"Moth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cook, to put into her pantry, but I have got her back again, and I would not part with her for a crown; no, not for the best silver crown that ever was coined in the Tower.' Then, through a little moth hole in the lining of the coat, I saw him lift her up, stroke her, and put her upon the back of one of the horses, where she stretched herself out, ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not: The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... were thus talking together, Parsley, who stood with her ears wide open and had some suspicion of the gossip, overheard all that had passed. And when Night had spread out her black garments to keep them from the moth, and the Prince had come as they had appointed, she let fall her hair; he seized it with both hands, and cried, "Draw up." When he was drawn up she made him first climb on to the rafters and find the gall-nuts, knowing well what effect they would have, as she had been enchanted by the ogress. ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... the hope and the desire of returning home and to one's former state is like the moth to the light, and that the man who with constant longing awaits with joy each new spring time, each new summer, each new month and new year—deeming that the things he longs for are ever too late in coming—does not perceive that he is longing for his own destruction. But this desire is ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Have you ever watched a cecropia moth when it crawls out of its dull gray prison of chrysalis? It is a moist, frail, tottering creature with tiny wings folded against its quivering body, but as the spring sunshine brings to play its magic and infuses its "subtle heats," ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... an one dost thou open thine eyes! And him thou bringest into judgment with thee! Though he is gnawed as a rotten thing, As a garment that is moth-eaten. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... its workings the manoeuvres of a moth distracted by the glory of several bright lights. It dashed at one, got slightly singed, and forgetting all about that turned its attention to the second, and the third, taking headers into each in turn, without deciding which, on the whole, was the most ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... arrangement of what Sir Philip Sidney calls "old moth-eaten records," supplies material for the work of the historian proper; and, occasionally to good purpose, corrects it, but, as a rule, with too much flourish. Applying this minute criticism to The French Revolution, one reviewer ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... As a moth beats sidewise And up and over, and tries To skirt the irresistible lure Of the flame that has him sure, My spirit, that is none too strong to-day, Flutters and makes delay, — Pausing to wonder ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Charlie Hunt, modern moth without fear or shyness, but with a great deal of caution, was indeed returning for the third or fourth time to Mrs. Hawthorne's side, drawn by the sparkle of eyes and tresses and smiles and diamonds. Francesca had already described him that evening to ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... those places," the man said. "Inside of that are the eggs of a moth that eats things up and does a great deal of harm. Those eggs would hatch when it gets warm enough, and little worms would come out, and they would begin to eat, and the worms would change into moths later on, and the moths would lay more ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... on earth," he thought; "moth and rust." But it would be hopeless to attempt any explanation. "No," he said; ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and beauty, this gay glory and tremorous ecstasy and effort was here for moth-love of one incarnate fever of frail-winged loveliness! Oh! to what unguessed archangelic observation, to what infinite seraphic compassion, may not our own swarming race, who dare not too much pity ourselves, ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... successfully controlled, the grower must know something of its life-history, and particularly of its feeding-habits. Careful observation of the insect, while at its work of destruction, will frequently give a clue to the method of control. Many insects, like the caterpillars of the pecan, bud-moth and case-worm, obtain their food by biting off pieces of the leaves or other parts of the tree and swallowing the solid particles. On the other hand, a number of insects, such as the scales and plant-lice, obtain their food by thrusting their small, bristle-like sucking tubes into ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... And yet this drawback was more than counterbalanced by the gratification of his vanity in finding a Ferrars his habitual guest. Such a luxury seemed a dangerous indulgence, but he could not resist it, and the moth was always flying round the candle. There was no danger, however, and that Mr. Rodney soon found out. Endymion was born with tact, and it came to him as much from goodness of heart as fineness of taste. Mr. Rodney, therefore, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... at first, but at the next block his tainted imagination will have overcome the fear, and with the reckless confidence that he will know how to protect himself and that he will have good luck he, too, like the moth, will feel attracted toward the red light and will turn back. We can prohibit alcohol, but we cannot prohibit the stimulus to sexual lust. It is always present, and the selfish desire, made rampant by a society which craves amusement, will always be stronger ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... wise, and my ward quite readily accepted its teachings. None but Olga suspected the truth. I would not marry Brunella Carew, if she were the last woman left living on the wide earth. I do not want a fashion-moth. I would not have the residue of what once belonged to another. I want a tender, pure, sweet, fresh white flower that I know, and have long watched expanding from its pretty bud. I want my darling, whom no other man has kissed, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... finally flung back to me as lies—lies all! The finely spun web of any fancy,—the delicate interwoven intricacies of thought,—these were torn to shreds with as little compunction as idle children feel when destroying for their own cruel sport the velvety wonder of a moth's wing, or the radiant rose and emerald pinions of a dragon-fly. I was a fool—so I was told with many a languid sneer and stale jest—to talk of hidden mysteries in the whisper of the wind and the dash of the waves—such sounds were but common cause and effect. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... forty million dollars. This vast estate was mostly frittered away, honeycombed and moth-eaten, by hungry attorneys. The business was carried on by Hessians who worked both ends against the middle, and let ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... the size of the box and the whole saturated with kerosene. One or two of these strips will help very greatly in kindling a fire when damp twigs or shavings are all that are at hand. A few camphor balls (the ordinary "moth balls") will serve equally well; and there may come a time, on any long journey, when the forethought that has provided such aid will be looked back upon ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... him with fanciful apprehensions of unhappiness. A moth having fluttered round the candle, and burnt itself, he laid hold of this little incident to admonish me; saying, with a sly look, and in a solemn but quiet tone, 'That creature was its own tormentor, and I believe ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... possessed of great learning, with soul under proper control, ever waiting upon the aged, and subdued senses; possessed thus of every accomplishment, he is like unto a blazing fire. What fool, doomed to destruction and deprived of sense, will jump, moth-like, into that blazing and irresistible Pandava fire! Alas, I have behaved deceitfully towards him. The king, like unto a fire of long flames, will destroy all my foolish sons in battle without leaving any alive. I, therefore, think that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of. -relation of flora to that of Fuegia. -similarity between plants of S. America and of. -importance of collecting fossil plants on. -moth from. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Swallows and Flycatchers. Flies and insects, to any amount, are to be had for the catching; and the opportunity is well improved. See that sombre, ashen-colored Pewee on yonder branch. A true sportsman he, who never takes his game at rest, but always on the wing. You vagrant Fly, you purblind Moth, beware how you come within his range! Observe his attitude. You might think him studying the atmosphere or the light, for he has an air of contemplation and not of watchfulness. But step closer; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... is it you?" said she, with as much composure as if she had not been caught gazing at herself. "I was looking at this," pointing to an inverted tumbler on the mantel-piece. "Is it not strange that we should see a moth at this cold season? Amilly found it this ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... around her the terrible silence of a still night. All those small sounds lost in the hum of midday life now came into relief—a ticking in the wainscot, a crack now and then in the joining of the furniture, and occasionally the tap of a moth against the window pane from outside, sounds sharp and odd, which made her wish the stillness of the night were not ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had read the history of his country; in imagination he saw the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome. And better still, he had figured out in his own mind why sleep and death, and moth and dust, and rust and ruin had settled down upon the race, and mankind had endured a thousand years ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag; Gladding his palate with some store Of emmets' eggs: what would he more But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh, A bloated earwig, and a fly: With the red-capp'd worm, that is shut Within the concave of a nut, Brown as his tooth; a little moth, Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth; With wither'd cherries; mandrakes' ears; Moles' eyes; to these, the slain stag's tears; The unctuous dewlaps of a snail; The broke heart of a nightingale O'ercome in music; with a wine Ne'er ravish'd from the flatt'ring rine, But gently press'd from ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... moth-wings dashing against the flame, Burning in love's areanum; 'twas a cry Struck from soul-crossing chords, that, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tide that swells and falls... He slept and woke and slept again. As a veil drops Time dropped away; Space grew a toy for children's play, Sleep bolted fast the gates of Sense — He lay in naked impotence; Like a drenched moth that creeps and crawls Heavily up brown, light-baked walls, To fall in wreck, her task undone, Yet somehow striving toward the sun. So, as he slept, his hands clenched tighter, Shut in the old way of the ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... lies. (Chord. ALGERNON comes on from R. I and conducts and then Exits.) I still trust you, my husband, though the police want you for stealing moth balls. (Crash off.) What's that? (Runs to door.) Oh, it's the health department. They have come with the garbage wagon to arrest you. Quick, in there. (Points to ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall and takes down the names of the great ones who are admitted to the feasts dies after a little time. He can't survive the glare of fashion long. It scorches him up, as the presence of Jupiter in full dress wasted that poor imprudent Semele—a giddy moth of a creature who ruined herself by venturing out of her natural atmosphere. Her myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the Tyburnians, the Belgravians—her story, and perhaps Becky's too. Ah, ladies!—ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a fluttering moth gave the excuse her heart longed for, and her fingers rested for a moment, light as the moth itself, on his hair. There was something in the touch which made him open his eyes—uncomprehending at first, and then filled with a ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... mark my words—Deutschland is going to spring at Europe like a tiger. The army and navy are ready for the onslaught. When they spring, it will be farewell to civilization—except the German—unless something like a miracle supervenes. The French army is being moth-eaten by the Socialists, the British navy has dry rot. I look to see Wilhelm practically the ruler of the earth. If not, he will cause it to pay a cost that will make the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and where thieves break ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... be hoped," I said, sipping the Haut-Brion, whose fine and brittle smack contrasted rarely with the delicious juiciness of the fruit, "that you have laid in a supply of this treasure that neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, before parting with that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... smote them as a moth: and from morning even unto the evening they endure not. Because they were not able to help themselves, they perished; he breathed upon them and they died, because ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... I have given her," answered John, "no excuse at all. I should sing in a spirit purely academic,—my song would be the utterance of a pious but hopeless longing, of the moth's desire for ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... to remember, and that is that the rate of growth is swift when the duration of existence is short. A reed springs up in a night. How long does an oak take before it gets too high for a sheep to crop at? The moth lives its full life in a day. There is no creature that has helpless infancy so long as a man. We have the slow work of mining; the dynamite will be put into the hole one day, and the spark applied— and then? So 'an inheritance may be gotten ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... did so, something flew into her face, and fluttered to the edge of the vase, and as she attempted to brush it off, she started back, smothering a cry of horror. It was the Sphinx Atropos, the Death's Head Moth; and there, upon its breast, appallingly distinct, grinned the ghastly, gray human skull. Twice it circled rapidly round the vase, uttering strange, stridulous sounds, then floated up to the canopy overarching Felix's bed, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... trick was worn out, other waggish gentlemen had introduced the practice of dropping wax matches on the floor and treading on them, and of hunting an imaginary moth—an irresistibly humorous proceeding, in which the participators rushed about brandishing books and magazines, ever and anon crying, "There he is!" and smiting on the head some quiet, unoffending reader. Some evil-minded young miscreant went so far as to put bits of india-rubber on the top of ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... asked, nay compelled, to come and bow down before these alms-begging loblollies. To refuse to make obeisance was treason. The entire public thought of a vast section of the country has revolved around the figure of a worthless old grafter in a tattered gray shirt. Every question is settled when some moth-eaten ne'er-do-well lets out what is known as a 'rebel yell.' The most polished and profound speech conceivable is answered when a jackass mounts the platform and brays out something about the gallant boys in gray. The cry for progress, for material advancement, for moral and social betterment, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... man—who or what is his wife, hated though she be, or what is she to him in any way, that she should prove the slightest obstacle in the path of one like him? He would meet her as her lord and master, and brush her away as he would a moth." ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the E flats are actually vibrating in sympathy, because they are in perfect harmony with the note given out by the voice; but none of the other strings are responding because they are out of harmony. With this simile in mind, let us consider the curious fact that a moth always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which the caterpillars, when they hatch out of these eggs, must feed. The study of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest to me, as I firmly believe ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... Averting his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel eyes of a running fox: then, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... crystalline compound, C10H8, derived from coal tar or petroleum and used in manufacturing dyes, moth repellents, and explosives and as ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... state, What orator, though most acute, Can fully heaven relate? 5. If palaces that princes build, Which yet are made of clay, Do so amaze when much beheld, Of heaven what shall we say? 6. It is the high and holy place; No moth can there annoy, Nor make to fade that goodly grace That saints shall there enjoy. 7. Mansions for glory and for rest Do there prepared stand; Buildings eternal for the blest Are there provided, and 8. The glory ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... before the romance of destiny." Does not this sentence read as if it were written in stress of some effusive febrile emotion, as if he wrote while still pursuing his idea? And so it reminds us of a moth fluttering after a light. But however vacillating, the sentence contains some pretty clauses, and it will be remembered though not perhaps in its original form. We shall forget the "laughter and the tears" and the "sudden freshet," and a simpler phrase will form itself in our memories. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... on the other hand, he was the moth in the candle. Of Mr. Marlboro's devotion Eloise was quite aware,—and whereas, playing with it the least bit in the world, she had at first enjoyed it, it grew to irk her sadly; she used to beg her friends, in all manner of pretty ways, to take him off her hands, and would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... "'—where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.' H'm," read Mr. Carlyle with weight. "This is a most important ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... is not thine, But lent to thee in trust That thou may'st make God's glory shine, Secured from moth and rust. ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass
... and a waving blind, And the beat of a clock from a distant floor; On this scene enter—winged, horned, and spined— A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore; While 'mid my page there idly stands A sleepy fly, that rubs ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... lands we all know; most of us have seen their minute eggs. Many are quite visible to the unaided eye; others are extremely minute. A gives the egg of the small white butterfly;[4] B, that of the small tortoiseshell; C, that of the waved umber moth; D, that of the thorn moth; E, that of the shark moth; at F we have the delicate egg of the small emerald butterfly, and at G an American skipper; and finally, at H, the egg of a moth known as mania maura. In all this you see a delicacy of symmetry, structure, and carving, not accessible ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... trees, was exhibited in two double-faced frames attached to the top of this case. The more important insects included in this group were the following: Sugar maple borer, elm snout beetles, twig girdler or twig pruner, white marked tussock moth, gypsy moth, brown tail moth, bag worm, forest tent caterpillar, elm leaf beetle, oyster scale, scurfy bark louse, San Jose scale, elm bark louse, cottony maple scale. One plate was devoted to characteristic ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... in several respects interesting to us, more especially because they have varied largely at an early period of life, and the variations have been inherited at corresponding periods. As the value of the silk-moth depends entirely on the cocoon, every change in its structure and qualities has been carefully attended to, and races differing much in the cocoon, but hardly at all in the adult state, have been produced. With the races of most ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... to the Bible she had brought, and from which she had previously been reading. "There is a verse there which tells us that we are to lay up riches in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal," she answered in an unaffected tone. "I should not expect interest, and I am very sure that I should be satisfied with ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... dust, then you may arise, forgetting time and space and self, and take refuge in mansions not made with hands; and find a certain sad, sweet satisfaction in the contemplation of treasures stored up where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves do not break ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... to their feet, cursing, and fired repeatedly at the Germans carrying the flaming jets. Here and there the shots were true. A man hunched under a cylinder exploded like a fat moth caught in a candle-flame. But that advancing line of fire after the long bombardment was too much for the rank and file, whose clothes were smoking and whose bodies were scorched. In something like a panic ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... day, such as the willow-fly; and the cow-dung-fly is sometimes carried on the water by winds. In March there are several flies found on most rivers. The grannam, or green-tail-fly, with a wing like a moth, comes on generally morning and evening, from five till eight o'clock, A.M. in mild weather, in the end of March and through April. Then there are the blue and the brown, both ephemerae, which come on, the first in dark days, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... which they are not accustomed, and in attaining an end which has presented itself by accident. Such are, for example, the arrangements which they make to defend their honey against the attacks of a great nocturnal Moth, the Death's Head. I shall have ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... The singed moth again and again dares the flame which tortures it, and at last gives its life, a sacrifice to its folly; the burned child fears the fire, and does not the second time seek the experience. So also can the efficiency of an individual or a nation, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... us, glad to get away. Had he stayed much longer there would have been one more sad moth in the pretty net into which fell all who were long in the company of our fatal Darthea. I too applied for active duty, but some influence, probably that of General Arnold, came in the way and ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... up to the box-room and made as comfortable as possible in a snug nook between an old nursery fender and the wreck of a big four-poster. They gave him a big rag-bag to sit on, and an old, moth-eaten fur coat off the nail on the door to keep him warm. And when they had had their own tea they took him some. He did not like the tea at all, but he liked the bread and butter, and cake that went with it. They took ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... his phrase, he went to the table, drew forth Caesar's "Gallic Wars," and a copy of "Lorna Doone" and immediately began to concentrate. A moment later Snorky Green arrived chuckling from a foray down the hall where he had just deposited a moth ball in the lamp chimney of Beckstein, the Midnight Poler. He came in rollicking and triumphant, slamming and locking the door against a sudden reprisal. Then, seeing Skippy, he stiffened, scowled, and assumed an air of frigid ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be discovered even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth—for time, and wear, and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag—on careful examination, assumed the shape ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... understand. He reserves his most biting condemnation for those second-hand critics who accept other people's opinions for their criteria, and rave over "beauty," "soul," "character," "expression" and "tone" in wretched, dingy, moth-eaten pictures. He hated with the heartiest detestation such people—whose sole ambition seemed to be to make a fine show of knowledge of art by means of an easily acquired vocabulary of inexpressive technical ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... race, immortal, separate; one has no wish to look at them with love, only with a sort of lowly adoration, physical, but wanting what is the soul of all love, whether admitted to oneself or not, hope; in a word "the desire of the moth for the star." O great white stars of eternal marble, O shapely, colossal women, and yet not women. It is not love that we seek from them, we do not desire to see their great eyes troubled with our passions, or the great impassive members contorted by any hope ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Dormouse attended, but cold and forlorn; And the Gnat slowly winded his shrill little horn; And the Moth, who was griev'd for the loss of a sister, Bent over the ...
— The Butterfly's Funeral - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball and Grasshopper's Feast • J. L. B.
... yet, nor the pleasure of seeing the way again, the lifting of the darkness leaves heaviness beneath it, and if a rashly early bird flops down upon the grass, he cannot count his distance, but quivers like a moth. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... attended with comrades or rivals, though thou comest in peace yet thy object is hostile:—for one single moment that my mistress associated with a rival, it went well-nigh to slay me with jealousy. Smiling, she replied: "O Sa'di! I am the torch of the assembly; what is it to me if the moth ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... annihilating the weaker. The one inexorable thing in the world is Nature. The eagle dominates the hawk; the hawk, the falcon; the falcon, the raven; and so on down to the place where the hummingbird drives the moth from his particular trumpet flower. The big snake swallows the little one. The big ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... that attack dried fruits and vegetables. They are much more likely to get into the fruit during the process of drying than to find their way through boxes into the stored products. This applies particularly to drying in the sun. The Indian-meal moth is the most destructive of these insects. It is about three-eighths of an inch long and has a cloaked appearance, one-third gray and the rest copper-brown. The fig moth is about the same size, but dark, neutral gray. A minute, flattened chocolate-brown ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... poor moth burning In the candle-flame," said she, Its wings and legs are turning To ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... sizes and colours, and well he knows how to suit them to each particular fish. But white or black, every fish takes one fly or the other, and then comes the question—is the fish that has swallowed the big gaudy lure so much worse or more foolish than that which has fallen to the delicate white moth with the same sharp barb ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... with gloomy despair, and here are the phantom-like thoughts which tap, with wings of a bat, the beak of a vulture, the body of a death's-head moth, upon the walls of the palace in which, enkindled by desire, glows your brain like ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... susceptible simpletons: all mouse-traps for the heart have again been set! And whenever I lift a curtain, a night-moth rusheth out of it. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier of steps, as if he were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his box, which I remember to have been decorated with an old weather-stained pea-green hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time. It was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and ragged things behind for I don't know how many footmen to hold on by, and a harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... tree-fern jungle upon an unknown planet. The heavy, sickly-sweet scents of closed jungle blossoms filled their nostrils. The reek of feverishly growing green things saturated the air. A steady wind blew down the Tube, and it bore innumerable unfamiliar odors into the laboratory. Once a gigantic moth bumped and blundered into the Tube, and finally crawled heavily out into the light. It was scaled, and terrible because of its monstrous size, but it had broken a wing and could not fly. So it crawled with feverish haste toward a brilliant electric light. Its eyes were especially horrible because ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... present of Le Petit Trianon. Much has been said of the extravagant expense lavished by her upon this spot. I can only declare that the greater part of the articles of furniture which had not been worn out by time or were not worm or moth-eaten, and her own bed among them, were taken from the apartments of former Queens, and some of them had actually belonged to Anne of Austria, who, like Marie Antoinette, had purchased them out of her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... admitted. "I am the first to acknowledge that. I was merely following out our theory to what seemed its logical conclusion. But perhaps we are on the wrong track altogether. Perhaps d'Aurelle, or whatever his name is, just blundered in, like a moth into a candle-flame. As for the plot—well, I can only guess at it. But suppose you and I had ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... And so, as the moth follows the flickering, dancing flame, foolish Sally Gardiner, without a thought of danger, took the arm of the handsome stranger whom she had known but a few short weeks, and sauntered out upon the ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... disposin' o' them caterpillars as though they had been trained to the business. They stung 'em an' then dropped an egg where they'd stung. Sometimes the caterpillar lived long enough to spin a web, as they usually do, but it never come out as a moth. An' since it's the moth that lays the eggs, this fly put an end to the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... he contemnes, as a novelty of this latter age; but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly; especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... idea struck Turpin that the restless mass of parti-colored shreds and patches, of vivid hues and varied tintings, singularly, though accidentally, disposed to produce such an effect, resembled an immense tiger-moth, or it might be a Turkey carpet spread out ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... off, though he decided that a clever cabinet-maker could have repaired the damage in a day. There were one or two choice rugs on the floor, but they were threadbare; the heavy hangings about the inner doors were dingy and moth-eaten; and, though all this was in harmony with the drowsy quietness and the faint smell of ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... in the socket, But as yet the flame is not out, And St. Jude hath singed the silly moth, That flutters so ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... bat has made the same mistake, and flits past us at noonday. And there is another—No; as it turns, a blaze of metallic azure off the upper side of the wings proves this one to be no bat, but a Morpho—a moth as big as a bat. And what was that second larger flash of golden green, which dashed at the moth, and back to yonder branch not ten feet off? A Jacamar {138d}—kingfisher, as they miscall her here, sitting fearless of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... in cramming her cell with Spiders for the benefit of an egg no longer there and when she dutifully closes a cell which my forceps has left empty, extracting alike germ and provisions. The Mason-bees (Cf. "The Mason-bees": chapter 7.—Translator's Note.), the caterpillar of the Great Peacock Moth (Cf. "Social Life in the Insect World" by J.H. Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall: chapter 14.—Translator's Note.) and many others, when subjected to similar tests, are guilty of the same illogical behaviour: ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... the grown-up table with my fath-er and my moth-er," she declared; "and I don't want to have a nurse any more like a baby! and I want to ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... opteras known to the insect-catching profession. A large Cecropia spread its bright wings across the crown of his hat, and several green Katydids appeared to be climbing up the sides for an introduction to the brilliant moth; three dragon-flies sat on the brim, and two or three ugly beetles kept watch between them. As for grasshoppers, they hung by threads from the hat-brim, and made unique pendants, which flew and flopped about his face as he ran hither and thither with his ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... a piano hitting up ragtime about three feet from one's tympanum, would be false economy. Here, fanned by cool breezes and surrounded by passably fair women and brave men, one may do a certain amount of tissue-restoring. Moreover, there is little danger up here of being slugged by our moth-eaten acquaintance of this afternoon. We shall probably find him waiting for us at the main entrance with a black-jack, but ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... tastes differ, even in companions. There are people who rather like hobnobbing with Beaverbrook. Some are interested in his idiosyncrasies, as though he were a good subject for a novel. Some enjoy the sensation of playing moth to a social flame. Others—perhaps—have a deep respect for his money which, like Carnegie's, is supposed to be a perplexity to himself to know how to spend it that he ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... than all is, that the temptations of this vanity fair have turnt the head of Andrew, and he has bought two horses, with an English man-servan', which you know is an eating moth. But how he payt for them, and whar he is to keep them, is past the compass of my understanding. In short, if the legacy does not cast up soon, I see nothing left for us but to leave the world as a legacy ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... small dust-colour'd beetle climbs with pain O'er the smooth plantain-leaf, a spacious plain! Thence higher still, by countless steps convey'd, He gains the summit of a shiv'ring blade, And flirts his filmy wings, and looks around, Exulting in his distance from the ground. The tender speckled moth here dancing seen, The vaulting grasshopper of glossy green, And all prolific Summer's sporting train, Their little lives by various pow'rs sustain. But what can unassisted vision do? What, but recoil where most it would pursue; His patient ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... than in satisfying their curiosity, cannot see and know everything. To what then shall be directed that vague look, equally attracted to all points for want of any fixed rule? At what shall it stop? It will rest on that which shines most brilliantly, like a moth attracted by light. Now, nothing shines more brightly than success; nothing more solicits the attention. The glorification of success is the first and most infallible consequence of moral indifference. ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... his rime be ragged Tattered and iagged Rudely rain-beaten Rusty and moth-eaten If ye talke well therewyth Yt hath in ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... Abraham.... I will be to you a God." The covenant made with the father was renewed to the children. The father's death did not disannul the promise of the Lord. Death has no power in the realms of grace. His moth and his rust can never destroy the ministries of Divine love. Abraham died and was laid to rest, but the river of life flowed on, and the bounties of the Lord never failed. The village well quenches the thirst of many generations: ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... flying series for girls, tense and startling in its unusual turns. Every reader interested in aviation will be thrilled to follow the strange adventures of Ruth Darrow in her racing monoplane, the Silver Moth. Aided by her chum, Jean Harrington, and her loyal friend, Sandy Morland, Ruth takes part in an exciting air race and solves many a ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... modulated as if dew had just dried from off it—yet each alike, so as to secure the ordered symmetry of classical enrichment. But the Gothic fullness of thought is not therefore left without expression; at the edge of each leaf is an animal, first a cicala, then a lizard, then a bird, moth, serpent, snail—all different, and each wrought to the very life—panting—plumy—writhing—glittering—full of breath and power. This harmony of classical restraint with exhaustless fancy, and of architectural propriety with imitative finish, is found throughout all the fine periods of the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... or when purely-bred bantams partially assume the red plumage of their prototype, we cannot doubt that these qualities were from the first present, though latent, in the individual animal, like the characters of a moth in the caterpillar. Now, if these animals had produced offspring before they had acquired with advancing age their new characters, nothing is more probable than that they would have transmitted them to some of their offspring, which in this case would in appearance ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... 'mid fire and smoke, And twice ten hundred voices spoke - "The playhouse is in flames!" And, lo! where Catherine Street extends, A fiery tail its lustre lends To every window-pane; Blushes each spout in Martlet Court, And Barbican, moth-eaten fort, And Covent Garden kennels sport A bright ensanguined drain; Meux's new brewhouse shows the light, Rowland Hill's Chapel, and the height Where Patent Shot they sell; The Tennis Court, so fair and tall, Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall, The Ticket-Porters' ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... his branches just then something flew; It seemed like moth, large and grayish of hue. But it was a Fairy. Her voice soft did sound, "Be the tree that bears apples all ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... library well and his grounds thoroughly, and had made excellent improvement of both; it was in vain to try to persuade him that seed-time and harvest were the same thing, and that he had nothing to do but to rest in what he had done; shew his bright colours and flutter like a moth in the sunshine, or sit down like a degenerate bee in the summer time and eat his own honey. The power of action which he knew in himself could not rest without something to act upon. It longed ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... harm would happen to the house: six weeks ago the cakes were all burned on one side, and last Saint Martin even as ever was, there flew into the candle a big moth that had ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... kind were utterly alien to Diana's nature. Impulsive, warm-hearted, quick-tempered, she was the last woman in the world to have been thrust by an unkind fate into an atmosphere of intrigue and mystery. She was like a pretty, fluttering, summer moth, caught in the gossamer web of a spider—terrified, struggling, battling against something she did not understand, and utterly without the patience and strong determination requisite ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... were of divers pale colours, some dove-grey, others saffron and moth-green, and those on the farther side, of the colour of pale violets, and all pitched in a vast circle whose centre was the moon. I handed the mackintosh to the Count and insisted upon his donning of it. "The dew hangs in the air," said I, "and unless the ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the phoenix for a miraculous type of his own soul springing, free and eternal, from the ashes of his corpse. Having watched the silkworm, as it wove its cocoon and lay down in its oblong grave apparently dead, until at length it struggles forth, glittering with rainbow colors, a winged moth, endowed with new faculties and living a new life in a new sphere, he conceives that so the human soul may, in the fulness of time, disentangle itself from the imprisoning meshes of this world of larva, a thing of spirit beauty, to sail through ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... I three times idly flicked that corner of the pool with a synthetic moth. Again for the fourth time I cast, more from habit than hope. Then ensued that terrific rush from the ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... they wanted. But she began to believe that the fascination he exercised upon her was merely physical. That gave her pause. Not only was Burns Carroll on trial, but also a very foolish fluttering little moth—herself. It was time enough, however, to be stern with herself ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... ambition gets the better of discretion, but fortunately soon finds its natural level: the violent ultra-tory, and the violent ultra-demagogue sink alike, after a few years of excitement, into the moth-eaten receptacle of newspaper renown, alike unheeded, and alike forgotten, by a newer and more enlightened generation, who find that, to the cost of the real interest of the people, the mouthing orator, the agitator, the ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... only I had her near me Men who believe that there is a virtue in imprecations Not men of brains, but the men of aptitudes Not the indignant and the frozen, but the genially indifferent One is a fish to her hook; another a moth to her light One night, and her character's gone Passion added to a bowl of reason makes a sophist's mess Policy seems to petrify their minds Rage of a conceited schemer tricked Respect one another's affectations ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... his promise. And before any dimness came even to the forest, or golden shafts down colonnades which were before all cathedrals, they found the old camp that they sought, which still had a clear flavour of magic for Morano on account of the moth-like coming and going of his three horses after he had tied them to that tree. And here they looked for the King of Shadow Valley; and then Rodriguez called him; and then all three of them called him, shouting "King ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... taste and research, was appointed commissioner. It was known that in the garrets or cellars of the Province Building were heaps of manuscript records, of various kinds; but their exact nature and value were only surmised. Some of these had vanished, it is said, by the agency of rats and mice; and moth and mold were doing their work on other portions. To stay the waste, to ascertain what the heaps contained, and to arrange documents at all worthy of preservation, the commission was appointed. Mr. Akins has been for some months at the superintendence of the ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... but, when they hear This muster of the mountaineer, Their pennons will abroad be flung, Which else in Doune had peaceful hung." 95 "Free be they flung!—for we were loath Their silken folds should feast the moth. Free be they flung!—as free shall wave Clan-Alpine's pine in banner brave. But, Stranger, peaceful since you came, 100 Bewildered in the mountain game, Whence the bold boast by which you show Vich-Alpine's vowed and mortal foe?" "Warrior, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... moth and rust corrupt, Or thieves break through and steal, or they Make themselves wings and fly away. One man made merry as he supped, Nor guessed how when that night grew dim, His soul would be ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... group—to a lower type. What is the test, the touchstone, by which we can tell to which class any value belongs? We shall find the test clearly stated in the Sermon on the Mount. Is the treasure in question one that moth and rust can corrupt or that thieves can break through and steal? If so, it belongs to the lower class, to Property. But if it is one that cannot be taken away, then it is a Possession and belongs to the higher type. There is another test, which is really a ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... down in her lovely bosom. His words penetrated the heart whose very lightness was its safest armor. She looked up at him with eyes that saw. And a warm glow visited her cool cheeks. Tremblingly, awfully, her moth wings closed, and she seemed about to settle upon the flower of love. Some faint glimmer of life and its possibilities on the other side of her glove counter dawned upon her. Carter felt the change and crowded ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... moth doth blindly rush To reach the flame, its life oft pays the debt Of folly. Yet 'tis nobler thus to die Midst all the brightness of a waking life, Than from the world ooze out through darkened ways ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... on the line to air. Presently an old uniform with worn trimmings was swinging its sleeves in the air and embracing a brocade gown; from behind it peeped a court-coat, with buttons stamped with coats-of-arms, and moth-eaten collar; and white kersymere pantaloons with spots, which had once upon a time clothed Ivan Nikiforovitch's legs, and might now possibly fit his fingers. Behind them were speedily hung some more in the shape of the letter pi. Then ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... did not display any pleasure at seeing him. After one of these calls he was apt to be late in reaching "The Top," as his grandfather's place was called, and old Benjamin Wright, in his brown wig and moth-eaten beaver hat, would glare at him with melancholy ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... does care for me; but shall I ever be able to make her confess it? She must know how I love her. However, I feel free to go to the house as usual, and I may not, after all, repeat the moth-and-candle story, as I feared." ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... ecstatic, "Look, there's a—," and paused, not knowing what on earth to call it. Then rapidly to cover up his ignorance he pointed confidently to a somewhat similar fowl and said sagely, "And there's another!" The curious moth-eaten and shabby appearance that captive camels always exhibit was accurately recorded in his addressing one of them as "poor old horsie." And after watching the llamas in silence, when he saw them nibble at some grass he was satisfied. "Moo-cow," he stated positively, and turned away. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... in size and form and habits, of the insects around the orchid, and think how the orchid has to select its own particular species of insect and cater for that, and the insect among all the flowers has to select the particular species of orchid; and how the insect, whether butterfly or bee or moth or gnat or ant, or any other of the numerous kinds of insect, and the orchid have to adapt themselves to each other—we see how marvellous the mutual adaptation of flower to insect and insect to flower must have been. We see how the particular ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... and vexation robbed him of his reason for a while; and you and I are his children. Milk of roses creeps along in that young lady's veins, but fire gallops in ours. Give her up, David, as she has you. She has let you escape; don't fly back like a moth to the candle! You shan't, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Dunbar's The Shell of Sense is another instance of jealousy reaching beyond the grave. The Messenger, one of Robert W. Chambers's early stories and an admirable example of the supernatural, has various thrills, with its river of blood, its death's head moth, and the ancient but very active skull of the Black Priest who was shot as a traitor to his country, but lived on as ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... hurts man, it makes all the better hedge"; and that, "if it chances to prick the owner, it tears the thief." "Weasels, kites, and other hurtful animals induce us to watchfulness; thistles and moles, to good husbandry; lice oblige us to cleanliness in our bodies, spiders in our houses, and the moth in our clothes." This very optimistic view, triumphing over the theological theory of noxious animals and plants as effects of sin, which prevailed with so much force from St. Augustine to Wesley, was ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... which were too far out of the way to feel the draught between the windows, curled over him: he had a cigar in one hand, which he had just taken from his lips, and with which he was faintly waving off a big night-moth which had been attracted by the lights; and a French novel, unmistakable in its paper cover, had closed upon the other. Altogether a more languid figure never lay at rest in undisturbed possession of the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... was good, and that now she could compose music infinitely better. The sharpness of longing for her lost art cut through her. She half turned from the piano and then went back, as a moth to the flame. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... expected more,— the good part yet to come. The rhyme fell flat as a pancake, for of course the children did not understand it. Its nonsense, clever enough, escaped them. True nonsense is for grown-ups only. Jane Anne stared steadily at him with a puzzled frown. Her face wore an expression like a moth. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... beguiles the simple fool And binds with magic thongs the hapless wight; That like a moth lured by the candle-light, He hovers, helpless, ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... all the woollens with fresh camphire and tobacco the last o' the winter; you have to be dreadful careful in one o' these old houses, 'less everything gets creaking with moths in no time. Miss Katharine, how she did hate the sight of a moth-miller! There's something I'll speak about before I forget it: the mice have eat the backs of a pile o' old books that's stored away in the west chamber closet next to Miss Katharine's room, and I set a trap there, but it was older 'n the ten commandments, that trap ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Feather breathed. From her delicate shoulders hung floating scarf-like sleeves of black transparency and she lifted one of them and held it out like a night moth's wing—"This cost forty pounds," she said, her voice quite faint and low. "A good nurse would cost forty! A cook—and a footman and a maid—and a coachman—and the brougham—I don't know how much they would ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this wicked plan with horror. Nevertheless, after her sisters were gone, she brooded over what they had said, not seeing their evil intent; and she came to find some wisdom in their words. Little by little, suspicion ate, like a moth, into her lovely mind; and at nightfall, in shame and fear, she hid a lamp and a dagger in her chamber. Towards midnight, when her husband was fast asleep, up she rose, hardly daring to breathe; and coming softly to his ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... at church. Sunday after Sunday he sat down and stood up with that small company, heard the voice of Mr. Torrance leaping like an ill-played clarionet from key to key, and had an opportunity to study his moth-eaten gown and the black thread mittens that he joined together in prayer, and lifted up with a reverent solemnity in the act of benediction. Hermiston pew was a little square box, dwarfish in proportion with the kirk itself, and enclosing a table not much ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Fragile, fairy thing, Poised upon slender tip, and quivering To flight! a flower of the fields of air; A jeweled moth; a butterfly, with rare And tender tints upon his downy wings, A moment resting in our happy sight; A flower held captive by a thread so slight Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer Are light as the wind, with every wind astir, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite. O dainty nursling ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various |
