"Gnat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where are you? Dusky-winged moth, how fare you, When wind and rain are in the tree? Cheeryo, cheerebly, chee, Shadow and sun one are to me. Mosquito and gnat, beware you, Saucy chipmunk, how dare you Climb to my nest in the maple-tree, And dig up the corn At noon and at ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... it should be So rude to talk about the ——. What funny folk we are! I think we've got the jealous hump Because we see we'll never jump So skilfully and far. For, if one's nibbled by a gnat Or harvest-bugs or things like that, One seldom keeps it dark; One may enlarge upon the tale If one is gobbled by a whale Or swallowed by a shark; But if you speak about the bite Of this abandoned parasite You're very, very rash; So ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... and Danhasch, and the fairy at once transformed herself into the shape of a gnat and settling on Camaralzaman's throat stung him so sharply that he awoke. As he did so his eyes fell on the Princess of China. Surprised at finding a lady so near him, he raised himself on one arm to look at her. The youth and beauty of the princess at once awoke a feeling to which his heart had ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... my requirements, for there was a garden adjoining the house, on which I wanted to erect a workshop. He handed the matter over to a paymaster, dry and meagre, who bore the name of Lattanzio Gorini. This flimsy little fellow, with his tiny spider's hands and small gnat's voice, moved about the business at a snail's pace; yet in an evil hour he sent me stones, sand, and lime enough to build perhaps a pigeon-house with careful management. When I saw how coldly things were going ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... me worthy) write down such words as those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and meditation of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would catch thee, as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the reverend Sir Silas, albeit ill appointed for riding, and not over-fond of it, goeth to every house wherein is a venison feast for thirty miles round. Not a buck's hoof on any stable-door but it awakeneth his ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... thing of not much moment, as life goes, A thing a man with some philosophy Had idly brushed aside, as 't were a gnat That winged itself between him and the light, Had, through the crooked working of his mind, Brought Wyndham to a very grievous pass. Yet 't was a grapestone choked Anacreon And hushed his song. There is no ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sou to charity; her hands were all but the hands of a skeleton and covered with jewels, she smoked cigarettes incessantly. She was one of those old women whose energy seems to increase with age, tireless as a gnat she was always the last in bed and the first on deck, though lying in her bunk half the night reading French novels of which she had a trunkful and smoking her ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... was feeding a blind crow, who, it must be confessed, looked here very much like some fat member of the New York Ring cunningly availing himself of the more toothsome rations in the sick ward of the penitentiary. My friend pointed out to me a heron with a wooden leg. "Suppose a gnat should break his shoulder-blade," I said, "would they put his wing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... sufficient to stamp it with absurdity and everlasting contempt, according to the gentlemen who oppose me; but when found in the Bible the story assumes another phase entirely. It is as the Saviour said of the Pharisees, "Ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." My opponent strains at a gnat, when found in the Book of Mormon, but if camels are discovered in the Bible he swallows them by the herd. I cannot see why a big story, told in the Bible, should be believed any more readily than one found ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... in a trice They make a feast less great than nice. But all this while his eye is served, We must not think his ear was sterved; But that there was in place to stir His spleen, the chirring grasshopper, The merry cricket, puling fly, The piping gnat for minstrelsy. And now, we must imagine first, The elves present, to quench his thirst, A pure seed-pearl of infant dew, Brought and besweeten'd in a blue And pregnant violet; which done, His kitling eyes begin to run Quite ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... creature—to make him glad. God honours all cheques legitimately drawn on Him, and answers all claims, and regards Himself as occupied in a manner entirely congruous with His magnificence and His infinitude, when He stoops to put some kind of vibrating gladness into the wings of a gnat that dances for an hour in the sunshine, and into the heart of a man that lives his time for ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... if it were only a gnat dancing in a sunbeam, has a right to have its well-being considered as an end of God's dealings. But no creature is so isolated or great as that it has a right to have its well-being regarded as the sole end of God's dealings. That is true about all His blessings and gifts; it is eminently ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... universal history, history from the point of view of geological periods, geology from the point of view of astronomy. When the duration of a man's life or of a people's life appears to us as microscopic as that of a fly and inversely, the life of a gnat as infinite as that of a celestial body, with all its dust of nations, we feel ourselves at once very small and very great, and we are able, as it were, to survey from the height of the spheres our own existence, and the little whirlwinds which ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it; I cannot endure this state of things. How dreadful it is to be poor! I wish we had not dissipated our wealth so freely. However, there is a little left still in a secret corner. As I said, I must see about it. Here is a gnat. Gnat, will you carry ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... just like the poor flies. At length the spider approached—touched him—and he felt the large, cold, and hairy paws of the monster encircle him. He thought himself dead, but suddenly he heard a kind of humming noise, clear and acute, and saw a little golden gnat, which had a kind of sting as fine and brilliant as a diamond needle, flying round the spider in a furious manner, and a voice (when I say voice, just imagine the voice of a gnat!)-a voice said to him, 'Poor little fly! you have saved flies; the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... light of a sputtering tallow-dip, on a tiny bed lay the sleeping infant. Wrinkle, choking down his amusement, took the candle from the mantelpiece and held it over the little face. "You can't see the favor so plain while its eyes are shet," he chuckled, "but when it grins an' winks it's you to a gnat's heel." ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... risen, and, having thrown back the gnat gauze, was seated upon the edge of her couch, her eyes fixed upon my face, while her fingers played with ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... watched it slowly develop has said that it seemed as if some hand was tracing the outlines of the tiny vertebrae, and then building up around it. Think for a moment of the development of the germ within the egg of the humming-bird, or the ant, or the gnat, or the eagle. Every second a change may be noticed. The germ cell draws to itself nourishment from the other part of the egg, and then it grows and reproduces another cell. Then both cells divide—then subdivide until there are millions and millions and millions of cells. ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... kind are esteemed by the Indians to be unclean food; as also ravens, crows, bats, buzzards and every species of owl. They believe that swallowing gnats, flies and the like, always breed sickness. To this that divine sarcasm alludes 'swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.'" Their purifications for their Priests, and for having touched a dead body or other unclean thing, according to Mr. Adair, are quite Levitical. He acknowledges however, that they have no traces of circumcision; but he supposes that they lost this rite in their ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... thus specially alluded to. In this letter, as full of absurdities, impudence, and of madness, as of words, the Cardinal, while pretending much devotion for the King, and much submission to the Church, plainly intimated that he cared for neither. Although this was as the sting of a gnat upon an elephant, the King was horribly piqued at it. He received the letter on the 24th of May, gave it the next day to D'Aguesseau, attorney-general, and ordered him to commence a suit against Cardinal de Bouillon, as guilty of felony. At the same time the King wrote to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... characteristic call-note, with drooping jerking tail, trembling wings, and uplifted parti-colored bill, he looks unnerved and limp by the effort it has cost him. But in the next instant a gnat flies past. How quickly the bird recovers itself, and charges full-tilt at his passing dinner! The sharp click of his little bill proves that he has not missed his aim; and after careering about in the air ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... there are people who, like the Pharisees of old, strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. They educate themselves up to a strict observance of all things insignificant. They would not forget to say grace before and after meals, but would knife the neighbor's character or soil their minds with all filthiness, without ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... verst or so of the Station. Around us all was still, so still, indeed, that it was possible to follow the flight of a gnat by the buzzing of its wings. On our left loomed the gorge, deep and black. Behind it and in front of us rose the dark-blue summits of the mountains, all trenched with furrows and covered with layers of snow, and standing out against the pale horizon, which ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... lover's eye, A gnat, a mote, a shadow thou wouldst spy. Come, follow me; she cannot be so far, But I shall overtake her: come ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... to the Clergy" of 1530, Luther describes the conditions before the Reformation as follows: "In brief, preaching and teaching were in a wretched and heart-rending state. Still all the bishops kept silence and saw nothing new, although they are now able to see a gnat in the sun. Hence all things were so confused and wild, owing to the discordant teaching and the strange new opinions, that no one was any longer able to know what was certain or uncertain, what was a Christian or an unchristian. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... massive man with a cockade saluted me—hearteningly—from the door of the lodge. The park seemed endless. I came, at length, to a long straight avenue of elms that were almost blatantly immemorial. At the end of it was—well, I felt like a gnat going to ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... appeared in Anne's bedroom, and she herself came forward to shut the casement, with the candle in her hand. The light shone out upon the broad and deep mill-head, illuminating to a distinct individuality every moth and gnat that entered the quivering chain of radiance stretching across the water towards him, and every bubble or atom of froth that floated into its width. She stood for some time looking out, little thinking what the darkness concealed on the other side of that wide stream; till at length she closed the ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... they, one and all, to have such for their support, and everybody, high and low, took to planting cactus and breeding the cochineal. The female insect is in form like a bug, but white; the male turns into something like a gnat, and soon dies. The insects are shut up in boxes to lay their eggs on bits of linen, which are pinned to the cactus plants by one of their own thorns. In six months after planting the cactus, the harvest begins. The insect, which has secreted a purple fluid, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... die of light! Death is the common right Of toads and men, — Of earl and midge The privilege. Why swagger then? The gnat's supremacy Is ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... that settle upon them. Put your candle outside the door, which should be left partially open, while undressing, and shut the door quickly when you take in the candle. Ammonia cures the irritation of gnat and mosquito bites. ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... his poem on the Civil War carried on between Pompey and Caesar. His vanity was so immense, and he gave such liberty to his tongue, that in some preface, comparing his age and his first efforts with those of Virgil, he had the assurance to say: "And what now remains for me is to deal with a gnat." In his early youth, after being long informed of the sort of life his father led in the country, in consequence of an unhappy marriage [977], he was recalled from Athens by Nero, who admitted him into the ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... on. Away from the sunny little house, the dainty, capable housewife, the security, the shelter, the heaven of home; away from peace and guiltlessness; away from a life in which the "gnat-like buzzings of little cares" had once been its heaviest burden, to a life in death of danger, of degradation, of ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... drops a gnat into the ointment of the General, be sure there are ten thousand flies stinking the ointment of ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... these people had become indifferent to him; he could no longer feel savage indignation at their little hypocrisies and malignancies. Their voices uttering calumny, and morality, and futility had become like the thin shrill angry note of a gnat on a summer evening; he had his own thoughts and his own life, and he passed on ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... mint, and anise, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. These you ought to do, and not neglect the others. [23:24] Blind guides! who strain out a gnat and swallow down a camel. [23:25]Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and platter, but within they are full of plunder and excess. [23:26]Blind Pharisee! cleanse first that which is in the cup and platter, that its outside ...
— The New Testament • Various
... the peculiarities of the fleas, if with those of none of the other dwellers in every corner of the globe. Such interesting particulars, to be sure, may claim a kind of classic authority in Horace's journey to Brundusium; but perhaps a gnat or a frog that kept Horace awake may fairly assume a greater historical importance than would be granted to similar tormentors of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Were it not for Mr. Olmsted, we should conclude the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... hitch in all its bearings. They don't see that every existing institution just bristles with difficulties—and that the difficulties are met or got over somehow. Often enough while they swallow the camel of existing abuses they strain at some gnat which they fancy they see flying in at the window of Utopia or of the Millennium. "If your reform were carried," they say in effect, "we should, doubtless, get rid of such and such flagrant evils; but the streets in November would be just as muddy as ever, and slight inconvenience might be caused ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... was weak—travelled not beyond the small circle of his clerks and his officers; and a murmur buzzed through the hall, when Earl Godwin stood on the floor with his six sons at his back; and you might have heard the hum of the gnat that vexed the smooth cheek of Earl Rolf, or the click of the spider from the web on the vaulted roof, the moment ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the Beetle, so blind and so black, Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back. And there came the Gnat, and the Dragon-fly too, With all their relations, ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... accordingly for nearly a quarter of an hour—it seemed infinitely longer to the little group of members present—the House sat in sedate and solemn silence. Then commenced questions, and in a moment half-a-dozen members were buzzing with gnat-like pertinacity about the impassive figure of the Postmaster-General. Mr. Arnold Morley was continually on his legs. For instance, Mr. Bousfield wanted to know what rule there was which forbade Post Office employes to approach the House of Commons directly, or to sign ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... was evidently run down and wanted a breath of sea-air. When Rosie lost her German exercise-book, and when Peggy fell off her bicycle, you worked both these accidents round into an imperative demand for salt water. When John was bitten by a gnat you said the spot was bilious and things would never be right with him until he got into a more bracing climate; and when Bates tripped up in the pantry and broke a week's income in plates and dishes you said he needed tone and would get it at the sea. Seaside, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... in what way can so many mischievous animals which continually infest our life here, contribute to the welfare of men. What known advantage results for God's friend to be bitten by a viper, stung by a gnat, devoured by vermin, torn into pieces by a tiger? Would not all these animals reason as wisely as our theologians, if they should pretend that man was made ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... God created in vain. He created the snail as a remedy for a blister; the fly for the sting of a wasp; the gnat for the bite of a serpent; the serpent itself for healing the itch (or the scab); and the lizard (or the spider) for the sting of ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty, half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of hers. And ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... revolutionized modern science, that dissipated materialism forever, that revealed to us the ghostly unity of all existence, that reestablished all ethics upon an immutable and eternal foundation,—the mind that could expound with equal lucidity, and by the same universal formula, the history of a gnat or the history of a sun—confessed itself, before the Riddle of Existence, scarcely less helpless than the mind of ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... startling. That ring-dove, who was cooing half a mile away, has hushed his moan; that flock of long-tailed titmice, which were twinging and pecking about the fir-cones a few minutes since, are gone: and now there is not even a gnat to quiver in the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over these dead leaves, I almost fancy I could hear his footfall. The creaking of the saddle, the soft step of the mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... touched the air and did not hit the gnats. Then he ordered his servants to bring costly coverings and wrap him in them, that the gnats might no longer be able to reach him. The servants carried out his orders, but one single gnat had placed itself inside one of the coverings, crept into the prince's ear and stung him. The place burnt like fire, and the poison entered into his blood. Mad with pain, he tore off the coverings and his clothes too, flinging them far away, and danced ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... eighty-guinea jacket for ten guineas. You see how ignoble my motives were, also how unworthy the results. I did worse even than that— for I will out with the truth to you, Nancy— I revenged myself still further upon that spiteful little gnat, Rosalind, and raised the price of her coveted coral to such an extent that I know by her face she is pounds in debt for it. Now, my dear, what have you to say to me? Nothing good, I know that. Let me read Aristotle for the next hour just to ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... conviction, and, leaping half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed, "Thou art the man!" Each philosopher anticipated the other in presenting the prompt illustration that if the rays of the hydro-oxygen microscope, passed through a drop of water containing the larvae of a gnat and other objects invisible to the naked eye, rendered them not only keenly but firmly magnified to dimensions of many feet; so could the same artificial light, passed through the faintest focal object ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... butterfly or an early moth fluttered slowly over the flower-beds, a thousand little creatures buzzed and hummed, all busy working out their tiny destinies, as she, too, was working out hers, and each doubtless looking upon their own as the central point of the universe. A few months for the gnat, a few years for the girl, but each was happy now in the heavy summer air. A beetle scuttled out upon the gravel path and bored onwards, its six legs all working hard, butting up against stones, upsetting itself on ridges, but still gathering itself up and rushing onwards to some all-important ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lullaby! Slumbering let the maiden lie, Sweetest dreams shall float around her, Magic blossoms shall surround her. Fairy chains shall keep her still, Fairy wand ward off all ill, Gnat or fly shall not come nigh, Lullaby, oh, lullaby! Sleep, sweet maiden, fear no harm, Potent ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... I after that day give myself up to cruelty as to a sport; yea, thought that I did God service by destroying the creatures whom He had made; I who now dare not destroy a gnat, lest I harm a being more righteous than myself? Was I mad? If I was, how then was I all that while as prudent as I am this day? But I am not here to argue, senors, but to confess. In a word, there was ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... everything in my power to discountenance and discourage the trapping." Lapierre cleared his throat sharply—coughed—cleared it again. Discourage trapping—north of sixty! Had he heard aright? He swallowed hard, mumbled an apology anent the inhalation of a gnat, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... to her husband, and was pressed, as her lips touched his forehead, and as the pair of them, gazing at the empty road among the lilacs, saw it filled with the eruptive vision of Mountain Lad, majestic and mighty, the gnat-creature of a man upon his back absurdly small; his eyes wild and desirous, with the blue sheen that surfaces the eyes of stallions; his mouth, flecked with the froth and fret of high spirit, now brushed to burnished knees of impatience, now tossed skyward to utterance of that vast, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... away; no drop is left to shed. Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn, Weeping, the bale-fires, piled for thy return, Night after night unkindled. If I slept, Each sound—the tiny humming of a gnat, Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain, Thrice for each moment of mine ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... on earth, It springs from truth alone, the truth we live In act and thought. I have looked up there and seen Too many worlds to talk of fame on earth. Fame, on this grain of dust among the stars, The trumpet of a gnat that thinks to halt The great sun-clusters moving on their way In silence! Yes, that's fame, but truth, Celeste, Truth and its laws are constant, even up there; That's where one man may face and fight the world. His weakness turns to strength. He is ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... and much simpler, and therefore bolder than a Trout; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. He has been taken with a fly made of the red feathers of a paroquet, a strange outlandish bird; and he will rise at a fly not unlike a gnat, or a small moth, or, indeed, at most flies that are not too big. He is a fish that lurks close all Winter, but is very pleasant and jolly after mid-April, and in May, and in the hot months. He is of a very fine shape, his flesh is white, his teeth, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... delicacy in her inviting her lover to come into the garden and eat his precious fruits, though admitting (214) that "the maiden yields thus her heart and her all to her lover," is surely straining at a gnat ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... a finesse, a suppleness, a universal adaptability, that does them infinite credit; and man, with all his strength, and all his majesty, and his commanding talent, is about as well off as a buffalo or a bison against a tiny, rainbow-winged gnat or mosquito, who bites, sings, and stings everywhere at once, with an infinite ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... avoid it; 'tis a bosom enemy, 'tis delightsome melancholy, a friend in show, but a secret devil, a sweet poison, it will in the end be his undoing; let him go presently, task or set himself a work, get some good company. If he proceed, as a gnat flies about a candle, so long till at length he burn his bodv, so in the end he will undo himself: if it be any harsh object, ill company, let him presently go from it. If by his own default, through ill diet, bad air, want ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... indistinct rustling could be heard, and a hum and buzz of winged creatures, which filled the air with a ceaseless sound like that of a bee-hive and the infinite murmur of the sea. All around Renee, and near to her, there seemed to be a great living peace, in which everything was being swayed—the gnat in the air, the leaf on the branch, the shadows on the bark of the trees, the tops of the trees against the sky, and the wild oats on each side of the paths. Then from this murmur came the sighing ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... survivals may mean no more than that the soul itself has already an animal form, in which it would naturally be seen after death. In Celtic folk-belief the soul is seen leaving the body in sleep as a bee, butterfly, gnat, mouse, or mannikin.[1229] Such a belief is found among most savage races, and might easily be mistaken for transmigration, or also assist the formation of the idea of transmigration. Though the folk-survivals show that transmigration ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... head away (it is not proper to look on at magical arts), and then in a moment, saw the right hook on his cast; but Jaqueline was not in the boat. She had turned herself into an artificial fly (a small black gnat), and Dick might set to ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... but Joshua the son of Jozedek, of whom it is written, "Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" (Zech. iii. 2). Of Titus it is said that he was unclean in the Temple, and with a blow of his sword rent the veil, which flowed with blood. To punish him a gnat was sent into his brain, which grew as large as a dove. When his skull was opened, the gnat was found to have a mouth of copper, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... prescribed for their regimen and their studies. When they have done well during the week, I invite them to breakfast and dine with me on the Sabbath. The proof that they are in good health is that they have grown much. Napoleon had one eye slightly inflamed yesterday from the sting of a gnat. He was not, however, on that account, less well than usual. To-day it is no longer manifest. It would not be worth mentioning, were we not in the habit of rendering you an exact account of every thing ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... which, above all else, had theretofore been left untouched by the central power, and subject to the independent jurisdiction of each individual State. The South had eagerly swallowed a camel, and when it asked the country to strain at a gnat it found nobody to listen. Our public men, and our leaders of opinion, frequently and earnestly express their concern over the decline of importance in our State governments, the lessened vigor of the State spirit. The sentiment is not peculiar to any party or to any section; it is expressed ...
— What Prohibition Has Done to America • Fabian Franklin
... beams came aslant, chequered and mellow. The stream ran dimpling by him, sleepily swaying the masses of weed, under the surface and on the surface; and the trout rose under the banks, as some moth or gnat or gleaming beetle fell into the stream; here and there one more frolicsome than his brethren would throw himself joyously into the air. The swifts rushed close by him, in companies of five or six, and wheeled, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... captain Lewis sent all the men he could spare up the river to assist in building the boats, and the day was too far advanced to reload and send them up before morning. The mosquitoes are very troublesome, and they have a companion not less so, a large black gnat which does not sting, but attacks the eyes in swarms. The party with captain Clarke are employed on the canoes: in the course of the work serjeant Pryor dislocated his shoulder yesterday, but it was replaced ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... gathered slang and pilfered witticisms of the week; periodical compotations to work these materials into something like a readable shape; and hebdomadal journals, by means of which their choice productions are issued to a wondering world. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance in the course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you are surrounded with whole scores of these diminutive vermin, singing in your ears, buzzing in your hair, and lighting incessantly on your face. In vain you turn ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... agreed. Her conscience smote her for the deception she was practicing on the dear white-capped woman. "But what's the use of straining at every little gnat of a falsehood," she thought, ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... with venomous insects always appears to be more heated than it is in reality. We were horribly tormented in the day by mosquitos and the jejen (a small venomous fly), and at night by the zancudos, a large species of gnat, dreaded ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... is in the service of the Princess Bent-Anat, and sleeps in her anteroom, and she must not be burnt with her mistress. She insisted on going back to the palace, so, as she would fly to the fire like a gnat, and I would not have her risk being burnt, I tied her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... between my finger and thumb. I wish I had, now. No: it was by appealing to the better side of my nature: that's what I can't get over. He said he'd never met a man he liked so much as me. He put his handkerchief round my neck because a gnat bit me, and my stock was chafing it. Look! (He pulls a handkerchief from his stock. Giuseppe takes ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... lieutenant had left for the train, the mother sat a long time on the piazza thinking. The telephone rang at last. She sighed, went to its corner, and sat down to stop its annoying peremptoriness. For days it had reminded her of an inescapable, buzzing gnat, ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... who gets drunk at all seasons? But, to accede to his request, as an honest prince, I ought to be able to give the Serpent something preferable, or at least equal, to his favourite prey. Therefore hear my decision: Let the Gnat—the smallest of animals—find out in what creature circulates the most exquisite blood in the world; and that creature shall belong to you, O Serpent. And I summon you all to appear here, without fail, on this day twelvemonths hence, that the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Dun, the early bright Brown, the whitish Dun, the Thorn-tree fly, the blue Dun, the little black Gnat, the little bright Brown. ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... upon which it rests. There are still other differences that clearly differentiate the malarial from the common mosquito, but the one given ordinarily serves to distinguish between them. The malarial mosquito is pre-eminently a house-gnat, being scarcely ever seen in the woods or open, but may be found—oftentimes in great numbers—in all malarial localities, lying quietly during the day in dark corners of rooms or stables. This mosquito practically never bites in the day, but will do so in a darkened room, if ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... relaxed, and a dreamy feeling crept over him. He could hear the murmur of insects in the grass, and he reflected that the smaller one was, the safer one was. A shell was not likely to take any notice of a gnat. ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... visions of the dead, we must not omit to mention that charming poem of Virgil's younger days, the Culex (The Gnat). Just as the first sketch of Macaulay's famous character of William III. is said to be contained in a Cambridge prize essay on the subject, so the Culex contains the first draft of some of the greatest passages ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... this class of beings may appear, at first thought, yet, when we come to reflect, and carefully investigate, we shall be struck with wonder and astonishment, and shall discover, that the smallest gnat that buzzes in the meadow, is as much a subject of admiration as the largest elephant that ranges the forest, or the hugest whale which ploughs the deep; and when we consider the least creature that we can imagine, myriads of ...
— The History of Insects • Unknown
... your father and me will not be a very desperate one. A gnat attacking a tiger. I shall scarcely interest him. I am ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... garden spider whose web seemed to be in great request. When I first stopped, she was engaged very quietly with a fly of the domestic species, whom she managed with ease and dignity. But just when she was most interested in that absorbing employment came a couple of May-flies, and then a gnat, and then a blue-bottle,—all at different angles of the web. Never was a poor spider so distracted by her good fortune! She evidently did not know which godsend to take first. The aboriginal victim being released, she slid half-way towards the May-flies; then ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indeed, seem to trust entirely to the productions of nature for their subsistence, and are the most pitiable set of savages that can be imagined, their long thin legs and arms giving them a peculiar gnat-like appearance. They devour both the skin and bones of dead animals. The bones are pounded between stones, and, when reduced to powder, boiled to form a ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... were content to bury themselves in a hole, he expects me to do the same. Why, what should I do? The place is over-doctored already. Every third person is a pet patient sending for him for a gnat-bite, gratis, taking the bread out of Wright's mouth. No wonder Henry Ward kicked! If I came here, I must practise on the lap-dogs! Here's my father, stronger than any of us, with fifteen good years' work in him at the least! He would be ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she is," said the girl, "for she deserves a better fate. Tiens, do you know your reputation in the Quarter? Of the inconstant, the most inconstant,—utterly incorrigible and no more serious than a gnat on ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... there were but a mote in yours, A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wand'ring hair, Any annoyance in that precious sense! Then, feeling what small things are boist'rous there, Your vile intent ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... spirit.'—I wonder if it would be very reasonable for a moth that flits about the light, or a gnat that dances its hour in the sunbeam, to be proud because it had longer wings, or prettier markings on them, than some of its fellows? Is it much more reasonable for us to plume ourselves on, and set much store by, anything that we are or ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... both transformed, and the maiden rose into the air as a puff of wind, and the prince sported in the breeze like a gnat. The mighty host of spirits swept over them like a tempest, and returned some time afterwards, as they could neither find the rose-bush nor anything else remarkable. But they were hardly gone before the youth and the maiden resumed their proper forms, and the ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... have married—the Earl of Paulton's niece." Lady Martin paused a moment to brush away an inquisitive gnat. "It was quite a romantic affair, at first. Mr. Rose was devoted, positively devoted to her, and she is really a charming girl, handsome, accomplished, in every way a contrast to the poor little creature ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... on the fouler aspect of things with an unhealthy pruriency; he stung right and left with a malignant venom. But nobler qualities rose out of this morbid undergrowth of faults. If Pope was quickly moved to anger, he was as quickly moved to tears; though every literary gnat could sting him to passion, he could never read the lament of Priam over Hector without weeping. His sympathies lay indeed within a narrow range, but within that range they were vivid and intense; he clung passionately ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... boy was dressed in very fine clothes, at least, in our estimation, and we concluded he was putting on airs. We thought we would do him a valuable service by taking him down a little, so we asked him if he had ever seen a singular kind of gnat, which we described. He had not. We proposed to show him a fine lot—a big nest of them. We affirmed that they were nice, harmless things to play with. So we went forth to see the gnats. We got ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... least 10,000 feet of their present height. And that was a work which—though God could, if He willed it, have done it in a single day—we have proof positive was not done in less than ages, beside which the mortal life of man is as the life of the gnat which dances in ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... length, weighing only the 1/78740 of a grain, and largely supported by the viscid secretion, suffices to induce movement; but, on the other hand, one or two momentary, although rude, touches with a hard object produce no effect, although a repeated touch or the slightest pressure, such as that of a gnat's foot, prolonged for a short time, causes bending. The seat of the movement is wholly or nearly confined to a portion of the lower part of the tentacle, above the base, where local irritation produces not the slightest ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... dispiriting search, to expect very much; and yet at a glance I saw that my basket of glass lay in fragments at my feet. No ingots or dollars were here, to crown me the little Monte Cristo of a week. Outside, the distant horn had ceased its gnat-song, the gold was paling to primrose, and everything was lonely and still. Within, my confident little castles were tumbling down like card-houses, leaving me stripped of estate, both real and personal, and dominated ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... the excuses for Popery, and, therefore, of its real dangers? If Protestantism be the truth, knowledge of whatsoever kind can only further it. We have found it so in the case of classical literature. Why should we strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Our boys have not taken to worshipping Jupiter and Juno by reading about them. We never feared that they would. We knew that we should not make them pagans by teaching them justly to admire the poetry, the philosophy, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... into the office to inquire after my comrades. One of the whey-faced clerks said with the supercilious asperity characteristic of gnat-brained headquarters attaches: ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... bird's feather, or taking Gibraltar with a merchant ship's gun. He is invulnerable in everything. His words, like Jupiter's bolts, come down upon you in such fury that your escape is as likely as that of a gnat thrown into a caldron of flaming oil. Hercules crushing an infant in his grasp is a difficult task compared to the ease with which this giant talker grasps and crushes his opponent. In every mode of hostility ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... martins warm their eggs: In these, in those the life is stay'd. The mantles from the golden pegs Droop sleepily: no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings. More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings, That watch the sleepers from ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... gnat and cobweb-time, When yellow begins to show in the leaf, That your old gamut changed its chime From those true tones—of span so brief! - That met my beats of joy, of grief, As rhyme ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... not a mosquito, or gnat, or other pest in the woods, the cool nights having already cut them off. The trout were sufficiently abundant, and afforded us a few hours' sport daily to supply our wants. The only drawback was, that they were out of season, and only palatable ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... to look for too much judgment in a young creature of twenty, Pathfinder, but it will come with experience. A mistake in you or me, for instance, might not be so easily overlooked; but in a girl of Mabel's years, one is not to strain at a gnat lest they ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... term applied to a gnat-like species of stinging insects, found chiefly in low marshy places and the neighbourhood ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... continents were raised above the primeval ocean, great numbers of the most simple animals would attempt to seek food at the edges or shores of the new land, and might thence gradually become amphibious; as is now seen in the frog, who changes from an aquatic animal to an amphibious one; and in the gnat, which changes from a natant to ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... its own particular species of insect and cater for that, and the insect among all the flowers has to select the particular species of orchid; and how the insect, whether butterfly or bee or moth or gnat or ant, or any other of the numerous kinds of insect, and the orchid have to adapt themselves to each other—we see how marvellous the mutual adaptation of flower to insect and insect to flower must have been. We see how the particular species of orchid ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... vampires which infest our wooded lands. The "punkeys" and "midgets" can outstrip them for voracity and the painful character of the wound which they inflict. The "punkey," or "black-fly," as it is called, is a small, black gnat, about the size of a garden ant, and the bite of the insect often results very seriously. The midget is a minute little creature, and is the most everlastingly sticky and exasperating pest in the catalogue of human torments. They fly in swarms ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... son of Nwython, and Gwydre the son of Llwyddeu, (Gwenabwy the daughter of [Kaw] was his mother, Hueil his uncle stabbed him, and hatred was between Hueil and Arthur because of the wound). Drem the son of Dremidyd, (when the gnat arose in the morning with the sun, he could see it from Gelli Wic in Cornwall, as far off as Pen Blathaon in North Britain). And Eidyol the son of Ner, and Glwyddyn Saer, (who constructed Ehangwen, Arthur's Hall). Kynyr Keinvarvawc, (when he was told he had a son born, {74c} he said to his wife, ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... cecht "I swear to God what my people swears, I deemed it no bigger than a fly, or a gnat, or ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... the world, came from Adam's sinning six thousand years ago, and yet that it is unfair to say that one little child's fever came from his parents' keeping a filthy house a month ago? That is swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat—that God should be just in punishing all mankind for Adam's sin, and yet unjust in punishing one little child for its parents' sin. If the one is just the other must be just too, I think. If you believe the one, why not believe the other? Why? Because Adam's curse and ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... way I was raised. Dis pocket hangs down inside and nobody don't see it. De chilluns fusses 'bout my big pocket, but it ain't in none of deir dresses, and I'se sho gwine to wear 'em 'til dey is wore out to a gnat's heel. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... controls. Except for the effect of relative proper motions, which I can't calculate yet for lack of data. I should be able to hit a gnat right in the left eye at this range—and the difference in proper motions couldn't have thrown me off more than a few hundred feet. Nope, I was too anxious—hurried too much on the settings of the slow verniers. I'll snap back ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... whatever, he becomes one with that prna alone;—from that Self the prnas proceed, each towards its place' (Kau. Up. 111,3); 'Whatever these creatures are here, whether a lion or a wolf or a boar or a gnat or a mosquito, that they become again' (Ch. Up. VI, 9, 3).—Hence the term 'Sat' denotes the highest Brahman, the all-knowing highest Lord, the highest Person. Thus the Vrittikra also says, 'Then he becomes united with the Sat—this is proved ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... dealt with must be put upon their guard; must know that these defenders of virtue, these Southern gentlemen who are thirsting for the blood of a slanderer (?) of white women are hypocrites, who strain out a gnat ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... here, belonging to this class of birds, are few. I have observed the black and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler, the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat-catcher, breeding near Rock Creek. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... mashash, to feel: but Dr. Hyde derives it from the Arabic, Khamush, which signifies gnats, (though in the particular dialect of the tribe Hodail) supposing it to have been an astronomical talisman in the figure of a gnat:—and Le Clerc, who takes this idol for the Sun, from Comosha, a root, in the same tongue, signifying to be swift. There is the same variety of sentiment about Silenus, the companion of Bacchus. [476]Bochart derives his name from Silan, [Hebrew: SHYLN], and ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... means of protection against their painful stings. The clothes commonly worn are not sufficient, for they are perforated by the long sting of the larger species, particularly of the much-dreaded huir-pasimi-sancudo (Lip-gnat). Regularly every evening at twilight fresh swarms of these mischievous insects make ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... departure he had sat on the edge of his bed, the sunlight streaming through the early mist, the house-martens scratching the back of the ceiling over his head as they scrambled out from the roof for their day's gnat-chasing, the thrushes cracking snails on the garden stones outside with the noisiness of little smiths at work on little anvils. The sun, in sending its rods of yellow fire into his room, sent, as he suddenly thought, mental illumination with it. For the first time, as he sat there, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... not much care to be tired with their impertinent prating, said to them, Harkee me, ye lubberly gnat-snappers! do ye presume to say that our seamen are not honest men? I'll maintain they are, ye dotterels, and will prove it to your brazen faces, by justice—I mean, this trusty piece of cold iron by my side. With this he lugged it out and flourished ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... them? The people object, indeed! Why? Plautus himself would never have attained the comicality of such an idea. A philosopher would be jesting if he advised the poor devil of the masses to cry out against the size and weight of the lords. Just as well might the gnat dispute with the foot of an elephant. One day I saw a hippopotamus tread upon a molehill; he crushed it utterly. He was innocent. The great soft-headed fool of a mastodon did not even know of the existence of moles. My son, the moles that are ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... balancers of a horsefly be removed, the insect at once loses its equilibrium; it cannot direct its flight, but plunges headlong to the ground. The same can be said of Chrysops niger—in fact, of the entire family of Tabanidae, of the gall gnat (Diplosis resinicola, Comstock), and of the March flies (Bibionidae). These widely differing flies constitute the material from which I have derived my data; I will venture to assert, however, without fear of contradiction, ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... lord of all kings;" and God said to him, "How shall I punish him?" and the prophet answered, "To thee armies are as nothing, and the strength and power of men likewise. Before the smallest of thy creatures will they perish." And God was pleased at the faith of his servant, and he sent a gnat that vexed Nimrod day and night, so that he built himself a room of glass in that palace that he might dwell therein and shut out the insect. But the gnat entered also, and passed by his ear into his brain, upon which it fed, and increased day by day, so that the servants of Nimrod ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... until they came to the Little Colorado, near San Francisco Mountains, and there they built houses up and down the river. They also made long ditches to carry the water from the river to their gardens. After living there a long while they began to be plagued with swarms of a kind of gnat called the sand-fly, which bit the children, causing them to swell up and die. The place becoming unendurable, they were forced again to resume their travels. Before starting, one of the Rain-women, who was big with child, was made comfortable in ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... at which the wings of such creatures flap. The instrument being brought into unison with the sound produced by the insect, indicates, as in the case of any other musical sound, the rate of vibration. In this way it has been ascertained that the wings of a gnat flap at the rate of 15,000 times per second. The pitch of the note produced by this insect in the act of flying is, therefore, more than two octaves above the highest note of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... these cases, therefore, the egg, larva, pupa, and perfect Insect, are regarded as stages in the life of a single individual. In certain gnats, however, the larva itself produces young larvae, each of which develops into a gnat, so that the egg produces not one ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... the little things of this life, my friend, which often disturb a mental balance which is always poised to receive great shocks. The gnat-bites and mosquito buzzings are sometimes harder to bear than an operation with a ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... never fall. And as long as you are doing those things, you may rejoice freely and heartily in your youth, believing that the smile of God, who gave you the power of being happy, is on your happiness; and that your heavenly Father no more grudges harmless pleasure to you, than He grudges it to the gnat which dances in the sunbeam, or the bird which sings upon the bough. For He is The Father,—and what greater delight to a father than to see his children happy, if only, while they are ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... a gnat stung S. Macarius, and he killed it. To punish himself for this, he went to the marshes of Scete, and stayed there six months. When he returned to his brethren he was so disfigured by the bites of the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... "set," and, with snout uplifted in the archway of the tree-roots, would stay as motionless, but for the restless twitching of the alert nostrils, as were the trees and the stones around his home, while I, not even daring to flick an irritating gnat from my forehead or neck, would wait and long for the philosopher in grey to make up ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees |
