"Gnaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all constantly answered him they knew none. Having asked them all, and finding they could show him no other way, Lolonois grew outrageously passionate; so that he drew his cutlass, and with it cut open the breast of one of those poor Spaniards, and pulling out his heart began to bite and gnaw it with his teeth, like a ravenous wolf, saying to the rest, "I will serve you all alike, if you ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... their shelves, Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green, And every kind of colour. Which will you read? Come on; O do read something; they're so wise. I tell you all the wisdom of the world Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, And listen to the silence: on the ceiling There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; And in the breathless air outside the house The garden waits for something that delays. There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,— Not people killed ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... Gnaw on, my elfish rodent! Lay all the sages low! My pretty lace and ribbons, They're yours for weal or woe! My pocket-book's in tatters ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... number of Americans marched against the British in Canada; but the cold weather came on, and they nearly starved to death: our men would sometimes take off their moccasins[19] and gnaw them, while they danced in the snow to keep their bare ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... 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 had to ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... railway station. You've pluck enough of that kind. You must now show that you've that other kind of pluck. You know the story of the boy who would not cry though the wolf was gnawing him underneath his frock. Most of us have some wolf to gnaw us somewhere; but we are generally gnawed beneath our clothes, so that the world doesn't see; and it behoves us so to bear it that the world shall not suspect. The man who goes about declaring himself to be miserable will be not only ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... thing we don't know about each other," she had said. "We each know the other's weaknesses and strength. I hate the way you gnaw your mustache when you're troubled, and I think the fuss you make when the waiter pours your coffee without first having given you sugar and cream is the most absurd thing I've ever seen. But, then, I know how it annoys you to see me sitting with one slipper ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... 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 ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... cat, which attacked Panurge, and which he mistook for "a young, soft-chinned devil." The word means "gnaw-lard" (Latin, rod[)e]re ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... that six-and-twenty ships of war, During the fight and after, struck their flags, And that the tigerish gale throughout the night Gave fearful finish to the English rage. By luck their Nelson's gone, but gone withal Are twenty thousand prisoners, taken off To gnaw their finger-nails in British hulks. Of our vast squadrons of the summer-time But rags and splintered remnants now remain.— Thuswise Villeneuve, poor craven, quitted him! And England puffed to yet more bombastry. —Well, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... rodents, mice 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 library cat or a series of mouse traps, skilfully baited, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... the voice with which conscience shall speak to him, and so the worse he is, and the more he needs it, the less he has it. The rebels cut the telegraph wires. The waves break the bell that hangs on the reef, and so the black rocks get many a wreck to gnaw with their sharp teeth. A man makes his conscience dumb by the very sins that require a conscience trumpet-tongued to reprehend them. And therefore it needs that God should speak from Heaven, and say to us, 'Thou ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in vain to live or strive, To think or sleep, to work or pray; At last I bade this thine accursed Gnaw at my heart, and do its worst, And so I let it have ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... have quoted Mentzelius, it may not be amiss to give D'Alembert's theory 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 ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... pricking up her ears every time Kazan passed her in his mad circuit around the windfall. At his fourth or fifth heat the porcupine smoothed itself down a little, and continuing the interrupted thread of its chatter waddled to a near-by poplar, climbed it and began to gnaw the tender ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... unpleasant things in this world without telling about that. They must have wandered around for at least a day and a half, and in all that while they had not a drop of water, and not a thing to eat. Wait, though, at last in their desperation they did gnaw the tallow candles, and that served to keep them alive, and, in a measure, alleviate their ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... find within not a grub, but a strange 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 ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... under the raspberry bushes, then looked at me and said, "Fetch it." I knew quite well what he meant, and ran joyfully after it. I soon found it by the strong smell, but the queerest thing happened when I got it in my mouth. I began to gnaw it and play with it, and when Ned called out, "fetch it," I dropped it and ran toward him. I was not ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... his stars he was no nearer. But that coward's comfort did not last him long, for Jimmie was not a coward, he was not used to letting other men struggle and suffer for him. His conscience began to gnaw at him. If that was what it cost to beat down the Beast, to make the world safe for democracy, why should he be escaping? Why should he be warm and dry and well-fed, while working-men of France lay out in the ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... sir?" came the low voice of Chris. "Shall I become a beaver and go down and gnaw the ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... and towers of pride Crumble year by year away; Creeds like robes are laid aside, Even our very tombs decay! When the all-conquering moth and rust Gnaw the goodly garment through, When the dust returns to dust, Let not ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... living, a Republic without Republicans: Socialist papers and Socialist leaders groveling before Royalties when they visited Paris: the souls of servants gaping at titles, and gold lace, and orders: they could be kept quiet by just having a bone to gnaw, or the Legion of Honor flung at them. If the Kings had ennobled all the citizens of France, all the citizens of France would ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... sound of his mother's voice Satish ceased to gnaw the pencil, and raised another shout of joyous laughter. So Kamal's cry did not come off this time; in place of it the kissing performance ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... deservedly cursed with an atrocious goat-stench from armpits, or if limping gout did justly gnaw one, 'tis thy rival, who occupies himself with your love, and who has stumbled by the marvel of fate on both these ills. For as oft as he swives, so oft is he taken vengeance on by both; she he prostrates by his stink, he is slain by ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... the trail," he said. "Didn't see a thing but an ol' gnaw bucket. We'll jest eat a bite an' p'int off to the nor'west an' keep watch o' this 'ere trail. They's Injuns over thar on the slants. We got to know how they look an' 'bout how ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... not I cannot helpe it; for I am threatned to be hang'd if I set but a Tripe before you or give you a bone to gnaw. ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... abuse that day till night, when the soles of both feet were burned. The majority of the captives were flung into a great bonfire. On the third day of torture he almost lost his life. First came a child to gnaw at his fingers. Then a man appeared armed for the ghastly work of mutilation. Both these the Iroquois father of Radisson sent away. Once, when none of the friendly family happened to be near, Radisson was seized and bound for burning, but by chance ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... 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 every ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... score less three; so about was SHE - The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days . . . You may prate of your prowess in lusty times, But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays, And see ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... out on the stones, He gnaw'd her sinews, crack'd her bones; He munch'd her heart, he quaff'd her gore, And up her lights and ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... stricken by the hand of God. What wailing! The King, the Queen, their first-born son, all the dignitaries of the kingdom are sighing; they are wounded in their pride, in their conquests; checked in their avarice. Dear Rossini! you have done well to throw this bone to gnaw to the Tedeschi, who declared we had no ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... a dog that gnaws his bone, I couch and gnaw it all alone— A time will come, which is not yet, When I'll bite him ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... I won't," he 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
... Wisdom comes with lack of food. I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude, Till the cup of rage o'erbrim: They shall seize him ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... and back again from depth to depth of cave and cliff. Her thought flew after it; she knew, that, even if her husband heard it, he yet could not reach her in time; she saw that while the beast listened he would not gnaw,—and this she felt directly, when the rough, sharp, and multiplied stings of his tongue retouched her arm. Again her lips opened by instinct, but the sound that issued thence came by reason. She had heard that music charmed wild beasts,—just this point between life and death intensified every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... place to forest trees, whose roots spring from the crumbled ruins; the bear and the leopard crouch in the porches of the temples; the owl roosts in the casements of the palaces; the jackal roams among the ruins in vain; there is not a bone left for him to gnaw of the multitudes which have passed away. There is their handwriting upon the temple wall, upon the granite slab which has mocked at Time; but there is no man to decipher it. There are the gigantic idols before whom millions have bowed; there is the same vacant stare upon their features of ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... a sailor, A tinker and a tailor, Had once a doubtful strife, sir, To make a maid a wife, sir, Whose name was buxom Joan. For now the time was ended, When she no more intended To lick her lips at men, sir, And gnaw the sheets in vain, sir, And ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... And he'd gnaw thro' a rope in the night-time, He'd eat thro' a wall or a door, He'd shwim thro' a lough in the winther, To be wid ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... in ruin huge He lieth by the narrow strait of sea, Crushed at the root of Etna's mountain-pile. High on the pinnacles whereof there sits Hephaestus, sweltering at the forge; and thence On some hereafter day shall burst and stream The lava-floods, that shall with ravening fangs Gnaw thy smooth lowlands, fertile Sicily! Such ire shall Typho from his living grave Send seething up, such jets of fiery surge, Hot and unslaked, altho' himself be laid In quaking ashes by Zeus' thunderbolt. But thou ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... breast this flask of poison, that where the sword cannot reach, it may gnaw, corrode, and burn ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in the lodges of the Iroquois, And scalps will hang on the high ridge pole, But wolves will roam where the Yengees dwelt And will gnaw the bones of them all, Of the man, the woman, and the child. Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children, The Mighty Six Nations, greatest ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to scratch the corner board, then to gnaw. All night long at intervals he sounded like a big rat in a barn. Sometimes he rested, panting hard, then went back ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... carcase—creditors, lawyers, and jailors devour it: creditors peck out his eyes with his own tears; lawyers flay off his own skin, and lap him in parchment; and jailors are the Promethean vultures that gnaw his very heart. He is a bond-slave to the law, and, albeit he were a shopkeeper in London, yet he cannot with safe conscience write himself a freeman. His religion is of five or six colours: this day he prays that God would turn the hearts of his creditors, and to-morrow ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... rat, 'gnaw your own tail;' and off he went laughing at the joke. The miserable weasel cried and sniffed, and sniffed and cried, till by-and-by he heard the rat come back and begin to scratch outside. Presently the rat stopped, and was going away again, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... fight. Both sides had their frinds that give th' colledge cries. Says wan crowd: 'Take an ax, an ax, an ax to thim. Hooroo, hooroo, hellabaloo. Christyan Bro-others!' an' th' other says, 'Hit thim, saw thim, gnaw thim, chaw thim, Saint Alo-ysius!' Well, afther awhile they got down to wur-ruk. 'Sivin, eighteen, two, four,' says a la-ad. I've seen people go mad over figures durin' th' free silver campaign, but I niver see ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... a chicken which, by coincidence, formed the tempting bait. Distressed and perplexed, Lutra stayed by the dog-otter, trying in vain to release him from his sufferings. The trapped creature, beside himself with rage and fear and pain, attempted to gnaw through his crunched and almost severed foot; but as the dawn lightened the east, and before the limb could be freed, Ned the blacksmith was to be seen hurrying to the spot. Lutra dived out of sight, and, unable to interpose, watched, for a second time, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... 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 ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... their first estate. A satirist of great genius introduced the fiends of Famine, Slaughter, and Fire, proclaiming that they had received their commission from One whose name was formed of four letters, and promising to give their employer ample proofs of gratitude. Famine would gnaw the multitude till they should rise up against him in madness. The demon of slaughter would impel them to tear him from limb to limb. But Fire boasted that she alone could reward him as he deserved, and that she would cling round him to all eternity. By the French press and the French ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thou wilt love me, thou shalt be my boy, My sweet delight, the comfort of my minde, My love, my dove, my sollace, and my joy; But if I can no grace nor mercie finde, Ile goe to Caucasus to ease my smart, And let a vulture gnaw upon my hart. ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... get their breakfast, consisting of half a dried fish or three biscuits apiece. The rest of the forenoon is spent in rooting round among all the refuse heaps they can find; and they gnaw and lick all the empty tin cases which they have ransacked hundreds of times before. If the cook sends a fresh tin dancing along the ice a battle immediately rages around the prize. It often happens that one or another of them, trying to get at a tempting piece of fat at the bottom of ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... 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, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... d'Andreghen and his men that night, and in the tumult to steal Hugues away; whereafter, as Adhelmar pointed out, Hugues might readily take ship for England, and leave the marshal to blaspheme Fortune in Normandy, and the French King to gnaw at his chains in Bordeaux, while Hugues toasts his shins in comfort at London. Adhelmar admitted that the plan was a mad one, but added, reasonably enough, that needs must when the devil drives. And so firm was his confidence, so cheery his laugh—he managed ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... squeak, 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
... 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 having escaped from ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... hatch it, and rendering it into French as best thy might, carping and quibbling the while underhand at one another's renderings, and the Emperor sitting by in his black velvet, smiling about as much as a felon at the hangman's jests. All his poor fools moreover, and the King's own, ready to gnaw their baubles for envy! That was the only sport I had! I'm wearier than if I'd been plying Smallbones' biggest hammer. The worst of it is that my Lord Cardinal is to stay behind and go on to Bruges as ambassador, and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... understand at once that I began to gnaw the head of my cane, to consult the ceiling, to gaze at the fire, to examine Caroline's foot, and I thus held out till the marriageable ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Potentate o'Wales, I tell your highness fairly, Down Pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, I'm tauld ye're driving rarely; But some day ye may gnaw your nails, An' curse your folly sairly, That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... 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 ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... 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 in the dark, when, reaching for another hold ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... increase, His passions burn and gnaw his peace, Ambition foams like raging seas And breaks the rein, Excess produces pale disease ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... was made to this statement save an imaginary one from the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the stroke of a few drops of ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... live to understand the meaning of the words, 'Love ye one another.' When this shall be, oh, my more than friends, when this shall be, we shall know each other, even as we are known! No secret blight shall cover any life, no worm of regret gnaw at the tree of our unfolding lives! We shall all be as a unit, and our Father who seeth us in secret shall then reward us openly! Yea, more, for are not we ourselves capable of holding communion with this part of God within us? We know our souls ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... pretty near went crazy, I guess. I remember turnin' and twistin' until my leg felt like it was goin' to break clean off, an' I almost wished it would. But after a while I pulled myself together a little, an' tried to think o' some way out. As soon as I lay still even fer a minute the cold began to gnaw through me, and I knew I'd have t' do whatever I was goin' to do mighty quick, or I'd ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... the admiral was about as friendly and flattering. Pompey and I were on the poop. I presented him with a piece of hide to gnaw, by way of pastime. The admiral came on the poop, and seeing Pompey thus employed, asked who gave him that piece of hide? The yeoman of the signals said it was me. The admiral shook his long spy-glass at me, and said, "By G——, sir, if ever you give Pompey a ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in the affirmative, Ghansiam Das said: 'Very well, I too am extremely partial to this form of food; here is my hand, eat it and I will eat you'; and at the same time he seized hold of the other's hand and began to gnaw at it. The Aghori on this became much alarmed and begged to be excused. He shortly afterwards left Rewah and was not heard of again, while Ghansiam Das was rewarded for ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... chafe, abrade, fray, rub; gnaw, corrode; roughen, ruffle, agitate; worry, harass, tease, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... whispered in the winged horse's ear, "thou must help me to slay this insufferable monster; or else thou shalt fly back to thy solitary mountain peak without thy friend Bellerophon. For either the Chimaera dies, or its three mouths shall gnaw this head of mine, which ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... more into its bottomless depth. If any horrid deed was doing now, how much more horrid in the awful still light of this first hour of a summer morn! How many evil passions now lay sunk under the holy waves of sleep! How many heartaches were gnawing only in dreams, to wake with the brain, and gnaw in earnest again! And over all brooded the love of the Lord Christ, who is Lord over all blessed for ever, and shall yet cast death and hell into the lake ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... the danger was inside, and it 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 ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... vision saw, In France, at Aix, in his Chapelle once more, That his right arm an evil bear did gnaw; Out of Ardennes he saw a leopard stalk, His body dear did savagely assault; But then there dashed a harrier from the hall, Leaping in the air he sped to Charles call, First the right ear of that grim ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... Hobbes reflected, "poor, nasty, brutish, and short". To live like an animal is to rely upon one's own quite naked equipment and efforts, and not to mind getting wet or cold or scratching one's bare legs in the underbrush. One would have to eat his roots and seeds quite raw, and gnaw a bird as a cat does. To get the feel of uncivilized life, let us recall how savages with the comparatively advanced degree of culture reached by our native Indian tribes may fall to when really hungry. In the journal of the ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... it? Is it I? No, I mind my business as you mind yours. Of course, I take nuts and beech-mast and acorns, when they fall; and I admit that I am a regular whale for fir-cones. That fresh fir-seed is about the nicest thing I know. So I gnaw the cones in two and eat the seeds; and then they are gone when the forester wants them to sow firs with. But that is only reasonable. I must live as well as he and there are quite enough firs in the world. And I won't deny ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... teacher of your madness; let some one go as quickly as possible, and going to his seat where he watches the birds, upset and overthrow it with levers, turning every thing upside down; and commit his crowns to the winds and storms; for doing this, I shall gnaw him most. And some of you going along the city, track out this effeminate stranger, who brings this new disease upon women, and pollutes our beds. And if you catch him, convey him hither bound; that meeting ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... wood, as thick and jagged as the teeth of a horse-comb. But the bullock went on at his old pace: every little while they went a little mile, and jolted so that they nearly tumbled off. The serpent, however, managed to gnaw his way through the wood, and then flew after them again. Then cried the little Tsar, "Alas! bullock, it begins to burn again. Thou wilt perish, and we shall perish also!"—Then said the bullock, "Look into my right ear, and pull out the brush thou dost ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... was continually menaced by a prison or a gallows, which the terrific minister lost no opportunity to place before his imagination; and occasionally despatched a Paris Gazette, which distilled the venom of Richelieu's heart, and which, like the eagle of Prometheus, could gnaw at the heart of the insulated politician chained ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... suggest, or suggest, or suggest, haov, rij, [w]heg and who, come, on, you know what I mean, as well as [h]orses. War rod: scepter, sceptic, syllables, bless, access, axes, oxen, Christ-cross, beaux, beauty, ancre, kernel, acres, craz'd, threatned, knead, bootes, Bootes, winged, gnaw'd: th is cut of from with, cum, after another of the same, ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... prove it, Bumper began to gnaw at the lining of the muff, and pretty soon got his whole body under it, and then he began to kick and wriggle to get out. He felt he was being smothered alive, and he squealed aloud. The lady finally rescued him, but not until ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... 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 Alike believe that Providence is for them All concessions to the people have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... called the masque at my house where first the King did see her. It was I that advised her how to bear herself. And what gratitude has been shown me? I have been sent to sequester myself in my see; I have been set to gnaw my fingers as they had been old bones thrown to a dog. Truly, no juicy meats have been my share. Yet it was I set this woman ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... it the dungeon," laughed Prudence, her self-possession quite recovered. "It is right under the stairs, and not even a mouse could gnaw its way ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... whether or not she had been thinking. It seemed essential to Anthony that she should muse aloud upon last night's disaster. Her silence was a method of settling the responsibility on him. For her part she saw no necessity for speech—the moment required that she should gnaw at her finger ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... all sides to escape, by forcing his way, and finding that the box is too strong for him in every part, he finally concludes to gnaw out. He accordingly selects the part of the box where there is the widest crack, and where consequently the brightest light shines through. He selects this place, partly because he supposes that the box is thinnest ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... bethinks him of a solution for this problem. The broken blade will do to gnaw off this bough, and it will serve to make a split in the end of it. And if one be fortunate, and if this split bestride the tail of the concealed animal, and if the stick ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... 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
... at his great-nephew. The boy—for what else was thirty to seventy-six?—was taking it hard, whatever it might be, taking it very hard! He was that sort—ran till he dropped. The worst kind to help—the sort that made for trouble—that let things gnaw at them! And there flashed before the old man's mind the image of Prometheus devoured by the eagle. It was his favourite tragedy, which he still read periodically, in the Greek, helping himself now and then out of his old lexicon to the meaning of some word which had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... quartet, who stood sponsors for that title. We were a pitiful lot of fellows in this garrison. We mixed the handful of flour given to us with snow water, and, wrapping the unsalted dough around a sagebrush spike, we cooked it in the flames, and ate it from the stick, as a dog would gnaw a bone. The officers put a guard around the few little hackberry trees to keep the men from eating the berries and the bark. Not a scrap of the few buffalo we found was wasted. Even the entrails cleansed ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Shadrack wailed again. He picked up a stick from the roadside and commenced to gnaw it; then, surprised because the others were not eating, he broke the stick in three parts, and said: "Do have some of the nice tender steak, Mr. Burns and Mr. Wilson." They threw the sticks at him. He ran ahead of them. They finished the bombardment with hunks of mud, and chased after him, ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... of that awful awaking from some weird possession or suggestion of evil by a stronger mind, Guy Waring began to walk on in a feverish fashion, fast, fast, oh, so fast, not knowing where he went, but conscious only that he must keep moving, lest an accusing conscience should gnaw his very ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Mabel his own, and neither man nor angel intervened. And now a 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 learn how he had been tricked with ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... 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 surfeit ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... banished shortly from the kitchen to an ell or back woodshed. They celebrated this distinction by dropping some hickory-nuts into a rubber boot hanging on the wall, and then gnawing a hole through the toe of the boot in order to extract the hidden nuts. Was it mischief that led them to gnaw through rather than go down the top? Or did something get stuffed into the top of the boot after the nuts were dropped in? And did the squirrels remember that the nuts were in there, or did they ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... but Sandy declared that he was not hungry. He went to the window and, pulling back the curtain, stared out into the night. Was all the rest of life going to be like this? Was that restless, nervous, intolerable pain going to gnaw at his ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... lifted to strike her, after wearing her so low?, 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 a'most weary ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... a long whistle of dismay. He said nothing, however, but once more applied the glasses to his eyes. Jack saw him gnaw his moustache, as he gazed out over the desert. The dust-cloud was quite close now—not more than a mile away. The boys, with their naked eyes, could easily catch the ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... 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 thee ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... since it was never attacked by marine worms. It is known that the ships suffered greatly from these pests in the ports of the New World. This particular wood is so bitter that the worms do not even attempt to gnaw into it. There is another tree peculiar to this country whose leaves produce swellings if they touch the naked skin, and unless sea-water or the saliva of a man who is fasting be not at once applied, these blisters produce painful death. This ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... eyes you ain't. Now that you're here, pay the coyotes and let 'em go off to gnaw ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... be hanged tomorrow day," cried Robin; "or, if he be, full many a one shall gnaw the sod, and many shall have cause to cry ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... Change, don't you wish you may get it?'—-as Primrose proved to be outside the drive on one of the donkeys. 'You've got nothing to do but gnaw your fists at us like old ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... before strangers is not, as many suppose, entirely a product of our modern civilization. Centuries before we were born or thought of there was a widely press-agented boy in Sparta who even went so far as to let a fox gnaw his tender young stomach without permitting the discomfort inseparable from such a proceeding to interfere with either his facial expression or his flow of small talk. Historians have handed it down that, even in the later stages of the meal, the polite ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... there be fresh-baked bread in the regimental ovens yonder, fetch a loaf, in God's name. I could gnaw black-birch and reindeer moss, so famished am I—and the Sagamore, too, no doubt, could rattle a flam with a ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Toad baked and roasted, and cut things down so finely that her fellow-servants were almost driven to chew their wooden spoons and gnaw bones. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... think of something to do. At last he thought of the stake to which that hateful wire was fastened. The stake was of wood, and Peter's teeth would cut wood. Peter's heart gave a great leap of hope, and he began at once to dig away the snow from around the stake, and then settled himself to gnaw the stake ...
— The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... to me, Lord, when this fool-heart of mine Begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving; Or, like a foul thing scarcely worth the saving, Swoln up with wrath, desireth vengeance fine. Haste, Lord, to help, when reason favours wrong; Haste when thy soul, the high-born thing divine, Is torn by passion's ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... fatter, and their fur is more abundant and of a darker colour than any we had hitherto seen: their favourite food seems to be the bark of the cottonwood and willow, as we have seen no other species of tree that has been touched by them, and these they gnaw to the ground through a diameter of ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... escaped. Even after he was put in chains and kept under the General's eye on the way to Quivira, now and then there would be a horse, usually a mare with a colt, who slipped her stake-rope. Little gray coyotes came in the night and gnawed them. But coyotes will not gnaw a rope unless it has been well rubbed with buffalo fat," ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... 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 melting ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... they always paid what they owed; but they were not always able to pay it when they owed it, and they suffered all the agonies and humiliations of those who did not pay at all. There was scarcely ever a week when this canker of want did not gnaw at them; their life was one endless and sordid struggle to make last year's clothing look like new, and to find some boarding-house that was cheaper and yet respectable. There was endless wrangling and strife and worry over money; and every year the ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... cage under the uniform of a British aviator. Mice gnaw the shed antlers of deer. And ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... thee are not without war Thy living ones, and one doth gnaw the other Of those whom one wall and ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... double issue they rallied enough support to increase their number in Congress by thirty-three. Had not the moment been so tragic, nothing could have been more amusing than the helpless wrath of the Jacobins caught in their own trap, compelled to gnaw their tongues in silence, while the Democrats, paraphrasing their own arguments, hurled defiant ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... this side and then on the iron plates on that side; and if he escaped being scalded to death by the bursting of his engine, or having all his bones broken by collision with another, he would be fain to rest for the night within some four bare walls and gnaw a mouldy crust which he brought in his pocket, or, as an alternative of luxury, wade some ten miles through the mire, and feast upon a rasher of rusty bacon and a tankard of the smallest ale at the nearest ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... worms devour my skin, And gnaw my wasting flesh, When God shall build my bones again, He clothes them ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... are strong, Laura, incredibly strong. You are like a fox in a trap, you would rather gnaw off your own leg than let yourself be caught! Like a master thief—no accomplice, not even your own conscience. Look at yourself in the glass! ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... 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 of ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... out the narrow way which leads from a vain world to the streets of the Juroosalum; and my tex which I shall choose for the occasion is somewhar between the second Chronikills and the last chapter of Timothy Titus, and when found you will find it in these words: "And they shall gnaw a file, and flee unto the mountains of Hepsidam, whar the lion roareth and the ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... 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 of ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... longer upon such a dinner-party than I, with no consolatory bone to gnaw in private, find myself inclined to do. To me it is depressing, and a little cruel, to be compelled to betray the inadequacy of the personal element at Alicia's banquets, especially in connection with the conspicuous excellence of the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... was grieved to learn that starvation stared him in the face; the fishing, that promised so well when I passed, having entirely failed, and no deer were to be found. He wrote me, however, that he would maintain his post while a piece of parchment remained to gnaw! ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... of emotion, he could not stand before a looking-glass without noticing this phenomenon which he had so frequently remarked and which always terrified him; the blood flew to his neck, purpling the scar, which then began to gnaw the skin. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... naturally red, but during his frequent attacks of anger it grew dark and purple. His nails were bitten to the quick, for while some trembling boy was construing he would sit at his desk shaking with the fury that consumed him, and gnaw his fingers. Stories, perhaps exaggerated, were told of his violence, and two years before there had been some excitement in the school when it was heard that one father was threatening a prosecution: ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Hunger was the prevailing epidemic. At one end of our barracks was the kitchen, and by the door stood a barrel into which was thrown beef bones and slops. I saw a starving boy fish out one of these bones and begin to gnaw it. A guard discovered him. He snatched the bone from the prisoner's hand, cocked his pistol, pressed it to his head and ordered him to his all-fours and made him bark for the bone he ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... was just on my way to visit a sick relative, when I stumbled into this string and got all tangled up. But please do not tell anybody about it. I dislike causing sorrow to anybody, and I am sure I can soon gnaw this string to pieces." ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... their toil and labor continued, by night and by day. Now, according to the tradition, a little white ant, one of the kind which devours wood, came up out of the earth on the very day on which Solomon died, and began to gnaw the inside of his staff. She gnawed a little every day, until at last the staff became hollow from one end to the other; and on the day when she finished her work, the work of the Jinns was also finished. Then the staff crumbled, and the dead Solomon fell, face foremost, ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... 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 and gisarme, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He must have thought it was fine to have so many good things to eat, even though he did not understand about the party. He sniffed at the dog-biscuit, which is a sort of cake, with ground-up meat, and other good things in it that dogs like. Then Splash would gnaw a little on the bone, and, afterward, nibble ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... contained all his booty. No, with the indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands of a tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled about the floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and gnaw at his heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that heart so defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind that, should he have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery, there ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... passage, the pollen-mass upon its back necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid stigma,' which takes up the pollen; and this is how that orchid is fertilised. Or take this other case of the Catasetum 'Bees visit these flowers in order to gnaw the labellum; in doing this they inevitably touch a long, tapering, sensitive projection. This, when touched, transmits a sensation or vibration to a certain membrane, which is instantly ruptured, setting free a spring, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... kept a grip on the wits by which he had lived, bade the Capuchin hold up his wrists. Then he went nosing like a dog, until at last he found them, and his strong teeth fastened upon the cord that bound them, and began with infinite patience to gnaw ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... to the ladangs, thinking that it means a chase of the wild pig. Equally eager are they to get into the room at night, or at any time when the owner has left them outside. Doors are cleverly opened by them, but when securely locked the dogs sometimes, in their impatience, gnaw holes in the lower part of the door which look like the work of rodents, though none that I saw was large enough to admit a canine of their size. One day a big live pig was brought in from the utan over the shoulder of a strong man, its legs ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... deserting the garden neighborhood, feed at eventide in flocks upon the bloody berries of the sumac; and the soft-eyed pigeons dispute possession of the feast. The squirrels chatter at sunrise, and gnaw off the full-grown burrs of the chestnuts. The lazy blackbirds skip after the loitering cow, watchful of the crickets that her slow steps start to danger. The crows in companies caw aloft, and hang high over the carcass of some slaughtered sheep lying ragged ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... distinction of her face, and admired especially its freedom from gross or unintellectual lines. She did not intend to question its superiority now; but Flossy's offensive words rang in her ears and caused her to gnaw her lips with annoyance. What was the difference between them? Flossy had dared to call her common and superficial; had dared to insinuate that she never could be a lady. A lady? What was there in her appearance not lady-like? In what way was she the inferior of any of them in beauty, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... adding: "Of course, I know they have to come to the surface at stated intervals to breathe. I suppose the trap holds them down beyond their allotted time, and then they suffer, just as a fellow might after a minute had passed. Now, foxes are caught on the land—are they ever know to gnaw their foot ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... and eke of mice, Of flies and bed-bugs, frogs and lice, Summons thee hither to the door-sill, To gnaw it where, with just a morsel Of oil, he paints the spot for thee:— There com'st thou, hopping on to me! To work, at once! The point which made me craven Is forward, on the ledge, engraven. Another bite makes free the door: ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... 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 we were very sure ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... 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
... habit or an instinct as much as to deflect a star. 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 it for a while, since otherwise it would obviously degenerate ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... said a Netherlander who was intensely loyal to the king and a most uncompromising Catholic, "eaten up and abandoned for that purpose to the arbitrary will of foreigners who suck the substance and marrow of the land without benefit to the king, gnaw the obedient cities to the bones, and plunder the open defenceless country at their pleasure, it may be imagined how much satisfaction these provinces take in their condition. Commerce and trade have ceased in a country which traffic alone has peopled, for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his 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, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... and I know uncle won't like it," sighed Rose, as remorse began to gnaw. "Promise not to tell, or I shall be teased to death," she added, anxiously, entirely forgetting the two little pitchers gifted with eyes as well as ears, who had been watching the whole ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... robbers come down from the mountains, and carry off the little children, and sell them to the Moors. The lions lie in wait for the caravans, and leap upon the camels. The wild boar roots up the corn in the valley, and the foxes gnaw the vines upon the hill. The pirates lay waste the sea-coast and burn the ships of the fishermen, and take their nets from them. In the salt-marshes live the lepers; they have houses of wattled reeds, and none may come nigh them. The beggars wander through the ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... length and thickness, whose scales made a rustling noise as he wound himself along. It swallowed up one of my comrades, notwithstanding his loud cries and the efforts he made to extricate himself from it. Dashing him several times against the ground, it crushed him, and we could hear it gnaw and tear the poor fellow's bones, though we had fled to a considerable distance. The following day, to our great terror, we saw the serpent again, when I exclaimed, "O Heaven, to what dangers are we exposed! We rejoiced ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... 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 had weigh'd Within his learned ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... that so long as they stayed there they might, perhaps, get supplies of provisions with tolerable regularity. "But if you're over the water, my lad," said the old fellow with the can, picking his teeth with a twig, "and have got to get your victuals by ship; by George, you may have to eat grass, or gnaw boughs ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... 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, ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston |
