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Wither   Listen
verb
Wither  v. t.  
1.
To cause to fade, and become dry. "The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth."
2.
To cause to shrink, wrinkle, or decay, for want of animal moisture. "Age can not wither her." "Shot forth pernicious fire Among the accursed, that withered all their strength."
3.
To cause to languish, perish, or pass away; to blight; as, a reputation withered by calumny. "The passions and the cares that wither life."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wither" Quotes from Famous Books



... attentive; he is present in the stations, and on the trains; he will ride in those gilded palaces even to the Jordan, but he shall not cross. In the name of the Lord we shall face him. What good there shall come, shall abide; but the evil shall wither. Not," he added, "that we stand against the railroad. It is needed, and we have petitioned without being heard. We are strong but isolated, we have goods to sell, and the word of Brigham Young has gone forth that a railroad we must have. Against the ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... her Phoenix Bud was blown, Root-Phoenix Jane did wither, Sad, that no age a brace had shown ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various

... is clear; We've every joy, if you were here; So lofty and so bright a sky Was never seen by Ireland's eye! I think it fit to let you know, This week I shall to Quilca go; To see M'Faden's horny brothers First suck, and after bull their mothers; To see, alas! my wither'd trees! To see what all the country sees! My stunted quicks, my famish'd beeves, My servants such a pack of thieves; My shatter'd firs, my blasted oaks, My house in common to all folks, No cabbage for a single snail, My turnips, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... those dreary regions, that I might be the first to place my foot in the centre of this vast territory, and finally to raise the veil which still shrouds its features, even though, like those of the veiled prophet, they should wither the beholder. ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... was the spokesman in the place Said, in their count'nance you might plainly trace The likeness of a wither'd old man's face. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... is, love—that's the deepest. Love's not love in the dark. Light loves wither i' the sun, but Love endureth, Clothing himself with the light ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

... filmy lace worth a king's ransom. It may be worn over the face or not, as fancy dictates. Sometimes a white leather or pearl bound prayer-book is carried instead of the bouquet. This custom has the advantage of having the prayer-book as a memento of the occasion, while the flowers wither. A young girl, known to the writer, carried with her to the altar the same prayer-book that her mother before her had ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... were men with hoary hair Amidst that pilgrim-band: Why had they come to wither there, Away ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... it is. And it would be of no use either if I should resign myself to wither away in abject penitence. I have tried to feed myself upon hopes and dreams, all through these years. But I am not the man to be content with that; and now I mean to have ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen

... pull it," she said; "leave it for me to come and look at— when—when you are gone. It will soon wither if it is taken away; but give me some of the bog myrtle instead," she added, seeing that Ralph ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... having fallen into disgrace, seemed to wither up within its walls like a tree in want ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... one-half world Nature seems dead; and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's off'rings; and wither'd murder, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch,—thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.—Thou sure and firm-set earth! Hear not my, steps, which way they walk; for fear The very stones prate of my whereabout, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... not you for him: hee's a Traitor: come, Ile manacle thy necke and feete together: Sea water shalt thou drinke: thy food shall be The fresh-brooke Mussels, wither'd roots, and huskes Wherein the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the smooth correct manner of writing in couplets, which Dryden and Pope carried to perfection. Gallantry rather than love was the inspiration of these courtly singers. In such verses as Carew's Encouragements to a Lover, and George Wither's The Manly Heart— ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... friend, what miracles were wrought Beyond the pow'r of constancy and courage? Did unresisted lightning aid their cannon? Did roaring whirlwinds sweep us from the ramparts? 'Twas vice that shook our nerves, 'twas vice, Leontius, That froze our veins, and wither'd all our pow'rs. ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... dry and wither'd branch, by time impair'd, Hung from an ample and an aged vine, Low bending to the earth: the warriors axe Lopt it at once from the parental stem. This as a sacred relick was consigned To Argus' hands, an image meet to frame Of Rhea, dread Divinity, who ruled Over ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... its rising on the morrow. The church was old and grey, with ivy clinging to the walls, and round the porch. Shunning the tombs, it crept about the mounds, beneath which slept poor humble men: twining for them the first wreaths they had ever won, but wreaths less liable to wither and far more lasting in their kind, than some which were graven deep in stone and marble, and told in pompous terms of virtues meekly hidden for many a year, and only revealed at last to ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... thought, free speech, free laws, she won through bitter strife, That we might breathe unfetter'd air and live unshackled life; Her freedom boys, thank God! is ours, and little need she fear, That we'll allow a right she won to die or wither here; Free-born, to her who made us free, up brothers glass in hand! "Hope of the free," here's "England!" boys, "God bless ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... thy shoes, thy bed of roses, Thy cup, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten;— In folly ripe, ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various

... the world. It will insist on learning new tricks, on thinking new thoughts, and if it is not allowed to teach itself fresh habits, it will break out in revolt, and either the government will be broken or the subjects will wither away under the ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... however varied, and grateful though they may be at the time, soon wither on the palate; and then, when we appreciate at last the knowledge of their dust and ashes, their Dead Sea-apple constituency, we must turn to something better, something higher—the joys of which are more lasting and whose flavour proceeds from ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... attention in preceding chapters. And there are perhaps few more important questions before us to-day than this—whether Tennyson's prophecy is to be fulfilled, whether the individual is to be allowed to "wither," and the world to become more and more. There are those who hold that such a consummation is devoutly to be wished; there are those who regard any movement making in such a direction ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... mother Chloris what she touches mars. Young men's homes your daughter storms, Like Thyiad, madden'd by the cymbals' beat: Nothus' love her bosom warms: She gambols like a fawn with silver feet. Yours should be the wool that grows By fair Luceria, not the merry lute: Flowers beseem not wither'd brows, Nor wither'd ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... again. She was angry with him, and, though he never for an instant distrusted his power to dissipate the cloud, he felt that the lifting of it would leave him and her in that strong light wherein the frail flower of sentiment must wither and perish. Explications were fatal to the delicate mystery, the ethereal half-lights, that Vernon loved. Above all things he detested the ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... character daring to entrust the relations between man and his Maker to the decree of a trading corporation. But alas! the world was to wait for centuries until it should learn that the State can best defend religion by letting it alone, and that the political arm is apt to wither with palsy when it attempts to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... reached her sight? Declare her all the love that fills my heart? Too weak ye are to tell its thousandth part! Can ye at least not say that her clear eyes Have torn my hapless heart forth in such wise, That like a hollow tree I pine and wither Unless hers give me back some life and vigour? Ye feeble words! ye cannot even tell How easily her eyes a heart compel; Nor can ye praise her speech in language fit, So weak and dull ye are, so void of ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... a lost enchantment am I recalled by the sight of a branch across the moon? Something in childhood, something which escapes yet does not wither.... ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold

... sung to a sweet, melancholy melody, equally excited the sympathy and wonder of the prince. The idea of a young lady being delighted at seeing the face of her lover wither, and his body waste away, he thought did little credit to the heart of woman; and that what made him sad should make her gay, appeared to show a great want of sympathy. As to the "little scaly imp," he could make ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... sat with his back turned to it wearing the same inscrutable smile that it has to-day. It has watched kings succeed and die, it has watched empires spread and collapse, it has watched civilisations ripen and wither away. All the known history of mankind has unrolled before it, not the short history of a few trifling centuries which we call ours, but the ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... to do, therefore, is to help others to grow from the root they are already living by, and not to dig their roots up and leave them to wither. We need not be afraid of making ourselves all things to all men, in the sense of fixing upon the affirmative elements in each one's creed as the starting-point of our work, for the affirmative and life-giving ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... Her words seemed to shed a ray of light over much which he had hitherto overlooked. He had, like the rest of us, the germs of doubt in his heart, and he was still so young and fresh that his aspirations were but loosely covered, and had not yet had time to wither entirely in his heart. When, therefore, he was suddenly thrown into the society of a woman of such intellectual power, his mind seemed as it were to awake, and her influence and his own reviving energies kindled within him a desire ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... "you shall return for a time, taking our son with you. But remember, both of you possess powers unknown to the earth children. Be careful how you use them. Never let another child strike the boy, for that child would at once wither and die. Never strike the boy yourself, for he would ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers

... has laid up in heaven, and what he is partially here, have no tendency to grow old. Men never weary of God, never find Him failing, never exhaust truth, never drink the love of God to the dregs, never find purity palling upon the taste, 'Age cannot wither, nor custom ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... and bird, and insect life of the rich river banks, the only part of the landscape where the hand of man has never interfered, and the only part in general which never feels the drought of summer, 'the trees planted by the waterside whose leaf shall not wither.' ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... sacred things love mystery, and holiest emotions claim reserve. Nature herself seems to tell us that the more sacred some works of art might be, the less they should be unveiled. There are flowers that will wither in the sun The passion of love, when developed according to the divine order, is, even in its physical relations, so holy that it cannot retain its delicacy under the sultry blaze ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... better, I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect myself to;—I would court their shade, and greet them kindly for their protection.—I would cut my name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout the desert: if their leaves wither'd, I would teach myself to mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would rejoice ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne

... travel-sore cortege was plodding outward. A handful of lean and briar-infested cattle stumbled in advance, yet themselves preceded by a vanguard of scouting riflemen, and back of the beef-animals came ponies, galled of wither and lean of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... but, unless carefully cultivated during married life by both husband and wife, through deeds of kindness and thoughtfulness and forbearance and mutual sympathy and understanding, the tender plant may soon wither and die. The old customs of our race, which this letter shows are still kept up in Palestine and I believe in other parts where ghetto life still obtains, if they are not carried to extremes, are, I think, very wise; but, unfortunately, our people are very tempted to go ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager

... judgment; But He strikes with the hands of men, And His blight would wither our manhood If we smote not the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... symmetrical, and not one-sided in his development, who has not sent all the energies of his being into one narrow specialty, and allowed all the other branches of his life to wither and die. Wanted, a man who is broad, who does not take half views of things. Wanted, a man who mixes common sense with his theories, who does not let a college education spoil him for practical, every-day life; ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... Honour; For since I enter'd here, no human shape Was seen by me, but one Old wither'd Woman; And where she's ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne

... Miss Louisa —— told us, that when a rose bud begins to wither, if you burn the end of the stalk, and plunge it red hot into water, the rose will be found revived the next day; and by a repetition of this burning, the lives of flowers may be fortunately prolonged many days. ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... and coast wild-flowers bloom and ripen their seeds before the dry summer begins. Such plants die and wither away in the heat, but their seeds are safe on the warm ground till fall rains soak the earth and set them growing again. In the high mountains a thick blanket of snow covers the sleeping seeds till May or June, and then sunshine wakes ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... But their daughters, the Misses Darcy, prefer Rosings, so they are oftener here. And I am frequently in the habit of saying to Mrs Darcy that when these fair flowers are transplanted to Pemberley, the gardens of Rosings droop and wither. Elegant females are very susceptible to these little attentions, as you are aware, and I never hesitate ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... his cousin in wild despair over the conversion of 2,861 florins into half-crowns, he stood by, telling her every operation, and leaving her nothing to do but to write down the figures. He was reckless of Janet, who tried to wither them both by her scorn; but Jessie looked up with ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... gather the rich golden honey of noontide; Deep in the sweet summer meadows, border'd by hillside and river, Lined with long trenches half-hidden, where smell of white meadow- sweet, sweetest, Blissfully hovers—O sweetest! but pluck it not! even in the tenderest Grasp it will lose breath and wither; like many, not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... flashing from his eye, As though to wither each unshaven wretch, Jack jogs along, nor condescends reply, As to the price his ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... hack'd above the ground, That where their lofty tops the neighbouring countries crown'd, Their trunks (like aged folks) now bare and naked stand, As for revenge to Heaven each held a wither'd hand." [1] ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... any rate to have the means of acquiring it, and Milton's manner (his style was his own) was very little affected by any of the English poets, with the single exception, in his earlier poems, of George Wither. Mr. Masson also has something to say about everybody, from Wentworth to the obscurest Brownist fanatic who was so much as heard of in England during Milton's lifetime. If this theory of a biographer's duty ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... are safe from me. I don't care enough about them to keep them; and it is a pity to pick them and throw them away to wither. But I would have asked to be allowed to help you in your search, only—I don't like to spoil a picture. You brought a very good one to my mind as you turned the corner, a 'Descent into Egypt,' that I saw long ago. The blot there, I remember, was ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... born to die and to wither," she said. "A night's frost would have killed it as surely as the lowland air. It is like these violets." She took a bunch from her bosom. "This morning they were fresh and beautiful. Now they are crushed and faded! Yet ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... as the after-piece was closed, Alonzo returned to the inn. As he passed along he cast his eyes toward the church-yard, where lay the "wither'd blessings of his richest joys." Affection, passion, inclination, urged him to go and breathe a farewell sigh, to drop a final tear over the grave of Melissa. Discretion, reason, wisdom forbade it—forbade that he re-pierce the ten ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... tree neither, Its wonted fruit should bear; Though all the field should wither, Nor flocks, nor herds be there: Yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice; For while in him confiding, ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... youth hast known the breaking stress Of passion, and hast trod despair's dry ground Beneath black thoughts that wither and de- stroy. Ah, wanderer, led by human tenderness Home to the heart of Nature, thou hast found The hidden ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke

... these demands will be granted. But will it persevere? There are among the English Dissentients those who prophesy that it will break up, as such parties have broken up before—will lose hope and wither away. Or the support of the Irish peasantry may be withdrawn—a result which some English politicians expect from a final settlement of the land question in the interest of the tenants. Any of these contingencies is possible, but at present most improbable. The moment when long-cherished ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... receptivity began first," and it was classified, therefore, as regularly protogynous. "... Furthermore, upon close observation it has been found," he said, that trees of the Butterick variety "develop very few pistillate flowers, and that many of these wither up and drop off, apparently because of inherent weakness. From this, it would appear that light bearing is not necessarily due to lack of suitable or adequate pollen." The Butterick had a record of practically non-bearing performances during the four years (1931, 1932, 1934 and 1935) at Rockport, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... mind, she either wrote or rearranged, and prepared for publication the books by which she has become known to the world. This was the home where, after a few years, while still in the prime of life, she began to droop and wither away, and which she left only in the last stage of her illness, yielding to the persuasion of friends ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... mansion keep. They lived to see so many days, Till time had blasted all their bays: But cursed be the fatal hour, That pluck'd the fairest, sweetest flower That in the Muses' garden grew, And amongst wither'd laurels threw! 20 Time, which made them their fame outlive, To Cowley scarce did ripeness give. Old mother Wit, and Nature, gave Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have; In Spenser, and in Jonson, Art Of slower Nature got the start; But both in him so equal are, None knows which bears the happiest ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... to say that, as Shakespeare wrote of Cleopatra, "age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety;" and in spite of the amazing influx of their young and lovely and accomplished countrywomen into London since their day of arrival, these two ladies still stand, as ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... never imagined that such sad possibilities could wither up the sweet bloom of youthful promise; she had never felt really miserable except when her father died, and then she had been only a child. She wondered in a dreary, incredulous way if this was all life meant to bring her—every day a little teaching, a little work, quiet evenings with her mother, ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... a confiscation inconsistent, not merely with plighted faith, not merely with the ordinary rules of humanity and justice, but also with that great law of filial piety which, even in the wildest tribes of savages, even in those more degraded communities which wither under the influence of a corrupt half-civilisation, retains a certain authority over the human mind. A pretext was the last thing that Hastings was likely to want. The insurrection at Benares had produced disturbances in Oude. These disturbances it was convenient to impute to the Princesses. Evidence ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... back to the bedside, and whispered to him that no drop of rain had fallen inside the cottage. As he spoke the words, he saw a change pass over his grandfather's face—the sharp features seemed to wither up on a sudden; the eager expression to grow vacant and death-like in an instant. The voice, too, altered; it was harsh and querulous no more; its tones became strangely soft, slow, and solemn, when the old ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... reason that he has not yet amassed sufficient gulden. So, the pair wait on in a mood of sincere and virtuous expectation, and smilingly deposit themselves in pawn the while. Gretchen's cheeks grow sunken, and she begins to wither; until at last, after some twenty years, their substance has multiplied, and sufficient gulden have been honourably and virtuously accumulated. Then the 'Fater' blesses his forty-year-old heir and the thirty-five-year-old ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... drama, or romance, see through the labouring months the young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening unto morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the shifting day with all its gold and shadow. For them, as for us, the flowers bloom and wither, and the Earth, that Green-tressed Goddess as Coleridge calls her, alters her raiment for their pleasure. The statue is concentrated to one moment of perfection. The image stained upon the canvas possesses no spiritual element of growth or change. If they ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... saddle-horses—those were their names, Nell and Ned, a mare and a colt. Fine hacks they were, too! Anybody could ride them, they were so quiet. Dad reckoned Ned was the better of the two. He was well-bred, and had a pedigree and a gentle disposition, and a bald-face, and a bumble-foot, and a raw wither, and a sore back that gave him a habit of "flinching"—a habit that discounted his uselessness a great deal, because, when we were n't at home, the women could n't saddle him to run the cows in. Whenever he saw the saddle or heard the girth-buckles rattle he would ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... daughter; Smiles ripple o'er thy lips, And o'er thine eye's blue water; O let me breathe on thee, Ere parted hence we flee, Ere aught that light eclipse! I know that beauty's flowers soon wither: Those lips, within whose rosy cells Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells, Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together. I know, that face so fair and full Is but a masquerading skull: But hail to thee skull so fair and so fresh! Why should ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... "May the grass wither from thy feet! the woods Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust A gravel the Sun his light! ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... filaments to perfect leaves with clasping petioles. After the plant has grown to a considerable height, and is secured to its support by the petioles of the true leaves, the clasping filaments on the lower part of the stem wither and drop off; so that they ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin

... have you had time to notice the change than it is altogether gone! The women must go back to the well and let the bucket down, and laboriously turn and turn the handle of the windlass till it mounts to the top again. The pretty moist, green herbage, the graceful grasses, quickly wither away; dust and straws and rubbish from the road lie in the dry channel, and by and by it is filled with a summer growth of dock and loveless nettles which no child ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... with thee," said Caligula at last, and now his voice sounded more firm, even whilst his hands released their grip on the praefect's arm and his short body straightened itself out upon his trembling limbs. "I'll come with thee, but may thy flesh wither on thy bones, thy hands be palsied and thine eyes become sightless if thou hast a thought of betraying ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... sentiment, I have seen through and rejected them all; I sought the love which springs from the central profundities of being. And I still believe in it. I will have none of those passions of straw which dazzle, burn up, and wither; I invoke, I await, and I hope for the love which is great, pure and earnest, which lives and works in all the fibres and through all the powers of the soul. And even if I go lonely to the end, I would rather my hope and my dream died with me, than that my soul ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... he is compelled to take as pay for an old debt will not be received as the same when he comes to pay a debt contracted by himself; nor will it be the same when by prompt payment he would avoid contracting any debt at all. Industry must wither away. Economy must be driven from your country. Careful provision will have no existence. Who will labour without knowing the amount of his pay? Who will study to increase what none can estimate? Who will accumulate, when he does not know the value of ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... most might wish. Not in battle or sea storm, But reft from sight, By hands invisible borne To viewless fields of night. Ah me! on us too night has come, The night of mourning. Wither roam O'er land or sea in our distress Eating the bread ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... and Davenant. The philosophic and meditative taste of the age had produced indeed poetic schools of its own: poetic satire had become fashionable in Hall, better known afterwards as a bishop, and had been carried on vigorously by George Wither; the so-called "metaphysical" poetry, the vigorous and pithy expression of a cold and prosaic good sense, began with Sir John Davies and buried itself in fantastic affectations in Donne; religious verse had become popular in the gloomy allegories of Quarles and the tender refinement which struggles ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... his hands over his ashy face, the string of shells still wound among his fingers. Perhaps he had hitherto hardly realized the existence of his child, and was solely wrapped up in the thought of his wife; but the wooden cradle, the homely toy, stirred up fresh depths of feelings; he saw Eustacie wither tender sweetness as a mother, he beheld the little likeness of her in the cradle; and oh! that this should have been the end! Unable to repress a moan of anguish from a bursting heart, he laid his face against the senseless wood, and kissed it again and again, then lay motionless ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in God's good hour Comes the time of the brave and true, Freedom again shall rise With a blaze in her awful eyes That shall wither this robber-power As the sun now dries the dew. This Place shall roar with the voice Of the glad triumphant people, And the heavens be gay with the chimes Ringing with jubilant noise From every clamorous steeple The coming of better times. ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... sleepless nights, a spendthrift heir may squander away in joyless prodigality; the noblest monuments which pride has ever reared to perpetuate a name, the hand of time will shortly tumble into ruins; and even the brightest laurels, gained by feats of arms, may wither, and be for ever blighted by the chilling neglect of mankind. "How many illustrious heroes," says the good Boetius, "who were once the pride and glory of the age, hath the silence of historians buried in eternal oblivion!" And this it was that induced the Spartans, when they ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... brief, we wish to enjoy the product of the sacrifices of the past fifty years. If you recall your Marx"—he twisted his face here in wry amusement—"the idea was that the State was to wither away once Socialism was established. Instead of withering away, it has become increasingly strong. This was explained by the early Bolsheviks in a fairly reasonable manner. Socialism presupposes a highly industrialized economy. It's not possible in a primitive nor even a feudalistic society. So ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... the Thorah (law or teaching) could no flesh be justified. The very Book which had fed so deep a life had come to stand between the soul and God, a barrier to the fresh, free inspirations from on high. Religion had run out upon the surface, and was dying. But it was as the tassels wither and whiten when the corn is ripe within the husk and ready to seed down ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... needed resuscitation in our antiquarian times it was George Wither. When most of the Jacobean poets sank into comfortable oblivion, which merely meant being laid with a piece of camphor in cotton-wool to keep fresh for us, Wither had the misfortune to be recollected. He became a byword of contempt, and the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse

... had begun to wither, held by tendrils that were strained until they could hold no more, the purple chalices swung lazily in the golden light, slowly filling with the garnered sweetness that every moment brought. Night and day ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... far is't called to Fores? What are these, So wither'd, and so wild in their attire That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth. ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... properly equipped, scientifically educated class of people, of producing the food supply of the world: but under the blight of the monopoly system, history will repeat itself. Our agricultural interests will languish and wither; dependent manufactures, and all branches of exchange and commerce, must, in time, follow. What then will happen to society? To government of both state and nation? In the face of this appalling situation, how stupendous the problem! By what effort can a great counter tidal-wave be set in ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... hollow, and in one bony hand she held a scroll on which was writ the record of her frauds and follies, her sin and shame. "Come," she cried mockingly, "let us on together. You may caress me as in the days of old, and I will answer with a curse. Hold me to your heart and I will wither it with my breath of flame. Praise me, and I will requite you with dishonor and crown you with the grewsome chaplets of grief. Fool! Thou hast striven for a prismatic bubble bursting on the crest of a receding wave. Why scorned you gold and lands to ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Aventine towards the Capitol, sticking in the ground was converted into a tree, which immediately put forth leaves. This prodigy was taken for a presage of the future greatness of Rome: and Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, says that so long as this tree stood, the Republic flourished. It began to wither in the time of the first civil war; and Julius Caesar having afterwards ordered a building to be erected near where it stood, the workmen cutting some of its roots in sinking the foundations, it soon after ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... had snubbed her and kept her in order; but one tyrant is preferable to many. At home the thirty-years-old Mattie was only one of the many daughters,—the old maid of the family,—the unattractive little wall-flower who was condemned to wither unnoticed on its stalk. Here, in her brother's vicarage, she had been a person of consequence, whom only the master of the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... had urged, at least a score of times, "if we could only teach all the cripples to let their minds run—free-limbed—over hilltops and pleasant places, their natures would never need to warp and wither after the fashion of their poor bodies. And the time to begin is in childhood, when the mind is learning to ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... and its meagre and capricious rewards,—ah, then, indeed, he shrank in dismay from the thoughts of the solitude at home! No lips to console in dejection, no heart to sympathize in triumph, no love within to counterbalance the hate without,—and the best of man, his household affections, left to wither away, or to waste themselves on ideal images, or ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... plant whose roots are exposed to the air soon wilts, while the one whose roots were placed in water keeps fresh. You have noticed how a potted plant will wilt if the soil in the pot is allowed to become dry (see Fig. 4), or how the leaves of corn and other plants curl up and wither during long periods of dry weather. It is quite evident roots absorb moisture from the soil for ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... Great Voice of sweetest tone: "The gardener sprays his plants and trees To drive out lice and stop disease. After the spraying, fruit is grown Ruddy and plump. The shortened eyes Of men can see this end, although Leaves wither or a whole tree dies From what the gardener does to grow Apples and plums of sweeter flesh. The gardener lives outside the tree; The gardener knows the tree can see What cure is needed, plans afresh An ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... that patriotism is the preserving virtue of Republics. Let this virtue wither and selfish ambition assume its place as the motive for action, and the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... their attaining to such a length of years and to such dimensions of growth are millions to one against them. But another explanation of this fact is possible. In trees affected by no discoverable external cause of death, decay begins at the topmost branches, which seem to wither and die for want of nutriment. The mysterious force by which the sap is carried from the roots to the utmost twigs, cannot be conceived to be unlimited in power, and it is probable that it differs in different species, so ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... generations, just as there is something in nature that causes new growth to come out of old dirt and new worlds to be continually spawned from the ashes of old played-out suns and stars. When nature ceases to mold new worlds from the past decay, the universe will wither; and when man loses the urge to build and goes to tearing down, the end of his story ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... gods and take Freia with them as a pledge. As soon as she disappears, the beautiful gods seem old and grey and wrinkled, for the golden apples to which Freia attends and of which the gods partake daily to be forever youthful, wither as soon as she is gone. Then Wotan without any further delay starts for Nibelheim with Loge, justifying his intention by saying that the gold is stolen property. They disappear in a cleft and we find ourselves in a subterranean cavern, the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... and shown these mysteries without paying a price: we must learn to live in extraordinary lowliness and loneliness of spirit. The interests, enjoyments, pastimes of ordinary life dry up and wither away. It becomes in vain that we seek to satisfy ourselves in any occupation, in anything, in any persons, for God wills to have the whole of us. When He wills to be sensibly with us, all Space itself feels scarcely able to ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley

... strengthening of the spiritual, intellectual, and economic sinews of American life. The steady purpose of our society is to assure justice, before God, for every individual. We must be ever alert that freedom does not wither through the careless amassing of restrictive controls or the lack of courage to deal boldly with the giant issues of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... would rove Where the bud cannot wither; Where Araby's perfumes Each breeze wafteth thither. Where the lute hath no string That can waken a sorrow; Where the soft twilight blends With the dawn of the morrow; Where joy kindles joy, Ere you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... length and fifteen in breadth; and this plateau lies so high above the other mountains that the peaks surrounding it appear to give birth to the lesser mountains. Four seasons may be counted on this plateau: spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and the plants there wither, the trees lose their leaves and the fields dry up. This does not happen in the rest of the island, which only knows spring-time and autumn. Ferns, grass, and berry bushes grow there, furnishing undeniable proof of the cold temperature. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... my dear Miss Goodwin, that young ladies should be so watchful over, as their reputation: 'tis a tender flower that the least frost will nip, the least cold wind will blast; and when once blasted, it will never flourish again, but wither to the very root. But this I have told you so often, I need not repeat what I have said. So to ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... her mother good by, and promised to be perfect; but Mrs. Parlin knew too well how the child's resolutions were apt to wither away for ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May

... prices. He went amongst the other Gods who were then building their shining palaces within the great wall and he told them what reward the Stranger had asked. The Gods said, "Without the Sun and the Moon the world will wither away." And the Goddesses said, "Without Freya all will be ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum

... do joy in their distress, And constant are in hope to conquer time, Then let not hope in us, sweet friend, be less, And cause our love to wither ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... permanent official gets in a great Department of State. He has not the power of the Secretary of State, but his knowledge and experience give him immense weight. In a word, a monarch, after fifteen or twenty years of experience, in which he had seen Ministries go up and down, parties blossom and wither, develops an instinct for government which is very valuable. He becomes an ideal ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... made a posy, while the days ran by; Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band. But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they, By noon, most cunningly did steal away, And wither'd in my hand." ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... much pain and fatigue they go through to get themselves into perfect training for a race. How much more trouble ought we to take to make ourselves fit to do God's work? For these foot-racers do all this only to gain a garland which will wither in a week; but we, to gain a garland which will never fade away; a garland of holiness, and righteousness, and purity, and the likeness ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... his pace, with difficulty got up to him, "Wither so fast?"" cried he, taking him by the arm; "you cannot get in without me; and it should seem you have a great desire for death, thus to run to it headlong. Not one of all those many astrologers and magicians ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... wayside tangles blaze In the low September sun, When the flowers of summer days Droop and wither, one by one, Reaching up through bush and brier, 5 Sumptuous brow and heart of fire, Flaunting high its wind-rocked plume, Brave with wealth ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... is at your feet, M'alme. So long as you did not ask me to do such things as would be unlawful in the eyes of Allah and the Prophet, and seek to force me to them, this hand of mine would wither before it would be raised against the preserver of my life! I pray ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... by an American gentleman, who has seen the MSS. within a month in the library of the University of Madrid, wither they were removed from Alcala in 1837, that the Chaldaic and Hebrew manuscripts are all originals, and on parchment. The only MSS. of Zamora among them are 3 vols. in Latin, translated from ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various

... thereafter, unless of the richest class, he must needs plunge into the turmoil and strife of business life and engage in the struggle for the material means of existence. Whether he failed or succeeded, made little difference as to the effect to stunt and wither his intellectual life. He had no time and could command no thought for anything else. If he failed, or barely avoided failure, perpetual anxiety ate out his heart; and if he succeeded, his success usually made him a grosser and more hopelessly self-satisfied materialist than if ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... was also abandoned. The pestiferous atmosphere which surrounded Russian-Jewish life at that time could do no more than produce these poisonous growths of "religious reform." For the wholesome seeds of such a reform were bound to wither after the collapse of the ideals which had served as a lode star during the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... adorned, women "of fashion" hold out can never inspire that precious, priceless thing which "passeth all understanding," which survives all the travail of tribulation, that beautiful emotion that "age cannot wither nor custom stale," which radiates the dark places ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... intelligent, self-reliant wives are uniformly treated by their husbands, and the unbounded confidence and affection they give in return. For happiness in domestic life, men and women must meet as equals. A position of inferiority and dependence for even the best organized women, will either wither all their powers and reduce them to apathetic machines, going the round of life's duties with a kind of hopeless dissatisfaction, or it will rouse a bitter antagonism, an active resistance, an offensive self-assertion, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... owing to the hold which the remainder of its roots still had on the soil. The branch that is cut off from the tree may retain a portion of its sap, and show some signs of languishing life for weeks; but it dies at length. And so with the branches cut off from the spiritual vine; they gradually wither and decay. The iron taken white hot from the furnace, does not get cool at once; but it gradually comes down to the temperature of the atmosphere with which it is surrounded. The prodigal did not get through his share of his father's property in a day, but he found himself perishing of hunger at ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... his performances would wither away in one hot weather, and the shroff would help him to tide over the money troubles. But he must have taken another view altogether and have believed himself ruined beyond redemption. His Colonel talked to ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... cavalcade issued from the palace and descended through the streets of Granada the populace greeted their youthful sovereign with shouts, anticipating deeds of prowess that would wither the laurels of his father. The appearance of Boabdil was well calculated to captivate the public eye, if we may judge from the description given by the abbot of Rute in his manuscript history of the House of Cordova. He was mounted on a superb white charger magnificently caparisoned. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... the wonderful melon plant began to wither, and when the woman came to buy melons one morning, the Brahmin's wife was obliged to say to her, in a sad voice, "Alas! there are no more melons on our melon plant." And the woman went back to her own house ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... lose their complexions, the brightness of their eyes and hair. Others grow heavy, solid; stout or flabby; the muscles of the face and neck loosen and sag, the features alter. I seemed slowly to dry up—wither. There was no flesh to hang or loose skin to wrinkle, but it seemed to me that I had ten thousand lines. I thought it a horrid fate. I could not know that Nature, meaning to be cruel, had given me the best chance for the renewal of the appearance ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... may have for himself the tenderness and fostering that belong of right to her children. Since marriage began, the great artist has been known as a bad husband. But he is worse: he is a child-robber, a bloodsucker, a hypocrite and a cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand women if only the sacrifice of them enable him to act Hamlet better, to paint a finer picture, to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounder philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the artist's work is to show us ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... is nothing that has such unconquerable vitality as love; but it must be true love, not self-love, not sentimentality, not passion, not any of the spurious emotions that masquerade under the name of love, and which wither with ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... February following, when Bonaparte had been absent from his army of England six weeks. The assumption of the Imperial dignity procured him another decent opportunity of offering his olive-branch to those who had caused his laurels to wither, and by whom, notwithstanding his abuse, calumnies, and menaces, he would have been more proud to be saluted Emperor than by all the nations upon the Continent. His vanity, interest, and policy, all required this last ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... grew deeper and more searching, like a flame of fire. John Weightman could not endure it. It seemed to strip him naked and wither him. He sank to the ground under a crushing weight of shame, covering his eyes with his hands and cowering face downward upon the stones. Dimly through the trouble of his mind he felt ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke

... seemed to wither and dry up gradually in his throat. He crawled away, and we heard him chuckling horribly somewhere, like a madman. Seraphina stretched out ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... a garment shapeless and unfinish'd? Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth? 416 If springing things be any jot diminish'd, They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth; The colt that's back'd and burden'd being young Loseth his pride, and never ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... WITHER, GEORGE, poet, born at Arlesford, in Hampshire, and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford; was imprisoned for his first poem, a satire, "Abuses Stript and Whipt," in 1613; his subsequent productions ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... expiration of many years, become generally prevalent. It is indeed, rather a matter of surprise than otherwise, that so salutary a precaution has been so long in disuse; since such is the luxuriance of the natural grass during the summer, that it is the general practice after the seeds wither away, to set fire to it, and thus improvidently consume what, if mown and made into hay, would afford the farmer a sufficiency of nutritious food for his stock during the winter, and altogether supersede the subsequent necessity for his having recourse to artificial means of remedying so ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... love with him? Impossible! How could such a hard, proud being attract her? If she did marry him he would crush and wither her. Yet of course girls did do—every day—such idiotic things. And he thought uncomfortably of a look he had surprised in her face, as he and she were sitting in the New Quad under the trees and Falloden passed with a handsome dark lady—one of the London visitors. It had been something involuntary—a ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... maidens! vor every feaece, As the zummers do come, an' the years do roll by, Will soon sadden, or goo vur away vrom the pleaece, Or else, lik' my Fanny, will wither an' die. ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... quickly. "What has money to do with it? It can neither be bought nor sold. It is a poor affection that would wither under poverty; at least it would have no ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... binders binde the Sheafes fast from breaking, then if you finde that the bottomes of the Sheafes be full of greenes, or weedes, it shall not be amisse to let the Sheafes lye one from another for a day, that those greenes may wither, but if you feare any Raine or foule weather, which is the onely thing which maketh Rye shale, then you shall set it vp in Shockes, each Shocke containing at least seauen Sheafes, in this manner: first, you shall place foure Sheafes vpright close ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... he cried, 'there you are! There is not only NO NEED for our places of work to be ugly, but their ugliness ruins the work, in the end. Men will not go on submitting to such intolerable ugliness. In the end it will hurt too much, and they will wither because of it. And this will wither the WORK as well. They will think the work itself is ugly: the machines, the very act of labour. Whereas the machinery and the acts of labour are extremely, maddeningly ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... am bewitch'd; behold mine arm Is, like a blasted sapling, wither'd up: And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore, That by their ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... fingers applied to the closed fist of any of the young fellows on the place would make him howl. She was an emotional creature, with a caustic tongue on occasion, and when it pleased her mood to look over her shoulder at one of her numerous admirers and to wither him with a look or a word, she did not hesitate to do it. For instance, when Apollo first asked her to marry him—it had been his habit to propose to her every day or so for a year or two past—she glanced at him askance from head to foot, and then she said: "Why, yas. Dat is, I s'pose, of ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... fascinating way of curling round in it, for it is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he curls round like a kitten. It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is mostly green, being woven of grass and twigs, and when these wither or snap the walls are thatched afresh. There are also a few feathers here and there, which came off the thrushes while ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... his myriads, wept to think that in a hundred years not one of them would be left. Where will be these millions of to-day in a hundred years? But, further than that, let us ask, Where then will be the sum and outcome of their labour? If they wither away like summer grass, will not at least a result be left which those of a hundred years hence may be the better for? No, not one jot! There will not be any sum or outcome or result of this ceaseless labour and movement; it vanishes in the moment that it is done, and in a hundred years nothing ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... two sorts of seeds sown in our remembrance by what we call the hand of fortune, the fruits of which do not wither, but grow sweeter forever and ever. The first is the seed of innocent pleasures, received in gratitude and enjoyed with good companions, of which pleasures we never grow weary of thinking, because they have enriched ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... destroy that we may live, since in this world none save the strongest can endure. Those who are weak must perish; the earth is to the strong, and the fruits thereof. For every tree that grows a score shall wither, that the strong one may take their share. We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out of the mouths of starving babes. It is the scheme of things. Thou sayest, too, that a crime breeds ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... Lived Before The Darker Side The Miner Life's Undercurrent They Cannot See the Wreaths We Place Mother—Alpha and Omega Empty Are the Mother's Arms In Deo Fides Shall Love, as the Bridal Wreath, Wither and Die Shall Our Memories Live When the Sod Rolls Above Us A Reverie Love's Plea Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust Despair Hidden Sorrows Oh, a Beautiful Thing Is the Flower That Fadeth Smiles A Request Battle Hymn The Nation's Peril Echoes From ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... I stamp on the soft snow with my sabot. The winter grass it covers subsists obstinately, and has no solidarity with anything else on earth. Let the pain of man wear itself out; the grass will not wither. Sleep, good folks of the whole world. Those who suffer here will not ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel

... was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish tale. But you and I, at all events, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... traffic in the small gains of power when larger ones await you; and, above all, lend your hearts, ye brothers of the clergy in the slave church, and give ear while I tell who I am, and pray ye, as ye love the soul of woman, to seek out those who, like unto what I was, now wither in slavery. My grandfather's name was Iznard Maldonard, a Minorcan, who in the year 1767 (some four years after Florida was by the king of Spain ceded to Great Britain) emigrated with one Dr. Turnbull-whose ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... Laka had been the joy of Achmet's heart, but, because she had no child, she was despised and forgotten. Was it not meet I should fly to her whose sorrow would hide my loneliness? And so it was—I was hidden in the harem of Achmet. But miserable tongues—may God wither them!—told Achmet of my presence. And though I was free, and not a bondswoman, he broke upon my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... but feeling, in holding such charms, A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms! I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair; I wish'd myself turn'd to a ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... might be made in human happiness. A sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken all the best statues in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop all the dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all the Easter eggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in order that man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to be careful, if only that the world ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... on the announcement pointed out that the mission would be concerned with important frontier questions, still more with the revival of the prestige of England in regions where a supine government had allowed it to wither unaccountably. Other powers had been playing a filching and encroaching game at the expense of the British lion in these parts, and it was more than time that he should open his sleepy eyes upon what was going on. As to the young officer who was to command the mission, the great journal ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... this thin air, and it did hold as many shots as a cowboy's gun in a Western movie. It was effective, too, at least against Martian life; I tried it out, aiming at one of the crazy plants, and darned if the plant didn't wither up and fall apart! That's why I think the glass ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... "Let the old tree wither," persisted Cedric, "so the stately hope of the forest be preserved. Save the noble Athelstane, my trusty Wamba! It is the duty of each who has Saxon blood in his veins. Thou and I will abide together the utmost rage of our oppressors, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... my Prince to die? You both are silent; you cannot speak. This said I, at our Saviour's feast, After confession, to the priest, And even he made no reply. Does he not warn us all to seek The happier, better land on high, Where flowers immortal never wither, And could he forbid ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... light, On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight 10 Of his great summoner, and made retreat Into a forest on the shores of Crete. For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt; At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored. Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. 20 Ah, what ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... forward because they think themselves capable, and who defame their rulers purposely to displace them.—Every government department, organization or administrative system is like a hothouse which serves to favor some species of the human plant and wither others. This one is the best one for the propagation and rapid increase of the coffee-house politician, club haranguer, the stump-speaker, the street-rioter, the committee dictator—in short, the revolutionary and the tyrant. In this political hothouse wild dreams and conceit will assume ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... those who, like strawberry plants, are of such an errant disposition, that grow them where you will, they will soon absorb all the pleasantness of their habitat, and begin casting out runners elsewhere; may, if not frequently transplanted, would actually wither and die. Of such are the pioneers of society—the emigrants, the tourists, the travelers round the world; and great is the advantage the world derives from them, active, energetic, and impulsive as they are. Unless, indeed, their talent for incessant ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... exquisite enjoyment are they shut out, to whom Providence has not vouchsafed those beloved beings on whom the heart lavishes the whole fulness of its rapture! No wonder that their own affections should wither in the cold gloom of disappointed hope, or their hearts harden into that moody spirit of worldly-mindedness which adopts for ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... he, giving her a loving little shake. "I declare, you were well named. The swift transitions from the tremendous 'Barbara' to the inconsequent 'Baby' takes but an instant, and exactly expresses you. A moment ago you were bent on withering me: now, I am going to wither you." ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... except from here and there some ragged boy in a red cap, who, from habit, associated this salutation with the appearance of a carriage. In every place where there are half a dozen houses is planted an unthriving tree of liberty, which seems to wither under the baneful influence of the bonnet rouge. [The red cap.] This Jacobin attribute is made of materials to resist the weather, and may last some time; but the trees of liberty, being planted unseasonably, are already dead. I hope this will not prove emblematic, and that the power of the Jacobins ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... this dread was the thrill of joy I felt in knowing that she stood close behind me; that when I turned I should see her there, face to face. Yet the very thought of turning again started the chill of apprehension. Without doubt she would wither me like a parched leaf for having played so silly a part as Indian. I began vigorously to stir the stuff in my skillet which now had stuck to the bottom and was smelling like the very old devil. Of course, my face would have been red, anyway—leaning ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... have a drop. I will wither the crops and bring a plague upon their flocks. I'll teach these rascals ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... I'm going to do it out of this book here. Listen: 'A point is that which has no parts and no magnitude,' and that's only the beginning. Oh, my dear, I'll wither you up—you just wait ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... talks to brither, mither, But leuks his thoughts at me; He always says gude neet to brither, And looks gude neet to me." "Lassie, ye seldom vexed yer mither; Ye're ower too fair a flower to wither; So be ye are to come thegither, I'll be nae damp to yer new claes; Cheer up and sing ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... most ancient, and he cried: "Hail Dawn of the Day! How many things shalt thou quicken, how many shalt thou slay! How many things shalt thou waken, how many lull to sleep! How many things shalt thou scatter, how many gather and keep! O me, how thy love shall cherish, how thine hate shall wither and burn! How the hope shall be sped from thy right hand, nor the fear to thy left return! O thy deeds that men shall sing of! O thy deeds that the Gods shall see! O SIGURD, Son of the Volsungs, O ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... of trees that never wither and never resurrect. Something very foreign or is it San Francisco? Cubist effects of the horizontally-lined cypress, vertical lines of the eucalyptus, and the soft, down-dropping of the ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... The love that has grown strong by the mutual endurance of oppression, toil, privation, and danger, has been turned to gall by the infusion of the constant droppings of domestic strife. Pure, unselfish love is the spontaneous growth of a holy heart. It must be nurtured and tended, or it will wither and die in ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... everlasting sleep; For these poor, puny lights which wander round, Scarce make the drowsy lashes of his lids Tremble o'er his blind eyes;—the heated earth Gives forth the odors of her burning heart, In whose incessant fires her vitals wither. See! where those wretched gnomes are dragging chests, Banded with iron! most like, is heaped within The ingots of some drowned West-Indian: And look! ah heaven! how beautiful and strange, To see the delicate corpse of this young girl Like marble petrified, the raven ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown

... fitted the sides of the little upper deck of the houseboat above the cabin. An hour or so after the girls departed on their rowing excursion the daisies were brought aboard, planted, and held up their heads bravely. They were such sturdy, hardy little flowers that they did not wither with homesickness at the change ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... Freia if they build him a castle, Valhalla, which he intends to fill with slain warriors in sufficient numbers to keep down his foes. This is his primary, essential, fatal blunder; for unless the gods eat of Freia's apples every day they must wither and their powers decay. But Wotan means to cheat the giants, and Loge, the deceitful god of fire, who is ultimately to destroy the whole of the present regime, has been sent off to find a means of doing it. It is when so much has been accomplished that Wagner raises the ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman

... uncertain, and generally ceases altogether. Then the sky becomes intensely blue, and the sun comes out in all his glory, or rather in all her glory, for with the Arabs the sun is feminine. Suddenly grass and vegetation wither up and become dry for the oven. The level country, except where there are rivers, becomes parched. The stones stick up out of the red soil like the white bones of a skeleton. Limestone, flint, and basalt, and thorny shrubs, cover the face of the wilderness country. Here ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... always remain a boy. To pass from boyhood to manhood was not so bad as dying; nevertheless it was a change painful to contemplate. That everlasting delight and wonder, rising to rapture, which was in the child and boy would wither away and vanish, and in its place there would be that dull low kind of satisfaction which men have in the set task, the daily and hourly intercourse with others of a like condition, and in eating and drinking ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... by being fed in idleness, the plant now abandons honest toil, its roots from lack of exercise wither away, and for good and all it ceases to claim any independence whatever. Indeed, so deep is the dodder's degradation that if it cannot find a stem of flax, or hop, or other plant whereon to climb and thrive, it will simply shrivel and die rather than resume ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various



Words linked to "Wither" :   die back, withering, disappear, dry up, fade, lessen, go away, shrink, shrivel up, decrease, blast, shrivel, die down, fall, mummify, atrophy, vanish, diminish



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