"Grandam" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stuff cast into it. As unwelcome to any true conceit, as sluttish morsels or wallowish potions to a nice stomach, which whiles he empties himself, it sticks in his teeth, nor can he be delivered without sweat, and sighs, and hems, and coughs enough to shake his grandam's teeth out of her head. He spits, and scratches, and spawls, and turns like sick men from one elbow to another, and deserves as much pity during his torture as men in fits of tertian fevers, or self-lashing penitentiaries. In a word, rip him quite asunder, and examine every shred of him, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... far down-hill physically; but either she did not feel her decadence, or she had grown quite reconciled to it. Her daughter, a blooming matron, was there, happy, wealthy, good; yet not apparently a whit more reconciled to life than the aged grandam. It was pleasing, and yet it was sad, to see how well we can make up our mind to what is inevitable. And such a sight brings up to one a glimpse of Future Years. The cloud seems to part before one, and through the rift you discern your earthly track far away, and a jaded pilgrim ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... Church, high-fed and haughty dame, The boy was dandled, in his dawn of fame; Listening, she smiled, and blest the flippant tongue On which the fate of unborn tithe-pigs hung. Ah! who shall paint the grandam's grim dismay, When loose Reform enticed her boy away; When shockt she heard him ape the rabble's tone, And in Old Sarum's fate foredoom her own! Groaning she cried, while tears rolled down her cheeks, "Poor, glib-tongued youth, he means not what he speaks. "Like oil at top, these Whig ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... child on some long Winter's night Affrighted clinging to its Grandam's knees With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees Muttered to wretch by necromantic spell; 5 Or of those hags, who at the witching time Of murky Midnight ride the air sublime, And mingle foul ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... him; a little girl with her hair in blue ribbons talked at a window about him to some one within; a young lady opened her casement and gazed furtively at him; a door was set quietly ajar, and an old grandam peeped out, shading her eyes with her hand; a woman in deep mourning gave his sketch a glance as she passed; a calash with a fat Quebecker in it ran into a cart driven by a broad-hatted peasant-woman, so eager were both to know what he was drawing; ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Lawmonger and the Busybody—a mixture would make devils reach." "Little wonder, verily," said Lucifer, "that they were so much hated by all on earth, seeing that they are capable of causing such trouble to us here." Not long after, the Huntress comes to meet the King upon the way. "Ho! grandam o' the breeches," cries a shrill-voiced demon, "good night to you." "Thy grandam on which side, prithee?" said she, displeased because he did not "madam" her. "You are a fine king, Lucifer, to keep such impudent rascals ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... half had grown to be As aboriginal as rock or tree. It nestled close to earth, and seemed to brood O'er homely thoughts in a half-conscious mood, As by the peat that rather fades than burns The smouldering grandam nods and knits by turns, 190 Happy, although her newest news were old Ere the first hostile drum at Concord rolled. If paint it e'er had known, it knew no more Than yellow lichens spattered thickly o'er That soft lead-gray, less dark beneath ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... long winter evening began. Here was a picture of industry enjoined alike by the law of the land and the stern necessities of the settlers. All were busy. Idleness was a crime. On the settle, or a low armchair, in the most sheltered nook, sat the revered grandam—as a term of endearment called granny—in red woolen gown, and white linen cap, her gray hair and wrinkled face reflecting the bright firelight, the long stocking growing under her busy needles, while she watched the youngling of the flock in ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... the chamber and the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered grand-sires, ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Platonists, and in fact by a majority of its believers. Shakspeare's wit is not without historical warrant when he makes the clown say to Malvolio, "Thou shalt fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam." Many the Manichaans, for instance taught that human souls transmigrated not only through the lowest animal bodies but even through all forms of vegetable life. Souls inhabit ears of corn, figs, shrubs. "Whoso plucks the fruit or the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... o' that. My grandam, who was the real seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, said of I, in my cradle, "The moment this here child grows honest, he'll be hung." I've done my best, all my life, to keep my neck out of ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... forwarded your letter to Murray,—by the way, you had addressed it to Miller. Pray write to me, and say what art thou doing? 'Not finished!'—Oons! how is this?—these 'flaws and starts' must be 'authorised by your grandam,' and are unbecoming of any other author. I was sorry to hear of your discrepancy with the * *s, or rather your abjuration of agreement. I don't want to be impertinent, or buffoon on a serious subject, and am therefore at ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... only wear That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise, Who boldly smile upon despair And shake their bells in Grandam Grundy's eyes. Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer That the bare listening should make strong like wine, At this unruly time of year, The ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heard erst my grandam say That young damsels should not be, In the balmy month of May, With young men by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... on the hills, floods, discolouring mist; breathe but some grandam's tale of darkness and blood and doubleness in his hearing: all changed. Flame kindled; a fevered unrest drove him out; and Ambition, that spotted hound of hell, strained at the ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... to its grandam, child: Give grandam kingdom, and its grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig: There's a ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... love to drink by my own warm hearth, Nourisht with logs from the pine-clad heights, Which were hewn in the blaze of the summer sun To treasure his rays for the winter nights On the hearth where my grandam spun. ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... hambush still Arrius used to declaim. Then, hoped fondly the words were a marvel of articulation, While with an h immense 'hambush' arose from his heart. So his mother of old, so e'en spoke Liber his uncle, 5 Credibly; so grandsire, grandam ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... my gaze the phantoms of the Past, The cherished fictions of my boyhood, rise: I see Red Ridinghood observe, aghast, The fixed expression of her grandam's eyes; I hear the fiendish chattering and chuckling Which those misguided fowls ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... so queer in your talk that I sometimes fancy you're half a changeling. May you sit with your grandam? What next? There, there, bring yer bit of a stool, and get the sampler out, and do a portion of the feather-stitch. Mind ye're careful, Mercy, and see as you count as ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... a governor, and therefore wealthy, and bountiful to boot—as I intend to be—nobody will see any blemish in me. No, no, let the clown daub himself with honey, and he will never want flies. 'As much as you have, just so much you are worth,' said my grandam; revenge yourself upon the ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dim radiance through legendary Hellas. The English reader hears his name with a smile, recalling only the mention of him, in mellow mirth, by England's greatest spirit. "What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?" Whereto replies the much-offended Malvolio: "That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird." He of the crossed garters disdains such fantasy. "I think nobly of the soul, and no ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing |
