"Withering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the inadvertence of my bewildered mind, to address you once more by the title of husband; but that holy name must hereafter perish on my lips, and be banished like a withering curse from my heart. Yet it was that alone which, holding a sacred charter over my bosom, bound me to the cheerful endurance of many a bitter hour, ere I knew that through him who bore it, a descendant of the house of Percy would be banded ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... If that were so, good-bye to her dreams. If she were no more to him than that there was no hope left in her life. For Keith might ply from port to port, seeing in her only one girl for his amusement; but he had spoilt her for another man. No other man could escape the withering comparison with Keith. To Jenny he was a king among men, incomparable; and if he did not love her, then the proud Jenny Blanchard, who unhesitatingly saw life and character with an immovable reserve, was the ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... raised, by a signal appointment of Providence, to the highest eminence.—EVE was accessary to the ruin of man—MARY instrumental in the birth of him who came as the Restorer and Saviour of mankind—EVE beheld the fatal curse first take effect, in overcasting the heavens with clouds, in withering the blossoms of paradise, envenoming the spirit of the animal creation, disordering the human frame, and ultimately destroying it, and introducing all the nameless diversities of wo which fill up the tragedy ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... are holding the men well in hand, so as not to come to a charge in that broken country, and withering the crowd with their fire to make ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... hymn. But, oh, the little land of peace and love That those night-loving wings had poised above,— Where was it gone? Lost, lost forevermore! Only a cottage, dull and gray, In the cold light of dawn, With iron bars across the door: Only a garden where the withering heads Of flowers, presaging decay, Hung over barren beds: Only a desolate field that lay Untilled beneath the desolate day,— Where Eden seemed to bloom I found but these! So, wondering, I passed along my way, With anger in my heart, too deep ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... M. Panpan, time rolled on, and little Louis was born. This might have been a blessing, but while family cares and expenses were growing upon them, Panpan's strength and energies were withering away. He suffered little pain, but what there was seemed to spring from the old wound; and there were whole days when he lay a mere wreck, without the power or will to move; and when his feeble breath seemed passing away for ever. Happily, these relapses occurred ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... less is it commonplace sulkiness, that utters itself in her features; it is rather bitter and crushing disappointment. She looks as if she were on the point of letting something slip away from her which she has not the strength to hold fast—as if something were withering between ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... figure was at length manifest. The man came hurrying and a little breathless, with his salver, at once apologetic and triumphant. My ice was half liquid. Had I not the right to reproach him, in the withering, contemptuous tone which correct diners have learned to adopt toward the alien serfs who attend them? I had not. I had neither the right nor the courage nor the wish. This man was as Anglo-Saxon as myself. He had, with all his deference, the mien of the race. When he dreamed of paradise, he probably ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... attractive, began to be obvious to Eleanor, who, night after night, at the dinner table, watched the smiling, shining, careless thing—Youth!—sitting there on Maurice's right, and felt herself withering in the dividing years. As a result, the annoyance which, when Edith was a child, she had felt at her childishness, began to harden into irritation at her womanliness. "I wish I could get her out of the house!" she ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... frailties and all the fallabilities of poor human nature; the pope might canonize them, and the priesthood bow submissively to their spiritual guidance, still they remained for all that but mortals of dust and clay, and their bulky tomes yet retain the swarthiness of the tomb about them, the withering impress of humanity. Such being the case we, who do not regard them quite so infallible, feel no surprise at a circumstance which sorely perplexed the monks of old, they unchained and unclasped their cumbrous "Works of the Fathers," ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... descriptions of action, so completely hide the actual feelings of the men engaged that the inexperienced may be pardoned the thought, that, having donned the insignia of a soldier, a man instantly becomes filled with martial ardor, and eager to face the most withering fire of musketry or artillery. But the reality is far different; very few men are so constituted, or are so reckless of their lives, that they can listen to the unearthly screech of the shell or the crash ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... beyond what a fit of indigestion would have caused. A lady all in white, and without her head, was what she deposed and adhered to, supported by a consciousness of the secret sympathy of her mistress under the withering scorn with which Miss Pole regarded her. And not only she, but many others, had seen this headless lady, who sat by the roadside wringing her hands as in deep grief. Mrs Forrester looked at us from time to time with an ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... drew back and looked at Harris for a second or two with an expression of the most withering haughtiness. Then, without a word she turned her back on him. The inspector infuriated, muttered in his ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... dear Mrs. Chalmers. I assure you the whole circumstance is unfortunate. But you are so palpably in the wrong that I cannot interfere—(Margaret turns from him in withering ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... must he gain. This fragile youth, untried and delicate, unknowing in the ways of this strange world, where every step is danger, how much hardship, how much peril, what withering disappointment, what dull care, what long despondency, what never-ending lures, now lie in ambush for this gentle boy! O my countrymen, is this your hope? And I, with all my lore, and all my courage, and all my deep intelligence ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... maiden sorrowed As the months and years sped onward; Till at last the Princess Abbess, Filled with pity, told the Baron: "On our soil your child no longer Thrives as heretofore, but slowly Her poor heart from grief is withering. Change of air oft worketh wonders. Let me take then Margaretta With me to the Holy City, Where in spite of age I'm going; For, in Chur the wicked bishop Threatens to deprive our convent Of our fairest Swiss possessions, And ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... bad, O'Brien," said another scribe mournfully. "Forgive him, Senator. I will have something to say to him later." Withering glances were cast at the unlucky one, who seemed about to sink under the table, and the wind outside howled dismally, and rattled ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... whichever way the eye turned, whatever direction the imagination took, the conviction forced upon the mind was, that you were in an inheritance, and that what the wisdom and energy of one generation had gathered together, succeeding generations had not yet scattered to the winds by the withering blast of infinitesimal division. With the imagination thus forcibly filled with home and its associations, you involuntarily feel disposed to take a stroll on the lawn; but on reaching the door, your ears are assailed by wild shouts of infantine laughter, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would to-day pour out a fiery streak of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Hawkes, "This did not succeed when tried with cows' milk." He also gives as another name, Yorkshire Sanicle; and says it is called earning grass in Scotland. Linnaeus says the juice will curdle reindeer's milk. The name for rennet is earning, in Lincolnshire. Withering also gives this note: "Pinguis, fat, from its effect in CONGEALING milk."—(A.) Withering of course wrong: the name comes, be the reader finally assured, from the fatness of the green leaf, quite peculiar among wild plants, and fastened ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... thirty!' and running over to the glass, draped in green cut-paper, which adorned the mantelpiece, Lucy stood before it examining herself in an agony. And, indeed, there was a change. A touch of some withering blight seemed to have swept across the whole dainty face, and taken the dewy freshness from the eyes. There was fever in it—the fever of fret and mutiny and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... But why, when occasion appeared, should it not have its place? Why might not the Lord, consistently with his help and his healing, do that in one instance which his Father is doing every day? I refer now, of course, to the withering of the fig-tree. In the midst of the freshest greenery of summer, you may see the wan branches of the lightning-struck tree. As a poet drawing his pen through syllable or word that mars his clear utterance or musical comment, such is the destruction ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... on the meeting. Some of the members looked at each other and showed signs of hysterics. Mrs. Blanderocks flashed a withering glance at the corner, but rose to ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... Miss Jerusha, with a sharp look over her spectacles, "tisn't proper for boys to talk so; what do you do all day long?" she asked, turning back to Polly, after a withering glance at Joel, who ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... Prexy did was to look at me in that calm, withering, pitying way he has, and then say in that solemn voice of his: 'Ah, Hatfield, I presume you are going in for vivisection?' Say, you could have floored me with a feather. That's the kind of a man Dr. ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... on the road, and if he don't slip you one with a shovel for your withering ignorance he'll tell you just what I'm telling you now. Yes, you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... Spantz gave him a withering look, as much as to say that he was a fool to ask such a question in a place so public. Without replying, he got to his feet and made ready to ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... in," Cassy in reviewing the situation subsequently commented. But at the time she said nothing. She merely looked. Her rage was gone, her anger spent. Only disgust remained. It was that which her face expressed. It was withering. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... appreciation of its powers. Instead of flying straight before it, and being inevitably overtaken, she ran at once to the river and galloped madly down the shallow margin. Before the flames were actually upon her, she was beyond the zone of their fury. But she felt the withering blast of them, and their appalling roar was in her ears. With starting eyes and wide, palpitating nostrils, she ran on and on, and stopped only when she sank exhausted in a rude cove. There she lay with ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... rich and fertile must be reinforced with friendship. It is the sap that preserves from blight and withering; it is the sunshine that beckons on the blossoming and fruitage; it is the starlight dew that perfumes life with sweetness and besprinkles it with splendor; it is the music-tide that sweeps the soul, scattering treasures; ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... latter was undoubtedly an able debater, he lost ground from his impetuosity of temper—an infirmity to which Dr. Buchanan never gives way. In all circumstances he is cool, calculating, unruffled; he measures the full meaning and effect of every sentence; he can be fierce and withering, and still maintain a calm and composed demeanour. The gladiatorial conflicts in which these two combatants took part were often a source of rare amusement even outside the pale of the Presbytery, and, inasmuch as they were both well fortified with ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon; but, oh, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager, Long withering ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Two per cent. of the soldiers get a fortnight's leave of absence and a free pass; and there is joy in peasant homes over peasant charcoal pans. The dusky shades of evening are stealing over olive grove and withering vineyard, and every house lights up its tiny oil lamp, and every image of the Virgin is illuminated with a taper. In Eija, near Cordova, an image or portrait of the Virgin and the Babe new-born, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Dynamic was the word I used," replied Professor Zepplin, casting a withering glance at ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... audacious enterprise appear to him. Then quickly changing from doubt to fury, he struck his brow with his iron glove, saying that as the queen defied him he would make her tremble even in her castle and in her lover's arms. He threw one withering look on Marie, who interceded tearfully for her sister, and pressing Robert's hand with warmth, vowed that so long as he lived Louis should never be ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... look at an ordinary tree to see the same thing going on. Each little leaf on a tree may very naturally have sufficient consciousness to believe that it is an entirely separate being maintaining itself in the sunlight and the air, withering away and dying when the winter comes on—and there is an end of it. It probably does not realize that all the time it is being supported by the sap which flows from the trunk of the tree, and that in its turn it is feeding the tree, too—that ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the men, having fed and watered their horses, took what rest they might in patches of burning shadow within the wall. Though the sun-saturated masonry breathed fire, it served to shelter them from the withering wind that scours the Border at this ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... to break over the desolate hills, the fun began. From three sides the Indians poured into the camp a withering fire. As a result the entire command became panic stricken. Seven men were knocked down, almost at the first fire, and it has always been a matter of surprise to me that Hasbrook, old campaigner as he ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... because she dared to remain young and handsome, while she, the empress, saw that she was growing old, and her charms were withering; and Catharine hated Elizabeth because the latter denied her a right which the empress daily claimed for herself—the right to choose a lover, and to love him as long as he pleased her. She hated Elizabeth because the latter surrounded her with ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... diem!"—'Tis a mournful story, Thus in the ear of pensive eve to tell, Of morning's firm resolves, the vanish'd glory, Hope's honey left within the withering bell And plants of mercy dead, that might have bloomed ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... you will never let despair get the upper hand of you. If it does you may as well die; yes, you may as well. And I entreat you not to lose your entire faith in humanity. There is nothing like that for withering up the very core of the heart. I tell you, humanity and nature have so much in common with each other that if you lose part of your pleasure in the latter; you will see less beauty in the trees, the flowers, and the fields, less grandeur in the mighty mountains and the sea. The seasons will ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... though bare and withering like the scathed oak, was inexpressibly welcome to one who so deeply suffered from the crimes of duplicity. Williams soon recovered his strength under the care of his dear old master; and though the mountain cottage ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... It was one of those tense moments which every man experiences when he sees a withering frost slowly gathering over the fondest hopes of a lifetime. The family of Rincon, aristocratic, intensely loyal to Church and State, had willingly laid itself upon the sacrificial altar in deference to its honored traditions. Custom ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge throwing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and taking the War-denouncing trumpet with a withering look. It was not with me then, as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions, and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... mischief, mischief, And a nine-times killing curse, By day and by night, to the caitive wight Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door, And shuts up the womb of his purse; And a mischief, mischief, mischief, And a nine-fold withering curse,— For that shall come to thee, that will render thee Both all that thou fear'st, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Across a sky as clear as crystal a series of young clouds were chasing each other, putting out the stars for a moment as they scurried playfully along. It was a joy to be alive and fit and careless. Summer was lying in wait for spring, and autumn would lay a withering hand upon summer, and winter with its crooked limbs and lack-luster eyes was waiting ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... curse of the ages. No man suffering from her withering, blighting touch can be in harmony with the best. Socialism tackles the master job of abolishing it. Not by any fantastic plan of redistribution but by giving to the creator all that he creates and to the social charges, pensioners and cripples an assurance ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... I muttered, mirth immediately withering upon me, "and you'll know him better. To save time: will you mention anything you can think of that he ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... that fine turf which seems like down upon the earth, or of that enameled lawn which announces a brilliant fertility; but instead an interlacement of hard and thorny herbs which seem to cling to each other rather than to the soil, and which, successively withering and impeding each other, form a coarse mat several feet thick. There are no roads, no communications, no vestiges of intelligence in these wild places. Man, obliged to follow the paths of savage beasts and to watch constantly lest he become their prey, terrified by their roars, thrilled by ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... modest Rose, whose blushes speak The ardent kisses of the Sun, Off'ring a tribute to her Cheek, Droops, to perceive its Tint outdone; Then withering with envy and despair, Dies on her Lips, and leaves ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... historic production, the scanty fruit of a long and laborious life, I have failed to gratify the dainty palate of the age, I can only lament my misfortune, for it is too late in the season for me even to hope to repair it. Already has withering age showered his sterile snows upon my brow; in a little while, and this genial warmth which still lingers around my heart, and throbs, worthy reader, throbs kindly toward thyself, will be chilled for ever. Haply ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... in its every detail. Then I touched upon beer, the British bruiser, “gentility-nonsense,” the “trumpery great”; then upon etymology, traced hoity-toityism to toit, a roof,—but only to have my shallow philology dismissed with a withering smile. I tried other subjects in the same direction, but with small success, till in a lucky moment I bethought myself of Ambrose Gwinett. There is a very scarce eighteenth-century pamphlet narrating ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... Dunstable's table with its racked countenances, and its too ample supply of pencils and paper. A deadly crime! When Lady Dunstable, on the stroke of midnight, swept through the rooms to gather her guests for bed, she cast a withering glance on Doris ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... in tones of withering and unfathomable contempt, "my milk! Do you think I'd look at the beastly stuff when I'm out of sight of the bloody anarchists? We're all Christians in this room, though perhaps," he added, glancing around at the reeling crowd, "not strict ones. Finish my milk? Great blazes! ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... dry weather and withering sun had caused the dead boughs to shrink and to break beneath the great weight of the nest that rested upon them. The eagle's nest was in ruins. It had fallen upon the lower boughs, and two young half-fledged eaglets were to be seen hanging helplessly on ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... estimation. In this he was mistaken; for, no sooner had he made her thoroughly cognizant of the fact that he was not an innocent, but a willing, instrument in the abduction of poor Kate, than she sprang to her feet, and with a glance the most withering, and full of unconquerable hate and aversion, without a single other word, left the apartment and ascended to that of ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Has the withering blight known as Bolshevism any such redeeming traits to its credit account? The consensus of opinion down to the present moment gives an emphatic, if summary, answer in the negative. Every region over which it swept ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... monotonous path lengthening out before them, with neither great joy to lighten it, or great sorrow to darken it, the same commonplace cares and duties until the end. 'This is doing us no good,' they think; 'life is slowly withering, zeal is gone. A flower cannot bloom in the desert! Let me go to ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... though, Connie. I used to pine sore fur the country; but it have come hover me lately that in winter it 'ud be dull—scarcely any flowers, and no birds singing, nor nothink. Now, in heaven there's no winter. 'A land o' pure delight,' the hymn calls it, 'and never-withering flowers.' So you see, Connie, heaven must be a sight better than the country, and of course I'd rayther go there; only I'm thinking as 'tis sech a ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... great, and even more insupportable. There was a certain moisture and softness about the high temperature at Colombo, which we had experienced a month before; while here there was a dry, burning directness of the sun's power which was absolutely withering. As we passed over the road, swayed hither and thither upon the backs of the huge animals, it was amusing to watch the gambols of the wild monkeys in the trees, and to observe the flocks of wild peacocks in the open fields, both monkeys and peacocks ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... This dessication or withering takes place everywhere; but in some places the surplus of fruit, which the tree is unable to nourish, is alone subject to it. In others, as Araquita and Caucagua, it withers in proportion to the northerly rains. An unsuitable soil occasions another kind of decay. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... thou life-repressing north, Ye withering east winds too; But come, thou all-reviving west, Breathe soft thy genial dew. Till at the last, in peaceful age, This lovely flow'ret shed Its last green leaf upon my grave, Within the vale ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... age, when we pursue no more— Fruit dies upon the withering tree: Hark! some one rapped upon my door. Nay, open not. 'Tis not for me— Or else the doctor calls. Not yet Must I expect his studious bow. Once I'd have called, "Come in, Lizzette"— Alas, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... O angel, are there, The myrrhic rapture of young hair, The lips of lust; And all the stenches of dust, Even the palm and the fingers of a hand burnt bare With a curling sweet-smelling crust, And the bitter staleness of old hair, Powder on a withering bust ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... Lavengro and strove to deserve it" was cut down to "when I became a student." When he wrote of Cowper in the third chapter he said, to justify Cowper's melancholy, that "Providence, whose ways are not our ways, interposed, and with the withering blasts of misery nipped that which otherwise might have terminated in fruit, noxious and lamentable"; but he substituted a mere "perhaps" for the words about Providence. In the description of young Jasper he changed his "short arms like" his father, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... the whole length of the street; then passed out into the dreary, deserted looking Crescent, where the trees were already beginning to fade; not, however, into the bright autumn tint of country woods, but into a premature withering, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... unworthy aims. In its old age there is nothing genial or lovely, and in its death one could almost believe that soul as well as body perishes. Simplicity improves in mind as it grows old in body. There are no wrinkles on the brow of its sunny spirit; there is no withering of its intellect. Its life, in time, is a perpetual advance in all that is gracious and intelligent,—a steady ripening for eternity,—and its death is but a birth into a ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... long the gale had blown he could not tell, Only the world had changed, his life had died. A moment now was everlasting hell. Nature an onslaught from the weather side, A withering rush of death, a frost that cried, Shrieked, till he withered at the heart; a hail Plastered his oilskins with an ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... had lost your greedy grief, Content to see from afar, You would find in your hand a withering leaf, In your heart ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... just dry so." Both drank, then settled back on their heels for a moment's conversation. "Awful weather," said the blue scout. "Didn't know there could be such withering heat! And malaria—lying out of nights in swamps, with owls hooting and jack-o'-lanterns round your bed! Ain't you folks ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... but folded her arms and looked at her "friend." Mrs. Toomey had the physical sensation of shrivelling: as though she were standing naked before the withering heat of ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... stream Hellespontine, Which from the mythical tomb of the godlike Protesilaus Rose sympathetic in grief to his love-lorn Laodamia, Evermore growing, and when in their growth to the prospect attaining, Over the low sea-banks, of the fatal Ilian city, Withering still at the sight which still they upgrow to encounter. Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces, Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions, Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,—apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... conductors and elevators of sap; and nothing can be more injurious than to take them away from the fruit at the very time when they are most needed. The consequence of such an unwise course will be the wilting and withering of the bunches, and, should they ripen at all, they will be deficient in flavor. Good fruit must ripen in the shade, only thus will it ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... one o'clock on an intolerable day peculiar to the Dakota plain. A frightfully hot, withering, and powerful wind was abroad. The thermometer stood nearly a hundred in the shade, and the wind, so far from being a relief, was suffocating because of its heat and the dust ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... upon her countenance! Her eye glared out, and was fixed on the vacant wall, as if a spirit had arisen before her, and arrested her regard. There was a spirit there. It was the form of the young Augustus, whom she saw withering and wasting in his dungeon; a dungeon which would deliver him up only to the scaffold. After the events which had occurred all idea of a union with Augustus, presuming that his life should be spared, had been resigned. How could he, on whom the maxims of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... knew it, and sickened under it as under an evil influence. He was very angry with her—she was fully conscious of that—unjustifiably, unreasonably angry. More than once, when Mr. Granger was especially attentive, she had encountered a withering glance from those dark gray eyes, and she had been weak enough, wicked enough perhaps, to try and make him perceive that Mr. Granger's attentions were in no way pleasant to her. She could bear anything better ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... "green fat" and their wives without tortoise-shell combs. It will serve them right. Such destitution in these—and, be it noted, in many other matters—will deservedly fall upon those who ignorantly, wilfully, and contentedly neglect to take steps to understand and to control the withering blight created by modern man wherever he ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... flank of the defenders. They saw the tall figure of Timmendiquas, a very god of war, leading on the Indians, with his fearless Wyandots in a close cluster around him. Colonel John Durkee, gathering up a force of fifty or sixty, charged straight at the warriors, but he was killed by a withering volley, which drove ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a spell had loosened them, down came a little shower of withering rose-leaves from the Maypole. Alas for the young lovers! No sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion than they were sensible of something vague and unsubstantial in their former pleasures, and felt ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with the parts still spread about the floor. Elihu Titus told Sharon the boy was only playing with them. Sharon said he was glad they could furnish amusement, and mentally composed the beginning of what would be a letter of withering ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... welded into the past, My love of you with the purple Indian dusk, With its clinging scent of sandal incense and musk, And withering jasmin flowers. My eyes grow dim and my senses fail at last, While the lonely hours Follow each other, silently, one by one, Till the ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... to their work, strained in their yokes and dragged the plow point through the bosom of the earth, been half so genuine and deep. It was good to be alive, to sleep, to eat, to toil! Cities had lost their charm. David's sin was no longer a withering and blasting, but a chastening and restraining memory. His clearing was a kingdom, his cabin a palace, and he was soon to have a queen! He had reserved his sowing for the last day of his self-imposed seclusion, which ended with the month ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... satisfaction when it occurred to him that he ought to offer some to his neighbor, who very coolly declined. "You think it unhealthful to eat that?" inquired the German in polite astonishment. "Unhealthful?" exclaimed the Hidalgo, with a withering look and a gasp for a more adequate word; "No, sir: I think it an ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... some one to play who has the instincts of a gentleman. Pa will be greatly annoyed when he hears how our pleasant evening has been spoiled, and by an unknown farm-hand at that." She emphasised "farm-hand" and cast a look of withering ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... spare from his ordinary work to soothe and enlighten the suffering youth. But it became clearer every week that nothing would avail to entice the torn roots of his being to clasp again the soil of the world: he was withering away out of it. Ere long symptoms appeared which no one could well mistake, and Lingard himself knew that he was dying. Wingfold had dreaded that his discovery of the fact might reveal that he had imagined some atonement in the public confession he desired to make, and that, when he found it ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... elm, and beech—had been marked out for destruction: in some cases because they had been scorched and riven by lightnings, and were an eyesore; in others, because time had robbed them of their glory, withering their long, desolate arms, and bestowing on their crowns that lusterless, scanty foliage which has a mournful meaning, like the thin white hairs on the bowed head of a very old man. At this distance from the house I could freely indulge my propensity for singing, albeit in that coarser ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... my sweet charity-blossoms, that unfolded such a little time ago, when Sophie was reading to me? Surely the time of withering had not come so soon? An untimely frost must have withered them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... don't wonder you feel uneasy on our account considering that we have never enjoyed the advantages their social standards offer. We trust, however, for the sake of old friendship, that you will overlook our shortcomings. A lesson in manners might not be lost on us," she added with a withering glance and tone that would have reduced any other man to a ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... blood-curdling tale of Boer treachery and cowardice. He tells how the enemy held out the white flag to coax our men to stop firing. Then, in awe-inspiring tones, he sobs forth a tale of dark and dismal war, how our soldiers respected the white flag and rested on their arms, only to be mowed down by a withering rifle fire from the canaille who represent the enemy in the field. Having got so far, he does not feel justified in stopping until he has thrown in some flowery language concerning a Boer cannonade upon British ambulance waggons, full of wounded; from that he drifts by easy and natural stages to ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... and the poor girl had lost a worshipper. The golden image with the feet of clay might arise in a prophet's dream, but it could never abide in such a lover's. Her glance was powerless now. Alas, for the withering of such a dream! Perhaps she deserved nothing else; but our deserts, when we get them, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... from my hair when I went back to my room last night. Did you take it, dear? If so, do not cherish it. I hate to think of anything withering on your breast. My love is deathless, James, and owns no such symbol as that. But perhaps you are not thinking of my love, but of my faults. If so, let the flower remain where you have put it; and when you gaze on it say, "Thus is it with the ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... collars, and incense and altar-genuflections wouldn't count for a tikkie. Oh! it's been a sore with me this many a year, but when I saw him to-day I said, 'Thank God I never had a child!' Because to have seen a boy or girl grow up and wither away as that beautiful young fellow is withering, is a thing that a mother must shudder to look back upon, even when she has found her lost one ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Johnson and Dr. Rudolph spent the night at timber-line in a pit dug in the snow to obtain protection from a gale, at the temperature of 5 deg. Fahr. below zero, and fought their way to the summit. But so withering was the gale at that altitude even at mid-day, that a precipitate retreat was made to avoid freezing. The faces of the climbers showed plainly the punishment received. Three days later Dr. Church attempted to rescue the record just as the storm was passing. He made his way in an impenetrable ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... in "Masterman Ready" and "Treasure Island," you see,' explained Jack, proudly. 'And it's pierced for musketry, too; we could open a withering fire on besiegers before ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... on a fondness which suddenly became a withering droop of the eyes: "Don't mince your smile so, grannie dear, I can ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... alternating gloom and glow until shrouded and dimmed in an orange tawny haze of infinite distance. In the immediate foreground of this majestic display, like a handful of rose-leaves fallen out of heaven, small clouds floated directly downward, withering to blackness as they neared the earth and lost the dying fires. Beneath the splendor of the sky the land likewise flamed, the winding roadways glimmered, and many pools and ditches reflected back the circumambient glory ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... suppose too," she continued with withering scorn, "that was why the gay cavalier kissed your hand. I saw him through the window. So touching! That's what you were plotting when I found you in the garden. Page Hanaford was in it too; I saw it in his face. I hate him! I hate everything! Oh!" she cried, with a sudden outburst of passion, ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... Jones cast a withering glance at the speaker, which softened from indignation to injured innocence in so dramatic a manner that Hal almost felt sorry he had spoken. Then he silently turned and resumed his ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... If it goes on, my aunt will have an administration as important as that of a European state. Oh! you are happy here, you people; you are busy. I amuse myself! And if you knew how it wearies me! I am withering, consuming myself, I am longing ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground: Another race the following spring supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise. So generations in their course decay, So flourish these, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... not but feel sorry for the valiant savages who, under so awful a fire, still pressed forward to certain death; their numbers withering away at every step, until they dwindled to nothing, only to be replaced by a fresh band, which darted forward to meet a similar fate; and yet, when he remembered the wholesale slaughter at Metemmeh, the annihilation ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... hedge; their leaves were of a golden colour, and as lively as the yellow blossoms could have been in the spring. Afterwards we saw many laburnums in the woods, which we were told had been 'planted;' though I remember that Withering speaks of the laburnum as one of the British plants, and growing in Scotland. The twigs and branches being stiff, were not so graceful as those of our garden laburnums, but I do not think I ever ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... London, and the whole of her glittering toilette apparatus lay about on the marble dressing-table. The atmosphere of the room was almost oppressive for the rich odors of perfumes in bottles whose gold stoppers had not been replaced. A bunch of hot-house flowers was withering upon a tiny writing-table. Two or three handsome dresses lay in a heap upon the ground, and the open doors of a wardrobe revealed the treasures within. Jewelry, ivory-backed hair-brushes, and exquisite china were scattered here and there about the apartment. George Talboys saw his bearded ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... he put into those two words was more withering than a whole philippic against redemption by creature comforts. And feeling it dart into her, Barbara closed her lips tight. He had dropped her wrists, and again, begun pacing up and down; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... just freeze onto him till the sheriff heaves in sight. Gee! There'll sure be something stirring when we tell him who this Dunk person really is! And you say he was in with the Old Man, once? Oh, Lord!" He looked with withering contempt at Dunk; and Dunk's glance flickered again and dropped, just as his hand dropped to the ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... friend, that you are only pointing your own unimportance? If your father was Governor of the State, what right have you to use that fact only to fatten your self-conceit? Take care, good care; for whether you say it by your lips or by your life, that withering response awaits you—"then what are you?" If your ancestor was great, you are under bonds to greatness. If you are small, make haste to learn it betimes, and, thanking heaven that your name has been made illustrious, retire into a corner and keep ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... more, redoubled her tenderness. And this wan idyll of theirs, as nearly incorporeal as though she were indeed an ethereal visitor, took on a new pathos which was accentuated by the withering of the flowers in the garden, the first hints of ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... Mandy so far forgot herself as to address her as Viney Raymond, the new free woman's head went up and she said with withering emphasis: ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... helpless hands were frozen: For she, the woeful mother, had gone mad, And laid it down, regardless of its fate And of her own. Yet had she many days Of sorrow in the world, but never wept. She lived on alms; and carried in her hand Some withering stalks, she gathered in the spring; When they asked the cause, she smiled, and said, They were her sisters, and would come and watch Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke Of her deceiver, father, mother, home, Or child, or heaven, or hell, or ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... me every day That all my bloom has pas past away. "Behold," the pretty wantons cry, "Behold this mirror with a sigh; The locks upon thy brow are few, And like the rest, they're withering too!" Whether decline has thinned my hair, I'm sure I neither know nor care; But this I know, and this I feel As onward to the tomb I steal, That still as death approaches nearer, The joys of life are sweeter, dearer; And had I but an hour to live, That ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and unreturning hours, This Sun-Dial was placed among the flowers, Which came forth in their beauty—smiled and died, Blooming and withering round its ancient side. Mortal, thy day is passing—see that flower, And think upon the Shadow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... Sammies swept over the first line of German trenches. The Boches had deserted them in the face of a withering rifle and machine-gun fire. ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... the Latin subjunctive. Youths cannot get at the Aeneid, the spirit and majesty of it, I mean, owing to the pestilential numbers of grammatical reminiscences recalled by almost every line. When once you begin to set examination papers on a subject, the romance seems to evaporate. There is something withering about test-questions. This modern disease of grammatical annotation, engendered largely by prosaic examiners, who have published grammars, is spreading to the English Classics, and we may soon expect Burns to furnish a text for exceptional scansion, bob-wheel metrics and general philological catechising. ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... with that restraint which is put over the feelings by a strong nature, and yet can not hide that consuming passion which underlies all the words, and makes them burn with intensest heat. Here the hot fire of his indignation seemed to be expressed in a blighting and withering power; and Hilda shrank within herself involuntarily in fear, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish were at his command. He might, had France been at peace with herself, have appeared in literature as a somewhat belated Ronsardist; but his hereditary cause became his own. While still a child he accepted from his father, in presence of the withering heads of the conspirators of Amboise, the oath of immitigable vengeance. Pursuits, escapes, the camp, the battle-field, the prison, the court made up no small part of his life of vicissitude and of unalterable resolve. He roused Henri of Navarre from the lethargy ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... I saw their round, red cheeks grow thin and white, their delicate nerves lose tone and tension, their brains become feeble and flabby, their minds flutter out weakly in muslin and ribbons, their vanity kindled by injudicious admiration, the sweet child—unconsciousness withering away in the glare of indiscriminate gazing, the innocence and simplicity and naturalness and child-likeness swallowed up in a seething whirlpool of artificialness, all the fine, golden butterfly-dust of modesty and delicacy and retiring girlhood ruthlessly rubbed off forever before girlhood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... counterparts or equals in the women of the sixteenth century; and Jeanne d'Albret, in a remarkable letter to Theodore Beza, notes with joy a precocious piety,[385] which, there is reason to fear, was not hardy enough to withstand the withering atmosphere of a court like that with which he was now making ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... was reached, and here the men halted and awaited the enemy with another battalion who were already holding this wood of six or seven acres. When the German troops arrived they may have expected to meet no great resistance. They met a withering fire, which caused them bloody losses. The Canadians had assembled at various points, which became strongholds of defense with machine-guns and bomb stores, and the men held their fire until the enemy was within close range, so that they worked ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... figure appeared, a brisk figure, at which the dead leaves of the porch bestirred themselves in vague, uneasy rustlings. Uncle Buzz stepped meekly aside and Mrs. Mosby—Aunt Loraine—joined the group, giving him a momentary withering glance. She was an inexorable woman, an inch taller than Uncle Buzz, who stood five feet three, but she matched him whim for whim in her attire. Her hair looked black in the graying light; in reality it was splotched and streaked with a chestnut red, colour ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... said Mammy, with an air of withering contempt. "There, now, you done woke up your little brother," she said, when, the nose being blown, she again returned to trying to jolt baby Joe to sleep. "He jest had ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... intentions of the writer are by no means clear, the allegory being frequently involved and contradictory. The beauty of the poem lies in its detached passages, its occasional poetic touches, its graphic pictures, biting satire, and withering denunciation of fraud, corruption, and tyranny. The measure adopted is the unrhymed alliterative, characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon literature, and which had long been disused, but which retained its hold on the affections of the common people, who were of Anglo-Saxon stock. In the extracts we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... everlasting spring abides, And never withering flowers: Death like a narrow sea divides This ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... us, for they were always ready, had cover, and always knew the ground to their immediate front; whereas we, their assailants, had to grope our way over unknown ground, and generally found a cleared field or prepared entanglements that held us for a time under a close and withering fire. Rarely did the opposing lines in compact order come into actual contact, but when, as at Peach-Tree Creek and Atlanta, the lines did become commingled, the men fought individually in every possible ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... are excellent!" said Jaspar, with a withering sneer. "But suppose I should grumble at ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... "Never did that before," gurgled out of his net, just as we were dropping off once more; but a withering request from the Dandy to "gather experience somewhere else," silenced him till dawn, when he had the wisdom to ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... seas seeking the golden clime it needs and instinctively knows of. But she did not repine. And she was able to fill her life, to be strongly interested in people and in events. She mellowed with her great sorrow instead of becoming blunted by it or withering under it. And so she drew people to her, and was drawn, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the least possible manipulative skill, it will yet find interpreters. It is the soul that looks out with burning eyes through the most gross fleshly filament. Whosoever should portray truly the life and death of a little flower—its birth, sucking in of nourishment, reproduction of its kind, withering and vanishing—would have shaped a symbol of all existence. All true facts of nature or the mind are related. Your little carving represents some mental facts as they really are, therefore fifty different true stories might be read from it. What your work wants is not truth, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... guess he is; that is, ef you call three, four, five millions well off. I don't know how it strikes you" (with a withering sarcasm), "but I call Arthur ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... tyranny of Spain or Naples or Austria; but everything indicated a movement toward it. Those six years which comprised the reign of Charles X. were a period of reaction,—a return to the Middle Ages in both State and Church, a withering blast on all noble aspirations. Even the prime minister Villele, a legitimatist and an ultra-royalist, was too liberal for the king; and he was dismissed to make room for Martignac, and he again for Polignac, who ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... forgiveness. But the rust of disappointment has dried up his better nature; his heart is wrung with the shafts of ingratitude—all the fierce passions of his nature, hate, scorn and revenge, rise up in the one stormy outburst of his soul. He casts upon her a look of withering scorn, the past of that life so chequered flashes vividly through his thoughts, his hate deepens, he hurls her from him, invokes a curse upon her head, and shuts her from his sight. "Mine will be the retribution!" he says, knitting ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... colonel, writhing in the grasp of the men who held him, "are you going to allow a senseless, wounded man to be murdered before your eyes? Oh, how could anybody ever mistake you for a gentleman for an instant?" he added, with withering contempt; and then turning his head toward the fierce soldiery, "Stop, stop, you ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... o'clock she heard Mrs. Morrison's voice below, in altercation apparently with him. At this time she was crying again; bitter, burning tears; those scorching tears that follow in the wake of destroyed illusions, that drop, hot and withering, on to the fragments of what was once the guiding glory of an ideal. She was brought so low, was so humbled, so uncertain of herself, that she felt it would bring her peace if she might go down to Mrs. Morrison and acknowledge all her vileness; tell her how wrong she had been, ask ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... parent-forms. Negative results are not of much value; but Reisseck, Caspary, and myself, tried in vain to cross C. laburnum and purpureus; when I fertilised the former with pollen of the latter, I had the nearest approach to success, for pods were formed, but in sixteen days after the withering of the flowers, they fell off. Nevertheless, the belief that C. adami is a spontaneously produced hybrid between these two species is supported by the fact that such hybrids have arisen in this genus. In a bed of seedlings from C. elongatus, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... A deadly, withering attack on Christian Science enfilading its every position. Mr. Wyckoff's searching analysis of the pretensions, errors, follies, and non-sense of so-called Christian Science should prove as convincing as ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... Plato has been largely responsible for the hue and cry against the poet throughout the last two millennia. Various as are the counts against the poet's conduct, they may all be included under the declaration in the Republic, "Poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of withering and starving them; she lets them rule instead of ruling them." [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... two," the words were withering with oppression. Subconsciously he felt the load that crushed her spirit. It was as if the burden had been shifted; he sensed the weight of an ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... prince's first speech swept like a hurricane over a garden in June—withering, blasting, uprooting. He began by denying, absolutely, that the great victory of 1813 which expelled for Prussia the French invaders was based on so low a consideration as the promise of a paper Constitution. Not at all! It was an exhibition ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... the most thickly- populated workshop in Europe, counting every blade of grass and every kernel of wheat and making its pleasures go a long way at small cost; a hothouse of a land, with the door about to be opened to the withering blast of war. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... couldn't. Neither could I. An hotel indeed!"—with withering scorn—"And we with four empty bedrooms crying aloud at night because two of their fellows are occupied and they are left out in the cold! An hotel! I'd just like ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... with a withering look at Pons. "You may keep well for all the harm I wish you. When you can speak to me pleasantly, when you can believe that what I do is done for the best, I will come back again. Till then I shall stay in my own room. You were like my own child to me; did anybody ever see a child ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... I not only took him into my service, I made him my confidant and my friend—I loved him sincerely. And what is my reward? He is ungrateful, and he hates me with a perfect hatred; he is now sitting in his room and cursing his king, who has done nothing more than protect him from the withering ridicule which his childish and mad pursuit was about to bring upon him. Jordan, Jordan! kings are ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... he had to encounter in his endeavours to imitate Tacitus; and though he must have been thoroughly conscious that it was not in his power victoriously to surmount them, yet he cared not, for he did not fear detection, viewing, as he did, with such withering and lordly disdain the want of perspicacity which, in his fancy, characterized his species. He worked on, then, as best he could, with courage and confidence; every now and then doing things that never would have been done by Tacitus: the story, for example, of Sabina Poppaea in the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... loyalty 's beginning for to fa', The bonnie white rose it is withering an' a': But I 'll water 't wi' the blude of usurping tyrannie, An' green it will grow in my ain countrie. It 's hame, and it 's hame, hame fain wad I be, An' it 's hame, hame, hame, to my ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... must ever have adorned and cheered the world; it naturally springs from the depths of a woman's soul. However dark and dismal society may have been under the withering influences of Paganism, it is probable that glorious instances could be chronicled of the devotion of woman to man and of man to woman, which was not intensified by the passion of love. Nevertheless, the condition of women in the Pagan world, even with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... feature of the whole thing is that I like mushrooms all the better for the very reason that leads Mr. Chesterton to pour upon them his most withering and pitiless contempt. He hates them because they spring up in the night. Little Bethel is a 'monstrous mushroom that grows in the moonshine.' It is perfectly true that Little Bethel, like the mushrooms, flourished in ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... dogs," I heard in the most withering contempt, "I will see the Tuan Consul. Know he ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... machine, without pausing to make remark or criticism, but his beautiful, eloquent commentaries came in like the symphonies of an organ. He drew forth the latent enthusiasm of Helen, who, forgetting herself and Mittie's withering accusations, expressed her sentiments with a grace, simplicity and fervor peculiar to herself. At the commencement of the evening she generally took her sewing from the basket, and her needle would ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... made many observations, which, alas! strengthened her fears. She saw that the banks were too dry, and that the grass on the shore and the trailing plants on the rocks were withering away. She caused marks to be made along the borders, and examined them day after day, in all directions of the wind, at last the horrible idea became a certain fact,—that the surface of the ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... widow, her eyes flashing fire. "Go, heartless man! who dares to trifle thus with the feelings of a respectable and unprotected woman. Go, sir, you're only fit for the love of a—Dolly—Coddlins!" She pronounced the Coddlins with a withering sarcasm that struck the captain aghast; and, sailing out of the room, she left her tea untasted, and did not wish either of the military gentlemen ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... him a withering glance of scorn as rebuke to his unseemly levity, venturing to lurch a ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... eyes had been as bright as of yore they would have matched badly with your faded skin. The wrinkles which I notice on your forehead explain the increased fulness of your cheeks, and your throat in withering is elegant in decay. Thus the harmony shown by your features, even as they grow old, is the best ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... postman while Persis was busy with a fitting, gave Joel time to examine the mail and frame a withering denunciation of Mrs. Warren's plan. He sprung the same upon his sister with pyrotechnic effect ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... things that lay squirming and making such grimaces, as only very young babies can make, in the face of Mrs. Pimble. The alleged father stood there, chuckling over the smartness of his progeny. Mrs. Pimble darted one withering glance upon him, and walked away without another word. She roused old Dr. Potipher, and took him home with her. Well she did so, for Garrison was much worse than when she left him, and the doctor pronounced it a case of brain fever, which ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... green leaf o' loyaltie's begun for to fa', The bonnie white rose it is withering an' a'; But I'll water 't wi' the blude of usurping tyrannie, An' green it will grow in my ain countrie. Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, O hame, hame, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... such as startled even itself. Of all branches of education, the science of gauging people and events by their relative importance defies study most insolently. For three or four generations, society has united in withering with contempt and opprobrium the shameless futility of Mme. de Pompadour and Mme. du Barry; yet, if one bid at an auction for some object that had been approved by the taste of either lady, one quickly found that it were better to buy half-a-dozen Napoleons or Frederics, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... opinions respecting them. Some, among whom are Dr. Priestly and Mr. Jessop, upon practical and scientific observations, attributed them to lightning, but their experiments did not prove altogether satisfactory. Drs. Wollaston, Withering, and others, who had duly examined these spots, ascribed them to the growth of fungi, which opinion seems undoubtedly the best.—The rings vary in size and shape, some having seven yards of bare, with a patch of green grass a foot broad in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... the man who does not shudder on hearing M. Leroux exclaim, "There is neither a paradise nor a hell; the wicked will not be punished, nor the good rewarded. Mortals! cease to hope and fear; you revolve in a circle of appearances; humanity is an immortal tree, whose branches, withering one after another, feed with their debris the root which is always young!" Where is the man who, on hearing this desolate confession of faith, does not demand with terror, "Is it then true that I am only an aggregate ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... was the more wonder to find how he seemed to raise up the audience with him, in breathless attention, as to a strain of sweet music, carrying them without thought of the scene, or of the speaker, to the lovely isles, and the inhabitants of noble promise, but withering for lack of knowledge; and finally closing his speech, when they were wrought up to the highest pitch, by an appeal that touched them all home; "for well did he know," said he, "that the universal ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... she said, with a withering shrug of her shoulders, 'that's wit, Mr. Fielding.' Repartee was not ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... pleasant month of June, sometime, maybe six or eight days, after the birth-day of our good old King George the Third—for I recollect the withering branches of lily-oak and flowers still sticking up behind the signs, and over the lampposts,—that my respected acquaintance and customer, Peter Farrel the baker, to whom I have made many a good suit of pepper-and-salt clothes—which he preferred from their not dirtying so easily with the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... a withering reply, And vanity I always do my best to mortify; A charitable action I can skilfully dissect; And interested motives I'm delighted to detect. I know everybody's income and what everybody earns, And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns; But to benefit humanity, however much I plan, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... he came planted in the spring, And had the sun before him of respect; We, set in th' autumn, in the withering And sullen season of a cold defect, Must taste those sour distastes the times do bring Upon the fulness of a cloy'd neglect. Although the stronger constitutions shall Wear out th' ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... horses and let them refresh themselves by rolling on the sandy soil, and graze after a fashion upon the coarse tufts of withering herbage which grew around. There was no water here; but this did not so much matter, for both they and we had drunk at a little muddy pool we found not more than an hour before. We were finishing our meal of the food that we had brought with us, which, indeed, we needed sorely after our sleepless ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... threw his tall body over the narrow table, and with two hands hovering above their shrinking heads, like eagles over a quarry, he cursed them by name, soul and body, in this world and the next. It was an age eloquent in curses; and this curse was so full, so minute, so blighting, blasting, withering, and tremendous, that I am afraid to put all the words on paper. "Cursed be the lips," he shrieked, "which spoke the lie that Margaret was dead; may they rot before the grave, and kiss white-hot iron in hell thereafter; ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... and come home to her? Then I need not have written this history, and all would have been well in Dreamland. But he didn't. He heard nothing but the sibilant waters as they rushed under his keel: he thought of nothing but the rose that was withering in the secret locker of his cabin, and of the wound in his heart that was gaping and as fresh as ever. So the night-winds hurried him onward, and the darkness absorbed the outlines of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various |
