"Nag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... used to wonder why I couldn't get his tail to grow longer. Honestly, I thought all horses' tails were about eight inches long until an old horse trader looked my friend over one day and said, 'Hello! That nag's been docked sometime! He didn't always pull a grocery cart. Shouldn't wonder if there'd been some class and pedigree to him sometime.' Then he had the impertinence to stick his dirty fingers into my friend's mouth and hoist his upper lip ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... finding herself unable to detain him any longer, reluctantly consented to his departure, and, hoping that ridicule and lack of success would soon drive him back to her, prepared for him the motley garb of a fool and gave him a very sorry nag to ride. ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... came the Couillards produced a big, raw-boned, yellowish horse, and the Martins a little, white, long-haired nag; the two horses were harnessed, and Marius, buried in an old livery of Simon's, brought the carriage round to the door. Julien, who was in his best clothes, would have looked a little like his old, elegant self, if his long beard had not made him look common. He inspected the horses, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... was cloudless and the nag, who was inclined to be frisky, would suddenly start off at a gallop every now and then. As they entered the commune of touvent Jeanne's heart beat so that she could ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... hev to hitch your hoss up to that there buckboard," he drawled. "My old nag is dead two year since. You go in, miss, an' dress in them clothes a-hangin' onto that peg by the bed," he added, with an effort. "Use 'em easy; they ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... hair bristled and his heart came up like a plug in his throat to hinder his breathing, for he saw a headless horseman coming over the ridge behind him, blackly defined against the starry sky. Setting spurs to his nag with a hope of being first to reach Sleepy Hollow bridge, which the spectre never passed, the unhappy man made the best possible time in that direction, for his follower was surely overtaking him. Another minute and the bridge would be reached; but, to Ichabod's ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... death, In a lone garret, which the rats and mice Seemed greatly loth to have him occupy. An' I, poor Billy Matterson, whom once He deemed too poor and low to look upon, Am come to bury him." The sexton smiled,— Then raised his rusty spade, cheered up his nag, Whistled as he was wont, and jogged along. Oft I have seen the poor man raise his hand To wipe the eye when good men meet the grave,— But Billy Matterson, he turned and smiled. The truth flashed in an instant ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... viciously. Perhaps he, too, hungered. Certainly he was hot, and felt like a Socialist. What was this young woman that she should sit there comfortably and nag him while he was down in the dust? "I don't see any reason against our stayin' all day," said he. "And I ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... are laughing at me. So would Jack. And both would say it is unworthy. That's just it. It is the measly little unworthies that nag one to desperation. Besides, Mate, I shrink from any more trouble, any more heart-aches as I would from names. The terror of the by-gone years creeps over me and covers the present ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... make for it was to lose too much time, as the hounds were running breast high. Ten yards ahead of me was Mr. Frank G——, on a Stormer colt, evidently with no notion of turning; so I hardened my heart, felt my bay nag full of going, and kept my eye on Mr. Frank, who made for the only practicable place beside an oak-tree with low branches, and, stooping his head, popped through a place where the hedge showed daylight, with his hand over his eyes, in the neatest possible style. Without ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... own speciality, which is all but worse. Our historical pastime is the direct satisfaction of inflicting pain. There are lines in Nekrassov describing how a peasant lashes a horse on the eyes, 'on its meek eyes,' every one must have seen it. It's peculiarly Russian. He describes how a feeble little nag has foundered under too heavy a load and cannot move. The peasant beats it, beats it savagely, beats it at last not knowing what he is doing in the intoxication of cruelty, thrashes it mercilessly over and over again. 'However weak ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... suffered himself to be detained later than was prudent, did not account Mumps's Hall a safe place to quarter in during the night. He tore himself away, therefore, from Meg's good fare and kind words, and mounted his nag, having first examined his pistols, and tried by the ramrod whether ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... a pit dug. 'Twas work for nine peasants. 460 We started at daybreak And laboured till mid-day, And then we were going To rest and have dinner, When up comes the German: ''Eh, you, lazy devils! So little work done?'' He started to nag us, Quite coolly and slowly, Without heat or hurry; 470 For that was ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... for this pastime "is partly the cause of her sounding a retreat to the peaceful shades and grottoes of Murray Bay." Polly, the other unmarried sister, was more content to be at Murray Bay, with results that led to a family tragedy as we shall see later. Her brother pictures her driving his nag with her carriole through the country; so reckless is she that she is sure to run down some one. "Does she, proud and high, still continue hopping away to the country weddings?" His request that Pope's Works and The Spectator ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... Lucretia Burns would nag anybody. I don't say you're all to blame, but I'm afraid you haven't acknowledged you were any to blame. I'm afraid you've not been patient with her. I'm going out to bring her in. If she comes will you say you were part to blame? You needn't beg her pardon, just say you'll try ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... went on O'Mally, "is that the prince beat his nag out of pure deviltry, and the brute jumped into the gorge with him. The carabinieri claim that they saw a man in the gorge. They gave chase, but couldn't find hide nor hair ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... that night. This too was new to his experience, and this he liked. But newer still was the thing he did not like, the thing that continued to gnaw and nag and would not let ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... princess had lost the drops of blood, she had become weak and powerless. So now when she wanted to mount her horse again, the one that was called Falada, the waiting-maid said, "Falada is more suitable for me, and my nag will do for thee" and the princess had to be content with that. Then the waiting-maid, with many hard words, bade the princess exchange her royal apparel for her own shabby clothes; and at length she was compelled to swear by the clear sky above her, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... of that marvellous King Francis, where I had abundance of all kinds, and here had everything to want for. Many a time I had it in my soul to cast myself away for lost. One day on one of these occasions, I mounted a nice nag I had, put a hundred crowns in my purse, and went to Fiesole to visit a natural son of mine there, who was at nurse with my gossip, the wife of one of my workpeople. When I reached the house, I ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... words by the combination of these sounds. For instance, teach the pupil to identify the characters a, o, n, d, g, r, and th, in Lesson I, as the representatives of certain elementary sounds; then teach him to form the words at the head of the lesson, then other words, as nag, on, and, etc. Pursue a similar course in teaching the succeeding lessons. Having read a few lessons in this manner, begin to teach the names of the letters and the spelling of words, and require the groups, "a man," "the man," "a pen," to be read as a good reader would ...
— McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition • William Holmes McGuffey
... stranger was an English savant, one of the queerest fellows in the world. He wished also to take his share in the buffalo-hunt, but his steed was a lazy and peaceable animal, a true nag for a fat abbot, having a horror of any thing like trotting or galloping; and as he was not to be persuaded out of his slow walk, he and his master remained at a respectable distance from the scene of action. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... eager diligence, and grows old through a passionate desire of possessing. But when his sheep were lost by theft, his goats by distemper, his harvest deceived his hopes, his ox was killed with plowing; fretted with these losses, at midnight he snatches his nag, and in a passion makes his way to Philip's house. Whom as soon as Philip beheld, rough and unshaven, "Vulteius," said he, "you seem to me to be too laborious and earnest." "In truth, patron," replied he, "you would call me a wretch, if you would apply to me my true name. I beseech and ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... talking to you? Three verses of twaddle about the Irish emigrant "sitting on the stile, Mary," or three hours of Irish patriotism in Bermondsey or the Scotland Division of Liverpool, go further with you than all the facts that stare you in the face. Why, man alive, look at me! You know the way I nag, and worry, and carp, and cavil, and disparage, and am never satisfied and never quiet, and try the ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... home over his book or after the mazes of the dance,—was he dressed otherwise than with perfect care. Money and time did it, but folk thought that it grew with him, as did his hair and his nails. And he always rode a horse which charmed good judges of what a park nag should be;—not a prancing, restless, giggling, sideway-going, useless garran, but an animal well made, well bitted, with perfect paces, on whom a rider if it pleased him could be as quiet as a statue on a monument. It often did please Ferdinand Lopez to be quiet on ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... they know more propitiatory offerings as well as another present will accrue with the next set of suitors. This of course is only the case with the younger women; the older women for one thing do not nag so much, and moreover they have usually children willing and able to support them. If they have not, their state is, like that of all old childless women in Africa, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... complained of our friend Scrope B. Davies, in riding, that he had a stitch in his side. 'I don't wonder at it,' said Scrope, 'for you ride like a tailor.' Whoever had seen * * * on horseback, with his very tall figure on a small nag, would not deny the justice of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... old Chancellor Whitelocke presented a hogshead of good Canary wine, and a sober, handsome, strong, well-paced English pad nag, and one of his richest saddles. To Wrangel he gave an English gelding; to Tott another; to Wittenberg another; to Steinberg another; to Douglas another; and to such of the great men as the Queen directed. To Lagerfeldt he gave a clock, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... had set his heart upon it. Go he would; and he begged and pleaded so long that the King was forced to let him go. He gave Boots an old broken-down nag; but Boots did not care a pin for that, he sprang up ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... for the Prince in our ramshackle old vehicle, and he took another, being apparently very anxious to arrive at the hotel before us. He spoke to his driver, who lashed the one poor nag so furiously that Maida cried out with rage, and they flashed past us, the horse galloping as if Black Care were on his back. But something happened to the harness, and they were obliged to stop; so we got ahead, and reached the wide-arcaded ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... quickly as possible and the driver rushed through the door only to be surrounded by a group of wild looking villagers, who questioned him both in Irish and English. Soon after Andy re-appeared coming down the village street driving a sorry looking nag. As he approached the tavern and saw Paul and the guard at the door, he shouted loudly to the crowd to separate, as though wishing to show Paul the blood in his favorite mare. He punched her with ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... 3. [^U][n]NAG[/E]I"black"—Cassia Marilandica—Wild senna: Root bruised and moistened with water for poulticing sores; decoction drunk for fever and for a disease also called [^u][n]nage[']i, or "black" (same name as plant), in which the hands and ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... attends to her own business, and that is more than I can say for my chief enemy, Carrie Wade. Alfred, that girl hates the ground I walk on, and yet she keeps coming to see me. She has me on her visiting list so she can devil me. She has no work to do at home, and so she comes over to nag me. She never has a beau or gets a thing to wear without trotting over to tell me about it or flaunt it in my face. She even makes fun of me for having to work in the field, and is actually insulting sometimes. I'd shut the door in her face, but ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... stomach, pipe in mouth, and rifle sloped (butt up as a rule), Mr. Thomas Atkins of the Line goes leisurely forward. I do not know yet what the casualties were. Of the Worcesters who passed us, one poor fellow was shot through the head, and about ten wounded; we had none, save a nag shot by Roberts' ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... to the Bois, in a trap drawn by a sorry nag, or to go out into the boulevard escorted by a plain woman, are the two most humiliating things that could happen to a sensitive heart that values the opinion of others. Of all luxuries, woman is the rarest and the most distinguished; she is the one that costs ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... are at last. And here the evergeens are about us in a profusion which would make the eyes water of my honest friend the Dutch grocer who supplied me with my family trees so many years in New York. Our smoking nag is over his impatience now, and, being well blanketed, understands what is wanted of him quite as well as if he were tied, and stands as still as if he were Squire Slowgoes' fat and lazy "family horse." With pants tied snugly over our topboots to keep out the intruding ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... would hactelly have saved the parish pounds and pounds; and he—that blubbering fellow there—hactelly, as I was a-saying, called me a hard-hearted old blackguard for proposing it. Oh! I see; here comes Timson the butcher, what next then? Oh! just as I expected—it's a done job with my nag, I see. Steady, John Donnithorne, and hold down his head. Come, Timson, my good man—come, bear a hand, and whip the knife into the throat of un—skilfully done, wasn't it, doctor? Oh dear! can't bear the sight; too much for the doctor's nerves. Ay—well, that's a good one—that's right; ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... by a jerky-paced nag, with two men seated side by side shaking like jelly, and a woman behind, who clung to the side of the vehicle to ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... two and a clean shirt and collar, but she couldn't purchase the absence of the father at any price—he claimed what he called his "conzugal rights" as well as his board, lodging, washing and beer. She slaved for her children, and nag-nag-nagged them everlastingly, whether they were in the right or in the wrong, but they were hardened to it and took small notice. She had the spirit of a bullock. Her whole nature was soured. She had those "worse troubles" which she couldn't tell ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... he growled, clambering back into the room, "there's devilry somewhere at the bottom of this. The fellow's nag was ready saddled—I got near enough to see that: and the yard-gate posted open: and—the devil take it, Lydia, I believe you opened that window on purpose! ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pride to oblige, and his diligence, and his fidelity, and his contrivances to keep our secret, and his excuses, and his evasions to my mother, when challenged by her; with fifty ana's beside: and will it not moreover give him pretence and excuse oftener than ever to pad-nag it hither to good Mrs. Howe's ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... seated on the animal's back. The old nag trotted along better than he had thought possible. It was a long ride in the rain and darkness before they halted near a large inn, where everything looked terribly uninviting! The wheel tracks were so deep in the road that the boy feared he might drown ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... been but the degenerated shadow of Sandy Reed; for every time he had to pay a visit to the smith with his nag, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... battle fright, Prone in the road the steed reclines That never readied the fight; Yet on we go,—the wreck below Of many a tumbled wain,— By ghastly pools where stranded mules Die, drinking of the rain; With but my list of killed and missed I spur my stumbling nag, To tell of death at many a tryst, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... the harness," said the latter, with the easy air of ordering a nag at a stable. "And give me that blanket out of the buggy. I don't ride bareback for nobody." And he spat ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... rode along, Much like John Dory in the song, Upon a holy tide; I on an ambling nag did jet, (I trust he is not paid for yet,) And spurr'd him ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... me money. I spot their game, and am so indignant that I'll have nothing to do with them, at any price. Wouldn't sell dear old Bogey, whom my wife and children are so fond of, to such brutal blackguards, on any consideration. No, Sir, the horse has done me good service—a sounder nag never walked on four hoofs; and I'd rather sell it to a good, kind master, for twenty pounds, aye, or even eighteen, than let these rascals have it, though they have run up as high as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... "I am going to tell you why I didn't, and why Jack did. He is his own master, with money to do as he likes, and no one to question or nag him at home; while I am not my own master at all, and have no money except what mother chooses to give me, and that is not much. Father, you know, is poor, and mother holds the purse, which is not a large ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... schools. They may do well for a time, some of them unusually well, for it is the sensitive, high-strung organism that is appreciative and effective. After a while the worry and fret of the requirements and the constant nag of the schoolroom have their effect upon those who are foredoomed to failure in that particular field. The plight of such young women is particularly hard, for they are usually dependent upon ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... not in our employ, sir. He has been chief engineer of the Arab for the past eight years, and prior to that he was chief of the Narcissus. It was Reardon who told me what ailed her. She's a hog on coal, and the Oriental steamship people used to nag him about the fuel bills. Their port engineer didn't agree with Reardon as to what was wrong with her, so he left. He assures me that if her condensers are retubed she'll burn from seven to ten tons ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man, He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it as he can. But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail. For the female of the species is ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... happiness of my life to be never anything but a comrade. But who is to nag a girl if not her mother? I very much doubt if Mrs. Barrington will condescend to speak of your boot-soles. She will expect all that to have ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... was determined not to be left behind, he went into the garden, mounted the sorry nag, and set out. But scarcely had he ridden a few yards before the horse stumbled and fell. So he dismounted and went down to the brook, to where the black horse lived in the vaulted hall. And the horse said to him: 'Saddle and bridle me, and then go into the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... directed our liveryman to send over his best nag and a cutter this morning," said Albert at breakfast the next day to his friend, "and you and Alice can take a sleigh-ride and see Sandgate snow-clad. I have some business ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... this Government (both for unselfish and selfish reasons) puts a higher value on our friendship than on any similar thing in the world. They will go—they are going—the full length to keep it. But, in proportion to our tendency to nag them about little things will the value set on our friendship diminish and will their confidence ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... around outside, awaiting the arrival of the parson to open the meeting. Alighting, I am engaged in answering forty questions or thereabouts to the minute when that pious individual canters up, and, dismounting from his nag, comes forward and joins in the conversation. He invites me to stop over and hear the sermon; and when I beg to be excused because desirous of pushing ahead while the weather is favorable His Reverence solemnly warns me against desecrating the Sabbath ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Malanya Pavlovna was a very kind woman; she was easy to please.—"She doesn't nag you, and she doesn't sneer at you," the maids said of her.—Malanya Pavlovna was passionately fond of all sweets, and a special old woman, who occupied herself with nothing but the preserves, and therefore was called the preserve-woman, brought to her, half a score of times in a day, a Chinese ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; night and the coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings of John Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and the words "post-chaise," the "great North Road," "ostler," and "nag" still sound in my ears like poetry. One and all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, we read story-books in childhood, not for eloquence or character or thought, but for some quality of the brute incident. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will," she answered. "You have your wine to drink, and then there's the tea; and then we'll have a song two. I'll spin it out; see if I don't." And so we went to the front door where the boy was already on his horse—her own nag as ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... Yellowjacket puffing up the grade, following the wagon marks, and knew that she was nearing the end of her journey,—for which Yellowjacket, she supposed, would be thankful. She had started not more than an hour later than her father, but the team had trotted along more briskly than her poor old nag would travel, so that she did not overtake her dad as she ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... occasion, being in great haste, Mr. Pounce directed the ostler not to put Prance into the stable, but to tie him to the brew-house door. Now, as cruel fate would have it, there was just within the nag's reach, a tub full of wine lees, which, luckless moment for him, (being thirsty) he unceremoniously quaffed off in a trice, without ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... N. carrier, porter, bearer, tranter|, conveyer; cargador[obs3]; express, expressman; stevedore, coolie; conductor, locomotive, motor. beast, beast of burden, cattle, horse, nag, palfrey, Arab[obs3], blood horse, thoroughbred, galloway[obs3], charger, courser, racer, hunter, jument[obs3], pony, filly, colt, foal, barb, roan, jade, hack, bidet, pad, cob, tit, punch, roadster, goer[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was condemned to death as a traitor, and the next day, June 19, 1322, mounted on a sorry nag without a bridle, he was led to a hill outside the town, and executed with ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... good boy. I know a lot about him. It does you proud to get him for a husband. You're bound to be happy with him..." His voice sank, and his face seemed suddenly to be very old and tired as he went on anxiously. "Take warning from Sarah. Don't nag. Whatever you do, don't nag. Don't give him a perpetual-motion line of chin. Kind of let him talk once in a while. Men have some horse sense, though Sarah don't know it. Why, Sarah actually loves me, though she don't ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... I felt an animation that I cannot well describe. A creaking signboard, swinging in the wind on rusty irons, directed me to the only inn of the village. It was a two-story brick building, standing a little back from the road. I drew rein at the door, and dismounted my weary nag. My loud vociferations summoned to my side a bull dog, cursed with a most unhappy disposition, and a hostler whose temper was hardly more amiable. He took my horse with an air of surly indifference, and gruffly directed me to ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... sweep o'er the ethereal plain, And Pegasus runs restive in his 'Waggon,' Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain? Or pray Medea for a single dragon? Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain, He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on, And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, Could not the blockhead ask ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... was done with, I ordered the three horses saddled, and presently out in the courtyard Paddy was seated on his nag with the two sacks of pistols before him, and Jem in like manner with his two bundles of swords. The stableman held my horse, so I turned to Father Donovan and grasped him warmly by ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... see what humor he was in. The cat looked wild and scraggy, and had been known to rush straight up the chimney when he moved towards her. Fanny Kemble's expressive description of the Pennsylvania stage-horses was exactly suited to Reuben's poor old nag. "His hide resembled an old hair-trunk." Continual whipping and kicking had made him such a stoic, that no amount of blows could quicken his pace, and no chirruping could change the dejected drooping of his head. All his natural language said, as plainly as a horse could say it, that he ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... job," remarked Frank, meanwhile scanning the horse and forming his opinion of this member of the equine genus. Here is his judgment: "A famous trotter! a spirited steed!—indeed!—an old nag not worth half-a-guinea." ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... inferior Bollandists were enough to disgust anybody with saintliness. Offered to publisher after publisher, carted from the Paris libraries to the provincial workshops, this barrow of books had at first been hauled by a single nag, Father Giry; then a second horse had been added, the Abbe Guerin, and, harnessed to the same shafts, these two men pulled their heavy truck over the broken ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the whip, jumped off my nag, opened the gate, and away went Mick into the field. It was a sight to do one good. There was Mick, what he called his hat stuck on the back of his head, and what was left of his coat-tails flying in the air behind him, heading for the first stone wall, and, before you could say "knife," he was over ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... John, my president of the United States, hunched over on the seat of a garbage wagon driving a woebegone nag down the street. I grabbed hold of the druggist and said, 'Don't, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Came whigging up the hills, man; Thought Highland trews durst not refuse For to subscribe their bills then. In Willie's name, they thought nag ane Durst stop their course at a', man, But hur-nane-sell, wi mony a knock, Cry'd, "Furich—Whigs ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... small-beer with a peasant's wife, the following description of the fairy host may come more near the idea he has formed of that invisible company:—Bessie Dunlop declared that as she went to tether her nag by the side of Restalrig Loch (Lochend, near the eastern port of Edinburgh), she heard a tremendous sound of a body of riders rushing past her with such a noise as if heaven and earth would come together; that the sound swept past her and seemed to rush into the lake with a hideous ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... soil rich: no man in this county understands seeding, cropping, and marketing better than I do: we shall improve our stock and double our rent' (it was a hundred and fifty pounds per annum) 'the first year. I shall soon meet with a smart nag, fit for the side saddle, and shall easily make you a good horse woman; and then, when the seed is in the ground, we may be allowed to take a little pleasure. Perhaps we may ride by the rector's door, and if he should not ask us in we will not break our hearts. Who knows but, in time, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... smoke, piled upwards over Crowley's head from Guy's good tobacco, the "nag" was touched up, with a multiplied emphasis on the technical snack, and was kept trotting to the utmost limit of her lazy agility during the remainder of the drive. Crowley must have repented his own surliness ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... den ve valk aroun' an' 'roun' Som' horses for to see; Dere's pretty vomans, lots of dem, But, for de life of me, I can not see de trotter nag, Or vat's called t'oroughbred, I vonder if ve mak' mistake, Gat ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... reputation enjoyed by the boy he mentioned. Nick Lang had been the bully and the terror of Scranton for years. There was seldom a prank played (from stealing fruit from neighboring farmers, to painting old Dobbin, a stray nag accustomed to feeding on the open lots, so that the ordinarily white horse resembled the National flag, and created no end of astonishment as he stalked around, prancing at a lively rate when the hot sun began to start the turpentine to burning), but that everybody at once suspected ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... won't cry any more for it," she was saying. "This is the last sob. Some day, if Kinross doesn't lose her, you'll turn her over to your partner, I know. And I won't nag you any more. Only I do hope you know how I feel. It isn't as if I'd merely bought the Martha, or merely built her. I saved her. I took her off the reef. I saved her from the grave of the sea when fifty-five pounds was considered a big risk. ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... laziness! If he were only a father confessor now! he has all the qualities to fit him for one—indeed, he is only too prudent, modest, humble, chaste, and peaceable!" Still, admirable as these characteristics are, he is not quite the nag one expected. "I fancy that through some knavery or blundering on your servant's part, I must have got a different steed from the one you intended for me. In fact, now I come to remember, I had bidden my servant not to accept a horse except it were a good one; but I ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Lise demanded. "It ain't Commonwealth Avenue, but it's got Fillmore Street beat a mile. There ain't no whistles hereto get you out of bed at six a.m., for one thing. There ain't no geezers, like Walters, to nag you 'round all day long. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you joy!" he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy, and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out of the stables; take any one except my hack and the bay gelding and the coach horses; and ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... which had drawn her hither awoke tender memories of pretty Portia, now doubtless happily grazing on a dear mountain far away. With this sentiment in mind she stooped and plucked a handful of grass and held it under the nose of the pensive livery-nag. ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... alone," she burst out, in ringing, brave young voice. "I'll tell you what—I'll bet—if you follow her and nag her any more, my uncle Al or some cowboy will run you out of ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... off rifle after rifle till the Alleymans must 'ave thought we was an 'ole battalion. The only times when Mr. Wilkinson wasn't firin' rifles, 'e was fusin' bombs, jest as busy as that little girl be'ind the counter of the Nag's 'Ead of a Saturday night. 'E must 'ave sent a good number of 'Uns 'ome that day with bits of bombs ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... doubled, poor rates in some places trebled, highway, church, and constable rates doubled and trebled, and there were oppressive taxes on malt and horses, both nags and farm animals. A man renting a farm at L70 and keeping two farm-horses, a nag, and a dog, would pay taxes for them of L5 0s. 6d., a fourteenth of his rent.[542] Indeed, poor rates of 16s. and 20s. in the L were known,[543] and they were occasionally more than the whole rent received by the landlord forty years before. A Devonshire landowner complained that seven-sixteenths ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... rough, wild region, where the fires that had formerly devastated it had left the only visible marks of a near civilization. In a tranquil little dell that had grown up to wild grass, he came suddenly upon a horse feeding. It was Stackridge's useful nag, which looked up from his lofty grove-shaded pasture with a low whinny of recognition as Penn patted his neck and ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... your Nag, & pull his Tail in his hind Hele caw a Nail rug his Lugs frae ane anither stand up, & ca' ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the best for a week, under some pretence that your nag is sick, or you sick, or something in the way of a start—then go off, cheat, and laugh at me in the bargain. I reckon, old boy, you don't come over me in that way again; and I'm not half done with you yet about the kettles. That story of yours about the hot ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... ago there used to be an old fraud named Skinner, a sort of horse-doctor, who stepped somewhat over the line and walked off with some other fellow's nag. He is now putting in his time at Jefferson City. He was hale fellow well met with all that gang, especially Swanson, and I think if you could run down to Jefferson City, put the case before the warden, you could get pointers ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... cool head and to show my mettle by doing my full duty bravely. When sometimes things go wrong, and I cannot have my own way, I shall show my courage and self-command by keeping my temper and tongue under control; I will be a good sportsman and not complain, nag, nor find fault. I will make it a rule, if I feel my anger rising, to think twice before I speak or act. If I have wronged or offended anyone, I will be strong enough to go and make it right, confessing my fault. When I am tempted to think or do or say what I know to be wrong, I will ask my heavenly ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... Mr Peasemarsh. 'Shall I trot the whole stable out for your Honour's worship to see? Or shall I send round to the Bishop's to see if he's a nag or two to ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... Marsilius had to Mandricardo sped, As gift, a courser of a chestnut stain, Whose legs and mane were sable; he was bred Between a Friesland mare and nag of Spain. King Mandricardo, armed from foot to head, Leapt on the steed and galloped o'er the plain, And swore upon the camp to turn his back Till he should find the champion clad ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... benefactored. Perhaps they do. She knows much more of the behind-the-scenes of life than I do. But I know some things she doesn't, and a good many you don't. If I didn't like you, boy, I wouldn't tell you what I'm going to tell you, and that is, stay away and let her miss you. I'd tell you to keep on and nag her to death, and make her despise you for your weakness. She'll never marry a man she doesn't respect, even if she loved him, and love is by ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... none o' them autymobiles, nor yet no airship; but I've got a old nag that can do the piece ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... gait which marks my noble breed; I am content to trudge the road And willingly to draw my load— Sometimes to know the spur and goad When I begin to lag; I'd rather feel the collar jerk And tug at me, the while I work, Than all the tasks of life to shirk As does the stylish nag. ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... had done the trick. As by a miracle the hopeless had come to pass. The helm had been put hard over, and the craft had answered as sweetly as any swish-tailed circus nag. Gramarye and all her works, if not forgotten, had in the twinkling of an eye become the fabric of a dream—mere relics of a fantastic age for a sane mind ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... a strong, active nag, but he soon found that it was very inferior in speed to the one Pearson bestrode, and frequently he had to use whip and spur to keep ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Suzanne. "I know," she continued, making a pretty little face, "how ridiculous it is in a poor girl to come and nag at a man for what he thinks a mere nothing. But if you really knew me, monsieur, if you knew all that I am capable of for a man who would attach himself to me as much as I'm attached to you, you would never repent having married me. Of course it isn't here, in Alencon, that I should be of service ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... came up, he proved to be a student, a merry fellow, who was journeying along on his nag, and singing as he went. As soon as the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out, 'Good morning! good morning to thee, my friend!' The student looked about everywhere; and seeing no one, and not knowing where the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... like a child. "You're stupid, Streffy. You forget that Nick and I don't need alibis. We've got rid of all that hyprocrisy by agreeing that each will give the other a hand up when either of us wants a change. We've not married to spy and lie, and nag each other; we've formed a partnership ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... where you can get one, unless you steal the telegraph boy's nag; it's in the stable now, having ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... yourselves with when you go off duty," and he handed him what in those days was a very handsome present. "By the way," he said, as the men saluted him gratefully, "perhaps you will do me a favour. It is only to take this black horse of mine to his stable and harness that grey trooper nag to the sledge instead, as I wish to go the round of the moat, and my beast ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... them, and had no notion of doing more; but Mrs. Marshman was very kind, and Miss Sophia in despair, so the end of it was I dismounted and went in to await the preparing of that billet, while my poor nag was led off to the stables and a fresh horse supplied me. I fancy that tells you on ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Stoops to Conquer is said to have been suggested by one of Goldsmith's queer adventures. He arrived one day at a village, riding a borrowed nag, and with the air of a lordly traveler asked a stranger to direct him "to the best house in the place." The stranger misunderstood, or else was a rare wag, for he showed the way to the abode of a wealthy gentleman. There Goldsmith made himself at home, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... had gone by when she heard from a woman who rode up on a foot-sore nag that the McMurdo's were some distance behind. A bull boat in which the children were crossing the river had upset, and Mrs. McMurdo had been frightened and "took faint." The children were all right—only a wetting—but it was a bad time ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... knowing that persuasion would be useless, had henceforth to be his own groom. The fact was he could not help sympathizing with that fastidiousness of Lady Clare which made her object to be handled by coarse fingers and roughly curried, combed, and washed like a common plebeian nag. One does not commence life associating with a princess for nothing. Lady Clare, feeling in every nerve her high descent and breeding, had perhaps a sense of having come down in the world, and, like many another irrational creature of her sex, she kicked madly against fate ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... very recent days a spell of drinking—simple drinking—was the staple amusement of many an otherwise respectable farmer. Not many years since it was not unusual for some well-to-do farmer of the old school to ride off on his nag, and not be heard of for a week, till he was discovered at a distant roadside inn, where he had spent the interval in straightforward drinking. These habits are now happily extinct. It was in those old times that wheat ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... would have walked,—as he had done, scores of times, over the whole distance from Guestwick to Allington. But now, in these grander days, he thought about his boots and the mud, and the formal appearance of the thing. "Ah dear," he said to himself, as the nag walked slowly out of the town, "it used to be better with me in the old days. I hardly hoped that she would ever accept me, but at least she had never refused me. And then that brute had not as yet made his way ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... to play the hero part, and stopped what he believed was a runaway horse, with Bessie in the vehicle, only to have her scornfully tell him to mind his own business after that, since he had spoiled her plans for proving that their old family nag still had considerable speed left ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... quitted the field; and, turning the head of his horse, he rode slowly, and with a musing air, towards the dwellings. It is probable that for some time the thoughts of Mark were occupied with the intellectual matter he had just been handling with so much power; but when his little nag stopped of itself on a small eminence, which the crooked cow-path he was following crossed, his mind yielded to the impression of more worldly and more sensible objects. As the scene, that drew his contemplations ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... the trouble with Barry. Everybody's too good to him. And when I try to counteract it, Barry says that I nag. But ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... be an outlook from yonder hill which will turn failure into success," he thought, as he dug his heels into the sides of his faithful nag. At the same time he started a "Strong Heart" song to keep his ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... were two pretty men, They lay in bed till the clock struck ten; Then up starts Robin and looks at the sky, "Oh, brother Richard, the sun's very high! You go before, with the bottle and bag, And I will come after on little Jack Nag." ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... over-tasked creature with jarred nerves, whose plaint is an expression of pain, a cry for help; in any interval of ease which lasts long enough to relax the tension, she feels remorse, and becomes amiably anxious to atone. With the male nag it is different. He is usually sleek and smiling, a joyous creature, fond of good living, whose self-satisfaction bubbles over in artistic attempts to make everybody else uncomfortable. This was the kind ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... flagellate, 610 On which he blew as strong a levet As well-fee'd lawyer on his breviate, When over one another's heads They charge (three ranks at once) like Swedes, Next pans and kettle, of all keys, 615 From trebles down to double base; And after them, upon a nag, That might pass for a forehand stag, A cornet rode, and on his staff A smock display'd did proudly wave. 620 Then bagpipes of the loudest drones, With snuffling broken-winded tones, Whose blasts of air, in pockets ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Would have been only too glad, for her service, {750} To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise, But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it, Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it. For though, the moment I began setting His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting (Not that I meant to be obtrusive), She stopped me, while his rug was shifting, By a single rapid finger's lifting, And, with a gesture kind but conclusive, And a little shake of the head, refused me,— {760} I say, although she never used ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... wouldn't whip a girl—not to save her life. Besides, when a thing's done, and 'fessed, and paid for, it's all over with dad. He's perfectly fair, I must say that. He doesn't nag like ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... out riding alone, at dusk. I come in towards midnight. My cloak, my rough hat, and the melancholy trot of my nag, make me pass in the darkness for a ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... XVIII. would have been touched by the grateful humility of this repentant wretch. But the Emperor simply kicked him downstairs. He forbade the book to be published. The whole edition was put under lock and key, and never saw the light till liberty came back to France, with the white nag and the Bourbon lilies, in 1815. Surely here is ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... through Emerson's efforts brought some money as well as larger fame to its author. Of the first moneys that Emerson sent Carlyle as fruits of this adventure, the dyspeptic Scotchman wrote that he was "half-resolved to buy myself a sharp little nag with twenty of these trans-Atlantic pounds, and ride him till the other thirty be eaten. I will call the creature 'Yankee.' ... My kind friends!" And Yankee was duly ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord |
