"Wither" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if he were perpetually on the point of gnashing his teeth. But do you notice how, three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines, the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilisation wither and die, to be replaced by pure exercises of imagination, that have the futility, often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of art? Romance had singled Jim for its own—and that was the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... of muscles controlled every neck the heads of all swung about, their eyes following where the accusers pointed, their ears twitching for the expected blast of denial and denunciation which would wither these mad and ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... seems that Jesus, who was gentle and kind, should pronounce a curse on this fig-tree, and cause it to wither away. Why did He do so? Because He wished to impress upon His disciples the terrible danger of unfruitfulness. If we are the disciples of Jesus, we must bear good fruit; we must be loving, kind, and gentle, and try, like Him, to be always ...
— Mother Stories from the New Testament • Anonymous
... field, having rooted up or cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world. But after some continuance, it shall begin to lose the beauty it had; the storms of ambition shall beat her great boughs and branches one against another; her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a rabble of barbarous nations enter the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... upon his myriads, wept to think that in a hundred years not one of them would be left. Where will be these millions of to-day in a hundred years? But, further than that, let us ask, Where then will be the sum and outcome of their labour? If they wither away like summer grass, will not at least a result be left which those of a hundred years hence may be the better for? No, not one jot! There will not be any sum or outcome or result of this ceaseless labour and movement; it vanishes in the moment that it is done, and in a hundred years nothing ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... can see to-day the scene the man drew standing out in memory. It was powerful, but there was not a particle of prismatic coloring about it. It was a bas-relief cut on granite—full of power, enduring, and with a touch of eternity about it. Such picture-drawing is not flowery and does not wither. ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... on Ragnor's tower hung half-mast high Smote old and young with grief. A death it told. They long had watched her wither like a leaf; Her warm hands too had grown of late so cold. So young, so fair, so good. Alas! ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... heaven descend upon all the flowers of the field, some open their petals, welcome the refreshment and are blessed thereby; while others close their buds, refusing the blessing, and as a result, wither and die. Even so come to all souls the spirits of the departed, and they inspire or fail in their mission of love according to whether we open or close to them the doors of our ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... and wither'd all his fame, Who wounds a brother weeping o'er his shame! But if an impious wretch, with frantic pride, Throws honour, truth, and decency aside; If not by reason awed, nor check'd by fears, He counts his glories from the stains he bears, The indignant Muse to Virtue's ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... and chapleted with flowers, I pray you be not proud; For after brief and summer hours Comes autumn with a shroud;— Though fragrant as a flower you lie, You and your garland, bye and bye, Will fade and wither up ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... again thou dost me wrong, lass, for as I told thee t' other day there's no bachelor here fit to wed with thee, there's none I'd give thee to, nor would I see thee wither away unwed." ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... cried: "Hail Dawn of the Day! How many things shalt thou quicken, how many shalt thou slay! How many things shalt thou waken, how many lull to sleep! How many things shalt thou scatter, how many gather and keep! O me, how thy love shall cherish, how thine hate shall wither and burn! How the hope shall be sped from thy right hand, nor the fear to thy left return! O thy deeds that men shall sing of! O thy deeds that the Gods shall see! O SIGURD, Son of the Volsungs, O Victory ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... The tree shall wither, the apples shall fall, Sorrow shall come, and death shall call, Alarming, grieving, All hearts deceiving,— But hope shall abide to comfort ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... wound about the living with his clay-cold limbs, caught him in icy grips that froze the terrified blood from his heart, and breathed upon him soundlessly a chill breath of the grave that seemed to wither him. Yet Mike fought furiously, as one who fights not only to satisfy a hate, but as one who fights to gain a love. He had a dim knowledge of the fight he was making, a dim premonition that the dead man was more than his match. The ghostly spectators pressed round more ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... plains themselves there was still a fading hue of green. The buffalo grass had already begun to wither under the increasing heat, and in a month would have become the same gray, cured fodder that supported millions of buffalo centuries before a steer was ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... there is who tell ye The way to heaven is through a fish's belly; And in the surges, on a certain day, They give themselves to rav'nous sharks a prey. Among the rest, an ancient beldame went,— Weak, wither'd, wrinkled, tawny, tough, and bent (Your very self in breeches she would be, Put on her petticoats, and you were she); She waded in the water to her haunches, Hoping the sharks would pass her through their paunches; But out of ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... towards your hearts' best treasures, Cast one look, on earth the last, Turn then from those once prized pleasures, Wither'd by the hostile blast. Though your eyes be dim with weeping, Tears like these are not from fear, Trust to God's own holy keeping, With your last kiss, all that's dear. All lips that pray for us, all hearts that we rend With parting, O father, to thee we commend, Protect them and shield them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... know him better!" broke out Esther. She resented bitterly this cruel charge against her lover, but nevertheless it cut into her quivering nerves until her love seemed to wither under it. The idea that he could ever want to get rid of her was the last drop in her cup of bitterness. Mrs. Murray knew how to crush her sparrow. She needed barely five minutes to do it. From the moment that Esther's feminine pride was ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... wave Than sablest grain: and we in company Of th' inky waters, journeying by their side, Enter'd, though by a different track, beneath. Into a lake, the Stygian nam'd, expands The dismal stream, when it hath reach'd the foot Of the grey wither'd cliffs. Intent I stood To gaze, and in the marish sunk, descried A miry tribe, all naked, and with looks Betok'ning rage. They with their hands alone Struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet, Cutting each other piecemeal with ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... brief, we wish to enjoy the product of the sacrifices of the past fifty years. If you recall your Marx"—he twisted his face here in wry amusement—"the idea was that the State was to wither away once Socialism was established. Instead of withering away, it has become increasingly strong. This was explained by the early Bolsheviks in a fairly reasonable manner. Socialism presupposes a highly industrialized economy. It's not ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... sides of the little upper deck of the houseboat above the cabin. An hour or so after the girls departed on their rowing excursion the daisies were brought aboard, planted, and held up their heads bravely. They were such sturdy, hardy little flowers that they did not wither with homesickness at the change ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... she had urged, at least a score of times, "if we could only teach all the cripples to let their minds run—free-limbed—over hilltops and pleasant places, their natures would never need to warp and wither after the fashion of their poor bodies. And the time to begin is in childhood, when the mind is ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... many weary days, so many sleepless nights, a spendthrift heir may squander away in joyless prodigality; the noblest monuments which pride has ever reared to perpetuate a name, the hand of time will shortly tumble into ruins; and even the brightest laurels, gained by feats of arms, may wither, and be for ever blighted by the chilling neglect of mankind. "How many illustrious heroes," says the good Boetius, "who were once the pride and glory of the age, hath the silence of historians buried in eternal oblivion!" And this it was that induced the Spartans, when ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... well, and in after years they must have had in common many pleasant memories of people and places dear to both, so that his ideal of matrimony described in Virginibus Puerisque was realised, and he and his wife had 'many an old joke between them which time cannot wither ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... aquatic plants of evil growth: their hour comes, and they wither and die, and leave the channels free. Life returns—in slow, soft ripples at first, but not the less in irresistible tide, and at last in pulses of mighty throb through every pipe. Death is the final failure of all sickness, the clearing away of the very ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... and afterward by levity and an artificial tone,—produced in Herrick and Waller some charming pieces of more finished art than the Elizabethan: until in the courtly compliments of Sedley it seems to exhaust itself, and lie almost dormant for the hundred years between the days of Wither and Suckling and the days of Burns and Cowper.—That the change from our early style to the modern brought with it at first a loss of nature and simplicity is undeniable: yet the far bolder and wider scope which Poetry took between ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... come, or where Our dim pathway is leading, Whether we tread on lilies fair, Or trample love-lies-bleeding. But we must onward go and up, Nor stop to question whither. E'en if we drink the bitter cup, And fall at last, to wither. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... century has possession of that "morn" caught once upon its uplands; nor can any custom of aftertime touch its freshness to wither it. ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... wish," he said, "you shall return for a time, taking our son with you. But remember, both of you possess powers unknown to the earth children. Be careful how you use them. Never let another child strike the boy, for that child would at once wither and die. Never strike the boy yourself, for he ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... a babe's on its mother. Could ought happen to Him, we should instantly feel the effect. Long before He succumbed, we must. We have no independent, self-derived, or self-sustained life. Apart from Him we wither. ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... stillness of night. In my excursions among the glaciers I occasionally meet bees that are hungry, like mountaineers who venture too far and remain too long above the bread-line; then they droop and wither like autumn leaves. The Shasta bees are perhaps better fed than any others in the Sierra. Their field-work is one perpetual feast; but, however exhilarating the sunshine or bountiful the supply of flowers, they are always dainty feeders. Humming-moths and hummingbirds ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... his voice perceptibly, but it seemed to wither the mutineers, who stood about ten paces from him. He waddled ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... eternal life. I have read my Bible through twice during the past sixteen months, but I must read it with more prayer for light and understanding. Oh, may it be my meat and drink! May I meditate on it day and night! And then I shall bring forth fruit in season; my leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever I ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... summer, about three years after they became orphans, that rain had been for a while withheld from the earth, the hillsides began to parch, the grass in the vales to wither, and the stream of Corrie was diminished between its banks to the size of an ordinary rill. The shepherds drove their flocks to moorlands, and marsh and tarn had their reeds invaded by the scythe to supply the cattle with food. The sheep of his sister were Elphin's ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... when the Consul, having duly chased a stunted little Spanish fox all the way from Legnia to Algeciras, returned to his official quarters, in English riding-breeches and irradiating good spirits, Durkin had seen his new-blown hopes wither in the blossom. The Consul greatly regretted that his visitor had been kept waiting, but infinitely greater was his regret that an official position like his own gave him such limited opportunity for forwarding impatient electrical inventors to their native shores. No doubt the case was imminent; ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... alas, she was fair, So that her beauty goes To a garden of dying flowers, Made one with the girls that mourn And wither for light and ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... illustrious benefactors of mankind. If he bring to his task high talent and rich acquirement, he must be content to look into distant years for the proof that his labors have not been wasted, that the good seed which he daily scatters abroad does not fall on stony ground and wither away, or among thorns to be choked by the cares, the delusions, or the vices of the world. He must solace his toils with the same prophetic faith that enabled the greatest of modern philosophers,[39] amidst the neglect or contempt of his own times, to regard himself as sowing ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, 210 And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colourless, and like the wither'd moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 215 Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls— That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the dais-throne—were parch'd with dust; Or, clotted into ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... through by sheer weight of arms and the arbitrary choices of self-constituted masters, by the nation which can maintain the biggest armies and the most irresistible armaments—a power to which the world has afforded no parallel and in the face of which political freedom must wither and perish. ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... I once past changing were! Fast in thy Paradise, where no Flowers can wither; Manie a Spring I shoot up faire, Offering at Heaven, growing and groaning thither, Nor doth my Flower want a Spring Shower, My ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... grass wither from thy feet! the woods Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust A gravel the Sun his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown! I Richard's body have interred new;(C) And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears, Than from it issu'd forced drops of blood: Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood: ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... the door thyself, if thou art afraid my breath will wither thy frail flower," Ahmara sneered. "Tell her to escape quickly into the shadows of the oasis, for the master will not care to lose his dignity in hunting her. As for thee, thou canst run to guard her from harm, as thou hast done ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... her blooming Daughters round, And Sons, who shook her wither'd hand; Her features spoke what joy she found; But utterance ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... he gave his tea it went off wonderfully well in every way, perhaps because it was one of the first teas of the fall. It brought people together in their autumnal freshness before the winter had begun to wither their resolutions to be amiable to one another, to dull their wits, to stale their stories, or to give so wide a currency to their sayings that they could not freely risk ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... behind him. The lords of the subject province find wives there; but their children cannot live on the soil. The parents bring their children to the shore, and part from them. The family must be broken up—keep the flowers of your home beyond a certain time, and the sickening buds wither and die. In America it is from the breast of a poor slave that a child is taken. In India it is from the wife, and from under the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I will not deny it; not for three months, and not for a year; but I loved you from the first, when I was a child, and my love shall not wither, till ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... thing. You'll continue to help your poor red- headed brother to the finish. Say! When I'm alone I'm just bursting with optimism; when I'm with you I wither with despair; when I'm with Natalie I become as heavy and stupid as a frog full of buckshot—I just sit and blink and bask and revel in a sort of speechless bliss. If she ever saw how really bright and ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... or non-technical character designed to enable him to appreciate and play some role in the world in which he lives. It is because new branches of human endeavor constantly blossom forth into this stage, while more ancient branches wither and no longer bear fruit of contemporary significance, that the very humanities themselves change as ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... vases lie, Their links of dance undone, And brambles wither by thy brim, Choked fountain of the sun! The spider in the laurel spins, The weed exiles the flower: And, flung to kiln, Apollo's bust Makes ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... to have her wither me with that one big, slow glance of hers, but I was glad of it afterward. It made me feel more comfortable about her. If she had welcomed every stranger that came along she—well, as she didn't, she must have been a ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... and he said unto his servant: It grieveth me that I should lose this tree; wherefore, go and pluck the branches from a wild olive-tree, and bring them hither unto me; and we will pluck off those main branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire that they may ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee, As giving it a hope, that there It could not wither'd be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me: Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... which will come, awoke Alec, and he saw the last few aged stars wither away as the great young star came up the hill, the despot who, crowned with day, drives men up and abroad, be the weather, inside or out, what it may. It was the dreariest dawn ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... fig-tree either Their wonted fruit should bear, Though all the fields should wither Nor flocks nor herds be there; Yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice; For while in Him confiding I cannot ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... prowler in the morasses; you eater of unclean vegetation, do you not see this is a ghost I am conducting, a dweller in the ice cliffs, a spirit ten thousand years old? Put by your sling lest he wither you with a glance." And, very reasonably, surprised, the aborigine did as he was bid and cautiously ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... granted infringed upon China's sovereign rights. Otherwise there was nothing but a tacit endorsement of the very policy which has been tearing the entrails out of Europe—namely militarism. That was the fine fruit which was offered to a hopeful nation—something that would wither on the branch or poison the people as they plucked it. They were taught to believe that political instinct was the ability to misrepresent in a convincing way the actions and arguments of your opponents and to profit by their mistakes—not ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... above Imperial favor. The pain of those days cast a veil of sadness over her face, a shadow that only vanished at the terrible age when a woman first discovers with dismay that the best years of her life are over, and she has had no joy of them; when she sees her roses wither, and the longing for love is revived again with the desire to linger yet for a little on the last smiles of youth. Her nobler qualities dealt so many wounds to her soul at the moment when the cold of the provinces ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... withstand enquiry; the deep sympathy your voice expresses when I speak of my lesser sorrows add to my interest for you. You stand here shelterless[.] You have cast yourself from among us and you wither on this wild plain fo[r]lorn and helpless: some dreadful calamity must have befallen you. Do not turn from me; I do not ask you to reveal it: I only entreat you to listen to me and to become familiar ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... should be well considered, particularly the last one, as it is a well-known fact that in a general way the term blight is frequently used for various injuries or diseases of plants causing the whole or parts to wither and die, whether occasioned by ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... only pistils? Now it is absolutely essential that pollen from the staminate flowers shall be introduced into the pistillate to produce fruit; because if a failure occurs in this matter the germ will wither and die. Here we have the agent ready for our purpose; these flowers are visited by the bee promiscuously; no pollen (as was said) is kneaded into pellets, (particularly that from pumpkins,) but it adheres to every ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... numbers countervail the stars, Or ever-drizzling [189] drops of April showers, Or wither'd leaves that autumn shaketh down, Yet would the Soldan by his conquering power So scatter and consume them in his rage, That not a man should [190] live to ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... vegetation, be the queen of creation? Why not enjoy her perfume as we bend before her, leaving her clinging to the ground where she was born and lives? Why tear her from the earth, this flower so fresh, and have her wither in our hands as we raise her up like an offering? Why make of so weak and fragile a creature a being above all others, for whom our enthusiasm can find no name, and then discover her to be ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... you deserve; nor shall my suffrage Be last to fix them on you. If refused, You brand us all with black ingratitude: For times to come shall say,—Our Spain, like Rome, Neglects her champions after noble acts, And lets their laurels wither on ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Spanheim, p. 252.) Constantine boasts, that he had recovered the province (Dacia) which Trajan had subdued. But it is insinuated by Silenus, that the conquests of Constantine were like the gardens of Adonis, which fade and wither almost the moment ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... yet you lose yourself out of mere timidity and cowardice. You neither bear up against the tumults of a popular assembly nor prepare your body by exercise for the labour of the rostrum, but suffer your parts to wither away in ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... be a Christian, or anything else that's decent, when he keeps such cussed company as I be?" he muttered. "I s'pose I kinder pisen and wither up his good feelin's like ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... through the ages, never halting and never abrupt, encompassing all events in its oversight, and ever effecting its will, though mortals may slumber in apathy or oppose with madness. Kings are lifted up or thrown down, nations come and go, republics flourish and wither, dynasties pass away like a tale that is told; but nothing is by chance, though men, in their ignorance of causes, may think so. The deeds of time are governed, as well as judged, by the decrees of eternity. The caprice ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... that time was still young, but had already lost that fresh bloom of youth which suffering causes to wither so soon among the poor. Her husband, a clever joiner, gradually left off working to become, according to the picturesque expression of the workshops, "a worshipper of Saint Monday." The wages of the week, which was always reduced to two or three working days, were ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... three fingers wither, and it goes on eating itself into his body. People like that suffer ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a thin piece of gauze over the flower to be fertilized, before and after crossing, to prevent insects from conveying pollen to it, thus frustrating the labors of the operator. If the operation has been successful, the pistil will soon begin to wither; if not perfect, the pistil will continue fresh and full for some days. This modus operandi is substantially the same in crossing fruits, flowers, and vegetables throughout ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... partnership we are going to conclude in obedience to the wishes of our fathers. In agreeing upon this partnership only our fortunes, but not our hearts, were thought of. The houses of Itzig, Arnstein, and Eskeles will flourish more than ever; whether the individuals belonging to these houses will wither is of no importance. Let us therefore submit to our fate, my dear, for we cannot escape from it. Would it be conducive to your happiness if I should break off the match? Your father would probably select another husband for you, perhaps ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... year 1532, throughout all Germany was a great drought, the corn in the fields in a lamentable way began to wither. On the ninth of June the same year, Luther called together the whole assembly into the church, and directed his prayer, with deep sighs, to God in the manner following: "O Lord, behold our prayers for thy promise sake; we ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... spirit. Much he achieved; and yet in the effort of his overtaxed invention, restrained from its proper food, he made his architecture a glittering vacillation of undisciplined enchantment, and left the lustre of its edifices to wither like a startling dream, whose beauty we may indeed feel, and whose instruction we may receive, but must smile at its inconsistency, and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... men from whose eyes there proceeded such venomous spirits that they did harm to everybody or thing they looked at, even to the breast of nurses, which they caused to dry up—to plants, flowers, the leaves of trees, which were seen to wither and fall off. They dare not enter any place till they had warned the people beforehand to send away the children and nurses, new-born animals, and, generally speaking, everything which they could infect by their ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... the Liberal ranks would do more to disrupt and destroy the Liberal party than he can possibly do from the outside. Labour, it is true, might capture the Liberal party, and this is advocated by some, but if this took place the party would wither away. The capitalist element would drop out and Labour would be left alone. Labour might just as well build up a new party outside. It is no use capturing a weapon which crumbles to pieces as soon as you grasp it. Better make a new weapon."[650] ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... hither, Tho' rebels and traitors look grim; May the wreaths it has won never wither, Nor the stars of its glory grow dim! May the service united ne'er sever, But they to their colors prove true! The Army and Navy forever, Three cheers for the Red, White, ...
— The Good Old Songs We Used to Sing, '61 to '65 • Osbourne H. Oldroyd
... sacred spot, where the young, the brave, the patriotic, poured out their life-blood in defence of that heritage which has descended to us. We this day solemnly bring our tribute of gratitude. Ages shall pass away; the majestic tree which overshadows us shall wither and sink before the blast, and we who are now gathered beneath it shall mingle with the honoured dust we eulogise; but the 'Flowers of Essex' shall bloom in undying remembrance; and, with every century, these rites of commemoration shall be repeated, as the lapse of time shall ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble men: twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to executors and ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... have to pay a rate of interest more ruinous than any Jew would require. It is possible, for instance, to make a tree burst forth into leaf, blossom, or even bear fruit within a few days, by the application of unslaked lime and artificial heat; but after that the tree will wither away. So a young man may abuse his strength—it may be only for a few weeks—by trying to do at nineteen what he could easily manage at thirty, and Time may give him the loan for which he asks; but the interest he will have to pay comes out of the strength of his later years; nay, it is part of ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... difference between the making of a girl's character and a boy's—you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does,—she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus will, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... various. Every mood of the man is apparent; and hardly anything is touched which is not adorned. Their pages reveal in turn the poet, the philosopher, the scholar, and the pugilist. Though continued during thirteen years, their freshness does not wither. To this day we find the series delightful reading: we can always find something to our taste, whether we crave fish, flesh, or fowl. Whether we lounge in the sanctum, or roam over the moors, we feel the spirit of Christopher ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... air. In some varieties—for instance, the Delaware—it will only affect the leaves, causing them to blight and drop off, after which the fruit, although it may attain full size, will not ripen nor become sweet, but wither and drop off prematurely. In seasons when the weather is dry and the air pure, it will not appear. It is most prevalent in locations which have a tenacious subsoil, and under-draining will very likely prove a partial preventive, as excess of moisture about the roots is ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... greatness of the national character he almost flings upon the canvas before us, he appreciates as profoundly its weaknesses too. Strada's history is a poison, which strikes at the very roots of society, and would wither all the fresh young leaves of its vigorous spring. Motley's is its powerful antidote, which restores the juices of life to the brittle fibres, smooths out the shriveled leaves, and clothes them again with the fresh green of hope and promise. Strada is the slave of the victor; Motley ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... rate to have the means of acquiring it, and Milton's manner (his style was his own) was very little affected by any of the English poets, with the single exception, in his earlier poems, of George Wither. Mr. Masson also has something to say about everybody, from Wentworth to the obscurest Brownist fanatic who was so much as heard of in England during Milton's lifetime. If this theory of a biographer's duty should hold, our grandchildren may expect to see "A Life ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... in thy sheath, I beseech Jove on my knees, thou mayest be turned to hobnails. [They fight. CADE falls.] O! I am slain. Famine, and no other, hath slain me: let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden; and be henceforth a burying-place to all that do dwell in this house, because the unconquered soul of Cade ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... like. Weeds with the long tap root like burdock and yellow dock can be eliminated best with a mattock. With one sharp blow, cut the root two or three inches below the surface. Then pull up the top and toss it aside where it will wither in the sun. What is left in the ground also dies and will not sprout. A Canadian thistle is really a handsome sight especially in full bloom but it is a thoroughly unpleasant weed and must be eradicated. Dig up each plant with a spading fork or sharp shovel and leave it to wither in the July ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... be blessed. We all should like to be, as the Psalm says, like trees planted by the waterside, whose leaves never wither, and who bring forth their fruit in due season. We should all wish to have it said of us—Whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper. Then here is the way to inherit that blessing—"Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... and the young father sat in his shirt sleeves, looking down on her with a loving but anxious look. Her mother, his wife, had died of consumption, and he was in mortal terror lest biting winds and scanty food should wither this sweet flower too, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... destiny, for all the world is discontented. The worst form of discontent is when one is, as the French say, blase; though the word is not, as many fancy, derived originally from the French, but from the Greek [Greek: blazein], to wither. It is true that all culture passes through phases, each of which becomes momentarily and relatively wearisome, and that in so far one may be blase in any age. But in modern times this state of feeling has increased to that of ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... we—thus our hopes and joys, rose-bright, Yield up their sweetness ere they reach their prime, And their poor fabrics lie within our sight, Stript of their radiance e'en in summer-time— Their spirit hath gone from them, and they wither, But wherefore hath the spirit ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... and wiser, too. Only two summers ago, you say, Two autumns, two winters, two springs, since you—— Will you hold for a moment my bouquet? Yes,—take that sprig of mignonette; It will wither with you as it would with me: Freshness and sweetness a half-hour yet, Then a toss of the hand, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... dawn! Come, we are out of place; Let us go ere the light comes. (to the Waki) We ask you, do not awake, We all will wither away, The wands and this cloth of a dream. Now you will come out of sleep, You tread the border and nothing Awaits you: no, all this will wither away. There is nothing here but this cave in the field's midst. To-day's wind moves in the pines; A wild ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... plants or animals continuously covered up, away from the air and light? We know they would wither and waste away, and die ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... thankfully, lie down here in this coffin, and give your sister back to your arms. The Reaper, Death, has cut down the perfect, golden grain, and left the tares to shiver in the coming winter. Some who are useless and life-weary bend forward, hoping to meet the sickle, but it sweeps above them, and they wither slowly ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... souls are denied you by fools and by rakes, Should you own it yourselves, I would even then doubt you, Your nature so much of celestial partakes, The Garden of Eden would wither without you. ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... more necessary than ever to direct attention to this method in our times, when men hope to produce more effect on the mind with soft, tender feelings, or high-flown, puffing-up pretensions, which rather wither the heart than strengthen it, than by a plain and earnest representation of duty, which is more suited to human imperfection and to progress in goodness. To set before children, as a pattern, actions that are called noble, magnanimous, ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... were men with hoary hair Amidst that Pilgrim band; Why have they come to wither there, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... [Alone.] The grains are going very quickly. There is very little sand in the uppermost glass. Somebody will come for me in a moment; perhaps he is at the door now! All creatures that have reason doubt. O that the grass and the planets could speak! Somebody has said that they would wither if they doubted. O speak to me, O grass blades! O fingers of God's certainty, speak to me. You are millions and you will not speak. I dare not know the moment the messenger will come for me. I will cover the glass. [He covers it and brings it to the desk, and the FOOL, is sitting by the door ...
— The Hour Glass • W.B.Yeats
... pick and eat the white one, you will be the wisest of all men; if you pick and eat the red, you will be rich as the Jew Rothschild; if you pick and eat the yellow one, you will be liked by old women. Make up your mind! and do not delay. Within an hour the apples will wither, and the tree itself will sink into the ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... lovely, pondered, "'Mong the sunbeams I have wandered, With the flowers friendship made; Sweetest blossoms wither, ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... a curious half-cruel, half-compassionate smile upon his awe-struck followers. "On every day of the sun's course but this, none save the ministers dedicated to the service of Tu-Kila-Kila dare gaze unhurt upon his sacred person. If any other did, the light from his holy eyes would wither them up, and the glow of his glorious countenance would scorch them to ashes." He raised his two hands, palm outward, in front of him. "So all the year round," he went on, "Tu-Kila-Kila, who loves his people, and sends them the earlier and the ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... of the moon, and besides it was moonlight all evening," and, that being a strong peg to hang his argument on, investigating heads appeared from various nets. "Seem to think I don't know dawn when I see it," Dan added, full of scorn for the camp's want of observation; but before we had time to wither before his scorn, Jack turned the tables for us with his usual quiet finality. "That's the west you're looking at," he said. "The moon's just set"; and the curtain of Dan's net ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... what I knew and saw, in the strange, interwoven life we three have led. Three only? Nay, Harriet of the true heart, Harriet of the tender hand, could we have been three without you? My fingers should wither before ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... no movement. Nothing in his appeal reached her heart, and she thought only of words to wound and wither. But a growing lassitude restrained her. What did anything matter that he was saying? She saw the old life closing in on her, and hardly heeded his fanciful ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... on that wight Who, day or night, Shall Robin disobey With purpose fell I'll cast a spell Shall wither ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... between the making of a girl's character and a boy's: You may chisel a boy into shape as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze; but you can not hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does—she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath as a narcissus will if you do not give her air enough; she must take her own fair form and way if she take any, and in mind as ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... because they are an obscure survival of some Bacchic custom connected with the celebration of the winter solstice, the grapes are considered a very necessary part of the Great Supper; but as Provencal grapes are of a soft substance and soon wither, though a world of care is taken to preserve a few bunches until Christmas, this part of the feast usually is a ceremony rather ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the material framework of the fiction, has been made so subordinate to the delineation of character and motive, that the reader ceases to feel much interest in what men do in the study which is furnished him of why they do it. In this highly-rarefied air of philosophic analysis, incident and event wither and die. Work of this kind is apt to have within its sphere an unbounded popularity; but its sphere is limited, and can never include a tithe of that vast (p. 282) public for which Cooper wrote and which has always cherished and kept alive his memory, while that of men ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... half-inch long and very active. They come out of the canes in spring and the females soon lay eggs in the tender tips of the young shoots. These eggs soon hatch and the larvae eat their way up toward the tip, which causes it to wither and die. It is this injury that causes much notice. As the tip dies, the larvae turn and go down into the canes, as in the sample sent, also injuring them greatly, though possibly not killing them for some time. The ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... to be a tree, then you could wither in peace. Why don't you cry out like every living thing that suffers. You don't know how your calmness racks me. Even the trees cry and moan in the autumn ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... melons don't grow like other folkses. They don't come up at all, or if they do they wither or spindle away," he said, losing his temper, and tearing up some of the vines by the roots. Then he went into the cottage, angrily, and began to pound away, driving in big hob-nails. With the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... the most natural, practical, educated human being I ever came across, and there are several thousand mothers in France that would do well to send their jeunes filles to the school that turned him out. In other words, my friend, your boy is so fresh that I have no mind to be the one to watch him wither or wake up or do any of the things that Paris leads to. I wired for ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... begin to wither and age: her golden apples, which they so lightly bargained away, they now find to be a matter of life and death to them; for not even the gods can live on Law and Godhead alone, be their castles ever so splendid. Loki alone is unaffected: ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... same briny source, Unknown before, through all my labors' course! That virtue, which could brave each toil but late, With woman's weakness now bewails its fate. Approach, my son; behold thy father laid, A wither'd carcass that implores thy aid; Let all behold: and thou, imperious Jove, On me direct thy lightning from above: Now all its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crestfallen, unembraced, I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... his hopes wither before his eyes. If the heir should find out his rights, then the fruits of his villany, the estate of Ellangowan itself, must return to its true owner. The lawyer secretly gave Dirk Hatteraick a small file with which to rid himself of his irons, and then bade his captors confine ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... disheveled tresses half hid, while they contrasted, that bosom, which had but the night before first learned to thrill beneath his own. Happier in her fate than she deserved, she passed from this bitter life ere the punishment of her guilt had begun. She was not doomed to wither beneath the blight of shame, nor the coldness of estranged affection. From him whom she had so worshipped, she was not condemned to bear wrong nor change. She died while his passion was yet in its spring—before a blossom, a leaf, had faded; ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... soft cheek, and pouting lip, And backs exposed below the jutting hip; To these succeed dim eyes, and wither'd face", And pucker'd necks as rough as shagreen cases, But whose kind owners, hon'ring Bladud's ball, Benevolently ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... hast them, nor in thy friends if they be powerful, but in God, who giveth all things, and in addition to all things desireth to give even Himself. Be not lifted up because of thy strength or beauty of body, for with only a slight sickness it will fail and wither away. Be not vain of thy skilfulness or ability, lest thou displease God, from whom cometh every ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... she apologizes to him because she fears that he might attribute her easy yielding to light love. Lest he think her too quickly won she "would have frowned and been perverse, and said him nay." Then she begs him trust she'll "prove more true than those that have more cunning to be strange." Wither's "That coy one in the winning, proves a true one being won," expresses the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... a close Lane as I pursued my Journey, I spy'd a wrinkled Hag, with Age grown double, Picking dry Sticks, and mumbling to her self. Her Eyes with scalding Rheum were gall'd and red, Cold Palsy shook her Head; her Hands seem'd wither'd; And on her crooked Shoulders had she wrap'd The tatter'd Remnants of an old striped Hanging, Which served to keep her Carcase from the Cold: So there was nothing of a Piece about her. Her lower Weeds were all o'er coarsly patch'd With diff'rent-colour'd Rags, black, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... its feet, puffed up with wind. Then I asked, "Who are you?" And a voice answered me from within the skin, "I am Ephippas who dwell in Arabia." And I said, "What can you do." And it answered, "I can overturn kings' palaces, and wither the green trees of the wood, and I can move mountains." Then I said, "Are you able to move this stone, and lift it up and set it upon the corner of the temple?" And it said, "Not only can I do so, O king, but if I have the demon that is in the Red ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... get something for myself," he says, like the churl in Theocritus. "Let the gods whom he invokes reward the poet. What do we want with more verse? We have Milton and Shakspeare (whether we read them or not). He is the poet for me who asks me for nothing;" and so the poor Muses wither (or as Jonathan himself might say, wilt) away, and perish from inanition and lack of sympathy. Very plausible; but now for the paradox. So far from disliking, or underrating, or being indifferent to poetry, the American public is the most eager ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... who is misanthrope?— The actual men and things that pass Jostling, to wither as the grass So soon: and (be it heaven's hope, Or poetry's kaleidoscope, Or love or wine, at feast, at mass) Each owns a paradise of glass Where never a yearning heliotrope Pursues the sun's ascent or slope; For the sun dreams there, and ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... as she looked at first sight. Nothing saddens me more than those who have aged prematurely, for the cause of premature ageing is generally a declension of the mind. As soon as the mind begins to narrow and wither the body follows suit; prejudices and conventions age us more than years do. Before speaking a word it was easy to see from Miss Forman's appearance that no new idea had entered into her life for a ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... It may be worn over the face or not, as fancy dictates. Sometimes a white leather or pearl bound prayer-book is carried instead of the bouquet. This custom has the advantage of having the prayer-book as a memento of the occasion, while the flowers wither. A young girl, known to the writer, carried with her to the altar the same prayer-book that her mother before her had carried ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... that kind of thing," said Wedderburn. "Anyhow, the natives of his party were sufficiently civilised to take care of all his collection until his colleague, who was an ornithologist, came back again from the interior; though they could not tell the species of the orchid and had let it wither. And it makes these things ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... flowers; Of which make garlands here and there To dress thy silent sepulchre. Nor do thou fear the want of these In everlasting properties, Since we fresh strewings will bring hither, Far faster than the first can wither. ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... cleane, & the binders binde the Sheafes fast from breaking, then if you finde that the bottomes of the Sheafes be full of greenes, or weedes, it shall not be amisse to let the Sheafes lye one from another for a day, that those greenes may wither, but if you feare any Raine or foule weather, which is the onely thing which maketh Rye shale, then you shall set it vp in Shockes, each Shocke containing at least seauen Sheafes, in this manner: first, you shall place foure Sheafes ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... not on earth a breast, but turns with joy to thee. From the cold wither'd years of age, to smiling infancy. Thou claimest smiles from ev'ry lip, and praise from ev'ry tongue; Such sympathy each happy heart finds in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... retreat Into a forest on the shores of Crete. For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt; At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored. Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. 20 Ah, what a world of love was at her feet! ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... it is clear there is no place where you can live—together. James, she is a fragile flower; transplanted to your sterile soil, she would soon wither and drop from the stalk. Clarice, he is fastidious, critical, and intense; made a part of the things he despises, the torturing contact with pomps and vanities would soon strike his knell. My little dears, your paths were never meant to unite, and the best thing you can do is to part in peace. ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... bosom? No. That was too significant at once, and too commonplace; besides, it might wither, and he find an excuse for not restoring it. It must be something valuable, stately, formal, which he must needs return. And she drew off a diamond hoop, and put it ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... rain clouds, and cause their moisture to be disseminated. In consequence, instead of the regular and plentiful rains which existed in these regions of China when the forests were still in evidence, the unfortunate inhabitants of the deforested lands now see their crops wither for lack of rainfall, while the seasons grow more and more irregular; and as the air becomes dryer certain crops refuse longer to grow at all. That everything dries out faster than formerly is shown by the fact that the level of the wells all over ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... gowns, thy shooes, thy beds of Roses, Thy Cap, thy Kirtle, and thy Posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, In folly ripe, ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... Christ Jesus. Thus we are tossed between two extremes,—the quicksands of presumption and wantonness, and the rocks of unbelief and despair or discouragement, both of which do kill the Christian's life, and make all to fade and wither. But this were the way, and only way, to preserve the soul in good ease,—even to keep these two continually in our sight, that we are redeemed from death and misery in Christ, and that not to serve ourselves, or ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... nature had stamped her enigma—for Sarah Austen was a child of nature. Hers was the gentle look of wild things—but it was more; it was the understanding of—the unwritten law of creation, the law by which the flowers grow, and wither; the law by which the animal springs upon its prey, and, unerring, seeks its mate; the law of the song of the waters, and the song of the morning stars; the law that permits evil and pain and dumb, incomprehensible suffering; the law that floods at sunset the mountain ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... clear to the horizon, when the constellations beyond look plainest, when we seem to be understanding all within our scope, then have we yet to believe that, unseen, formally unsuspected, beyond, lies that which may wither up many forms of our belief, and must modify every true form in which we hold the truth. For God is infinite, and we are his little ones, and his truth is eternally better than the best shape in which we see it. Jesus is perfect, but is our idea of him perfect? One thing only ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... "I am done with your God. When I meet Him I will outface Him. He has broken His compact and betrayed me. My riches go to the Burgrave for the comfort of this city where they were won. Let your broken rush of a Church wither and rot!" ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... water-front is faced with a terrace of those basalt blocks which stand out six feet above the shallow canals that meander between them. On the islets behind these walls are time-shattered fortresses, palaces, terraces, pyramids; immense courtyards strewn with ruins—and all so old that they seem to wither the eyes of those ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... spots are the blueberry and whortleberry bushes. The sweet-fern is changed mostly to russet, but still retains its wild and delightful fragrance when pressed in the hand. Wild China-asters are scattered about, but beginning to wither. A little while ago, mushrooms or toadstools were very numerous along the wood-paths and by the roadsides, especially after rain. Some were of spotless white, some yellow, and some scarlet. They are always mysteries and objects of interest to me, springing as they do so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... colour with which we were born; if the old skin shed itself and a new one came on so beautiful as to ruin the business of all the "Mrs. Pomeroys" of this world. But Nature seems, once having made us, to leave us severely alone; to let us wither on our stalks, as it were, until we drop off them and are swept away into the dustbin of the worms and weeds. The mind is a far kinder ally. Oh, no; say what you will in the praise of spring, to all those who, as it were, have commenced the "bulge" of anno domini, it is a very ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... the wedding-day arrived. It was a lovely evening in summer, and Martha and he and I wandered far away into the fields—they to taste the freshness of nature, I, to wonder the flowers did not wither beneath our tread; for we were all alike evil and abandoned. In our way, we visited a mill that was soon to become the property of Barnard in right of his bride. In passing through the different lofts into which it was divided, we paused in one to admire the immense and complicated ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... like descending a green tree in fruit and flower, and seeing all the branches wither and drop off, one by one, as he came down ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... of low degree used to be executed on the Esquiline, and were buried there, unburned, unless their bodies were left to wither upon the cross in wind and sun, as generally happened. The place was the hideous feeding ground of wild dogs and carrion birds, and witches went there by night to perform their horrid rites. It was there that Canidia and her companion ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the purpose for which she was designed. And since, in the eyes of her generation, any self-expression from a woman, which was not associated with sex, was an affront to convention, that single gift of hers was doomed to wither away in the hot-house air that surrounded her. A man would have struck for freedom, and have made a career for himself in the open world, but her nature was rooted deep in the rich and heavy soil from which she had tried to detach it. Years after her first fight, on the ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... thee by that other Name Of Him who rent thy kingdom, and will destroy it, Touch me not yet! Almighty Purity, Dread Essence Increate; Behold concentrate, in this wicked form, The universal spirit of iniquity. Come quickly in thy majesty, O Lord! Wither him here within the awful flame Of Thy bright Holiness! Shrivel his frame Into an atom, and blow the lifeless dust Beyond the farthest star. And, if in his destruction my soul should share Through close proximity, spare not! Then will Thy servants serve Thee, ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... Khalid once said to Shakib; "nor for the light free love of an exquisite caprice. Those little flowers that bloom and wither in the blush of dawn are for the little butterflies. The love that endures, give me that. And it must be of the deepest divine strain,—as deep and divine as maternal love. Man is of Eternity, not of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... hands have planted the corn, they begin transplanting the tobacco, which they find a more tedious task, for they can only transfer the slips to the fields when the air is surcharged with moisture and the ground is wet; otherwise the slips will wither on the way or perish in the hill without taking root. But if the weather is favorable they flourish from the hour they are thrust into the ground. It takes the laborers but a short time to plant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the leaves that had begun to wither, held by tendrils that were strained until they could hold no more, the purple chalices swung lazily in the golden light, slowly filling with the garnered sweetness that every moment brought. Night and day the alchemy went on—dust and sun and dreaming, dust and moon and dreaming, while ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... needest to be courted forth from the shelter, and developed under the calm and genial atmosphere of holy, happy love—can such affection as Harley L'Estrange may proffer suffice to thee? Will not the blossoms, yet folded in the petal, wither away beneath the shade that may protect them from the storm, and yet shut them from the sun? Thou who, where thou givest love, seekest, though meekly, for love in return; —to be the soul's sweet necessity, the life's ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... ever wait patiently in the spring for your favorite Japanese rose to bloom and find when the buds were ready to burst that it was scaly and spotted around punctures made by the red rose beetle? Then did you vow once more to destroy the beetles when you saw the roses begin to wither from punctures made by the ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... born in 1588, therefore about the same age as Giles Fletcher, was a very different sort of writer indeed. There could hardly be a greater contrast. Fancy, and all her motley train, were scarcely known to Wither, save by the hearing ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... breath Comes heavy, as clogged with a weight; While, from the pale aspect of nature in death, He turns to the blaze of his grate; And nearer and nearer, his soft-cushioned chair Is wheeled toward the life-giving flame; He dreads a chill puff of the snow-burdened air, Lest it wither his delicate frame; Oh! small is the pleasure existence can give, When the fear we shall die only proves ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... like St. Paul at Lystra, he rose to double his height and towered at his insulter with a sudden Eastern fury that for a moment shook even the iron Meadows. "Be accursed!" he yelled again. "Whatever is the secret wish of your black heart Heaven look on my gray hairs that you have insulted, and wither that wish. Ah, ah!" he screamed, "you wince. All men have secret wishes—Heaven fight against yours. May all the good luck you have be wormwood for want of that—that—-that—that. May you be near it, close to it, upon it, pant for it, and lose it; may it sport, and smile, and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and linen. In which ship he had news of another ship called the Cacafuego, which was gone towards Payta, and that the same ship was laden with treasure. Whereupon we stayed no longer here, but, cutting all the cables of the ships in the haven, we let them drive wither they would, either to sea or to the shore; and with all speed we followed the Cacafuego toward Payta, thinking there to have found her. But before we arrived there she was gone from thence towards Panama; whom our General ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty
... a triumph of it. The Baptist preacher said the evil of meddling in the works of the Almighty was becoming apparent in the increasing severity of the hot wind. Ascalon, for its sins past and its sacrilege of the present, was to writhe and scorch and wither from the face ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... a he-witch or something," chuckled Neil, as he propelled his steed toward the campus. "Maybe he will put a curse upon me and my right foot will wither up and I won't ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of unhewn stone, and therefore thick; for the stones not fitting with exactness, are not strong without great thickness. He had planted a great deal of young wood in walks. Fruit trees do not thrive; but having grown a few years, reach some barren stratum and wither. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... salts of life; but they wither up the grasses of foolishness, and naturally the grasses hate to ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... which rests on the swelling bosom of the Pacific like a water-lily. With a tranquil heaven above our heads, and a sun that keeps his jealous eye upon us every day, whilst his rays are so tempered that they never wither prematurely what they have warmed into life, we ought to be agriculturists in heart as well ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... Tertullian Theobald, Louis Thomson, James Thrale, Mrs Tickell, Thomas Trumbull, John Tuke, Sir Samuel Tusser, Thomas Uhland, John Louis Walcott John (Peter Pindar) Waller, Edmund Warburton, Thomas Watts, Isaac Wither, George Wolfe, Charles Woodsworth, Samuel Wordsworth, William ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... began to droop and wither, and in spite of all that we, or the kind Hudson's Bay officials, who were very much attached to him, could do for him, he seemed almost visibly ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... organization, he may prove mediocre, or even undesirable, in his services. Hiring "stars" away from other employers has proved disastrous so many times that the practice is no longer common. Many a flourishing and fruitful tree has been transplanted, only to wither and die—a tragedy involving the tree itself and both orchards. Measured by every known standard, a man thus enticed away may be close to 100 per cent efficient, but the man is only one ingredient in the compound from which results are expected. To know and to rate his ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... of her devotion should not want richer offerings. There was a hot-house on the way from his home to the cemetery, and he now stopped there occasionally of a morning and bought a few roses to lay upon the mound. This continued for a fortnight. He noticed that his offerings were left to wither undisturbed, though the little bunches of field flowers were daily ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... into a party nowadays, that you don't meet with some shallow, prosing, pestilent ass of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversation; and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the blockhead's composition; but a creature of this calibre you can wither, for it is not worth crushing, by withholding the sunshine of your countenance from it, or by leaving it to drivel on, until the utter contempt of the whole company claps to change the figure—a wet night—cap as ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... say you would rove Where the bud cannot wither; Where Araby's perfumes Each breeze wafteth thither. Where the lute hath no string That can waken a sorrow; Where the soft twilight blends With the dawn of the morrow; Where joy kindles joy, Ere you learn to forget it, And care never comes— Don't you wish ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various |
