"Gnaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... played out, my friend," she replied. "You see, I have had very much to bear, for there was a time when such hunger used to gnaw at my belly as you would never believe. It was then that my eyes became dazzled with the tokens of shame. So I took my fill of love, as does every woman. And once a woman has become a light-o'-love she may as well doff her shift altogether, and use the body which God has given her. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... this is a well-known practice of many animals both in work and play. As soon as the tree begins to bend and crack, they cease cutting and make sure of their definite direction of escape, then they continue to gnaw until it begins to fall, whereupon they plunge into the stream, usually, where they remain for some time lest the noise of the falling tree ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... clergy who suffer monks to enjoy from 5 to 6,000 livres income each person, whilst they see curates, who are at least as necessary, reduced to the lighter portion, as little for themselves as for their parish?"—And they yet gnaw on this slight pittance to pay the free gift. In this, as in the rest, the poor are charged to discharge the rich. In the diocese of Clermont, "the curates, even with the simple fixed rates, are subject to a tax of 60, 80, 100, 120 livres and even more; the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of visitations, but they came to do the work of ruin more thoroughly. For not only the crops and fruits, but the foliage of the forest itself, nay, the small twigs and the bark of the trees are the victims of their curious and energetic rapacity. They have been known even to gnaw the door-posts of the houses. Nor do they execute their task in so slovenly a way, that, as they have succeeded other plagues, so they may have successors themselves. They take pains to spoil what they leave. Like the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... again, and drew the tobacco sack shut with his teeth. "He wouldn't 'gnaw' you—he wouldn't have come near you. He's whip trained. And I'd have been there myself in ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... old-fashioned and I shock her. As for other women, there isn't one anywhere to whom I would say a word. Only think how a girl such as I am is placed; or indeed any girl. You, if you see a woman that you fancy, can pursue her, can win her and triumph, or lose her and gnaw your heart;—at any rate you can do something. You can tell her that you love her; can tell her so again and again even though she should scorn you. You can set yourself about the business you have taken in hand and can work hard at it. What ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... rose on his hind feet, standing higher than a man, and savagely raked the door from top to bottom with his claws while another opened his jaws wide and closed them, his teeth splintering across the smooth surface as he sought to gnaw his way inside. The remaining three circled the cabin, sniffing explosively at the cracks between the logs. Shady was seized with a fit of excessive shivering induced by these dread sounds, and Collins heard her hind leg-joints beating a spasmodic tattoo on the cabin floor. ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... exposing the steel beneath the tin plate. After a while, oxidation would weaken a can to the point where some lucky rat could bite through it and find himself a meal. Then he could move the empty can aside and gnaw the next one in the pile, and the cycle would begin again. It kept the rats fed almost as well as an automatic ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... paupers who dwell within. Filthy, half-washed clothes of beggars hang down from the windows, drying in the sun as they flap and flutter against pretentious moulded masks of empty plaster. Miserable children loiter in the high-arched gates, under which smart carriages were meant to drive, and gnaw their dirty fingers, or fight for a cold boiled chestnut one of them has saved. Squalor, misery, ruin and vile stucco, with a sprinkling of half-desperate humanity,—those are the elements of the modern picture,—that is what the 'great development' of modern Rome brought forth and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... instance, probably never set any tables or had any regular meals, but just ate when they were hungry, each one by himself. Savage tribes do the same to this day; they seize their bone or their handful of meat and gnaw it in a corner, or as they walk about. This was the primitive idea of comfort. But after a time people found that it was less trouble to have the family food made ready at a certain time for everybody at once, and have all come together to eat it. ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... criminal career. What his future life is going to be may readily be surmised; he has not yet reached his thirtieth year—and by turning him loose at the expiration of his present sentence, society adds only another parasitic and infective organism to gnaw at its roots. It would be indeed ridiculous to expect the boy who at the age of nineteen was placed in the environment of a penitentiary—the hot-bed of crime—to be turned out a better man after having spent twelve years there. Something over two years has elapsed ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... (figs, as they are miscalled in the West Indies); to the great green oranges, thick- skinned and fragrant; to those junks of sugar-cane, some two feet long, which Cuffy and Cuffy's ladies delight to gnaw, walking, sitting, and standing; increasing thereby the size of their lips, and breaking out, often enough, their upper front teeth. We had seen, and eaten too, the sweet sop {25a}—a passable fruit, or rather congeries of fruits, looking like ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... numb and cold, That slept in her heart like a dreaming snake, Drowsily lift itself, fold by fold, And gnaw, and gnaw hungrily, half-awake." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... angered my heart till it is hard and burning like a thunderbolt! You can go back to your work and your glory, but what is left for me? Memory is a bed of thorns, and secret shame will gnaw at the roots of my life. You came like a wayfarer, sat through the sunny hours in the shade of my garden, and to while time away you plucked all its flowers and wove them into a chain. And now, parting, ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... mankind. Therefore, hospitably considering the number of my guests, they shall have my whole entertainment at a meal, and I scorn to set up the leavings in the cupboard. What the guests cannot eat may be given to the poor, and the dogs under the table may gnaw the bones {140}. This I understand for a more generous proceeding than to turn the company's stomachs by inviting them again to-morrow to ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... hidden mouse dares gnaw At the silence dead and dumb, And the very air seems waiting For a Something that ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... thousand millions. Your day will come, and in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... he hadde a space fro his care, 505 Thus to him-self ful ofte he gan to pleyne; He sayde, 'O fool, now art thou in the snare, That whilom Iapedest at loves peyne; Now artow hent, now gnaw thyn owene cheyne; Thou were ay wont eche lovere reprehende 510 Of thing fro which thou canst ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Monsters that with ceasless cry Surround me, as thou sawst, hourly conceiv'd And hourly born, with sorrow infinite To me, for when they list into the womb That bred them they return, and howle and gnaw My Bowels, their repast; then bursting forth 800 Afresh with conscious terrours vex me round, That rest or intermission none I find. Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim Death my Son and foe, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... to reach thee on thy path, To grasp thy hand and say "'Twas well"; Or, distant, gnaw their lips in wrath, Their ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... the Turtle: "Friend, you have teeth; you gnaw through the leather trap. I will go and see to it that the hunter keeps away. If we both do our best our friend will not ...
— More Jataka Tales • Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt
... an' I wasn't hungry, nuther, havin' plenty to eat three times a day. There was roast beef, an' roast mutton, an' duck, an' chicken, an' soup, an' peas, an' beans, an' termaters, an' plum-puddin', an' mince-pie—' 'Shut up with your mince-pie!' sung out Tom Simmons. 'Isn't it enough to have to gnaw on these salt chips, without hearin' about mince-pie?' 'An' more'n that' says Andy, 'there was canned peaches, an' ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... peculiarity pertained to Sheikh Hamed; as he was not a rich man, he laboured hard to make the most of every shukka and doti expended, and each fresh expenditure seemed to gnaw his very vitals: he was ready to weep, as he himself expressed it, at the high prices of Ugogo, and the extortionate demands of its sultans. For this reason, being the leader of the caravans, so far as he was able ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... vituperation and prejudice as possible. How well I have succeeded the reader must judge. How difficult this moderation has been at times only those know who, like myself, have seen, from day to day, the treason-sharpened fangs of Starvation and Disease gnaw nearer and nearer to the hearts of well-beloved friends and comrades. Of the sixty-three of my company comrades who entered prison with me, but eleven, or at most thirteen, emerged alive, and several of these have since died from the effects ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... further, and she met a rat. So she said: "Rat! rat! gnaw rope; rope won't hang butcher; butcher won't kill ox; ox won't drink water; water won't quench fire; fire won't burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile; and I shan't get home to-night." ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... to take a notion to be great singers. Is there any use for me to tell you that if you persist you will succeed? Not a bit of it. You might succeed in ruining the nerves of your teacher. You might easily make those who hear you practise "want to gnaw a file and flee into the wilderness." But you would never learn to sing. There is no hope for some of us till we get ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... in large proportion, bared of wood. Their soil, scorched by the sun of Provence, cut up by the hoofs of the sheep, which, not finding on the surface the grass they require for their sustenance, gnaw and scratch the ground in search of roots to satisfy their hunger, is periodically washed and carried off by ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... I was looking to her to found another family—she had so frequently become a mother in the past. But month succeeded month, and she for ever disappointed me, and at last I abandoned hope. In solitude and exile Mercedes degenerated sadly; got monstrously fat; too indolent to gnaw, let her teeth grow to a preposterous length; and in the end died of a ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... emperor unless he makes himself," said Galen. "You will know tonight. We lack a hero, Sextus. All conspirators resemble rats that gnaw and run, until one rat at last discovers himself Caesar of the herd by accident. Caius Julius Caesar was a hero. He was one mind bold and above and aloof. He saw. He considered. He took. His murderers were all conspirators, who ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... tear would have overcome him—She had not wept A wound of the same kind that we are inflicting A string of pearls: a woman who goes beyond that's in danger A dash of conventionalism makes the whole civilized world kin A bone in a boy's mind for him to gnaw and worry Admires a girl when there's no married woman or widow in sight Affectedly gentle and unusually roundabout opening After forty, men have married their habits Aimlessness of a woman's curiosity ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... would have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up in a field as he had ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... that is what she would do—there was no need to say that. She coaxed him and petted him and caressed him, and laid the memory of that old hard speech of his to rest. Laid it to rest until she should be dead. Then he would remember it again—yes, yes! Lord, how those things sting, and burn, and gnaw—the things which we did against the innocent dead! And we say in our anguish, "If they could only come back!" Which is all very well to say, but, as far as I can see, it doesn't profit anything. In my opinion the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... it? I wish you'd just look what a mess the rats have gone and made of this linen. They've been trying to gnaw the starch out of it, and have cut ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... in the swamps, and gnaw the bark from trees. I an't afraid of snakes! I'd rather have one near me than him," said ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to believe in his cousin. In his own way he had been kind to him. He had gone on his bond to keep him out of prison after he had tried to conceal the fact of his existence at the coroner's inquest. But doubts began to gnaw at the Wyoming man's confidence in him. Had James befriended him merely to be in a position to keep closer tab on anything he discovered? Had he wanted to be close enough to throw him off the track with the ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... when he does not expect it, some unknown man of beautiful genius, who not only equals him, but in time surpasses him by a great measure. Of such persons, in truth, it may be said that there is no iron that they would not gnaw in their rage, nor any evil which they would not do if they were able, for it seems to them too grievous an affront in the eyes of the world, that children whom they saw born should have reached maturity almost in one bound from their cradles. They do not reflect that every day one may see ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... of the masts. They climbed everywhere, up or down, on a sail or its leach, a single rope or a backstay. The mate and myself, with the steward, could shut the doors of our rooms and keep them out until they chose to gnaw through, but the poor devils forward had no such refuge. Their forecastles and the galley and carpenter shop were wide open. Man after man was nipped, awake or asleep, on deck or below, or up aloft ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... flies at noonday, that is most to be feared. It is the cold, inscrutable glance, the chilled and altered manner, the suspicion that walketh in darkness,—it is these that try the strength of woman's love, and gnaw with slow but certain tooth the cable-chain that holds the anchor of her fidelity. These are the evil spirits which prayer and fasting alone can cast out. They may fly before the uplifted eye and bended knee, but never before the flash of anger or ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the Mouse, "it would be all very well if all the plants bore nuts and mast, instead of those silly flowers; and if I were not obliged to grub under ground in the spring, and gnaw the bitter roots, whilst they are dressing themselves in their fine flowers and flaunting it to the world, as if they had endless stores of honey in ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... shroud and a purple-bordered toga into the dining-room, and Trimalchio requested us to feel them and see if they were pure wool. Then, with a smile, "Take care, Stychus, that the mice don't get at these things and gnaw them, or the moths either. I'll burn you alive if they do. I want to be carried out in all my glory so all the people will wish me well." Then, opening a jar of nard, he had us all anointed. "I hope I'll enjoy this as well when I'm dead," he remarked, "as I ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... had not from the first struggled, for I felt sure that I should thus tighten the thongs which bound me. Now, however, I set to work calmly to try and release myself, by drawing up one of my hands, hoping that if I could but get my head low enough to reach the thong round my arm, I might in time gnaw it through; but after making a variety of efforts I found that the attempt was vain, and giving it up, I resigned myself to my fate, whatever that ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... kept in the tent, huddled in the sleeping-bags, sometimes sleeping eighteen and twenty hours out of the twenty-four. They lost all consciousness of the lapse of time; sensation even of suffering left them; the very hunger itself had ceased to gnaw. Only Bennett and Ferriss seemed to keep their heads. Then slowly the ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... kisses, and she looked upon Othello, and she saw him gnaw his under lip, and roll his eyes, and she knew he was always fatal when he looked so: and he bade her prepare for death, and to say her prayers, for he would not kill her soul. And this innocent wife, as she lay at his mercy, begged for compassion, and to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of jealousy began to gnaw Pamela's heart. She grew watchful of her husband's attentions to other women, suspicious of looks and words that meant no more than a man's desire to please. Society no longer made her happy. Her Tuesday afternoons lost their charm. There was poison in everything. Lady Ellangowan's flirting ways, ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... said authoritatively. "They might as well be in use as packed away in that trunk in the garret for moths to gnaw." ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... anything that came before us; some of the boys would get boxes from the North with meat of different kinds in them; and, after they had picked the meat off, they would throw the bones away into the spit-boxes, and we would pick the bones out of the spit-boxes and gnaw them ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... or melancholy stage, usually lasts from twelve to forty-eight hours. The animal's behavior is altered and it becomes sullen, irritable and nervous. Sometimes it is friendly and inclined to lick the hand of its master. An inclination to gnaw or swallow indigestible objects is sometimes noted. Frequently a certain part of the skin ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... happened ten years ago. The past is the past, as Wordsworth probably said to Coleridge more than once. It was time for Lord Blight to forget these incidents of his eager and impetuous youth. Yet somehow he could not. Within the last few days his conscience had begun to gnaw him, and in his despair he told himself that at last the day of reckoning had come. Poor Blight! It is difficult to ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... his Bible this passage: 'As the worm gnaweth the garment and rottenness the wood, so doth the weariness of solitude gnaw the heart ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... favoured altogether. The only remarkable thing that I perceive is the scrupulous respect shown to the as yet unopened neighbouring cocoon. However eager to come out, the Osmia is most careful not to touch it with his mandibles: it is taboo. He will demolish the partition, he will gnaw the side-wall fiercely, even though there be nothing left but wood, he will reduce everything around him to dust; but touch a cocoon that obstructs his way? Never! He will not make himself an outlet by breaking up his ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... will; for he is a noble chief, and I admired even his angry pride, when he said, 'Let no man fight for Warwick whose heart beats not in his cause.' I lived afterwards to discharge my debt to the proud earl, and show him how even the lion may be meshed, and how even the mouse may gnaw the net. But to my own tragedy. So I quitted those parts, for I feared my own resolution near so great a man; I made a new home not far from the city of York. So, Adam, when all the land around bristled with pike ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ran round and round his place of confinement several times; but not the least crack or opening could we discover, except through the bars, which being of iron, it was impossible for us to break or bend. At length we determined to try to gnaw through the wood-work close at the edge, which being already some little distance from one of the bars, we hoped, by making the opening a little wider, he would escape: accordingly we all began, he on the inside, and we ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... from a dead mesquite, In quivering notes set in a minor key; The endless round of sunny days, of starry nights, The desert's blank immutability. The coyote's howl is heard at dark from some Low-lying hill; companioned by the loafer wolf They yelp in concert to the far off stars, Or gnaw the bleached bones in savage rage That lie unburied by the grass-grown paths. The prairie dogs play sentinel by day And backward slips the badger to his den; The whir, the fatal strike of rattlesnake, A staring buzzard floating in the blue, And, now ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... is pointed, and his under jaw is shorter than the upper one. In front, on each jaw, he has two sharp teeth, shaped like the edge of a chisel, and these he uses to gnaw with. ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... "Oh, gnaw them out of a tree!" cried Mr. Pertell, who was much disturbed and nervous. "Don't you see that fence?" he cried, pointing to one not far off. "Get some rails from that. And ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... prelude on what is to be said, and many other kinds of criticism and censure; from whence it seems they would imply that they themselves, if the fancy took them, could be the true poets: and yet in fact they are no other than worms, that know not how to do anything well, but are born only to gnaw and befoul the studies and labors of others; and not being able to attain celebrity by their own virtue and ingenuity, seek to put themselves in the front, by hook or by crook, through the defects ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... fed him again with a large bone. Jonas said that he was undoubtedly a dog that had lost his master, and had been wandering about to find him, until he became very hungry. So he said they would leave him in the yard to gnaw his bone, and that then he would probably go away. Josey wanted to shut him up and keep him, but Jonas said it ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... pate Jove would cuff, He's so bluff, For a straw. Cowed deities, Like mice in cheese, To stir must cease Or gnaw.' ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... too valuable to be carried about. The care of that scrap of paper has tormented me all these years, worse than the tomb devils did the swine that ran down into the sea to cool off; and if I have changed its hiding-place once, I have twenty times. If the old General doesn't pay well for it, I shall gnaw off my fingers, on account of the sin it has cost me. I was an honest woman and could have faced the world until that night—so many years ago; and since then I have carried a load on my soul that makes me—even Hannah Hinton, who never ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... delight? That name indeed Becomes the rosy breath of love; becomes The radiant smiles of joy, the applauding hand Of admiration: but the bitter shower 170 That sorrow sheds upon a brother's grave; But the dumb palsy of nocturnal fear, Or those consuming fires that gnaw the heart Of panting indignation, find we there To move delight?—Then listen while my tongue The unalter'd will of Heaven with faithful awe Reveals; what old Harmodius wont to teach My early age; Harmodius, who ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... capital city which it had defended so long and valiantly. It was the verdant spring-tide, but the fresh green foliage had no charms for the heart-broken and starving men, whose food supplies had grown so low that they were forced to gnaw the young shoots of the trees for sustenance. It is not our purpose here to tell what followed the surrounding of the fragment of an army by an overwhelming force of foes, the surrender and parole, and the dispersion of the veteran troops ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... or libeller; but yet, on the other hand, as little was he ever a lackey, cringing at the gates of Power, or a train-bearer in the retinue of Fashion. Still less was he, like Swift, the satirist of his times and of his kind, snarling at his rulers, and turning at last to gnaw, in venomous rage, his own heart. And yet he who portrayed the character of By-ends, and noted the gossipings of Mrs. Bats-eyes, lacked neither keenness of vision, nor niceness of hand, to have made him most formidable ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... he had carried Puff up to the house in his arms, they soon followed, taking Peepsy and the dolls with them. The three dogs only remained under the cotton-wool tree, discussing the party very gravely, and wondering why it was that human beings never cared to gnaw bones. And so, rather sadly, ended ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... a deep laugh. "Old Plancus talks like that," said he; "but we know that for all the world he would not change his steel plate for a citizen's gown. You've earned the kennel, old hound, if you wish it. Go and gnaw your ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pot would not boil, nor the meat roast. Then the oatcakes would stick to the bake-stone, and no force could get them away from it till they were burnt and spoiled; the milk turned sour, the cheese became so hard that not even rats' teeth could gnaw it, the stools and settles broke down if sat upon, and the list of petty grievances was completed by a whole side of bacon being devoured in a single night. Roger Nowell and Nicholas listened patiently to a detail of all these grievances, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... It was too late now, for their landing wheels were almost touching the surface as they glided on. And now, strangely enough, some of the gray streaks began to chase the plane. As if imagining it a bird with flesh to eat and bones to gnaw, they came on. Then, all at once, Barney realized what they followed—the scent of fresh meat. Timmie had killed a reindeer in honor of their departure and had presented them with a hind-quarter. This was ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... American Indians were summoned to his aid. He spoke courteously to Tandakora, but, as his words were in the Ojibway dialect, Robert did not understand them. The Indian made a guttural reply and continued to gnaw fiercely at the bone of the deer. De Courcelles still took no offense, and spoke again, his words smooth and his face smiling. Then Tandakora, in his deep guttural, spoke rapidly and with heat. When he had finished de Courcelles turned to ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... Achilles swiftest of the swift, Indignant. Oh, of all the Powers above To me most adverse, Archer of the skies! Thou hast beguiled me, leading me away From Ilium far, whence intercepted, else, 20 No few had at this moment gnaw'd the glebe. Thou hast defrauded me of great renown, And, safe thyself, hast rescued them with ease. Ah—had I power, I would requite thee well. So saying, incensed he turned toward the town 25 His rapid course, like some victorious steed That whirls, at stretch, a chariot to the goal. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... glorious partnership that shall finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation! Then Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched where her squalid form may shelter itself. Then Disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw his own heart and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... native pedantries of many modern so-called "stylists," I rejoice that Dumas was not one of these. He told a plain tale, in the language suited to a plain tale, with abundance of wit and gaiety, as in the reflections of his Chicot, as in all his dialogues. But he did not gnaw the end of his pen in search of some word that nobody had ever used in this or that connection before. The right word came to him, the simple straightforward phrase. Epithet-hunting may be a pretty sport, and the bag of the epithet-hunter may contain some agreeable epigrams and rare ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... could not. Often, rising wildly from his seat, he gesticulated violently and fixed his eyes on something as though desirous of catching it: his lips moving as though desirous of uttering some long-forgotten word, but remaining speechless. Fury would take possession of him: he would gnaw and bite his hands like a man half crazy, and in his vexation would tear out his hair by the handful, until, calming down, he would relapse into forgetfulness, as it were, and then would again strive to recall the past and be again seized with fury and fresh tortures. What visitation ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... wretched and miserable. I shall ne'er recover of this disease: hot Iron gnaw their fists! they have struck a Fever into my shoulder, which I shall ne'er shake out again, I fear me, till with a true Habeas Corpus the Sexton remove me. Oh, if I take prison once, I shall be pressed ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... mosquitos, the horses, mules, and cows find themselves attacked at night by enormous bats, which fasten on their backs, and cause wounds that become dangerous, because they are filled with acaridae and other hurtful insects. In the time of great drought the mules gnaw even the thorny cactus* in order to imbibe its cooling juice, and draw it forth as from a vegetable fountain. (* The asses are particularly adroit in extracting the moisture contained in the Cactus melocatus. They push aside the thorns with their hoofs; but sometimes lame themselves ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... teeth against the stones, And now they pick the bishop's bones; They gnaw'd the flesh from every limb, For they were sent to ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... answered Chilo. "Real virtue is a ware for which no one inquires now, and a genuine sage must be glad of this even, that once in five days he has something with which to buy from the butcher a sheep's head, to gnaw in a garret, washing it down with his tears. Ah, lord! What thou didst give me I paid Atractus for books, and afterward I was robbed and ruined. The slave who was to write down my wisdom fled, taking the remnant ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... frumpish fool, That loves to be oppression's tool, May envy gnaw his rotten soul, And discontent devour him; May dool and sorrow be his chance, Dool and sorrow, dool and sorrow, Dool and sorrow be his chance, And nane say, Wae 's me for him! May dool and sorrow be his chance, Wi' a' the ills that come frae ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... of book-worms: "I believe," he says, "that a little beetle lays her eggs in books in August, thence is hatched a mite, like the cheese-mite, which devours books merely because it is compelled to gnaw its way out into the air." Book-worms like the paste which binders employ, but D'Alembert adds that they cannot endure absinthe. Mr. Blades finds too that they disdain to devour our ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... remains, One drop of all our fathers', in our veins, That man would I prefer before the rest, Who dar'd his death with an undaunted breast; Who comely fell, by no dishonest wound, To shun that sight, and, dying, gnaw'd the ground. But, if we still have fresh recruits in store, If our confederates can afford us more; If the contended field we bravely fought, And not a bloodless victory was bought; Their losses equal'd ours; and, for their slain, With equal ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... palmtree, whose scales made a rustling as he creeped along. He swallowed up one of my comrades, notwithstanding his loud cries, and the efforts he made to rid himself of the serpent; which, shaking him several times against the ground, crushed him, and we could hear him gnaw and tear the poor wretch's bones, when we had fled at a great distance from him. Next day we saw the serpent again, to our great terror, when I cried out, O Heaven, to what dangers are we exposed! We rejoiced yesterday at our ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... did not yield to John Barleycorn while working in the laundry, a certain definite result was produced. I had heard the call, felt the gnaw of desire, yearned for the anodyne. I was being prepared for the stronger desire ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... skeletons, for the dead were so many that it was impossible to bury them all. We sent messengers to other parties of Boers for help, and while they were gone we starved, for there was no food to eat, and game was very scarce. Yes, it was a piteous sight to see the children cry for food and gnaw old bits of leather or strips of hide cut from Kaffir shields to stay the craving of their stomachs. Some of them died of that hunger, and I grew so thin that when I chanced to see myself in a pool of water where I went to wash ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... Jan for a couple of days, despite the comforting society of her mate; but Jan did not miss her a scrap. At present there was not an ounce of sentiment in his composition. He was kept warm, he lay snugly soft, and his stomach was generally full. He had great gristly bones to gnaw and play with, and Betty Murdoch, with a little solid-rubber ball, played with him also by the hour together. Beyond these things Jan had no thought or desire at present. He grew fast, and enjoyed ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... began, then, feebly surrendering to the gnaw of desire, he reached hastily for the glass, as if in fear that it ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... seal blubber, he would rush on the scent and greedily swallow whatever was offered. When he realised the sad truth that a huge hook with a strong barb was hidden inside this tempting dish and that it was no easy matter to disgorge the tasty morsel, he would try to gnaw through the shaft of the hook with his teeth. Very occasionally he might succeed, but usually his efforts failed. Attached to the book was a length of strong iron chain; and sometimes, though defeated by the hook, he would ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... a time I forgot all my anxieties in the pleasure of turning it round, sucking, biting, pawing, and growling over it. I cared for no other dinner; indeed I never could understand how people could trouble themselves to eat anything else as long as there was a bone to gnaw. But it is fortunate there are various tastes in the world; and the strange preference of men for other food is convenient for us dogs, as it leaves us in more undisputed possession of the bones than if our masters liked ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... yaller dogs think they can put me out of office in this town they'll find they're tryin' to gnaw the wrong bone," he ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Jarwin had the greatest difficulty in reaching the food; and when he did at length succeed in grasping it, he fell back on his couch, and lay for a long time as if dead. Soon, however, he recovered, and, with a feeling of gratitude such as he had never before experienced, began to gnaw the ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... like worms in the bud would gnaw at his peace. The first was conscience: if the Syndic did not know he had reason to suspect that Basterga bore the Grand Duke's commission, and was in Geneva to further his master's ends. The second source of his ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... within an hour had been picked over by rag-pickers, dogs, and vagrants until absolutely nothing was left that could be by any possibility utilized by these early investigators. Here and there two or three dogs contested the spoils of a promising pile, to separate with watchful amity to gnaw individual bones. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... to the music, slapping the back of his flat right hand, up and under his left hand for a tail, holding up a stick in both paws to gnaw it, and lumbering along in time to the music, at the same time imitating the ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... was meat and bread wid turnip greens, lye hominy, milk, and butter. All our cookin' was done on open fireplaces. Oh! I was fond of 'possums, sprinkled wid butter and pepper, and baked down 'til de gravy was good and brown. You was lucky if you got to eat 'possum and gnaw de bones atter my Ma done ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... my children, Nor gnaw the smoke-house door: The owl-queen then will love us And send ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... Let him gnaw, forsooth, with his freezing tooth, On our roof-tiles, till he tire; But we care not a whit, as we jovial sit Before our ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... of almost all plants to destruction by animals. The buds are destroyed by birds, the leaves by caterpillars, the seeds by weevils; some insects bore into the trunk, others burrow in the twigs and leaves; slugs devour the young seedlings and the tender shoots, wire-worms gnaw the roots. Herbivorous mammals devour many species bodily, while some uproot ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... young uns abed an' asleep, an' I'll tell you all about it. Stray lamb! I should say as much! A little white corset-lamb, used to eat out o' your hand, with a blue ribbon round its neck. Goin' to be sent out to her death—or worse, by a sharp-fangled wolf of a boardin'-house keeper, who'd gnaw the skin off'n your bones, an' then crack the bones to get at the marrer, if you give her the chanct. I'll tell you ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... fleas, which frisk so fresh, To worms I can compare, Which greedily shall gnaw my flesh, And leave the bones full bare: The waking cock that early crows, To wear the night away, Puts in my mind the trump that blows Before ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... at the ruins in silence. He tried to gnaw the ends of his mustache. His eyes changed from amusement to contempt, and then to interest. I ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... believe in God, or they'd trust Him more. They don't trust God; they trust money. Yet I tell you it will work. Go ahead—do your work in the world, and you won't starve nor your children beg in the streets.'" McHurdie stopped a moment to gnaw his plug of tobacco. "The general's gitting kind of a crank—and I told ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... wrought by the tides into the semblance of a head, a veritable giant's head, with masses of long, intertangled weeds on its top and sides, like the strange, wild unkempt locks of a sea-god; its front showing blurred features like a carven face eaten away by the slow gnaw of a thousand centuries. ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... of valerian, being said to dig up the roots and gnaw them to pieces, an allusion to which occurs in Topsell's "Four-footed Beasts" (1658-81):—"The root of the herb valerian (commonly called Phu) is very like to the eye of a cat, and wheresoever it groweth, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... bird-beaked creature, with long legs and horns laid flat by its sides, and miniature wings on its back. Observe that the sides of the tail, and one pair of legs, are fringed with dark hairs. After a fortnight's rest in this prison this 'nymph' will gnaw her way out and swim through the water on her back, by means of that fringed tail and paddles, till she reaches the bank and the upper air. There, under the genial light of day, her skin will burst, and a four-winged fly emerge, to buzz over the water as a fawn-coloured Caperer— ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... with the bright rays Of his free goodness. He displays Himself throughout. Like common air That spirit of life through all doth fare, Sucked in by them as vital breath That willingly embrace not death. But those that with that living law Be unacquainted, cares do gnaw; Mistrust of God's good providence Doth daily vex ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... bother of lagging useless material home to her burrow. She was so near that the Child could have touched her by reaching out his hand. But she took no more notice of him than if he had been a rotten stump. Less, in fact, for she might have tried to gnaw into him if he had been a rotten stump, in the hope of finding ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... faculty of divination which caused her endless torture. Hardly a deception of Andrea's but seemed to send a shadow across her spirit; she felt an indefinite sense of disquietude which sometimes condensed itself into a suspicion. And this suspicion would gnaw at her heart, embittering kisses and caresses, till it was dissipated by the transports and ardent passion of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... the pursuit anew. But the girl put her ear to the ground again, and when she heard that the Baba Yaga was near, she flung down the comb, and instantly a forest sprang up, such an awfully thick one! The Baba Yaga began gnawing away at it, but however hard she worked, she couldn't gnaw her way through it, so she ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... recollection rose in my brain, beginning, as I may say, to gnaw uncertainly. I went to my room for a few minutes to collect myself, and then ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... 'Mouse! mouse! gnaw rope; Rope won't bind ox; Ox won't drink water; Water won't quench fire; Fire won't burn stick; Stick won't beat snake; Snake won't bite Queen; Queen won't coax King; King won't kill man; Man won't cut tree; I can't get the grain of corn To save my ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... money on the floor," thought Dotty; "what if a mouse should creep down the chimney, and gnaw it all up? But she must take care of it ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... the lustre of valiance in the lists of love, and he encountered laughing congratulations from his friends and political supporters, which served much to reassure him and to banish a vague and subtle anxiety as to public opinion that had begun to gnaw at his heart. They all seemed to think he had done a very fine thing, and that it was a very good joke, and he was soon most jauntily of their persuasion. He could not know that here and there people were saying to one another, aside, the words he had feared ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... terrible. The violent pangs of hunger began to gnaw like vultures, and the thirst was still more intolerable; the pangs of hunger intermitted for hours at a time, and then returned to intermit again: they exhausted but did not infuriate; but the rage of thirst became incessant ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... not a mare, and I thought it would be inappropriate. At length I struck what I consider a good name. Bete Noire, my bete noire, and so I called him, and as he is by no means averse to eating through his head rope when picketed, I find that the curtailment to "gnaw" is satisfactory enough as far as names go. Now you know something about my friend the horse, so to proceed. We moved out of our old camp on the Saturday afternoon in question, through Pretoria to another on the other side, where we joined General Mahon's crowd, amongst whom ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... Oh! for the days when forks were not, On skewers came the meat; When from one trencher ate three foes: Oh! but those times were sweet! When hooded hawks sat overhead, And underfoot was straw Where hounds and beggars fought for bones Alternately to gnaw." ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and finding her good stuff upon the whole. Well, thank my stars I didn't We must make the best on't: money's gone; but here's the garden and our hands still; and 'tain't as if we were single to gnaw our hearts alone: wedded life cuts grief a two. Let's make it up and begin again. Sixty come Martinmas, and Susan forty-eight: and I be ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... children, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs. And as for Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old rabbit gentleman, who was quite rich since he found his fortune, he was so busy that he wore out two rheumatism crutches and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy had to gnaw him another from a broom stick, instead ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... banquet spread— The board that groans with shame and plate, Still fawning to the sham-crowned head That hopes front brazen turneth fate! Drink till the comer last is full, And never hear in revels' lull, Grim Vengeance forging arrows fleet, Whilst I gnaw at the crust Of Exile in the dust— But Honor makes ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... it is a worm. Then, which is so small a portion of its life, it must inhabit a cell nearly of a pyramidal figure, and hanging perpendicularly; we may say the workers know it; for, after the worm has completed the third day, they prepare the place to be occupied by its new lodging. They gnaw away the cells surrounding the cylindrical tube, mercilessly sacrifice their worms, and use the wax in constructing a new pyramidal tube, which they solder at right angles to the first, and work it downwards. The diameter of this pyramid decreases insensibly from the base, ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... to gnaw at him. At long intervals he would pause while a train roared by, or because he fancied he had heard a sound. Then he would pound and call until he was hoarse, and then go on picking ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... Indeed, nutrition itself, hunting, feeding, and digestion, are forced activities, and the basis of passions not altogether congenial nor ideal. Hunger is an incipient faintness and agony, and an animal that needs to hunt, gnaw, and digest is no immortal, free, or essentially victorious creature. His will is already driven into by-paths and expedients; his primitive beatific vision has to be interrupted by remedial action to restore ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... and wife are mated well, In harmony together dwell, Are faithful to each other, The streams of bliss flow constantly What bliss of angels is on high From hence may we discover; No storm, No worm Can destroy it, Can e'er gnaw it, What God giveth To the pair that ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... that El Zeres to-morrow? No, it's just as I said: we must get our hands free; we must kill all these fellows, and be off." "But how are we to get our hands free, Rube?" "That's the only point I can't make out," he said. "If these fellows would leave us alone, it would be easy enough; we could gnaw through each other's thongs in ten minutes; but they won't let us do that. All the rest is easy enough. Just think it over, Seth." I did think it over, but I did not see my way to getting rid of our thongs. That done, the rest was possible enough. If we could get hold of a couple of ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... when the four Shawnees had me bound by their fire, at night, on the banks of the Kenhawa. (Does thee remember that, Peter?) Ay, thee did, while the knaves slept; and from that sleep they never waked, the murdering villains—no, not one of them! Gnaw, little Peter, gnaw hard and fast; and care not if thee wounds me with thee teeth; for, truly, I will forgive thee, even if thee bites me to the bone. Faster, Peter, faster! Does thee boggle at the skin, because of its hardness? Truly, I have seen ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... Jove, And thunder, pealing from the vault of Heav'n." He said, and from the cliff withdrew his spear. Him left he lifeless there upon the sand Extended; o'er him the dark waters wash'd, And eels and fishes, thronging, gnaw'd his flesh. Then 'mid the Paeons' plumed host he rush'd, Who fled along the eddying stream, when him, Their bravest in the stubborn fight, they saw Slain by the sword and arm of Peleus' son. Thersilochus and Mydon then he slew, Mnesus and Thrasius and ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... jaws of his race. This would have been a laudable thing in a man, but it was far more so in a mouse, belonging to a tribe who live for themselves alone, barefacedly and shamelessly, and in order to gratify themselves would defile a consecrated wafer, gnaw a priest's stole without shame, and would drink out of a Communion cup, caring nothing for God. The mouse advanced with many a bow and scrape, and the shrew-mouse let him advance rather near—for, to tell the truth, these animals are naturally short-sighted. Then this ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... The king also himselfe on a night as he slept & dreamed, thought that the veines of his armes were broken, and that the blood issued out in great abundance. Likewise, he was told by Robert Fitz Hammon, that a moonke should dreame in his sleepe, how he saw the king gnaw the image of Christ crucified, with his teeth, and that as he was about to bite awaie the legs of the same image, Christ with his feet should spurne him downe to the ground, insomuch that as he lay on the earth, there came out of his mouth a flame of ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (2 of 12) - William Rufus • Raphael Holinshed
... soon, He was glad that no one belonging to him had been at the station. He wanted to see his mother in his home. Walking fast exhausted him, and he had to rest. How dead his legs felt! In fact he felt queer all over. The old burn and gnaw in his breast had expanded to a heavy, full, suffocating sensation. Yet his blood seemed to race. Suddenly an overwhelming emotion of rapture flooded over him. Home at last! He did not think of any one. He was ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... through the shell at the one spot where the meat will be most exposed. Occasionally one makes a mistake, but not often. It stands them in hand to know, and they do know. Doubtless, if butternuts were a main source of my food, and I were compelled to gnaw into them, I should learn, too, on which side my bread ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... to the tree, he found that the weight and strain had dragged the knot so tight that it was past untying. He was obliged to gnaw it with his teeth. He chewed and gnawed for more than twenty minutes. At last the rope gave way with such a sudden jerk that it nearly pulled his teeth out, and quite knocked him ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... system now so popular among those cold legislative schemers, who have ground the poor man to starvation, and would hunt the criminal to madness! How false is that political philosophy which seeks to reform character by leaving conscience caged up in loneliness for months, to gnaw into its diseased self, rather than surrounding it with the wholesome counsels of better living minds. It is not often good for man to be alone: and yet in its true season, (parsimoniously used, not prodigally abused,) solitude does fair service, rendering ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... is carnivorous, will do more; he will gnaw off his own leg to escape. Do they die in consequence? no, they live and do well; but could a man live under such circumstances? impossible. If you don't believe me, gnaw your own leg off and try. And yet the conformation of the Mammalia is not very dissimilar from our own; but man is the more perfect creature, and therefore has not the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... week had gone by, during which nothing from without had threatened his happiness; and for a time, as he resolutely shut his eyes to all but the present, he had been supremely happy. Then by degrees the fox revived and began to gnaw once more. His soul sickened as he remembered in what a Fool's Paradise he was living. Unless Holroyd decided to leave England at once with this young Gilroy of whom Caffyn had spoken—a stranger—he would certainly ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... are apt to be busy and mischievous infesters of libraries. They are extremely fond of paste, and being in a chronic state of hunger, they watch opportunities of getting at any library receptacle of it. They will gnaw any fresh binding, whether of cloth, board, or leather, to get at the coveted food. They will also gnaw some books, and even pamphlets, without any apparent temptation of a succulent nature. A good ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... that we might want drink. At that hour the camp was a melancholy sight: the Europeans surly because they had discussed a bottle of cognac when they should have slept; the good Sayyid without his coffee, and perhaps without his prayers; Wakl Mohammed sorrowfully attempting to gnaw tooth-breaking biscuit; and the Bedawin working and walking like somnambules. However, at 5.10 a.m. we struck north, over a low divide of trap hill, by a broad and evidently made road, and regained the Wady el-Kubbah: here it is a pleasant spectacle rich in trees, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... fifty yards, tie me to tree, and den dey leave me, and dey all drink and make merry, neber offer me anyting; so I hab noting den to eat. I eat de ropes and gnaw them through, and den I stay there two hour until all go asleep, and all quiet; for I say to myself, stop a little. Den when dey all fast asleep, I take out my knife and I crawl 'long de ground, as we do in our country sometime—and den I stop and ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... disdain furthur compliance with the intimations he had received. First, then, he slackened his pace to a walk This was no point of quarrel between him and his rider, who had been considerably discomposed by the rapidity of his former motion, and who now took the opportunity of his abated pace to gnaw a piece of gingerbread, which had been thrust into his hand by his mother in order to reconcile this youthful emissary of the post-office to the discharge of his duty. By and by, the crafty pony ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... broken by a whining and a scratching outside. It was the five dogs crying for their supper, crying for the frozen fish they had earned so well. They wondered why it was not forthcoming. When they received it they would lie on it, to warm it with the heat of their bodies, and then gnaw off the thawed portions. They were very wise, these dogs. But to-night there was no fish, and they whined ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... saplings of a species unknown to me had been gnawed fully ten feet from the ground. This puzzled me. Squirrels could not have done it, nor rabbits, nor birds. Presently I hit upon the solution. The bark and boughs of this particular sapling were food for deer, and to gnaw so high the deer must have stood upon six or seven ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... Despite the steady gnaw, gnaw at the pit of our stomachs, we had cut down our meals to the minimum amount of food that would keep us alive; we were so weak we no longer were sure where our feet were going to when we put them down. But all the fish we had to smoke was two or three. And on Friday ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... ground before his eyes; if he had found any, he would have gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch, and have had a capital supper off the warm, round vegetables, which he would first of all have held burning hot, in his cold hands. But it was too late in the year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot, as he had done the day before, which he picked up in ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... along their canals, when they've got canals. Or round their brush piles an' storage heaps. And when I found a tree they'd just partly cut down, I'd set a couple of traps, covered up in leaves, each side of the trunk, where they'd have to step on the pan when they stood up to gnaw." ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... old fellow," said the middy. "There, I'm better now. You can't tell what an effect it had upon one. There were times in the night when, after dragging and dragging at that miserable iron, I grew half wild and ready to gnaw at my leg to get it free. Why, if you know the way out we can ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... was also inside of that mule. He was hungry and vicious. He had lived in the white "settlements," and knew something. He was fastened by a long hide lariat to a peg driven into the ground, as were all the others, and he knew that the best place to gnaw in two that lariat was close to the peg, where he could get a good pull upon it. As soon as he had freed himself he tried the lariat of another mule, and found that the peg had been driven into loose earth and came right up. That was a ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... it not for this easy borrowing upon interest, men's necessities would draw upon them a most sudden undoing; in that they would be forced to sell their means (be it lands or goods) far under foot; and so, whereas usury doth but gnaw upon them, bad markets would swallow them quite up. As for mortgaging or pawning, it will little mend the matter: for either men will not take pawns without use; or if they do, they will look precisely for the forfeiture. I remember a cruel ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... hoping to escape, began to gnaw a hole in the boy's chest, and to tear his flesh with his sharp claws; but, in spite of the pain, the lad sat still, and let the fox ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber |
