"Nettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains. Verses written on a ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... (Sugar Berry, Nettle Tree). The wood is handsome, heavy, hard, strong, quite tough, of moderately fine texture, and greenish or yellowish color, shrinks moderately, works well and stands well, and takes a good polish. Used to some extent in cooperage, and ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... extremities are treated with splints and bandages, as in Europe. Venereal ulcers are sprinkled with alkaline wood ashes, the astringent liquid of the nettle bark, or a macerated preparation from a particular kind of broad-leaved grass. Superficial wounds are left to themselves, and usually heal without much trouble. Malformations of the body are attributed to the influence ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my only, and till within the last twelve months, have ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... not forgive either his own alarm, or the 'not exactly'; and the terms of confidence so evident between him and Felix seemed to place them in the same hateful category. Worse than all, Lance had laughed at him, and Bernard was far too proud and self-important not to feel every joke like so many nettle-stings. He had expected an easy careless helper; he had found what he could not comprehend, whether boy or man, but at any rate a thing with that intolerable possession, a conscience, and a strong purpose of keeping ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hoop; an ancient marine custom. Four or more boys having their left hands tied fast to an iron hoop, and each of them a rope, called a nettle, in their right, being naked to the waist, wait the signal to begin: this being made by a stroke with a cat of nine tails, given by the boatswain to one of the boys, he strikes the boy before him, and every one does the same: ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did not always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular field to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Rose," proved, unhappily for Clemence, to possess more of the characteristics of a stinging nettle, than of the flower whose name she bore, and she was glad when her week was out, and she could leave her charming society, for that which she fondly hoped might be ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... policy, which neither Russia nor Turkey could mistake, or else have carried out his twice-repeated purpose of resignation. Everyone admits that from the outset his position was one of great difficulty, but he increased it greatly by his practical refusal to grasp the nettle. He was not ambitious of power, but, on the contrary, longed for his quiet retreat at Haddo. He was on the verge of seventy and was essentially a man of few, but scholarly tastes. There can be no doubt that considerable pressure was put upon him both by the Court and the majority ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... scornfully. "That's all they know about it. I've told them till I'm tired that it's nettle-rash. I've had it before. I always do get the wretched thing when I eat sausages. They sort of poison me. It'll go away all right if they only let me alone. What did Miss Todd want bringing that black doctor up to see me? I had nearly ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... old-fashion'd manner, I fit To this character, also, its moral: to wit, Say—the world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings: Grasp it firmly, it stings not. On one of two things, If you would not be stung, it behoves you to settle Avoid it, or crush it. She crush'd not the nettle; For she could not; nor would she avoid it: she tried With the weak hand of woman to thrust it aside, And ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... one of these can be called "a dominant historical personage," and the known facts permit themselves to be, and are, "romanticised" effectively enough. So the flower is in each case plucked from the nettle. And there is another flower of more positive and less compensatory kind which blooms here, which is particularly welcome to some readers, and which, from Cinq-Mars alone, they could hardly have expected to find in any garden of Alfred de Vigny's. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... amongst small shrubs that compose bushes; but for the most part, they consist of small transparent parts, some of which grow in the shape of small Needles or Bodkins, as on the Thistle, Cowag-ecod and Nettle; others in the form of Cat's claws, as in Cliders, the beards of Barley, the edges of several sorts of Grass and Reeds, &c. in other, as Coltsfoot, Rose-campion, Aps, Poplar, Willow, and almost all other downy Plants, they grow in the form of bushes very much diversify'd in each particular Plant, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... and slips, to see if they live, to see if they are likely to grow. Now, if she comes to one that is dead, that she is confident will not grow, up she pulls that, and makes to the heap of rubbish with it, where she despisingly casts it down, and valueth it no more than a nettle, or a weed, or than the dust she hath swept out of her walks. Yea, if any that see her should say, Why do you so? the answer is ready. It is dead, it is dead at root; if I had let it stand it would but have cumbered the ground. The strange slips, and also the dead ones, they must be 'a heap in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... public men, such as Mr. Roosevelt and our own Prime Minister, might be cited in the same sense; but Professor Murray's has been chosen because he has had the courage to grasp the nettle. In his words the true position is quite clearly set forth. If Inter-State Law is to become a reality we must "be sure to go far enough." There is no half-way house between Law and no Law, between Government and no Government, between Responsibility and no Responsibility. If the new Concert ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... was soon of the same opinion; for scarcely a day passed when Emma's truthfulness did not prove a nettle to her ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... that same inn, only to have his fill of looking at her. I myself ventured once to give her a little bit of a squeeze, and all I got for it was a swinging box on the ear. She is as hard as a flint, as savage as a kestrel, and as touch-me-not as a nettle; but she has a face that does a body's eyes good to look at. She has the sun in one cheek, and the moon in the other; the one is made of roses and the other of carnations, and between them both are lilies and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... said, a day and a night in the camp between Aora river and the deep wood of Tarradubh. The plain hummed with our little army, where now are but the nettle and the ivied tower, and the yellow bee booming through the solitude; morning and night the shrill of the piob-mhor rang cheerily to the ear of Dun-chuach; the sharp call of the chieftains and sergeants, the tramp of the brogued feet in their simple evolutions, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... idle while his mistress was away, and he showed her the hospital garden he had made close by, in which were cabbage, nettle, and mignonette plants for the butterflies, flowering herbs for the bees, chick-weed and hemp for the birds, catnip for the pussies, and plenty of room left for whatever other patients might need. In the afternoon, while Nelly did her task at lint-picking, talking busily ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... Constitution? Not the least. The whole affair was like one of those alarms in a country-town which begin with the rumor of ten cases of confluent small-pox and end with the discovery that the doctor has been called to a case of nettle-rash at Deacon Scudder's. But sober men, who loved the Union in a quiet way, without advertising it in the newspapers, and who were willing to sacrifice everything to the Constitution but the rights it was intended to protect, began to fear that the alarmists might create the disease ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... a sort of nettle rash, more blotchy and causing little lumps on the skin, which in a day or two come and go, sometimes appears in the intervals between the pimples, sometimes takes their place, and causes, as they do, much irritation. This nettle rash is usually dependent on some error of diet, on some acidity of the stomach, and, on their being corrected soon passes away, leaving the pimples as they were before, but sometimes being reproduced if the pimples cause excessive ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... tapping a nettle out of existence with his cane, "sir, I have no desire for your speeches, they, like yourself, I find a little trying, and vastly uninteresting. I prefer to stay here and meditate a while. I bid you good night, sir, a ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... to be apologetic and merciful toward those who, while they have great faults, have also great virtues. Some people are barren of virtues. No weeds verily, but no flowers. I must not be too much enraged at a nettle along the fence if it be in a field containing forty acres of ripe Michigan wheat. At the present time, naturalists tell us, there is on the sun a spot twenty thousand miles long, but from the brightness and warmth I conclude it is a good deal of a ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... feel some rather unpleasant sensations about my neck," observed Paddy. "I can't help thinking that some nettle-fish must have got hold of me in the water. I feel the stinging all over me, right down my breast. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... hoped for the best; and there is no bird that can wish itself out of sight in this fashion better than friend pheasant. But he forgot the odd cockerel out. He shot right on to the wretched thing—a gawky red youth—messing about all alone in a nettle-clump, and it dashed into the field, racing on long yellow legs, and squawking fit to ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... hail of shot revenges his tortures. The grass stiffens at nightfall (in autumn), and he must creep where he may, if possibly he may escape the frost. No one cares for the humble-bee. But down to the flowering nettle in the mossy-sided ditch, up into the tall elm, winding in and out and round the branched buttercups, along the banks of the brook, far inside the deepest wood, away he wanders and despises nothing. His nest is under the rough ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... had to overhear this, and I had never seen him less sang fraw—if that's the word. He looked more like a case of nettle rash, especially when Vernabelle gripped his hand at parting and ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... smooth as parchment, and though the edges appear at first sight to be almost clean cut, they have very slight serrations, as if nature had rounded them with a blunt knife. The lobed ivy leaves are likewise highly polished, and they have sharp, pointed tips. The leaves of the common stinging-nettle ("'ettles" the labourers call them) have deep indents all round them. A great dock leaf, in which the chives have a strange resemblance to the arteries in the human frame, has small shallow indents all round it. Hazels are rough and almost round ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... retiring waters leave, Awhile to wait upon the firm fair sand, When all is calm at sea, all still at land; And there the ocean's produce to explore, As floating by, or rolling on the shore: Those living jellies which the flesh inflame, Fierce as a nettle, and from that its name; Some in huge masses, some that you may bring In the small compass of a lady's ring; Figured by hand divine—there's not a gem Wrought by man's art to be compared to them; Soft, brilliant, ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... in strange berths and with but rude provision. I may instance the case of my father, who was storm-bound three days upon an islet, sleeping in the uncemented and unchimneyed houses of the islanders, and subsisting on a diet of nettle-soup and lobsters. ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... physic to-day and so we could not see him. So he went away, and I with Luellin to Mr. Mount's chamber at the Cockpit, where he did lie of old, and there we drank, and from thence to W. Symons where we found him abroad, but she, like a good lady, within, and there we did eat some nettle porrige, which was made on purpose to-day for some of their coming, and was very good. With her we sat a good while, merry in discourse, and so away, Luellin and I to my Lord's, and there dined. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... gum: a stunted or middle-sized tree, which grew in great abundance on the ranges. We passed a fine large but dry Casuarina creek, coming from the westward, with a broad sandy bed. A large tree, with dark green broad lanceolate stinging leaves, grew on its banks; it resembled the nettle tree, but belonged to neither of the two species growing in the bushes of ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... fiber of Hawaii, is found to have promising qualities. This plant resembles ramie and belongs to the nettle family also, but it is without the troublesome resin of the ramie. The fiber is ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... blossom, is familiar in most localities as the "devil's poker," and the ground ivy has been nicknamed the "devil's candlestick," the mandrake supplying his candle. The puff-balls of the lycoperdon form the devil's snuff-box, and in Ireland the nettle is his apron, and the convolvulus his garter; while at Iserlohn, in Germany,[7] "the mothers, to deter their children eating the mulberries, sing to them that the devil requires them for the purpose of blacking his boots." The Arum ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... had drawn back. With the gentle tact peculiar to kindly people, he avoided looking at his disarmed antagonist. But something in the older man's attitude seemed to further nettle the over-stimulated sensibility of the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... concerned himself with looking at the facts, but contents himself with taking them also at second-hand. A most amusing example of this fashion of dealing with scientific statements is furnished by Dr. Stirling's remarks upon my account of the protoplasm of the nettle hair. That account was drawn up from careful and often- repeated observation of the facts. Dr. Stirling thinks he is offering a valid criticism, when he says that my valued friend Professor Stricker gives a somewhat different statement about protoplasm. But why in the world did not ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... transparent globes of the "Portuguese Man of War," Physalus urticulus, which are piled upon the lines left by the waves, like globules of glass delicately tinted with purple and blue. They sting, as their trivial name indicates, like a nettle when incautiously touched. ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... nettle the boy in many ways, but "Dodd" bore the slings and arrows with a good deal of fortitude, and seemed to avoid a clash. The experience with his grandfather had had a very softening effect upon him, and he was slow to forget the lesson. He tried to be good, ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... by a Nettle. He ran home and told his Mother, saying, "Although it hurts me very much, I only touched it gently." "That was just why it stung you," said his Mother. "The next time you touch a Nettle, grasp it boldly, and it will be soft as silk to your hand, ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... berries from a hedge when his hand was stung by a Nettle. Smarting with the pain, he ran to tell his mother, and said to her between his sobs, "I only touched it ever so lightly, mother." "That's just why you got stung, my son," she said; "if you had grasped it firmly, it wouldn't have hurt ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... is to denounce the vices of the times. Hence, indolence and prurient literature are stigmatised. He ridicules the extremes of extravagance, and of that parsimony by which it is usually accompanied. "Am I on a festive day to have a nettle dressed for me, and a smoked pig's cheek with a hole in its ear, in order that that grandson of yours may be surfeited with goose liver, and indulge in patrician amours. Am I to be a living anatomy that his pope's stomach may shake with ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... nettle ta'en, Is in thy beauteous bosom bound, Born amid stings, it gives no pain, 'Tis ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he became more and more convinced that that convict had been everything good, paternal and respectable that a man can be towards Cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and had surmised was real. That sinister nettle had loved and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... commoner kinds,—the kind with the four purple rings on the area of its flat bell, which ever vibrates without sound, and the kind with the fringe of dingy brown, and the long stinging tails, of which I have sometimes borne from my swimming excursions the nettle-like smart for hours,—there were at least two species of more unusual occurrence, both of them very minute. The one, scarcely larger than a shilling, bore the common umbiliferous form, but had its area inscribed ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... brought) out a leathern dildo which, when she had smeared it with oil, ground pepper, and pounded nettle seed, she commenced to force, little by little, up my anus. The merciless old virago then anointed the insides of my thighs with the same decoction; finally mixing nasturtium juice with elixir of southern ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... by overloading the stomach when the animal is turned out to graze in the spring, certain feed constituents, high feeding of fattening stock, functional derangement of the kidneys, spinal and other nervous affections, are the most common sources of nettle rash. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... to nettle and confuse him. "It is, perhaps, not my place to say, as my future happiness does not directly depend on the permanence of his reformation. But if his word can be depended upon, your happiness to ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... substitutes. "They can also," he says, "be blended and arranged to suit the gastric idiosyncrasies of the individual consumer. A few of them are agrimony, comfrey, dandelion, camomile, woodruff, marjoram, hyssop, sage, horehound, tansy, thyme, rosemary, stinging-nettle and raspberry."] ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... of December the rainy season was ushered in with heavy rain, thunder, lightning, and hail; the thermometer falling to 66 degrees Fahrenheit. The evening of this day I was attacked with urticaria, or "nettle rash," for the third time since arriving in Africa, and I suffered a woeful sickness; and it was the forerunner of an attack of remittent fever, which lasted four days. This is the malignant type, which has proved fatal ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Thyme, of each a quarter of a handful, as much Clove gilly-flowers, with half as much Borage and Bugloss flowers, a little Hyssop, Five or six Eringo-roots, three or four Parsley-roots: one Fennel-root, the pith taken out, a few Red-nettle-roots, and a little Harts-tongue. Boil these Roots and Herbs half an hour; Then take out the Roots and Herbs, and put in the Spices grosly beaten in a Canvass-bag, viz. Cloves, Mace, of each half an Ounce, and as much Cinnamon, of Nutmeg an Ounce, with two ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... be off; van los cincuenta I bet fifty. ira f. anger, ire. iracundo, -a wrathful. irona f. irony. irnico, -a ironical. irreligioso, -a irreligious. irreverencia f. irreverence, disrespect. irritar anger, excite, arouse, provoke, nettle, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... sharp, bitter taste. Besides these there were two bulbous plants, which contained a green and glutinous juice. He had also collected two species of ants: one large and black, with a sharp, venomous sting; the other a little red ant, which stings like the nettle. Having scraped the woorali vine and bitter root into thin shavings, he put them into a sieve made of leaves, which he held over a bowl, and poured water on them: a thick liquor came through, having the appearance of coffee. He then produced the ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... proof. Suppose that the account had not been carelessly overdrawn— Suppose— He never for one instant suspected the girl. As soon suspect a rosebud of foregoing its own sweet personality, and of being in reality something else, say a stinging nettle. The girl carried her patent royal of youth and innocence on her face. He made up his mind to say nothing about the check, to lose the ten dollars, and, since dollars were so far from plenty with him, to sacrifice some luxury for the luxury of the loss. He made up his mind ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to me last fall that some new or rare plants might have sprung up in the cellar of this house, which had been covered from the light so long. Searching there on the 22d of September, I found, among other rank weeds, a species of nettle (Urtica urens), which I had not found before; dill, which I had not seen growing spontaneously; the Jerusalem oak (Chenopodium botrys), which I had seen wild in but one place; black nightshade (Solanum nigrum), which is quite rare hereabouts, and common ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... which inheres in the private and particular nature,—and he does not call it any hard names at all from his scientific platform; indeed in the vocabulary of the Naturalist we are told, that these names are omitted, 'for we call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools their folly,'—that exclusive good he finds both passive and active, and this also is one of those primary distinctions which 'is formed in all things,' and so too is the subdivision of passive good which follows. 'For there is impressed ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... at this day as a supposed remedy or charm for the sting of a nettle, by being rubbed on the stung part, with ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... run against the hill, at length courses with facility. The road to success may be steep to climb, and it puts to the proof the energies of him who would reach the summit. But by experience a man soon learns that obstacles are to be overcome by grappling with them,—that the nettle feels as soft as silk when it is boldly grasped,—and that the most effective help towards realizing the object proposed is the moral conviction that we can and will accomplish it. Thus difficulties often fall away of themselves before ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... covered with green plants. Ugly sappy plants, it was true, mostly bur-marigolds, that look like a nettle with brown flowers, which is ugly because flowers should be white, yellow, blue or red. And there were true nettles with green blossoms, and burs, sorrel, thistles, and notch-weed; all the ugliest, burning, stinging, evil-smelling plants, which nobody likes, and which ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... vegetables met with at this port were wild cellery, nettle-tops, and the like, which, after so long a continuance at sea, were highly acceptable. We got abundance of shell-fish, as cockles and muscles of great size and delicious flavour, with plenty of geese, shags, and penguins. Though in the depth of winter the climate was by no means extremely ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... you, boy—don't be a fool, I say, but have sense—I tell you what, Phil," continued his father, and his face assumed a ghastly, deadly look, at once dark and pallid, "listen to me;—I'll forgive him, Phil, until the nettle, the chick-weed, the burdock, the fulsome preshagh, the black fungus, the slimiest weed that grows—aye, till the green mould of ruin itself, grows upon the spot that is now his hearth—till the winter rain beats into, and the whiter wind ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... gardens loved the cheerful giver and blessed her with an abundance of bud and blossom. The highest philosophy of human life she used in her management of this little plant world; for, burying the weeds at the roots of the flowers, the evil was made to minister to the good; and the nettle, the plantain and all their kind were transmuted by nature's fine chemistry into ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... are things concerning it which, even at this late day, when their roseate hue glows but dimly in the blue retrospect of the past,—it would seem sacrilege for me to mention to another. Believe me, I am perfectly aware of your inquisitive nature, and I know that this omission may nettle you. Charge it all up, then, to the perversity of a bachelor in the throes of his first, last, and only love experience. You must see that such things cannot be conveyed to another with anything like their ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, 'out of this nettle danger, we pluck this flower safety,'" ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... large timber trees intermixed with ash, one of which I took on board...it has much the likeness of hickory. I found several other woods, some of them light and pretty, and in particular a tree, the leaves of which sting like nettles. This acquired from us the name of Nettle Tree." ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... an eruption on the skin, often coming suddenly and going off again, but sometimes of long standing. It resembles in appearance the sting of a nettle—hence the name. It is accompanied by an intolerable itching, and is a very sore trouble where it continues, or frequently recurs. Its cause is usually defective digestion. We should not depend on drugs for a cure, but treat first ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... in a particular year shows that the previous year was a good seeding-time. This year has been remarkable for two plants so far, a sort of varnished green ground-weed, with a small white flower, and a dull crimson dead-nettle; both of them have covered the ground in places in huge patches. This is both strange and ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... therefore I cannot give you hares; but you shall have all sorts of birds—larks, and blackbirds, and sparrows, and young rooks, and wildfowl, and many others; and then there is no end of vegetables. Nettle-tops, when well boiled, are excellent, and so are a number of other plants which are looked upon as weeds; and you have no idea of the number of roots which grow in the fields, and hedges, and hill-sides, which are fit to eat. Then, to give flavour to our birds and rabbits, I can find mushrooms ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... would succeed in getting his fingers among Occasion's hair, and secure Aurora for his share, while Dr. Tom was apportioned with the slenderer charmer. But the behavior of all was civilized and urbane, and if a thorn pricked or nettle burned, the sufferer concealed his ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... stupidity, and contradiction proclaims to us, Euge! Nothing ever was more ungenial than the soil this poor Teufelsdrockhish seed-corn has been thrown on here; none cries, Good speed to it; the sorriest nettle or hemlock seed, one would think, had been more welcome. For indeed our British periodical critics, and especially the public of Fraser's Magazine (which I believe I have now done with), exceed all speech; require not even contempt, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... On the side of the authorities he would gain favour by delivering the letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to harm, it was not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to the first blast of vengeance—but the girl. The blame for her, the credit for him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety. But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leave the room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a pace or two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... barred and spotted with crimson, or silver and purple. The dolphin and the tunny and the flying fish swam with us. Sometimes flights of small birds came to us from the land. Sometimes the sea was thickly set with full-blown pale red bloom, the jellyfish that was a flower to the sight and a nettle to the touch. If a storm arose, a fury that raged and threatened, it presently swept away, and the blue laughed again. When the sun sank, there arose in the east such a moon as might have been sole light to all the realms of faery. A beauty languorous and seductive ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... to him, struggling to overcome her fear. She felt that if only she could grasp that fear, like a nettle, and hold it tightly in her hand it would seem so slight and unimportant. But she could not grasp it. It was compounded of so many things, of the silence and the dulness, of the Precincts and the Cathedral, of whispering trees and steps on the stairs, of ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... Sestius' guest 10 Read against claimant Antius a speech, Full-filled with poisonous pestilential trash. Hence a grave frigid rheum and frequent cough Shook me till fled I to thy bosom, where Repose and nettle-broth healed all my ills. 15 Wherefore recruited now best thanks I give To thee for nowise punishing my sins: Nor do I now object if noisome writs Of Sestius hear I, but that cold and cough And rheum may plague, not me, but Sestius' self 20 Who asks me only his ill ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... live-oak leg, an' so, ye see, ther' warn't no gret o' waste; Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they'd ben to college 'Twarn't heartier food than though 'twuz made out o' the tree o' knowledge. But I tell you my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant, An' var'ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement, 50 An' all o' me thet wuzn't sore an' sendin' prickles thru me Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin' Montezumy: A useful limb it's ben to me, an' more of a support ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... manner of folk worshipped there, nor of those who destroyed it. The roofless haunt of bats and owls, preserved from complete collapse by the ancient ivy that covered its walls, the mortar between its stones the prey of briers, its floor a nettle bed, the chapel remained a mystery. Yet over the arch of the west door the two Maries gazed heavenward as they had gazed for six hundred years. The curiosity of the few antiquarians who visited the place and speculated ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... am by the side of a young or old woman now, I try to give our conversation a ticklish turn; I forget all reserve and I try to make her talk of those jokes which nettle, those words of double meaning which excite, and to lead her up to the only subject that interests and holds me, to find out what she feels in her body as well as in her heart, on that night, when for the first time, she has ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... contain a green and glutinous juice; and lastly, collects two species of ants—one very large and black, and so venomous that its sting produces fever, and another little red ant which stings like a nettle. Having scraped the wourali vine and bitter root into thin shavings, he puts them into a sieve made of leaves, which he holds over the earthen pot, pouring water on them. A thick liquor comes through, having the appearance of coffee. He then produces the bulbous stalks, and squeezes a portion ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... fall amid brambles, And sting their toes on the nettle-tops, Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles They wipe their ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... quite stood upright on his pinnacle, visible to Lily's eyes as being really excelsior. Of all this John Eames himself had an inkling which had often made him very uncomfortable. What the mischief was it she wanted of him; and what was he to do? The days for plucking glory from the nettle danger were clean gone by. He was well dressed. He knew a good many of the right sort of people. He was not in debt. He had saved an old nobleman's life once upon a time, and had been a good deal talked about on that score. He ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... child; he remained there open-mouthed. He only dropped his head a moment when a nettle, which felt like an insect, stung his leg; then he looked up again—he looked above him at the face which looked down on him. It appeared to regard him the more steadfastly because it had no eyes. It was a comprehensive glance, having an indescribable fixedness in which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... moderately nutritious plants—nettle and fern—that are found wild in very many countries: and, therefore, the following extract from Messrs. Hue and Gabet's 'Travels in Thibet' may be of service:—"When the young stems of ferns are gathered, quite tender, before they are covered with down, and while the first ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... then lighted a huge bonfire, threw the bush on it, and continued their dance around that. In other parts of Ireland, the boys had a mischievous habit of running through the streets with bundles of nettles, with which they struck the face and hands of every one they met. The sting of nettle, perhaps you know, is a very uncomfortable pain. The same people are very superstitious, and they believed that the power of the Evil Eye was greater on the first of May than at any other time; and they ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... me, why this taunt Of memories sacred from the scorner? And why with reckless hand I plant A nettle on the graves ye honor? Not to reproach New England's dead This record from the past I summon, Of manhood to the scaffold led, And suffering ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... misfortune than the ill-judged advice of well-meaning friends. There is no nettle that stings like it. To expect Hawthorne to become a literary genius, and at the same time to develop the peculiar faculties of a commercial traveller or a curb-stone broker, was unreasonable. In the phraseology of Sir William Hamilton, the two vocations ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... domestic circle and everywhere among women, Lord Ormont was annoyed to find himself often gruffish behind the tie of his cravat. Indeed, the temper of our eminently serene will feel the strain of a doldrum-dulness that is goaded to activity by a nettle. The forbearance he carried farther than most could do was tempted to kick, under pressure of Mrs. Nargett Pagnell. Without much blaming Aminta, on whose behalf he submitted to it, and whose resolution to fix in England had brought it to this crisis, he magnanimously proposed to the Fair Enemy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dear, very pretty)—but I found myself talking in the voice that always makes Alick shut his eyes."—"I should not think he often had to do so," said Ermine, much amused by this gentle remedy—("Mind, Keith, that is a nettle. It ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the Promised Land That flows with Freedom's honey and milk; But 't was they won it, sword in hand, Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.[7] 235 We welcome back our bravest and our best;— Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest, Who went forth brave and bright as any here! I strive to mix some gladness with my strain, But the sad strings complain, 240 And will not please the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Nettle rash is very much like erysipelas, and the same treatment is good for both. Slippery-elm bark, chipped, and let to stand in cold water till it becomes thick, is a very cooling drink. It may be filled up the second time. Barley water is also a ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... and asthmatics are also subject to attacks of urticaria or "hives" (nettle-rash), from these and other special ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat. The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd Of children pouring out of school aloud. And in the little thickets where a sleeper For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper And garden warbler sang unceasingly; While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow As if the bow had flown off with the arrow. Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown Travelled ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... no need to waste On a tongue that's fur, and a palate—paste! A magnum for friends who are sound: the sick— I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loath, Henceforward with nettle-broth. [Footnote: Epilogue to the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... him to her arm. The bite showed no more than the sting of a nettle, but around it was the deep impress of his teeth. Certainly he had ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... was so shallow that at low tide one could have waded almost right across it, were it not for pot-holes here and there—ten-feet traps—and great beds of rotten coral, into which one would sink as into brushwood, to say nothing of the nettle coral that stings like a bed of nettles. There were also other dangers. Tropical shallows are full of wild surprises in the way of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... not his entertainment, namely his seat, his ground, his keeper, or the manner of his setting, comith up thick and rough in leaves, very like unto a nettle; and will be much bitten with a little black flye, who, also, will not do harme unto good hoppes, who if she leave the leaf as full of holes as a nettle, yet she seldome proceedeth to the utter destruction of the Hoppe; where ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... The Little Good Mouse Graciosa and Percinet The Three Princesses of Whiteland The Voice of Death The Six Sillies Kari Woodengown Drakestail The Ratcatcher The True History of Little Goldenhood The Golden Branch The Three Dwarfs Dapplegrim The Enchanted Canary The Twelve Brothers Rapunzel The Nettle Spinner Farmer Weatherbeard Mother Holle Minnikin Bushy Bride Snowdrop The Golden Goose The Seven Foals The Marvellous Musician ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... the weedes wick' *that same Bears eke the wholesome herbes, and full oft Next to the foule nettle, rough and thick, The lily waxeth,* white, and smooth, and soft; *grows And next the valley is the hill aloft, And next the darke night is the glad morrow, And also joy is next the fine* of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... and peddling may be seen. Shoe and corset laces, braces, twine, cakes, oranges, every kind of small articles are offered by men, women, and children; and at other times also, such peddlers are always to be seen standing at the street corners, or going about with cakes and ginger-beer or nettle-beer. Matches and such things, sealing-wax, and patent mixtures for lighting fires are further resources of such venders. Others, so-called jobbers, go about the streets seeking small jobs. Many of these succeed in getting a day's work, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... at the fireside; Teach one year, in words of kindness, Teach with eyes of love a second, In the third year teach with firmness. If she should not heed thy teaching, Should not hear thy kindly counsel, After three long years of effort, Cut a reed upon the lowlands, Cut a nettle from the border, Teach thy wife with harder measures. In the fourth year, if she heed not, Threaten her with sterner treatment, With the stalks of rougher edges, Use not yet the thongs of leather, Do not touch her with the birch-whip. If she should not heed this warning, Should she ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... here are three-and-twenty different kinds; you said I might count all, so I have even counted this thing like a nettle with lilac flowers, and this little ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... with the 'hell and neck boys' of the higher classes, that at one time sentinels were posted to prevent its repetition. One of the nine-steps was rendered more secure because the climber could take hold of the root of a nettle, so precarious were the means of passing this celebrated spot. The manning the Cowgate Port, especially in snowball time, was also a choice amusement, as it offered an inaccessible station for the boys who used these missiles to the annoyance of the passengers. The gateway is now demolished; ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... as those exhibited by the leaflets of the sensitive plants, or the stamens of the barberry, but to much more widely spread, and at the same time, more subtle and hidden, manifestions of vegetable contractility. You are doubtless aware that the common nettle owes its stinging property to the innumerable stiff and needle-like, though exquisitely delicate, hairs which cover its surface. Each stinging-needle tapers from a broad base to a slender summit, which, though rounded ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... labour except Mr. Bensington, who was manifestly unfit. He took post in the Skinners' bedroom with a rifle, to watch the carcase of the dead rat, and of the others, they took turns to rest from sack-carrying and to keep watch two at a time upon the rat-holes behind the nettle grove. The pollen sacs of the nettles were ripe, and every now and then the vigil would be enlivened by the dehiscence of these, the bursting of the sacs sounding exactly like the crack of a pistol, and the pollen grains as big as buckshot pattered ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... Nore and Barrow; and as picturesque ground implies the existence of hill and valley, wood and rock, the naturalist will find himself at home here. The flora is rich, though without any very marked features; the Nettle-leaved Bell-flower (Campanula Trachelium) being the most characteristic species. Regarding the fauna much has still to be learned. In Tipperary, Queen's County, and King's County we are in typical central plain country—great tracts of slightly undulating drift-covered ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... a thorn, they show no wit Who foolishly hug and foster it. If love is a weed, how simple they Who gather and gather it, day by day! If love is a nettle that makes you smart, Why do you wear it next your heart? And if it be neither of these, say I, Why do you sit ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... than most of his contemporaries, though they might be of higher rank and the sons of richer men, he had been much courted and much plundered. At the age of twenty-five he found himself one of the leaders of fashion, renowned chiefly for reckless daring where-ever honour could be plucked out of the nettle danger: a steeple-chaser, whose exploits made a quiet man's hair stand on end; a rider across country, taking leaps which a more cautious huntsman carefully avoided. Known at Paris as well as in London, he had been admired by ladies whose smiles had cost him duels, the marks of which still ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mistresses, they will forbyd, If they be not serued, Trupeny must be chyd. Let them be as mery nowe as ye can desire, With turnyng of a hande, our mirth lieth in the mire, I can not skill of such chaungeable mettle, There is nothing with them but in docke out nettle. ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... iron padded round with gentleness. She tried to fill the little man's soul with jealousy and alarms, but it was stockaded with insolent confidence. He left Dinah, when he went to Paris, with all the conviction of Medor in Angelique's fidelity. When she affected cold disdain, to nettle this changeling by the scorn a courtesan sometimes shows to her "protector," and which acts on him with the certainty of the screw of a winepress, Monsieur de la Baudraye gazed at his wife with fixed eyes, like those of a cat which, ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... ditch there was an undergrowth, a dense thicket of trees, stunted and old, crooked and withered by the winds into awkward and ugly forms; beech and oak and hazel and ash and yew twisted and so shortened and deformed that each seemed, like the nettle, of no common kind. He began to fight his way through the ugly growth, stumbling and getting hard knocks from the rebound of twisted boughs. His foot struck once or twice against something harder than wood, and looking down he saw stones white with the leprosy of age, but still ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... gray sky, in a great powdery plain without roads, without grass, without a thistle, without a nettle, I met several men who were walking with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the fashion of this world, even in angling! The old manuals with their precise instruction for trimming and painting trout-rods eighteen feet long, and their painful description of "oyntments" made of nettle-juice, fish-hawk oil, camphor, cat's fat, or assafoedita, (supposed to allure the fish,) are altogether behind the age. Many of the flies described by Charles Cotton and Thomas Barker seem to have gone out of style among the trout. ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... sweet reflection. The little weaknesses of women are very precious to their object, and if the deluded one knows it not, why where's the harm? Small comfort came to me, however, for all the while conscience, like a burning nettle in the side, gave ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... tangled labyrinth as deadly as the hair of the fabled Medusa—whose name indeed has been so appropriately applied to this division of animals. The touch of each tentacle to the skin is like a lash of nettle, and there would be little hope for a diver whose path crossed such a fiery tangle. The untold myriads of little darts which are shot out secrete a ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... nearly jumped out of her hiding place on the other side of the bushes. She caught a fleeting glimpse of the last speaker, her long, thin neck and green sunbonnet sticking up out of a tangle of bushes, like a stinging nettle in ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... wroth. At first he thought of way-laying young Ferret in the wood and killing him; but then he recollected that the Ferrets were a powerful family, who would never rest till they had been revenged. His next thought was to go to his attorney, Sharp Weasel, Esq., of Nettle Cottage, and consult with him as to the best means of thwarting young Ferret's projects. So the old man took down his pipe and his account-book, and ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... as the Knightly Tale of Galogras, The Temple of Glas, Lodge's Nettle for Nice Noses, or the Book of Fayts of Armes, by Christene of Pisa, or Caxton's Pylgremage of the Sowle, or his Myrrour of the Worlde, will be long inquired after before they come to the market, thoroughly contradicting that fundamental principle of political economy, that the supply ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... duty and discharged it manfully, gained more in the end than those who shirked responsibility and left the conduct of affairs to their opponents. Men admire those who dauntlessly pluck the flower, safety, out of the nettle, danger. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... only a saucepan, he can generally procure something eatable in the way of herbs. It is not to be supposed, however, that he would succeed in making a good dinner; the reader may at any time procure something similar in England by restricting himself to nettle-tops—an economical but not a fattening vegetable. Anything, however simple, is better than an empty stomach, and when the latter is positively empty it is wonderful how the appetite ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... jellies which the flesh inflame, Fierce as a nettle, and from that the name; Some in huge masses, some that you might bring In the small compass of a lady's ring; Figured by hand divine—there's not a gem Wrought by man's art to be compared to them; Soft, brilliant, tender, through the wave they glow, And ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... heroic manner. These are great incentives; not for any of these, but for the plain satisfaction of living, of being about their business in some sort or other, do the brave, serviceable men of every nation tread down the nettle danger,[21] and pass flyingly over all the stumbling-blocks of prudence. Think of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indifference to mortal limitation that set him upon his dictionary, and carried him through triumphantly until the end! Who, if he were wisely considerate ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I took a long walk in the woods. I had succeeded in gathering some labiates, the dead nettle, the pyramidal bell-flower and the wild thyme, when in the midst of my occupation, I heard the trot of a horse. It was he, a bunch of herbs and flowers in his hand. Ivan, who according to his custom, followed him at a distance of ten paces, regarded me some way off with an uneasy air; he evidently ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... my kisses—I shower them not, Allah the All-seeing is my witness! and they be given daintily as 'twere to the leaf of a nettle, or over-hot pilau. Yet haply kisses repeated might restore her to a bloom, and it is certain youth is somehow stolen from her, if the Vizier Feshnavat went before her, and his blood be her blood; and he is powerful, she wise. I'll decide to act the part of a rejoicer, and express of her opinions ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... did the colonists dress without the slightest affectation, but they even made their clothes themselves. "The growing of hemp," says the Abbe Ferland, "was encouraged, and succeeded wonderfully. They used the nettle to make strong cloths; looms set up in each house in the village furnished drugget, bolting cloth, serge and ordinary cloth. The leathers of the country sufficed for a great portion of the needs of the population. Accordingly, after enumerating the advances in ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... which we cannot see but at rare intervals, painted vilely: the castles of the Rhine and Rhone made vignettes of for the annuals; and the nettles and mushrooms, which were prepared by nature eminently for nettle porridge and fish sauce, immortalized by art as reverently as if we were Egyptians, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... Nettle, "Is nothing to his when he's put on his mettle. No nose can endure it, No dock-leaves ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and climbed the trees were loaded with clusters of grapes, but these were yet hard and green; dwarf filberts grew on the dry gravelly sides of the hills, yet the rough prickly calyx that enclosed the nut, filled their fingers with minute thorns, that irritated the skin like the stings of the nettle; but as the kernel when ripe was sweet and good, they did not mind the consequences. The moist part of the valley was occupied by a large bed of May-apples, [FN: Kilvert's Ravine, above Pine-tree Point.] the fruit of which ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... sound remains Of the old mill; Gone is the wheel; On the prone roof and walls the nettle reigns. ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... be known by the timber growing upon it. Hard-wood trees, those that shed their leaves during winter, show the best indication, such as maple, bass-wood, elm, black walnut, hickory, butternut, iron-wood, hemlock, and a giant species of nettle. A mixture of beech is good, but where it stands alone the soil is generally light. Oak is uncertain as an indication, being found on various bottoms. Soft or evergreen wood, such as pine, fir, larch, and others of the species, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... gentle goddess Hygieia, Hover propitious o'er the vessel's poop; Keep them from chicken-pox and pyorrhoea, Measles and nettle-rash and mumps and croup; See they digest their food and drink, And land them, even as they leave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... hot fit always before his cold. The more violent his passion is the sooner it is out, like a running knot, that strains hardest, but is easiest loosed. He is never very passionate but for trifles, and is always most temperate where he has least cause, like a nettle that stings worst when it is touched with soft and gentle fingers, but when it is bruised with rugged, hardened hands returns no harm ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... circumference of the rope from the end, which will leave about the length for pointing, unlay the rope to the stop and then unlay the strands. Split a number of the outside yarns and make a nettle out of each yarn. (A nettle is made by laying up the yarns with the finger and thumb left-handed.) When the nettles are made stop them back on the standing part of the rope; then form the point with the rest of the yarns by scraping them down to a proper size with a knife, and marl ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... that he had it not. On the whole probably all parties were glad when the sweet month of May for that season came to an end. Even Eleanor was glad; for though she had made up her mind what June would bring her, it is easier to grasp a fear in one's hand, like a nettle, than to touch it constantly by anticipation. So the first ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... at him with eyes in which contentment struggled with some obscure reluctant protest, and at last turned them slowly to the black nettle pagodas ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... America, I never here met any of the European sort; Tobacco of many sorts, Dill, Carawa, Cummin, Anise, Coriander, all sorts of Plantain of England, and two sorts spontaneous, good Vulneraries; Elecampane, Comfrey, Nettle, the Seed from England, none Native; Monks Rhubarb, Burdock, Asarum wild in the Woods, reckon'd one of the Snake-Roots; Poppies in the Garden, none wild yet discover'd; Wormseed, Feverfew, Rue, Ground-Ivy spontaneous, but very small and scarce, Aurea virga, {Rattle-Snakes.} four sorts of Snake-Roots, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... resentful and unforgiving, and to go back from duty and endurance and danger altogether. But we must not. We must rather say to ourselves, Now and here, if not in the past, I must play the man, and, by God's help, the wise man. I must pluck safety henceforth out of the heart of the nettle danger. Yes, I made a mistake. I did what I would not do now, and I must not be too proud to say so. I acted, I see now, precipitately, inconsiderately, imprudently. And I must not gloom and rebel and run away from the cross and the lion. I must not insist or ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... which Germany claimed for a cotton-cloth substitute has been greatly exaggerated. When the Germans realised that Great Britain really meant business on the question of cotton they cultivated nettle and willow fibre, and made a cloth consisting for the most part of nettle or willow fibre with a small proportion of ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... thought, "She is like my Maid Maleen, and I should believe that it was she herself, but she has long been shut up in the tower, or dead." He took her by the hand and led her to church. On the way was a nettle-plant, and ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... covered with a sort of helmet, the neck is almost the only part in which they can be wounded. They have another kind of corslet, made like the corsets of our ladies, of splinters of hard wood interlaced with nettle twine. The warrior who wears this cuirass does not use the tunic of elk-skin; he is consequently less protected, but a great deal more free; the said tunic being very heavy ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... only a few crumbled Courses of brick, smothered in nettle and dock, Or a squared stone, lying mossy where it tumbled! Sprawling bramble and saucy thistle mock What once was firelit floor and private charm Where, seen in a windowed picture, hills were fading At dusk, and all was memory-coloured ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... in the accomplishment of their own ends. France can never overestimate the great evil these two men did to the national cause. Napoleon's power and penetrating vision kept them in check only when he could grasp the nettle. Even when absent on his campaigns, they knew he was kept in close touch with what was going on. It was not until treason became entangled within treason that their evil designs had fuller scope and more disastrous results. Bourrienne, another rascal already referred ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... gentian), Erica, Cinerea (heath), Malva Rotundifolia (round-leaved mallow), Marrubium Vulgare (white horehound), Calamintha Acinos (basil thyme), Eriophorum Angustifolium (cotton grass), Narthekium Ossifragum (bog asphodel), Galeopsis Bifida (hemp nettle), Senecio Sylvaticus (ragwort), three St. John’s worts, viz. Hypericum Pulchrum, H. Quaodrangulum, and H. Perforatum, Spergula Arvensis (corn spurrey), Saponaria Officinalis (common soap wort), Drosera Rotundifolia (round-leaved sundew), D. Intermedia (intermediate ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... an impression of a physique in perfect because unconscious harmony with its environment. If, on the contrary, you watched but so much as the nervous, uncertain hand of the other woman, you would know here was one who had spent her years in alternately grasping the nettle and letting it go—reaping only stings in life's fair fields. Easy for any one seeing her in these days (though she wasn't thirty-six) to share Mrs. Freddy's incredulous astonishment at hearing from Haycroft the night before that Janet Levering had been 'the beauty of her family.' ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... second sitting she prescribed for herself nettle-broth; at the third, catnip. The crises became mitigated, then disappeared. It was truly a miracle. The nasal addigitation did not succeed with the others, and, in order to bring on somnambulism, they projected the construction ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... laich, cowe it sune, Cowe it in the month o' June; Stoo it ere it's in the bloom, Cowe the nettle early. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... oak green caterpillars slide down threads of their own making to the bushes below, but they are running terrible risk. For a pair of white-throats or "nettle-creepers" are on the watch, and seize the green creeping things crossways in their beaks. Then they perch on a branch three or four yards only from where I stand, silent and motionless, and glance first at me and next at a bush of bramble ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... She has, however, recently had to pass through an awful ordeal, principally occasioned by the brief ascendency of incompetent councils; and while expressing, in terms of transport, our conviction that, "out of this nettle danger, we have plucked the flower safety"—we cannot repress our feelings of indignation against those who precipitated us into that danger, and of gratitude towards those who, under Divine Providence, have been instrumental in extricating us from it, not only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... about two hours she woke with a start, and was greatly distressed to learn that I had been supporting her all that time. But after that refreshing slumber a change seemed to come over her. Not only her great fatigue, but the tormenting apprehensions had very nearly vanished. Out of the nettle Danger she had plucked the flower Safety, and now she could rejoice in its possession and was filled with new life and spirits. The unaccustomed freedom and exercise, with constant change of scene, also had an exhilarating effect on mind and body. A new colour came into ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... turned toward the animal that is only one person in two natures.[3] Beneath her veil and beyond the stream she seemed to me more to surpass her ancient self, than she surpassed the others here when she was here. So pricked me there the nettle of repentance, that of all other things the one which most turned me aside unto its love became ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... experienced a considerable degree of scarcity,—such scarcity as a mechanic in the south feels when he has been a fortnight out of employment. But the Highlander had resources in these seasons which the mechanic has not. He had his cattle and his wild pot-herbs, such as the mugwort and the nettle. It has been adduced by the advocates of the change which has ruined Sutherland, as a proof of the extreme hardship of the Highlander's condition, that at such times he could have eaten as food a broth made ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... briefly described. They have two regular meals—breakfast and supper. The breakfast consists of tea, generally of the best quality, bread, butter, and cheese; the supper, of tea and a stew. In spring time they occasionally make a kind of tea or soup of the tender leaves of a certain description of nettle. This preparation, which they call dandrimengreskie zimmen, or the broth of the stinging-thing, is highly relished by them. They get up early, and go to bed betimes. After breakfast the men sit down to chin the cost, to mend chairs or make baskets; the women go forth to hok and dukker, and the children ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... The Apolline leaf, I said, is strong, lustrous, full in its green, rich in substance, simple in form. The inferior leaves are those which have lost strength, and become thin, like paper; which have lost lustre, and become dead by roughness of surface, like the nettle,—(an Apolline leaf may become dead by bloom, like the olive, yet not lose beauty); which have lost colour and become feeble in green, as in the poplar, or crudely bright, like rice; which have lost substance ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... to the familiar species of the country were visited by insects and cross-fertilised, and thus a closer resemblance would at length be brought about. Another case of close general resemblance, is that of our common white dead-nettle (Lamium album) to the stinging-nettle (Urtica dioica); and Sir John Lubbock thinks that this is a case of true mimicry, the dead-nettle being benefited by being mistaken by grazing ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... it was not supposed to be good for the health of the old or young sheep to hurry up the hill-sides in such wild fashion as that in which they rushed away from Rose's attempts to intrude on their society. Nettle may come, for he is but a tiny terrier, and so fond of his mistress that he never strays a yard away from her horse's heels. Brisk, my beautiful, stupid water-spaniel, is also allowed an outing. He is perfect to look at, but not having had any educational advantages in his youth, is an utter fool; ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... teeth and toiled on, dragging thorny creepers aside, climbing over half-rotten tree-trunks, whose mouldering bark gave way, and set at liberty myriads of virulent ants. Once or twice he grasped leaves which were worse than the home-growing nettle. But he struggled on, though, with the feeling growing stronger, that if he got through the patch of forest before dark, it would be as much as he could manage, for the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn |
