hair, which, by the way, was beginning to grizzle and recede when I knew him. The flesh of his face, too, had sometimes a tired and pouchy appearance, and his tall body looked a trifle rebellious within his extremely well-cut clothes; but, after all, he was fifty-five. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... too limited to admit of the exercise of this taste. Among the birds may be noted swan, geese, duck, curlew, mallard, snipe, plover, ptarmigan,—90 species of birds, in fact, 54 of which are wildfowl. During our ride, A. L. T. shot a fine raven, and on our return to the ship, my brother skinned and stuffed it, as a memento of his inland trip. Many of the passengers were so interested in his performance, that he was called on to deliver a lecture on skinning ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... strikingly handsome, notwithstanding the sixty winters which had bleached her raven locks to the most uncompromising white. Those snowy tresses fell in soft and glossy curls about her scarcely furrowed countenance. Her forehead was somewhat low and narrow; the face, a decided oval; the nose, almost straight; the eyes almond-shaped, and of ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... the original humility and 20 poverty of the Templars, qualities which they had since exchanged for the arrogance and wealth that finally occasioned their suppression. Bois-Guilbert's new shield bore a raven in full flight, holding in its claws a skull, and bearing the motto ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... — N. blackness, &c adj.; darkness, &c (want of light).. 421; swartliness^, lividity, dark color, tone, color; chiaroscuro &c 420. nigrification^, infuscation^. jet, ink, ebony, coal pitch, soot, charcoal, sloe, smut, raven, crow. [derogatory terms for black-skinned people] negro, blackamoor, man of color, nigger, darkie, Ethiop, black; buck, nigger [U.S.]; coon [U.S.], sambo. [Pigments] lampblack, ivory black, blueblack; writing ink, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... need'st not dread the raven in the sky; Night and day thou art safe,—our cottage is hard by. Why bleat so after me? why pull so at thy chain? Sleep—and at break of day I will ...
— Phebe, The Blackberry Girl • Edward Livermore
... carriage, rattling over a mountain road, through the night. Late the next morning we reached an uninhabited country house, where I was again imprisoned, in charge of an old dumb woman, whom Le Noir called Mrs. Raven. This I afterwards understood to be Willow Heights, the property of the orphan heiress, Clara Day. And here, also, for the term of my stay, the presence of the unknown inmate got the house the reputation ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... will fail him, o'er Carle's eyes And features gloom descends; by grief o'erwhelmed He cries: "Unhappy that I am!" Then stood [Tierri], the brother of Geffrei, the Duke D'Anjou, before the King. Thin, light of frame, Hair raven-black, [face] somewhat brown of hue, In height nor tall nor short; with courtesy He spake thus to the Emp'ror: "Fair sire King, Be not cast down. That I have served you well Ere this, you know. 'Tis my ancestral right To sit among the judges of the plea. However guilty was Rolland against Count Ganelon, ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... changing the Sabbath. It would be much easier for him to bail the ocean dry, and carry the water to Jupiter by the spoonful; and sweep the thick clouds from the heavens in a thunder storm with the wing of a raven. Who then can alter this covenant? Echo answers, who can alter ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates
... hands from her face: it was pale, but tearless; and she left the terrace for her chamber with a slow but firm step. Two hours afterwards, the countess was sought by her attendants, but in vain; a letter was found addressed to their master, and fastened by one long, shining curl of raven darkness, which all knew ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... He came aboard half-an-hour ago. Old Bosun Dempsey fetched him out of his lugger; and look yonder, you croaking old cock raven. We always have one jolly as sentry at ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... archer, dressed in green from head to foot. How it was is all told in the story; and he goes to shoot for a prize at the Castle of Adolf the Duke of Cleeves. On his way he shoots a raven marvellously,—almost as marvellously as did Robin Hood the twig in Ivanhoe. Then one of his companions is married, or nearly married, to the mysterious "Lady of Windeck,"—would have been married but ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... to foot in smooth, soft buckskin which fitted well his powerful frame. Beaded moccasins, leggings bound high above the knees, hunting coat laced and fringed, all had the neat, tidy appearance due to good care. He wore no weapons. His hair fell in a raven mass over his shoulders. His profile was regular, with a long, straight nose, strong chin, and eyes black as night. They were now fixed intently on the valley. The whole face gave an impression of ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... upon the table. The essential distinction between the cembalo and the spinet was in the manner of tone production. In the cembalo there was a wooden jack resting upon the end of the keys, and upon this jack a little plectrum made of raven's quill, which had to be frequently renewed. When the key was pressed, the jack rose and the plectrum snapped the wire. The tone was thin and delicate, but as the plectrum did not remain in contact with the string, the vibration ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... of this proposal sent by David to his father brought the old vinegrower from Marsac into the Place du Murier with the swiftness of the raven that scents the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... wooden bar—which topped the ironwork of the window-guard—Damaris sought and gained sight of the sea. This, darker even than the tufted foliation of the pines—since still untouched by sunlight—spread dense and compact as molten metal, with here and there a sheen, like that of the raven's wing, upon its corrugated surface. To Damaris it appeared curiously forbidding. Seeing it thus she felt, indeed, to have taken Nature unawares, surprised her without disguise; so that for once she displayed her veritable face—a face not ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... say, Jeroloman. Merely that and nothing more. In addition to the Ziegler case, let me commend to you 'The Raven.'" ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... when the wind went "Yooooooo!" And the raven croaked in the tangled tarn— When, with a wail, the screech-owl flew Out of her lair in the haunted barn— There came three burglars down the road— Three burglars skilled in arts of sin, And they cried: "What's this? Aha! Oho!" And straightway ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... nor bleached his hair; it was as dark as the raven's plumage, surmounting his massive brow in ample folds. His eye always dark and deep-set enkindled by some glowing thought shown from beneath his somber overhanging brow like lights in the blackness of night from a sepulcher. No one understood better than Mr. Webster the philosophy of ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... current, but found none. Our latitude was 37 deg. 10', longitude 172 deg. 54' W. On the 3d, being in latitude 36 deg. 56', longitude 173 deg.27', we took up more sea-weed, and another piece of wood covered with barnacles. The next day we saw two more seals, and a brown bird, about as big as a raven, with some white feathers under the wing. Mr Gore told us, that birds of this kind were seen in great numbers about Falkland's Islands, and our people gave them the name ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... than to go into the canyons or the deserts and efface yourself and watch life. It's an all-day process of the stronger annihilating the weaker. The one inexorable thing in the world is Nature. The eagle dominates the hawk; the hawk, the falcon; the falcon, the raven; and so on down to the place where the hummingbird drives the moth from his particular trumpet flower. The big snake swallows the little one. The big ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Nature afforded for hours. The neighboring bush, though crammed with the merriest souls that ever made feathers vibrate and dance with song, was like a tomb of black marble; not a sound—only this little raven of a quail tolled ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... her now, as she stood the moment after I had torn myself from her embrace, and had looked back, as I reached the door, for one parting glance,—her eyes all tenderness, her lips parted, and quivering with the attempt to smile, the long, glossy ringlets (through whose raven hue the purpureum lumen broke like an imprisoned sunbeam) straying in dishevelled beauty over her transparent neck; the throat bent in mute despondency; the head drooping; the arms half extended, and dropping gradually as my steps departed; the sunken, absorbed expression of face, form, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Norton, ironically, "is it thus you speak of a beloved parent, and that parent a respectable old peer? In other words, you wish him in kingdom come. Repent, my lord—retract those words, or dread 'the raven ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... not dispute his medical orders. This, Dr. Baker explained to me, was a very necessary stipulation, for Sir Richard now looked upon the time spent over his meals as so many half-hours wasted. He never ate his food properly, but used to raven it up like an animal in order to get back quickly to his books. So a treaty was made, and Dr. Baker remained a member of the household the rest ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... anything" to repair any wrongs that might have arisen out of that organization, and you will understand why there is a little flush in his cheek and why his sentences are a trifle disconnected and tentative and why his eye wanders now to the soft raven tresses about Lady Harman's ear, now to the sweet movement of her speaking lips and now to the gracious droop of her pose as she sits forward, elbow upon crossed knee and chin on glove, and jabs her parasol at the ground in her unaccustomed ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Paul wandered a changeling about the Bludston streets. In the rows of urchins in the crowded Board School classroom he sat as conspicuous as any little Martian who might have been bundled down to earth. He had wavy black hair, of raven black, a dark olive complexion, flushed, in spite of haphazard nourishment and nights spent on the stone floor of the reeking scullery, with the warm blood of health, great liquid black eyes, and the exquisitely delicate features of a ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... composed. Her eyes, swollen with three weeks of night watching over a child with scarlet fever, will be to you beautiful as a May morning. After the last rose petal has dropped out of her cheek, after the last feather of the raven's wing has fallen from her hair, after across her forehead, and under her eyes, and across her face there are as many wrinkles as there are graves over which she has wept, you will be able truthfully to say, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... back from the grave to his mistress. When the Duchess of Kendal returned to her home near Twickenham she was in constant expectation of a visit in some form from her lost adorer. One day while the windows of her house were open, a large black raven, or bird of some kind—raven would seem to be the more becoming and appropriate form for such a visitor—flew into her presence from the outer air. The lamenting lady assumed at once that in this shape the soul of King George had come back to earth. She cherished and petted the bird, it is said, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... reply beyond an acquiescent nod, but Miss Raven—who, all through this adventure, showed a coolness and resourcefulness which I can never sufficiently praise—looked steadily ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... their old lips. They had hardly finished their last mouthfuls when they sat up straight, smiled with sweet red lips, and looked at the little Prince with shining eyes. They had become young girls again, and their gray hair was black as the raven. ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... savages ignorant of its use. The silver they seemed to value; but there were three precious gold cups which the salt water had discoloured, so that they were taken for copper and sold for a very small price to a Jew, who somehow was attracted to the scene, 'like a raven to the slaughter,' ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spirit will be tamed, probably by a storm, or a ship-wreck, or by ten days in an open boat. I shall then secure your love, my peerless ARAMINTA, and you will marry me and turn out as soft and gentle as the moss-rose which now nestles in your raven ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... broad, whimsical mouth and the white, even teeth that once on a dare had cracked a walnut for her; its rugged jaw and the long, straight nose; its wide forehead and the straight eyebrows; and the thick hair as black as the raven's wing, rumpled by fingers that strove desperately to encourage a recalcitrant brain; and those big, bony hands, so large that her little brown paws were lost in them; and the broad shoulders hunched ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... oily peaked cap until the straight raven hair flowed out from under like a cataract, and gave his thin, waterfall moustache a twist, while his swarthy, parchment face cracked ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... fleet remained at anchor in the Tagus, his majesty's ships the Orion, Minerve, Romulus, Southampton, Andromache, Bonne Citoyenne, Leander, and Raven, received orders to put themselves under the command of Commodore Nelson; and, on the 6th of March, sailed from the Tagus, with sealed instructions to the squadron, which were only to be opened ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... did for him all she could, and watched and tended him with real devotion, but in vain. It was found impossible to save him; and when he was gone, she performed the last of her sad offices, by cutting from above his brow a mass of clustering, raven curls, which she enclosed in a letter to his mother, telling her all she knew of her boy's ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... so cold. Ah, so very cold! So thought the old raven as he hobbled up and down the terrace walk at the back of the house—the walk that was so pleasant in summer, with its pretty view of the lower garden, gay with the bright, stiffly-arranged flowerbeds, so pleasantly ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... ivory gull, but had a black head. Perhaps it was the rare Larus Sabinii, of which a drawing has been given above.[257] All the birds which passed us came from the north-west, that is, from the north coast of Siberia, the New Siberian Islands or Wrangel Land. Only the mountain owl, a species of raven and the ptarmigan wintered in the region, the last named being occasionally ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... no one has heeded her much these thirty years. I can tell you something; it is almost droll. Nanny Webster was once a gay flirt, and in Airlie Square there is a weaver with an unsteady head who thought all the earth of her. His loom has taken a foot from his stature, and gone are Nanny's raven locks on which he used to place his adoring hand. Down in Airlie Square he is weaving for his life, and here is Nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them is the hill where they were lovers. That is all the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... and on, far into the wood. She met some people with hoes and rakes in their hands, and asked them if they had seen her sheep. But they only laughed at her, and said, No. One man was very cross, and threatened to beat her. At last she came to a stile, on which an old Raven was perched. He looked so wise that Little Bo-Peep asked him whether he had seen a flock of sheep. But he only cried "Caw, caw, caw;" so Bo-Peep ran on again across ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim
... prove, that miracles are not ceased. London, printed for John Dunton at the Raven, and John Harris at the Harrow, in the Poultry. The London divines would have my annotations ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... he can come to life. Till this is done the pretended corpse is left lying outside the house. Two wizards go and remove the stone, which appears to be quartz, and then the novice is resuscitated. Among the Niska Indians of British Columbia, who are divided into four principal clans with the raven, the wolf, the eagle, and the bear for their respective totems, the novice at initiation is always brought back by an artificial totem animal. Thus when a man was about to be initiated into a secret society called Olala, his friends drew their knives and pretended to ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... great spread to his shoulders and a conscious power in his every movement. He had a square, heavy chin, a grim, sneering mouth, a falcon nose, black eyes that were as cold as the water in a deserted shaft. His hair was raven dark, and his skin betrayed the Mexican strain in his blood. Above the others he towered, strikingly masterful, and I felt somehow the power that emanated from the man, the brute ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... several traces in Anglo-Saxon life. The genealogies of the kings include such names as those of the horse, the mare, the ash, and the whale. In the very early Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, two of the characters bear the names of Wulf and Eofer (boar). The wolf and the raven were sacred animals, and have left their memory in many places, as well as in such personal titles as AEthelwulf, the noble wolf. The boar was also greatly reverenced; its head was used as an amulet, or as a crest for helmets, and oaths were taken ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... martial dignity, however, soon began to be seen in the best drawing-rooms in Moscow. His bald head with its tufts of dyed hair, and the soiled ribbon of the Order of St. Anne which he wore over a cravat of the colour of a raven's wing, began to be familiar to all the pale and listless young men who hang morosely about the card-tables while dancing is going on. Pavel Petrovitch knew how to gain a footing in society; he spoke ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... their folly.' It was in a theatre at Athens, that the chorus of a tragedy sang, more than two thousand years ago: 'May destiny aid me to preserve, unsullied, the purity of my words, and of all my actions, according to those sublime laws which, brought forth in the celestial heights, have the raven alone for their father, to which the race of mortals did not give birth and which oblivion shall never entomb. In them is a supreme God, and one who waxes not old.' It would be easy to multiply quotations of this order and to show, in the documents of Grecian and Roman civilization, ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... the eagle ravine-eager, Raven of my race, to-day Better surely hast thou catered, Lord of gold, than for thyself; Here the morn come greedy ravens Many any a rill of wolf (1) to sup, But thee burning thirst ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... of giving, Little heart so glad of love, Little soul so glad of living, While the strong swift hours are weaving Light with darkness woven above, Time for mirth and time for grieving, Plume of raven and ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... it may be reasonably believed, if we speak according to human notions, that God thinks less upon those whom He perceives to distrust His promises, putting their hope in human providence, not considering the raven, nor the lilies, whom the Most High feeds and arrays. Ye do not think upon Daniel and the bearer of the mess of boiled pottage, nor recollect Elijah who was delivered from hunger once in the desert by angels, again in the torrent by ravens, and again in ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... young lovers in winter weather, None to guide them, Walk'd at night on the misty heather; Night, as black as a raven's feather; Both were lost and ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... cursed the land. Sometimes there would be a cessation in the crimes; then a shepherd, going his rounds, would notice his sheep herding together, packing in unaccustomed squares; a raven, gorged to the crop, would rise before him and flap wearily away, and he would come upon the murderer's ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... mood he promised the Duchess of Kendal, that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The Duchess, on his death, so much expected the accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the windows of her villa at Isteworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till the royal bird or ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... more, one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... holdings into larger ones. Farmhouses, as we see them to-day, began to appear on the holdings thus consolidated, instead of being grouped together in villages. A writer in 1604 says, 'we may see many of their houses built alone like raven's nests, no birds building neere them' so unwonted was the sight of isolated dwellings in most places ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... a keen interest in all three. The woman was young—under thirty. She was handsome, with raven black hair and well-cut features. Her face was pale and her eyes gloomy. She carried herself with a slow, lazy grace. The good lines of her tall figure asserted themselves in spite of the cheap, ill-fitting serge suit. Josie always noticed hands ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... the bed, and when I had finished, I turned around and saw that Her Majesty was dressing her hair. I stood beside her Majesty while the eunuch was dressing it and saw that as old as she was, she still had beautiful long hair which was as soft as velvet and raven black. She parted it in the center and brought it low at the back of her ears, and the back braid was brushed up on the top of her head and made it into a tight knot. When she had finished doing this, she was ready to have the Gu'un ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... between a well-bred and an ill-bred strain of animals? Take, for instance, a common barn-door hen. What sort of eating do you get from a shrivelled up old scrag of a fowl like that? Not much, do you! And what sort of eggs does it lay? A fairly good crow or a raven can lay pretty nearly as good an egg. But take a well-bred Spanish or Japanese hen, or a good pheasant or a turkey—then you will see the difference. Or take the case of dogs, with whom we humans are on such intimate terms. Think first of an ordinary common ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... the hall. She came down in her loveliness into the old oak room, and stood before the mirrored glass. Her robe was of woven velvet, rich, and glossy, and soft; jewels shone like stars in the midnight of her raven hair, and on her hand there gleamed, afar off, a bright and glorious ring! She {226} stood—she gazed upon her own countenance and form, and worshipped! "Now all good angels succour thee, dear Alice, and bend Sir Bevil's ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... who now seemed to have become like Poe's raven, and all his words one melancholy ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille |
