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For a moment the smitten bird swayed upon its wide pinions, then they seemed to crumple beneath its weight, and it fell heavily and lay flapping and striking at the stones with its strong beak. "I also can kill," said Leonard to himself as he watched it die. "Kill till you are killed that is the law of life."
Above it was a quaintly built dovecote, where some of the strutting fan-tailed inhabitants were perched, swelling out their snowy breasts, and discoursing of their domestic trials in notes of dulcet melancholy; while lower down, three or four ring-doves nestled on the roof in a patch of sunlight, spreading up their pinions like miniature sails, to catch the warmth and lustre.
It had the effect of introducing among the higher order of artists habits of nice and accurate workmanship in executing delicate pieces of machinery; and the same combination of mechanical powers which made the steel spider crawl, the duck quack, or waved the tiny rod of the magician, contributed in future years to purposes of higher import, the wheels and pinions, which in these automata almost eluded the human senses by their minuteness, reappearing in modern times in the stupendous mechanism of our self-acting lathes, spinning-mules, and steam-engines.
There is, however, no such thing as a classical education that could grow without this inferred love of form. Here, where the power of discerning form and barbarity gradually awakens, there appear the pinions which bear one to the only real home of culture ancient Greece.
The finely spun web of any fancy, the delicate interwoven intricacies of thought, these were torn to shreds with as little compunction as idle children feel when destroying for their own cruel sport the velvety wonder of a moth's wing, or the radiant rose and emerald pinions of a dragon-fly.
These dwarfed the fast-gathering group that stood peering up at them, like pygmies under the pinions of the fabled roc in Sinbad the Sailor's story. These stupendous wings, the captain now saw, were not braced together by hampering struts and wires, but seemed cantilevered into position, giving a clean run to the structure, great simplicity, and the acme of mechanical beauty.
Slowly the superb erection composed of the four flat fan-like pinions assumes rigidity and colour. By to-morrow the colour will have attained the requisite shade. For the first time the wings close fan-wise and lie down in their places; the elytra bend over at their outer edges, forming a flange which lies snugly over the flanks. The transformation is complete.
And it dreamed its dream its only dream its dream about the snow-peaks of Peru and the mighty wing-strokes over the deep valleys; and then it forgot its rope. It uplifted its ragged pinions vigorously, and struck two sturdy strokes. Then the rope drew taut, and it fell back where it was wont to fall it wrenched its claw, and the dream vanished.
The Slave Trade. To this remark Mr. Sheridan very spiritedly replied, "An honourable baronet," said he, "has talked of a cloven foot; I plead guilty to that cloven foot; but this I will say, that the man who expresses pleasure at the hope of seeing so large a portion of the human race freed from the shackles of tyranny rather displays the pinions of an angel than the cloven foot of a demon."
That tone gave strength to Langhetti. It was as though some unseen power had been invoked and had come to his aid. The tones came forth more strongly, on firmer pinions, flying from the strings and towering through the air. The strength of these tones seemed to emanate from some unseen power; so also did their meaning.
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