"Hornet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she entered that sacred precinct. She quickly returned with a glass dish of pear preserves and another dish of home-pickled peaches. These were so placed as to flank the biscuits when Sary spied an inquisitive hornet about to ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... might cause trouble, and Gabriel mentally thought of the high-coloured young lady in the bar. His conscience was not at ease regarding his admiration for her; and he dreaded lest the officious Cargrim should talk about her to the bishop. Altogether the chaplain, like a hornet, had annoyed both Dr Pendle and his son; and the bishop in London and Gabriel in Beorminster were anything but well disposed towards this clerical busybody, who minded everyone's business instead of his own. It is such people who stir up muddy water ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... mixed trail in case one should follow us. But when I had fouled the trail so that I myself hardly knew it again, Mang, the Bat, came hawking between the trees, and hung up above me." Said Mang, "The village of the Man-Pack, where they cast out the Man-cub, hums like a hornet's nest." ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... doctor said; "I'd about as soon argue with a hornet as a mother. She's nearly crazy! I'll tell you the situation." He told it, and ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... fairs. The Milanese and the men of Ghent are typical in their greed for empire, in their readiness to strike a blow for their own profit whenever war is in the land. If the seigneurs of such cities gave cause for dissatisfaction, they found that they had brought a hornet's nest about their ears. In the struggle for liberties the popular party displayed a high courage which rose superior to defeat, though in the hour of triumph it was too often sullied by ferocious acts of vengeance. They threw themselves with intelligence and energy into the feuds of other interests ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... the Hornet and Penguin, as well as those of the Reindeer and Avon, showed that the excellence of American gunnery continued till the close of the war. Whether at point-blank range or at long-distance practice, the Americans used guns as they had never ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... juices of a certain variety of cactus, according to a favorite family prescription used by Old Nick several centuries ago when he was residing in this section. For its size and complexion I know of nothing that is worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with mescal, unless it is the bald-faced hornet of the Sunny South. It goes down easily enough—that is not the trouble—but as soon as it gets down you have the sensation ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... hornet's nest buzzing about your ears," exclaimed Mary Wilson, disregarding all the rules of Parliamentary law which Dr. Kitchell tried to teach them. She was on her feet, moving to the front, talking as she went. "I really haven't the self-assertion to walk up to strange students and tell ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... more, as it was a nest of hornets, which sallied out in great numbers, and resented the insult to their domicile by attacking the bowman first, as the principal aggressor, and us afterwards, as parties concerned. Now the sting of a hornet is no joke; we covered our faces with our handkerchiefs, or any thing we could find, and made a hasty retreat from the spot, pushing the gig down the stream, till we were clear of their attacks. In the hurry of our escape we left the boat-hook hanging in the hornet's nest, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... bicycle race with an unfriendly dog. 2. An unpleasant experience. 3. A story told by the school clock. 4. Disturbing a hornet's nest. 5. The fate of an Easter bonnet. 6. ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... utterly unscrupulous and to weld the various races of his proposed empire he is utilizing an enormously effective agency—the fanatical faith of all Moslems in the future of Islam. Neither England nor France have any desire to stir up this hornet's nest, which would probably result in grave disorders among their own Moslem subjects and which would almost certainly precipitate widespread massacres of the Christians in Asia Minor, for the sake of dismembering Turkey and ousting ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... species, under the flap of a pembroke table in an unused room. A maid in dusting lifted up the flap, and down fell a quantity of fine, dry mud with young grubs in it which would soon have hatched into wasps, and revealed their rather strange nesting-place. I have in my collection a very interesting hornet's nest, which was being constructed in the hollow of an old tree. I happened to notice a hornet fly into the opening, and, looking in, there was a small beginning of a nest. It hung from a kind of stalk and consisted of only eight cells, ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... burned them slowly and stooped over the smoldering mass and inhaled the fumes and the smoke which arose, because the country wiseacres preached that no boughten stuff out of a drug store gave such relief from asthma as this hornet's-nest treatment. But it remained for this man to find a third use for such a thing. He brought it into the office of Gafford's wagon yard, where some other men were sitting about the fire, and he held it up before ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... by his head, droning like a hornet, and glanced sullenly against a flat rock. Immediately afterward, The Kid heard the sharp bark of a .45. He knew by the sound of the bullet and by the elapsed time between it and the sound of the gun that he was within ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... our way it paused in its flight for a second and hovered over the ragged one. And that's how Gray and I caught the swift Ajax butterflies for his collection!... I've helped him considerably, if you please; I brought him the mysterious Echo moth from Ormond, and a wonderful little hornet moth from ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... I will give you the whole Gulf of Mexico if it isn't a big thing," replied Dave with his most expansive smile. "You done get into a hornet's nest, Captain Passford." ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... syrup, and other secretions, sweet or bitter, in which the artificial flowers of Mars are peculiarly abundant, and make their nests in the calyx or among the petals. These lovely little birds—about the size of a hornet, but perfect birds in miniature, with wings as large as those of the largest Levantine papilio, and feathery down equally fine and soft—are perhaps the most shy and timid of all creatures familiar with the presence of Martial humanity. The varied colours of their plumage, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... he was a regular man-of-war's man—one of a class whose faults I can hardly recall while remembering their sense of duty, their utter disregard of danger, and the reliance with which you can lead them on to attack anything, from a hornet's nest to ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... the worst of a raid," said Kynan. "It stirs up such a hornet's nest round one's ears. However, we on the border are somewhat used to it. We can take ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... of the Convention were disregarded. Short of armed intervention there was no machinery for enforcing them, and the Boers knew perfectly well that there was no real desire on the part of an embarrassed Government to raise a hornet's nest by making the attempt. The British resident, with his nominally autocratic powers, was a mere impotent laughing stock. The ruined loyalists left the country, or remained to become the most embittered enemies ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... (Sesia Apiformis) is a very interesting moth, and it was common at Aldington; the larva feeds on the wood of the black poplar. The colouring of the moth so resembles the hornet, that at first sight it is easily mistaken for the latter. It is an excellent example of "mimicry," whereby a harmless insect acquires the distinctive appearance of a harmful one, and so secures immunity from the ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... inflicting a good deal of pain. A very low, vulgar, petty, and uncultivated nature may cause much suffering to a lofty, noble, and refined one,—particularly if the latter be in a position of dependence or subjection. A wretched hornet may madden a noble horse; a contemptible mosquito may destroy the night's rest which would have recruited a noble brain. But without any evil intention, sometimes with the very kindest intention, there are those who worry and torment you. It is through want ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... with precipitate steps in the course he had taken, jumping across brooks and hardly glancing at surrounding objects, almost as a bull stung by a hornet might do. The countrymen he met, the market-gardeners who saw him pass, very possibly took ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... 2 stod utanfr p vakt. Han vaktade med allvar, gav ock p mjdet akt. En sed den gamle hade: han jmt i botten drack, och intet ord han sade, blott hornet in ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... well I know her sinless mind Is pure as the angel forms above, Gentle and meek and chaste and kind, Such as a spirit well might love. Fairy! had she spot or taint, Bitter had been thy punishment Tied to the hornet's shardy wings, Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings, Or seven long ages doomed to dwell With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell; Or every night to writhe and bleed Beneath the tread of the centipede; Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim, Your jailer a spider huge and grim, Amid the carrion ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... seemed not to have noticed any signaling, and if she did she certainly ignored it. Perhaps she believed that her hornet's nest of women could stand off any invasion or interference from without. At any rate, she went on unfolding her instructions to destiny with perfectly ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... end er trouble, Marse Gabriel, ez long ez dar's yo' chillen en de chillen er yo' chillen ter come atter you. De ole ain' so techy—dey lets de hornet's nes' hang in peace whar de Lawd put hit—but ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... you, Fleetwood. From the accounts we received we thought it was all up with you; and I came more with the hope of avenging you, than of seeing you alive; but now you shall have that satisfaction yourself. By Jove! we must blow up the hornet's nest without delay. When did you propose to ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Hebrew—an acrostic, with his name for the mockery of posterity. Stocks and shares have I translated into Hebrew, with new words which will at once be accepted by the Hebraists of the world and added to the vocabulary of modern Hebrew. Oh! I am terrible in satire. I sting like the hornet; witty as Immanuel, but mordant as his friend Dante. It will appear in the Mizpeh to-morrow. I will show this Anglo-Jewish community that I am a man to be reckoned with. I will ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... murmuring waves. But still he moan'd "For his lost child; but when the flames he saw "Ascending, four times 'mid the funeral fires "He strove to plunge; four times from thence repuls'd, "His rapid limbs address'd for flight, and rush'd "Like a young bullock, when the hornet's sting "Deep in his neck he bears, in pathless ways. "Ev'n now more swift than man he seem'd to run: "His feet seem'd wings to wear, for all behind "He left far distant. Through desire of death, "Rapid he gain'd Parnassus' loftiest ridge. "Apollo, pitying, when Daedalion flung "From the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... we take things quietly, as we did when we were boys? I expect I had a rather comfortable time of it then, though I did get whipped for tearing my clothes, and killing flies, which I used to do worse than any bald hornet. ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... a hornet, his eyes were as red as a burning fire and he rode on a tall horse six spans across and more than 20 long with six giants tied up to his saddle-bow and one in his hand which he gnawed with his teeth. And behind him came boars with ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... hundred dollars still due on his own salary, and the palace had not been painted for eight years. He had taken orders on the store till he was tired of it. "Our meat bill," said he, taking off his crown and mashing a hornet on the wall, "is sixty days overdue. We owe the hired girl for three weeks; and how are we going to get funds enough to do any discovering, when you remember that we have got to pay for an extra session this fall for the ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... indeed! Captain Ormsby, in the American ship Hornet, touched at Pitcairn's nearly four months after the admiral's visit, and from the facts which he gathered there we now know all about that American. Let us put these facts together in historical form. The American's name was Butterworth Stavely. As soon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... form of a barren demon named Joseph Ritson, who addressed to him in 1782 what he aptly called A Familiar Letter. There is hardly a more ferocious pamphlet in the whole history of literature. Ritson, who had the virulence of a hornet and the same insect's inability to produce honey of his own, was considered by the reactionaries to have "punched Tom Warton's historick body full of deadly holes." But his strictures were not really important. In marshalling some thousands of facts, Warton had made perhaps a couple of dozen mistakes, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... act: for there is not a sin at any time committed by man, but there is some circumstance or other attends it, that makes it, when charged home by God's law, bigger and sharper, and more venom and poisonous to the soul than if it could be committed without them; and this is the sting of the hornet, the great sting. I sinned without a cause to please a base lust, to gratify the devil; here is the sting! Again, I preferred sin before holiness, death before life, hell before heaven, the devil before God, and damnation before a Saviour; here is the sting! Again, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... upper-garment, and presented to his ravished eyes a portrait.—Fatal image!—It planted a thorn in a till then insensible heart, and sent a new kind of a knight-errant into the world. But even this was nothing to the catastrophe, and the circumstance on which it hung, the hornet settling on the sleeping lover's face. What a heart-rending accident! She planted, in imitation of those susceptible souls, a rose bush; but there was not a lover to weep in concert with her, when she watered it with ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... I have seen her catch one by the wings on a window and, holding it carefully ask me to watch her captive—sometimes a a great daredevil hornet, lion-maned—as he lay stabbing ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... the answer. "They have, I doubt not, as many flags on board as there are months in the year. She looks at this distance just like a craft of that sort—a regular hornet; I hope we may ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... you think of it, ma? I tell you 't was queer, the way that mare's pain stopped. Of course I ain't going to believe—but," firmly, "I can't get away from a notion that those Christian Science folks know something that we don't. Busby was madder'n a hornet. I didn't scarcely know what to ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... strange horses are maddened by it, the native ones do not seem disturbed, knowing that it only creeps and does not bite. It is small and brown, not so formidable looking as the large fly, popularly called a stout, as big as a hornet, which lays eggs ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... you'll never do it again.' Th' young gent smirked at her an' squirmed like a worm. 'You're wrong, Mrs. Barrett,' he says, lookin' like th' meek puppy he is, 'an' you'll have t' look some place else for th' person that done it.' But she wouldn't talk no longer—jus' walked out, as mad as a hornet." ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... H. Parker, 13th US Infantry, Late Commanding Gatling Guns at Santiago. (Frontispiece) Map—Santiago and Surrounding Area. Skirmish Drill at Tampa. Skirmish Drill at Tampa. Field Bakery. Awaiting Turn to Embark. Baiquiri. The "Hornet." Waiting. Wrecked Locomotives and Machine Shops at Baiquiri. The Landing. Pack Train. Calvary Picket Line. San Juan Hill. Cuban Soldiers as They Were. Wagon Train. Gatling Battery under Artillery Fire at El Poso. Gatling Gun on ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... an odd expression. They were aground on Sirene VIII, on which no human ship had ever landed before them, and they had stirred up a hornet's nest on Sirene IV, which had orbital eighty-gee rocket missiles in orbit around it with bust bomb heads and all the other advantages of civilization. The Aldeb was on the way with a fifteen-man ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... conspired, and all Firmly to hold their own unite. Impatient is the hireling now, With vehemence he claims his due; And did we owe him naught, I trow, Off he would run, nor bid adieu. Who thwarts what fondly all expect, He bath disturbed a hornet's nest; The empire which they should protect, It lieth plundered and oppress'd. Their furious rage may none restrain; Already half the world's undone; Abroad there still are kings who reign— None thinks 'tis ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... than the fanaticism of Priestley; and that those who play at bowls must look out for rubbers. Porson is to be detested for his letters to Travis, though De Quincey does not dare to defend the disputed text. He has, however, a pleasant insinuation at command. Porson, he says, stung like a hornet; 'it may chance that on this subject Master Porson will get stung through his coffin, before he is many years deader.' What scholarlike badinage! Political heretics fare little better. Fox's eloquence ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... of man to that of insects! I have just been watching an ant dragging the body of a hornet, many times larger than itself, up a door with the greatest ease; so much so, that after dragging it up three feet, it came down to alter its position, carrying it up a second time by its wing: the ant was ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... he thought of a flash of lightning, a steel hoop lying on its side, a hornet's nest—but none of these quite suited him. He made a ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... really gave me a good dressing down that I remember was when I had traded during his absence from home his prize gun for a Llewellyn setter. When he returned and found what I had done he was as mad as a hornet, but quieted down after I had told him that he had better go hunting with her before making so much fuss. This he did and was so pleased with the dog's behavior that he forgave me for the trick that I had played ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... set this hornet's nest of theirs abuzz so suddenly?" I whispered, when the smoke-choke gave us liberty to speak without coughing to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... curious representation of an insect with a pointed beak-like structure and a spine at the posterior extremity of its human-like body. It is engaged in apparent conflict with a man and may represent a hornet. ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... is the work that villain is doing unknown to Ahneota," thought Rodney. Just then he espied a large nest of hornets suspended to a limb overhanging the group. He recognized the nest as that of a variety of hornet which is large and valiant. The spirit of mischief entered the boy and, taking careful aim, he shot an arrow, which struck and tore away a portion of ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... attacked before the dawnin' an' ut would be betther not to slip your boots. How do I know that? By the light av pure reason. Here are three companies av us ever so far inside av the enemy's flank an' a crowd av roarin', tarin', squealin' cavalry gone on just to turn out the whole hornet's nest av them. Av course the enemy will pursue, by brigades like as not, an' thin we'll have to run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion av Polonius whin he said, "Don't fight wid ivry scutt for the pure joy av fightin', but if you do, knock ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... recalled to the House by his agitated colleague, recognised that his old Parliamentary hand had got into a hornet's nest, and promptly withdrew it. To the best of my recollection this is the first time on record that a Government measure has perished before its first reading. Conceived in secrecy and delivered in pain, its epitaph will be that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... later on we'll be in the saddle; and if such a thing should jess accidentally happen to happen, which I hope it won't, to be sho', that I should happen to sort o' absent-mindedly yell out 'Go!' like as if a hornet had stabbed me, you jess come down with that switch, and make the critter under you run like a scared dog, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... wrinkled old face contracted as if she were swallowing a colocynth apple, while at the same time she patted his strong shoulder briskly, exclaiming with forced cheerfulness: "Go on, my boy! The steed rears when the hornet stings! Try again, if it only soothes you! We will take everything out of your way. You need not mind the water-jars. The potter will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his eyes followed the insect where it alighted on the ceiling. "That's no hornet! That's ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... out his orders, the Englishman was working his hold up past the floundering guard's waist. Madden's grip was about to break under the strain the Teuton put on it, but his fingers clung desperately to the fellow's throat, for one shout would bring a hornet's nest around the fugitives. Just then Malone ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... vessels, and the raids of the privateers. The first gave to the United States the most brilliant successes of the war. When it began two small squadrons were getting ready for sea at New York; the frigate "President" (44) and sloop "Hornet" (18), under Commodore John Rodgers, who had also the general command; and the frigates "United States" (44) and "Congress" (38), with the brig "Argus" (16) to which two guns were afterwards added, under ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Janstins, and me dresses of sail-cloth, with masks like those worn by Inquisitors, the eye-holes being filled with glass. The sleeves of the jacket were made long, so as to cover our hands. Our sea boots and breeches we knew to be impervious to hornet stings, and, thus equipped, we hoped to succeed in carrying away the treasure which ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... powerful and courageous Spider-huntress is the Ringed Pompilus (Calicurgus annulatus, FAB.), clad in black and yellow. She stands high on her legs; and her wings have black tips, the rest being yellow, as though exposed to smoke, like a bloater. Her size is about that of the Hornet (Vespa crabro). She is rare. I see three or four of her in the course of the year; and I never fail to halt in the presence of the proud insect, rapidly striding through the dust of the fields when the dog-days ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... thunder of Thor's chariot wheels rushing through the heavens. A frenzied horror seized upon Loki's mind. If these wretched dwarfs were going to make anything to add to Thor's strength he knew that it would be his own ruin. So, changing himself to a hornet, he sprang upon the forehead of Brok, and dug so fiercely into his eyelids that the blood trickled down and blinded him. Then the dwarf let go of the bellows for one moment to clear his eyes, and Sindri cried out that what lay in the furnace ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... she ain't laughing at me!" he cried. But as a matter of fact, it was a hornet and its unmistakable sting that injected this ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... will, besides, be pleasanter for you and the mother not to have us both—the father and me—there at one time, but relieving each other, so that you may be lonely for a shorter time. * * * Your father will tell you how I stirred up the hornet's-nest of the volunteers here lately, and the angry hornets came buzzing to attack me; on the other hand, I had as compensation that many of the older and more intelligent people drew near to me—people I did not know at all—and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... foraging ants; now, grasping a branch as I stumbled, I shook down a shower of fire- ants; and among all these my attention was particularly arrested by the bite of one of the giant ants, which stung like a hornet, so that I felt it for three hours. The camarades generally went barefoot or only wore sandals; and their ankles and feet were swollen and inflamed from the bites of the boroshudas and ants, some being actually incapacitated from work. All ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... be real uneek to cook one, or a hornet's nest, and would be a rarity for the Jonesvillians, and in the winter, if we run out of bird's-nest, you could cook ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... with the aid of the other tribes might make a stand there. It was more than likely, too, that the Senecas had sharpshooters and sentinels well to the south of their town, and it behooved the riflemen to be extremely careful lest they run into a hornet's nest. Hence they lighted no fires, despite a cold night wind that searched them through until they wrapped themselves in ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... here!" yells Jabez, hot as a hornet, "I'm a man an' you ain't, an' that makes a heap o' difference. I had to give up cussin' on your account, but I don't intend to go to wearin' dresses complete, just to keep ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... hornet's nest about his head by his renewed attacks on Karaism, contained in his commentary to Genesis. But the call to Sura turned Saadiah's thoughts in another direction. He found the famous college in decay. The Exilarchs, the nominal heads of the whole of the Babylonian Jews, ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... master of the situation, and he directed ten thousand bees under General Bumble, and another ten thousand wasps under Colonel Hornet, to fall on the robber and cruel Sigli and sting them to death. But this was hardly necessary, as the wriggling of their bodies so fixed them to the figure that ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... all the misdemeanors, All the malice and the mischief, 5 Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis. Hard his breath came through his nostrils, Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered Words of anger and resentment, Hot and humming like a hornet. 10 "I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis, Slay this mischief-maker!" said he. "Not so long and wide the world is, Not so rude and rough the way is, That my wrath shall not attain him, 15 That my vengeance ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... golden streams nowhere. He was not a revolutionist,—not even a socialist,—but there were times when he could have taken the neck of the Prince between his strong fingers and choked out his worthless life. These attacks of envy were short-lived—he could not ascribe them to the reading of the little hornet-like anarchist sheet, Pere Peinard, which the other waiters lent him; rather was it an excess of bile provoked by the coveted ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... war in France; Everywhere men bang and blunder, Sweat and swear and worship Chance, Creep and blink through cannon thunder. Rifles crack and bullets flick, Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. Bones are smashed and buried quick. Yet, through stunning battle storms. All the while I watch the spark Lit to guide me; for I know Dreams will triumph, though the dark Scowls above me where I go. You can hear me; you can mingle Radiant ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... the spot; before the transport could bring a gun to bear, or land a boat, to take revenge, she was soundly peppered, and the coast evacuated. This was the last of Jacob's triumphs. He fared like some heroic spider, that has unwittingly ensnared a hornet, to his immortal glory, perhaps, but to the utter ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Haskers is as mad as a hornet," was Phil's comment. "Well, it served him right, for the way ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... disordered array. The Arabs, however, stood their ground, and, firing their rifles wildly in all directions, killed and wounded a good many horses and men, so that the squadrons were content to bring up their right still more, and finally to ride out of the hornet swarm, into which they had plunged, towards Surgham Hill. The pursuit was then suspended, and the Egyptian cavalry joined the rest of the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... country store in Horsford in a day than I've heard here in Eupolia in a year—and we've got ten thousand people here, too. I moved here last year, and am doing well. I wouldn't go back and live in that d—d hornet's nest that I felt so bad about leaving—not for the whole State, with a slice of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... and sank back again. "Out of the frying pan into the fire. Say!" and his voice rose a trifle, "What do we want to go to Belgrade for? What's the use of sticking our heads into a hornet's nest?" ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... to do with it. They got pretty miserable, all sticking to just the one knife and fork and spoon. And Jessie got so rattled that she just about forgot to use the stuff too. And finally old Mrs. Vingie, that Jessie asked just to have the news spread, got up mad as a hornet and marched out, saying she was too old ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... We had a large fire of pine boughs burning on the shore, and its bright flames lighted both sides of the river. The boatmen in their sheepskin coats and hats walked slowly to and fro, and gave animation to the picture. While I wrote my journal the horses above me danced as though frolicking over a hornet's nest, and reduced sentimental thoughts to a minimum. To render the subject more interesting two officers and the priest grew noisy over a triple game of cards and a bottle of vodki. I wrote in my overcoat, as the thermometer was at 30 deg. with no fire ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... bruised and shaken, and mad as a hornet. I think perhaps I'll get him quieted down and sleepy in a few minutes, if you and Mrs. Maynard will be content to let him stay with me. I can talk almost ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... and also up more than one of the rivers, he has heard a similar sound, attributed by the natives to a fish which they call 'The Siren,' or 'Musico.' At first, he says, he thought it was produced by a fly, or hornet of extraordinary size; but afterwards, having advanced a little farther, he heard a multitude of different voices, which harmonised together, imitating a church organ to great perfection. The good people of Trinidad believe that ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... so," exclaimed a voice, "we had better look out for ourselves! We have got into a very hornet's nest! If this is the place where the Martians come to dig gold, and if this is the height of their season, as you say, they are not likely to leave us ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... Baby, is easily puzzled," smiled Raymonde serenely. "It's meant to wear fluffy curls, and not to engage itself in abstruse problems. I don't advise you to worry yourself over this, unless you can turn it to some account. If the Hornet should ask you for an original example, you might begin: 'Let A represent a fountain pen, and B my schoolmate, C standing for ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... ridicule by his readiness in proposing constitutions. His antagonist, like a hornet, instantly fixed his sting upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... is a bare-looking shore, all sand, and bordered with sandbanks, or Dunes. It was fiercely hot, scorching, and not an atom of shade to be had; but in spite of sun, slipping sandbank-seat, sand-fleas, and a hornet circling round, I did make a sketch, which I hope to finish at home. Both Regie and I bathed, and it was delicious—an utterly calm sea, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The bathing machines seem to be a Government affair. They and the towels are marked with ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... meteoric translation, spent the summer afternoons at golf. The infinite details of a great business crowded upon him. Inexperienced, he had not learned the ways in which seasoned "executives" protect themselves against useless intrusion. His telephone buzzed like a hornet. Not five minutes went by without callers or interruptions of ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... Count Buol stirred up a hornet's nest of indignation. The people of England and France became incensed as they saw that Austria showed no inclination to fight. Prussia flatly refused to assist Austria in any warlike undertaking. Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia took advantage ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... by the plea that the American frigates were almost ships of the line in disguise, and that their superior size and armament carried an unfair advantage. The same plea could not be offered in explanation of the victories won by American sloops, in the case of the American Hornet and British Peacock, of about equal strength, while the American Wasp was considerably inferior in guns and weight of metal to the British Frolic. Master-Commandant James Lawrence, of the Hornet, captured the Peacock in eleven minutes from the beginning of the action, the American guns ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... he got so he'd go down to Hawkins' undertakin' shop every time he could get a minute off and bark till Lem would let him in, and then he'd lay down in a corner and go to sleep, and Lem always swore the poor dog was as mad as a hornet when he woke up and ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... at the Scientist, then at David, its glance curious but without understanding. Paralyzed with fear, David remained on his knees as the Scientist reached an open place and threw the gun up to his shoulder. The bullet went whining by with an ugly hornet-noise, and the report of the ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... have in service, the Alfred, Columbus, and Reprisal, ships from sixteen to twentyfour guns, the brigantines Cabot, Camden, Andrew Doria, and Lexington, of twelve to sixteen guns, the sloops Providence, Hornet, Fly, Independence, Sachem, and schooners Wasp, Mosquito, and Georgia Packet, all in actual service, and they have had great success, in taking valuable prizes, as indeed have numbers of privateers from all parts of America. We have besides two very fine low galleys, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... humiliating confession. The other night the woman von Lyndal tried to 'draw me,' as she would express it, on this subject, and I'm bitterly mortified to say she partly succeeded. She suggested an entanglement between Leopold and the girl. I replied that Leopold wasn't the man to pull down a hornet's nest of gossip around the ears of a young woman who had saved his life. No matter what his inclinations might be, I insisted that he would pay her no repeated visits. This thrust the fair Mechtilde parried—as if repeating a mere rumor—by ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... burns the vengeful Hornet, soul all o'er, Repuls'd in vain, and thirsty still for gore; Bold son of air and heat on angry wings, Untamed, untired, he ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Sith. Hornet-like monster. Bald-faced and about the size of a Hereford bull. Has frightful jaws in front and mighty poisoned sting behind. The eyes, of myriad facets, cover three-fourths of the head, permitting the creature to see in all directions at one and the ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... car. It had been set in on the siding, and the engine, uncoupled, had disappeared, but she could see shifting lights moving near. One, the bright, green-hooded light, her eyes followed. She watched the furious snow drive and sting hornet-like at its rays as it rose or swung or circled from a long arm. Her straining eyes had watched its coming and going every moment since he left her. When his figure vanished her breath followed it, and when the green light flickered ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... an excited buzzing could be heard outside the closed window, and a huge hornet bumped ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... Mr. Darwin's inability to make the aphides yield their secretion after many experiments. A large number of hornets were flying about the tree, but seemed afraid of the ants; for when they attempted to alight, an ant would at once rush to the spot, and the hornet would get out ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... stood, and they had a big sody water bottle on wheels, and it busted and squirted sody water all over me. Wall one of them fire fellers, lookin' jist like I'd seen them in picters in Ezra Hoskin's insurance papers, he cum up to me madder'n a hornet, and he sed "what are you tryin' to do with that box?" So I told him I'd jist writ a letter home, and I wuz a tryin' to mail it. He sed "why you durned old green horn, you've called out the hull fire department of New York City." Wall I guess you could have knocked me down with a feather. I ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... hide, and many times they've treed me. And when I roamed the woodland path to see the wild-flowers' tinting, a bull pursued me in its wrath and broke all records sprinting. At noontide I sat down to rest, and rose depressed and dizzy; I'd sat upon a hornet's nest, and all the birds got busy. My whiskers now are full of hay, my legs are lame and weary; it's been a-raining every day, and all the world is dreary. The road will do for those who like a pathway rough and gritty; I've had enough—just ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... one so of a circus elephant—infinitely more intelligent than the people who direct him, but quite content to go on putting his foot down or taking it up as may be required, quite unconcerned whether he steps on a meringue or a hornet's nest in the process of going where ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... door, and wondering, as I afterwards found out, at my matchless intrepidity. The mind however took another train of thought, and we returned to the coach, which when we arrived at I refused to enter; not without screaming I fear, as a vast hornet had taken possession in our absence, and the very notion of such a companion threw me into an agony. Our attendant's speech to the coachman however, made me more than amends: "Ora si vede amico" (says he), "cos'e la Donna; del mare istesso non ha paura e pur va in convulsioni per via ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... whimsicality. "For a minute she was like an industrious hornet. Then I made her see she wouldn't have been here at all if I hadn't opened it. That made, her come down from the top of her nest on the church-spire, and she said that, considering my opportunities, I was not ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the citadel at Perugia you can guess what a hornet's nest that grey stronghold of the Baglioni must have been. It commands the great plain and bars the way to Rome. Westward, on a spur of rock, stands Magione and a lonely tower: this was their outpost towards Siena. Eastward there is a white patch on the distant hills—Spello, "mountain built ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... shouted Zekle, "let 'em come! like to see 'em takin' our powder an' shot 'thout askin'! Guess they'll hear thunder, ef they stick their heads inter a hornet's nest." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... "thine own deed shall then paint thee more worthless than could my words, though each had a hornet's sting." ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... overpowered and caught in a trap. The whole of the party, indeed, behaved with admirable coolness, and one of them, Mr. Charles Hawker, as well as their leader, Mr. Fidd, shewed a degree of moderation and forbearance on the occasion that was highly to their credit. Here also was the Hornet's Nest, where the natives offered battle to my gallant friend, Major O'Halloran, whose instructions forbade his striking the first blow. I can fancy that his warm blood was up at seeing himself defied by the self-confident natives; but they were too wise to commence an attack, and the parties, ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... take his part, my dear," said Mr. Ayrton. "I think that he's a bit of a fool to run his head into a hornet's nest because he has come to the conclusion that Abraham's code of morality was a trifle shaky, and that Samson was a shameless libertine. Great Heavens! has the man got no notion ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... was not proportionate to the growing power of their adversaries. Little by little the Doomsmen began to lose ground; already they had been defeated several times in pitched battle, and it looked as though the hornet's-nest would ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... did oncork a hornet's nest when they come here this time, though, they sure did!" Tom stood in the door, looking into the darkening room and at the figure sprawled across the bed. "He-ell's a-goin' to pop now!" he said again, in slow words scarcely ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... to the plate, red in the face, mad as a hornet, and he sidestepped every time Rube pitched a ball. He never even ticked one and retired in disgust, limping and swearing. Ashwell was next. He did not show much alacrity. On Rube's first pitch down went Ashwell ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... an' her face, which is stern an' heroic, carries a capac'ty for trouble lurkin' 'round in it, same as one of them bald hornet's nests on a beech limb. Nacherally my grandfather's gaze gets riveted on this lady a whole lot, his pipe hangin' forgetful from his lips. The lady's eyes all at once comes down on my grandfather, partic'lar an' personal, like a milk-crock from a ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... for the Press, bound to flatter for its living, represents its patrons, as do some portrait-painters, not as they are but as they would like to be. In the eyes of Andalusian journalists their compatriots are for ever making a magnificent gesture; and the condition would be absurd if a hornet's nest of comic papers, tempering vanity with a lively sense of the ridiculous, did not save the situation ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... in Silver Street—the regiments was out, They called us "Delhi Rebels", an' we answered "Threes about!" That drew them like a hornet's nest—we met them good an' large, The English at the double an' the Irish at ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... Inn Buzzed like a hornet's nest, upon the day Fixed for their mutilation. And the stings Were ready, too; for rapiers flashed and clashed Among the tankards. Dekker was there, and Nash, Brome (Jonson's body-servant, whom he taught His art of verse and, more than that, to love him,) ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... nor mercy, change her mind. 100 When some escape for that which others die, Mercy to those, to these is cruelty. A fine and slender net the spider weaves, Which little and light animals receives; And if she catch a common bee or fly, They with a piteous groan and murmur die; But if a wasp or hornet she entrap, They tear her cords like Samson, and escape; So like a fly the poor offender dies, But like the wasp, the rich escapes and flies. 110 Do not, if one but lightly thee offend, The punishment beyond the crime extend; Or after warning the offence forget; ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... time those fellows ran into a hornet's nest," he commented quietly, all trace of excitement vanished. "Better load up, boys, for we 're not through yet—they 'll only be more ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... woods were burning, a few rods on our right. The fire at last reached a lot of shells, which had been thrown from the wagons, to keep them from falling into the hands of the Yankees. They went off with a frightful clatter. The captain bounced from the ground as if a hornet had lifted him. "FALL IN!" he shouted, grasping his sword. Of course, all who were awake comprehended the situation, and prudently lay still, to avoid the flying fragments. As the truth dawned upon him, the captain at first looked "sold" and disgusted, and then ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... thing up there on the ceiling? It looks like a hornet. How on earth do these things get ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the robin feeds her young, How the oriole's nest is hung; Where the whitest lilies blow, Where the freshest berries grow, Where the ground-nut trails its vine, Where the wood grape's clusters shine; Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay, And the architectural plans Of gray hornet artisans! For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks; Hand in hand with her he walks, Face to face with her he talks Part and parcel of her joy. ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... great red gorilla, that had felt something sting him, and on feeling it threw up his paw to scratch the place, no doubt fancying it to be but the bite of a mosquito or hornet. The piece of stick broken off by his fingers may have seemed to him rather strange, but not enough so to arouse him from his ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... humming-bird episode, and the mocking-bird digression, to say nothing of the doings of the hornet ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... enormous couch and Robina looked at her brother. "Jason, Ah'm real sorry. Ah went an' stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble for ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... choppers brought me the other day what he called a hornet's nest; it was certainly too small and delicate a piece of workmanship for so large an insect; and I rather conjecture that it belonged to the beautiful black and gold insect called the wasp-fly, but of this ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... watch alertly for his headlong rush. As he charged out the wolves would scatter and leap nimbly aside, then sit down on their tails in a solemn circle and watch as if studying the strange beast. Again and again he would rush upon them, only to find that he was fighting the wind. Mad as a hornet, he would single out a cub and follow him headlong through brush and brake till some subtle warning thrilled through his madness, telling him to heed his flank; then as he whirled he would find the savage old mother close at his heels, her white fangs bared and a dangerous flash in her eyes ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... cluster of buildings, within half-gunshot of the fort, sheltered a large body of Indians, who from this point of vantage directed a particularly galling fire at the loop-holes in the palisades. By it several of the defenders were wounded, until finally a cannon was brought to bear upon the hornet's nest, and a quantity of red-hot spikes were thrust into its muzzle. A minute after its discharge flames burst from the buildings, and the savages who had occupied them were in precipitate flight, followed by jeering shouts and a parting ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... with the report that nine hundred Englishmen were close at hand. Seven English canoes did in fact appear, supported, as the French in their excitement imagined, by a numerous though invisible army in the forest; but being fired upon, and seeing that they were entering a hornet's nest, the English sheered off. Ramesay having at last found his army, and order being gradually restored, a council of war was held, after which the whole force fell back to Chambly, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... raising about the State! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... for the future. "I shall always," says he, "retain a most grateful sense of the King's liberality: but it is enough to have been chargeable to you when in France. I have never done you any service, though I made an offer of myself. But it would not be proper that I should now live like a hornet on the goods of other men. I shall never forget, however, the kindness of so great a King, and the good offices ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... dead fly in precious ointment; and, that loathsome disease, laziness. Like drunkenness it is an inexcusable shame, that dooms one to poverty and clothes him with rags. Shun idleness as you do the sting of a hornet, or the bite of ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... said Otto; 'we must first of all escape out of this hornet's nest, to which I led you. My honour is engaged. I said but now we were as poor as Job; and behold! not many miles from here I have a house of my own to which I will conduct you. Otto the Prince being down, we must try what luck remains to Otto the Hunter. Come, Seraphina; show that you ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... audience there was nothing amusing about this prescription. Stranger remedies than that had been ordered by the wise doctors of the day: a broth of beetle's legs, crab's eyes, the heads of mice, bruised flies to cure the sting of a hornet! ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... transportation was transferable. It was not, and so, being prevented from peddling it, he asked for the return of the poem. Back it came, with the editor's regrets, and Martin sent it to San Francisco again, this time to The Hornet, a pretentious monthly that had been fanned into a constellation of the first magnitude by the brilliant journalist who founded it. But The Hornet's light had begun to dim long before Martin was born. The editor promised Martin fifteen dollars ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... instant a dozen rifles crackled among the bushes. The light-hearted Frenchman fell stone dead, a bullet through his head, and two more men were wounded. A bullet had grazed Larkin's shoulder, burning like the sting of a hornet, and, wild with pain and anger, he sprang ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... game; Save that the puppets pull at their own strings, Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same. My Muse, the butterfly hath but her wings, Not stings, and flits through ether without aim, Alighting rarely:—were she but a hornet, Perhaps there might be vices which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... lunch, and Pa was just enjoying his relidgin first rate. While Pa was taking a nap under a tree, my chum and me looked around and found a hornets' nest on the lower limb of the tree we were sitting under, and my chum said it would be a good joke to get a pole and run it into the hornet's nest, and then run. Honest, I didn't think about Pa being under the tree, and I went into a field and got a hop pole, and put the small end up into the nest, and gouged the nest a couple of times, and when the boss hornet came out of the hole ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... came the Beetle, so blind and so black, Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back, And there was the Gnat and the Dragonfly too, With all their Relations, green, orange and blue. And there came the Moth, with his plumage of down, And the Hornet in jacket of yellow and brown; Who with him the Wasp, his companion, did bring, But they promised that evening to lay by their sting. And the sly little Dormouse crept out of his hole, And brought to the Feast his blind Brother, the Mole; And the Snail, with his ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... whose antennae have thirty joints! There is a species of this creature in England—but to the great grief of naturalists, and to the great honor of Providence, very rarely found—infinitely larger than the common earwig, or Forfaculida auriculana. Could it have been an early hornet? It had certainly a black head and great feelers. I have a greater horror of hornets, if possible, than I have of earwigs. Two hornets will kill a man, and three a carriage-horse sixteen hands high. However, the creature was gone. Yes, but where? Where ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... laying close siege; that my lines of circumvallation do not proceed quite so rapidly as my desires; but that I have just blown up the main bastion; or, in other words, have prevailed on Sir Arthur to send this hornet, this Frank Henley, back to England. The fellow's aspiring insolence is not to be endured. His merit is said to be uncommon. 'Tis certain he strains after the sublime; and in fact is too deep a thinker, nay I suspect too deep a plotter, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... rebels withdrew to a safe distance from the landing. The casualties of the day were three killed and six wounded, two of the latter dying shortly afterward. The fight at what was known as the "hornet's nest" was most terrific, and had not the First battery held out so heroically and valiantly the rebels would have succeeded in forcing a retreat of the Union lines to a point dangerously near the Tennessee river. ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... Dillon bounced off the grass like an angry hornet, then collapsed beside the baby brother, who evidently was not given much to talking, for he had not said a word, but simply stared in round-eyed surprise at the pretty stranger child. "Oh, ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... its net, which seems "woven of moonbeams," in the midst of its snare, a glutinous trap of infernal ingenuity, or hidden at a distance in its cabin of green leaves, the Epera fasciata waits and watches for its prey. Let the terrible hornet, or the Libellula auripennis, flying from stem to stem, fall into the limed snare; the insect struggles, endeavours to unwind itself; the net trembles violently as though it would be torn from its cables. Immediately the spider darts forward, running boldly ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... and the Fianna stared like lost minds upon the Carl, there came a sound of buzzing, as if a hornet or a queen of the wasps or a savage, steep-winged griffin was hovering about them, and looking away they saw Cael of the Iron charging on them with a monstrous extension and scurry of his legs. He had a sword in his hand, and there was ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... be so foolish, Thomas. As if a man what's been stung by a wasp would care to sit himself down on a hornet's nest. ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... dagoes fight it out among themselves," announced the third man with much derision. "Helping one of 'em is like picking a hornet out of a puddle. You'll get stung while ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... pervaded the upper table on Sir Francis's appearance; and something was said which, though he could not gather its precise import did not sound agreeably to his ears. He felt he had unwittingly brought his head near a hornet's nest, and might esteem himself lucky if he escaped without stinging. However, there was no retreating now; for though his fear counselled flight, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... can't. There are those five Misses Hornet,—dreadful old maids! as full of spite as they can live. You may be sure they will every one come, and be looking about to make spiteful remarks. Put down the ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... the Roosevelt dinner. The dinner itself passed off quietly, pleasantly, and without particular event. It was not until he took up the papers at his little hotel in New York the next morning that he found that he had again stirred up a hornet's nest similar to that of four years before. The denunciation was if anything more violent; for, as many of his assailants said, he should have profited by the protests of four years before. In an editorial entitled, "Booker Washington's Saratoga Performance" a Southern newspaper said: ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... you felt the world careen, Leap in its orbit like a punished pup Which hath a hornet on his burning bean? Last night, last night — historic yestere'en! — Hermione's ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... plenty of examples of this phenomenon, such as the hornet-like moths and bee-like flies of our own country, and many other instances will be found in these pages. One discovered in tropical America by Mr. W.L. Sclater would have much delighted Belt had he come across it. In that region of the world ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... Mr. Pitt, "the day for me to buck agin you is past. I don't mind markin' yearlin' calves and I don't hold off when it comes to breakin' up a hornet's nest, but I stand ready and willin' to fling up my hands when it comes to pullin' agin you. I have been kept busy many a time in my life; I have been woke up at mornin' and kept on the stretch pretty nigh till midnight, but you can come nearer occupyin' all my time and the time ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... our ancestors Have not been over-prudish with our kings; It is no fall to pick up handkerchiefs When on the handkerchief a lily's broidered. But honor never will accept a rag Which bears the Bonapartist weed and hornet, Woe to the ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... and something cool to drink is what you want," said Charteris, half helping, half pulling him off his horse. "Lie down here and take this. I give you fair warning, Master Gerrard, you ain't going to die on my hands and leave me to settle with this hornet's nest you have stirred up here—not if I ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... I'll answer for. I know little about Ap Gauvon: it's a place I never was at—nor ever will be, please God. Why should any man go and thrust his hand into a hornet's nest, where there's nothing ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... overpowered before he could strike a blow. Bogard, speeding across to take his post beside the Nadia, was struck down before he could get clear of the pouring hornet swarm. Shots were fired; shrill yells arose. Into the midst of the clamor the great siren whistle at the shops boomed out the fire alarm, and almost at the the same instant a red glow, capped by a rolling nimbus of sooty oil smoke, rose to beacon ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... slopping over. We used to wonder by what magic this strange principle worked, and who first invented the crosses, and whether he got a peerage for it. But indeed the well was a centre of mystery, for a hornet's nest was somewhere hard by, and the very thought was fearsome. Wasps we knew well and disdained, storming them in their fastnesses. But these great Beasts, vestured in angry orange, three stings from which—so 't was averred—would kill a horse, these were of a different kidney, and their ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... figured around a few minutes, but couldn't get a better sight, and so I just took chances and let drive for luck at what I could see. It was a fool thing to do, of course, but I just happened to feel careless and confident. There was a snort and a crash, and old Whitehead loomed up madder than a hornet. I had shot him in the haunch and he felt insulted. He made a rush at me, and I skipped aside and jumped for a small tree standing on the brink of a little ravine. My rifle dropped into the ravine, and I went up the tree like ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... a bald-faced hornet of your earthly experience grown to the size of a prize Hereford bull, and you will have some faint conception of the ferocious appearance and awesome formidability of the winged monster ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for excitement. I reck'n some o' the passengers was as tired o' bein' held up as those fellers was pinin' for excitement, an' when String an' Ham an' Whiff made their poor little play, they musta thought they'd struck a hornet's nest." ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart |
