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Nursling   Listen
noun
Nursling  n.  One who, or that which, is nursed; an infant; a fondling. "I was his nursling once, and choice delight."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nursling" Quotes from Famous Books



... servants were busy in the dining-room about the breakfast. She hailed a passing hansom, and in this, to the poor child, novel conveyance, she was whirled safely to Cheiron's little hotel in Jermyn Street, and Priscilla returned to her room, to make believe that her nursling ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... they had to wear their old ones when Dick would not be there to see them? And Dorothy, who was contemplating her favorite nursling with the privileged tenderness of an old servant, chimed in with the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... object to the sexually sensitive surface of mucous membrane behaves like the precursor of another organ which does not become active until after the phase of childhood. In addition it has other important meanings to the nursling. It is evidently treated as an additional part of the body, it represents the first "donation," the disposal of which expresses the pliability while the retention of it can express the spite of the little being towards its environment. ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud

... simplicity, went straight upstairs, and up to her nursling, as he had again become. 'Master Oliver,' said she, 'he is come. Master Jem is come back, and 'twould do your heart good to see how happy the children are together—just like ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... down before it. Walter and Eleanor hurried up to her, but before they had time to speak, the rebel captain dashed into the room, exclaiming, "Thou treacherous woman, thou shalt abye this! Here! mount, pursue, the nearest road to the coast. Smite them rather than let them escape. The malignant nursling of the blood- thirsty Palatine at large again! Follow, ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge

... handled pick or spade upon the heights of the iron roads: worms were prior to gimlets, ant-lions were the first funnel makers, a beaver showed men how to make the milldams, and the pendulous nests of certain birds swung gently in the air before the keen wit of even the most loving mother laid her nursling in a rocking cradle. The carpenter of olden time lost many useful hours in studying how to make the ball-and-socket joint which he bore about with him in his own hips and shoulders; the universal joint, which filled all men ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... hateful, thou nursling of some fierce lioness, O child all of stone unworthy of love; I have come with these my latest gifts to thee, even this halter of mine; for, child, I would no longer anger thee and work thee pain. Nay, I am going where thou hast condemned me to fare, where, as men ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... the same,' Chillon remarked as to a nursling prattler, and he rejoined: 'They've lost more than they've gained; though, he admitted, 'there has been some gain, in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and poor Robert cried like a child at parting from her. John Morris proved a faithful friend. He took Mary to London, and sent a message to his sister Betty who was then living in Devonshire. When she arrived she was able to identify her nursling, and to tell John that Mr. Dallas had arrived from Calcutta and had offered a large reward for the recovery of his niece. So Mary was placed under the guardianship of her mother's brother, who took good care ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... tricked out in all the ephemeral decoration of the haut ton. This little coquette already looked out for admiration, and its foolish mother expressed the greatest satisfaction, when any one, out of politeness to her, paid attentions to the pert premature nursling. Our entertainment concluded with a handsome supper, and we parted, highly delighted, at the dawn of day. Nothing could be more flattering, than the attentions which, as an englishman, I received from ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... patience endures all the cruelties of her husband's fanaticism—it is in Agnes that Ibsen's genius for the first time utters the clear, unembittered note of full humanity. He has ceased now to be parochial; he is a nursling of the World and Time. If the harsh Priest be, in a measure, Ibsen as Norway made him, Agnes and Einar, and perhaps Gerd also, are the delicate ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky; I pass through the pores of ocean and shores, I change, but ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... Day's azure eyes, Ocean's nursling, Venice lies— A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destined halls, Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... she exclaimed as soon as her young mistress entered, afraid of saying too much, now that her nursling ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... gross—definite—and tangible objects, have, with the aid of Experimental Philosophy, been every day putting on more brilliant colours; the splendour of the Imagination has been fading: Sensibility, which was formerly a generous nursling of rude Nature, has been chased from its ancient range in the wide domain of patriotism and religion with the weapons of derision by a shadow calling itself Good Sense: calculations of presumptuous Expediency—groping its way among partial and temporary consequences—have been ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... father's death had shut up some of the senses of the child, and God had placed it in the mother's hand as a silent memorial to her, for life, of his chastising love. She left her fatherless flock in the family pew, and went with her nursling, not merely to give it to God, but to receive for it the seal of his covenant, bowing submissively to his inscrutable appointment, and imploring the God of Abraham to be still her God, and the God of this her seed. That scene had ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams

... had predicted, Mrs. Royer and Anne alone were left in charge of the nursling while every one went to morning Mass. Then followed breakfast and the levee of his Royal Highness, lasting as on the previous day till dinner-time; and the afternoon was as before, except that the day was fine enough for the child to be carried out with all his attendants behind him to take the ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... does not easily weary, she removes the mildew from the alien dung-balls, which far exceed the regular nests in number; she gently scrapes and polishes and repairs them; she listens to them attentively and enquires by ear into each nursling's progress. Her real collection could not receive greater care. Her own family or another's: it is all one ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... asswage, Nor breath of Vernal Air from snowy Alp. Sleep hath forsook and giv'n me o're To deaths benumming Opium as my only cure. 630 Thence faintings, swounings of despair, And sense of Heav'ns desertion. I was his nursling once and choice delight, His destin'd from the womb, Promisd by Heavenly message twice descending. Under his special eie Abstemious I grew up and thriv'd amain; He led me on to mightiest deeds Above the nerve of mortal arm Against the uncircumcis'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... with its grief: the streams of sorrow, Choked at the source, repress my faltering voice. I have no words to speak; mine eyes are dimmed By the dark shadows of the thoughts that rise Within my soul. If such the force of grief In an old hermit parted from his nursling, What anguish must the stricken parent feel Bereft forever of an ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... cheek. "I am not your mother, but one who has loved you scarcely less than ever mother loved her son; one who nursed and fondled you in infancy; one who has now come from another land but for the sake of seeing you, and of holding once more to her heart the nursling of other years, even more ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... My Very Dear, Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear. It needs no art, With faint, averted feet And many a tear, In our opposed paths to persevere. Go thou to East, I West. We will not say There's any hope, it is so far away. But, O, my Best, When the one darling of our widowhead, The nursling Grief, Is dead, And no dews blur our eyes To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies, Perchance we may, Where now this night is day, And even through faith of still averted feet, Making full circle ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... spiritual forces of the earth. Thus Demeter is the primordial essence of the earth, and the endowment of the earth with the seed-forces of the produce of the fields through her, points to a still deeper side of her being. This being wishes to give man immortality. She hides her nursling in fire by night. But man cannot bear the pure force of fire (the spirit). Demeter is obliged to abandon the idea. She is only able to found a temple service, through which man is able to participate in the divine as far ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner

... well, and they were skilful healers; also, what better nurse than Nehushta could be found? Ah! poor Nou, how she would grieve over her. What sorrow must have taken hold of her when she heard the rock door shut and found that her nursling was cut off and captured by ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... the arm, drew him out into the light, and looked earnestly into his face; then, with a scream of joy, she flung her arms around him, and cried: "O Colin! Colin! my dear son, home again at last! Glad and glad I am to see you here in time! Weary have the years been since my nursling went away, but now you are home all will be well." And she embraced him and kissed him and stroked his hair, and exclaimed at his bronzed hue and ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... Burdensome were it for them to rest and be served in the household. Therefore I follow him gladly. A youth of intelligence seems he, And so will also the parents be, as becometh the wealthy. So then farewell, dear friend; and mayst thou rejoice in thy nursling, Living, and into thy face already so healthfully looking! When thou shalt press him against thy breast in these gay-colored wrappings, Oh, then remember the kindly youth who bestowed them upon us, And who me also henceforth, thy sister, will shelter ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... to Argos he bursts impetuously into the palace, crying fiercely for war.[561] When Lycurgus would slay Hypsipyle for her neglect of her nursling, he saves her.[562] She has preserved the Argive army, and Tydeus, if he never forgives an enemy, never forgets a friend. He alone defeats the entreaties of Jocasta[563] and launches the hosts of Argos into battle; and when his own doom is come, he dies as he had lived, impiger, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... Bodb Dearg's place, and all the people gave out three loud, high cries, keening their nursling. And after they had keened her it is what Bodb Dearg said: "It is a fret to us our daughter to have died, for her own sake and for the sake of the good man we gave her to, for we are thankful for his friendship and his faithfulness. However," he said, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... Then, jolly pauper, stitch till day; Let not thy roses drop away, Lest, begrimed with muddy matter, Thy body peep from every tatter, And men—a charitable dose— Should physic thee with food and clothes! Nursling of adversity! 'Tis thy glory thus to be Sinking fund of raggery! Thus to scrape a nation's dishes, And fatten on a few good wishes! Or, on some venial treason bent, Frame thyself a government, For ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... royal family, her special passion was for Prince Edmund, who, in his mother's repugnance to his deformity, had been left almost entirely to her, and she had accompanied the Princess Eleanor all the more willingly from her desire to look after her favourite nursling. ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... generally be found, when this accident takes place in the previously healthy child of a healthy mother, that it has been occasioned by some act of indiscretion on the part of its mother or nurse. She perhaps has been absent from her nursling longer than usual, and returning tired from a long walk or from some fatiguing occupation, has at once offered it the breast, and allowed it to suck abundantly; or the infant has been roused from sleep before its customary hour, ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... eyeless fish of the American caverns. Before the curtain rises the music already tells us that we are groping in darkness. When it does rise Mimmy is in difficulties. He is trying to make a sword for his nursling, who is now big enough to take the field against Fafnir. Mimmy can make mischievous swords; but it is not with dwarf made weapons that heroic man will hew the way of his own will through religions and governments ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw

... the Gerusalemme Liberata, the masterpiece of the immortal Torquato Tasso! But the brutal-minded booksellers scorn the fruit of my vigils, and in the empyrean the Muse veils her face so as not to witness the humiliation inflicted on her nursling." ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... not, and a troublesome child she was," replied Margery, after the usual pause for the assimilation of his remark, turning to the speaker from her palsied yet critical survey of her whilom nursling. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... the lullabies That charm to rest the nursling bird, Or the sweet confidence of sighs And blushes, made without ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... The divine wife, the chief royal wife Maatkara, whose word is truth, showed several favours to me. I held in my arms her eldest daughter, the Princess Neferura, whose word is law, when she was a nursling, I the bearer of the royal seal, who captured my prisoners, Aahmes, who am surnamed Pen-Nekheb, did this. I was never absent from the king at the time of fighting, beginning with Nebpehtira (Amasis I), and continuing until the reign of Menkheperra (Thothmes III). Tcheserkara ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... my dearest Belford, said he, and weaker in mind, if possible, than in body; and wept bitterly—or I should not thus unman myself. I, who never feared any thing, to be forced to show myself such a nursling!—I am quite ashamed of myself!—But don't despise me; dear Belford, don't despise me, I ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... by the cradle fast asleep. She did not see Lord Elliot kneel beside the cradle and look tenderly at the sleeping face of her nursling—she did not see him kiss the child, then lay its little hands upon his own bowed head as if he needed his little daughter's blessing to strengthen him. But all at once she was shaken by a strong hand, and a loud, commanding ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... of his usurpation. He would cry for nothing; he would burst into storms of devilish temper without notice, and let go scream after scream and squall after squall, then climax the thing with "holding his breath"—that frightful specialty of the teething nursling, in the throes of which the creature exhausts its lungs, then is convulsed with noiseless squirmings and twistings and kickings in the effort to get its breath, while the lips turn blue and the mouth stands wide and rigid, offering ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... passions by which his course is directed being the last under whose scourge he will move, he is unpitying and determined, like the man carried away by a current who snatches at a green and pliant branch of willow, the young nursling ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... songs of protection for the child. His mother gave the child suck, but the rosy-cheeked, beautiful, sweetly-speaking daughter of Cathvah nursed him. On her breast and knee she bare him with great love. Light of foot and slender was Dethcaen; through the wide dun of Sualtam she went with her nursling, singing songs. She it was that discovered his first ges, [Footnote: Ges was the Irish equivalent of the tabu.] namely, that no one should awake him while he slept. He had others, sacred prohibitions which it was unlawful ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... breast for any pleasure the world could offer me. "But this feeling is not confined to the solitude of your Canadian forests, my dear friend," you will say. I know it; but here there is nothing to interfere with your little nursling. You are not tempted by the pleasures of a gay world to forget your duties as a mother; there is nothing to supplant him in your heart; his presence endears every place; and you learn to love the spot that ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... upon thy shield of argent bearest The bold device, "The loftiest is the fairest!" As bending low thy stainless crest, "The vestal throned by the west" Accords the old Provencal crown Which blends her own with thy renown; Arcadian Sidney, nursling of the muse, Flower of fair chivalry, whose bloom was fed With daintiest Castaly's most silver dews, Alas! how soon thy amaranth leaves were shed; Born, what the Ausonian minstrel dream'd to be, Time's knightly epic ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... shall we give the strong ones? Not warriors, sword on thigh; But let the nursling infant And bedrid old ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... scene outside the post-office and the butcher's shop in Hyacinth Halvey. As for the third of the tragic comedies, The Deliverer, it is a most interesting curiosity. In it we have an allegory of the fate of Parnell in a setting of the Egypt of the time of Moses. Moses himself—or the King's nursling, as he is called—is Parnell; and he and the other characters talk Kiltartan as to the manner born. The Deliverer is grotesque and, in its way, impressive, though the conclusion, in which the King's nursling is thrown to the King's ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... 'twould squeeze thy beauteous mould." The faithful Janet unbound her nursling as if she had been a tiny babe and swathed her in a soft, warm thing, and bade her get to bed. Katherine jumped to the middle and lay panting, with happy eyes that had naught of sleep in them, until on a sudden Janet's voice rung like ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... unloving. After she had weaned Richard she must conceive again and let another child lift from him the excessive burden of her love: then her mind and soul could go on in his company without vexing him with these demands that only the unborn or the nursling could satisfy. Then this second child would become separate from her, and she must conceive again and again until this intense life of the body failed in her and her flesh ceased to be a powerful artist exulting in the creation of masterpieces. It must be ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... me very unkindly. I do not remember her striking me but once, and that was for going to see Mrs. Williams when I heard she was sick, and staying longer than she had given me leave to do. All my employment at this time was nursing a sweet baby, little Master Daniel; and I grew so fond of my nursling that it was my greatest delight to walk out with him by the sea-shore, accompanied by his brother and sister, Miss Fanny and Master James.—Dear Miss Fanny! She was a sweet, kind young lady, and so fond of me that she wished me to learn all that she knew herself; and her ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... lovers delighted to gaze at their sweetheart as painters study their work, with head thrown back. I saw mothers and many nurses gazing at children with this same retroactive movement which stamped their gaze with a certain expression of satisfied pride, generally to be noted in those who carried a nursling distinguished for its beauty or the elegance of ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... thought) she had felt inclined to cry, for she suddenly braced herself up, and said, yes, she should be very glad; for somehow, though they had been kind to her, she had been very unhappy at Heppenheim; and she would go back to her home for a time, and see her old father and kind stepmother, and her nursling half-sister Ida, and be among ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell

... is nothing that I have to do that a classical and mathematical scholar and nursling ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... nursling of the storm, Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form! Rocks, waves, and winds the shatter'd bark delay; Thy heart is sad, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... was large and airy, and Aunt Chloe, who was never willing to leave her nursling, but watched over her night and day with the most devoted affection, slept in a cot bed ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... could have looked after her baby as Gerasim looked after his little nursling. At first she—for the pup turned out to be a bitch—was very weak, feeble, and ugly, but by degrees she grew stronger and improved in looks, and, thanks to the unflagging care of her preserver, in eight months' time she was transformed into a very pretty dog of the spaniel breed, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... for the loved and fair, The whelmed beneath the tide— The broken harps around whose strings The dull sea-monsters glide! Mother and nursling sweet, Reft from the household throng; There's bitter weeping in the nest Where breathed their soul ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... follow the wheels, and he turns with a sob, We fold our mute hands on the death of the hour; For heart-breaking virtues and destinies rob The soul of her nursling, the thorn of ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... hath Glory for her nursling wrought! No paper, pens, ink, fire, or tools of steel, To exercise the quick brain's teeming thought. ' 'Alack that I so little can reveal! Fancy one hundred for each separate ill: Full space and place ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... peaks to look more exquisitely pure from the background of gorgeous colour. During the flood of sunlight all day, we had not perceived a single fleck of cloud; but now lovely pink wreaths, floating in mid-air, betrayed that here and there a "nursling of the sky" lingered behind the cloud-masses which we thought had ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... implacable enemies of the Crockers, Stanford, Hopkins and Huntington gazing along monopoly lines southerly; and that the interests of the government and the good of the people required the tender coddling of that nursling until it became strong enough to sit up and take nourishment in the shape of meaty millions of dollars, involves a sarcastic comment upon measured law makers and estimated victims. Yet the improbable becomes at times ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore

... princely born, nursling of wealth and luxury, should have come through the tempestuous winter-night from her regal abode, and standing at my lowly door, conjure me to fly with her through darkness and storm—was surely a dream—again her plaintive tones, the sight of her loveliness assured me that it ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... love ye, flowers; your odors ever bring Back visions of the past: I love ye well; From the lone Primrose, nursling of the Spring, Unto the beauteous Aster, Autumn's belle, Or reared on verdant field, or ruined wall, I love ye all, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... nursling of the press. You shall amuse me; you shall drive the flies away from me. The friend of adversity should be the friend of prosperity. So I will give ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... you for to come right along to him in de study, darlin', jis as soon as your ole mammy kin get you dressed," said Chloe, one morning to her nursling. ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... was acquainted with it, and Jacob Boehme, the "nursling of the Nirmanakayas,"[224] knew that it was a ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... more in the tone of nurse to nursling than of mother to son, still less that of mistress to farm boy; but Hal obeyed, only ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not. Even in babes there is wont to be some sense of evil. Behold, O father, he silently implores thee. But respect my prayer, and have pity on my years. Yea, by thy beard we, two dear ones, implore thee; the one is yet a nursling, but the other grown up. In one brief saying I will overcome all arguments. This light of heaven is sweetest of things for men to behold, but that below is naught; and mad is he who seeks to die. To live dishonorably is ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... of the law." The origin and etymology of this word have given rise to various explanations. The Greek philabros, lover of the beautiful; philebraios, lover of Hebrew, hence, among the Jews, teacher; felibris, nursling, according to Ducange; the Irish filea, bard, and ber, chief, have been proposed. Jeanroy (in Romania, XIII, p. 463) offers the etymology: Spanish feligres, filii Ecclesiae, sons of the church, parishioners. None of ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... Biscay. I am not unacquainted with that fusiform, spiral-wound bundle of chopped stems and miscellaneous incombustibles, the CIGAR, so called, of the shops,—which to "draw" asks the suction-power of a nursling infant Hercules, and to relish, the leathery palate of an old Silenus. I do not advise you, young man, even if my illustration strike your fancy, to consecrate the flower of your life to painting the bowl of a pipe, for, let me assure you, the stain of a reverie-breeding ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... was very wroth with me for my part in the matter, did up with her nursling in her own proper strong arms (for she was aye a strong lass, that being one o' the chief reasons for which I had sought her in marriage—having had, as should all men, an eye to my posterity. It was a great cross to me, as may be thought, to find that all my forethought had been ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives

... a guest permitted to occupy a place in the cabin. In return, the squaw loved her offspring with passionate fondness, not manifested perhaps by demonstrative caresses, but not on that account the less tender, vigilant, or enduring. At home or abroad, she never parted from her nursling. When she travelled, she lifted her black-eyed babe to her shoulders, gaily-decked cradle and all, and so they journeyed on happily together, her great love divesting the burden of all weight. When she worked in the ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... who has once transgress'd May violate at last all that men hold Most sacred; vice, like virtue, has degrees Of progress; innocence was never seen To sink at once into the lowest depths Of guilt. No virtuous man can in a day Turn traitor, murderer, an incestuous wretch. The nursling of a chaste, heroic mother, I have not proved unworthy of my birth. Pittheus, whose wisdom is by all esteem'd, Deign'd to instruct me when I left her hands. It is no wish of mine to vaunt my merits, But, if I may lay claim to any virtue, ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine

... spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair; Underneath day's azure eyes, Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,— A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destined halls, Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue and beaming waves. Lo! the sun upsprings behind, Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline; And before that chasm of light, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... Dutch" does to the language of Berlin. Everything like thinking and study must be with a view of sustaining and maintaining the established order of things. The tree of education, instead of being a lofty or wide-spreading cryptomeria, must be the measured nursling of the teacup. If that trio of emblems, so admired by the natives, the bamboo, pine and plum, could produce glossy leaves, ever-green needles and fragrant blooms within a space of four cubic inches, so the law, the literature and the art of Japan must display their normal ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... black things looked for a while, when they broke our British line, or bent it back, rather, where the Fifth Army kept the watch? Mind you, I'd been over all that country our armies had reclaimed frae the Hun in the long Battle o' the Somme. My boy John, the wean I'd seen grow frae a nursling in his mither's arms, had focht ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... determined to try it on her own, and splashed some of it into her eye. This conferred the gift of seeing the little people, who played with her boy, but had hitherto been invisible to her; and one day she was surprised to meet her nursling's father in the market—stealing. Recognition followed, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... or the old gray-haired negro janitor relates, she would creep from baby to baby to play with it, put it to sleep, pat it, rub its stomach (a negro baby, you know, is all stomach, and generally aching stomach at that). And before she had a lap, she managed to force one for some ailing nursling. It was then that they began to call her "little Mammy." In the transitory population of the "pen" no one stayed long enough to give her another name; and no one ever stayed short enough to give her ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... his light bark urges, Though death is in the error of a stroke; And paddling, poising, drifting, O'er the floes the light shell lifting, The gallant fellows reach the whirling pack: And from the frightful danger, They save the worn-out stranger. And oh, to see the nursling in his arms! And oh, the pious caring, The sweet and tender faring, From the gentle hands of Marie and Louise! And the pretty, smiling faces, As the travellers take their places To return again to those who ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... enwreathed His infant days, 'twas Love that breathed. In Love's warm smile the nursling blooms, Nor fears one shade that o'er him glooms, While flowers unfold and waters dance In joy, beneath his first, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... than otherwise with the shock and flutter that all these announcements create among peaceably disposed grown people. No respectable hen that ever hatched out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with them than was poor Mrs. Pennel when her adopted nursling came into this state. Was he a boy? an immortal soul? a reasonable human being? or only a handsome goblin sent ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... became a permanent gold mine. But at present it was being conducted at a loss. It was inevitable, but it irked Mr. Scobell. He paced the island and brooded. His mind dwelt incessantly on the problem. Ideas for promoting the prosperity of his nursling came to him at all hours—at meals, in the night watches, when he was shaving, walking, ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... occasion when knights were present at the meeting and also some of the populace. He promised to share his power with them and do whatever would please them, calling himself meanwhile their son and nursling. He was then twenty-five years old, lacking five months, four days. After this he freed those who were in prison, among whom was Quintus Pomponius, who for seven whole years after his consulship had been kept in a cell suffering abuse. Gaius did away with the complaints for maiestas, on ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... weapon that the old Roman Jove had to take in hand, when amid the din of the Roman forum, he awoke at last from his bronze and marble, to his empirical struggle, his unlearned, experimental struggle with the wolf and her nursling, with his own baptized, red-robed, usurping Mars. It was not with any such subtlety as this, that the struggle of state forces which, under one name or another, sooner or later, in the European states is sure to come, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... Katherine II., immediately after her accession to the throne. There are other institutions connected with it, such as a school for orphan girls. But the hospital for the babies is the centre of interest. There are about six hundred nurses always on hand. Very few of them have more than one nursling to care for, and a number of babies who enter life below par, so to speak, are accommodated with incubators. The nurses stand in battalions in the various large halls, all clad alike, with the exception of the woolen kokoshnik,— the coronet-shaped headdress ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... ox-eyed and docile, the black woman entered the room. When I saw her upon her knees beside the motionless figure, the head pillowed on her arm, her hand busy with the fastenings about throat and bosom, her dark face as womanly tender as any English mother's bending over her nursling; and when I saw my wife, with a little moan, creep further into the encircling arms, I ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... Understanding, that, weak indeed, and faint, were yet distinctly audible to the thinkers of the day. From the cloud of accusation and denial, of suspicion and trial, the new Perseus, Unitarianism,—whilom a nursling of Milton, Locke, and Hartley,—was born, and took its place among the sects, sustained by the few, dreaded and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... had two and even three babies before they settled down and got married. Now we must dish up supper. I've given you lots and lots of pancakes and the cream and honey you wass always so fond of—you bad boy—" She ventured a kiss on the smooth cheek of her nursling and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... her of the cause of the tumult and din, was carried out, and placed on the grass terrace beside the master; where no sooner did she apprehend intuitively the neighbourhood of her proudly cherished nursling, than she left off her weak wailing, and began to croon over him as fondly and contentedly as when he lay an innocent babe in ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... of all contention, shameless meddlers!" said Mitri, peering after them in the twilight. "Ha, ha! I angered them, the praise to Allah. I made them tremble for their nursling!" ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... had purchased it when but a small puppy, insisting at first that no one should touch it but herself; but soon becoming tired of so helpless and troublesome a nursling, she had gladly yielded to my entreaties to be allowed to take charge of it; and I, by carefully nursing the little creature from infancy to adolescence, of course, had obtained its affections: a reward I should ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... said to him, "Out on thee, O Ghezban! How darest thou demand this of me, O son of shame and nursling of lewdness? Dost thou think all folk are alike!" When the pestilent slave heard this, he was enraged and his eyes reddened: and he came up to her and smote her with the sword on her neck and killed her. Then he made off into the mountains, driving her horse before him with ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... discern the coming storm, and she laughs as she places her favourites it may be in a London alley or those whom she is resolved to ruin in kings' palaces. Seldom does she relent towards those whom she has suckled unkindly and seldom does she completely fail a favoured nursling. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... imminent danger. In his quandary, Zal flung the golden feather into the fire with so trembling a hand that it fell to one side so that only one edge was singed. This proved sufficient, however, to summon the faithful Simurgh, who, after rapturously caressing her nursling, whispered in his ear a magic word, which not only enabled him to save the life of his dying wife, but also assured his becoming the happy father of a stalwart ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... a softer pulp, of a quality better adapted to the infantile digestion of the grub? There, perhaps, being nourished by tenderer, sweeter, and perhaps more tasty tissues, the stomach becomes more vigorous, until it is fit to undertake less easily digested food. A nursling is fed on milk before proceeding to bread and broth. May not the central portion of the pea be ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... morning fair, What time Apollo's chariot takes the skies, And, fain to fill with arrows from her eyes His empty quiver, Love was standing there: I saw two apples that her breast doth bear None such the close of the Hesperides Yields; nor hath Venus any such as these, Nor she that had of nursling ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang

... to see you safely home. The nursling-lawyer can do that, I suppose? If you will be pleased to sit down until I hear this young hopeful say his lesson, I will close up the schoolroom and be ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... comfortably upon a cushion, the firelight glistening upon her yellow locks, bent over a book, from which she read, in high-pitched, childish voice, to her mammy, the story of "Ellen Lynn." Mammy was very proud that her nursling could read, and would cast admiring looks upon the child as she bent over her book, with finger pointing to each word. Both were absorbed in the story, and every picture was ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... strong, splendid child, with his mother's thick, curling locks and large blue eyes. Barbara thought that she had never seen a handsomer boy; and not only the Dubois, who had yielded their whole hearts to their nursling, but strangers also admired the magnificent development of this rare child. The young mother saw in him something grander, more perfect than the children of other human beings, even than the two boys whom she had given her husband, although ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... years of one so truly the nursling of pride, poverty, and pain, could only be inconsistent, wild, and impassioned, even had his temperament been moderate and well disciplined. But when it is considered that in addition to all the awful influences ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... always sung psalms in church, but never a profane note in the house. Now she took to singing over her nursling; she had a voice of prodigious power and mellowness, and, provided she was not asked, would sing lullabies and nursery rhymes from another county that ravished the hearer. Horsemen have been known to stop in the road ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... And if the dawning Into daylight never grew, If the glistering wings of morning On the dry noon shook their dew, If the fits of joy were longer, Or the day were sooner done, Or, perhaps, if hope were stronger, No weak nursling of an earthly sun ... Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens, Dusk the ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... and watery of sunbeams. But what had a child to do in this paradise, thought he, and from whence did it come? Impossible to imagine. Her garments, of rich material, hung freshly torn, it may be, but in shreds; her skin, if that of some fair and delicate nursling, was stained with berries and smeared with soil; she seemed to have no destination; and after surveying him a moment, she mounted a fallen tree, and, bending and swinging forward over a bough, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... seer nursling truly shoeing tingeing seeing loathsome duty toeing freeing agreeable awful wisdom ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... fast-rooted to the soil, O lover of ancient freedom and proud toil, Friend of the gipsies and all wandering song, The forest's nursling and the favoured child Of woodlands wild— O brother to the birds and all ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... falling down— Many russet autumns gone; A lone ship with folded wings Lay sleeping off the lea: Silently she came by night, Folded wings of murky white, Weary with their lengthened flight; Way-worn nursling ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... smiled to see, Infant-in-Arms, young Germany, Jove's nursling, quit his cot and pap, And, quite a promising young chap, Grown out of baby-shoes and bottle, And "draughts" which teased his infant throttle, Get rid of ailments, tum-tum troubles, Tooth-cutting pangs, and "windy" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various

... to see a smile in her nursling's face, and to hear, at times, a laugh, low and sweet, reminding her of olden days. The girl remained with her old nurse for nearly an hour. When they parted there was a perfect understanding between them, in regard to ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... an intoxication of hope and pleasure. Sterbini, author of "The Vestal," presided: many others, like him, long time exiled and restored to their country by the present Pope, were at the tables. The Colosseum, and triumphal arches were in sight; an effigy of the Roman wolf with her royal nursling was erected on high; the guests, with shouts and music, congratulated themselves on the possession, in Pius IX., of a new and nobler founder for another state. Among the speeches that of the Marquis ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest! (Are these torn clothes his best?) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan,) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... not to begin just yet, at least; for Nannie, her immaculate but austere attendant, rapped at the door at that moment, and summoned her nursling to be bathed and put to bed. Maud was every evening enraged afresh at being called at such a ridiculously early hour, and to-night her annoyance was increased by the fact that she was torn ruthlessly from the rare treat of a conference with her elders, in which she had really been ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... am I, Not of thy brood; The nursling of a norland sky Of rougher mood: To me, thy tarrying guest, to me, 'Mid thy loud hum, Strayed visions of the moor or sea Tormenting come. Above the thunder of the wheels That hurry by, From lapping of lone waves there ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... also more intellectual than those of the Belgians, grave and modest countenances, a general air of native propriety and decency; by this last circumstance alone I could at a glance distinguish the daughter of Albion and nursling of Protestantism from the foster-child of Rome, the PROTEGEE of Jesuistry: proud, too, was the aspect of these British girls; at once envied and ridiculed by their continental associates, they warded off insult with austere civility, and met hate with mute disdain; ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... Lammle does not turn to them, but remains looking at Twemlow looking at Alfred's portrait through his eyeglass. The moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at its ribbon's length, rises, and closes the book with an emphasis which makes that fragile nursling of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... Where mournful glimmers of the mellow sun Lie dreaming on the walls! Dim-eyed and sad, And dumb with agony, two parents bend O'er a pale image, in the coffin laid,— Their infant once, the laughing, leaping boy, The paragon and nursling of their souls! Death touch'd him, and the life-glow fled away, Swift as a gay hour's fancy; fresh and cold As winter's shadow, with his eye-lids seal'd, Like violet-lips at eve, he lies enrobed An offering to the grave! but, pure as when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... hear my word! Guard the tender nursling now. Thou that lead'st the speckled herd, God of the fields, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... Northern wave, To that Argo new I gave; Lent to thee, they roam'd the main; Give me, nymph, my sons again.' 'Go, they wait Thee,' Tamar cried, Southward bounding from my side. Glad I rose, and at my call, Came my Naiads, one and all. Nursling of the mountain sky, Leaving Dian's choir on high, Down her cataracts laughing loud, Ockment leapt from crag and cloud, Leading many a nymph, who dwells Where wild deer drink in ferny dells; While the Oreads as they ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... fisher's child— I see her yet, as fair and mild As ever nursling summer day Dreamed on the bosom of the bay: For I was twenty then, and went Alone and long-haired—all content With promises of sounding name And fantasies of future fame, And thoughts that now my mind discards ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... now opened, and, her face pallid with terror, Ivan's nurse rushed into the room and to the cradle of her imperial nursling. The soldiers, with imperious glances, beckoned her to await in silence, like themselves, the awakening of the emperor. The poor woman spoke not, but her fast-flowing tears indicated ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... to her meaning, and was almost too much worn out to be curious, she could not help a vague thrill of alarm. "What is it, Alland?" she said, rising up from the sofa on which she had thrown herself. But Alland could do nothing but cry over her nursling and console her. "Oh, my poor dear! oh, my darling! as he never would have let the wind of heaven to blow rough upon her!" cried the old servant. And it was just then that Miss Wodehouse, who was trembling all over hysterically, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... blackbird piping loud the mavis strives to drown, And schoolboys seeking nests find each nursling fledged or flown, To hop 'mong plots and borders, array'd in all their pride, How sweet at dewy morn to roam ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... pruning-knife, with which, at one time she crops the {too} luxuriant shoots, and reduces the branches that straggle without order; at another time, she is engrafting the sucker in the divided bark, and is {so} finding nourishment for a stranger nursling. Nor does she suffer them to endure thirst; she waters, too, the winding fibres of the twisting root with the flowing waters. This is her delight, this her pursuit; and no desire has she for love. But fearing the violence of the rustics, she ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... the rail down so that Ranny's arms might reach out to Baby where he lay. Dossie's little bed was drawn up at the foot. They stood together for a moment, looking at the two children, at Dossie, all curled up and burrowing into her pillow, and at Baby, lying by Ranny's bed as a nursling ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... shall reach us the herb of healing? Perdita blesses every guest at the shearing with a handful of blossom; but this gift is not to be asked of her whose best wish to her friends is "grace and remembrance.'' The fair Ophelia, rather: nay, for as a nursling she hugs her grief, and for her the memory of the past is a "sorrow's crown of sorrow.'' What flowers are these her pale hand offers? "There's pansies, that's for thoughts!'' For me rather, O dear Ophelia, the white poppy ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... pruning-knife. Armed with this, she busied herself at one time to repress the too luxuriant growths, and curtail the branches that straggled out of place; at another, to split the twig and insert therein a graft, making the branch adopt a nursling not its own. She took care, too, that her favorites should not suffer from drought, and led streams of water by them, that the thirsty roots might drink. This occupation was her pursuit, her passion; and she was free from that which Venus inspires. She was not without ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... have looked after her baby as Gerasim looked after his little nursling. At first, she—for the pup turned out to be a bitch—was very weak, feeble, and ugly, but by degrees she grew stronger and improved in looks, and thanks to the unflagging care of her preserver, in eight months' time she was transformed into a very ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... colored as much at an altitude of three miles in half an hour as is a similar paper upon the earth's surface in one moment. At any season of the year, gardeners can either stimulate or retard germination as they place a blue or yellow glass over the nursling. That the growth of plants is not due alone to the rays of the sun we can, without experiment, convince ourselves, as even ordinary observers are well aware that upon some days plants shoot up so rapidly as to grow almost visibly under their eyes, and in other conditions ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... spray-woven veil 10 At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing; It embosoms the roses of dawn, It entangles the shafts of the noon, And into the bed of its stillness The moonshine sinks down as in slumber, 15 That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven May be born in a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... In the night of Tuesday, 16th of July, the five hundred English soldiers were despatched by water, under charge of Lord Willoughby, "who," said the Earl, "would needs go with them." Young Hatton, too, son of Sir Christopher, also volunteered on the service, "as his first nursling." Sidney had, five hundred of his own Zeeland regiment in readiness, and the rendezvous was upon the broad waters of the Scheldt, opposite Flushing. The plan was neatly carried out, and the united flotilla, in a dark, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... years gone by—ah, no! but yesterday Our bright-eyed nursling, swift as we could teach, Forsook the low soft croonings of the fay For broken human speech— Broken, yet to our ears divinelier broken Than sweetest snatches from Heaven's mounting bird— More eloquent than the poet's passionate ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... had stood aloof as from a strange thing, with which he could have no communion: as some man who has a precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the sunshine, and all influences, in relation to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge that will help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or to guard leaf and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at the very first by ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot

... and sit you down by the fire, Master Anthony," said Margery, in whose heart was a very soft spot for her sometime nursling, "and I'll tell you all I know. Here's the master's keys, they'll maybe be safer in your hands than mine; he didn't leave 'em wi' me, but I went round the house and picked 'em all up, and locked everything away from them prying maids and that young jackanapes of a Dickon. Some he must ha' took with ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... art, With faint, averted feet And many a tear, In our opposed paths to persevere. Go thou to East, I West. We will not say There's any hope, it is so far away. But, O, my Best, When the one darling of our widowhead, The nursling Grief Is dead, And no dews blur our eyes To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies, Perchance we may, Where now this night is day, And even through faith of still averted feet, Making full circle of our banishment, Amazed meet; The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet Seasoning the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... language with equal ease to the ducklings, she has hatched from suppositious eggs, and educates as her own offspring: and the wagtails, or hedge-sparrows, learn it from the young cuckoo their softer nursling, and supply him with food long after he can fly about, whenever they hear his cuckooing, which Linnaeus tells us, is his call of hunger, (Syst. Nat.) And all our domestic animals are readily taught to come to us for food, when we use one tone of voice, and to fly from our anger, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... during the greater part of its days its eyes are closed to the outer world. Its larger familiarity is still with the invisible, and it seems as if the Mothers of Darkness were still withholding it as their nursling, accomplishing for it some mighty work in their proper realm, some such fiery baptism of infants as is frequently instanced in Greek mythology, tempering them for earthly trials. The infant must needs sleep while this work is being done for it; it has been sleeping ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... anguish in the household, It is desolate and lone, For a fondly cherished nursling From the parent nest has flown; A little form is missing; A heart has ceased to beat; And the chain of love lies ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... that while. There sat the goodman, more chieftain-like than of old; there sat the goodwife, as kind as ever, and scarce could she be kinder; there sat Bridget, not much aged in the five years; for ever she deemed it a certain thing that her nursling would come back to her. Lastly, there sat Stephen the Eater, wise of aspect and thoughtful, as if he were awaiting something that should happen which should change much in him; and there were the carles and the queans (with some few children amongst them who had ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... the destiny of all on earth: 'So flourishes and fades majestic man. 'Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth, 'And fostering gales awhile the nursling fan. 'O smile, ye heavens, serene; ye mildews wan, 'Ye blighting whirlwinds, spare his balmy prime, 'Nor lessen of his life the little span. 'Borne on the swift, though silent, wings of Time, 'Old-age comes on apace to ravage all ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... supper, and the poor nursling of the muses ate for four. In the morning he came to tell me that the Countess of Lismore expected ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the mothers of a stranger's children, without the ties of nature, they have merely tried to save themselves trouble. A child unswaddled would need constant watching; well swaddled it is cast into a corner and its cries are unheeded. So long as the nurse's negligence escapes notice, so long as the nursling does not break its arms or legs, what matter if it dies or becomes a weakling for life. Its limbs are kept safe at the expense of its body, and if anything goes wrong it ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... raven, turns and stares at it) You bird of damnation, leave me in peace with my dead!... O, dreaming fool, 'tis nothing.... My mind's a chaos that surges up this fancy. (Tries to write, stops, goes on, trembles, and looks up) ... Can I know fear? I, the very nursling of dreams? Who have lived in a world more tenanted with ghosts than men? I can not be afraid.... (Tries to write. Drops pen. Shudders, looking with furtive fear at the raven) ... I am ... I am afraid.... Virginia! (Creeps toward bed) Stay with me, little bride. My little rose-bride! ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... mother, so no more about it, and thank you from my heart and every component part of my precious self for all the care and successful care you have taken of me, your old petted nursling. Thank you and Mrs. Mitchell for the potted meat luncheon, and Mr. Tuite for his grapes,—Mary Anne and Charlotte had some. I was less tired than I could have expected when I reached Trim, and there was Mr. Butler on the steps ready to welcome us, and candles and firelight ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... tyrant fell, Hoc iacet extinctus monumento Arthurius alto, Heere liuelesse Arthur lies intoomd, within this statelie hearse, Militiae clarum decus, & virtutis alumnus: Of chiualrie the bright renowme, and vertues nursling fearse: Gloria nunc cuius terram circumuolat omnem, Whose glorie great now ouer all the world dooth compasse flie, Aetherijque petit sublimia tecta Tonantis. And of the airie thunder skales the loftie building hie. Vos igitur gentis proles generosa ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed

... Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never Had shown to men the secret of my birth. O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home, Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called) How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul The canker that lay festering in the bud! Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit. Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen, Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways, Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... fought in your behalf, sovereign-kings! Your nation enjoyed no little independence before your Declaration declared it. Your ancient pilgrims fathered your liberty; and your wild woods harbored the nursling. For the state that to-day is made up of slaves, can not to-morrow transmute her bond into free; though lawlessness may transform them into brutes. Freedom is the name for a thing that is not freedom; this, a ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... words with an affectionate and anxious tone, which showed, that devotional as were the habitual exercises of her mind, the thoughts of her nursling yet bound her to earth with the cords of human affection ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... but she bore all the consequent suffering with exemplary patience, and by it won much upon my esteem. Of the two younger ones (if two there were) I have very slight recollections, save that one, a darling child, under five years of age, was quite the pet nursling of the school." This last would be Emily. Charlotte was considered the most talkative of the sisters—a "bright, clever, little child." Her great friend was a certain "Mellany Hane" (so Mr. Bronte spells ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... her withered stern Is creeping dull decay; Weep not, If ere the sun has set, Thy nursling dies away. ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... provisions? A most unpleasant mixture seems inevitable. Picture the honey-eating grub floating on liquid provisions and fouling them at intervals with its excretions! The least movement of the hinder-part would cause the whole to amalgamate; and what a broth that would make for the delicate nursling! No, it cannot be; those dainty epicures must have some method ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... table, and to game with him, and sent to reprimand them as sluggish fellows for not making greater haste. When he was meditating his incestuous marriage with Agrippina, he was perpetually calling her, "My daughter, my nursling, born and brought up upon my lap." And when he was going to adopt Nero, as if there was little cause for censure in his adopting a son-in-law, when he had a son of his own arrived at years of maturity; he continually gave out in public, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... discovered Hoodie's escape; to have rushed off to fetch her on receiving the joyful news from the young labourer as he drove past Mr. Caryll's house, her heart full of the tenderest pity for her stray nursling who she never doubted had somehow lost her way,—all this had been trying enough for poor Martin. But to be met in this heartless way by the child—before strangers, too—to be coolly defied beforehand, as it were—it was too much. It was a toss-up ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... a very dumb, weak, helpless self, a crawling nursling. He went about very quiet, and in a way, submissive. He had an unalterable self at last, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... you back your nursling safe and sound. He shall not be rooked or robbed today. But how long I shall be able to hold the cub in leading strings ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... The triumphal arch through which I march, With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-coloured bow; The Sphere-fire above its soft colours wove While the moist earth was laughing below. I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky. ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... an old woman kiss her nursling," cried old Rachel. "But it would be odd if he did not, bless ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... this language with ease to the ducklings she has hatched from supposititious eggs, and educates as her own offspring; and the wag-tails or hedge-sparrows learn it from the young cuckoo, their foster nursling, and supply him with food long after he can fly about, whenever they hear his cuckooing, which Linnaeus tells us is his ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... fierce, Prowling about, compelled it to return Earlier at noon. But whether near or far, Wandering abroad, or resting in its home, The monarch-hermit's heart was with it still, Bound by affection's ties; nor could he think Of anything besides this little hind, His nursling. Though a kingdom he had left, And children, and a host of loving friends, Almost without a tear, the fount of love Sprang out anew within his blighted heart, To greet this dumb, weak, helpless foster-child, ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... from the shoulders of this branded rebel, and to purify the coronet of Bellingham from the foul contamination it receives by binding a villain's brow. Toss this storm-beaten carcase into any trench where it may in future serve as a mound against traitors; but let my young nursling be planted where the tempest that unroots the cedars shall pass over without injuring his tender growth. You, Beaumont, are a man of peace, bound by your functions to that bloodless warfare which attacks opinions, not men. Take him with you, wherever you go; keep him in your sight; cultivate in ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... concerned with sore concern for her absence and was longing for news of her. As soon as he saw her, he sprang up and coming to meet her, saluted her; then he noticed that she was weak and ailing; so he questioned her of her case and she told him all that had befallen her from her nursling. When he heard this, he found it grievous and smote hand upon hand, saying, "By Allah, O my mother, this that hath betided thee straiteneth my heart! But, what, O my mother, is the reason of the Princess's hatred to men?" Replied the old woman, "Thou must know O my son, that she hath ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... (1759-1796), last of great lyrists inspired by a local genius, keenest of popular satirists, narrative poet of the people, spokesman of their higher as of their lower natures, stood on the verge between two eras. Half Jacobite, nursling of old minstrelsy, he was also half Jacobin, an early-born child of the upheaval that closed the century; as essentially a foe of Calvinism as Hume himself. Master musician of his race, he was, as Thomas Campbell notes, severed, for good and ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... hurried. Peggy had loved her and mothered her since she was a tiny prattler of three, and she often found her, as she declared to her gossips, "a handful." Peggy, angry with her nursling, turned to go, but she discharged a telling shot at parting. "Very well!" she cried, "I'll go and bind up Master Morgan's wounds myself. One of the bravest knights in England is attacked by a Spanish giant in the forest. A brave lad jumps in to ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... give the leafy bowers A queen for all their world of flowers The Rose would be the choice of Jove, And blush the queen of every grove Sweetest child of weeping morning, Gem the vest of earth adorning, Eye of gardens, light of lawns, Nursling of soft summer dawns June's own earliest sigh it breathes, Beauty's brow with lustre wreathes, And to young Zephyr's warm caresses Spreads abroad its verdant tresses, Till blushing with the wanton's play Its cheeks wear ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... Lady Vincent entered her dressing room the old woman drew the resting chair and footstool up to the fire, and when Claudia had dropped into the seat she leaned over the back of the chair, and forgetting ceremony, spoke to her nursling as she had spoken to her in the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... transformed Th' assenting earth, and taught her opening veins With juice to flow lacteal; as the fair Now with sweet milk o'erflows, whose raptured breast First hails the stranger-babe, since all absorbed Of nurture, to the genial tide converts. Earth fed the nursling, the warm ether clothed, And the soft ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... a carpenter, he is a turner. My nursling is a bookman. He is selling wine and hides Where ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... So this nursling of a palace, evidently dying out on the wide sea, with only rough men about her, had neither a word nor a look of reproach for the one who had dragged her forth to so wretched a fate. Even in her mind's wanderings, she seldom went back to former pomps ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various



Words linked to "Nursling" :   infant, nurseling, babe, baby, suckling



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