"Withering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of yours," said his friend, glancing at him. "If he had been a countryman of mine there would have been less marvel. But here is none of the sadness of decay none of the withering if the tokens of old age are seen at all it is in the majestic honours that crown a glorious life the graces of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always dinning decay and death into one's ears; this speaks of Life. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... grown in the open in the same manner as Hyacinths. Five or six bulbs in a 5-in. pot make a very pretty bouquet. They are excellent early flowers, and very odoriferous. Plant in autumn, placing sand round the bulbs. Best not disturbed too often. The leaves should not be cut off when withering, but allowed to die down. They bloom ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... "Remarks" on that publication, in which he exposes their shortcomings with a master's hand, in a style as terse as it is bold, and as elegant as it is severe; never were the weapons of irony, satire, and invective more effectively used; his impeachment is as withering as his victory at the trial was complete. The authors of the "Vindications" had not only done what in them lay to ruin him in every conceivable way, public and private, but they had exposed themselves to his "Remarks," all-pungent as they were, by going into court and giving opinions ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... gets a whiff of it gets some idea of the breath of a common lodging-house. And its moral breath has its effect, too! Woe to all that is fresh and fair, young and hopeful, that comes within its withering influence. Farewell! a long farewell to honour, truth and self-respect, for the hot breath of a common lodging-house will blast those and every other good quality in young people of either sex that inhale it. Its breath comes upon them, and lo! they become foul without ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... are generally to be found. Indeed, wherever vegetation can be sustained, there they are, affording protection to the roots and seeds of more delicate vegetables, and, by their spongy texture, retaining a moisture which preserves other plants from the withering drought of summer. But even in winter we find them enlivening, by their verdure, the cold bosom of Nature. We see them abounding in our pastures and our woods, attaching themselves to the living, and still more abundantly to the dead, trunks and branches of trees. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... far forgot herself as to address her as Viney Raymond, the new free woman's head went up and she said with withering emphasis: ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... misquote thee, and distort thy meanings with such excellent bitter jesting, that thou thyself shall scarcely recognize thine own production! By Nagaya's Shrine! what a feast 'twill be for my delectation!"—and he rubbed his hands gleefully—"With what a weight of withering analysis I can pulverize this idol of 'Nourhalma' into the dust and ashes of a common ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... all my sweet charity-blossoms, that unfolded such a little time ago, when Sophie was reading to me? Surely the time of withering had not come so soon? An untimely frost must have withered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the right and mingle their masses at the head of the obstacle and thus their movements would be obstructed. It seemed to have the anticipated effect and the assaulting columns apparently jumbled together at this point were met by the withering volleys of McKethan's direct and Gaillard's cross-fire and by the direct discharge of the shell guns, supplemented by the frightful enfilading discharges of the lighter guns upon the right and left. It was terrible, but with an unsurpassed gallantry the Federal ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... family—that the same bloody deed might be acted over at any time, and in any place—that the materials for it were spread through the land, and were always ready for a like explosion. Nothing but the force of this withering apprehension, nothing but the paralyzing and deadening weight with which it falls upon and prostrates the heart of every man who has helpless dependants to protect, nothing but this could have thrown a ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... restrained with that restraint which is put over the feelings by a strong nature, and yet can not hide that consuming passion which underlies all the words, and makes them burn with intensest heat. Here the hot fire of his indignation seemed to be expressed in a blighting and withering power; and Hilda shrank within herself involuntarily in fear, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the pleasant month of June, sometime, maybe six or eight days, after the birth-day of our good old King George the Third—for I recollect the withering branches of lily-oak and flowers still sticking up behind the signs, and over the lamp-posts,—that my respected acquaintance and customer, Peter Farrel the baker, to whom I have made many a good suit of pepper-and-salt clothes—which he preferred ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... stream lowered and opened suddenly. The withering force of the blast struck him, the snow buffeted him, and for a moment he stood held in his tracks, then the wind momentarily slackened, and dimly through the driving snow he caught sight of something ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... come again— Frown on him! He comes with a withering breath, With a gloomy scowl, With a shriek and a howl, Freezing Nature to death! He stamps on the hills, He fetters the rills, And every hollow with snow he fills! Frown on the monster grim and old, With snowy robes and with fingers ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... withering rebuke to a conceited though clever young statesman, Lord Nugent, who, in a previous part of the debate, insisted that the honour and dignity of the kingdom obligated them to compel the execution of the Stamp Act, "unless the right was acknowledged and the repeal solicited as a favour," concluding ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... unchanging kindness balance patched elbows? are not cracked boots receipts in full for hours of anxious love and care? does not the kindness of a life fade "like the baseless fabric of a vision" before the withering touch of poverty's stern stamp? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... gasped. "Miss Blake," she cried at length, horrified at the bold assertion, and endeavouring to quail her audacious pupil with one stern, withering glance, "this is dreadful!" But the angry child only pouted, and repeated ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... stamp of a foot (he shrank with involuntary memory), then retreating steps. In a conquering career Miss Cecily Wayne had never before been snubbed by any male creature. If her wishes could have been transformed into fact, the yearned-for wave might have been spared any trouble; a swifter and more withering death would have ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... termination. Doubtless the All-wise did not afflict him without a cause. Who knows but within that unhappy frame lurked vicious seeds which the sunbeams of joy and prosperity might have called into life and vigour? Perhaps the withering blasts of misery nipped that which otherwise might have terminated in fruit noxious and lamentable. But peace to the unhappy one, he is gone to his rest; the deathlike face is no longer occasionally seen timidly and mournfully looking for ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... - That by custom of this clime, Even from immemorial time, We, or our forefathers old (As in Withering's list enrolled) Have in occupation been Of all nooks and corners green Where the swelling meadows sweet With the waving woodlands meet. There we peep and disappear, There, in games to fairies dear All the spring-tide hours we spend, Hiding, seeking without end. And sometimes a ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... their losses, but their wise leader saw that he must give them a breathing-spell. No troops in the world could stand a fire so withering as that which came from the repeating-rifles of the desperadoes. Quite as many ponies as men had gone down, and their morning's plunder had already cost them more than it was worth. Therefore it must not be permitted ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... to sing itself to me at large from an outer world which at this moment is all gray and roaring. To-day the year is bowing itself out tempestuously, as if angry at having to go. Dear golden year! I am sorry to see its face so changed and withering: it has held so much for us both. Yet I am feeling vigorous and quite like spring. All the seasons have their marches, with buffetings and border-forays: this is an autumn march-wind; before long I shall be out into it, and up the hill to look over at your territory and ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... Kate, Pete, and the constable, "there'll be no more of your practices. I'll do without the music of three saints like you. In future I'll have three sinners to raise my singing. These polices, too!" he said with a withering smile. (Niplightly was worming his way out at the back ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... been shown that in folk-tales the life of a person is sometimes so bound up with the life of a plant that the withering of the plant will immediately follow or be followed by the death of the person. Among the M'Bengas in Western Africa, about the Gaboon, when two children are born on the same day, the people plant two trees of the same kind ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... shrouded and dimmed in an orange tawny haze of infinite distance. In the immediate foreground of this majestic display, like a handful of rose-leaves fallen out of heaven, small clouds floated directly downward, withering to blackness as they neared the earth and lost the dying fires. Beneath the splendor of the sky the land likewise flamed, the winding roadways glimmered, and many pools and ditches reflected back the circumambient ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... as the warm weather closed in, in the summer of 1604, the malaria in the Tower began to affect Raleigh's health. As he tells Cecil, now Lord Cranborne, in a most dolorous letter, he was withering in body and mind. The plague had come close to him, his son having lain a fortnight with only a paper wall between him and a woman whose child was dying of that terrible complaint. Lady Raleigh, at last, had been able to bear the terror of infection no longer, and had departed with little ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... thirty yards away, and coming fast, but the withering hail of lead that greeted them crumpled their front line as though it were made of paper. The others, unable to see their assailants, wavered a minute, and then broke, with the exception ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... tumble over the chairs, or knock things off the table, or fall on the bed, or something horrid, and papa'd have me put out. Then I'm sure matters would be worse than they are now. 'Tisn't that I'm afraid,"—with a withering glance at me,—"and I do feel awfully sorry about papa; but all the same, I don't want to be the one to speak to him about the Fetich,—I don't think it's my place: how much attention do you suppose ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... the whole of our force springing into view, opened so withering a fire, that the front ranks of the foe fell into confusion. The next column coming on was treated in the same manner as the first. The big guns meanwhile battered at our earthworks, knocking down walls, and sent their ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... that whenever the occasion demands it his style rises to supreme force and beauty. The metamorphosis of the serpent, the entry of Lamia and Lycius into Corinth, the building by Lamia of the Fairy Hall, and her final withering under the eye of Apollonius—these are the most important points in the story, and the passages in which they are described are also the ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... corroding anguish in his bosom that neither could be soothed "by silence nor by speaking." A devouring melancholy preyed upon his heart, and seemed to be drying up the very blood in his veins. It was not a soft melancholy—the disease of the affections; but a parching, withering agony. I could see at times that his mouth was dry and feverish; he almost panted rather than breathed; his eyes were bloodshot; his cheeks pale and livid; with now and then faint streaks athwart them—baleful gleams of the fire that was consuming his heart. As my arm ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... person's shallow cleverness and conventional good-temper is more withering to the soul of the artist than the blindest bigotry which has the recklessness of genuine passion ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... and oilily.) My dear Mrs. Chalmers. I assure you the whole circumstance is unfortunate. But you are so palpably in the wrong that I cannot interfere—(Margaret turns from him in withering scorn.)—That ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... prolonged and withering glare, plucked a hairpin from her head and ostentatiously proceeded to skewer together the starchy white curtains that framed the window. Privacy secured and the sanctity of the English home thus pointedly vindicated, she and her husband disappeared into the murky background, ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... She looked to him for protection. She leaned upon his strength. She needed him. He could not—it almost seemed as if in common chivalry he could not—reveal to her the contemptible weakness which lay like a withering blight upon his whole nature. To own himself the slave of a married woman, and that woman her closest friend, would be to throw her utterly upon her own resources at a time when she most needed the support and guidance of a helping hand. Moreover, the episode ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... "Oh, Chesnel, no one but you would think of such a thing!" she added, with a withering look; before such a look from a woman's eyes no mortal can stand. "There is but one crime that a noble can commit—the crime of high treason; and when he is beheaded, the block is covered with a black cloth, as it ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... for he rever'd His mother's word; and so, thus standing there, He shouted; and Minerva, to his shout, Added a dreadful cry; and there arose Among the Trojans an unspeakable tumult. And as the clear voice of a trumpet, blown Against a town by spirit-withering foes, So sprang the clear voice of Aeacides. And when they heard the brazen cry, their hearts All leap'd within them; and the proud-maned horses Ran with the chariots round, for they foresaw Calamity; and the charioteers ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... wind Corn-fields bow the head, Sheltered in round valley depths, On low hills outspread. Early leaves drop loitering down Weightless on the breeze, First fruits of the year's decay From the withering trees. ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... by Sir Duncan," continued MacEagh, "and my brother was slain—his head was withering on the battlements which we scaled—I vowed revenge, and it is a vow I have ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... man I was continually measuring my strength; and as I conceived that I found, myself woefully wanting, he proved an excellent moral sedative to my else too rampant vanity. Few, indeed, were the persons who could feel themselves at ease under the withering sarcasms of his intolerable insolence. Much more to their astonishment than to their instruction, he would very coolly, and the more especially when ladies were present, correct the divinity of the parson, the pharmacy of the doctor, and the law of the attorney; and with that ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... method of fighting on foot more effective—we could maneuver with more certainty, and sustain less and inflict more loss. "The long flexible line curving forward at each extremity," as an excellent writer described it, was very hard to break; if forced back at one point, a withering fire from every other would be poured in on the assailant. It admitted, too, of such facility of maneuvering, it could be thrown about like a rope, and by simply facing to the right or left, and double-quicking in the same direction, every man ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... day by day, does the fever-fire trace Its incessant course down her fast-withering cheek, Till the smile that made light in the glow of her face, But the faint, fading glimpses of vigour bespeak, And her reason will fitfully pass into night— Into night even deeper than that of the blind, As the shade of the gibbet-tree ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... the dead child's young companions, a fifth walking behind with the ribboned coffin-lid. I have often seen these touching little parties moving through the bustling streets, the peaceful small face asleep under the open sky, decked with the fading roses and withering lilies. In all well-to-do families the house of death is deserted immediately after the funeral. The stricken ones retire to some other habitation, and there pass eight days in strict and inviolable seclusion. On the ninth day the great masses for the repose of the soul ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Miss Daisy. She flounced her full skirts, cast a withering glance at young Bell, and once more looked out ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... alas! goes by; And what ensues? The languid eye, The failing frame, the soul o'ercast; 'Tis WINTER'S sickening, withering blast, Life's blessed season—for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... In yonder rippling bay, their naval host Did many a Roman chief and Asian King[15.B.] To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring: Look where the second Caesar's trophies rose![147][16.B.] Now, like the hands that reared them, withering: Imperial Anarchs, doubling human woes![ez] GOD! was thy globe ordained for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... to try again, this time successfully. He began to fasten the girth, and then paused in wonder and thought deeply, for the pin in the buckle would slide to no hole but the first. "Huh! Getting fat, ain't you, piebald?" he demanded with withering sarcasm. "You blow yoreself up any more'n I'll bust you wide open!" heaving up with all his might on the free end of the strap, one knee pushing against the animal's side. The "fat" disappeared and Hopalong laughed. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... without disappointment. But a young man had now spoken to her, to Linda,—had spoken to her words that she did not dare to repeat to any one,—had spoken to her twice, thrice, and she had not rebuked him. She had not, at least, rebuked him with that withering scorn which the circumstances had surely required, and which would have made him know that she regarded him as one sent purposely from the Evil One to tempt her. Now again had come upon her some terrible half-formed idea that it would be ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... sharply. "Ain't 'knowin'' my business? Psha!" His contempt was withering. Then his manner changed back to the triumph which the notice had inspired. "Say, it's a great piece of money. It surely is some bunch. Ten thousand dollars! Gee! His game's up. Lightfoot's as good as kickin' his heels agin the breezes. He's played ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... vomit death into the fated ten thousand. They halted, they stood their ground a moment against that withering deluge of fire, then they broke, faced about and swept toward the ditch like chaff before a gale. A full fourth part of their force never reached the top of the lofty embankment; the three-fourths reached it and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... saw that in a sudden vision of ruin! She would be noble to the uttermost limit of nobleness. She would threaten to destroy herself—and so he would save her! She would bid him cast her away—and so he would stand by her to the end! And the end would be simply the withering and shrivelling of those radiant qualities which he called his genius—qualities which were so precious to him, but about ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... I've a withering reply, And vanity I always do my best to mortify; A charitable action I can skilfully dissect; And interested motives I'm delighted to detect. I know everybody's income and what everybody earns, And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns; But to benefit humanity, however ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... the dead literalism of their teachings, and the absence of the spirit of righteousness and virile morality therefrom; and in such denunciations the Pharisees are often coupled with the scribes. The judgment of the Christ upon them is sufficiently expressed by His withering imprecation: "Woe unto ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... which the scene takes place, the actual hour, the poet, no doubt in obedience to a law dictated to him by his public, kept his characters in communication with earth and heaven, with the dawn he described, the moon he painted, the evening he caused to be seen, the plants he portrayed as withering or reviving, the birds which he showed everywhere in the country or returning ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... mutual kindness, and he now stood forth to avenge them with a good will. The friends of Verres tried to procure a Praevaricatio, or sham accusation, conducted by a friend of the defendant, but Cicero stopped this by his brilliant and withering invective on Caecilius, the unlucky candidate for this dishonourable office. The judges, who were all senators, could not but award the prosecution to Cicero, who, determined to obtain a conviction, conducted it with the utmost despatch. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... left flank of the defenders. They saw the tall figure of Timmendiquas, a very god of war, leading on the Indians, with his fearless Wyandots in a close cluster around him. Colonel John Durkee, gathering up a force of fifty or sixty, charged straight at the warriors, but he was killed by a withering volley, which drove ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fell. The colonel fell beside me. I felt myself dying. I thought of those I loved, and fainted whilst searching with a withering hand ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... rode over, and made excuses for Matilda, who thought it wrong to go into society so soon after her husband's death. Finally, the constable appeared in full regimentals, with the stalwart Mrs. Rigby on his arm. That lady bestowed on the faithless Ben a glance of withering contempt, but the constable shook hands with him, as if he had been his ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... of the poplar, and striking the hard surface of the road at a distance of fifty yards scattered itself like a huge ingot dropped from a blast furnace. Great clouds of dust descended and choked him. A withering ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... the human eye, that Mr. Hargrove threw instantly upon Frank; while his fine form sprung up erect. He did not speak, but merely transfixed him with a look. Frank curled his lip impotently, as he tried to return the old man's withering glances. ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... grows, unpruned, untamed, Terror to foemen's spear, A tree in Asian soil unnamed, By Pelops' Dorian isle unclaimed, Self-nurtured year by year; 'Tis the grey-leaved olive that feeds our boys; Nor youth nor withering age destroys The plant that the Olive Planter tends And the Grey-eyed ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... have found the garden—except, perhaps, for the big yellow pumpkins that lay about unprotected by their withering vines—and I felt very little interest in it when I got there. I wanted to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which could not be very far away. The light air about me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... feeling my eyes upon her, she looked up and met what she must have thought the impudent stare of an appraiser. Her face, which had been without color, pale and clear like the sky about the evening star, went crimson in a moment. She bit her lip and shot at me one withering glance, then dropped her eyelids and hid the lightning. When I looked at her again, covertly, and from under my hand raised as though to push back my hair, she was pale once more, and her dark eyes were fixed upon the water and the green ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of short range weapons had instant effect. The enemy fell back under the withering hail. Headed by Seth a dozen men mounted the ramparts, and the next instant the vast corral formed a circle of leaping flame in the faces of the besiegers. The coal-oil had done its work, and the resinous pine logs yielded to the demands of those ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... sunset flushed the camp As on the hill their eyes they fed; The pickets dumb looks at the wagon dart; A handkerchief waves from the bannered tent— As white, alas! the face of the dead: Who shall the withering news impart? The bullet of Mosby ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... know it, The dream that all is a dream; The joy with the doubt below it That the bright things only seem. One moment of sad commotion, And one of doubt's withering rule— And the great wave-pulsing ocean ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... we put the bottom paddock under potatoes. Dad was standing contemplating the tops, which were withering for want of rain. He shifted his gaze to the ten acres sown with corn. A dozen stalks or so were looking well; a few more, ten or twelve inches high, were coming in cob; the rest had n't made ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... hope so!" exclaimed Elise, with a withering glance. "The idea of anybody being in such company as you ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... is even colder than it was, stronger and more withering now that the sun's faint warmth is withdrawn, and that the small and chilly stars possess the sky. Nevertheless, both the school-room windows are open. We are all huddled shivering round the hearth, yet no one talks of closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, though a graceful ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... long applause, perhaps, that the Professor was relieved from the explanation of this rather astounding phenomenon of the idealistic workings of a purely practical brain—or, as my impious friend scoffed the incongruity later, in a particularly withering allusion, as the "blank- blanked fallacy, don't you know, of staying the hunger of a howling mob by feeding 'em on ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... nature!—which characterize Mrs. Stowe's immortal book. Yet I feel assured that the effect produced by Uncle Tom's Cabin is not mainly or chiefly to be traced to the interest of the narrative, however captivating, nor to the exposures of the slave system, however withering: these would, indeed, be sufficient to produce a good effect; but this book contains more and better than even these; it contains what will never be lost sight of—the genuine application to the several branches of the subject ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... is this smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to sacrifice our moral manhood; this frown of the world, whose terrors are more awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of light within the souls of us? Consider the triviality of life and conversation and purpose, in the bulk of those whose approval is held out for our prize and the mark of ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... them.—"Ask, and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you," &c. It is believed, and no doubt it may be argued with success, that the moral and religious state of man really required a divine revelation. Never did the parched ground, the withering plant, the thirsty herds need the showers from heaven, more than man, that WORD of life which descended as the rain and distilled as the dew, when the gospel was published by a cloud of faithful witnesses, called of ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... Their spirits are humiliated and debased by a sense of inferiority, and their native courage cowed and daunted by the superior knowledge and power of their enlightened neighbors. Society has advanced upon them like one of those withering airs that will sometimes breed desolation over a whole region of fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied their diseases, and superinduced upon their original barbarity the low vices of artificial life. It has ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... evil which came in consequence of the discharge of the volunteers, and prove its willingness to do right. Triumphantly did the Administration vindicate itself in the eyes of good people, and again did it place its withering disapproval upon the conduct of those who were ready to shout their applause over the worthy black officer's accidental humiliation. The Negro officer disappeared from the United States' Regiments as a Lieutenant ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... did not stop here. Death rarely lays his withering hand upon one household flower without touching another, and causing it to droop, wither, and fall to the ground. So it was in this case. William, the manly, intelligent, promising boy, upon whom the father had ever looked with love and pride so evenly balanced, that the preponderance ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... monotonous path lengthening out before them, with neither great joy to lighten it, or great sorrow to darken it, the same commonplace cares and duties until the end. 'This is doing us no good,' they think; 'life is slowly withering, zeal is gone. A flower cannot bloom in the desert! Let me go to a ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... the unity of purpose connecting this myriad of wills, and in the blind but unerring aim at a mark so remote, there is something which recalls to the mind those Almighty instincts that propel the migrations of the swallow, or the life- withering marches of the locust. Then again, in the gloomy vengeance of Russia and her vast artillery, which hung upon the rear and the skirts of the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of Miltonic images—such, for instance, as that of the solitary hand pursuing ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... saw the rugged mountain start to life with armed men! Like a tempest down the ridges swept the hurricane of steel, Rose the slogan of Macdonald—flash'd the broadsword of Lochiel! Vainly sped the withering volley 'mongst the foremost of our band, On we pour'd until we met them, foot to foot, and hand to hand. Horse and man went down like drift-wood, when the floods are black at Yule, And their carcasses are whirling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... of the Transvaal—and that without seeing a solitary Boer or having to fire a single bullet. The French historian of the Peninsular War declares that "the English were the best marksmen in Europe—indeed the only troops who were perfectly practised in the use of small arms." But then their withering volleys were sometimes fired at a distance of only a few yards from the wavering masses of their foes, and under such conditions good marksmanship is easy to attain. A blind man might bet he would not miss. On the other hand, he must be a good shot indeed ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... but remains a dreary waste, fenced about with broken gravestones, the one fresh green spot is the corner occupied by the monument{1} erected to the memory of Mary Wollstonecraft, and separated from the open space by an iron railing. There is no sign of withering willows in this enclosure. Its trees are of goodly growth and fair promise. And, like them, her character now flourishes, for justice is at ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... insight into the things of earth. They remembered better that Christ blasted a fig-tree for doing what the Father bade the poor plant do, than his tender dwelling upon grasses and lilies, sparrow and sheep. The withering of the tree made an allegory: while the love of flowers and streams was to those simple hearts perhaps an unaccountable, almost an eccentric thing. But had Christ drawn human breath in our bleaker Northern air, he would have perhaps, if those that surrounded him had ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the horses and let them refresh themselves by rolling on the sandy soil, and graze after a fashion upon the coarse tufts of withering herbage which grew around. There was no water here; but this did not so much matter, for both they and we had drunk at a little muddy pool we found not more than an hour before. We were finishing our meal of the food that we had brought with ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... pity we didn't leave long ago," suggested Jack Rynson, between whom and Amy there existed a sort of armed truce, "so that you could discover what a country morning was like." But before Amy could form a sufficiently withering reply, a tiny bird, perched on the topmost bough of a neighboring tree, had burst into such music that the little party stood silenced, and even playful ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... 'A withering fire from hundreds of rifles mowed down the troops like grass. Their gallant commander, Yeodskeemoff, fell dead, pierced by a dozen bullets. The captain of the grenadier company strode over his ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Prince. They have forced the only vigorous branch from the dying trunk—they have lopped the withering stem of its most promising shoot—they have exposed the sole companion of my labors and pleasures, the child to whom I have looked to close my eyes, when it shall please God to call me away, untaught, and young in lessons of honesty and virtue, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... withering kisses Have long set the Loves at defiance, Now, done with the science of blisses, May fly to the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... the consequence? The consequence was, that Simmins and Timmins cut when they met at Westminster; that Mrs. Simmins sent back all the books which she had borrowed from Rosa, with a withering note of thanks; that Rosa goes about saying that Mrs. Simmins squints; that Mrs. S., on her side, declares that Rosa is crooked, and behaved shamefully to Captain Hicks in marrying Fitzroy over him, though she was forced to do it by her mother, and prefers ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lazy days on the Palomar. June had cast its withering smile upon the San Gregorio and the green hills had turned to a parched brown. Grasshoppers whirred everywhere; squirrels whistled; occasional little dust-devils whirled up the now thoroughly dry river-bed ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... of August, everywhere in woods and swamps, we are reminded of the fall, both by the richly spotted Sarsaparilla-leaves and Brakes, and the withering and blackened Skunk-Cabbage and Hellebore, and, by the river-side, the already ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... full of vital joy Uttered in rhythmic movements manifold, And sunbeams flashing on the face of things Like sudden smilings of divine delight,— A world of many sorrows too, revealed In fading flowers and withering leaves and dark Tear-laden clouds, and tearless, clinging mists That hung above the earth too sad to weep,— A world of fluent change, and changeless flow, And infinite suggestion of new thought, Reflected in the crystal of the heart,— A world of many meanings but no ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... redskins. Our little column stopped short, confused and panic-stricken, and for a brief instant we stood huddled in the narrow valley like sheep. Our muskets were lifted, but no foes were insight; we expected a withering fusillade to ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... quaint but half-destroyed little place consisting of one long street of ruined whitewashed houses—and looks towards the hills eastward, low concrete walls can be seen, half hidden, but speaking mutely of the withering storm of shell that had, in 1914, burst from them and swept ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... remember, as if it were but yesterday, the silent response which my heart made, when my uncle pronounced that withering sentence on me. "No!" was my indignant exclamation; "I may deserve a hundred public deaths; but if I know myself, I would never undergo one!—NOR WILL I." When that which I have written shall be read—other hopes and fears—other ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... manifested in the flesh, in the basest, naughtiest, and most corruptible of all the creatures, even the very dregs of the creation, that have sunk down to the bottom! "All flesh is grass;" and what more withering and fading, even the flower and perfection of it! Is. xl. 6. Dust it is, and what baser? Gen. xviii. 27. And corruption it is, and what viler? 1 Cor. xv. 44. And yet God sent his Son in the flesh. Is this a manifestation? ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... do you mean? It is the only way to save her. Once we are married, she will forget. No doubt she will shed a few tears; but to save the body we must often lose a limb. It is even so. Things cannot go on as they are. We cannot watch her withering away under our very eyes; and that is what is actually happening. I have thought it all over, considered it from every point of view, and have come to the conclusion that—that, well, that we had better marry. You must have seen that I always liked you. ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... experiences of the past year had left traces which no after experience would be able to obliterate. She looked ten years older. Her wonderful dark eyes, glowing with a soft tender fire alone remained untouched by the withering hand of anxious love. They were as vital as ever they had been, and when Cornelia said so, she answered, "That is because my soul dwells in them, and my soul is always young. I have had a year, Cornelia, to crumble the body to ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... heat of the underlying stone would accelerate growth. Such premature and feeble shoots perish as quickly as they spring up; the fierce Eastern sun makes a speedy end of them, and a few days sees their springing and withering. It is a case of 'lightly come, lightly go.' Quick-sprouting herbs are soon-dying herbs. A shallow pond is up in waves under a breeze which raises no sea on the Atlantic, and it is calm again in a few minutes. Readily stirred emotion is transient. Brushwood catches fire ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... a tender sigh Is flung upon your wing; Lose not the treasure as ye fly, Bear it where love and beauty lie, Silent and withering. ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... away, and September came to produce a new aspect of beauty in the landscape, by tinging the fading flowers and withering leaves with various shades of brown and crimson, purple and orange. One day, early in the month, when Tom came with the carriage, she told him to drive to Magnolia Lawn. She had long been wishing to revisit the ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... a withering look of intense hatred on the form of the nearly-unconscious prisoner, and then ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close: And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair;— And longer had she sung:—but with a frown Revenge impatient rose: He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down; And with a withering look The war-denouncing trumpet took And blew a blast so loud and dread, Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe! And ever and anon he beat The doubling drum with furious heat; And, though sometimes, each each dreary pause between, Dejected Pity at his side Her soul-subduing voice ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... put on a fondness which suddenly became a withering droop of the eyes: "Don't mince your smile so, grannie dear, I can hear the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... white flag to coax our men to stop firing. Then, in awe-inspiring tones, he sobs forth a tale of dark and dismal war, how our soldiers respected the white flag and rested on their arms, only to be mowed down by a withering rifle fire from the canaille who represent the enemy in the field. Having got so far, he does not feel justified in stopping until he has thrown in some flowery language concerning a Boer cannonade ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... was a free man then; at least I believed myself so. While I proclaimed the love of God to sinners, I also preached vehemently against sin. I never felt myself more at home than when I was painting the miserable bondage of those whom Satan held in his chains. I could speak with withering scorn of such as made a profession while they were living in any known wickedness. I was specially severe upon the drunkard's sin. But preaching such as mine, and in a large church, was very exhausting. I found that I wanted support; so I began with an egg beaten up with brandy, and took it ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... before me, but his body Torn by those hungry wolves! O grant my prayer, That I may see, before I die, the seed Of Irij hurl just vengeance on the heads Of his assassins; hear, O hear my prayer." —Thus he in sorrow for his favourite son Obscured the light which might have sparkled still, Withering the jasmine flower of happy days; So that his pale ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... dried miraculously in her eyes, her lips shut tightly together, and she flashed a withering glance at Marion. Then she rose and scattering her sympathizers right and left walked directly across the room to Perry, who also rose and stood looking at her in terror. Again silence crept ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... humiliating! It was more than Nan could bear. She sprang to her feet and without a word—with nothing but a glance of withering scorn at Delia—swept out of the room and ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... rain-maker wraps some leaves of a red and green striped creeper in a banana-leaf, moistens the bundle with water, and buries it in the ground; then he imitates with his mouth the plashing of rain. Amongst the Omaha Indians of North America, when the corn is withering for want of rain, the members of the sacred Buffalo Society fill a large vessel with water and dance four times round it. One of them drinks some of the water and spirts it into the air, making a fine spray in imitation of a mist or drizzling ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to level a withering sarcasm at the head of a plausible, talkative fellow, all promise and no performance, ready with tongue but not with purse or service, he calls him a vakeel, that is, a lawyer. If he has to cool his heels in your office, or round the factory to get some little business ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... that anything of this kind should have happened," said Mr. Farrington to our hero, "but I admire the spirit and bravery you have shown in defending this poor boy;" and turning to Hanks he gave him a withering rebuke, and discharged him on the spot. "Come to my desk," continued the indignant overseer, "and get a bill of your time, and never show your head in my ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... the majestic empire of the Romans. There can be no question that civilization achieved most splendid triumphs, even under the influence of pagan institutions. But it was not paganism which achieved these victories; it was the will and the reason of a noble race, in spite of its withering effects. It was the proud reason of man which soared to such lofty heights, and attempted to secure happiness and prosperity. These great ends were measurably attained, and a self-sufficient philosopher might have pointed to these victories as both glorious and permanent. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Dante is not quite so clear as that translator's work usually is. "One of them all I knew not" is an awkward periphrasis for "I knew none of them." Dante's indignant expression of the effect of avarice in withering away distinctions of character, and the prophecy of Scrovegno, that his neighbor Vitaliano, then living, should soon be with him, to sit on his left hand, is rendered a little obscure by the transposition of the word "here." Cary has also ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... devoured, Channing's works. I found a splendid copy of Voltaire in the Holkham library, and hunted through the endless volumes, till I came to the 'Dialogues Philosophiques.' The world is too busy, fortunately, to disturb its peace with such profane satire, such withering sarcasm as flashes through an 'entretien' like that between 'Frere Rigolet' and 'L'Empereur de la Chine.' Every French man of letters knows it by heart; but it would wound our English susceptibilities were ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... showed an almost imperceptible withering of the texture of the delicate skin. She raised her sleeves and showed Camille the same slight withering of the wrists, where the transparent tissue suffered the blue network of swollen veins to be visible, and three deep lines made ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... property both of the rebels who had suffered death, and of those more unfortunate men who were withering under the tropical sun, was fought for and torn in pieces by a crowd of greedy informers. By law a subject attainted of treason forfeits all his substance; and this law was enforced after the Bloody Assizes with a rigour at once cruel and ludicrous. The brokenhearted widows ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... chambers in Gray's Inn would have testified. Archbishop Parker, than whom 'a more determined book-fancier never existed in Great Britain,' and Gabriel Harvey, the friend of Spenser, and the object of Tom Nash's withering scorn, were among the most inveterate book-collectors of Elizabethan London. Had Harvey—whose books usually contain his autograph on the title-page, and not a few of which were given him by Spenser—studied his books less, and the proper study of mankind a little more, he might have shown ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... said John, in a low voice, "of one Katherine Folliott, an humble violet plucked from her mossy bed, and after, flung withering away to reach ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... Theresa, to comradeship with the glossy occupant of the hearth-rug. George Eliot, as a true artist, sees what is faulty in the catastrophe, but she will not unsex her creation. Another of her characters, Rosamond, she pursues with a minute, withering, one would say vindictive, contempt. It is the beautiful, distinguished young creature who marries Lydgate on account of his high connections, and who trains him to do up her plaits of hair for her, and allows him to talk the "little language" of affection, which Rosamond, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... wheels; and, bled of strength, I waited the inevitable last. Then there came past A child; like thee, a spring-flower; but a flower Fallen from the budded coronal of Spring, And through the city-streets blown withering. She passed,—O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing! - And of her own scant pittance did she give, That I might eat and live: Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive. Therefore I kissed in thee The heart of Childhood, so divine for me; ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... dazzling glory there! They seem to whisper to the loved Who smoothed their path below, "Weep not for us, our tears have all Forever ceased to flow." Take from the grave, take from the grave, Those bright, but withering; flowers, The spirit that had loved them once Is now in fadeless bowers; Undying is the fragrance there, Eternal is the bloom; But the next breeze may waft away This perishing perfume. One fearful stamp, "Doomed to ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... them back to Merrytown the day after commencement. At last he stood in the doorway of the Nu Delta house and welcomed his father, but he had forgotten all about that youthful dream. He was merely aware that he was enormously glad to see the "folks" and that his father seemed to be withering into an old man. ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... down into this state of drowsy self-contentment, this conformity-life with the world, forfeiting all the happiness of true religion, and risking and endangering the better life to come? Arise! call upon thy God! "Wilt thou not revive us, O Lord?" He might have returned nothing but the withering repulse, "How often would I have gathered thee; but thou wouldst not!" "Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone!" But "in wrath He remembers mercy." "They shall revive as the corn." "The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." How and where is reviving ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... thee by my throbbing heart: Thy withering power inspired each mournful line: Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part, Yet all the thunders of the scene are ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... again, are sometimes red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush, fairy food, too beautiful to eat,—apple of the Hesperides, apple of the evening sky! But like shells and pebbles on the sea-shore, they must be seen as they sparkle amid the withering leaves in some dell in the woods, in the autumnal air, or as they lie in the wet grass, and not when they have wilted and faded in ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... nearly the same. Local circumstances may give some parts of the continent a preference over others, but, as points of emigration there is little choice. The southern portions are not subject to the withering droughts to which parts of the eastern coast are liable, and may be preferred on that account, but still there are districts in New South Wales as unexceptionable as any in Port Phillip or ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... least possible manipulative skill, it will yet find interpreters. It is the soul that looks out with burning eyes through the most gross fleshly filament. Whosoever should portray truly the life and death of a little flower—its birth, sucking in of nourishment, reproduction of its kind, withering and vanishing—would have shaped a symbol of all existence. All true facts of nature or the mind are related. Your little carving represents some mental facts as they really are, therefore fifty different true stories might be read from it. What your work wants is not truth, but ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... Reversed, each head at either's flank, they stood. Whereat the Goddess, in a dim remorse, Laid hand on them, and smacked; and her touch pricked. Neighing within, at either's flank they licked; Played on a moment's force At courtship, withering to the crazy nod. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... kindly: was so innocent of any feeling save a wish to be good and motherly to these motherless children. Besides, she had such an intense craving for their affection, and even their companionship, for there were times when her life felt withering up within her—chilled to death by the gloom of the dull home, with its daily round of solemn formalities. If she had spoken, she would have burst into tears. To save herself from this, she rose and left ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... belong to well-bred people on a journey, and told out their private affairs. The man of business knit his brows and said that he "must reach C—— by a certain time or the consequences would be most disastrous." The fashionable lady wrapped herself in her furs and bestowed withering looks on the crying baby. The grumbler grumbled, and was sure somebody was to blame somewhere. The funny man bubbled and sparkled as usual, and sent rays akin to sunshine over lugubrious faces. The profane man opened his mouth and out came toads and scorpions, ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... supreme devotion—to put at his hand the lulling, inspiring draught. Did this fellah servant know what it meant—the sin of it, the temptation, the terrible joy, the blessed quiet; and then, the agonising remorse, the withering self-hatred and torturing penitence? No, Mahommed only knew that when the Saadat was gone beyond his strength, when the sleepless nights and feverish days came in the past, in their great troubles, when men were dying and only the Saadat could save, that this cordial lifted him out of misery ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not prove unacceptable if offered by the hand of true regard such visions have for ever fled and all is cancelled but being aware that tender relations are in contemplation beg to state that I heartily wish well to both and find no fault with either not the least, it may be withering to know that ere the hand of Time had made me much less slim than formerly and dreadfully red on the slightest exertion particularly after eating I well know when it takes the form of a rash, it might have been and was ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... all generous thoughts, From whose unsealed fulness, ever welling, Come to mankind their purest pleasure draughts; O gentle heart! Grief's only sanctuary, Safe refuge from the rude assaults of woe, Throbbing with mild compassion constantly, That never change nor withering can know; From the pure spring of virgin slumbers Peace falls upon the soul when thou art by, Lulling it sweeter than Philomel's numbers, Lapping it deep within felicity. O brightest! dearest! still there floats to thee The incense of pure ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... the one catholic opinion that certain doctrines were not to be tolerated:" the only points of difference between them were "what those doctrines were," and how far intolerance might be carried. The withering lines are familiar to us, in which Milton denounces the "New Forcers of Conscience," who by their intolerance and "super-metropolitan and hyperarchiepiscopal tyranny," proved that in his proverbial words, "New Presbyter is but old ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... strangely and suddenly succeeded. Losses, misfortunes, poverty, want itself had overwhelmed them; his father's temper had become so soured, that the oldest friends of Francois Sarzeau declared he was changed beyond recognition. And now, all this past misfortune—the steady, withering, household blight of many years—had ended in the last, worst misery of all—in death. The fate of his father and his brother admitted no longer of a doubt; he knew it, as he listened to the storm, as he reflected ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... heaped up round masses of flowers and silver for our consideration and entertainment. At the supper given by David Helmsley for Lucy Sorrel's twenty-first birthday, there was, however, no note of dissatisfaction—the blase breath of the callow critic emitted no withering blight, and even latter-day satirists in their teens, frosted like tender pease-blossom before their prime, condescended to approve the lavish generosity, combined with the perfect taste, which made the festive scene a glowing picture of luxury and elegance. But Helmsley himself, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... swore horribly when the news was brought us from Piacenza, whilst I felt my heart sink and the last hope of Bianca—the hope secretly entertained almost against hope itself—withering ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... conviction,—sifting and weighing carefully every fact and detail, and trying the conclusions that had been drawn therefrom by the most rigorous and searching logic,—and then, assailing the credibility of the testimony brought forward to prove the habitual cruelty of his client, he gave utterance to a withering torrent of invective and sarcasm, in which the character of the main hostile witness shrivelled and blackened like paper in a flame. Then—having been eight hours on his feet—he began to avail himself of that last dangerous resource which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... sentiment no less arbitrary presumes to mark out for her the precise boundaries of womanly propriety; and she who ventures to step beyond them, must do it at the peril of encountering low sneers, coarse allusions, and the withering imputation of want ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... every family,—that the same bloody deed might be acted over at any time and in any place,—that the materials for it were spread through the land, and were always ready for a like explosion. Nothing but the force of this withering apprehension, —nothing but the paralyzing and deadening weight with which it falls upon and prostrates the heart of every man who has helpless dependents to protect,—nothing but this could have thrown a brave people into consternation, or could have made any portion of this powerful Commonwealth, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... The lawyer closed the door gently behind him, leaned back against it and folded his arms, cocking his head a little to one side. When he assumed this attitude in the courtroom, ears were always pricked up, as it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm. ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... out there to see how passionately the poor little child-bride kissed the pale roses on which that shadow had fallen, and how she broke it from the stem and placed it close to her beating heart—that lonely, starved little heart, chilled under the withering frost of neglect, when life, love and happiness should have been just bursting into ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... withering scorn. "Himmel, if I thought that, I would soon scratch his chubby face for him—me, indeed!" and she retreated from the room in ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... acanthus up With tufts of yellow wool above the door When a man died in Greece and in Greek Islands, Grey stone by the blue sea, Or sage-green trees down to the water's edge. How many clanging years ago I, also withering into death, sat with him, Old man of so white hair who only, Only looked past me into the red fire. At last his words were all a jumble of plum-trees And white boys smelling of the sea's green wine And practice of his lyre. Suddenly The bleak resurgent mind Called ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... whereas he came planted in the spring, And had the sun before him of respect; We, set in th' autumn, in the withering And sullen season of a cold defect, Must taste those sour distastes the times do bring Upon the fulness of a cloy'd neglect. Although the stronger constitutions shall Wear out th' ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... advantage over us, for they were always ready, had cover, and always knew the ground to their immediate front; whereas we, their assailants, had to grope our way over unknown ground, and generally found a cleared field or prepared entanglements that held us for a time under a close and withering fire. Rarely did the opposing lines in compact order come into actual contact, but when, as at Peach-Tree Creek and Atlanta, the lines did become commingled, the men fought individually in every possible style, more frequently with the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... countries are very hot in the plains, they possess mountains where the air is mild. The coffee is generally grown half way up on their slopes. When cultivated on the lower grounds it is always surrounded by large trees, which shelter it from the torrid sun, and prevent its fruit from withering before their maturity. The harvest is gathered at three periods; the most considerable occurs in May, when the reapers begin by spreading cloths under the trees, then shaking the branches strongly, so as to make the fruit ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... they shrivel and wither like the dying leaves. The impulses and the shrinkings of the flesh perish in His Presence alike. The new life wrecks the old. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live"—that is what the withering leaves say. We are ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... comported with his pursuits and habits. On the other hand, the quiet temperament of my mother required some more exciting cause than the affections of her husband, to quicken those germs of deep, placid, womanly love, that certainly lay dormant in her heart, like seed withering with the ungenial cold of winter. The last meeting of such a pair was not likely to be attended with any violent ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bosom, of my mother. Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness while living! how heedless are we in youth of all her anxieties and kindness! But when she is dead and gone; when the cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts; when we find how hard it is to find true sympathy;—how few love us for ourselves; how few will befriend us in our misfortunes—then it is that we think of the mother we have lost. It is true I had always ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... profound stillness reigned throughout the hall,—you might have heard a leaf of paper fall in any part of it,—and every eye was riveted on the venerable Nestor of Massachusetts—the purest of statesmen, and the noblest of men! He paused for a moment, and, having given Mr. Garland a withering look, he proceeded to address ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... worse. He's too awful in every way. But he ought to have my aunt's money, because he's lived all his life with her, and is her nephew as much as I am. You see, my father went wrong." He stopped, amazed at himself. How easy it had been to say! He was withering up: the power to care about this ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... globe; knows seventeen languages; had a harem in Turkey and a Fayaway in the Marquesas; can be as polished as Bayard in the drawing-room, but is as gloomy as Conrad in the library; has a terrible eye and a withering glance, but can be instantly subdued by a woman's hand, if it is not his wife's; and through all his morose and vicious career has carried a heart as pure as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... said the other, in tones of withering and unfathomable contempt, "my milk! Do you think I'd look at the beastly stuff when I'm out of sight of the bloody anarchists? We're all Christians in this room, though perhaps," he added, glancing around ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... old servant, though bare and withering like the scathed oak, was inexpressibly welcome to one who so deeply suffered from the crimes of duplicity. Williams soon recovered his strength under the care of his dear old master; and though the mountain cottage ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the white spored Agarics, has the power of reviving under moisture after withering, so it may represent a genus that endures longest. None of the fleshy ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... a withering look upon the culprits, who were already digging their fingers into the remnants of a meat-pie, and disappeared, ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... peered out like gleaming lights from beneath their overhanging brows. "No; you ought not to have attempted it," he answered, withering her with a glance. "You might have let the thing fall on the patient and killed him. As it is, can't you see you have agitated him with the flurry? Don't stand there holding your breath, woman: repair your mischief. Get a cloth and wipe it up, and give ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... unscalable But by a patient wing, a constant spell, Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd, Can make a ladder of the eternal wind, And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents To watch the abysm-birth of elements. Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd Fate A thousand Powers keep religious state, 30 In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne; And, silent as a consecrated urn, Hold sphery sessions for a season due. Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few! Have bared their operations to this globe— Few, who with ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... regarded her as one who for some reason was entitled to their pity. And in this she was correct. They did pity her, for they remembered another gentle woman, whose brown hair had turned gray, and whose blue eyes had waxed dim beneath the withering influence of him she called her husband. She was dead, and when they saw the young, light-hearted Matty, they did not understand how she could ever have been induced to take that woman's place and wed a man of thirty-eight, ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... cent. of the soldiers get a fortnight's leave of absence and a free pass; and there is joy in peasant homes over peasant charcoal pans. The dusky shades of evening are stealing over olive grove and withering vineyard, and every house lights up its tiny oil lamp, and every image of the Virgin is illuminated with a taper. In Eija, near Cordova, an image or portrait of the Virgin and the Babe new-born, hangs in well-nigh every room in every house. And why? Because the beautiful belief is rooted ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... self-confident and free from anger, which was quite appalling. How should they hesitate? Had they not truth, right, virtue, on their side? Did they not receive revelation direct from their hallowed reason? Reason is a hard sun: it gives light, but it blinds. In that withering light, without shade or mist, human beings grow pallid, the blood is sucked ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... engagement, and allowed her to throw herself away on a poor man, it was surely no one else's business to say a dissenting word. Percival might go home and lecture his own wife if he liked. 'It is a pity you and Gage are so worldly,' she said, in what was meant to be a withering tone. Audrey had never been so near quarrelling ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... O angel, are there, The myrrhic rapture of young hair, The lips of lust; And all the stenches of dust, Even the palm and the fingers of a hand burnt bare With a curling sweet-smelling crust, And the bitter staleness of old hair, Powder on a withering bust . ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke
... M. Panpan, time rolled on, and little Louis was born. This might have been a blessing, but while family cares and expenses were growing upon them, Panpan's strength and energies were withering away. He suffered little pain, but what there was seemed to spring from the old wound; and there were whole days when he lay a mere wreck, without the power or will to move; and when his feeble breath seemed passing away for ever. Happily, these relapses occurred only at intervals, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie |
