"Thorn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that anything was missing until I came to put on my doublet, when I found that the knot of ribbon which mademoiselle had flung to me at my departure from Rosny was gone from the inside of the breast, where I had pinned it for safety with a long thorn. The discovery that M. de Rosny had taken this was displeasing to me on more than one account. In the first place, whether mademoiselle had merely wished to plague me (as was most probable) or not, I was loth to lose it, my day for ladies' favours ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... hand a little forward, And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn; And the trunk cried, "Why dost ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... of the thorn, What his attire? 'Lo! it was torn, Marred with the mire, And but the eyes of ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... always been a thorn in the old man's flesh. Horse-racing, gambling, theatres, and music-halls were, in the old pork-butcher's eyes, so many deadly sins which his son committed every day of his life, and all the Fitzwilliam Place household could testify to the many and bitter quarrels which had arisen between father ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... reprehended. It would be less blameworthy to take a bunch of thorns and draw them across your sister's cheek, or to take a knife and draw its sharp edge across your brother's hand till the blood spurts, for that would damage only the body, but teasing is the thorn and the knife, scratching and lacerating the disposition and the soul. It is the curse of innumerable households that the brothers tease the sisters, and the sisters the brothers. Sometimes it is ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... the few who dwelt in these wild parts had gone up to Bonsa Town to be present at the great feast, the sun was sinking before ever they reached the place. Moreover, this promontory proved to be covered with dense thorn scrub, through which they must force a way in the gathering darkness, not without hurt and difficulty. Still they accomplished it and at length, quite exhausted, crept to the very point, where they hid themselves between some stones ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... outskirts of the village, where all day long they have been at work, kneading, drying, and stacking the fuel-cakes so necessary in that woodless country. The boys, half hidden in clouds of dust, drive the herds of gaunt cattle and ponderous buffaloes to the thorn-hedged yards. The day is over, the day which has been so hard and toilful even for the children,—and with the night comes rest and play. The village, so deserted before, is alive with voices; the elders cluster round the courtyard doors, the little ones whoop through the narrow ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... of those smaller runts that tried to bite me, but I don't think he got his teeth in my leg. Those blood marks are scratches, where I ran into the thorn bush while I was jumping around so lively. Oh! it's all right, and no damage done, boys. Everything's lovely, and the goose ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... only a working man, he had, by sheer force of character, made himself a power in the village. A total abstainer and non-smoker, a Dissenter in religion and lay-preacher where Dissent had never found a foothold until his coming, and an extreme Radical in politics, he was naturally something of a thorn in the side of the vicar and ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... the plain to the east a terrible herd of great pigs, every one of them the height of a deer. And there was one pig out in front of the rest was blacker than a smith's coal, and the bristles on its head were like a thicket of thorn-trees. ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... which weak nature strove in vain. Were it in my power, I would make all your future bright with the warmest sunshine. But over your future I have no control—yet, sadly enough, are our destinies linked, and the existence of each will be a thorn in the ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... causes more thorn sufficient to breed indolence even in the midst of beehive. Thus is explained why, after thirty-two years of the system, the circumspect and prudent Morga said that the natives "have forgotten much about farming, raising poultry, ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... BOYS ACROSS THE CONTINENT," it will be recalled how Phil and his companion won new laurels in the sawdust arena, and how the former ran down and captured a bad man who had been a thorn in the side of the circus itself for many weeks through his efforts to avenge a fancied wrong. By this time the boys had become full-fledged circus performers, each playing an ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... of me in the matter, Ernest,' Ronald said, pressing his hand gently; 'but I don't think I ought to go away from mother before I'm twenty-one. To tell you the truth, Ernest, I hardly flatter myself she'd be really sorry to get rid of me; I'm afraid I'm a dreadful thorn in her side at present; she doesn't understand my ways, and perhaps I don't sympathise enough with hers; but still, if I were to propose to go, I feel sure she'd be very much annoyed, and treat it as a serious act of insubordination ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... that system so as to change it, or that one system may be destroyed and another system built up to take its place. This is the secret of cures of this nature—of mental troubles—the irritating factor, the thorn in the mind, ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... when Thorn (he spelled his name without an e) was called to do some work at the house of Mr. de Silver, an uncle of the 'poor relation,' with whom she was then staying. This gentleman, who for years had been at his wits' end to know what ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... is confidential—that I am glad the schools have gone for the summer. Education has been a thorn in our family for some time past, indeed since the younger member got into the higher branches. Until lately it has been the impression of Mrs. Boyzy and myself that we spoke the English language with facility and much correctness, and as for facility I will put Mrs. B. against ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... with remorse. To equable, steady-minded Will this state of matters was intolerable; and he determined, at whatever cost, to bring it to an end. So, one warm summer afternoon he put on his best clothes, took a thorn switch in his hand, and set out down the valley by the river. As soon as he had taken his determination, he had regained at a bound his customary peace of heart, and he enjoyed the bright weather and the variety of the scene without ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a Lion lying down moaning and groaning. At first he turned to flee, but finding that the Lion did not pursue him, he turned back and went up to him. As he came near, the Lion put out his paw, which was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge thorn had got into it, and was causing all the pain. He pulled out the thorn and bound up the paw of the Lion, who was soon able to rise and lick the hand of Androcles like a dog. Then the Lion took Androcles to his cave, and every day used to bring him meat from which to live. But shortly afterwards both ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... have chosen. It was forced upon him. To travel through the jungle itself was next to impossible with a girl, especially as they were dressed for city streets and not at all for battling with dense and thorn-studded undergrowth. And to stay with the plane was obviously absurd. Sooner or later they had to abandon it, though the moment they did desert it they would be encountering not only the impersonal menace of the jungle, but the actual enmity of all the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... Vastly does she swell the chests of her island children, but with the modesty of a maid at the commencement. Precedence again disturbed the minds of the company. At last the red-faced young farmer led off with 'The Rose and the Thorn.' In that day Chloe still lived; nor were the amorous transports of Strephon quenched. Mountainous inflation—mouse-like issue characterized the young farmer's first verse. Encouraged by manifest ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dost thou weep, mother of the bride? Weepst thou to be parted from thy daughter? Weep no more. What is life? A reed beat down by every wind that stirs, A flower nipt by the first autumnal blast, A deer that perishes by prick of thorn, Here at morning, Gone at evening. Weep not, tender mother of the bride; Soon thou'lt meet her in the happy vales Beyond the setting sun: Ask the lover, he will tell ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... somewhat less in breadth. It was a marshy wilderness, and had the character of being "a terrible place," and amongst its swamps and thickets the huge red deer, with his immense antlers, and the wild ox found a refuge. When it received a name, it became known as Thorn-Ey, that is, Isle of Thorns; in later days people called it Thorney Island. Tradition says that in the midst of the wilderness there was erected, in the year 154 A.D., a Temple of Apollo. We are next told that King Lucius, who was said to have been the founder of a great many English churches, turned ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... borrow a dime for a doughnut. Last night he was at the Red Owl gambling with both fists. And I heard he's bought altogether ten thousand acres in leases. 'Verily,' as dad used to say, 'the sinner flourisheth like a thorn tree.'" ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... of his parishioners, Mr. Puddleham was not a better teacher than he himself. He always shook hands with Mr. Puddleham, though Mr. Puddleham would never look him in the face, and was quite determined that Mr. Puddleham should not be a thorn in his side. ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... Another thorn that wounded our Polly in her first attempt to make her way through the thicket that always bars a woman's progress, was the discovery that working for a living shuts a good many doors in one's face even in democratic America. As Fanny's guest ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... Goodie She trots betimes Over the meadows To Farmer Grimes. And never was queen With jewelry rich As those same hedges From twig to ditch; Like Dutchmen's coffers, Fruit, thorn, and flower - They shone like William And Mary's bower. And be sure Old Goodie Went back to Weep, So tired with her basket She ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... brown thorn trees break in two high over Cummen Strand Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand; Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies, But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes Of Cathleen the daughter ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... in the tangled thorn The new-moon hangs a horn, Or, 'mid the sunset's islands, Guides a canoe, The brown owl in the silence Calls, and the dew Beads here its orbs of damp, Each one ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... path. A lion's roar, a melancholy suffering roar, comes from the jungle. It is repeated nearer. The lion limps from the jungle on three legs, holding up his right forepaw, in which a huge thorn sticks. He sits down and contemplates it. He licks it. He shakes it. He tries to extract it by scraping it along the ground, and hurts himself worse. He roars piteously. He licks it again. Tears drop from his eyes. He limps painfully ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... him," Pilate went on. "He is not political. There is no doubt of that. But trust Caiaphas, and Hanan behind Caiaphas, to make of this fisherman a political thorn with which to prick Rome ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... to him. Here's your chance to get some insight into the nature of the thorn in your side. Go on, Bean ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco
... brother, an envy that grew with my growth, till, as we reached years of maturity, the consciousness that he, my senior by only a few hours, was yet to take precedence over me—to possess all that I coveted—became a thorn in my side whose rankling presence I never for a single waking hour forgot; it embittered my enjoyment of the present, my hopes and plans ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... noticed his gestures, which were indeed those of a desperate man, and Sergius exclaimed: "Are we then wholly abandoned? Why does not the thorn-bush light its fires, and destroy the evil-doers with its flames? Why is the thunder silent, and where are the lightnings that played round the peak ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... or rather as you think proper; but you will allow me to hope and fear for you. Since I have not, thank Heaven! made proud and vain professions of stoicism—have not vowed to throw away the rose, lest I should be pricked by the thorn." ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... of his is the thorn among my roses of content, and I don't see how to put it down just at present. I can't, from sheer decency, send the man packing, just after he has helped to save my daughter from a dreadful death. Of course I know that he only helped, and that you could and ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... come those of movement: the steeple pierces the horizon, the mountain rends the cloud, the mountain raises himself and looks about, "the cold caverns open their mouths drowsily," the wind lashes the rock into tears with the waterfall, the thorn is an enraged ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... Lord; and shall we fear The cross with all its scorn? Or love a faithless, evil world That wreathed his brow with thorn? ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... "Perfect. 'Dwight, Thorn—', no, 'Thorndyke, Lawton and Dwight.' I'm too excited—convicts must feel like that when they tunnel a hole and get out. It will be our real, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... man and a young woman courting, walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched her heart—imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "Now, here, let us settle who is 'boss!'" I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling—I abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family, and when he speaks orders ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... at two o'clock? When he had been in that waiting-room for two hours, it occurred to him that he only wanted his own, and that he would not remain there to be starved for any Mr Melmotte in Europe. It occurred to him also that that thorn in his side, Squercum, would certainly get a finger into the pie to his infinite annoyance. Then he walked forth, and attempted to see Grendall for the fourth time. But Miles Grendall also liked ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... thorn y-crowned, crucified, and on the cross died; And sythen his blessed body was in a stone buried; after that. And descended adown to the dark helle, And fetched out our forefathers; and they full fain weren. glad. The third day readily, himself ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... article. But the Prince of No. 21, when he seeks the Bel-Princess, becomes invisible to the "demons and fairies" who surround her, when he blows from the palm of his hand, "all along his fingers," the earth which a friendly fakir has given him for that purpose. A "sleep-thorn," or other somniferous piece of wood, is commonly employed in our fairy tales, in order to throw a hero or heroine into a magic slumber. In these Indian stories a state of catalepsy, or of death, is produced or relieved ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... mounted his horse and continued his journey. He rode on and on until he came to another jungle, and there he saw a tiger who had a thorn in his foot, and was roaring loudly from ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... that bright-winter's day? She told them of the fairy-haunted land Away the other side of Brittany, Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; 155 Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, deg. deg.156 Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. For here he came with the fay deg. Vivian, deg.158 One April, when the warm days first began. He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, 160 On her white palfrey; here he met his end, In these lone sylvan glades, that April-day. ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... low with the sweets Of her bountiful white-thorn bloom? Of alabaster that repeats The pallor of ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... branched stems and numerous flowers in moist and rich soil. On bad soil, or if germinating too late, when the season is drier, they remain very small, producing only a few leaves and often limiting themselves to one flower-head. This is often seen with thorn-apples and amaranths, and even with oats and rye, and is notoriously the case with buckwheat. Gauchery has observed that the extremes differ often as much from one another as 1:10. In the case of the Canadian horseweed or Erigeron canadensis, which is widely naturalized in Europe, ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... Pleasing best when unconfined, When to please is least designed, Soothing but their cares to rest; Cares do still their thoughts molest, And still th' unhappy poet's breast, Like thine, when best he sings, is placed against a thorn. She begins, let all be still! Muse, thy promise now fulfil! Sweet, oh! sweet, still sweeter yet! Can thy words such accents fit? Canst thou syllables refine, Melt a sense that shall retain Still some spirit ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... days," was the answer. "Ali, the fisherman—out of whose foot I took a thorn some time since—informed me secretly, as I was going to church yesterday, that the Blemmyes are gathering behind the sulphur-mountains; when they have withdrawn, it will be high time to send Hermas to Alexandria. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... made a mighty lord, Of goodly gold he hath enow, And many a sergeant girt with sword; But forth will we and bend the bow. We shall bend the bow on the lily lea Betwixt the thorn and the ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... orderly man, he set off gallantly on his new commission. After waiting a time, which in our state of suspense might almost be called a period, he leisurely returned, significantly saying, that neither man nor beast could pass that way! rubbing his thorn-smitten cheek. Now came the use of the syllogism, in its simplest form. "If the right road must be A, B, or C, and A and B were wrong, then C must be right." Under this conviction, we marched boldly on, without further solicitude or exploration,' ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... and gave it to him. Then, going up to the Great Elk, he bade him, in a very angry voice, hold out his tongue. The trembling monster obeyed, displaying a tongue which would have furnished the whole tribe of Ottawas with food for a season. The god then made, with the sharp point of a thorn, a hole in the under part of his tongue, half way between the root and the end, and another in the skin upon the inner side of his jaw, and passing through these holes the thread obtained from the Ottawa woman, he ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... a snail and pierce it through with a thorn, and leave it to die on the bush; as it disappears ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... no longer; he formed his men into a solid body, and then, raising his battle cry, rushed upon the Danes. The battle was a furious one. The Danes were upon higher ground, their standard being planted by the side of a single thorn-tree which grew on the slopes of the hill. Towards this Alfred with his men ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... King had known what even three days without David would mean to her, he would not have wasted his breath in suggesting that she should give him up! Yet the possibility of such a thing had the allurement of terror; she played with the thought, as a child, wincing, presses a thorn into its flesh to see how long it can bear the smart. Suppose, instead of this three days' trip with Dr. Lavendar, David was going away to stay? The mere question made her catch him in her arms as if to ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... is said to have suffered from an appetite for alcoholic drink until his death; yet he saved many a drunkard from this fatal appetite. Paul [5] had a thorn in the flesh: one writer thinks that he was troubled with rheumatism, and another that he had sore eyes; but this is certain, that he healed others who were sick. It is unquestionably right to do right; and heal- ing the sick is a very right thing ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... temples, which cover an area of 16 square miles, remain silent monuments to its former greatness. Save for a few priests and scattered families of the poorest of the people, its population has disappeared centuries ago, and the land, once fertile, is now covered with aloe, cactus, and thorn, while an air of weary heat and desolation envelops it. Some idea of its size may be formed when I tell you that a thousand of its pagodas are known by name, while as many more are little but a heap of ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... growled into the ear of the venerable mischief-maker: "I don't know who set you on to thorn this crowd of men into a fight, and I don't care. But there ain't goin' to be no trouble here, and, if you keep on tryin' to make it, I'll give you one figger ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... the thorn patch where she was grazing, gave her salt and loaded her again. Then they went to take the rest of the census, but in fear. There was a clear duty to get the job done, but there was also a dread of it that his superiors did not understand. There was reason also why ...
— Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas • Raphael Aloysius Lafferty
... that, though the Hinayanist church was predominant throughout the history of the island, there were up to the twelfth century heretical sects called Vaitulya or Vetulyaka and Vajira which though hardly rivals of orthodoxy were a thorn in its side. A party at the Abhayagiri monastery were favourably disposed to the Vaitulya sect which, though often suppressed, recovered and reappeared, being apparently reinforced from India. This need not mean from southern India, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... been debarred from accepting the invitation by the presence of clerical guests at the palace. But his lordship's chaplain, Mr. Groschut, was present. Mr. Groschut also held an honorary prebendal stall, and was on of the chapter,—a thorn sometimes in the Dean's side. But appearances were well kept up at Brotherton, and no one was more anxious that things should be done in a seemly way than the Dean. Therefore, Mr. Groschut, who was a very low churchman ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... the tropical steaming coast belt to and across the high scrub desert, and then through lower rounded hills to the plains. On the desert is only dense thorn brush—and a possibility that the newcomer, if he looks very closely, may to his excitement see his first game in Africa. This is a stray duiker or so, tiny grass antelopes a foot high. Also in this land is thirst; so that alongside the locomotives, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... pierced Dinah's heart like a thorn; she repented of having tempted Etienne into the extravagances of love. It is so difficult to pass from pleasure to work, that happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... difficult to understand: a joy was set before us, one most natural and easy of attainment. We stretched forth our hands . . . and the coveted joy was withdrawn. But it is not the hand of man which has done this thing—it is God's work. Celine, understand your Therese, and let us accept cheerfully the thorn which is offered us. To-morrow's feast will be one of tears, but I feel that Jesus will be greatly consoled. . ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... and he heard little tiny voices, saying, "Papa" (Dunkni's own word), "we want to stay with you; we should like to be with you." The Maharaja looked very carefully at the flowers, and at last, in one of them he saw a little splinter of wood like a thorn sticking: he pulled this out, and his own little son stood before him. Then he looked at the other flower, and in that, too, was a little splinter of wood sticking. When he pulled it out his ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... dropped over the wonderful thought that perhaps she might do something for him. But what? She looked straight at him, and the innocent appeal sent a tiny thorn of doubt through his armour of complacency. Was she—after all? No, no novice could play the game so ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Master Fitzoswald, of illustrious lineage in the north, of the age of nine years. But doubtless, as the philosopher has remarked, there is no sweet without its bitter, or, as the poet has said, "no rose without its thorn," or, better perhaps, as another great poet of antiquity has clothed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... snow the chapman smoored, {149b} And past the birks and meikle stane Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane: And through the whins, and by the cairn Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn; And near the thorn, aboon the well, Where Mungo's mither hanged hersel'. Before him Doon pours a' his floods; The doubling storm roars through the woods; The lightnings flash frae pole to pole; Near and more near the thunders roll; When glimmering through the groaning trees, Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze; Through ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the laurel shade beneath, And round her temples bind the myrtle wreath. —Now the light swallow with her airy brood Skims the green meadow, and the dimpled flood; 475 Loud shrieks the lone thrush from his leafless thorn, Th' alarmed beetle sounds his bugle horn; Each pendant spider winds with fingers fine His ravel'd clue, and climbs along the line; Gay Gnomes in glittering circles stand aloof 480 Beneath a spreading mushroom's fretted roof; Swift bees returning seek ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... sable wings, All earthly things to darken, The woodland choir grows mute and still, To thy sweet trill to hearken; Though 'gainst thy breast there lies a thorn, And thou woeworn art bleeding, Yet, till the bright day dawns again, Thou singest, ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... awakened—shall I sleep? The World's at war with tyrants—shall I crouch? The harvest's ripe—and shall I pause to reap? I slumber not; the thorn is in my Couch; Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear, Its echo in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... deceived by its beauty, I would hold it close to my face to breathe its fragrance, and always its faint sickening-sweet odor brought me only disappointment and disgust. It was a Lamia among roses. Another peculiarity was that it had very few thorns, and those few were small and weak. Yet the thorn is as much a part of the true rose as its sweetness; and lacking the rose thorn and the rose perfume, what claim had it to the rose name? I never saw this false rose elsewhere than in the false garden, and because it grew there, and because ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... dragged it northwards from Bulawayo. Later on, when they trekked up into the lion-zone, the district in which lions and other dangerous beasts might be expected to visit them by night, if the way were left open for them, it would be necessary to encircle their camp with a ring of thorn-bushes or some other obstacles; but at present the party was only on the way to the hunting grounds, and it was still safe to run ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... rises straight up on the right side of the road, all hazel brush and thorn—whar a ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... Elsley has his weak point, which must not be touched; something about "a name," which Lucia is to be expected to ignore,—as if anything which really exists could be ignored while two people live together night and day, for better for worse. Till the thorn is out, the wound will not heal; and till the matter (whatever it may be) is set right, by confession and absolution, there will be no peace for them, for they are living in a lie; and, unless it be a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... nothing really independent of itself. Now, it is true that any positive creed, true or false, would tend to be independent of itself. It might be Roman Catholicism or Mahomedanism or Materialism; but, if strongly held, it would be a thorn in the side of the Servile State. The Moslem thinks all men immortal: the Materialist thinks all men mortal. But the Moslem does not think the rich Sinbad will live forever; but the poor Sinbad will die on his deathbed. The Materialist does not think that Mr. Haeckel will go to heaven, ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... looked, thought Marius, like a man who did not sleep enough, he was abounding and bright to-day, after one of those pitiless headaches, which since boyhood had been the "thorn in his side," challenging the pretensions of his philosophy to fortify one in humble endurances. At the first moment, to Marius, remembering the spectacle of the emperor in ceremony, it was almost bewildering to be ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... "whether it would puzzle a monkey?" He had forgotten the needs of his Growing Nation, and was earnestly parting the white-thorn ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... N. sharpness &c. adj.; acuity, acumination[obs3]; spinosity[obs3]. point, spike, spine, spicule[Biol], spiculum[obs3]; needle, hypodermic needle, tack, nail, pin; prick, prickle; spur, rowel, barb; spit, cusp; horn, antler; snag; tag thorn, bristle; Adam's needle[obs3], bear grass [U.S.], tine, yucca. nib, tooth, tusk; spoke, cog, ratchet. crag, crest, arete[Fr], cone peak, sugar loaf, pike, aiguille[obs3]; spire, pyramid, steeple. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fence Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense, Contests with stolid vehemence [41] The march of culture, setting limb and thorn As pikes against the ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... there grows a painful thorn the floweret's stalk upon: Behind each cupboard's gilded doors there lurks a Skeleton: The crumpled roseleaf mocks repose, beneath the bed of down: In proof of which attend the tale ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... make a good job of that—we must ferret him out. I know who will come down properly for that; and if we could only tuck him up with his brother blade, why it would be worth double. He's all along been a thorn in my Lady Rookwood's side; ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 'thorn crackling' laugh. 'Poor Mark! I thought that was coming. People will treat him as if ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a sharp thorn in it isn't much fun," and Lois looked Sammie full in the eyes. "One might do far worse than take an interest in such people as I met this afternoon out upon the river. They appealed to me very much and I am not ashamed to confess it. The man is a perfect gentleman, ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... beyond this position; and that, in fact, our judgment is rather against his going beyond it. If he can only maintain this position, without more, this rebellion can only eke out a short and feeble existence, as an animal sometimes may with a thorn ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... an hour and persistence was rewarded by a small heap of dry grass in a little opening surrounded by thorn bushes. They spread one covering of it on the ground, covered themselves to the mouth with another layer, and then went sound asleep, the old, unloaded musket lying by Obed ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... plucked your flower, O world! I pressed it to my heart and the thorn pricked. When the day waned and it darkened, I found that the flower had ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... woods, and flocks in "the green pasture and beside the still waters," which silently remind them of the Shepherd, under whom they shall not want any real good thing. The quiet of the shady lane is theirs, and the beauty of the blossoming thorn above the pool. Delight steals through them with the scent of the violet, or the new mown hay. If they have hushed the voices of complaint and fear within them, there is the music of the merry lark for them, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... your generation shall want to fall. Pan has come to you because you dare.... You have murdered the old shames, you have torn down the ancient and mouldering churches. You do not require the blood, the thorn, the spikes, but I wonder if even you of a glorious generation, do not still require the Cross?... It is because you see so surely and are level-eyed, that Pan is back in the world for you; and it is very strange but true that you must first meet Pan and pass him by, before ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... think She'll wed a life-long sorrow—let her wed! Aye—aye—I hope she'll live to curse the day Whereon she broke her sacred promises. And I forgive her?—yea, but not forget. I'll take good care that she shall not forget; I'll prick her memory with a bitter thorn Through all her future. Let her marry gold!' Thus ran my muttered words, but in my heart There ran a counter-current; ere I slept Its silent under-tow had mastered all— 'Forgive and be forgiven.' I resolved ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... across the Quantocks, and there is the ancient camp of Dowsborough to block the way; or else put into the Parret, and there, at the first landing place, where they say that Joseph of Arimathaea landed, bearing the holy thorn staff in his hand, is the strong hill fort of Combwich, old as the days of that ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... hae sent aff men to the wood To hew down baith thorn an' fern, That they might get a great bonefire To burn that lady in. 'Put na the wyte on me,' she says, 'It was ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... eat, and tried her best to make him happy; but all in vain. After many attempts, he at last succeeded in making his escape, and instantly disappeared in the woods. In the course of the day, the following letter, sealed with a sharp thorn, was received ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not; and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren" (Lu. 22:31, 32 R.V.). "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... from the river at sunset, and the scars on his body began to burn and tingle. The pain recalled his ritual to him, and he began to recite it as he walked along. He had cut a branch of thorn from the hedge and placed it next to his skin, pressing the spikes into the flesh with his hand till the warm blood ran down. He felt it was an exquisite and sweet observance for her sake; and then he thought of the secret ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... face involuntarily lighted up. He thought he saw the beginning of the end of an institution which had been a thorn in his flesh ever since Tolliver, in a fit of rage, had sold ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... cote should be provided with 1,000 pigeons, but this number does not appear to have been yet reached except at Thorn, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... years, for I found human bones black with age lying in the long grass. Indeed, the cattle-kraal still remained and in such good condition that by piling up a few stones here and there on the walls and closing the narrow entrances with thorn bushes, we could still use it to enclose our oxen at night. This I did for fear lest there should be lions about, though I had neither seen nor ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... coachman, bid him follow him with all speed to the road, paid down his reckoning to mine host, and was off, and already out of the town, just as the Duke and Dr. Joel reached the inn, to try and get him back again. So they return raging and swearing, while Jobst crouches down behind a thorn-bush with his little daughter, till the coach comes up. And they have scarcely mounted it, when Dr. Cramer, of Old Stettin, drives up; for he was on his way to induct a rector (I know not whom) into his parish, as the ecclesiastical superintendent lay sick in his bed. This ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... conscience, As thogh it were al innocence, Withoute, and is noght so withinne; And doth so for he wolde winne Of his desir the vein astat. And whanne he comth anon therat, 600 He scheweth thanne what he was, The corn is torned into gras, That was a Rose is thanne a thorn, And he that was a Lomb beforn Is thanne a Wolf, and thus malice Under the colour of justice Is hid; and as the poeple telleth, These ordres witen where he duelleth, As he that of here conseil is, And thilke world which thei er this 610 Forsoken, he drawth in ayein: He clotheth richesse, as men ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... Mabel W. Dillingham and Miss Charlotte R. Thorn, who had been teachers for several years in the Hampton Institute, opened a school for negroes in Calhoun, Ala. Miss Dillingham died in 1894; and she was succeeded by her brother, Rev. Pitt Dillingham, as the principal of the school. The Calhoun School has been supported mostly ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... frightened she was! But the lion seemed in such pain that she was sorry for him, and drew nearer and nearer till she saw he had a large thorn in one foot. She pulled out the thorn and bound up the place, and the lion was grateful, and licked her hand by way of thanks with ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... life is fled. All but yon widow'd, solitary thing That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; 130 She, wretched matron, forc'd in age, for bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn; She only left of all the harmless train, 135 The sad historian ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... wished. After the quiet simple funeral was over, he took Tom by the hand, and set off on the six-mile walk to his home. Tom had cried till he could cry no more, but sobs came quivering up from his heart every now and then, as he passed some well-remembered cottage, or thorn-bush, or tree on the road. His uncle was very sorry for him, but did not know what to say, or how to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... he leaned against a thorn; He had no follower, dog, nor man, nor boy: He neither cracked his whip nor blew his horn, But gazed upon the spoil ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... Professor jumped at the explosion as if he had sat down on one of those small CALTHROPS our grandfathers used to sow round in the grass when there were Indians about,—iron stars, each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a half long,—stick through moccasins into feet,—cripple 'em on the spot, and give 'em lockjaw ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... slowly returning from the place whither it had been sent to receive the dead bodies. A place for the grave was chosen where a thorn tree spread shadows on the ground. There were stony hills all round, encircling a wide and green basin just within the Boer lines, and it was beside one of these that the grave was dug. The ground was very hard and the labour severe; it was at least two hours before the fatigue-party, working ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... after this he writes, "I confess the thorn still rankles, not so much on my own account as the nation's. As my country no longer requires my services, I have made up my mind to go to Texas. My life has been one of danger, toil, and privation. But these difficulties I had ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... among the underbrush. "I think we can get out down that little gully," he answered. Then one evening in June after tea I led John down a path beside the house to a little corner behind the garden where there was a stone wall on one side and a high fence right in front of us, and thorn bushes on the other side. There was a little bench in the angle of the wall and the fence, and we sat ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... at the spring And the day's at the morn; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing: The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven: All's ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... tyranny, or even the march of the Allies down Unter den Linden. But then the woes of the Russian people were quite unknown to Cousin Sophia, while this aggravating, optimistic Susan was an ever-present thorn ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... William Parsons, deposes that the girl, in a fit, pointed to different parts of her body, 'and where she pointed, he perceived a red spot to arise, with a small black in the midst of it, like a small thorn'; and other evidence was given to the same effect. The phenomenon is akin to many which, according to medical and scientific testimony, occur to patients in the hypnotic state. The so-called stigmata of Louise Lateau, and of the shepherd boy put up by the Archbishop of Reims as a substitute ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... the recollection of the past was as a thorn in his pillow, too often driving sleep from a wearied frame, that needed its health-restoring influence. And often, deep and bitter were his self-reproaches. But for his fatal and half-insane abandonment ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... so true To each Old Year cleaves; Tho' the hand of the New Flowery garlands weaves. But the flowers of the future, tho' fragrant and fair, With the past's withered leaflets may never compare; For dear is each dead leaf — and dearer each thorn — In the wreaths which the brows of our ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... The real thorn in the flesh of the annexed Alsatians is, however, as I have before pointed out, military service, and the enforced German education. All who have read Alphonse Daudet's charming little story, La dernire leon de Franais, will be able to realize the painfulness of the truth, somewhat rudely ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... head and horns bearing a crucifix. There was a bust of the Duke of Savoy, in white marble, forming a pendant to one of the Duchess Margaret herself, and in the same material a statuette of a boy extracting a thorn from his foot, probably a copy of the antique in the Ducal Gallery at Florence. There were also twenty oil paintings in the room, some of which were hung round the hood of the fireplace. Besides these works of art there were several ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... short but most interesting communication in which he sought to prove the complete belief of Sir William Courtenay, otherwise Thorn, recently shot at Canterbury, in the Homoeopathic system. The section would bear in mind that one of the Homoeopathic doctrines was, that infinitesimal doses of any medicine which would occasion the disease under which the patient laboured, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... considered, but a very secondary example of their strange and violent simplicity that one of them, before a mighty mob at Whitehall, cut off the anointed head of the sacramental man of the Middle Ages. For another, far away in the western shires, cut down the thorn of Glastonbury, from which had grown ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... cried, "a-seal'd wi' thorn Vrom harmvul veet's a-left to hold The bleaede a-springen vrom the mwold, While God do ripen it to corn. An' zoo in life let us vulvil Whatever is our Meaeker's will, An' then bide still, wi' peacevul breast, While He ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons through the flowering thorn; Thou minds me o' ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... vine and rose; cypress and orange; thorn and olive—the plants in which the buried lovers of ballad romance live again and intertwine their limbs, vary with the clime and race; and just as the 'Black Douglas' of the Yarrow ballad—'Wow but he was rough!'—plucks ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At least as early as the Christian aera, [14] and as late as the age of the Antonines, [15] the Goths were established towards the mouth of the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of Thorn, Elbing, Koningsberg, and Dantzick, were long afterwards founded. [16] Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes of the Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance of manners, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... oak and ash and thorn, By the rowan tree, This was done ere we were born: Kith nor kin are we Of the folk whose blindness Shut you out with scathe and scorn, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... the place where Thumbkin was pricked by the wicked faery with the sleeping-thorn and put to sleep for a hundred years, after the fashion of many another story princess; and the Old Senior Surgeon suddenly stopped ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... smoothly, perhaps, since no one believed a word that he said, for Keith Endicott ere this had earned the name of the soul of bravery and honor; but Dorris dropped to the ground the roses that had lain all this time in her lap, as if an unseen thorn had wounded her, and, rising, went away to her own cosey room, where she flung herself into an arm-chair and fell into a deep study, looking from her window through the trees to where the blue waters of the Charles gleamed ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... scales comparatively long and narrow, of a lively green color, erect, fleshy at the base, and terminating in a sharp, brownish spine, or thorn; leaves of the plant deep-green. Most esteemed in its crude state; eaten as a salad ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... lad, a-lying all so comfortable there! but if you'd had such a slip as I did off a rock, and came down sitting on a thorn as big as a marlin'-spike, you wouldn't show your white teeth ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... you want me? Are you not tired of the thorn that has fretted you so long? Remember, I am so young, so ignorant, and unfitted for a wife. Can I give you real happiness? make home what you would have it? and never see in your face regret that some wiser, better woman was not in ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... other branch amidst a shower of bullets, and, though numbers of his eager enemies were in close pursuit of him, he got to a bramble swamp, and in that naked, mangled condition, reached his own country. He proved a sharp thorn in their side afterwards, to the day of ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... not despising fruits and flowers when we insist upon the root from which they shall come. A man may take separate acts of partial goodness, as you see children in the springtime sticking daisies on the spikes of a thorn-twig picked from the hedges. But these will die. The basis of all righteousness is faith, and the manifestation of faith is practical righteousness. 'Show Me thy faith by thy works' is Christ's teaching quite as much as it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... But the Mother and the Sister With their eagle-eyed affection, Spied a thorn amid the garland, Heard the sighing on her pillow, Saw the flush invade her forehead, And were sure some secret sorrow ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... these names of the ancestral heroes of the Cakchiquels appear to be partly Nahuatl. [t]a[t] is "fire," and Zak is "white," both Cakchiquel words, but vitzli, thorn, and techatl, the stone ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... to speak with her. What she had just heard of Helena brought the remembrance of days long past into the mind of the countess; those days probably when her love for Bertram's father first began; and she said to herself: 'Even so it was with me when I was young. Love is a thorn that belongs to the rose of youth; for in the season of youth, if ever we are nature's children, these faults are ours, though then we think not they are faults.' While the countess was thus meditating on the loving errors of her own youth, Helena entered, and she said to her: 'Helena, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... man that he should not run with his brothers?" said Mowgli. "I was born in the jungle. I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle, and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... to all is a sagum [101] fastened by a clasp, or, in want of that, a thorn. With no other covering, they pass whole days on the hearth, before the fire. The more wealthy are distinguished by a vest, not flowing loose, like those of the Sarmatians and Parthians, but girt close, and exhibiting the shape of every limb. They also wear the skins of beasts, which the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... only one who talked, in his passionate love for this scorched land—a love which he endeavored to make his nephew share. But it was in vain that he uttered enthusiastic exclamations, in vain that he called his attention to the persistence of the olives, the fig trees, and the thorn bushes in pushing through the rock; the life of the rock itself, that colossal and puissant frame of the earth, from which they could almost fancy they heard a sound of breathing arise. Maxime ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... flowrys of the haw thorn clene gaderyd and bray hem al to dust and temper hem wyth Almaunde mylk and aly yt wyth amydoun and wyth eyryn wel rykke [2] and boyle it and messe yt forth and flowrys and ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... well-directed blows, and might possibly have succeeded if the blows had taken effect. But Catlin parried or avoided them with surprising skill and agility, until the boatswain losing patience, grasped his antagonist in his sinewy arms, and after a brief struggle, Catlin was thorn heavily ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... sylvan scene; No splendid poverty, no smiling care, No well-bred hate, or servile grandeur, there: There pleasing objects useful thought suggest; The sense is ravish'd, and the soul is blest; On every thorn delightful wisdom grows; In every rill a sweet instruction flows. But some, untaught, o'erhear the whisp'ring rill, In spite of sacred leisure, blockheads still; Nor shoots up folly to a nobler bloom In her own native soil, the drawing-room. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young |
