"Gnaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cutting off large pieces of the pudding and passing it across the counter to the boys who took it, without speaking, and began to gnaw ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... That which sleepeth, Wanderer," he said, at length. "My tongue is sealed. I tell thee more that I would tell another. Do not ask,—but hark! They come again! Now may Ra and Pasht and Amen curse them; may the red swine's mouth of Set gnaw upon them in Amenti; may the Fish of Sebek flesh his teeth of stone in them for ever, and feed and ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... at the secret of intolerable solitude that lies hid beneath the delicate laces and brilliant smile. There was no warmth, no brilliancy, no summer for this woman; so the stupor and vacancy had time to gnaw into her face perpetually. She was young, too, though no one guessed it; so the gnawing ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... while those of the Council of State were secret, and publicity was what he dreaded above all things. He was very well pleased when he had to transmit to the Legislative Body or to the Tribunate any proposed law of trifling importance, and he used then to say that he had thrown them a bone to gnaw. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a sailor, A tinker and a tailor, Had once a doubtful strife, sir, To make a maid a wife, sir, Whose name was Buxom Joan. For now the time was ended, When she no more intended To lick her lips at men, sir, And gnaw the sheets in vain, sir, And lie ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... week, to be paid "some time," an happy O'Shaughnessy fashion. The white mice looked on coldly with their little pink eyes, while their mistress's own grew red with the misery of parting from them, and the rabbit seized the opportunity to gnaw Bridgie's skirt with its sharp teeth; but for Pixie the keenest pang of parting was over when she saw no more the floor with its scattered cabbage-leaves, and the door closed behind her, shutting out the dear mousy, rabbity smell associated with ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... city by the Father of Waters where the races met, men and women were born into the world, who were to die in ancient Cuba, who were to be left fatherless in the struggle soon to come, who were to live to see new monsters rise to gnaw at the vitals of the Republic, and to hear again the cynical laugh of Europe. But they were also to see their country a power in the world, perchance the greatest power. While Europe had wrangled, the child of the West had grown into manhood and taken a seat among the highest, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in the face; the fishing, that promised so well when I passed, having entirely failed, and no deer were to be found. He wrote me, however, that he would maintain his post while a piece of parchment remained to gnaw! ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... dead leaves, which the poor insects crawled over, vainly endeavouring to find a piece sufficiently moist to satisfy their craving appetite. From thence I went to the rabbits, and found them without victuals, and so hungry that they had begun to gnaw the belts of the hutches. I inquired for Emma, but was some time before I could discover where she was. At length I found her very busy in making a garden with her brother George, so much taken up with her new employment that she had totally forgotten to clean or ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... when ten minutes afterwards the cry of one of her babes struck on her ear, and the next moment Ursel stood beside her, laying them down close to her, and saying exultingly, "Safe! safe out at the gate, and down the hillside, and my old lady ready to gnaw ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up from envious historical painters," said Salvator, interrupting his young companion; "like them, Antonio, you throw me the choice bone of landscape-painting that I may gnaw away at it, and so spare their own good flesh. Perhaps I do understand the human figure and all that is dependent upon it. But this senseless repetition ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... be fresh-baked bread in the regimental ovens yonder, fetch a loaf, in God's name. I could gnaw black-birch and reindeer moss, so famished am I—and the Sagamore, too, no doubt, could rattle a flam with ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... swallowed up one of my comrades, notwithstanding his loud cries, and the efforts he made to rid himself of the serpent; which, shaking him several times against the ground, crushed him, and we could hear him gnaw and tear the poor wretch's bones, when we had fled at a great distance from him. Next day we saw the serpent again, to our great terror, when I cried out, O Heaven, to what dangers are we exposed! We rejoiced yesterday at our having escaped ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... vision saw, In France, at Aix, in his Chapelle once more, That his right arm an evil bear did gnaw; Out of Ardennes he saw a leopard stalk, His body dear did savagely assault; But then there dashed a harrier from the hall, Leaping in the air he sped to Charles call, First the right ear of that grim bear he caught, And furiously ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... nights clothed the figure of the strange stern man in her mind. Not that it affected the appetites of the pretty pair. We must not expect that of Cupid enthroned and in condition; under the influence of sea-air, too. The files of egg-cups laugh at such an idea. Still the worm did gnaw them. Judge, then, of their delight when, on this pleasant morning, as they were issuing from the garden of their cottage to go down to the sea, they caught sight of Tom Bakewell rushing up the road with a portmanteau on his shoulders, and, some distance behind him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to take a notion to be great singers. Is there any use for me to tell you that if you persist you will succeed? Not a bit of it. You might succeed in ruining the nerves of your teacher. You might easily make those who hear you practise "want to gnaw a file and flee into the wilderness." But you would never learn to sing. There is no hope for some of us till we ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... approaching it by the 5.15 train. Its most idolised inmate was to be killed with disappointment, or to bind herself on the morrow to a life of misery, perhaps disgrace; but in the drawing-room was already a sprinkling of guests, many more were on their way. The wolf may gnaw at the vitals, but a hostess ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... am a dog that gnaws his bone, I couch and gnaw it all alone— A time will come, which is not yet, When I'll bite him ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Toad baked and roasted, and cut things down so finely that her fellow-servants were almost driven to chew their wooden spoons and gnaw bones. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... always a competition among the labourers for a dead pig or sheep; it was the cobbler's turn, and he had it, cut it up, and salted it down. But when in course of time he came to partake of his side of bacon, behold it was so tough and dried up that even he could not gnaw it. The side hung in the cottage for months, for he did not like to throw it away, and could not think what to do with it, for the dogs could not eat it. At last the old fellow hit upon the notion of using it as leather to mend ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... so farr, as at length perfectly to inclose the Animal, which, by other observations I have made, I ghess to contain it, and become, as it were a womb to it, so long, till it be fit and prepar'd to be translated into another state, at what time, like (what they say of) Vipers, they gnaw their way through the womb that bred them; divers of these kinds I have met with upon Goosberry leaves, Rose-tree leaves, Willow ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... thing we don't know about each other," she had said. "We each know the other's weaknesses and strength. I hate the way you gnaw your mustache when you're troubled, and I think the fuss you make when the waiter pours your coffee without first having given you sugar and cream is the most absurd thing I've ever seen. But, then, I know how it annoys you to see me sitting with one slipper dangling from my toe, when I'm particularly ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... support to increase their number in Congress by thirty-three. Had not the moment been so tragic, nothing could have been more amusing than the helpless wrath of the Jacobins caught in their own trap, compelled to gnaw their tongues in silence, while the Democrats, paraphrasing their own arguments, hurled ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... Prue and Agatha Are thick with Mig and Joan! They bite their threads and shake their heads And gnaw my ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... from the workshop to dinner and supper, and run to meet his footstep long before he was in sight, chuckling and chattering with delight. Early one morning the parrot got shut, by chance, in the cupboard, and, attempting to gnaw his way out, was mistaken for a rat, and father took the shovel to kill him, while mother carefully opened the door so that the rat might squeeze his way out to be killed, but poor Poll got the blow instead, and had his neck broken. All that day my father stayed at home weeping ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... him?" asked Mother. "I can't allow him in the house, he would gnaw the legs of the chairs and tables; all puppies do when they are ...
— All About Johnnie Jones • Carolyn Verhoeff
... himself, wrought by the tides into the semblance of a head, a veritable giant's head, with masses of long, intertangled weeds on its top and sides, like the strange, wild unkempt locks of a sea-god; its front showing blurred features like a carven face eaten away by the slow gnaw of ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... when you had been most wicked: when you were sent to bed without even the supper-crust to gnaw, and when your body and arms and legs were bruised and aching from the beating they told you you deserved. The stars would go a long way off, and while you tingled and trembled and panted with expectation, would come back again as ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... excitement of what had happened, his wonder as to what would come next, and the hunger that had begun to gnaw at him, Clare could not sleep. And as he lay awake, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... not sign the paper. His design was known. He maligned his rival, and suffered condign punishment. A benign face. He was arraigned after the campaign. He deigned not to feign surprise. Squirrels gnaw the bark. He affirmed it with phlegm. The knight carried a knapsack. He had a knack for rhymes. She knew how to knead the dough. They cut the knot with a knife. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. The knave had hard ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... sparrow That I brought up at Carow. O cat of churlish kind, The fiend was in thy mind. I would thou hadst been blind! The leopards savage, The lions in their rage, May they catch thee in their paws, And gnaw thee in their jaws; The dragons with their tongues May they poison thy liver and lungs. Of India the greedy gripes May they tear out all thy tripes; Of Arcady the bears May they pluck away thine ears; The wild wolf Lycaon Bite asunder thy back-bone; Of AEtna the burning hill, ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... Uncheedah, "you still insist upon bringing in some sort of bone!" but I begged her to let him gnaw them inside because it was so cold. Having been granted this privilege, he settled himself at my back and I became absorbed in some specially nice arrows that uncle ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... little further, and she met a rat. So she said: "Rat! rat! gnaw rope; rope won't hang butcher; butcher won't kill ox; ox won't drink water; water won't quench fire; fire won't burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile; and I shan't get home tonight." But the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... began, then, feebly surrendering to the gnaw of desire, he reached hastily for the glass, as if in fear that it would ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... nails," said Albert, "but I think I could gnaw down a good-sized sapling. Hold me, Dick, or I'll be devouring a ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... fastenings. The window—it was the window of Stangeist's private sanctum, according to the plan in her letter—was securely locked. Jimmie Dale's hands went into his pocket—and the black silk mask was slipped over his face. He listened intently—then a little steel instrument began to gnaw like a rat. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... suggest, or suggest, or suggest, or suggest, haov, rij, [w]heg and who, come, on, you know what I mean, as well as [h]orses. War rod: scepter, sceptic, syllables, bless, access, axes, oxen, Christ-cross, beaux, beauty, ancre, kernel, acres, craz'd, threatned, knead, bootes, Bootes, winged, gnaw'd: th is cut of from with, cum, after another of the same, at ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... abandon'd to Ambition's sway, I sought for glory in the paths of guile; And fawn'd and smiled, to plunder and betray, Myself betray'd and plunder'd all the while; So gnaw'd the viper the corroding file; But now with pangs of keen remorse, I rue Those years of trouble and debasement vile. Yet why should I this cruel theme pursue? Fly, fly, detested thoughts, for ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... bunch of yaller dogs think they can put me out of office in this town they'll find they're tryin' to gnaw the wrong ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... scent and greedily swallow whatever was offered. When he realised the sad truth that a huge hook with a strong barb was hidden inside this tempting dish and that it was no easy matter to disgorge the tasty morsel, he would try to gnaw through the shaft of the hook with his teeth. Very occasionally he might succeed, but usually his efforts failed. Attached to the book was a length of strong iron chain; and sometimes, though defeated by the hook, he ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... your name sir call'd Antipholus? And is not that your bondman Dromio? E.Dro. Within this houre I was his bondman sir, But he I thanke him gnaw'd in two my cords, Now am I ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... : zingibro. -bread, mielkuko. gipsy : cigano. give : doni, donaci, glacier : glaciejo. glass : vitro, "a—," glaso. "looking—," spegulo. glaze : glazuri. glorify : glori. glove : ganto. glow : ardi, brili. "-worm," lampiro. glue : gluo. glycerine : glicerino. gnat : kulo. gnaw : mordeti. goat : kapro. goblet : pokalo. goblin : koboldo. God : Dio. gold : oro. goldfinch : kardelo. golosh : galosxo. goodbye : adiaux. goose : anserino. gooseberry : groso. gospel : evangelio. gout : podagro. govern : regi. governess : guvernistino graceful : gracia. gradual : grada, lauxgrada. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... Nothing more so. Do you forget the angels who lost heaven for the daughters of men? Do you forget Helen, and the fair women who made mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was born? If jealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of their bodies,—if pangs that waste men to shadows and drive them into raving madness or moping melancholy,—if assassination and suicide are dreadful possibilities, then there is always something frightful about a lovely young woman.—I love to look ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of relations established between the sexes.] Such are the institutions which gnaw at the root of Islam and prevent the growth of freedom and civilization. "By these the unity of the household is fatally broken and the purity and virtue of the family tie weakened; the vigor of the dominant classes is sapped; the ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... been thinking. It seemed essential to Anthony that she should muse aloud upon last night's disaster. Her silence was a method of settling the responsibility on him. For her part she saw no necessity for speech—the moment required that she should gnaw at her finger ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... still. It ran right toward me, and I naturally jumped, as anybody would; but I am not afraid of mice, and when the horrid thing ran up inside the leg of my pantaloons, I yelled to Maria because I was afraid it would gnaw a hole in my garment. There is something real disagreeable about having a mouse inside the leg of one's pantaloons, especially if there is nothing between you and the mouse. Its toes are cold, and its nails are scratchy, and its fur tickles, and its tail feels crawly, and there ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... he does not say that the bread is the true body of Christ, as Hesshusius does; but that it is the communion, i.e., that by which the union occurs (consociatio fit) with the body of Christ, which occurs in the use, and certainly not without thinking, as when mice gnaw the bread.... The Son of God is present in the ministry of the Gospel, and there He is certainly efficacious in the believers, and He is present not on account of the bread, but on account of man, as He says, 'Abide in Me and I in you,' ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Indeed, nutrition itself, hunting, feeding, and digestion, are forced activities, and the basis of passions not altogether congenial nor ideal. Hunger is an incipient faintness and agony, and an animal that needs to hunt, gnaw, and digest is no immortal, free, or essentially victorious creature. His will is already driven into by-paths and expedients; his primitive beatific vision has to be interrupted by remedial action to restore it for a while, since otherwise it would ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... put an iron vessel, the opening downward, on his stomach, place in the vessel several rats, then tie it securely to his body. Then these worshipers of God would wait until the rats, seeking food and liberty, would gnaw through the body ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... he might be attacked at once, he had made his battalion stand to arms on the shore. He walked to and fro all the length of the room, stopping sometimes to gnaw the finger-tips of his right hand with a lurid sideways glare fixed on the floor; then, with a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume his tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, horsewhip, sword, and revolver were lying on the table. His officers, crowding the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... not want a whole clan of women and children into the bargain; the castle is as full as a bee-hive—more than sixty mouths; to say nothing of a dozen horses; spite of your potato-carts, we shall have to gnaw the stones before ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... and set them in the refrigerator and on the pantry shelves. One was a plump fruit-cake that had been keeping company in a tight box with a sponge soaked in sherry for ever since New Year's. It was ripe, or smelled so. It made me gnaw under my belt. ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... a rustling noise as he wound himself along. It swallowed up one of my comrades, notwithstanding his loud cries, and the efforts he made to extricate himself from it; dashing him several times against the ground, it crushed him, and we could hear it gnaw and tear the poor wretch's bones, though we had ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... mass, there appears to be any large stock of mutual affection among the brethren of the chisel and the pencil. On the contrary, it will impress the shrewd observer that the jealousies and petty animosities, which the poets of our day have flung aside, still irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class of imaginative men. It is not difficult to suggest reasons why this should be the fact. The public, in whose good graces lie the sculptor's or the painter's prospects of success, is infinitely smaller than the public ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... long before Stychus brought a white shroud and a purple-bordered toga into the dining-room, and Trimalchio requested us to feel them and see if they were pure wool. Then, with a smile, "Take care, Stychus, that the mice don't get at these things and gnaw them, or the moths either. I'll burn you alive if they do. I want to be carried out in all my glory so all the people will wish me well." Then, opening a jar of nard, he had us all anointed. "I hope I'll enjoy this ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... free from vituperation and prejudice as possible. How well I have succeeded the reader must judge. How difficult this moderation has been at times only those know who, like myself, have seen, from day to day, the treason-sharpened fangs of Starvation and Disease gnaw nearer and nearer to the hearts of well-beloved friends and comrades. Of the sixty-three of my company comrades who entered prison with me, but eleven, or at most thirteen, emerged alive, and several of these have since died from the effects of what they ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Slough of Despond. The answer is, because they were born there. Moreover, the taxation is light, and rent is moderate. Add that, when famine has been in the land, or the inundations of the Tiber have spread ruin and devastation around, the scornful charity of the Popes has flung them some bones to gnaw. Then again, travelling costs money, and passports are not to be had for the ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... Cree girl. When they had gone he still saw her, and the vision troubled him. They came in again at night, when the fire was sending red and yellow lights up and down the tepee walls, and the more he watched Oachi the stronger there grew within him something that seemed to gnaw and gripe with a dull sort of pain. Oachi was beautiful. He had never seen hair like her hair. He had never before seen eyes more beautiful. He had never heard a voice so low and sweet and filled with bird-like ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... decidedly against you," remarked the Colonel with a dry smile. He had recognized Oncle Jazon after a little sharp scrutiny. "I suppose, however, that we can let you gnaw the bones after we've got off ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... gnaw and deuour our state? Shall neuer we this blade, Our bloud hath bloudie made, Lay downe? these armes downe lay As robes we weare alway? But as from age to age, So passe from rage to rage? Our hands shall we not ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... mind for him to gnaw and worry A kind of anchorage in case of indiscretion A night that had shivered repose Am I thy master, or thou mine? An instinct labouring to supply the deficiencies of stupidity And now came war, the purifier and the pestilence And one gets the worst of it (in any bargain) ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... the grub has a skin as fine as satin and white as ivory. This dead white comes from a copious layer of grease which the animal's spare diet would not lead us to suspect. True, it has nothing to do, at every hour of the day and night, but gnaw. The quantity of wood that passes into its stomach makes up for the dearth of ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... then he began, "Thou willest that I renew a desperate grief that oppresses my heart already only in thinking ere I speak of it. But, if my words are to be seed that may bear fruit of infamy for the traitor whom I gnaw, thou shalt see me speak and weep at once. I know not who thou art, nor by what mode thou art come down hither, but Florentine thou seemest to me truly when I hear thee. Thou hast to know that I was the Count Ugolino and he ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... secret of Mistress Rebecca's new-found diligence. No syllable was uttered, but it was the awfullest silence that ever a lad heard. I was lifted rather than led upstairs and left a prisoner in locked room with naught to do but gnaw my conscience and gaze at the woods skirting the crests of the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... thinking of her he heard a mouse gnawing under the boards, and every night after the mouse came to gnaw. 'The teeth of regret are the same; my life is being gnawed away. Never shall I see her.' It seemed impossible that life would close on him without his seeing her face or hearing her voice again, and he began to think how it would be if they were to meet on the other side. For he believed ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... burn, or ague freezes, Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes; Our neighbors' sympathy may ease us, Wi' pitying moan; But thee—thou hell o' a' diseases, Aye mocks ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... all his booty. No, with the indenture deeds of the dead souls, it was lodged in the hands of a tchinovnik; and as he thought of these things Chichikov rolled about the floor, and felt the cankerous worm of remorse seize upon and gnaw at his heart, and bite its way ever further and further into that heart so defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind that, should he have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... all ear: I, experienced in affairs, See fifty things, say never one; But thee the people prizes not Who, doing nothing, say'st a thousand. To me, appointed to the chase, The king's hand gives the grouse's breast; Whilst a chatterer like thee Must gnaw worms ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... yet of that man when you thrashed him at the railway station. You've pluck enough of that kind. You must now show that you've that other kind of pluck. You know the story of the boy who would not cry though the wolf was gnawing him underneath his frock. Most of us have some wolf to gnaw us somewhere; but we are generally gnawed beneath our clothes, so that the world doesn't see; and it behoves us so to bear it that the world shall not suspect. The man who goes about declaring himself to be miserable will be not only miserable, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... my instructions, the lad had lain perfectly motionless and silent for over an hour, for it must have taken me at least that long to gnaw through ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... The heavenly resignation of his face seemed infamous and finished hypocrisy. I said to myself: "He apes the angel, the wretch!" and I regretted that custom interposed a sword between him and my hatred. It seemed so coldly ceremonious, I would have liked to tear his bosom open with my nails and gnaw his heart out with my teeth. I knew that I would kill him; I already saw the red lips of his wound outlined upon his breast by the pale finger of death. When my steel crossed his, I attempted neither thrusts nor parries. I had forgotten the little fencing I knew. I fought at random, almost with my ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... geese. "Can't you be quiet?" The dog stopped romping with the baby, sniffed the air, and growled. "Lie down," said the woman; "there's a bone for your supper." She threw the dog a bone. He sprang at it and began to gnaw it. ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... broke, the boys were starving with hunger, and could have eaten anything. They even tried to gnaw at bits of leather cut out of their boots, but they were so tough and sodden from their long immersion in the sea that they could ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... next day for home, in a good humour with himself and his munificence, but on the way home remembered Susan Hornby's hesitancy and later decision to make the cloak herself, and the worm of suspicion began to gnaw again. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... hill of Hermes leapt the light that said Troy was fallen, a torch funereal for the king's triumphal head. Dire indeed the birth of Leda's womb that had God's self to sire Bloomed, a flower of love that stung the soul with fangs that gnaw like fire: But the twin-born human-fathered sister-flower bore fruit more dire. Scarce the cry that called on airy heaven and all swift winds on wing, Wells of river-heads, and countless laugh of waves past reckoning, Earth which brought forth all, and the orbed sun that looks on everything, Scarce ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Despite the steady gnaw, gnaw at the pit of our stomachs, we had cut down our meals to the minimum amount of food that would keep us alive; we were so weak we no longer were sure where our feet were going to when we put them down. But all the fish we had to smoke was two or three. And on ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... your obedience, and abandon the rebel Belial and his deceitful daughters. Though their appearance is so splendid, it is only deception; Belial at home is but a very poor prince, he has only you for fuel, and only you as roast and boiled to gnaw, and you are never sufficient, and there will never be an end to his hunger and your torments. And who would serve such a malicious butcher, in a temporary delirium here, and in eternal torments hereafter, who could obtain a life of happiness under a king merciful and charitable ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... know where to find in any play a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this. This is indeed, according to Milton, to "describe high passions and high actions". The fortitude of the Spartan boy who let a beast gnaw out his bowels till he died without expressing a groan, is a faint bodily image of this dilaceration of the spirit and exenteration of the inmost mind, which Calantha with a holy violence against her nature keeps closely covered, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... sailing to Italy, and you shall reach Italy and enter its harbors. But you are not destined to surround your city with a wall, till cruel hunger and vengeance for the wrong you have done us force you to gnaw your very tables ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... they run is from those arrant thieves the wolverines, which, if they discover what is on the top of the scaffold, though they cannot climb up it, will set to work with their sharp teeth, and try to gnaw ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... would cuff, He's so bluff, For a straw. Cowed deities, Like mice in cheese, To stir must cease Or gnaw.' ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... J. Hinton Knowles' Folk-Tales of Kashmir a merchant gives his stupid son a small coin with which he is to purchase something to eat, something to drink, something to gnaw, something to sow in the garden, and some food for the cow. A clever young girl advises him to buy a water-melon, which would answer all the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... awful awaking from some weird possession or suggestion of evil by a stronger mind, Guy Waring began to walk on in a feverish fashion, fast, fast, oh, so fast, not knowing where he went, but conscious only that he must keep moving, lest an accusing conscience should gnaw his very heart out. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... at once that I began to gnaw the head of my cane, to consult the ceiling, to gaze at the fire, to examine Caroline's foot, and I thus held out till the marriageable young ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... his over-strained imagination had painted a fresh picture—that of the miserable-looking cur somewhere close at hand, settled down in a hollow to deliberately gnaw the sandy bone. For it was too much to expect of a dog that, after perhaps starving for eight-and-forty hours, it would leave the meal for which it hungered, and go and deliver such a message as that upon ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... Bloom's gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... "Rat, rat, gnaw rope; Rope won't hang butcher; Butcher won't kill ox; Ox won't drink water; Water won't quench fire; Fire won't burn stick; Stick won't beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Piggy won't get over the stile, And I ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... for that title. We were a pitiful lot of fellows in this garrison. We mixed the handful of flour given to us with snow water, and, wrapping the unsalted dough around a sagebrush spike, we cooked it in the flames, and ate it from the stick, as a dog would gnaw a bone. The officers put a guard around the few little hackberry trees to keep the men from eating the berries and the bark. Not a scrap of the few buffalo we found was wasted. Even the entrails ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Mice were never seen, So soft, so nimble, and so clean; Their teeth were sharp, their eyes were bright; And when through wood she saw them gnaw As neatly, almost, as a saw, The mother's eyes ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... leads. And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth, And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth. And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire, And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire. And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where the orchid glows, And you rave to your grave with the fever, and they rob the corpse for its clothes. And sometimes it leads to the Northland, and the scurvy softens your bones, ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... a mistake to gnaw your fingers. I gnawed a good deal in my puppyhood, but chewing my paws is a trick that I ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... tool.' He said, and sought his snug retreat, Close at the rotten pine-tree's feet. Where plump he did the weasel meet; Whom shunning by a happy dodge, He climb'd the hollow trunk to lodge; And there the savage owl he saw. Necessity became his law, And down he went, the rope to gnaw. Strand after strand in two he bit, And freed, at last, the hypocrite. That moment came the man in sight; The new ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... serenade. Their blended, passionate voices often moved me in a strange excitement, for I was not musical. I had no way of relieving myself, as these singers and painters have, who crystallize an emotion or a sorrow into a picture or a cadence. I can only gnaw the bedpost, or tear up something, in the mere need of expression. Denis watched them awhile, and then it became a trio instead of a duet. Mr. Christopher brought Spanish music. Light, rippling airs, dances, whose strange swaying rhythm had been borne to his ears ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... sixth captain was Captain Torment: he was captain over the resurrection doubters; his colours were those that were pale; Mr. Gnaw was his standard-bearer, and he had the black worm ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... prevailing epidemic. At one end of our barracks was the kitchen, and by the door stood a barrel into which was thrown beef bones and slops. I saw a starving boy fish out one of these bones and begin to gnaw it. A guard discovered him. He snatched the bone from the prisoner's hand, cocked his pistol, pressed it to his head and ordered him to his all-fours and made him bark for the bone ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Jan for a couple of days, despite the comforting society of her mate; but Jan did not miss her a scrap. At present there was not an ounce of sentiment in his composition. He was kept warm, he lay snugly soft, and his stomach was generally full. He had great gristly bones to gnaw and play with, and Betty Murdoch, with a little solid-rubber ball, played with him also by the hour together. Beyond these things Jan had no thought or desire at present. He grew fast, and enjoyed every ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... gnaw my heart away! Unsay your words! Have pity on me, and confess that it is a lie—a black, foul lie! Think of the horror of it—only think ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... cats of valerian, being said to dig up the roots and gnaw them to pieces, an allusion to which occurs in Topsell's "Four-footed Beasts" (1658-81):—"The root of the herb valerian (commonly called Phu) is very like to the eye of a cat, and wheresoever it groweth, if cats come thereunto they instantly dig it up for the love thereof, as I myself ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... a wise precaution to place a protective screen around the trunk of each tree to prevent rodents from attacking it. Mice gnaw off the bark near the ground, sometimes girdling a tree and so killing it. Rabbits chew off branches and they, too, may girdle the upper part of a tree. Rabbits are very fond of pecan and hickory bark. In some places, it may ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... these years, worse than the tomb devils did the swine that ran down into the sea to cool off; and if I have changed its hiding-place once, I have twenty times. If the old General doesn't pay well for it, I shall gnaw off my fingers, on account of the sin it has cost me. I was an honest woman and could have faced the world until that night—so many years ago; and since then I have carried a load on my soul that makes me—even Hannah Hinton, who never ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Foster new ones late in the spring. He's easy, too. Warren's the one to gnaw out heels, though young people are so much ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... into the future. Should you die, O King, the lands will be desolate; but for me, the kahuna, the name will live on from one generation to another; but my death will be before thine, and when I am up on the heaven-feared altar then my words will gnaw thee, O King, and the rains and the sun will ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... Safikuli Khan, is advancing with a large army against the son of Kueprili, and the darkness of defeat threatens to obscure the sun-like radiance of the Ottoman arms. Most puissant Padishah! suffer not the tooth of disaster to gnaw away at thy glory! The Grand Vizier and I have already gathered together thy host on the shores of the Bosphorus. They are ready, at a moment's notice, to embark in the ships prepared for them. Money and provisions in abundance have been sent to the frontier for the gallant Nuuman Kueprili on the ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... you know of some place where we could stay to-night. Even a shed to crawl into would keep us from freezing. It's an awful cold night not to have a roof over your head, or a crust to gnaw on, or a spark of fire to keep life in ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the jail, as the phrase is. For this purpose the prisoners are tied up, or rather hung up, and flogged. At night, they are fettered down to a board, neck, wrists, and ancles, amidst ordure and filth, whilst the rats, unmolested, are permitted to gnaw their limbs! This place of torment is proverbially called, in ordinary speech, "Te-yuk," a term equivalent to the worst sense ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... treated to a slight shock. The bird had been carefully set on a wooden plate to one side. Their guest was being offered only the broth. This he sniffed for a moment, then, placing it carefully on the ground, seized the bird and holding it by the drumsticks began to gnaw ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... angrily, and turned a suspicious eye on me. "The Hanover rat,—George!... And the blight works—oh, it works, and the brain rots in his head and the maggots gnaw at his heart. And they wonder why!... an effectual fervent curse!—Oh, it works! For years and years I've cursed him night and day and—you see! Keep him in the dark, they said. Let no man speak to him for a twelvemonth and a day, they said. And no man spoke, but I myself, and all day ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... squirrel is acorns, nuts, and seeds and grain of all kinds, and it will sometimes nibble leaf-buds and tender shoots of young trees in the spring. Its teeth are so sharp and strong that it will gnaw the hardest nutshell. Nothing is prettier than to see this graceful creature sitting upright, its beautiful tail curled over its back, gnawing at a nut which it skillfully holds in its fore-paws. As it is not afraid unless one approaches too ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... mother in a corridor or on a staircase of the palace, he would suddenly plant a verbal dagger in her heart; and frequently, in full court, he would deal the king such a cutting reply as caused him to blanch, and gnaw his lip. If the spectacle of Gertrude and Claudius was hateful to ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... over there after the meeting to discuss the future good of the Smith Club. Then about a dozen of us would slide gently over there—and a curtain would have to be drawn over the woe that would ensue for the other gangs. Meanwhile, all we had to do was to sit around the house and gnaw our fingers. Maxwell called for our Smith last and he had the other two in tow. Oh, no; we didn't invite them in. Two Alfalfa Delts and three Chi Yis were sitting on our porch, visiting us. Three Chi Yis ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... statues and temples of the Greeks—if the broad and massive walls of the Romans, if the noble and pathetic architecture of the Middle Ages, had not been ground to dust by mere human rage. You talk of the scythe of time and the tooth of time; I tell you time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm, we who smite like the scythe. All these lost treasures of human intellect have been wholly destroyed by human industry of destruction; the marble would have stood its 2,000 years as well in the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... "He'll gnaw right through the house, he'll chew right through the roof. He'll get in. He has smelled that big cabbage ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... oft, but now I feel a wonder, In what grievous pain they die, that die for hunger. O my greedy stomach, how it doth bite and gnaw? If I were at a rack, I could eat hay or straw. Mine empty guts do fret, my maw doth even tear, Would God I had a piece of some horsebread here. Yet is master Esau in worse case than I. If he have not some meat, the sooner he will die: He ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... soon after the swarming season is over, the bees expel the drones from the hive. They sometimes sting them, and sometimes gnaw the roots of their wings, so that when driven from the hive, they cannot return. If not treated in either of these summary ways, they are so persecuted and starved, that they soon perish. The hatred of the bees extends even to the young which are still unhatched: ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... when he to her dark retreat Had driven from upper light that beast of hell (Where she herself doth ever gnaw and eat, While from her thousand eyes tears ceaseless well) Followed the knight, to guide his wandering feet; And overtook him on the highest swell; Then placed himself beside the cavalier Him from those dark and gloomy ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... children, Nor gnaw the smoke-house door: The owl-queen then will love us And send ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... usually restored him for a short time to reason, and he would crawl up the bank and gnaw a morsel of the maple sugar; but he could not eat much, for it was in a tough, compact cake, which his jaws had not power to break. All that day and the next night he lay on the banks of the salt stream, or rushed ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... of emotion, he could not stand before a looking-glass without noticing this phenomenon which he had so frequently remarked and which always terrified him; the blood flew to his neck, purpling the scar, which then began to gnaw the skin. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... of rats and mice, Of flies and frogs and bugs and lice, Commands thee to come forth this hour, And gnaw this threshold with great power, As he with oil the same shall smear— Ha! with a skip e'en now thou'rt here! But brisk to work! The point by which I'm cowered, Is on the ledge, the farthest forward. Yet one more bite, the deed is ...
— Faust • Goethe
... real modern orthodox man, like a nervous watch dog, must sit on the door-stone of his system, and bark incessantly at everything that comes in sight along the highway. And when there is nothing to bark at, either he must growl and gnaw his reserved bones, or bark at the moon to keep up the sonorousness of his voice. And so, for fear that the sweetness of our temper may lead men to think that we have no theologic zeal, we lift up in objurgation now and then—as much as to ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... kill her—as I did—once! Be patient! Watch the light shine, even though it does not illumine your path; be glad that the rose blooms for itself, if not for you! It will be difficult!— meanwhile you can live on hope—a bitter fruit to eat; but gnaw it to the last rind, my Sergius! Hope that Lotys may melt in your fire, as a snowflake in the sun! Come! Now take the poor poet home,—the drunken child of inspiration—take him home to his garret in the slums—the poet whose book has been accepted ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... work of profound erudition, that would be purchased by every man who wished to be thought learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his library, or laid open upon his table—but never read. I observed him, now and then, draw a large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and gnaw; whether it was his dinner, or whether he was endeavoring to keep off that exhaustion of the stomach, produced by much pondering over dry works, I leave to harder students than myself ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... kill all these fellows, and be off." "But how are we to get our hands free, Rube?" "That's the only point I can't make out," he said. "If these fellows would leave us alone, it would be easy enough; we could gnaw through each other's thongs in ten minutes; but they won't let us do that. All the rest is easy enough. Just think it over, Seth." I did think it over, but I did not see my way to getting rid of our thongs. That done, the rest was possible enough. If ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... and I shouldn't drink so much, either; but it's a well-known fact that I am an intelligent man; so I feel such things more than others would, and that's why I have to drink. My neighbor Moens Christoffersen often says to me, speaking as my good friend, "May the devil gnaw your fat belly, Jeppe! You must hit back, if you want your old woman to behave." But I can't do anything to protect myself, for three reasons: in the the first place, because I haven't any courage; in the second, because of that damned Master Eric hanging behind the bed, ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... outward sufferings (though These were enough to gnaw into our souls) Hath stung me oft, and, more than ever, now. When, but for this untoward sickness, which Seized me upon this desolate frontier, and 50 Hath wasted, not alone my strength, but means, And leaves us—no! this is beyond me!—but For this I had been happy—thou been happy— ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... round the child she loved And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now, Or but remembered to make sweet the hour That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled Or broke are healed forever. In the room Of this grief-shadowed present, there shall be A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw The heart, and never shall a tender tie Be broken; in whose reign the eternal Change That waits on growth and action shall proceed With everlasting Concord ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... it, Bumper began to gnaw at the lining of the muff, and pretty soon got his whole body under it, and then he began to kick and wriggle to get out. He felt he was being smothered alive, and he squealed aloud. The lady finally rescued him, but not until she had torn away half ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... hast burnt my nose; but I must still like thee, thou knave, for once thou wert a pretty fellow; and my little daughter likes thee too. Out of the crystal thou wilt never come unless I help thee; up thither I cannot clamber; but my cousin gossip the Rat, that lives close above thee, will gnaw in two the shelf on which thou standest; thou shalt jingle down, and I catch thee in my apron, that thy nose be not broken, or thy fine sleek face at all injured; then I will carry thee to Mam'sell Veronica, and thou shalt marry her when ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... gained in missionary schools to raise a check. I know that education which does not rightly train the will may be giving tools to a burglar or weapons to a mad man. The anarchism in Chicago, but for the education it controls, would have been like Bunyan's giants—able only to gnaw its nails in malice and have fits in sunshiny weather. But the American Missionary Association understands this thoroughly. In that copy of the year's review which Dr. Strieby sent me, the report of the school work was marked with a red pencil, that of the church work with a blue ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... another family—she had so frequently become a mother in the past. But month succeeded month, and she for ever disappointed me, and at last I abandoned hope. In solitude and exile Mercedes degenerated sadly; got monstrously fat; too indolent to gnaw, let her teeth grow to a preposterous length; and in the end died of a surfeit ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... advantage of the darkness for an advance against the fort. Oh dear! We shall have to lie here and listen to the firing soon. Val, I don't think I'd mind being shot in the morning if I could only warn the Colonel. Do you think you could gnaw through my rein?" ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... influence, permitted the bones of game slain in the chase to be broken, or left carelessly about the encampment. They were collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman observes that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if the dogs gnaw the bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them; and the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear among that tribe. The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient extent, that they carefully put by even small fish bones, saying that unless ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... wood, or silver," said they, "becomes a god when man chooses that it should, and dedicates it to that end. With how much more truth do dumb animals, such as mice, swallows, and kites, judge of your gods? They know that your gods feel nothing; they gnaw them, they trample and sit on them; and if you did not drive them away, they would make their nests in the very mouth of your deity." [319:1] The Church of the first three centuries rejected the use of images in worship, and no pictorial representations of the Saviour ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... even if you did not wish it. An old man might live perhaps with such a mental cancer, but it will destroy a child. Ah! there is no remedy against the worms that gnaw away at the soul." ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... hind feet, standing higher than a man, and savagely raked the door from top to bottom with his claws while another opened his jaws wide and closed them, his teeth splintering across the smooth surface as he sought to gnaw his way inside. The remaining three circled the cabin, sniffing explosively at the cracks between the logs. Shady was seized with a fit of excessive shivering induced by these dread sounds, and Collins heard her hind leg-joints ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... on their shelves, Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green, And every kind of colour. Which will you read? Come on; O do read something; they're so wise. I tell you all the wisdom of the world Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, And listen to the silence: on the ceiling There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; And in the breathless air outside the house The garden waits for something that delays. There must be crowds of ghosts among the trees,— Not people killed ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... nasty, brutish, and short". To live like an animal is to rely upon one's own quite naked equipment and efforts, and not to mind getting wet or cold or scratching one's bare legs in the underbrush. One would have to eat his roots and seeds quite raw, and gnaw a bird as a cat does. To get the feel of uncivilized life, let us recall how savages with the comparatively advanced degree of culture reached by our native Indian tribes may fall to when really hungry. In the journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition there is an account ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... feasting in the lodges of the Iroquois, And scalps will hang on the high ridge pole, But wolves will roam where the Yengees dwelt And will gnaw the bones of them all, Of the man, the woman, and the child. Victory and glory Aieroski gives to his children, The Mighty Six Nations, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... declaring it all a most contemptible artifice of Satan. But conscience is not hushed by this explanation. On the contrary, who would maintain a real, live devil must have a conscience for him to gnaw. Pure and elemental it need not be; he is satisfied - with any cheap group-fabrication, and the torments remain ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... learned to reach up on his hind legs and gnaw the standing plant. The management of a dry and slippery corn-ear at first presented some difficulty, but, as his muscles strengthened, he found himself able to sit up on his haunches and hold it squirrel-fashion in his fore-paws, nibbling, to begin with, at the pointed end, which is the ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... was also inside of that mule. He was hungry and vicious. He had lived in the white "settlements," and knew something. He was fastened by a long hide lariat to a peg driven into the ground, as were all the others, and he knew that the best place to gnaw in two that lariat was close to the peg, where he could get a good pull upon it. As soon as he had freed himself he tried the lariat of another mule, and found that the peg had been driven into loose earth and came right up. That was a scientific discovery, and he tried several ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... wickedness, The sanguine codes of venerable crime. The likeness of a throned king came by. 270 When these had passed, bearing upon his brow A threefold crown; his countenance was calm. His eye severe and cold; but his right hand Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart 275 Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes, A multitudinous throng, around him knelt. With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by. Brooking no eye to witness their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... painful sensations those irregular desires, those disgusting propensities, by which he is perpetually agitated; seeing the terrible effect of those licentious passions which torment him; of those lasting inquietudes which gnaw his repose; of those stupendous evils, as well physical as moral, which assail him on every side: the contemplator of humanity would be tempted to believe that happiness was not made for this world; that any effort to cure those minds which every thing unites ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... them off, to save herself the bother of lagging useless material home to her burrow. She was so near that the Child could have touched her by reaching out his hand. But she took no more notice of him than if he had been a rotten stump. Less, in fact, for she might have tried to gnaw into him if he had been a rotten stump, in the ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... proceeding, that is to say, from the monastic orders." "These," he added, "are the orange-trees of heaven, whose fruits are placed on the table of God." Of evil-speakers Rodaja said, that they were like the feathers of the eagle which gnaw, wear away, and reduce to nothing, whatever feathers of other birds are mingled with them in beds or cushions, how good soever ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... intimations he had received. First, then, he slackened his pace to a walk This was no point of quarrel between him and his rider, who had been considerably discomposed by the rapidity of his former motion, and who now took the opportunity of his abated pace to gnaw a piece of gingerbread, which had been thrust into his hand by his mother in order to reconcile this youthful emissary of the post-office to the discharge of his duty. By and by, the crafty pony availed himself ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... swallowed him up that has lost himself. Here will be no forgetfulness; yet nothing shall be thought on but that which will wound and kill; here will be no time, cause, or means for diversion; all will stick and gnaw like a viper. Now the memory will go out to where sin was heretofore committed, it will also go out to the word that did forbid it. The understanding also, and the judgment too, will now consider of the pretended necessity that the man had to break the commandments of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... with an almost passionate disdain. She was suddenly aware of an intense burning misery that seemed to gnaw into her very soul. Why had she come out with this buffoon, she wondered? Why had she come to the masquerade at all? She was utterly out of sympathy with its festive gaiety. A great and overmastering desire for solitude ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... at least had been hearing all his life. At St. Thomas's we had been introduced to bananas (figs, as they are miscalled in the West Indies); to the great green oranges, thick- skinned and fragrant; to those junks of sugar-cane, some two feet long, which Cuffy and Cuffy's ladies delight to gnaw, walking, sitting, and standing; increasing thereby the size of their lips, and breaking out, often enough, their upper front teeth. We had seen, and eaten too, the sweet sop {25a}—a passable fruit, or rather congeries of fruits, looking like a green and purple strawberry, of the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... stages. The first, or melancholy stage, usually lasts from twelve to forty-eight hours. The animal's behavior is altered and it becomes sullen, irritable and nervous. Sometimes it is friendly and inclined to lick the hand of its master. An inclination to gnaw or swallow indigestible objects is sometimes noted. Frequently a certain part of the ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... there's a magick-musick in that sound, Enough to turn me into beef indeed! Yes, I will own, since licensed by your word, I'll own Tom Thumb the cause of all my grief. For him I've sigh'd, I've wept, I've gnaw'd my sheets. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... deep laugh. "Old Plancus talks like that," said he; "but we know that for all the world he would not change his steel plate for a citizen's gown. You've earned the kennel, old hound, if you wish it. Go and gnaw your ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... interest of Great Britain to settle the Anglo-Irish dispute. It has been countered in many of its policies in America and the Colonies by the vengeful feelings of Irish exiles. There may yet come a time when the refusal of the Irish mouse to gnaw at a net spread about the lion may bring about the downfall of the Empire. It cannot be to the interest of Great Britain to have on its flank some millions of people who, whenever Great Britain is engaged in a war which threatens ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... an ancient and now brushy bark-peeling near by for blackberries. But the creature that most infests these backwoods is the porcupine. He is as stupid and indifferent as the skunk; his broad, blunt nose points a witless head. They are great gnawers, and will gnaw your house down if you do not look out. Of a summer evening they will walk coolly into your open door if not prevented. The most annoying animal to the camper-out in this region, and the one he needs to be most on the lookout ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... our present lives we are storing up good or bad Karma which will stick to us closely, and which will demand expression and manifestation in lives to come. When we fasten around ourselves the evil of bad Karma, we have taken to shelter a monster which will gnaw into our very vitals until we shake him off by developing opposite qualities. And when we draw to ourselves the good Karma of Duty well performed, kindness well expressed, and Good Deeds freely performed without hope of reward, then do we weave for ourselves the beautiful garments which we are ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Iago's own confession a mere suspicion, is now ripening, and gnaws his base nature as his own 'poisonous mineral' is about to gnaw the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... night and fetched in two and three at a time. Don't say nothin' 'bout dem rabbits for dere warn't no end to 'em. Rabbits stewed, rabbits fried, and rabbits dried, smoked, and cured lak hog meat! I et so many rabbits when I was young I can't stand to look at 'em now but I could eat 'possums and gnaw de bones all day long. Marse Billy let grandpa go fishin' and he was all time bringin' back a passel of minnows and other fishes. Us rubbed 'em down wid lard and salt and pepper, den rolled 'em in cornmeal and baked 'em. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... by an equal ambition, all the occupants of the pea bore their way towards the delicious morsel. The journey is laborious, and the grubs must rest frequently in their provisional niches. They rest; while resting they frugally gnaw the riper tissues surrounding them; they gnaw rather to open a way than to fill ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... their first-born son, all the dignitaries of the kingdom are sighing; they are wounded in their pride, in their conquests; checked in their avarice. Dear Rossini! you have done well to throw this bone to gnaw to the Tedeschi, who declared we had no ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... will—bite his head off! Fool! What can I do to him? They, these writers, are not a foolish lot and are therefore a power—a power, the devils! And I am not the governor, and even he cannot put one's hand out of joint or tie one's tongue. Like mice, they gnaw us little by little. And we have to poison them not with matches, but with roubles. Yes! Well, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... the little beaver chap. But when he began to gnaw the tree, to make it fall, the ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... few days after the death of Symmachus and Boethius,[136] the servants placed on the table a large fish's head. This seemed to Theodoric to be the head of Symmachus, newly slain. The teeth seemed to gnaw the lower lip, the eyes glared at him with wrath and frenzy, the dead man appeared, to threaten him with utmost vengeance. Terrified by this amazing portent and chilled to the bone with fear, he hastily sought his couch, where, having ordered the servants ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... published an edition of Voltaire, with the following title: Works of Voltaire, of the French Academy. "That will attract purchasers," said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M. Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning to gnaw at him—a sign of glory; and this ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo |
