"Sting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... modest quiver was the establishment of an instantaneous intimacy between herself and her audience. The singing of her songs was precisely like the narration of so many stories, told so simply and directly that the most hardened critic would have his sting removed without being aware of it. He would know that Tommy hadn't a remarkable voice, but he would forget to mention it because space was limited. Sometimes he would say that she was an interpreter rather than a singer, and Tommy, for her part, was glad to be called anything, and grateful ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... effect of war on the ancient, only,—in the end,—far more destructive, far more subtle, sure, horrible, disgusting. The name of this pestilence is Medical Science. Yes, it is most true, shudder —shudder—as you will! Man's best friend turns to an asp in his bosom to sting him to the basest of deaths. The devastating growth of medical, and especially surgical, science—that, if you like, for us all, is "the question of the hour!" And what a question! of what surpassing ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... laughing eyes alight with happiness, "she had the Verney eyes, and you remember I always liked them." He sank into a chair by Ruth with a smiling glance at the Major. "It is unusually cold for down here. There's a real bracing Northern sting in the air. And what a snow! It's packed down so that the runners fairly flew. ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... them in lilac and gold, and they will adorn the drawing-room table of all evangelical ladies, who will regard as a sort of pious "light reading" the demonstration that the prophecy of the locusts whose sting is in their tail, is fulfilled in the fact of the Turkish commander's having taken a horse's tail for his standard, and that the French are the very ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... O let me chuse my death: Suck out my soul with kisses, cruel maid! In thy breasts crystal balls, embalm my breath, Dole it all out in sighs, when I am laid; Thy lips on mine like cupping glasses clasp; Let our tongues meet, and strive as they would sting: Crush out my wind with one straight-girting grasp, Stabs on my heart keep time while thou dost sing. Thy eyes like searing irons burn out mine; In thy fair tresses stifle me outright: Like Circe, change me to a loathsome swine, So I may live forever in thy sight. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... with it the sadness that had made people call the man who wrote it the waltz king. Swanson listened gratefully. He was glad that before he went out, his last mood had been of regret and gentleness. The sting of his anger had departed, the music soothed and sobered him. It had been a very good world. Until he had broken the spine of things it had treated him well, far better, he admitted, than he deserved. There were many in it who had been kind, to whom he was grateful. He wished there ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... pleasure, but neither was it an embarrassing one; it was exactly what he supposed it would be in case they ever met again—a blending on his part of curiosity, admiration, and reminiscent suffering out of which time and experience had taken the sting. He retained the memory of a minute of intense astonishment once upon a time, followed by some weeks, some months perhaps, of angry humiliation; but the years between twenty-four and thirty-three are long and ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... he guessed the channel of intelligence, and this morning came, not to reproach me,—I wish he had,—but to point out the injury I have done him. Let what will be the consequence, I will reimburse him, if I deny myself the necessaries of life, and even then my folly will sting me. Perhaps you can scarcely conceive the misery I at this moment endure. That I, whose power of doing good is so limited, should do harm, galls my very soul. —— may laugh at these qualms, but, supposing Mr. —— to be unworthy, I am not the less to blame. Surely it is hell to despise ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... of any other being. The primary feeling of self-preservation would not of itself, however, be shocked at causing injury to our fellows. It is when we pass out of this point of view, and enter into the mental state of the spectator of our actions, that we feel the sense of injustice and the sting of Remorse. Though it may be true that every individual in his own breast prefers himself to mankind, yet he dares not look mankind in the face, and avow that he acts on this principle. A man is approved when he outstrips his fellows in a fair race; he is condemned when he jostles or trips ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... only members of the Shark family that we value as food. You can see Skates of several kinds in the fish market. They go by such names as Thorn-back Ray, Blue Skate, Spotted Ray, Starry Ray, Cuckoo Ray, Long-nosed Skate and Sting Ray. ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... the humorous side of the matter would have struck her, and the sting and smart of it been washed away ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... or unpleasant results, and Colonel Matthews Taylor[7] knew several persons of this character in India, and who regarded the bite of the cobra or tic paloonga with nearly as much indifference as the sting of a gnat or mosquito. Again, in 1868, Mr. Drummond, a prominent magistrate of Melbourne, Australia,[8] met with untimely death under circumstances that attracted no little attention. An itinerant vender of nostrums had on exhibition a number of venomous reptiles, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... Ivan; "I would love them better than all the wealth in the world! I would love them better than my own life! Ah, the sting it is to ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... railroad game in Missouri. They say you let some slick salesman sting you for a full set of Rocky Mountain snow-fighting machinery, even up to a rotary ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... approvingly. It is a pleasant thing to enlighten, but to burn is not so pleasant. Yet that is what we preachers are bound to do, we must not speak to you smooth things, but those things which will sting you and make you arise and cry out. Not only what you like, but a great deal that you do not like. That is what is demanded ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... one the events of the day. And one by one there came crowding back upon him the events of the two years that had passed since his father's death. A hurricane was upheaving every memory of his mind. And every memory had its own particular sting, and came up as a blight to fret his soul. He tried to guard himself from himself. What he had first thought to do was but in defense of his strict legal rights, and if he had gone further—if he had done more, without daring to think of it until ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... once more empty. I suppose that in time the Pilgrims half forgot, half forgave, the sting of Weston's reproof. Again they gazed out and waited for a sail; again England seemed very far away. So, doubtless, in the spring, when a shallop appeared from a fishing vessel, they all eagerly hurried down to greet it. But if the Fortune ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... what had happened, ask her to try and realise that no indignity and no insult had ever been intended against her, and then he would offer her his hand, but certainly not his heart. If she felt the sting of her poverty so, then perhaps the thought of his eight thousand a year would act as ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... far from the smell of salt water and the sight of sails. Yet sometimes there comes over me a longing for the sea as irresistible as the lust for salt which stampedes the reindeer of the north. I must gaze on the unbroken world-rim, I must feel the sting of spray, I must hear the rhythmic crash and roar of breakers and watch the sea-weed rise and fall where the green waves lift against the rocks. Once in so often I must ride those waves with cleated sheet and tugging tiller, and hear the soft hissing song of the water on ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... don't beleeve what I say, let him buck agin Mr. M., and he will diskiver that the product of his experience will "Bite like a Jersey skeeter, and sting like one of Recorder ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... he muttered under his breath, "he's sure a corker t' paint cold that fair makes yer nose sting." And he curled up in a chair behind, where he could steal a look, now and then, without ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... the Hymenoptera, the Sphex, assures food for the early days of the life of its larvae in a curious way.[7] Before laying its eggs it seizes a cricket, paralyses it with two strokes of its sting—one at the articulation of the head and the neck, the other at the articulation of the first ring of the thorax with the second—each stab traversing and poisoning a nervous ganglion. The cricket is paralysed without being killed; its flesh ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... mourning as dead, and whose death-like absence almost precludes the idea that they live, engenders in the soul of true affection, a gloomy, torturing and desponding sorrow, more agonizing than the sting actual death leaves behind. I have endeavored to depict what must have been, what were the feelings of Peter Houp's wife. She mourned and grieved, and still hoped on, though months and years passed away without imparting the slightest ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... again, my little king! Is your happy kingdom lost To the rebel knave, Jack Frost? Have you felt the snow-flakes sting? Houseless, homeless in October, Whither now? Your plight is ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... all," Paul went on. "Don't keep on the tight cord or bandage more than an hour, for it stops circulation, and might bring on mortification, father says. Ease up on it for a bit. The arm will sting like fun, but stand it. If the patient shows signs of collapse, tighten the cord again for a time. Do this several times until you can take the cord ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... horizontal planks, and so badly put together that, as he bent over his high desk, he was barred from neck to heels with narrow strips of sunlight. There was no need to open the big shutter to see. It was hot there too; big flies buzzed fiendishly, and did not sting, but stabbed. I sat generally on the floor, while, of faultless appearance (and even slightly scented), perching on a high stool, he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for exercise. When a truckle-bed with ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... accident happens, what will you do then? 2. Show the class how to care for a very deep cut. What do we call a medicine that kills disease germs? 3. How would you treat a bruise? A burn? Frost-bitten ears? Chilblains? A bee sting? 4. If you are told to take some medicine from a certain bottle or box, do you always look at the label? Why is it dangerous not to? What do you think of having medicines about not labeled or poured into old bottles with wrong labels? 5. If you should happen to swallow something ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... silence soft and black! Sting, little light, the shadows back! Dance, little flame, with freakish glee! Twinkle with brilliant mockery! Glitter on ice-robed roof and floor! Jewel the bear-skin of the door! Gleam in my beard, illume my breath, Blanch the clock face that times my death! But do not pierce ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... the full flow of funeral song, with the hymnal harmonies. In the refrain of the stormy duet the sting of passion is gone; the whole plaint dies away amid the fading ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... received, Half of the labouring world would be relieved: For not to wish is not to be deceived. Revenge would into charity be changed, Because it costs too dear to be revenged: It costs our quiet and content of mind, And when 'tis compass'd leaves a sting behind. Suppose I had the better end o' the staff, Why should I help the ill-natured world to laugh? 30 'Tis all alike to them, who get the day; They love the spite and mischief of the fray. No; I have cured myself of that disease; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the fatal net finds his course impeded by the terrified human wrestling in its coils, he, seeking no contest with the mightier biped, casts loose his envenomed arms, and swims away. The amputated weapons severed from their parent body vent vengeance on the cause of their destruction, and sting as fiercely as if their original proprietor itself gave the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... treacherously misused! Treachery was no adequate word for the injury inflicted on him. The more potent is a man, the less accustomed to endure injustice, and the more his power to inflict it,—the greater is the sting and the greater the astonishment when he himself is made to suffer. Newspaper editors sport daily with the names of men of whom they do not hesitate to publish almost the severest words that can be uttered;—but let an editor be himself ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... seemed as a gap in life. But other bonds have held me. O! I have played the boy; dropping my counters in the stream, and reaching to redeem them, have lost Myself. Why wilt Thou follow misery? Or if thou wilt, go to thy mistress—She has no guilt to sting her, and ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... now were tinted with a comfortable impersonality that robbed them of the power to sting. It was more as if she had recently read a story full of pathos, whose chief characters were named Hunkie and Dinney, and whose background was a dreary street. She would tell the story to the District Nurse and perhaps evoke a sequel to ...
— Gloria and Treeless Street • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... enough to be hit—a giant is easy to fight," says he, "but egad, these pigmies crawl all over you and sting to death before they are visible to ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... nothing mattered very much. It didn't matter that Piggy's bruised feet began to sting like fire. It didn't matter much if Mealy Jones's mother did come for him with a lantern and break up the party. It didn't matter if Jimmy Sears did call out, "Hello, Roses Red," when the boys reached the bed-room where their hats were; for a voice that Piggy knew cried back from the adjoining room, ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... will fall. Happily no one can ever certainly know this, though many try to make themselves miserable by endeavouring to find it out. It seems as though there were some power somewhere which mercifully stays us from putting that sting into the tail of death, which we would put there if we could, and which ensures that though death must always be a bugbear, it shall never under any conceivable circumstances be more ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... the forest and followed the path as before till they came to the hillside. The man was no longer hidden in his cave, but sat outside by the rock on which Jesus had laid the knife, and Jesus said: happy is he born into the world without sting, and happy is he out of whom men have taken the sting before he knew it, but happier than these is the man that cuts out the part that offends him, setting the spirit free ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... her proud remote spirit, her nobility, her sobriety. He saw her bodily perfections too, how splendid a person, how sumptuous in hue and light. Admiring, taking glory in these, yet he required the sting of another man's hand upon her to seize her for himself. For purposes of policy, for ends which seemed to him good, he could have lived with Jehane as a brother with a sister: one thing provided, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... I am not surprised that I find you sordid and material, sluggish and incredulous. That I do not despair is because I know also the forces that are driving behind you—because I know the raging lash of poverty, the sting of contempt and mastership, 'the insolence of office and the spurns.' Because I feel sure that in the crowd that has come to me tonight, no matter how many may be dull and heedless, no matter how many may have come out of idle curiosity, or in order to ridicule—there ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... which Theodoret (l. ii. c. 30) ascribes to St. James, Bishop of Edessa, were at least performed in a worthy cause, the defence of his couutry. He appeared on the walls under the figure of the Roman emperor, and sent an army of gnats to sting the trunks of the elephants, and to discomfit the host of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... to the city, whither some kind friends had invited him directly he could leave his sick-room. Aunt Mary did not know who the friends were and had hesitated somewhat as to opening the first letter. But it had borne no sting—being instead most sweetly pathetic, and since then, others had followed with touching frequency. Their polished periods fell upon the old lady's stony hardness of heart with the persistent frequency of the proverbial drop of water. ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... sacred by Hindus, Japanese, Egyptians, because—, 448-u. Bull; in the ceremonies, covered with black crape, was a golden, 479-l. Bull of Pope Clement against Masons, title and penalties, 50-m. Bull of Mithras dies from sting of Scorpion in Autumn, 466-l. Bull, opening the new year, breaks with his horn the egg out of which the world is born, 448-u. Bull, or Taurus, religious reverence for Zodiacal Bull, 450-l. Bull, the symbol of Apis, 254-l. Bull; ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... flit about, imps of evil as they are, and sound their horn of defiance in our ear!—a very marvellous sound to proceed from such tiny creatures, and, to persons of irritable nerves, worse even than their sting, or at least an additional horror. They proved strong incentives to a hasty toilette; and the whole gipsying-party was speedily assembled in the hall, where coffee and biscuits were handed round. Then followed a pleasant ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... if we had been so many articles of furniture. In fact, it was one of this strange man's peculiarities that it was just those delicate and personal scenes with which privacy is usually associated that he preferred to have in public, for he knew that his reproaches had an additional sting when they fell upon other ears besides those of his victim. From his wife to his groom there was not one of those who were about him who did not live in dread of being held up to ridicule and infamy before a smiling crowd, whose amusement was only tempered by the reflection that each ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... our unsteady feet and heeled over, and I had the sensation of being in an elevator that has started downward suddenly, and at an angle to boot. The balloon resisted the pressure from below. It curled up its tail like a fat bumblebee trying to sting itself, and the guy ropes, to which I held with both hands, snapped in imitation of the rigging of a sailboat in a fair breeze. Plainly the balloon wished to remain where it was or go farther; but the pull of the cable was steady and hard, and the world began to rise up to meet us. Nearing ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... if I had gone immediately. I might have got him out of that woman's hands, and made his life happy for years. There was the sting, but the crime had been long before. You know the rest. I had no health to remain, no heart to come home; and then came vagrancy indeed. I drifted wherever restlessness or impulse took me, till all my working years were over, and till ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... few moments waiting for Fleetfoot, who did not come, and then Humphrey continued: "The badger hath a thick skin. He goeth into a wasp's nest or a bees' nest, and the whole swarm may sting him and he feeleth ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... brethren? Has the bigoted malignity of any individual been crushed? Or has the stability of the government or that of the country been weakened? Or is one million of subjects stronger than four millions? Do you think that the benefit they have received, should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance. If you think so, you must say to them: You have demanded emancipation, and you have got it; but we abhor your persons; we are outraged at your success, and we will stigmatize by a criminal prosecution the adviser of that relief which ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... with a detached air. Trent's attitude toward her amused him. It was more deferential and admiring than infatuated. . . . Whatever her charm, she was no longer in her first youth, and only unripe fruit could sting that senescent palate. But the other two! Clavering smiled sardonically. Dinwiddie, hanging on her every word, was hardly eating. He was a very handsome man, in spite of his shining pate and heavy white moustache. His features were fine and ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the Northern conscience! It is settled forever that you are evil-doers in holding your present relation to the slave. We are bound to hem you in as by fire, till, like a scorpion so fenced about, you die by your own sting. We must proclaim liberty to your captives. Step but one foot with Kate on free soil, and our watchmen of liberty, set to break every yoke and help fugitives on their way from the house of bondage, will be around you in troops, and shout in her ear those electrifying ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... when they can sting us through metal and glass at will," growled Dex. "Do you suppose they can turn the juice on harder? Or is that bee-sting their ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... combat seemed to animate this whale, for he had not been pursued by the men of the "Essex," though perhaps in some earlier meeting with men he had felt the sting of the harpoon and the searching thrust of the lance. So great is the vitality of the cachalot that it not infrequently breaks away from its pursuers, and with two or three harpoon-heads in its body lives to a ripe, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... that next year finds you both as much in love as you are to-day,—the most devoted pair of turtle doves, as I am told." She laughed a little roguishly to disguise the sting. ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... shrug of the shoulders John rose and went to Mouti, to help him to drive up the four greys, which were now standing limply together, biting at the flies, that, before a storm, sting more sharply than at any other time. The two horses belonging to the escort were some fifty paces to the left. It was as though they appreciated the position of affairs, and declined to mix with the ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... called another, blocked by the hop-scotch. He was a brown grass-cutter, who grinned, and fondled a smoky cloth that buzzed—some tribe of wild bees, captured far afield. "Ho, Lame Chicken! Do not bump me. They will sting." ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... most awfully," she confessed, patting her uncle's arm to take the sting out of her admission. "Will you ask me again some day?" she appealed ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... too sensible already Of what you've done, too conscious of your failings; And, like a scorpion, whipt by others first To fury, sting yourself in mad revenge. I would bring balm, and pour it in your wounds, Cure your distempered mind, and heal ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... civil and political business. Nay, more, whatever vanity or sneaking love of reputation there is lurking in me—for it is well to know one's faults—is tickled by a certain pleasurable feeling. For it used to sting me to the heart to think that centuries hence the services of Sampsiceramus to the state would loom larger than my own. That anxiety, at least, is now put to rest. For he is so utterly fallen that, in comparison with him, Curius might seem to be standing erect after his fall.[247] ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... up. "That's the only square and safe thing to do, Bromfield. They'll find out who you are, of course. If you go straight to them you draw the sting from their charge that you were an accomplice of Clay. Don't lose your nerve. You'll go through with flying colors. When a man has done nothing wrong ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... burst of her agony, Ellen almost thought she should die. Her grief had not now indeed the goading sting of impatience; she knew the hand that gave the blow, and did not raise her own against it; she believed too what Alice had been saying, and the sense of it was, in a manner, present with her in her darkest time. But her spirit ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... hills and back of them blue mountains. Beads of rain stood on the leaves, and the wilderness seemed to emerge, fresh and dripping, from a glorious bath. Pleasant odors of the wild came to him, and now he felt the sting of imprisonment there among the rocks. He wished they could go at once on their errand. It was a most unfortunate chance to have been found there by the Indians and to be held indefinitely in siege. The flooded river ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... that shapeless fiendly thing Of many names, all evil, some divine, 3380 Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting; Which, when the heart its snaky folds entwine Is wasted quite, and when it doth repine To gorge such bitter prey, on all beside It turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine 3385 When Amphisbaena some ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... themselves—(we'll call them bumble-bees, for the sake of peace, though I must confess I feel a great partiality for the name by which I knew the rogues when I used to be familiar with their nests)—the bumble-bees themselves, who fly into his face, before he has time to retreat, and sting him until they get tired of ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... as the AEgyptians us'd by Bees, &c.] The AEgyptians represented their kings, (many of whose names were Ptolemy) under the hieroglyphick of a bee, dispensing honey to the good and virtuous, and having a sting ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... dangerous and flee before men if they possibly can, else they are usually beaten to death. The rattlesnakes, however, which have a rattle on the tail, with which they rattle very loudly when they are angry or intend to sting, and which grows every year a joint larger, are very malignant and do not readily retreat before a man or any other creature. Whoever is bitten by them runs great danger of his life, unless great care be taken; but fortunately they are not numerous, and there grown spontaneously ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... 57.—"The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... Distin with a stamp of the foot. "Can't you see how I'm degraded; how bitter a sting it was to see you, whom I tried to injure, come to my help. Isn't it all a judgment ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... deep mahogany hue under the sting of this remark, and his eyes lost the soft look they had held when he spoke ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... windows, each belonging to some well-loved room. Almost before they had settled themselves into the car, sent from Southampton to fetch them to the station, they were gone away to return no more. A sting at Margaret's heart made her strive to look out to catch the last glimpse of the old church tower at the turn where she knew it might be seen above a wave of the forest trees; but her father remembered this too, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... him that these shots were the first fired in anger for a hundred and fifty years. He heard bullets whacking over his head, felt a splash of molten metal sting his ear, and perceived without looking that the whole opposite facade, an unmasked ambuscade of red police, was crowded and bawling and firing ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... not much of the—of that sort of thing about me—I am not a poet—poetess, author, you know." Said Miriam in her blandest tone, without a touch of sarcasm in her voice, "Oh, if he has ever seen you, the mistake is natural!" If I had spoken, my voice would have carried a sting in it. So I waited until I could calmly say, "You know him well, of course." "No, I never saw him before!" she answered with a new outburst ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... centre of the supercargo's face. It was the first weapon his hand closed over, and he did not disdain it. The instant it landed and von Staden reeled before the blow, Murphy came out of his state-room with a scuttering rush and von Staden fired as he came. The captain felt the sting of the bullet as it creased the top of his left shoulder; then his right fist came up in a blow that started at his hip and landed fairly under the supercargo's heart. Von Staden grunted once, the pistol dropped clattering to the deck and he folded ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... care for compliments from Sir Henry de la Zouch; she always feared them, for they generally had a sting somewhere, and she had noticed that, as a rule, they were followed by something more or ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... music; and whether it be true or not, it stands forever as a warning to us, not to seek for help from evil persons, or to gain good ends by evil means. For if we use an adder even against our enemies, it will turn again and sting us. ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the glad Angel of God appeared to us[16]. Outside the flame he was standing on the bank, and was singing "Beati mundo corde" [Blessed are the pure in heart], in a voice far more living than ours: then, "No one goes further, ye holy souls, if first the fire sting not; enter into it, and to the song beyond be ye not deaf," he said to us, when we were near him. Whereat I became such, when I heard him, as is he who in the pit is put[17]. With hands clasped upwards, I stretched forward, looking at ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... carried the conversation along at such a swift pace that Molly did not have the chance to say what she had intended. She had always regarded that kind of talk with supreme contempt: praise that tapered into a sting. "It would have been more honest to have given the sting without the praise," she thought, "and ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... Hail, Atreus' Son! Sacker of Cities! Ilion's bane! With what high word shall I greet thee again, How give thee worship, and neither outrun The point of pleasure, nor stint too soon? For many will cling. To fair seeming The faster because they have sinned erewhile; And a man may sigh with never a sting Of grief in his heart, and a man may smile With eyes unlit and a lip that strains. But the wise Shepherd knoweth his sheep, And his eyes pierce deep The faith like water that fawns ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... the skipper, as Singleton ran up the ladder on to the top of the deck-house. "Glorious morning, isn't it? But it is going to be roasting hot a little later on; the sun has a sting already, in spite of ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... little society, less and less as she grew older that was congenial to her, and her mind preyed upon itself; and the mystery of her birth at once chagrined her and raised in her the most extravagant expectations. She was proud and she felt the sting of poverty. She could not but be conscious of her beauty also, and she was vain of that, and came to take a sort of delight in the exercise of her fascinations upon the rather loutish young men who came in her ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... the abbot. "I took it in mockery of Cromwell and the ecclesiastical commissioners, and I rejoice that they have felt the sting. The Abbot of Barlings called himself Captain Cobbler, because, as he affirmed, the state wanted mending like old shoon. And is not my title equally well chosen? Is not the Church smitten with poverty? Have not ten thousand of our brethren been driven from their homes to beg or ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... possible, felt himself compelled to leave his lair, and to rend his enemies in pieces. But Dryden—feeling on this occasion, at least, that a squib, however personal and severe, cannot harm any man worthy of the name; and that the very force of the laughter it produces, drives out the sting—determined to answer it by silence, and to bide his time. "Zimri," in Absalom and Achitophel, shows how deep had been his secret oath of vengeance, and how carefully the sweltered "venom" had been kept, in which at last he baptizes Buckingham, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... at the floor, and lifting his eyes only when he spoke. Fortunate! very fortunate! As he revolved his later history, and remembered how clearly he had seen that his father must love Lucy if he but knew her, and remembered his efforts to persuade her to come with him, a sting of miserable rage blackened his brain. But could he blame that gentle soul? Whom could he blame? Himself? Not utterly. His father? Yes, and no. The blame was here, the blame was there: it was everywhere and nowhere, and the young man cast it on the Fates, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... insatiable as it was ludicrous. She issued a proclamation forbidding any one to sell her picture, lest it should fail to do her justice. She was greedy of flattery even when long past sixty, and there was a sting of truth in the letter which Mary Queen of Scots wrote her, saying, "Your aversion to marriage proceeds from your not wishing to lose the liberty of compelling people to make ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... this menacing admonition to the white intruders: "Now, brothers, go home and stay there. Don't come here any more, for this is the Indians' hunting-ground, and all the animals, skins, and furs are ours. If you are so foolish as to venture here again, you may be sure the wasps and yellow jackets will sting you severely." ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... this moment any sane man could be a Pacifist. And, wondering, he felt a reminiscent sting of grief and yearning. But he refused, resolutely, ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Eyes, and always on the lookout for a good thing, or the opportunity of saying one. He was certainly, in my opinion, the wittiest man of his day. But at times his wit was more hurtful than amusing. Wit should never leave a sting. ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... has in himself abundantly the attributes (of the Tao) is like an infant. Poisonous insects will not sting him; fierce beasts will not seize him; birds of ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... and coarseness of his life, there was a groping passion for whatever was beautiful and pure, that his soul sickened with disgust at her deformity, even when his words were kindest. Through this dull consciousness, which never left her, came, like a sting, the recollection of the dark blue eyes and lithe figure of the little Irish girl she had left in the cellar. The recollection struck through even her stupid intellect with a vivid glow of beauty and of grace. Little ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... crevice of the tunic he had folded about his head. They crept into his hair, down his neck, and swarmed over his face through the breathing hole he was compelled to leave open in front of it. The pain of their sting was such that he had to set his teeth to keep back a growl of malediction upon their evil fangs. Every venomous little wretch seemed to carry a red-hot needle which it thrust joyfully into the soft flesh wherever ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... however, is the following: bees are very fierce, and for their size are the most pugnacious of creatures, and leave their stings in the wounds which they make, but the king himself has no sting: nature does not wish him to be savage or to seek revenge at so dear a rate, and so has deprived him of his weapon and disarmed his rage. She has offered him as a pattern to great sovereigns; for she is wont to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... to the prevalent theory that Europeans can live only in the temperate zone—are all microbic in origin, and consequently in great measure preventable. We cannot expect, of course, to see them absolutely wiped out of existence; but their sting may be extracted by means of an improved public and private hygiene and other prophylactic measures. A comparison of the healthfulness of the West India Islands under enlightened British rule with that of the two under Spanish misrule shows what can be done by sanitation to ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... and very reflectively began to rub its still shadowy nose with a shadowy paw. I think that it remembered the sting of the salt water in the cut made by the glass of the window through ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... not visible as pictured to the vivid fancy of the author of Kenilworth, the youthful aspirant, graceful, eager, slender, dark, restless, and supercilious, with a sonnet or an epigram ever ready on his lips to delight friends and sting enemies. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... been in a flourishing condition from the first," laughed Grace. "The chief trouble with mine seems to be the number of strange weeds that spring up—nettles that I never planted, but that sting just as sharply, nevertheless. It hurts me to go home with the knowledge that there are two girls here who don't like me. I know I ought not to care, for I have nothing to regret as far as my own conduct is concerned, but still I'd like to leave Overton for the summer ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... enjoyed his hospitality, for they knew that it was disinterested; and admired his acquirements, for they felt that they were unobtrusive. Sometimes (as in his dialogue with the Cynic) the whim of the moment, or the sting of a sarcasm, drew from him a hint at his station, or a display of his eccentricities; but, as he was always the first soon afterwards to lead the laugh at his own outbreak, his credit as a noble suffered ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... papers," Terry informed him, with a smile so agreeable that one hoped it might take away the sting. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... instruments, and leave them to be hatched by the sun. We had not thought about this, when one day, as we were pulling across the bay in our canoe, we remarked the great number of sharks, and dog-fish, and sting-rays swimming about. Presently, as we got close in with the shore, we saw a number of young turtle crawling out of the sand and making their way to the sea, expecting, of course, to enjoy a pleasant ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... much of a devil now," observed Bill Spurey; "for what's a devil without a tail? A devil is like a sarpent, whose sting is ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... [Smouldering] I have a memory, and a sting too. Yes, my lord—since you are good enough to call me venomous. [To CANYNGE] I quite understand—I'm marked for Coventry now, whatever happens. Well, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... either to us or to the Red Cross building across the road, according to his company. One soldier with a torn thumb cried bitterly, looking at his thumb and shaking his head at it, but he alone showed any emotion. The others suffered the sting of the iodine without a word, walking off when they were bandaged, or carried by our sanitars on the stretchers, still with that look of wonder ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... schools. There is what is called the CHURCHILL school, which hits out right and left with an infuriated spoon. Then there is the MONTAGU school, which takes no provocative action, but sits still and says, "They won't sting you if you don't irritate them;" it says this especially when they are flying round somebody else's head. And lastly there is the Medium school, which, choosing the moment when the wasp is busily engaged, presses it down gently and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... an age to feel the sting contained in the last sentence of his lawyer's letter. He started to his feet in a paroxysm of indignation, which revealed his character to Pedgift Junior in ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... attract the attention of those surgically ambitious. The ovariotomy or celiotomy expert began to feel the sting of envy and jealousy aroused by those who were making history in the new surgical fad—appendectomy—and they got busy, and, as disease is not exempt from the economic law of "supply always equals demand," the disease accommodatingly sprang up everywhere; it was no time ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... the ranch owner rode rapidly over the sun-baked ground, too full of rage to take notice of anything except his own helplessness. The sting of Jensen's impudence lay in Wade's realization that to enlist the aid of the sheriff against the sheep man would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible. There was very little law in that region, and what little ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... convalescence. What matters it? Was I not in the world simply to be tempered and hardened by all the adversities to which a heart may be subjected? And was I not an inhuman wretch, who touched with the sting of sarcasm, ridicule and scorn the vital things that interest normal beings? To me ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Oil scraped out of a tobacco-pipe is a good application; should the scorpion be large, his sting must be treated ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... a second wound, possibly implicating a bone or some specially sensitive structure, was superadded. In such instances the pain was often described as 'burning' in character, or even likened to a 'sting from an insect.' Occasionally the pain was referred to a distant part; thus a man struck in the head first felt pain in the great toe, and another struck in the abdomen also felt pain in his foot only. Again in some multiple injuries, pain was only felt in the more sensitive of the regions implicated; ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... if the truth be gall, Cram me not thou with honey, when our good hive Needs every sting to save it. ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and then galvanise 'em and fetch' em to life agin, and then give them exhiliratin' gass and set 'em a larfin', till they fairly wet themselves agin with cryin'. Wouldn't it be fun, that's all? I could sting Peel so if I liked, he'd think a galley nipper had bit him, and he'd spring right off the floor on to the table at one jump, gout or no gout, ravin' mad with pain and say, 'I'm bit thro' the boot by Gosh;' or if I was ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... proud and great at present to own its parents, I can remember in its whisper-hood. To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world without a sting, it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting, it dies. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift |
