"Gnaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Billy Bushytail, and the Wibblewobble duck children, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs. And as for Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old rabbit gentleman, who was quite rich since he found his fortune, he was so busy that he wore out two rheumatism crutches and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy had to gnaw him another from a broom stick, instead of ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... once that I began to gnaw the head of my cane, to consult the ceiling, to gaze at the fire, to examine Caroline's foot, and I thus held out till the ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... symptoms may be divided into three stages. The first, or melancholy stage, usually lasts from twelve to forty-eight hours. The animal's behavior is altered and it becomes sullen, irritable and nervous. Sometimes it is friendly and inclined to lick the hand of its master. An inclination to gnaw or swallow indigestible objects is sometimes noted. Frequently a certain part of the skin is ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... of great genius introduced the fiends of Famine, Slaughter, and Fire, proclaiming that they had received their commission from One whose name was formed of four letters, and promising to give their employer ample proofs of gratitude. Famine would gnaw the multitude till they should rise up against him in madness. The demon of slaughter would impel them to tear him from limb to limb. But Fire boasted that she alone could reward him as he deserved, and that she would cling round ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dead, when ten minutes afterwards the cry of one of her babes struck on her ear, and the next moment Ursel stood beside her, laying them down close to her, and saying exultingly, "Safe! safe out at the gate, and down the hillside, and my old lady ready to gnaw off her ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... now, heavy, as from sustained exertion, making almost an undertone of the steady click-click-click of the ratchet, and the sullen gnaw of the bit. The minutes passed. The flashlight went on again—and Jimmie Dale strained forward. Two dark forms, backs to him, were outlined against the face of the safe which was at the far side of the room, a nickel dial glistened ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the Animal, which, by other observations I have made, I ghess to contain it, and become, as it were a womb to it, so long, till it be fit and prepar'd to be translated into another state, at what time, like (what they say of) Vipers, they gnaw their way through the womb that bred them; divers of these kinds I have met with upon Goosberry leaves, Rose-tree leaves, Willow leaves, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... in the thicket opposite, cutting brush. We saw many large trees which had been cut down by them. The stumps looked as though some boy had chopped them down with a dull axe. It is surprising to reflect upon the pertinacity of these creatures which enables them to gnaw down such immense trees, and the wisdom with which they calculate the direction in ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... would try to push them through; failing in that, he would go through and then try to pull them after him. All night he or his companion seems to have kept up this futile attempt, fumbling and dropping the nut every few minutes. It never occurred to the mouse to gnaw the hole larger, as it would instantly have done had the hole been too small to admit its own body. It could not project its mind thus far; it could not get out of itself sufficiently to regard the nut in its relation to the hole, and it is doubtful if any four-footed animal is capable ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... "Oh, gnaw them out of a tree!" cried Mr. Pertell, who was much disturbed and nervous. "Don't you see that fence?" he cried, pointing to one not far off. "Get some rails from that. And ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... oblong, flat cake, crossed with lines, and rounded at the corners, made of dough, lard, sugar, and spice. Our ancestors liked something to gnaw at, and did not go in for lightness in their pastry; they liked something to stick to their teeth, and after that to their ribs. The lardy-cake eminently fulfilled these conditions; they put a trifle of sugar and spice in it, to set it going as it were, ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... mate; but Jan did not miss her a scrap. At present there was not an ounce of sentiment in his composition. He was kept warm, he lay snugly soft, and his stomach was generally full. He had great gristly bones to gnaw and play with, and Betty Murdoch, with a little solid-rubber ball, played with him also by the hour together. Beyond these things Jan had no thought or desire at present. He grew fast, and enjoyed every minute of ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... and stroked the bow-bearer's hand, a condescension which made the footstool-bearer, parasol-bearer, quiver-bearer, and a dozen great lords more gnaw their lips with envy. Hydarnes, the commander who had waited an auspicious moment, now thought it safe to kneel on the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... like an animal is to rely upon one's own quite naked equipment and efforts, and not to mind getting wet or cold or scratching one's bare legs in the underbrush. One would have to eat his roots and seeds quite raw, and gnaw a bird as a cat does. To get the feel of uncivilized life, let us recall how savages with the comparatively advanced degree of culture reached by our native Indian tribes may fall to when really ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... fish nor fowl can penetrate them. Old stalks succumb slowly; the bed soil is quagmire, settling with the weight as it fills and fills. Too slowly for counting they raise little islands from the bog and reclaim the land. The waters pushed out cut deeper channels, gnaw off the edges ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... I won't," he began, then, feebly surrendering to the gnaw of desire, he reached hastily for the glass, as if in fear that it would ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... most, if not all, of the figures on this plate (Tro. 29) are intended to represent the injurious and destructive agencies to which maize and other cultivated plants were subject. Birds and quadrupeds pull up the sprouting seed and pull down and devour the ripening grain; worms gnaw the roots and winds break down the stalks, one out of four escaping injury and giving full return to the planter. The latter is therefore probably the correct interpretation, the only difficult feature being the presence of ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... lying toward the east. The one tooth found (a molar) was worn entirely below the enamel except for a small space at the front; the dentine was polished until it resembled a piece of agate. Mr. De Lancey Gill first remarked the fact that wear of this character denotes that the individual did not gnaw bones, crack nuts, or indeed bite hard on any substance. If he had done so this thin shred of enamel would have broken off. Two large rocks which lay on the head and body seem to have been thus placed before the grave was filled ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... on, had no child in its sleep an indistinct perception of a guilty shadow falling on its bed, that troubled its innocent rest? Did no dog howl, and strive to break its rattling chain, that it might tear him; no burrowing rat, scenting the work he had in hand, essay to gnaw a passage after him, that it might hold a greedy revel at the feast of his providing? When he looked back, across his shoulder, was it to see if his quick footsteps still fell dry upon the dusty pavement, or were already moist and clogged with the red mire that stained the naked ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Liberal, Pelicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following title: Works of Voltaire, of the French Academy. "That will attract purchasers," said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M. Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning to gnaw at him—a sign of glory; and this ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... tall soldier, drily; "did you ever grub on fat pork, Miss? No? Did you ever gnaw yer hard tack after a spell o' sickness, and a ten-hour march? No? P'raps you might like a streak o' mutton arterwards! P'raps you might take a notion for a couple o' chickens or so! No? How's that, Ike? What do you think, pardner? (to me) ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... to this was a long whistle of dismay. He said nothing, however, but once more applied the glasses to his eyes. Jack saw him gnaw his moustache, as he gazed out over the desert. The dust-cloud was quite close now—not more than a mile away. The boys, with their naked eyes, could easily catch the moving glint ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... half Cree girl. When they had gone he still saw her, and the vision troubled him. They came in again at night, when the fire was sending red and yellow lights up and down the tepee walls, and the more he watched Oachi the stronger there grew within him something that seemed to gnaw and gripe with a dull sort of pain. Oachi was beautiful. He had never seen hair like her hair. He had never before seen eyes more beautiful. He had never heard a voice so low and sweet and filled with bird-like ripples of music. She was beautiful, and yet with her beauty there was ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... gnaw your handkercher; 'twill hurt your little tongue, And if you do feel spitish, 'tis because ye are over young; But you'll be getting older, like us all, ere very long, And you'll see me as I am—a man ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... events how they render it impossible at this later stage. It is the young plant which absorbs the glucose, and which must therefore be destroyed; they cut off the radicle with their mandibles, and gnaw the stalk; the germ is thus suppressed. They have not yet finished their manipulations, which must enable them to preserve without further alteration the provisions which they have already rendered palatable. They ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... face; the fishing, that promised so well when I passed, having entirely failed, and no deer were to be found. He wrote me, however, that he would maintain his post while a piece of parchment remained to gnaw! ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... into our haversacks, to the farm servants who inspect all our belongings when we are out on parade, and even now we have become accustomed to the very rats that scurry through the barn at midnight and gnaw at our equipment and devour our rations when they get hold of them. One night a rat bit a man's nose—but the tale is a long one and I will tell ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... this time her son sat opposite, observing every look and motion, yet unable himself to move. The pangs of hunger now began to gnaw within him, and from his cramped position, he became so cold that he trembled violently in every limb, despite his efforts to command himself. But Dick paid no attention whatever to him; he knew that he was strong, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... greater peril, and the attitude of the Nationalists in the House of Commons added to the difficulties of the Government, as Mr. Bonar Law had complained in March. It was to placate them that the Convention had been summoned. It was a bone thrown to a snarling dog, and the longer there was anything to gnaw the longer would the dog keep quiet. The Ulster delegates understood this perfectly, and, as their chief desire was to help the Government to get on with the war, they had no wish to curtail the proceedings of the Convention, although they were never under the delusion that it ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... home and mind thy word," she had said always to him. "It is labour enough for a man to keep his own life clean and his own hands honest. Be not thou at any time as they are who are for ever telling the good God how He might have made the world on a better plan, while the rats gnaw at their hay-stacks and the children cry over an ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... legs and horns laid flat by its sides, and miniature wings on its back. Observe that the sides of the tail, and one pair of legs, are fringed with dark hairs. After a fortnight's rest in this prison this 'nymph' will gnaw her way out and swim through the water on her back, by means of that fringed tail and paddles, till she reaches the bank and the upper air. There, under the genial light of day, her skin will burst, and a four-winged fly emerge, to buzz over the water as ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... "Honesty is the best policy," we speak abstractly. Nobody can see or hear or touch the thing honesty or the thing policy; the apprehension of them must be purely intellectual. But if we say "The rat began to gnaw the rope," we speak concretely. Rat, gnaw, and rope are tangible, perceptible things; the words bring to us visions of particular ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... put it into his head that la Peyrade, to whom he is going to give his goddaughter and heiress, is over head and ears in debt; that he makes enormous secret loans; and that in order to get out of his difficulties he means to gnaw the newspaper to the bone; and I shall insinuate that the position of a man so much in debt must be known to the public before long, and become a fatal blow to the candidate whose right hand ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... carry the mud and stones in their fore-paws; and in one night will collect as much as amounts to many thousands of their little loads. When driftwood is not to be found, they obtain the timber they require from the groves skirting the lake or pond. To do this, they squat on their hams, and rapidly gnaw through the stems of trees from six to twelve or fourteen inches in diameter, with their powerful incisors. Sometimes a tree will not fall prostrate, the boughs being caught by its neighbours. But the beaver is not to be disappointed; ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... trees should, as already stated, have sufficient shade to prevent their being burned by the sun. If they are much exposed to its rays, their branches are scattered, crack, and the tree dies. They are also infested with worms, which gnaw the bark all around, then attack the interior and destroy them. The only remedy which has hitherto been found, is to employ people to kill these worms, which are deposited by a small, scaly winged insect, which gnaws the tree; as soon ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... Lord Normanby, was greatly taken with her. This nobleman's position was such that Captain James could not object to his attentions, though they made the husband angry to a degree. The viceroy would draw her into alcoves and engage her in flattering conversation, while poor James could only gnaw his nails and let green-eyed jealousy prey upon his heart. His only recourse was to take her into the country, where she speedily became bored; and boredom is ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... to reach up on his hind legs and gnaw the standing plant. The management of a dry and slippery corn-ear at first presented some difficulty, but, as his muscles strengthened, he found himself able to sit up on his haunches and hold it squirrel-fashion in his fore-paws, nibbling, to begin with, at the pointed end, which is the best way ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... gnaw rope; Rope won't hang butcher, Butcher won't kill ox, ox won't drink water, Water won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, Stick won't beat dog, dog won't bite pig, Piggy won't get over the stile, And I shan't get home to-night." But ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... nameless fear began to gnaw at Wilmot's vitals. And at that moment the door swung open, and he saw, beyond the bulking head and shoulders of the legless man, a narrow iron table, white and shining, in a room all glass and ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... the sullen, frumpish fool, That loves to be oppression's tool, May envy gnaw his rotten soul, And discontent devour him; May dool and sorrow be his chance, Dool and sorrow, dool and sorrow, Dool and sorrow be his chance, And nane say, Wae 's me for him! May dool and sorrow be his chance, Wi' a' the ills that come frae France, Wha e'er he be that winna dance The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to lay about fifty eggs which are deposited on both the leaves and fruit, but mostly on the calyx end of the young apples. The eggs hatch in about a week and the young larvae or caterpillars begin at once to gnaw their way into the core of the fruit. Three-fourths of them enter the ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... without telling about that. They must have wandered around for at least a day and a half, and in all that while they had not a drop of water, and not a thing to eat. Wait, though, at last in their desperation they did gnaw the tallow candles, and that served to keep them alive, and, in a measure, alleviate ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... with the loss of a leg; a fox, which is carnivorous, will do more; he will gnaw off his own leg to escape. Do they die in consequence? no, they live and do well; but could a man live under such circumstances? impossible. If you don't believe me, gnaw your own leg off and try. And yet the conformation of the Mammalia is not very dissimilar from our own; but man is the more perfect creature, and therefore ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... he might be attacked at once, he had made his battalion stand to arms on the shore. He walked to and fro all the length of the room, stopping sometimes to gnaw the finger-tips of his right hand with a lurid sideways glare fixed on the floor; then, with a sullen, repelling glance all round, he would resume his tramping in savage aloofness. His hat, horsewhip, sword, and revolver were lying on the table. His officers, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... be done, and luckily Brownies can do things which nobody else can do. So he thought he would change himself into a mouse, and gnaw a hole through the door. But then he suddenly remembered the cat, who, though he had decided not to eat her, might take this opportunity of eating him. So he thought it advisable to wait till she was fast asleep, which did not happen for a good while. At length, quite ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... common-sense, and it is the teaching of the Bible. True, that for some, that growth will only be a growth into greater power of feeling greater sorrow. Such an one grows up into a Hercules; but it is only that the Nessus shirt may wrap round him more tightly, and may gnaw him with a fiercer agony. But whether saved or lost—he that dies is greater than when yet living; and all his powers are intensified and strengthened by that awful experience of death and by what it ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... those of the Council of State were secret, and publicity was what he dreaded above all things. He was very well pleased when he had to transmit to the Legislative Body or to the Tribunate any proposed law of trifling importance, and he used then to say that he had thrown them a bone to gnaw. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... a palmtree, whose scales made a rustling as he creeped along. He swallowed up one of my comrades, notwithstanding his loud cries, and the efforts he made to rid himself of the serpent; which, shaking him several times against the ground, crushed him, and we could hear him gnaw and tear the poor wretch's bones, when we had fled at a great distance from him. Next day we saw the serpent again, to our great terror, when I cried out, O Heaven, to what dangers are we exposed! We rejoiced yesterday at our having escaped ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... that flies at noonday, that is most to be feared. It is the cold, inscrutable glance, the chilled and altered manner, the suspicion that walketh in darkness,—it is these that try the strength of woman's love, and gnaw with slow but certain tooth the cable-chain that holds the anchor of her fidelity. These are the evil spirits which prayer and fasting alone can cast out. They may fly before the uplifted eye and bended knee, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... And he'd gnaw thro' a rope in the night-time, He'd eat thro' a wall or a door, He'd shwim thro' a lough in the winther, To be wid his ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... seen, So soft, so nimble, and so clean; Their teeth were sharp, their eyes were bright; And when through wood she saw them gnaw As neatly, almost, as a saw, The mother's eyes beamed ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... round his place of confinement several times; but not the least crack or opening could we discover, except through the bars, which being of iron, it was impossible for us to break or bend. At length we determined to try to gnaw through the wood-work close at the edge, which being already some little distance from one of the bars, we hoped, by making the opening a little wider, he would escape: accordingly we all began, he on the inside, and we all on the out, and by our diligence had made some very considerable ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... have met Kotuko the dog, and played or fought with him, for his shoulder-loop had caught in the plaited copper wire of Kotuko's collar, and had drawn tight, so that neither could get at the trace to gnaw it apart, but each was fastened sidelong to his neighbour's neck. That, with the freedom of hunting on their own account, must have helped to cure their madness. ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... instructions, the lad had lain perfectly motionless and silent for over an hour, for it must have taken me at least that long to gnaw through the cords. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... canned goods down here, some of them still perfectly sealed after all this time. The hordes of rats, wiser than they knew, had chewed at them, exposing the steel beneath the thin tin plate. And, after a while, oxidation would weaken the can to the point where some lucky rat could gnaw through the rusty spot and find himself a meal. Then he would move the empty can aside and begin gnawing at the next in line. He couldn't get through the steel, but he would scratch the tin off, and the cycle would begin again. Later, another rat would ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... he said, "follow me. Our friend, the gazelle, is caught in a net. Come and gnaw the ropes and ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry
... the seed is the one important thing and then notice how the flower protects it. First, look at the outside green covering, which we call the calyx. See how closely it fits in the bud, so that no insects can creep in to gnaw the flower, nor any harm come to it from cold or blight. Then, when the calyx opens, notice that the yellow leaves which form the crown or corolla, are each alternate with one of the calyx leaves, so that anything which got past the first covering would be stopped by the second. Lastly, ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... so quiet and patient on their shelves, Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white, and green And every kind of colour. Which will you read? Come on; O do read something; they're so wise. I tell you all the wisdom of the world Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe out, And listen to the silence: on the ceiling There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and flutters; And in the breathless air outside the house The garden waits for something that delays. There must be crowds ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... hadde a space fro his care, 505 Thus to him-self ful ofte he gan to pleyne; He sayde, 'O fool, now art thou in the snare, That whilom Iapedest at loves peyne; Now artow hent, now gnaw thyn owene cheyne; Thou were ay wont eche lovere reprehende 510 Of thing fro which thou ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... He began at once to gnaw the ropes. He had just set the gazelle free when a hunter came along. The gazelle sprang to one side into the bushes, the raven flew into a tree, and the rat ran into ...
— Fifty Fabulous Fables • Lida Brown McMurry
... score less three; so about was SHE - The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days . . . You may prate of your prowess in lusty times, But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays, And ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... he recovered his good humour. "Since your heart beats for vermin, feel for the carrion crows! they be as good vermin as these; would ye send them to bed supperless, poor pretty poppets? Why, these be their larder; the pangs of hunger would gnaw them dead, but for cold cut-purse hung up ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... esteemed, pardoned him who had dared, so seriously, to insult one of his ministers. But, during the four or five days that the journey continued, they incessantly tormented him; and did not give him a fourth part of what was necessary for his support, so that the unfortunate man was frequently obliged to gnaw the bones which the Moors had thrown away; they also forced him to make the whole journey on foot; it was pretty long; for these gentlemen, on their arrival at St. Louis, estimated it at a hundred and forty leagues at the least, because the Moors made ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... gathered some dead wood, made a fire in the ditch and have had a capital supper off the warm, round vegetables with which he would first of all have warmed his cold hands. But it was too late in the year, and he would have to gnaw a raw beetroot which he might pick up in a field as he had ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Raimundo: all monks and friars, proceeding, that is to say, from the monastic orders." "These," he added, "are the orange-trees of heaven, whose fruits are placed on the table of God." Of evil-speakers Rodaja said, that they were like the feathers of the eagle which gnaw, wear away, and reduce to nothing, whatever feathers of other birds are mingled with them in beds or cushions, how good soever ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nose is pointed, and his under jaw is shorter than the upper one. In front, on each jaw, he has two sharp teeth, shaped like the edge of a chisel, and these he uses to gnaw with. ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... the slowness of time, at the interminable minutes, began to gnaw him with its intolerable fever. What should he do until he could go to the club for dinner, since he could not work at home? The thought of the streets tired him only to think of, filled him with disgust for the sidewalks, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... vicious. He had lived in the white "settlements," and knew something. He was fastened by a long hide lariat to a peg driven into the ground, as were all the others, and he knew that the best place to gnaw in two that lariat was close to the peg, where he could get a good pull upon it. As soon as he had freed himself he tried the lariat of another mule, and found that the peg had been driven into loose earth and came right up. That was a scientific discovery, and he tried several other pegs. Some ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... and a sailor, A tinker and a tailor, Had once a doubtful strife, sir, To make a maid a wife, sir, Whose name was buxom Joan. For now the time was ended, When she no more intended To lick her lips at men, sir, And gnaw the sheets in vain, sir, And ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... massive walls of the Romans, if the noble and pathetic architecture of the Middle Ages, had not been ground to dust by mere human rage. You talk of the scythe of time and the tooth of time; I tell you time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm, we who smite like the scythe. All these lost treasures of human intellect have been wholly destroyed by human industry of destruction; the marble would have stood its 2,000 years as well in the polished statue as in the Parian cliff; but we men have ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... partnership that shall finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. Blessed consummation! Then Poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched where her squalid form may shelter itself. Then Disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw his own heart and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... A creeping, coloured caterpillar, I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray, I nibble it ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... me refuse, "Certain I'll ne'er return. Two deaths enjoy."— The bloodless shadows wept as thus he sung, And struck the strings in concord with his words. Nor Tantalus at flying waters caught; Nor roll'd Ixion's wheel: the liver gnaw'd The birds not: rested on their empty urns The Belides: and Sisyphus, thou sat'st Upon thy stone. Nay fame declares, then first, Vanquish'd by song, the furies felt their cheeks Wetted with tears. Nor could the royal spouse, Nor he who rules deep darkness, him withstand ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... rose on his hind feet, standing higher than a man, and savagely raked the door from top to bottom with his claws while another opened his jaws wide and closed them, his teeth splintering across the smooth surface as he sought to gnaw his way inside. The remaining three circled the cabin, sniffing explosively at the cracks between the logs. Shady was seized with a fit of excessive shivering induced by these dread sounds, and Collins heard her hind leg-joints beating a spasmodic tattoo on the cabin floor. Then ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... to Ambition's sway, I sought for glory in the paths of guile; And fawn'd and smiled, to plunder and betray, Myself betray'd and plunder'd all the while; So gnaw'd the viper the corroding file; But now with pangs of keen remorse, I rue Those years of trouble and debasement vile. Yet why should I this cruel theme pursue? Fly, fly, detested thoughts, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... my heart till it is hard and burning like a thunderbolt! You can go back to your work and your glory, but what is left for me? Memory is a bed of thorns, and secret shame will gnaw at the roots of my life. You came like a wayfarer, sat through the sunny hours in the shade of my garden, and to while time away you plucked all its flowers and wove them into a chain. And now, parting, you snap the thread and let the flowers drop on the dust! ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... wits by which he had lived, bade the Capuchin hold up his wrists. Then he went nosing like a dog, until at last he found them, and his strong teeth fastened upon the cord that bound them, and began with infinite patience to gnaw it through. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... pertained to Sheikh Hamed; as he was not a rich man, he laboured hard to make the most of every shukka and doti expended, and each fresh expenditure seemed to gnaw his very vitals: he was ready to weep, as he himself expressed it, at the high prices of Ugogo, and the extortionate demands of its sultans. For this reason, being the leader of the caravans, so far as he was able we were very sure not to be delayed in ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... twinkle from awakening farm-houses. The moon paled and a whiter light began to steal over the icy fields. Here was the place where he and the old mare had seen for the first time a railroad train. Hunger began to gnaw within him when he saw the smoke rising from a negro cabin down a little lane, and he left the road and moved toward it. At the bars which let into a little barnyard an old negro was milking a cow, and when, at the boy's low cry ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... Bines reports from over Kettle Creek way that the sagebrush whiskey they take a man's two bits for there would gnaw holes in limestone. Peter is likelier to find a ledge of dollar bills than he is good whiskey this far off the main trail. The late Daniel J. could have told him as much, and Daniel J.'s boy, who accompanies Uncle Peter, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... road, over which we had to lead the horses, and haul the carriage separately. At this place we supplicated our agitator for leave to eat a little breakfast; but he would not stop an instant, and we were obliged to snatch up a roll or two apiece and gnaw the dry crusts during our passage to keep soul and body together. We got in soon after one, and I have spent my time in eating, drinking, sleeping, and other recreations, down to the ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... Again are folded round the child she loved And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now, Or but remembered to make sweet the hour That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled Or broke are healed forever. In the room Of this grief-shadowed present, there shall be A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw The heart, and never shall a tender tie Be broken; in whose reign the eternal Change That waits on growth and action shall proceed With ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... least, he is free to profess the truth he had found, and to be one of the instances—very rare indeed they are—of a consistent and steady Protestant, who had for years before been thoroughly imbued with those doctrines which gnaw at the very vitals of mental perception, and obliterate the sense of fairness, and which very seldom leave enough alive in the mind to hold even real ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... apparently watching the brilliant sparks that ever and anon flew up the chimney. But ere long it scented the well-flavoured viand that dangled in the vicinity, and after casting a glance at the face of Joe, and being satisfied that he was insensible to all external objects, stealthily began to gnaw the end of the bone that rested on the hearth. As long as it had in mind the fear of interruption, it was permitted to feast moderately; but when its ravenous propensity urged it to more active and vigorous operations, Joe once more opened his eyes, and after looking slowly ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... a dog that gnaws his bone, I couch and gnaw it all alone— A time will come, which is not yet, When I'll bite him by whom ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... enough of that kind. You must now show that you've that other kind of pluck. You know the story of the boy who would not cry though the wolf was gnawing him underneath his frock. Most of us have some wolf to gnaw us somewhere; but we are generally gnawed beneath our clothes, so that the world doesn't see; and it behoves us so to bear it that the world shall not suspect. The man who goes about declaring himself to be miserable will be not only ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... past is the past, as Wordsworth probably said to Coleridge more than once. It was time for Lord Blight to forget these incidents of his eager and impetuous youth. Yet somehow he could not. Within the last few days his conscience had begun to gnaw him, and in his despair he told himself that at last the day of reckoning had come. Poor Blight! It is difficult to withhold ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... whispers, hisses, shrieks Madness in my ears. I bow my head and find a moment's relief from the anguish of soul in the hot scalding tears which stream down my fevered cheeks. O God of sure mercy, save other young men from the dark and desolate tortures which gnaw at my heart, and press down upon my weary soul! They are all, all, all the work of alcohol. Oh, how true it is—how true few can understand until their lives are a burden of distress and agony to them—that the cup which inebriates stingeth like an adder. When ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... animal ceased for any length of time to wear them down by eating. It is for this reason that rats and mice have such incessant appetites, and that with them "all is fish that comes to the net;" old books, rags, and even planks of wood, which they will gnaw for want of something better. Come what may, they must keep up at an equal rate the wear and tear of the incisors, and the internal growth of the pulp beneath, which is always pushing the tooth forward. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... the edge of the divan, hugging the dressing-gown round him, scowled vindictively at nothing and began thoughtfully to gnaw a ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... declared to Apollo, and Apollo told even to me. You are sailing to Italy, and you shall reach Italy and enter its harbors. But you are not destined to surround your city with a wall, till cruel hunger and vengeance for the wrong you have done us force you to gnaw your very ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... piece of wickedness. He employs for two years all his science as cheat, forger, and poisoner in extending the net which was to entangle a whole family; and, taken in his own snare, he struggles in vain; in vain does he seek to gnaw through the meshes which confine him. The foot placed on the last rung of this ladder of crime, stands also on the first step by which he ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... not go into it. While it was doing this I heard the sound of a man somewhere in the wood. So did the fox, and oh! it looked so frightened. It lay down panting, its tongue hanging out and its ears pressed back against its head, and whisked its big tail from side to side. Then it began to gnaw again, but this time at its own leg. It wanted to bite it off and so get away. I thought this very brave of the fox, and though I hated it because it had eaten my brother and tried to eat me, I ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... hardly comprehend it, Do not comprehend the reason, How thou, Hiisi, here hast wandered, Why thou cam'st, thou evil creature, 170 Thus to bite, and thus to torture, Thus to eat, and thus to gnaw me. Art thou some disease-created Death that Jumala ordains me, Or art thou another creature, Fashioned and unloosed by others, Hired beforehand to torment me, Or hast thou ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... was deserted. The smouldering fires died out with the rising sun, and the silent life of the forest replaced the chatter and the hum of human kind. Giant beetles came from every quarter and carried away pieces of offal; small shy beasts stole out to gnaw the white bones upon which savage teeth had left but little; a gaunt hyena, with suspicious looks, snatched at a bone and dashed back into the jungle. Vultures settled down heavily, and with deliberate air sought out the ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... eke of mice, Of flies and bed-bugs, frogs and lice, Summons thee hither to the door-sill, To gnaw it where, with just a morsel Of oil, he paints the spot for thee:— There com'st thou, hopping on to me! To work, at once! The point which made me craven Is forward, on the ledge, engraven. Another ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... you,' continued Brother Archangias. 'I discovered this hole.... You have disobeyed God, and have slain your own peace. Henceforward, for ever, temptation will gnaw you with its fiery tooth, and you will no longer have ignorance of evil to help you to fight it. It was that creature who tempted you to your fall, was it not? Do you not see the serpent's tail writhing amongst ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... so," he said at last, quietly. "The worn old heart can gnaw on itself a little longer. I have no mind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... bethinks him of a solution for this problem. The broken blade will do to gnaw off this bough, and it will serve to make a split in the end of it. And if one be fortunate, and if this split bestride the tail of the concealed animal, and if the stick ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... and greedily swallow whatever was offered. When he realised the sad truth that a huge hook with a strong barb was hidden inside this tempting dish and that it was no easy matter to disgorge the tasty morsel, he would try to gnaw through the shaft of the hook with his teeth. Very occasionally he might succeed, but usually his efforts failed. Attached to the book was a length of strong iron chain; and sometimes, though defeated by the hook, he would manage to snip through ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... heed to the firing of a gun, but became alert at the cracking of a nut; sometimes grew wildly angry; all his powers were then enlarged; was delighted with hills and woods, and always tried to escape after being taken to them; when angry would gnaw clothing and hurl furniture about; feared to look from a height, and Itard cured him of spasms of rage by holding his head out of a window; met all efforts to teach him with apathy, and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... or wood, with the edges round and smooth, and care should be taken to keep it sweet and clean. At this period a moderate looseness, and a copious flow of saliva, are favourable symptoms. With a view to promote the latter, the child should be suffered to gnaw such substances as tend to mollify the gums, and by their pressure to facilitate the appearance of the teeth. A piece of liquorice or marshmallow root will be serviceable, or the gums may be softened and relaxed by rubbing them with ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... poor Folks may eat Cockles or Frogs, or may gnaw upon Onions or Leeks. The middle Sort of People will make some Abatement in their usual Provision; and though the Rich do make it an Occasion of living deliciously, they ought to impute that to their Gluttony, and not blame the ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... a little further, and she met a rat. So she said, "Rat! rat! gnaw rope; rope won't hang butcher; butcher won't kill ox; ox won't drink water; water won't quench fire; fire won't burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog won't bite pig; pig won't get over the stile; and I shan't get home till midnight." But the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... Uncle Toby. "It's for Skyrocket. I want to get him a nice bone to gnaw. It will keep him quiet on the ride," he explained. "I'm going to get a fine, juicy bone ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... beastly expensive—but whenever I have I simply bite bits off it as I happen to want them. But I know that's not polite. If you prefer it, Cousin Frank, you can gouge out a chunk or two with your knife before I gnaw it." ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... to the cage, Skirrl began to gnaw at the boxes, trying with all his might to tear them to pieces. After some thirty minutes of such effort, interrupted by wanderings about the cage and attempts to get at the other monkeys, he suddenly ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... not where it leads. And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth, And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth. And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire, And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire. And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where the orchid glows, And you rave to your grave with the fever, and they rob the corpse for its clothes. And sometimes ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... eat bread of fir-bark; in our own fields the mouse, if pressed for food in winter, will gnaw the bark of sapling trees. Frost sharpens the teeth like a file, and hunger is keener than frost. If any one used to more fertile scenes had walked across the barren meads Mr. Roberts rented as the summer declined, he would have said that a living could ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... been occupied. His Grand Vizier, Safikuli Khan, is advancing with a large army against the son of Kueprili, and the darkness of defeat threatens to obscure the sun-like radiance of the Ottoman arms. Most puissant Padishah! suffer not the tooth of disaster to gnaw away at thy glory! The Grand Vizier and I have already gathered together thy host on the shores of the Bosphorus. They are ready, at a moment's notice, to embark in the ships prepared for them. Money and provisions in abundance have been sent to the frontier ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... declared that he was not hungry. He went to the window and, pulling back the curtain, stared out into the night. Was all the rest of life going to be like this? Was that restless, nervous, intolerable pain going to gnaw at his ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... a dead pig or sheep; it was the cobbler's turn, and he had it, cut it up, and salted it down. But when in course of time he came to partake of his side of bacon, behold it was so tough and dried up that even he could not gnaw it. The side hung in the cottage for months, for he did not like to throw it away, and could not think what to do with it, for the dogs could not eat it. At last the old fellow hit upon the notion of using it as leather to mend shoes; ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... at his love for my mother; speaking of himself throughout as Rene might, as of her humble devoted servant merely. And then the question began to gnaw at me. "Did she love him?" and somehow, I felt as if I could not rest till I knew; and I had it on my lips twenty times to cry out to him: "I know you loved her: oh! tell me, did she love you?" And yet I dared no more have done so, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... were vitiated by foreign influence, permitted the bones of game slain in the chase to be broken, or left carelessly about the encampment. They were collected in heaps, or thrown into the water. Mrs. Eastman observes that even yet the Dakotas deem it an omen of ill luck in the hunt, if the dogs gnaw the bones or a woman inadvertently steps over them; and the Chipeway interpreter, John Tanner, speaks of the same fear among that tribe. The Yurucares of Bolivia carried it to such an inconvenient ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... not immoderate in their grief. The deception might have been deeper, and the loss more alarming and great. And then what was their grief at that hour, compared with the misery that must gnaw at the hearts of the deceivers, as inseparable from their guilt. What gift in the wide world would tempt them to exchange places with the wretched creatures? What a thorny road of perdition must their way of ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... to a distance. I profit by the occasion and take hold of the grub. The legs of this third segment only are paralysed; the others retain their usual mobility. However helpless in the two injured legs, the animal can walk very well; it buries itself in the earth, returning to the surface at night to gnaw the stump of lettuce with which I have served it. For a fortnight my paralytic retains perfect liberty of action, except in the segment operated on; then it dies, not of its wound but accidentally. ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... what had happened, his wonder as to what would come next, and the hunger that had begun to gnaw at him, Clare could not sleep. And as he lay awake, thoughts ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... gnaw at the pit of our stomachs, we had cut down our meals to the minimum amount of food that would keep us alive; we were so weak we no longer were sure where our feet were going to when we put them down. But all the fish we had to smoke was two or three. And on Friday ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... restored him for a short time to reason, and he would crawl up the bank and gnaw a morsel of the maple sugar; but he could not eat much, for it was in a tough, compact cake, which his jaws had not power to break. All that day and the next night he lay on the banks of the salt stream, or rushed wildly over the plain. It was about noon of the second day after ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... of him began to gnaw at my heart ... I dreamed still of what I would do when I had grown to be a man ... but now it was not any more to be a great traveller or explorer, but to grow into a strong man and kill my uncle, first putting him to some savage form of torture ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... dusky, silent street, paved with cobble-stones, I became aware that it was not mere gratitude which was guiding my steps towards the house with the old garden, where for years no guest other than myself had ever dined. Mere gratitude does not gnaw at one's interior economy in that particular way. Hunger might; but I was not feeling particularly hungry ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Rev. J. Hinton Knowles' Folk-Tales of Kashmir a merchant gives his stupid son a small coin with which he is to purchase something to eat, something to drink, something to gnaw, something to sow in the garden, and some food for the cow. A clever young girl advises him to buy a water-melon, which would answer ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... eat since the evening before; and pangs of hunger began to gnaw him. He walked a short way toward a large, grey rock near which he heard a gurgling sound; and as he advanced he saw that a little stream of water gushed from beneath the base. He drank copiously of the pure, cold spring, and bathed his temples; but in carrying the ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... not how he will eat out his heart, while his friends gnaw their thick fists for that they are deprived of the battle? So are you ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... to me, the only thing to be done. But I had the courage to hold my tongue, to gnaw at my entrails like the Spartan boy. I wished to leave ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... young Potentate o'Wales, I tell your highness fairly, Down Pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, I'm tauld ye're driving rarely; But some day ye may gnaw your nails, An' curse your folly sairly, That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie By ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... and wife are mated well, In harmony together dwell, Are faithful to each other, The streams of bliss flow constantly What bliss of angels is on high From hence may we discover; No storm, No worm Can destroy it, Can e'er gnaw it, What God giveth To the pair that ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... our outward sufferings (though These were enough to gnaw into our souls) Hath stung me oft, and, more than ever, now. When, but for this untoward sickness, which Seized me upon this desolate frontier, and 50 Hath wasted, not alone my strength, but means, And leaves us—no! this is beyond me!—but For this I had been ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... full length beside a spring among the mountains, where he and his friends often camped to eat their dinner during their hunting expeditions. Roderick stood close by, lazily cropping the grass, but Marmion was not in sight. The last time his master saw him, he was trying to gnaw his way into a hollow log where a ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... amid the chips, now at noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bull-dogs. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... insist upon bringing in some sort of bone!" but I begged her to let him gnaw them inside because it was so cold. Having been granted this privilege, he settled himself at my back and I became absorbed in some specially nice arrows ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman |
