"Withering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sung:—but with a frown, Revenge impatient rose: He threw the blood-stained sword in thunder down; And with a withering look The war-denouncing trumpet took And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe! And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And, though sometimes, each dreamy pause ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth, And these like heavenly manna were rained down To feed my hungered soul. His guilt was mine. What angel had been sent to stay mine arm Until the fateful moment passed away That would have ushered an eternity Of withering remorse? I found the germs In mine own heart of every human sin, That waited but occasion's tempting breath To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life. What God thus far had saved me from myself? Here was the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... into the heavenly peace of dewy palms, and held to parched lips the sparkling draught a glimpse of which electrified her. Would starvation entitle her to drink? Over the head of pleading love stretched the arm of stony-eyed duty, striking into the dust the crystal drops, withering the palms; and following her stern beckon, the thirsty pilgrim re-trod the sands of surrender, more intolerable than before, because the oasis was still in sight. Duty! Rugged incorruptible Spartan dame, whose inflexible mandate is ever: "With your ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... many months before that, but the white dust still hung in the creases of the miller's clothes. He wore his Sunday hat and the Sunday polish on his shoes; and his wife was arrayed in her best Paisley shawl. She carried also a bunch of cottage flowers, withering in her large hot hand. It was clear they had never seen a locomotive before, and wished to show it all respect. They had taken a smaller house in the next valley, where they attempted to live on their savings; and had been trying vainly and ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... his father with a withering contempt, which could not quite hide his perturbation. "It's a fine pack ye meet every night in the Glen! Their only thought is to hear or tell some new thing, let it be false or true! Ye canna' even keep yer ill tongues aff a meenister ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... me to assure you, mademoiselle"—Lady Henry rose from her seat, leaning on her stick; surely no old face was ever more formidable, more withering—"that whatever ambitions you may cherish, Jacob Delafield is not altogether the simpleton you imagine. I know him better than you. He will take some time before he really makes up his mind to marry a woman of your disposition—and ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with the obscure sound; was dark with sullen fermenting of storms that had been gathering for a hundred and thirty years. The battle of Agincourt in Joanna's childhood had reopened the wounds of France. Crcy and Poictiers, those withering overthrows for the chivalry of France, had, before Agincourt occurred, been tranquilised by more than half a century; but this resurrection of their trumpet wails made the whole series of battles and endless skirmishes take their stations as parts in one drama. The graves that had closed sixty years ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... stretched towards him while awaiting his reply fell powerless by his side; his head sank forward; it seemed as if horror and despair had unstrung every nerve and sinew; he appeared to collapse and shrink together as a plant might under the influence of a withering spell. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... advanced at a rapid pace. The dragoons, drawing their sabres, rode on at full trot to charge the Highlanders. With the steadiness of old soldiers, the clans came on in their ranks, till within ten yards of the enemy. Then Lord George gave the signal by presenting his own piece, and at once a withering volley broke the ranks of the dragoons. About 400 fell under this deadly fire and the rest fled, fled as wildly and ingloriously as their fellows had done at Coltbridge or Prestonpans. A wild storm of rain dashing straight in their faces during the attack added to the confusion and helplessness ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... this house had stood pleasantly amid fields on the northern side of Manchester; its shrubs had been luxuriant, its roses unstained. Now on every side new houses in oblong gardens had sprung up, and the hideous smoke plague of Manchester had descended on the whole district, withering and destroying. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... miles of the fences warped and dyed With the white-hot noons and their withering fires, Where the rough bees trample the creamy bosoms Of the hanging tufts of the elder blossoms, And the spiders weave, and the grey snakes hide, In the crannied gloom of the stones and ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... witness—turned and rent Mr. Chamberlain as first false to his colleagues and then false to Parnell himself—to those who remembered that deadly pallor that made even more ghastly the ordinarily pale cheek of Mr. Chamberlain beneath this withering attack—to those, I say, who remembered all this, nothing could be more grotesque than Mr. Chamberlain shedding a pious tear over ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... landscape creation, and, reading the records she has carved on the rocks, reconstruct, however imperfectly, the landscapes of the past, we also learn that as these we now behold have succeeded those of the pre-glacial age, so they in turn are withering and vanishing to be succeeded by ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... dost thou not hear The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?" "Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives; 'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves." ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... settled corroding anguish in his bosom that neither could be soothed "by silence nor by speaking." A devouring melancholy preyed upon his heart, and seemed to be drying up the very blood in his veins. It was not a soft melancholy—the disease of the affections; but a parching, withering agony. I could see at times that his mouth was dry and feverish; he almost panted rather than breathed; his eyes were bloodshot; his cheeks pale and livid; with now and then faint streaks athwart them—baleful gleams of the fire that was consuming his heart. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... had been reclining on the lounge, partially raised herself and gave Mrs. Stevens a withering look. "I presume, madam," said she, in a hurried and agitated tone, "that you are very ignorant of the people upon whom you have just been heaping such unmerited abuse, and therefore I shall not think so hardly of you as I should, did I deem ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... on the Palomar. June had cast its withering smile upon the San Gregorio and the green hills had turned to a parched brown. Grasshoppers whirred everywhere; squirrels whistled; occasional little dust-devils whirled up the now thoroughly dry river-bed and the atmosphere ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... looked, behold flowers, green garlands, hangings, pennons, and banners; it was as though all the gardens in Franconia had been stripped of their blossoms. Never had such a brave show been seen, and with every breath we drank in the odors of the leaves and flowers which were already withering in the July sunshine. A finer Saint Pantaloon's day I never remember; the very sky seemed to share the city's gladness and was fair to see, in spotless blue. A light wind assuaged the waxing heat, and helped the flags and banners to unfurl: Our fine churches were decked all ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the difficulties—mud, disease, prejudice, famine—through which the writer brought her charge triumphantly to safety, and you will be inclined, with me, to throw your critical cap into the air and thank Heaven for such women of our race, which would be to invite, not unsuccessfully, some withering snub from the very lady you were endeavouring to praise. But that can't be helped. Meantime of her exploit and the book that recounts it I can sum up my verdict in the only Serbian that I have gleaned from its pages—Dobro, Dobro! For a translation of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... began at last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my passage; above all, in humble neighbourhoods. "Who's that?" one would ask, and the other would cry, "That! Why, Dromedary Dodd!" or, with withering scorn, "Not know Mr. Dodd of the Picnics? Well!" and indeed I think it marked a rather barren destiny; for our picnics, if a trifle vulgar, were as gay and innocent as the age of gold; I am sure no people ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... origin. If the moon had an atmosphere, we should, no doubt, see a greater display; but, having no rotating vortex to protect her from the radial stream, her atmosphere must have been long since stripped off, leaving her exposed to the withering winter blast of the great stream of the solar vortex. In this connection, we may also allude to the appearance of the moon when totally eclipsed. Instead of disappearing at these times, she sometimes shines bright enough to reveal her smallest spots. This has been generally referred to the ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... without regard to abilities or fitness. There was not indeed the tyranny of Spain or Naples or Austria; but everything indicated a movement toward it. Those six years which comprised the reign of Charles X. were a period of reaction,—a return to the Middle Ages in both State and Church, a withering blast on all noble aspirations. Even the prime minister Villele, a legitimatist and an ultra-royalist, was too liberal for the king; and he was dismissed to make room for Martignac, and he again for Polignac, who had neither foresight nor prudence nor ability. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... evil is extremely limited. The very opposite is the ordinary estimate. When we mark the career of a conqueror like Napoleon, or the withering effects of an organization like that of Rome, and compare these with the feeble results of a preacher like Savonarola, whose body the fire reduced to ashes, and whose disciples persecution speedily scattered, we say that man's power to destroy his species is almost omnipotent,—his ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... word? A word that is merited, positive, withering, it is agreed. But why? It is still but a word. Can you kill a ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... array Veiling her Rizpah-misery, to the gate Comes, and with gold and moving speech sedate Buys down the thing aloft, and bears away Snatch'd from the withering wind and ravens' prey: And as a mother's eyes, joy-soften'd, shed Tears o'er her young child's head, Golden and sweet, from evil saved; so she O'er this, sad-smilingly, Mangled and gray, unwarm'd by human breath, Clasping death's relic with love ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... speak but folded her arms and looked at her "friend." Mrs. Toomey had the physical sensation of shrivelling: as though she were standing naked before the withering heat of ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... in winter, but the spring has all the seasons before. The full-blown rose is nearer withering than the bud. The faint morn is a blossom: ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... replied that a fortune which depended on ropes was not very desirable. Can there be any doubt that whatever may be lost cannot be properly classed in the number of those things which complete a happy life? for of all that constitutes a happy life, nothing will admit of withering, or growing old, or wearing out, or decaying; for whoever is apprehensive of any loss of these things cannot be happy: the happy man should be safe, well fenced, well fortified, out of the reach of all annoyance, not like a man under trifling apprehensions, but free from all such. As he is not called ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to realize such solemn things, and should endeavour to catch all the dew of life that glistens within your reach; for the withering heat of the noon will come soon enough to even the most favoured. An erroneous impression has too long prevailed, that religious fervour, and a cheerful, hopeful, happy spirit are incompatible; that devoutness ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... cleverness and conventional good-temper is more withering to the soul of the artist than the blindest bigotry which has the recklessness of ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... sullen, morose, and bloated features. The cardinal took no notice of the clamour around him, but now and then, when an expression of dislike was uttered against him, for he had already begun to be unpopular with the people, he would raise his eyes and direct a withering glance at the hardy speaker. But these expressions were few, for, though tottering, Wolsey was yet too formidable to be insulted with impunity. On either side of him were two mounted attend ants, each caring a gilt poleaxe, who, if he had given the word, would have instantly chastised ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... prevailing weed all the way to the lake,—the road-side in many places, and fields not long cleared, being densely filled with it as with a crop, to the exclusion of everything else. There were also whole fields full of ferns, now rusty and withering, which in older countries are commonly confined to wet ground. There were very few flowers, even allowing for the lateness of the season. It chanced that I saw no asters in bloom along the road for fifty miles, though they were so abundant then in Massachusetts,—except in one place one or two ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... forbade the exportation of corn, inasmuch that to collect the required million of measures, it destroyed, in all probability, a hundred millions, and ruined about ten thousand cultivators. This barbarous system partly ended in 1838, but it will be long before its withering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... place; the Northern decidedly the most scientific, or at least involving the greatest display of science, the Italian the calmest and purest, this having in it the sublimity of a calm heaven or a windless noon, the other that of a mountain flank tormented by the north wind, and withering into grisly furrows of alternate chasm ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to sacrifice our moral manhood; this frown of the world, whose terrors are more awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of light within the souls of us? Consider the triviality of life and conversation and purpose, in the bulk of those whose approval is held out for our prize and the mark of our high calling. Measure, if you can, the empire over them of prejudice unadulterated ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... a machine gun and Fielding and Polasky each had a Banning in action. They met the Rumi charge with a withering hail of lead and fire. The Narakans lying as flat as their huge chests would allow them were firing as fast as the automatic rifles would fire. The Bannings swept the line of charging figures. As the beams paused for a moment, the charge would take ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith
... soul's departed, A bliss from my heart is flown, As weary, weary-hearted, I wander alone—alone! The night wind sadly sigheth A withering, wild refrain, And my heart within me dieth For the light ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Judith's thin bay mare with a withering glance. "That thing! Looks like the coyotes had ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... With lingering love, and sighing bid farewell To the dim pictures of his parting spell! 20 No, BURKE! thy heart, by juster feelings led, Mourns for the spirit of high Honour fled; Mourns that Philosophy, abstract and cold, Withering should smite life's fancy-flowered mould; And many a smiling sympathy depart, That graced the sternness of the manly heart. Nor shall the wise and virtuous scan severe These fair illusions, ev'n to nature dear. Though now no more proud Chivalry recalls Her tourneys ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... rock overhanging the tarn—my special throne—lay some withering wild-flowers and a book! I looked up and down, right and left: there was not the slightest sign of another human life than mine. Then I lay down for a quarter of an hour, and listened: there were only ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... appears," she said, in the old withering tone that they were learning to forget. "Of course, here nothing matters; one may as well be a savage as an elegante in the wilderness; but I should be sorry to meet ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... du haut en bas, because, in criticising Biot's opinion he had shown some ignorance of astronomy, Isaid, from a kind of fellow-feeling: "Weber's Essays are very creditable to the author, and hardly deserved the withering contempt with which they were treated by Biot. Idiffer from nearly all the conclusions at which Professor Weber arrives, but I admire his great diligence in collecting the necessary evidence." Upon this the American gentleman reads me the following ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... all; the infant in its innocence; childhood in its playfulness; youth in its beauty; manhood in his usefulness, and old age in its decrepitude. All, all fall alike before the withering ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to the clover-field, Joseph sinking down in the midst when about half-way, like an individual withering in a world which was more and more insupportable. Having once received the stimulus that her presence always gave them they went round among the sheep with a will. The majority of the afflicted ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... dingy platforms, the metal track which contracts into the murk is the road to China, though that is, perhaps, the last place you would guess to be at the end of it. The train runs over a wilderness of tiles, a grey plateau of bare slate and rock, its expanse cracked and scored as though by a withering heat. Nothing grows there; nothing could live there. Smoke still pours from it, as though it were volcanic, from numberless vents. The region is without sap. Above its expanse project superior fumaroles, their drifting vapours dissolving great areas. ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... withering glance. He felt inclined to catch hold of that provoking curl that bobbed so impertinently in his direction as she tossed her head, and give it a good ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... not His, into contact with Him, they shrivel and wither like the dying leaves. The impulses and the shrinkings of the flesh perish in His Presence alike. The new life wrecks the old. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live"—that is what the withering leaves say. We are "saved ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... the dark array of spiritual foes who throng around his bed. Point a pitying finger to the yawning abyss of shame, ruin, and despair that even now perhaps is being cleft under his feet. Show him the garlands of the present and the past, withering at the touch of the Erinnys in the future. In pity, in pity show him the canker which he is introducing into the sap of the tree of life, which shall cause its root to be hereafter as bitterness, and its blossom ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... machine-guns were captured by our troops, who used them with deadly effect upon the then retiring foe. All the objectives were obtained with clock-like precision. Again and again the victorious troops were subjected to withering counter-attacks, and shells fell around them like hail. There was no faltering. They held the recovered ground in the face of a merciless tornado of steel ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... Rhode Island, who had a snowy head and a Roman nose, was called "the bald eagle of the House." Although under fifty years of age, his white hair and bent form gave him a patriarchal look and added to the effect of his fervid eloquence and his withering sarcasm. A man of iron heart, he was ever anxious to meet his antagonists, haughty in his rude self-confidence, and exhaustive in the use of every expletive of abuse permitted by parliamentary usage. In debate he resembled one of the old soldiers who fought ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... years restore, Or on the withering limbs fresh beauty shed, Or soothe the sad inevitable hour, Or cheer the dark, dark ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... fell away, and all the running made from Ministerial Benches. SHAW-LEFEVRE roasted mercilessly. House roared at SAUNDERSON's description of his going to interview SULTAN, and being shown into stable to make acquaintance of SULTAN's horse. Prince ARTHUR turned on unhappy man full blast of withering scorn. Don't know whether SHAW-LEFEVRE felt it; some men rather be kicked than not noticed at all; but Liberals felt they had been drawn into ridiculous position, and murmured bad words. "What's the use," they ask, "of winning Hartlepool out of doors, if ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... Small, the accomplished physician, chemist and mechanist; Josiah Wedgwood, the practical philosopher and manufacturer, founder of a new and important branch of skilled industry; Thomas Day, the ingenious author of "Sandford and Merton"; Dr. Darwin, the poet-physician; Dr. Withering, the botanist; besides others who afterward joined the Soho circle, not the least distinguished of whom were Joseph Priestley and ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... also died, withering away a sacrifice to what the world has called Swift's cruel heartlessness and egotism. His greatest public triumphs came to him in his final years of melancholy isolation; but in spite of the applause ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... syllable of that fervent prayer, reef, and come home to her? Then I need not have written this history, and all would have been well in Dreamland. But he didn't. He heard nothing but the sibilant waters as they rushed under his keel: he thought of nothing but the rose that was withering in the secret locker of his cabin, and of the wound in his heart that was gaping and as fresh as ever. So the night-winds hurried him onward, and the darkness absorbed the outlines of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... can do to further it, I shall do,' she determined, and at that moment died away the last fast-withering remains of jealousy in her heart that the Harpers might in any way replace ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Doubtless the All-wise did not afflict him without a cause. Who knows but within that unhappy frame lurked vicious seeds which the sunbeams of joy and prosperity might have called into life and vigour? Perhaps the withering blasts of misery nipped that which otherwise might have terminated in fruit noxious and lamentable. But peace to the unhappy one, he is gone to his rest; the deathlike face is no longer occasionally seen timidly and mournfully ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Don Pepe is not above the middle height. He is a fairly developed man, but looks thin and worn, and his shoulders have the stoop of age, which scholars mostly anticipate. His face is much corrugated, but it bears the traces of vivacious thought and emotion, not the withering print of passion. Of his eyes I have already spoken; they are wise, kind, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... day the sun, with a lurid glare spread far and wide over the cloudless sky, rises above the arid plains, drawing up every particle of moisture, and withering with the intense heat of his rays every blade of grass and green leaf, till it seems as if the whole region were doomed to eternal desolation. At length, however, a wonderful change takes place ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... Keswick itself, Applethwaite, Skiddaw, St. Herbert's Island, Lodore, are commemorated in sonnets or inscriptions. And the Borrowdale yew-trees have inspired some of the poet's noblest lines,—lines breathing all the strange forlornness of Glaramara's solitude, and the withering vault ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... the landing boats, subjected to the terrible fire of the Turkish guns, were having a bad time. The towing ropes of three of them were cut by the fire and the boats drifted helplessly about under the withering rain of bullets that rapidly wiped out their cargoes of men. But despite these mishaps the First and Second Brigades were hurried ashore to support the Third. Soon, in the face of terrible difficulties including the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... buttons and patches on my tattered uniform, for steering me clear of the camp followers; but more than all for the cheery words of solace for those 'gone West,' for the blessed face of a woman from the homeland in the midst of withering blight and desolation—for these I am indebted to the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... her fate. The robin perched upon her shoulder, and almost before she knew he was there he put the berry between her lips, and the taste was so delicious that Rosaleen ate it at once, and that very moment the witch's withering spell passed away from her, and she became as lovely as the flower of beauty. Just then the warriors on the snow-white steeds came up, and the chief with the mantle of yellow silk and the golden helmet leaped from his horse, and bending his knee ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... barked viciously, and the deadly rifles wielded by Bert and the stage driver made havoc in the ranks of the attacking braves. Sam, the guard, wielded his heavy Colts with the skill and sure aim of a veteran, and the Indians broke ranks under the withering hail of bullets. They wheeled their horses off to either side of the stoutly defended fortification and galloped out of range, leaving a number of still figures ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... I'll repine at death no more, But with a cheerful gasp resign To the cold dungeon of the grave These dying, withering limbs of mine. ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... inexhaustible fund of sweet, graceful, and pathetic fancies, with delicate, lofty, and noble sentiments, and therefore that he resolved to shut it up in his heart, so as to preserve its freshness amid the withering atmosphere of the world; and in order to draw thence those exquisite images that so often shed ineffable grace and tenderness over his poems. It may, then, be said that, by maintaining alive in his mind scenes passed at ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... a withering reply, And vanity I always do my best to mortify; A charitable action I can skilfully dissect; And interested motives I'm delighted to detect. I know everybody's income and what everybody earns, And I carefully compare it with the ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... of the postman while Persis was busy with a fitting, gave Joel time to examine the mail and frame a withering denunciation of Mrs. Warren's plan. He sprung the same upon his sister with pyrotechnic effect ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... an effigy, the hideous face of a fantasy of smoke against the night sky, with a formless hand lifted from among the delicate laces in farewell. There was no death—the horror was that there was no death. Only this curse of age drying and withering at the bones. ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... returned the Secretary, with withering reproof, "does not expect us to crawl over the roofs of houses and spy down chimneys to see if by any chance an American citizen ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... himself, who was only in his forties, had already noticed, here and there, gray hairs among his black ones. Tiredness was written on Kamala's beautiful face, tiredness from walking a long path, which has no happy destination, tiredness and the beginning of withering, and concealed, still unsaid, perhaps not even conscious anxiety: fear of old age, fear of the autumn, fear of having to die. With a sigh, he had bid his farewell to her, the soul full of reluctance, and full of ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but, oh, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager, Long withering out ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... of the spirit of righteousness and virile morality therefrom; and in such denunciations the Pharisees are often coupled with the scribes. The judgment of the Christ upon them is sufficiently expressed by His withering imprecation: "Woe unto you, ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... arrived. It was no longer an individual struggle, but a party contest between the ins and outs. The question was, whether the withering influence of the overseers, the domination of the churchwardens, and the blighting despotism of the vestry-clerk, should be allowed to render the election of beadle a form—a nullity: whether they should impose a vestry-elected ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... grandest results of its extinction, next to the justice due the oppressed people of color, the emancipation of the white women of that fair land, all of them, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, from an influence too withering and deadly for language to depict. Oh, when shall that scapegoat, slavery, with its failures and losses and shortcomings, its frauds and sins and woes, be sent off into the wilderness of non-existence, to be heard from ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thereupon offered himself, at the suggestion of his wife, who seemed to be the chief partner in the firm, and we were glad to accept his offer; while the incapacitated man whom we had rejected acquiesced in the new arrangement with a bow so little withering, and with such genuine politeness, that, in spite of his over-much wine, he won my heart. The landlord himself did not profess to know the glacieres; but he knew the man who lived nearest to them, and proposed to lead us ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... a somewhat withering glance at his sister, stepped confidently up to the big bed, raised himself on tiptoe, so as to secure a better view, and looked down with his chubby expectant face on ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... staggered with sleep where they stood. Others had not strength to stand and sank, muttering prayers, to their knees. The Iroquois were adopting new tactics. They could not reach the palisades in the face of the withering fire from the musketoon, so they constructed a movable palisade of trees, behind which marched the entire band of warriors. In vain Dollard's marksmen aimed their bullets at the front carriers. Where one fell another stepped in his place. Desperate, Dollard resolved on a ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... address to the people of Upper Canada, General Brock answered the proclamation of General Hull, repelling and exposing with overwhelming power his misstatements, and answering with withering sarcasm General Hull's attack upon the Indians, and the "barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain" in recognizing the Indians as allies and fellow-subjects, and their right to defend their homes and liberties ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... appear to be supreme. We have had ample evidence to-night of their apparent vitality. But underneath them is growing up the sturdy plant of science. Already it has dislodged their roots; and though they still seem to bear flower, the flower is withering before our eyes. In its place, before long, will appear the new and splendid blossom whose appearance ends and begins an epoch of evolution. That is a consummation nothing can delay. We need not fret or hurry. ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... his friend, glancing at him. "If he had been a countryman of mine there would have been less marvel. But here is none of the sadness of decay none of the withering if the tokens of old age are seen at all it is in the majestic honours that crown a glorious life the graces of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always dinning decay and death into one's ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... silently laid two of the biggest apples that ever grew in the laps of Mrs. Williams and Miselle. Putting aside all acknowledgments with "Ho! what's an apple or two?" the woodsman next proceeded on a tour of inspection round the room, serenely unconscious of the magnificent scorn withering him from the eyes of the jewelled lady, who now reclined upon a broken-backed sofa, taking a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... British front extended some distance west of the railroad. Here a rising ground, parallel to the river course, concealed the troops in their advance until its summit was reached, but there the same withering fire checked them. About 2 in the afternoon, however, two companies of light infantry succeeded by a rush in carrying the farm-house in front of the Boer lines, and almost at the same moment another detachment dislodged the enemy from the advanced kopjes ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... put at his hand the lulling, inspiring draught. Did this fellah servant know what it meant—the sin of it, the temptation, the terrible joy, the blessed quiet; and then, the agonising remorse, the withering self-hatred and torturing penitence? No, Mahommed only knew that when the Saadat was gone beyond his strength, when the sleepless nights and feverish days came in the past, in their great troubles, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... maligners, for Plato has been largely responsible for the hue and cry against the poet throughout the last two millennia. Various as are the counts against the poet's conduct, they may all be included under the declaration in the Republic, "Poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of withering and starving them; she lets them rule instead of ruling them." [Footnote: Book ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... indulgent to him—a posing, affected prig, always talking about the wonderful things he's going to write! He had the impudence to tell me I didn't know the most elementary laws of the sonnet this morning! Withering repartee seems to have no effect whatever on him, I wish I had some of PODBURY's faculty for flippant chaff! I wonder if he and the PRENDERGASTS really are at Milan. I certainly thought I recognised ——. If they are, it's very bad taste of them, after ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... grow thin and white, their delicate nerves lose tone and tension, their brains become feeble and flabby, their minds flutter out weakly in muslin and ribbons, their vanity kindled by injudicious admiration, the sweet child—unconsciousness withering away in the glare of indiscriminate gazing, the innocence and simplicity and naturalness and child-likeness swallowed up in a seething whirlpool of artificialness, all the fine, golden butterfly-dust of modesty and delicacy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... rushed to my face, and with a withering glance and an indignant apostrophe I left them. Lord Pembroke's servant took me to a magistrate who, having heard my statement on oath, gave me a paper authorizing me to arrest two counts. I gave the document to an alderman, who said he would see ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... needing nothing more to tell him who had been the prime mover in the day's outrage, and the base motive that had led to its perpetration, he turned abruptly upon Black Thunder, where sullen and lowering, his giantship stood with folded arms apart from the rest, and flung at him a rebuke so withering in its scorn, so burning in its generous indignation, that the big barbarian quailed from before it, daunted and abashed. Then, without further ado, the chief went, and cutting the thongs of buffalo-hide which bound the captive to the tree, set him at liberty, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... we witnessed a pathetic ceremony. There had been no rain for several weeks. The kao-liang was withering and the farmers could not plant their beans on the ground from which the winter wheat had been cut. The people had become alarmed as the drought continued, and they were parading the streets bearing banners, wearing chaplets of withered leaves ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... visitation did not stop here. Death rarely lays his withering hand upon one household flower without touching another, and causing it to droop, wither, and fall to the ground. So it was in this case. William, the manly, intelligent, promising boy, upon whom the father had ever looked with love and pride so evenly ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... withering glance at Beverly, the teachers, and all concerned, Miss Woodhull remarked scathingly: "If you were capable of such expedition in worthier causes you would lead the school," and glancing neither to the right nor ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... brushwood on which cracked and snapped as we walked through it, with a brittle dryness that testified how perfectly parched-up was everything. A single spark would instantly have wrapped the whole face of the country in one sheet of fire. Slight blasts of heated withering air, as if from an oven, would occasionally strike the face as we walked along; sometimes they were loaded with those peculiar and most agreeable odours that arise from different kinds of gums. Still the white eucalyptus and the palm, wore ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... the Aldrigger family. The lawyer Desroches also considered asking the hand of Malvina, but he too gave up the idea. The young girl was counseled by Eugene de Rastignac, who took it upon himself to see that she got married. Nevertheless, she ended by being an old maid, withering day by day, giving piano lessons, living rather meagrely with her mother in a modest flat on the third floor, in the rue du Mont-Thabor. [The Firm ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... vociferous, that in my momentary anger I prayed some one might burst a blood-vessel, and frighten the rest. I put on a look of indescribable indignation, and cast a glance of what I intended should be most withering scorn on the assembly; but alas! my infernal harlequin costume ruined the effect; and confound me, if they did not laugh the louder. I turned from one to the other with the air of a man who marks out victims for his future wrath; but with no better ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... yet by the sighs of travellers separated from their wives. And the yellow mud dried and cracked, as if the lakes were broken-hearted at the loss of their lotuses. And the trees, filled with chirping birds, seemed to lament the absence of the spring, and their withering leaves seemed like lips that grow dry ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... Tom, as the rebels quaked before the withering storm of shot belched forth by the guns of the battery. "They shake! ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... waste our short opportunities for enjoyment! Soon youth will have slipped away, and we shall be too old for love. Roses fade fastest, Arthur, when the sun is bright; in the evening when they have fallen, and the ground is red with withering petals, do you not think we shall wish ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well, sugar is a salt. All salts are withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts; it sucks the liquids of the blood through the veins; hence the coagulation, and then the solidification of the blood; hence tubercles in the lungs, hence death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption. Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... higher than earth's highest towering mountain, lying serene in its sunny wooded fairness. Ever and always the trees are hung with fruits, and never comes the withering of the leaf. No foes may enter that land, and there is no weeping nor any sorrow, nor losing of life, nor sin, nor strife, nor age, nor care, nor poverty. When the Flood covered the earth, this Paradise was shielded from the rush of angry waters, happy through God's grace ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... anything of this nature. But beyond a doubt it is the humid saline atmosphere of this section which makes the cultivation of this vegetable a success. Protracted drouths are here almost unknown, and even during the temporary absence of rain in the summer months the air does not seem so dry and withering, so to speak, as in sections more remote from the ocean, the Sound and the great salt water bays by which we are surrounded." The varieties he mentions are Early Erfurt and Early Paris for the first crop, the Nonpareil and [or] Half Early ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... side to side his burning thunder shook: Now here, now there, the scattering lightnings broke, And the wide vallies flamed, and glowed with sulphurous smoke: Contagious terror roll'd from plain to plain; Cold Anio trembled in his watery reign; And dazzled by the withering flames, o'eraw'd, The chief shrunk back, and ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... about the Primula. I see that I was pretty right about the ovules. I have been thinking that the apparent opening at the chalaza end must have been withering or perhaps gnawing by some very minute insects, as the ovarium is open at the upper end. If I have time I will have another look at pollen-tubes, as, from what you say, they ought to find their way to the micropyle. But ovules to me are far more troublesome to dissect ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... kind of summer we had in Naples in 1884. The newspapers of all lands teemed with the story of its horrors. The cholera walked abroad like a destroying demon; under its withering touch scores of people, young and old, dropped down in the streets to die. The fell disease, born of dirt and criminal neglect of sanitary precautions, gained on the city with awful rapidity, and worse even than the plague was the unreasoning but universal ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... condescending kindness of my Saviour, that he should so gently and mercifully "heal my backslidings and love me freely." I think my chief desire is to be preserved alive in the truth, and growing in the truth; but sometimes, through unwatchfulness, such a withering comes upon me, I lose all sense of good for days together, and this nether world is all I seek pleasure in. Then there is but a cold, cheerless, condemning feeling, when I look towards my Father's house; but when all life seems gone, and I am ready to conclude that I have suffered so ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... is even colder than it was, stronger and more withering now that the sun's faint warmth is withdrawn, and that the small and chilly stars possess the sky. Nevertheless, both the school-room windows are open. We are all huddled shivering round the hearth, yet no one talks of closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... me; when I must dismay the army, which already looks sadly, as pitying both me and itself in this comfortless action; when I must encourage the rebels, who doubtless will think it time to hew upon a withering tree, whose leaves they see beaten down, and the branches in part cut off; when I must disable myself for ever in the course of this service, the world now perceiving that I want either reason to judge of merit, or freedom to right it, disgraces being there heaped where, in my opinion, rewards are ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground: Another race the following spring supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise. So generations in their course decay, So flourish these, when those have ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... a tender passion which preyed upon his peace, and deeply disturbed his repose. He looked anxiously to the hour when Melissa was to make her decision. He wished, yet dreaded the event. In that he foresaw, or thought he foresaw, a withering blight to his budding hopes, and a final consummation to his foreboding fears. He had pressed Melissa, perhaps too urgently, to a declaration.—Had her predilection been in his favour, would she have ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... swore horribly when the news was brought us from Piacenza, whilst I felt my heart sink and the last hope of Bianca—the hope secretly entertained almost against hope itself—withering in ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... aunt remarked that I looked like a "monk" father eyed me thoughtfully, saying: "Perhaps there is something to Darwin's theory after all," but mother took me to her arms, withering her sister with scornful glances of her flashing eyes. "Certainly does he look like a monk, the poor little tiddledee-diddy darling," she said; "what else would you expect of him, being the son of a preacher and a ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... thrown back, and bearing a huge silver tray. On it were a decanter, two little queer-shaped glasses, and a plate of very thin seed cakes. He deposited this on a spindle-legged table, which he drew up in front of his mistress, and, with another glance, which he intended to be very withering, cast upon Rachel, but which she didn't see at ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... principles which had withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the most valuable truths, the most generous sentiments, the noblest and most graceful images, the purest reputations, the most august institutions, began to look mean and loathsome as soon as that withering smile was turned upon them. To every opponent, however strong in his cause and his talents, in his station and his character, who ventured to encounter the great scoffer, might be addressed the caution which was given of old ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... their minds. They noted the crude colour of the Brussels carpet, and even the oilcloth around the toilette-table was remembered. They saw that the round table was covered with a red tablecloth, and that writing materials were there, a pair of stays, a pair of tan gloves, and some withering flowers. They saw the ball-dress that Lady Helen had worn thrown over the arm-chair; the silk stockings, the satin shoes—and a gleam of sunlight that found its way between the blinds fell upon a piece of white petticoat. Lady Helen lay in the bed, thrown ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... some hidin' horse thief or retired road agent," said Mosby, "we might as well invite the hull of Joaquin Murietta's gang here at once! But I suppose this is part o' Bulger's particular 'business,'" he added, with a withering glance at Briggs. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... sufferings remorse is the worst. Hence, where a wiser man might have repented, he rushed into dissipation, whose scorching wind swept away not only the healing dews of his sorrow, but the tender buds of new life that had begun to mottle the withering tree of his nature. The desire after better things which had, under his wife's genial influence, begun to pass into effort, not only vanished utterly in the shameless round of evil distraction, but its memory became a mockery to the cynical ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... angry over their losses, but their wise leader saw that he must give them a breathing-spell. No troops in the world could stand a fire so withering as that which came from the repeating-rifles of the desperadoes. Quite as many ponies as men had gone down, and their morning's plunder had already cost them more than it was worth. Therefore it must not be permitted to ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... first, and softer afterwards. This will be an improvement upon my old reading of the part. She must be always merry and by turns scornful, tormenting, vexed, self-communing, absent, melting, teasing, brilliant, indignant, sad-merry, thoughtful, withering, gentle, humorous, and gay, Gay, Gay! Protecting (to Hero), motherly, very intellectual—a gallant creature and complete ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... he looked at the apricot-tree, whose branches were now dead and withering; and so did Tom. Both the boys agreed that it had better be cut down, ...
— The Apricot Tree • Unknown
... man—as proud as the Merchant of Venice—and in his veins there ran a strain of the blue blood of the Castilian Jew. Too much success is most unfortunate. Heinrich Schopenhauer was proud, unbending, harsh, arbitrary, wore a full beard and a withering smile, and looked upon musicians, painters, sculptors and writers as court clowns, to be trusted only as far as you could fling Taurus by the tail. All good bookkeepers have, even yet, this pitying contempt ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Now withering—those gray Russian lines. They diminished, gave way, a thin ghostly pattern of the whole, falling back. An Austrian sortie of yellow-brown men to finish ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... retreat from the outer storm and stress, a sanctuary where love feeds the flame upon the domestic altar. There, the atmosphere, like that of St. Peter's Church, never changes. It refreshes when the breath of the world is a simoon, withering heart and strength. When the winds of adversity are bleak, the shivering wanderer returns to the fold, "curtained and closed and warm—" to gather force for ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... nectarine or apple on a tree stung in a single day; and in South Jersey the curculio has proved victorious in the struggle with man. Every year we see these trees white with blossoms, and as regularly every specimen of the fruit bearing the plague-spot—a tiny crescent-shaped wound in the cuticle—withering, fading and falling. We painfully gather up this fallen fruit by the bushel, burn it to destroy the grub of the curculio, and, hoping against hope, witness the same ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... astonished our foes. Still they continued to assail us with their missiles, both from fire-arms and bows; and with remarkable courage they again rushed on to the assault. We let them approach until they were close up to the stockade, when we once more opened so withering a fire that few made the attempt to climb up, and those who did quickly dropped down, either with cloven heads or hands well-nigh chopped off. The whole force, apparently seeing that they had no chance of getting into the fort, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... gnawing stomach has long ago eaten every smile from his face and every muscle from his body. See his appetite return, and with it his health; see the new man. See her that was radiant with health and loveliness bloated and too early withering away; want of exercise or mental anguish, or some lurking disease has deranged the internal organs of digestion, assimilation, or secretion till they do their ill. Her blood is vitiated, her health is gone. Give her these PILLS to stimulate the vital principle into ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sheathing flow, and into which one gazed, half expecting to see so ideal a depth peopled by something other than the long ribbons of the weed streaming out on the slow current—the only cool sight, albeit, beneath the withering heat of the day across all that shining extent. Far down the shores, on the right, a line of low sand-hills rose, protecting the placid harbor from sea and storm with the bulwark of their dunes, whose yellow drifts were ranged by ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... family—that the same bloody deed might be acted over at any time, and in any place—that the materials for it were spread through the land, and were always ready for a like explosion. Nothing but the force of this withering apprehension, nothing but the paralyzing and deadening weight with which it falls upon and prostrates the heart of every man who has helpless dependants to protect, nothing but this could have thrown a brave people into consternation, or could have made ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... unprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the opposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing infinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The learned gentleman who does the withering business and who blights all opponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a French watering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the smallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. The very learned gentleman ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... through the withering cold and powdery snow moved the black figure of despair tottering slowly away from the sound of rifles which grew fainter at each step. He chattered and mumbled, half to himself, half to the unseen influences of nature, while the child moaned weakly under his clutched robe. When he could but ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... If it goes on, my aunt will have an administration as important as that of a European state. Oh! you are happy here, you people; you are busy. I amuse myself! And if you knew how it wearies me! I am withering, consuming myself, I am ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... upon his narrow bed, instinctively following the patch of yellow sunlight as it gilded the gloom, he felt that the maniac next door had the better part. Of what use was reason when it ceased to function except in terms of withering unbelief? ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Bumpus in a tone of withering sarcasm. "So, Mister Gascoyne, ye've got sich an oncommon cargo o' conceit in ye yet, that you actually think ye could go back without so much as ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... perfect art that could have retained for this novel readers in every quarter of the world. The denouement is as perfect as with such materials it can be; and we feel that, instead of Voltaire's withering and satiric contempt of all humanity, an element of unfeigned good-humor lies in the background of the picture. How far inferior is Swift! and how utterly horrible is the abandoned humor of a despair that leaves all ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... curse the fig-tree? It was not in the least to blame; and it seems most unreasonable to have expected it to bear figs out of season. Instead of withering it away, it would have been as great a miracle, and far more beautiful, and, one would think, of more beneficent influence, to have made it suddenly rich with ripe fruit. Then, to be sure, it might ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the extreme end of the room had not suddenly opened, and given entrance to the provost in person. At his entrance Master Florian did not stop short, but, making a half-turn on his heels, and aiming at the provost the harangue with which he had been withering ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... were writing fiction I might go on almost indefinitely with the story of Anna; but in real life stories have a curious way of coming to quick fruition, and withering away after having cast the ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... city, and after surveying the situation, a council of war decided that it must be taken. Two picked American detachments, one from the west, one from the south, pushed up the rugged steeps in face of a withering fire. The rock-walls to the base of the castle had to be mounted by ladders. This was successfully accomplished; the enemy were driven from the building back into the city, and the castle and grounds occupied by our troops. A large number ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... important young man with a lion's mane of dark hair. Then, striking an attitude, he recited in the best French, ranting style, a rhymed tale of a battle in which many regiments charged together, flags flying. One by one the flags fell to the ground as the bearers were cut down by the withering fire of the enemy; all save one who struggled on. It was a fine, old-fashioned, dramatic "will-he-get-there-yes-he-will-he-falls" sort of thing. "Il tombe," said le Camarade Tollot, in what used to be ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... will not stop to describe my journey to Paris, via Folkestone, nor to chronicle the glasses of pale ale—valedictory libations to perfide Albion, quaffed at the Pavilion—nor to portray the sea-sickness of "mossoo," nor the withering indignation of the British female when her wardrobe was searched. Briefly, kind reader, be pleased to understand that we arrived in safety—guns, rifles, "and all"—at the Hotel du Louvre, in Paris, at about eleven o'clock on a certain ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... mean at first sight, but Fashion would be gilded into an attractive delusion. Oh, Fashion! how thou art dwarfing the intellect and eating out the heart of our people! Genius is dying on thy luxurious altar. And what a sacrifice! Talent is withering into weakness in thy voluptuous gaze! Virtue gives up the ghost at thy smile. Our youth are chasing after thee as a wanton in disguise. Our young women are the victims of thine all-greedy lust. And still thou art not satisfied, but, like the devouring grave, criest for more. Where ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... one to another of the rest with a withering scorn.] Ha! Now you think you have conquered, do you? No, I'm not going to stay! Do you think your vile slander could influence me to give up my work? And neither shall you influence the life of ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... cultured lawns and dreary wastes 200 Retiring Autumn flings her howling blasts, Bends in tumultuous waves the struggling woods, And showers their leafy honours on the floods, In withering heaps collects the flowery spoil, And each chill insect sinks beneath the soil; 205 Quick flies fair TULIPA the loud alarms, And folds her infant closer in her arms; In some lone cave, secure pavilion, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... raging Fortune's withering blast Has laid my leaf full low, O! O raging Fortune's withering blast Has laid my ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns |
