"Worm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Buffalo, if you must know! They pinched him on an old case, so you needn't blame me. I tell you I'm clear done with him. Love that worm! He just gave me an excuse to let my blacksheep blood ripple a little and it's all over now. And I'm sorry I played you for a sucker; honest I am. You gave me a lot of money for a wedding present and as the wedding doesn't count I'm going to give it back. You'll find it tucked away in your ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the episode of the element of the marvellous with which Voltaire had surrounded it. He called to his aid the testimony of the Duc de Choiseul, who, having in vain attempted to worm the secret of the Iron Mask out of Louis XV, begged Madame de Pompadour to try her hand, and was told by her that the prisoner was the minister of an Italian prince. At the same time that Dutens wrote, "There is ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... cross- legged and arranged his fishing tackle. He had the dearest little red float. His rod was a tough stalk of grass, his line was a fine long white horse-hair, and he tied a little wriggling worm at the end. ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... the five hundred years' end, the priests array their altar honestly, and put thereupon spices and sulphur vif and other things that will burn lightly; and then the bird phoenix cometh and burneth himself to ashes. And the first day next after, men find in the ashes a worm; and the second day next after, men find a bird quick and perfect; and the third day next after, he flieth his way. And so there is no more birds of that kind in all the world, but it alone, and truly that is a great miracle of God. And men may well liken that ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... comely form, adorned with pictures, and with a few prefatory words by Dr. Garnett, has made its appearance. Mr. Blades himself has left this world for a better one, where—so piety bids us believe—neither fire nor water nor worm can despoil or destroy the pages of heavenly wisdom. But the book-collector must not be caught nursing mere sublunary hopes. There is every reason to believe that in the realms of the blessed the library, like that of Major Ponto, will be small though well selected. Mr. ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... for my customers. At our garden near Tranquebar, I had a shop or work-room purposely constructed for these operations, and kept sometimes two or three Malabar boys at work to help me. Of serpents and snakes I had a list of upwards of eighty different species, from the size of a common worm, to sixteen and twenty feet long; of crabs, upwards of ninety; and of spiders, more than forty. Whether I went into the woods, on the beach, by land, or by sea, I was accustomed to look about, and examine every object I saw, and acquired great facility ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... and bitterly. "You think I care for the world? Then you read me wrongly at the very outset of our interview, and your once reputed skill as a Seer goes for naught! To me the world is a graveyard full of dead, worm-eaten things, and its supposititious Creator, whom you have so be praised in your orisons to-night, is the Sexton who entombs, and the Ghoul who devours his own hapless Creation! I myself am one of the tortured and dying, and I have sought you ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... eyes of the men turned slowly at the sight of a single rider who advanced from the distant Union camp. He did not take the dusty road which swept in a wide, half-circle to where the waiting troopers sat in line, but jumped a low worm-fence and ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... ingratitude or instability after years of experience, and few of us, I am glad to think, ever suspect meanness in our fellow-creatures; the discovery is as painful when you find it as the discovery of a worm in the heart of a rose. A man may have a fine character and be taciturn, stubborn and stupid. Another may be brilliant, sunny and generous, but self-indulgent, heartless and a liar. There is no contradiction I have not met with ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... scarce kissed the brow of the fair maid, and already the canker worm of sorrow is preying upon her heart-strings. Poor thing, so young and yet so sad! What can have caused this sadness! Perhaps she loves one whose heart throbs not with answering kindness—perhaps loves one faithless to her beauty, or loves where cruel fate has interposed the barrier ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... goddess, thatched and top-knotted, O reckless Stack! Of wives that to the Wind have been allotted There is no lack; You've spurned my love as though I were a worm; But next September when I see thy form, I'll woo thee with an equinoctial ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... and again in spiders, "there is nothing worthy to be called a metamorphosis." The larvae of insects, whether adapted to the most diverse and active habits, or quite inactive, being fed by their parents or placed in the midst of proper nutriment, yet nearly all pass through a similar worm-like stage of development; but in some few cases, as in that of Aphis, if we look to the admirable drawings by Professor Huxley of the development of this insect, we see no trace of the ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... eye, always a mischievous wight, For prying out something not good, Avow'd that he peep'd through the keyhole that night; And clearly discern'd, by a glow-worm's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... expedition failed, and with its failure the prestige of the Hojo fell in a region where hitherto it had been untarnished—the arena of arms. The great Japanese historian, Rai Sanyo, compared the Bakufu of that time to a tree beautiful outwardly but worm-eaten at the core, and in the classical work, Taiheiki, the state of affairs is ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... "but that is not by any means the rule. There are farmers who have never made anything by it, and it has its drawbacks, like everything else. The birds are subject to diseases of various kinds, and there is a parasitic worm on some farms that is very destructive. Wild beasts kill the birds, and I myself have lost three fine ostriches this year in that way. I know one farm on which eighty-five birds were originally placed. In the very first year twenty-seven were lost, thirteen by cold and wet, three by diphtheria, ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... midst of the other players, who are the Ants, and writes upon a piece of paper the name of a certain grain, whatever kind he pleases. He then addresses the first Ant: "My dear neighbor, I am very hungry, and I have come to you for aid. What will you give me!" "A grain of rice, a kernel of corn, a worm," etc., replies the Ant, as he sees fit. The Cricket asks each in turn, and if one of them announces as his gift the word already written upon the paper, the Cricket declares himself satisfied and ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... /n./ Short for A* Infected Disk Syndrome ('A*' is a {glob} pattern that matches, but is not limited to, Apple or Amiga), this condition is quite often the result of practicing unsafe {SEX}. See {virus}, {worm}, {Trojan horse}, {virgin}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... often saved her from a social lynching was her ability to laugh at her own discomfiture, and her unfeigned liking and respect for the turning worm. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... the lions aversion to the subject that had been treated. The Christian woman or child, it will be observed, who was to form the corpus vile of these ingenious experiments, was not considered, except, indeed, as the fisherman considers the mussel or the sand-worm ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... Alps were visible; market-people, cloaked and furred, went by on the water or on the banks; the deep woods of the shores were black and gray and brown. Poor August could see nothing of a scene that would have delighted him; as the stove was now set, he could only see the old worm-eaten wood ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... avenging Robert Fitzhildebrand's perfidity, a worm grew in his vitals which, gradually gnawing its way through his intestines, fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was by a fitting punishment brought to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and marched musically home, a motley troop of men and women, merchant clerks and navy officers, dancing in its wake, arms about waist and crowned with garlands. Long ago darkness and silence had gone from house to house about the tiny pagan city. Only the street lamps shone on, making a glow-worm halo in the umbrageous alleys or drawing a tremulous image on the waters of the port. A sound of snoring ran among the piles of lumber by the Government pier. It was wafted ashore from the graceful clipper-bottomed schooners, where ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... interest called gratitude? Have I become an usurer of this kind? There are some men who would hang the weight of a benefit around your heart like a cannon-ball attached to the feet of——, but let that pass! Such men I would crush as I would a worm, without thinking that I had committed homicide! No! I have asked you to adopt me as your father, that my heart may be to you what heaven is to the angels, a space where all is happiness and confidence; that you may tell me all your thoughts, even those which are evil. ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... replied Astro, and flopped to the ground to worm his way toward the head of the Marine column ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... horse and reload him. When a horse rolled over, or fell in a river, it was rather an advantage than otherwise to get clear of them. Our waterproof bags were of leather, lined with waterproof cloth, just large enough to fill one of the canvas pack-bags. They had a brass neck with a worm inside, in which we screwed a plug of soft wood. (There was rarely, if ever, occasion to use them.) Each pair of bags was carefully balanced, one against the other, that the horses might not be unequally ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... anything but a happy man. Only at such times as he is engaged in some stirring affair of duty or devilry, or when under the influence of drink, is he otherwise than wretched. To drinking he has taken habitually, almost continually. It is not to drown conscience; he has none. The canker-worm that consumes him is not remorse, but disappointment in a love affair, coupled ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... some of the huts, found the carved head of a rudder, which—had manifestly belonged to a Dutch long-boat, and was very old and worm-eaten. They found also a piece of hammered iron, a piece of brass, and some small iron tools, which the ancestors of the present inhabitants of this place probably obtained from the Dutch ship to which the long-boat had belonged, all which I brought away with me. Whether these people found means ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... to one who himself formed an era in the history of our early literature—the venerable Bede. This famous man was educated in the monastery of Wearmouth, and there appears to have spent the whole of his quiet, innocent, and studious life. He was the very sublimation of a book-worm. One might fancy him becoming at last, as in the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid, one of the books, or rolls of vellum and parchment over which he con- stantly pored. That he did not marry, or was given in marriage, we are certain; but there is little evidence that he even ate ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... and the stick of Slabberts was as the rod of Moses to the other stick for strength and power. But as Emigration Jane daintily sipped the cooling beverage, giggling at the soapy bubbles that snapped at her nose, the restless worm of anxiety kept on gnawing under the flowery "blowse." Too well did she know the ways of young men who hospitably ask you if you're thirsty, and 'ave you in, whether or no, and order drinks as liberal as lords, and then discover that they're short of the bob, and borrow from you in a joking way.... ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. 'Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... And Montague had met him socially at an entertainment—at Mrs. de Graffenried's! He had met him as one gentleman meets another, had shaken hands with him, had gone and talked with him freely and frankly! And then Hegan had sent a detective to worm his secrets from him, and had even tried to get at the ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... fair curls, 675 The love of Anxur's maids, And the white head of Vulgo, The great Arician seer, And Nepos of Laurentum, The hunter of the deer; 680 And in the back false Sextus Felt the good Roman steel; And wriggling in the dust he died, Like a worm beneath the wheel: And fliers and pursuers 685 Were mingled in a mass; And far away the battle Went roaring ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... compressed by a caul of the finest net-work, composed of the threads spun from the beauteous production of the Italian worm." ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... disorderly, but picturesque way, offering to the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormer windows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancient embattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and here and there an old square tower of heavy masonry. And also here and there a town clock with only one hand—a hand which stretches across the dial and has no joint in it; such a clock helps out the picture, but you cannot ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 175 In this interminable wilderness Of worlds, at whose involved immensity Even soaring fancy staggers, Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf 180 That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee,— Yet not the meanest worm. That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead, Less shares thy eternal breath. 185 Spirit of Nature! thou Imperishable as this glorious scene, Here is thy ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... 25. With the dry weather of July and the wet weather now, with the worm, we shall lose a third sure of our crop, if ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... my porch in a hickory rocking-chair the other day was annoyed by one of our small solitary wasps that seemed to want to occupy the chair. It held a small worm in its legs. She would "shoo" it away, only to see it back in a few seconds. I assured her that it did not want to sting her, but that its nest was somewhere in the chair. And, sure enough, as soon as she quieted down, it entered a small opening ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Dick, pointing out in front of them, where, through the water, there about eighteen inches deep, he could see what seemed to be a long white worm or serpent dashing here and there in a curious way. "There's another ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... name of Ford as is advertising for a pocket-book, a seems to have lost on the downs, near to Master Lake's windmill. 'Tis thy way, too, Gearge, after all. Thee must get up yarly, Gearge. 'Tis the yarly bird catches the worm. And tell Master Lake from me, 'll have all the young varments in the place a driving their pigs up to his mill, to look for the pocket-book, while they makes believe to ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to enable them to procure with facility their food of ants and their larvae, echidnas are provided with very large glands, discharging into the mouth the viscid secretion which causes the ants to adhere to the long worm-like tongue when thrust into a mass of these insects, after being exposed by the digging powers of the claws of the echidna's limbs. . . . When attacked they roll themselves into a ball similar to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... animated purple thread, which spun itself out to such an extent that there was only a long cobweb left perceptible; this, floating about, after a time showed extraordinary muscular strength and energy, gathering itself together into a compact purple tassell or worm. The jelly-fish were also remarkably beautiful, with their graceful movements and purple glancing hues. This Aquarium certainly gave us a little comprehension of the marvellous beauty of ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... us, is kicked, cuffed, and driven back to his master, there to be scourged for his kindness to us. Billy, my servant, tells me that a colored man was whipped to death by a planter who lives near here, for giving information to our men. I do not doubt it. We worm out of these poor creatures a knowledge of the places where stores are secreted, or compel them to serve as guides, and then turn them out to be scourged or murdered. There must be a change in this regard before we shall ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... in whose perfect heart a worm had coiled. Her entire feeling about life had undergone a change. For many weeks after her self-imposed exile, she had been unable to think of her mother without a mingled sense of shame and resentment; the ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... her," said my fellow Worm of the car. "I'll just drive her out of the way, where I can look over her a bit when I've snatched something to eat. I'll take the fur rugs inside—you're not to bother, they're big enough to swamp you entirely. And ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... get on; there was no doubt of that, for he would worm his way through where only a snake could crawl. A snake! that was what he was, and I shuddered at thought of the slimy touch of his hand. I despised, hated him; yet what could I do? It was useless to appeal to Chevet, and the Governor, La Barre, would give small ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... his death. Nor of that of Q. Lecanius Bassus, who died suddenly of so small a prick with a needle on his left thumb that it could hardly be discerned. Nor of Quenelault, a Norman physician, who died suddenly at Montpellier, merely for having sideways took a worm out of his hand with a penknife. Nor of Philomenes, whose servant having got him some new figs for the first course of his dinner, whilst he went to fetch wine, a straggling well-hung ass got into the house, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Some dishonest people worm themselves into almost every human organization. It is all the more shocking, however, when they make their way into a Government such as ours, which is based on the principle of justice for all. Such unworthy public servants ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Hutter and Hurry alone remained awake, the former at the steering oar, while the latter brooded over his own conduct, with the stubbornness of one little given to a confession of his errors, and the secret goadings of the worm that never dies. This was at the moment when Judith and Hetty reached the centre of the lake, and had lain down to endeavor to sleep ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... I declared as he shut his room door behind him. "I can't imagine what it is, and it's of no earthly use to ask him." It wouldn't have been. You can't worm a thing out of that boy till ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... interested him. So he must have made a pair some seven or eight feet high, and learned to walk on them. And then he simply went to a tree near the fence, climbed up it and mounted the stilts, and then walked to the fence and stepped over it. At his age he wouldn't realize the danger. He'd do it and worm his way past watchers.... He could ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... a little friend, winsome enough and subtle enough to worm the truth out of the devil. I hear that the girl Loretta is suspected of knowing more about this unfortunate tragedy than she is willing to impart. If you wish this little friend of mine to talk to her, I will see that she does so and does so ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... the arch-tormentor, flying From the hell about him lying, Mid the fire and worm undying ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... speed. For its part, the narwhal, imitating the frigate, let the waves rock it at will, and seemed decided not to leave the scene of the struggle. Towards midnight, however, it disappeared, or, to use a more appropriate term, it "died out" like a large glow-worm. Had it fled? One could only fear, not hope it. But at seven minutes to one o'clock in the morning a deafening whistling was heard, like that produced by a body of ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... and to nature, expressed or not, has something of the effect of ritual, of evocation. As our aspiration so is our inspiration. We believe in life universal, in a brotherhood which links the elements to man, and makes the glow-worm feel far off something of the rapture of the seraph hosts. Then we go out into the living world, and what influences pour through us! We are "at league with the stones of the field." The winds of the world blow radiantly upon us as in the early time. We feel wrapt about with love, with ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... said the voice; "yet something I can do, as the glow-worm can show a precipice. But you ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Even the trodden worm, however—— And there came a time when the concentration of a good many different lines of feeling in Langham's mind betrayed itself at last in a sharp and sudden openness. It began to seem to him that she was specially bent ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sweeping, exaggerated bow after his manner. He did not notice the long bare floor nor yet the rough beams across the ceiling; he registered no mental picture of the deep throated, rock chimney, the rude, worm eaten table and benches, the few homemade objects scattered about the long room. He saw only Ygerne Bellaire, and the picture which she made would never grow dim in the man's mind though he lived ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... while fires were raging at many gates, bells were rolling over the roof-tops, the army of Austria coiled along the North-eastern walls of the city, through rain and thick obscurity, and wove its way like a vast worm into the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... feet. Lifting his binocular, Smith saw a railway train running in the same direction as themselves, and though from the line of smoke it was going at full speed, it appeared to be crawling like a worm, and was soon left far behind. Now they were in Bulgaria: those grey crinkly masses beyond must be the Balkans. Crossing the Dragoman Pass, they came into an upward current of air that set the machine rocking, and Smith for the first time felt a touch of nervousness lest it should ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... in the shadow of a bush one day he noticed a little worm travelling along a twig. It was the variety commonly called an "inch worm," which advances by pulling its rear up to its forward feet, its back in a curve, and then thrusts forward its length. As the boy watched its laborious ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... French call sweetened water—running right by, enough to supply all France. And, all the time, you are hauling up the fish just as fast as they can bite. They are a peculiar kind of fish, wouldn't look at a worm. Nothing short of taffy bait will tempt them. They look like those fishes you buy at the confectioners—penny apiece—very high-colored, very flat, and mostly tail; and, when cooked, they taste ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... honour, like that of the nameless wife of Phinehas? I think if there were a little of this zeal, so many of our churches would not be untidy, neglected, ruinous. There would not be moth-eaten altar-cloths, and worm-eaten altars. There would not be green mouldering walls, and broken pavements. There would not be a service slovenly, unmusical, irreverent, or if not irreverent, at least unworthy of the glory ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... the evident rightful owner, and in returning it, he purposed denouncing it as an emblem of the "Scarlet Woman, that sitteth on the Seven Hills," and threatening all those who dared to hold it sacred, as doomed to eternal torture, "where the worm dieth not." He had thought over all he meant to say; he had planned several eloquent and rounded sentences, some of which he murmured placidly to himself as he propelled his ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... himself; "for this people has turned all things upside down. Their happiness is misery, their wisdom is bewilderment, their truth is self-deception, their speech is a disguise, their science is the parent of error, their life is a process of suicide, their god is the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched. What is believed is not professed, and what is professed is not believed. In yonder place"—he was looking at London—"there is darkness and misery enough for seven hells. Verily they have already come to judgment ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... shewing your fondness! I had to go out and dig that flower bed all over with my own hands to soften it. I had to pick all the stones out of it. And then she complained that I hadnt done it properly, because she got a worm down her neck. I had to go to Brighton with a poor creature who took a fancy to me on the way down, and got conscientious scruples about committing perjury after dinner. I had to put her down in the hotel book as ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... letter accidentally preserved. In the youth of our spirited archdeacon, when fox-hunting was his deepest study, it happened at the house of a relation, that on a rainy day he fell, among other garret lumber, on some worm-eaten volumes which had once been the careful collections of his great-grandfather, an Oliverian justice. "These," says he, "I conveyed to my lodging-room, and there became acquainted with the manners and principles of many excellent old Puritans, and then laid the foundation ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... somehow brought to give proof of it. Beaton could not be aware of all that dark coil of circumstance through which Dryfoos's present action evolved itself; the worst of this was buried in the secret of the old man's heart, a worm of perpetual torment. What was apparent to another was that he was broken by the sorrow that had fallen upon him, and it was this that Beaton respected and pitied in his impulse to be frank and kind in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is everywhere. The apple has its worm, the rose its canker, the steel its rust. It is the ignorant and envious man who misuses power that, rightly directed, moves toward the emancipation of the human race. There are cruel and grasping ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... been mentioned," says Sir H. Risley, [238] "that the garden is regarded as almost sacred, and the superstitious practices in vogue resemble those of the silk-worm breeder. The Barui will not enter it until he has bathed and washed his clothes. Animals found inside are driven out, while women ceremonially unclean dare not enter within the gate. A Brahman never sets foot inside, and old men ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... my son," the priest said with a laugh. "I am, as you may see, an easygoing man, well contented with my lot, and envy not the Bishop of Toledo; but you know it is said that even a worm will turn, and so you have seen the peaceful priest enacting the part of the bloodthirsty captain. But, my son,"—and his face grew grave now—"you can little imagine the deeds which the ferocious Tesse has enacted here in Arragon. When warring with you English ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... worm or serpent kind it something looked, But monstrous, with a thousand snaky ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... father—Konto is nothing: but the voice of the white man, Fyles, had golden words that our braves do not know, and I listened. Konto did a brave thing. Fyles, because he was a great man of the Company, would not fight, and drove him like a dog. Then he made my father as a worm in the eyes of the world. I would give my life for Fyles the trader, but I would give more than my life to wipe out my father's shame, and to show that Konto of the Little Crees is no dog. I have been carried by the hands of the old men of my people, I have ridden the horses ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Iris all hues, roses, and jessamin, Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaick; underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem: Other creature here, Bird, beast, insect, or worm, durst enter none, Such was their awe of Man. In shadier bower More sacred and sequestered, though but feigned, Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess, With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... Chamisso, to your criticism, and not seek to elude it. I have long visited myself with the heaviest judgment, for I have fed the devouring worm in my heart. This terrible moment of my existence is everlastingly present to my soul; and I can contemplate it only in a doubting glance, with humility and contrition. My friend, he who carelessly takes a step out of the straight ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... in silence. A wandering breeze had found its way into the clearing, and with it came the fragrance of flowers blossoming under the sun. The chicken family were pursuing a worm with more energy than Val decided he would have cared to expend in that heat, and a heavily laden bee rested on the lip of a sunflower to brush its legs. Val's eyelids drooped and he found himself thinking dreamily of a hammock under the trees, a pillow, and long hours of lazy ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... marksman had a chance of hitting. When he was a child, he grasped a scorpion without injury, and saw a salamander "living and enjoying himself in the hottest flames." After his fever at Rome in 1535, he threw off from his stomach a hideous worm—hairy, speckled with green, black, and red—the like whereof the doctors never saw.[360] When he finally escaped from the dungeons of S. Angelo in 1539, a luminous appearance like an aureole settled ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... that I am blessed with the resignation of the Psalmist (II Samuel XV, 26), the sublime grace of the pious Hezekiah (II Kings XX, 19)? If Hezekiah could bear the cruel visitation of his erring upon his sons, why should I, poor worm that ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... the night were the watchers disturbed. Two convicts endeavored to worm their way up to the hut unseen but were quickly spotted by the captain who emptied his revolver at them without any other effect than to cause them to take to their heels. Aside from this incident the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... oil, and spread with honey. The drink is water, or, at best, agua-pe, the last straining of the grape. Many peasants, who use no stimulant during the day, will drink on first rising a dram para espantar o Diabo (to frighten the Devil), as do the Congoese paramatar o bicho (to kill the worm). ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... portion taken out at this point and cooled should present a rounded appearance. When well mixed the resultant product is emptied directly into wheel-frames placed underneath the outlet of the pan. It is important that the blades or worm of the agitating gear be covered with soap to avoid the occlusion of air and to prevent the ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... each single star Comes out, till there they are All shining brightly: how the dews fall damp! While close at hand the glow-worm lights her ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... fish-tiger of that which it had seized; The shrike chasing the bulbul, which did chase The jewelled butterflies; till everywhere Each slew a slayer and in turn was slain, Life living upon death. So the fair show Veiled one vast, savage, grim conspiracy Of mutual murder, from the worm to man, Who himself kills his fellow; seeing which— The hungry ploughman and his labouring kine, Their dewlaps blistered with the bitter yoke, The rage to live which makes all living strife— The Prince Siddartha sighed. "In this," he said, "That happy earth they brought me forth to see? How ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... parent plant as though it had never been severed from it; it goes on profiting by the experience which it had before it was cut off, as much as though it had never been cut off at all. This will be more readily seen in the case of worms which have been cut in half. Let a worm be cut in half, and the two halves will become fresh worms; which of them is the original worm? Surely both. Perhaps no simpler cage than this could readily be found of the manner in which personality eludes us, the moment ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... anything nowadays? Look at the things girls read and discuss! I'm old-fashioned, I suppose. But I really couldn't talk about Donald to her this morning. The fellow is such a worm! It would come ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his agent be kept informed of developments at St. Marys. It pleased him that this had been achieved outside his own town and without its knowledge, and he saw himself a man who was vastly underestimated by his fellow citizens. But in spite of it all he was daily more conscious of a worm of uncertainty that gnawed in his brain. The thing was safe, obviously and demonstrably safe. Against his thousands others had invested millions with which to buttress the whole ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... for astonishing leaps over the gradations which should render their conduct comprehensible to us, if not excuseable. She watched the blackbird throw up his head stiffly, and peck to right and left, dangling the worm on each side his orange beak. Specklebreasted thrushes were at work, and a wagtail that ran as with Clara's own rapid little steps. Thrush and blackbird flew to the nest. They had wings. The lovely morning breathed of sweet earth into her open window, and made it painful, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Swaying softly there, but she!— Maenad, Bassarid, Bacchant, What you will, who doth enchant Night with sensuous nudity. Lo! again I hear her pant Breasting through the dewy glooms— Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers Of the starlight;—wood-perfumes Swoon around her and frail showers Of the leaflet-tilted rain. Lo, like love, she comes again, Through the pale, voluptuous dusk, Sweet of limb with breasts of musk. With her lips, like blossoms, breathing Honeyed pungence ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... instance, he sees a child being tortured, a woman being outraged, a helpless fellow-man being set upon and murdered—if he sees these things and does not intervene with all his might, then he is not a pacificist but a traitor to humanity, not a man but a contemptible or infatuated worm. Similarly if a State stands on one side inactive while small nations are wantonly stamped out of existence, while treaties are violated, while International Law is defied, while unprecedented barbarities are perpetrated, it sinks to the level of an accomplice in crime, and proves itself worthy of ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... the crowd continually increased until it became so dense that the boys had to worm their way through it inch by inch. They pressed on, however, and when further progress was impossible, they found standing room on the very front close to ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... dusty receptacle in a corner of the room, and showed Darnell a small, worm-eaten Bible, wanting the first five chapters of Genesis and the last leaf of the Apocalypse. It ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... for tat," returned Jack, without a pause, as if his mind had long been made up. "Why, even a Quaker will fight if forced to defend his honor; or some bully attacks his family. They say a worm will turn; which you mustn't take to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... contributed to continue it. However, I recovered my health; but a neglected cold, and continual inquietude during the last two months, have reduced me to a state of weakness I never before experienced. Those who did not know that the canker-worm was at work at the core, cautioned me about suckling my child too long.—God preserve this poor child, and render her happier ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... then he set himself to blow into the barrel with such fury, that had there been an ounce of wadding left, the blast would have blown it all through the enormous touch-hole. Being well assured after this that neither an adder nor a slow-worm had taken up his domicile within the barrel, he began to load. One charge—two charges—then a third, "as a compliment," and after this, a fourth, "for good luck." On this infernal charge—imperial, as he called it—this Vesuvius, this volcano of saltpetre, he threw half-a-dozen balls, or, if he ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... one person in the congregation who looked savagely at him,—Miss Dobb. "It is a shame," she said, when the people came out of church, speaking loud enough to be heard by all, "that such a young upstart and hypocrite should be allowed to worm himself into Mr. Quaver's seat." She hated Paul, and determined to ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Those long-forgotten Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, Existences that live and move in realms As far beyond our thought as Europe lies With all its little arts and sciences Beyond the comprehension of the worm. We are all partial images, we need What lies beyond us to complete our souls; Therefore our souls are filled with a desire And love which lead us towards the Infinity Of Godhead that ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... and chastened young man who disappeared into his cabin, amid hearty congratulations, to change into dry garments. In the face of so much honest relief and thankfulness, he felt a very worm for his deceit and trickery. It had been a mean game—a dirty trick he had played everybody, and Kitty in particular; which might easily have cost him his life. Truly, he had come to the conclusion that he was not fit to aspire to any nice girl. Kitty was properly ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... all, the chief joy of the robin world that day resulted from the fact that the mild, humid air lured the earth-worms from their burrowing, and Amy laughed more than once as, from her window, she saw a little gourmand pulling at a worm, which clung so desperately to its hole that the bird at last almost fell over backward with its prize. Courtship, nest-building, family cares—nothing disturbs a robin's appetite, and it was, indeed, a sorry fools'-day for myriads of angle-worms ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... brigs were in keeping with the village, being old and worm-eaten, and the craziest craft imaginable. I would not have sailed one across a pond. However, I sought out the commander of this ragged squadron, and gave ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm." ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... eye; there a pickerel lay rigid in the clear water, a fish carved in stone: here eels coiled in the muddy bottom of some pool; and there, under the deep shadows of the rocks, lay fat, sleepy bass, old, and incredibly wise, quite untempted by, and wholly superior to, the rural fisherman's worm. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Carrie, however, seems to live only for your unworthy humble servant. Shall I ever be worthy of her? Shall I ever be worthy of the glorious sky overhead, or of the flowers at my feet? My dear Mac, I feel the veriest worm as I contemplate this perfect creature, who, with that infinite generosity which belongs to goodness and beauty, has sworn to love, honour, and obey me. That she loves me I know full well; that she obeys my lightest wish, I allow, on my knees. ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... him aside. "Under compulsion, eh!" he sneered. "You drink not under compulsion, don't you, my lad? Let me tell you," he continued with ferocity, "you will drink when I please, and where I please, and as often as I please, and as much as I please, you meal-worm! You half-weaned puppy! Take that glass, d'you hear, and say after me, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... Squire Gathers composed himself. With plucked handfuls of grass he cleansed himself of much of the swamp mire that coated him over; but the little white worm that gnawed at his nerves had become a cold snake that was coiled about his heart, squeezing ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... these fragments of prayers was it made manifest that the worm was turning, apologetically, it is true, but surely. For once the prescribed defense of the Pharaoh was ignored. "It is not the fault of the Child of the Sun, but his advisers, who are evil men and full of guile." And in the odd perversity of fate for once its observance ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... weathered to a whitish-gray, but still in tiny depressions its pristine dark color showed in rugose characters. A splintered fissure held delicate fucoid impressions in fine script full of meaning. A series of worm-holes traced erratic hieroglyphics across a scaling corner; all the varied texts were illuminated by quartzose particles glittering in the sun, and here and there fine green grains of glauconite. He knew no names like ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... in the yellow leaf, The flowers and fruits of love are gone: The worm, the canker, and the grief Are ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the worm of hell, the lasting fire: Hell would soon lose its heat should sin expire; Better sinless in hell than to be where Heaven is, and to be found ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... luscious cabbages and kails Have bloomed before you in their bed At seven dollars a head! And how your onions took a prize For bringing tears into the eyes Of a hard-hearted cook! And how ye slew The Dragon Cut-worm at a stroke! And how ye broke, Routed, and put to flight the horrid crew Of vile potato-bugs and Hessian flies! And how ye did not quail Before th' invading armies of San Jose Scale, But met them bravely with your little pail Of poison, ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... loose such a thunder of applause that the old shed rocked with it, and a cloud of acrid and thick dust fell from its filthy walls and worm-eaten beams and enveloped ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Needless to say, we had hoisted no lantern on the forestay since the night the other boats had driven away from us or gone down. To help a vessel to pick us up on that expanse of water it would have been about as useful as the tail of a glow-worm—and moreover the crew had drunk ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... haunted that no one would sleep in it, was the room next to hers. It was a room Letty could well believe was haunted, for she had never seen another equally gloomy. The ceiling was low and sloping, the window tiny, and the walls exhibited all sorts of odd nooks and crannies. A bed, antique and worm-eaten, stood in one recess, a black oak chest in another, and at right angles with the door, in another recess, stood a wardrobe that used to creak and groan alarmingly every time Letty walked a long the passage. Once she heard a chuckle, a low, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... frequently among other algae, and occasionally forms a green film on stagnant water. It is sometimes regarded as a plant, sometimes as an animal, and is an elongated, somewhat worm-like cell without a definite cell wall, so that it can change its form to some extent. The protoplasm contains oval masses, which are bright green in color; but the forward pointed end of the cell is colorless, and ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... the Round Table flourished in the reign of King Arthur who vied with their chief in chivalrous exploits. 2. Solomon was the son of David who built the Temple. 3. My brother caught the fish on a small hook baited with a worm which we had for breakfast. 4. I have no right to ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... to your nature. I had to worm the troubles out of you in the old days, each one as it arose. I see I shall have to do the same now. Don't say there's not much the matter, for I am sure ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... order to become able to read, understand, and enjoy what Chaucer himself wrote. But if this apprenticeship be too hard, then some sort of makeshift must be accepted, or antiquity must remain the "canker-worm" even of a great national poet, as Spenser said it had already in his day ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... blacker, terrible blocks occurred and perpetual unintentional halts. In one place, somewhere near the Serains-Premont road I think, we were halted for about three-quarters of an hour by a jam of waggons just ahead. I gave the Norfolks leave to worm their way through the press, but it was no use, for before they had got through the waggons moved on again and only divided the men more and more, so that they lost their formation again and ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... you're as old as I am, young man, you'll experience it too. There are few perfectly sound trees in the forest, few horses without a blemish, few swords without a stain, and scarcely a man who has passed his fortieth year that has not a worm in his breast. Some gnaw slightly, others torture with sharp fangs, and mine—mine.—Do you want to cast ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... DESPAIR pursued, "this loathsome mass Was once as lovely, and as full of life As, Damsel! thou art now. Those deep-sunk eyes Once beam'd the mild light of intelligence, And where thou seest the pamper'd flesh-worm trail, Once the white bosom heaved. She fondly thought That at the hallowed altar, soon the Priest Should bless her coming union, and the torch Its joyful lustre o'er the hall of joy, Cast on her nuptial evening: earth to earth That Priest consign'd her, and the funeral lamp Glares on her cold face; ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... this upper room with its low mullioned window the Maid began her life. Here, in the larger room below, is the kneeling statue which the Princess Marie d'Orleans made of her. Here, to the right, under the sloping roof, with its worm-eaten beams, she slept and prayed ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... pursued in effecting this. The violence used in stripping down the tendon is so great, and the lacerated fibrous substance is put so much on the stress, and its natural elasticity is so considerable, that it recoils and assumes the appearance of a dying worm, and the dog is said to have been wormed. For the sake of humanity, as well as to avoid the charge of ignorance, it is to be hoped that this ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... to his wife, "high and low, are alike. Unless they have a husband to keep them in their right places, they become religious and run after pastors. Manske has wormed himself in very cleverly, truly very cleverly. But we will worm him out again with equal cleverness. As for his wife, what canst thou expect ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp |
