"Nettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the authorities he would gain favour by delivering the letters: on the other side, if Basterga retained power to harm, it was not he who had taken the letters, nor he who would be exposed to the first blast of vengeance—but the girl. The blame for her, the credit for him! From the nettle danger his wits had plucked the flower safety. But for his fears he could have chuckled; and then he heard her leave the room, and relock the door. With a gasp of relief, he retired a pace or two, and waited, his eyes fixed on the doorway ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... was another stream of life, the innumerable living organisms that make up the dust of the sunshine. Pink and white, black and yellow spores from the mushrooms over the fence in the pasture; pollen pushed from the glumes of the red top grasses and the lilac spires of the hedge nettle and germander by the roadside; shoals of spores from the mosses and ferns by the trees and in the swamp; all these life particles rose and floated in the haze, giving it tints and meanings strangely sweet. When a farmer's buggy passed ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... crooked iron nail, drives him to the ground, and leaves him pierced with a thorn; but no hail of shot revenges his tortures. The grass stiffens at nightfall (in autumn), and he must creep where he may, if possibly he may escape the frost. No one cares for the humble-bee. But down to the flowering nettle in the mossy-sided ditch, up into the tall elm, winding in and out and round the branched buttercups, along the banks of the brook, far inside the deepest wood, away he wanders and despises nothing. His nest is under the rough grasses and the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... meanings. But meanwhile I forget how far we had gone. Oh! lasciviousness; we here have ample choice. Besides certain trees there is cyclamen, or sow-bread, which, according to an ancient dictum of Theophrastus, is symbolical of this sin because it was used in the preparation of love-philtres; the nettle, which Peter of Capua says is emblematic of the unruly instincts of the flesh; and the tuberose, a more modern introduction, but known as far back as the sixteenth century, when a Minorite Father brought it to France. Its heady perfume, which disturbs ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... on the ranges. We passed a fine large but dry Casuarina creek, coming from the westward, with a broad sandy bed. A large tree, with dark green broad lanceolate stinging leaves, grew on its banks; it resembled the nettle tree, but belonged to neither of the two species growing in the bushes of the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... first he thought of way-laying young Ferret in the wood and killing him; but then he recollected that the Ferrets were a powerful family, who would never rest till they had been revenged. His next thought was to go to his attorney, Sharp Weasel, Esq., of Nettle Cottage, and consult with him as to the best means of thwarting young Ferret's projects. So the old man took down his pipe and his account-book, and set off ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... by overloading the stomach when the animal is turned out to graze in the spring, certain feed constituents, high feeding of fattening stock, functional derangement of the kidneys, spinal and other nervous affections, are the most common sources of nettle rash. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... will of iron padded round with gentleness. She tried to fill the little man's soul with jealousy and alarms, but it was stockaded with insolent confidence. He left Dinah, when he went to Paris, with all the conviction of Medor in Angelique's fidelity. When she affected cold disdain, to nettle this changeling by the scorn a courtesan sometimes shows to her "protector," and which acts on him with the certainty of the screw of a winepress, Monsieur de la Baudraye gazed at his wife with fixed eyes, like those of a cat which, in the midst of domestic ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... for some time. At first she gazed at the dust helplessly. Utterly unused to doing anything for herself, she looked about anxiously. Two towels, clean but not ironed, lay on the rack. She hesitated, then grasping one of them as if it were the proverbial nettle, she attacked the bowl, gingerly at first, then with some vigor; and presently, with the aid of some dirty fragments of soap she found in the receptacle, using the second towel to dry it, she had the enamelled surface clean and shining. With an odd sense of satisfaction, ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... you undertake is dangerous." "Why that is certain: it is dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my Lord fool, out of this nettle danger, we pluck ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... to insects, I am able to handle without any fear. My skin does not suit them. If I persuaded them to bite me, what would happen to me? Hardly anything. We have more cause to dread the sting of a nettle than the dagger which is fatal to Dragon-flies. The same virus acts differently upon this organism and that, is formidable here and quite mild there. What kills the insect may easily be harmless to us. Let us not, however, generalize ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... rest on the chalk. Again and again we stop, and turn to admire the winding valley of the Medway. As we get more into the country and leave the town behind, we find the roadsides still decked with summer flowers, notably the fine dark blue Canterbury bell—the nettle-leaved Campanula (Campanula Trachelium)—and the exquisite light-blue chicory (Cichorium Intybus); but the flowers of the latter are so evanescent that, when gathered, they fade in an hour or two. This beautiful starlike-blossomed plant is abundant in many parts of Kent. We pass on the right ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... to call upon my Spirit. However, it would have been no good to ask me before, for I have only just found the herb I want," and he produced a handful of the leaves of a plant that was unfamiliar to me. It had prickly leaves, shaped very much like those of the common English nettle. ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... china, condite ginger, &c. Herbs, Pennyroyal, rue, calamint, bay leaves, and berries, scordium, bethany, lavender, camomile, centaury, wormwood, cumin, broom, orange pills. Spices, Saffron, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, pepper, musk, zedoary with wine, &c. Seeds, Aniseed, fennel-seed, ammi, cary, cumin, nettle, bays, parsley, grana paradisi. or Compounds, as Dianisum, diagalanga, diaciminum, diacalaminthes, electuarium de baccis lauri, benedicta laxativa, &c. pulvia carminativus, and pulvis descrip. Antidotario ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... physique in perfect because unconscious harmony with its environment. If, on the contrary, you watched but so much as the nervous, uncertain hand of the other woman, you would know here was one who had spent her years in alternately grasping the nettle and letting it go—reaping only stings in life's fair fields. Easy for any one seeing her in these days (though she wasn't thirty-six) to share Mrs. Freddy's incredulous astonishment at hearing from Haycroft the night before that Janet Levering had been 'the beauty of her ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... the first class. You will say, off-hand, that Lavender sounds pretty, and that Badger sounds ugly. Very well. Now, suppose that Christian names connoting unpleasant things were sometimes conferred at baptisms. Imagine two sisters named Nettle and Envy. Off-hand, you will say that these names sound ugly, whilst Rose and Faith sound pretty. Yet, believe me, there is not, in point of actual sound, one pin to choose either between Badger and Lavender, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... we think it probable he remained in captivity so long that he might learn their arts, stratagems, and modes of concealment. We are, moreover, to keep in mind this fact: the woods of Kentucky were at that period filled with a species of nettle of such a character that, being once bent down, it did not recover itself, but remained prostrate, thus retaining the impression of a foot almost like snow—even a turkey might be tracked in it with perfect ease. This weed Boone ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... less has he concerned himself with looking at the facts, but contents himself with taking them also at second-hand. A most amusing example of this fashion of dealing with scientific statements is furnished by Dr. Stirling's remarks upon my account of the protoplasm of the nettle hair. That account was drawn up from careful and often- repeated observation of the facts. Dr. Stirling thinks he is offering a valid criticism, when he says that my valued friend Professor Stricker gives a somewhat different statement ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... is a thorn, they show no wit Who foolishly hug and foster it. If love is a weed, how simple they Who gather and gather it, day by day! If love is a nettle that makes you smart, Why do you wear it next your heart? And if it be neither of these, say I, Why do you ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... bite, the sensation was sharp enough to deserve the name of pain; and this continued for five or six minutes more, but not so forcibly. I might compare it with the sensation produced by the stinging-nettle. A whitish tumefaction almost immediately surrounded the two pricks; and the circumference, within a radius of about an inch, was coloured an erysipelas red, accompanied by a very slight swelling. In an ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... touch a nettle, It will sting thee for thy pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, Soft and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "an' so tha'rt th' new rector, art ta? I thowt as mich as another ud spring up as soon as th' owd un wur cut down. Tha parsens is a nettle as dunnot soon dee oot. Well, I'll leave thee to th' owd lass here. Hoo's a rare un fur gab when hoo' taks th' notion, an' I'm noan so mich i' th' humor t' argufy mysen today." And he took his pipe from the mantelpiece and strolled out with an imperturbable ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... did Dave—the cat went over the partition. That door opened, only a little way this time, paused, and shut suddenly. Dave got out, grabbed a stick, skipped to the door, and clutched at the knob as if it were a nettle, and the door wouldn't come!—it was fast and locked! Then Dave's face began to look as frightened as his hair. He lit his candle at the fire, and asked me to come with him; he unlocked the door and we went into ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... proper season, nettle leaves and seed; beat them into powder, and make it into paste with flour, adding a little sweet olive-oil. Make this up into small crams: coop the birds up and feed them with it, giving ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... clusters of grapes, but these were yet hard and green; dwarf filberts grew on the dry gravelly sides of the hills, yet the rough prickly calyx that enclosed the nut, filled their fingers with minute thorns, that irritated the skin like the stings of the nettle; but as the kernel when ripe was sweet and good, they did not mind the consequences. The moist part of the valley was occupied by a large bed of May-apples, [FN: Kilvert's Ravine, above Pine-tree ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... sportsman can't overcome"—and no sooner had he uttered these encouraging words, than he made a spring, and came 'close-legged' upon the opposite bank; unfortunately, however, he lost his balance, and fell plump upon a huge stinging nettle, which would have been a treat to any ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... held the child; he remained there open-mouthed. He only dropped his head a moment when a nettle, which felt like an insect, stung his leg; then he looked up again—he looked above him at the face which looked down on him. It appeared to regard him the more steadfastly because it had no eyes. It was a comprehensive glance, having an indescribable fixedness in which there ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Mr. PUNCH! who is that tall, fair-haired, somewhat parrot-faced gentleman, smiling like a schoolboy over a mess of treacle, and now kissing the tips of his five fingers as gingerly as if he were doomed to kiss a nettle? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... sitting she prescribed for herself nettle-broth; at the third, catnip. The crises became mitigated, then disappeared. It was truly a miracle. The nasal addigitation did not succeed with the others, and, in order to bring on somnambulism, they projected ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... that he had plucked himself, and watered with salt tears—a lily of sweet water. And here is a nettle: what may its leaves tell us? What might he have thought when he plucked and kept it? Here is a little snowdrop out of the solitary wood; here is an evergreen from the flower-pot at the tavern; and here is a simple blade ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... insignia of Sauve should be a trident, those of Quissac should be surmounted by an old shoe! In the former place the forked branches of the Celtis australis or nettle tree, Ulmace, afford a most profitable occupation. From its tripartite boughs are made yearly thousands upon thousands of the three-pronged forks used in agriculture. The wood, whilst very durable, is yielding, and ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... a sweet garden rose, Let it bloom and wither if no man knows: But if one knows when the sweet thing blows, Knows, and lets it open and drop, If but a nettle his garden grows He hath ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... be married in two churches, one being quite sufficient;' that 'there is no truth in the saying that it is unlucky to marry a person of the same complexion;' and that 'a gentle aperient will remove nettle-rash.' ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... Rosemary, Lavender: The more Physical, are Carduus Benedictus, the Scurvy-grass of America, I never here met any of the European sort; Tobacco of many sorts, Dill, Carawa, Cummin, Anise, Coriander, all sorts of Plantain of England, and two sorts spontaneous, good Vulneraries; Elecampane, Comfrey, Nettle, the Seed from England, none Native; Monks Rhubarb, Burdock, Asarum wild in the Woods, reckon'd one of the Snake-Roots; Poppies in the Garden, none wild yet discover'd; Wormseed, Feverfew, Rue, Ground-Ivy spontaneous, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... every man's birth, A nettle adversity flings us; It yields to the grip of the masterful hand, When we play coward it ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... other fruits agree with you, then eat freely of them, in due moderation. But if, after three or four trials, you find that they do not agree with you, but make your stomach burn, and perhaps give you an attack of nettle-rash or hives, or a headache, then let ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... and when he rhymed it at last, Mother Flower or one of the little girls had always to take the spider beside her, when she sat down, which was of course quite troublesome. The kettle he rhymed first with nettle, and hung a bunch of nettle over it, till all the children got dreadfully stung. Then he tried settle, and hung the kettle over the settle. But that was no place for it; they had to go without their tea, and everybody who sat on the settle bumped his head against the kettle. At last it occurred to ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... and as picturesque ground implies the existence of hill and valley, wood and rock, the naturalist will find himself at home here. The flora is rich, though without any very marked features; the Nettle-leaved Bell-flower (Campanula Trachelium) being the most characteristic species. Regarding the fauna much has still to be learned. In Tipperary, Queen's County, and King's County we are in typical central plain country—great tracts of slightly undulating drift-covered ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... why I liked so much to loiter behind her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an AEolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious rantann when I looked and fingered over her hand to pick out the nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualifications she sang sweetly; and 'twas her favourite Scotch reel that I attempted to give an embodied vehicle to in rhyme. I was not so presumptive as to imagine I could make verses like printed ones composed by men who had Greek and Latin; ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... be not faint-hearted; Life ne'er was ordained to be shadeless and bright; One morn from the other by night-time is parted; The sun always shines though we see not the light; Misfortunes in life, like the nettle, prove harmless, If grappled stout-hearted and fearlessly presst; Rich sweets, without bitters, soon cloy and grow charmless, Then press on, despair not, and hope for ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... of January, 1869, was signalized by a storm of extreme violence, and the thunder burst several times over the island. Large trees were struck by the electric fluid and shattered, and among others one of those gigantic nettle-trees which had shaded the poultry-yard at the southern extremity of the lake. Had this meteor any relation to the phenomena going on in the bowels of the earth? Was there any connection between the commotion of the atmosphere and that of the interior of the earth? Cyrus Harding was inclined ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... perennial bell-flowers are in fine condition, as the carpathian, peach-leaved (second crop), nettle-leaved, common harebell, and vase harebell. In the case of many of the tall-growing kinds, better results are obtained by treating them as biennials than perennials. No garden should be without the double white feverfew; the more you cut it the more it blooms. ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... a nettle, And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... last the window faded from his sight, and he became insensible to what was going on around him, he was still conscious of that peculiar irritation, that prickled and itched and stung and burned, till he dreamed that he was travelling through a stinging-nettle wood that led up to a square window, through which a fierce-looking Turk armed with pistols and dagger crept to come ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... the hat and the scull in one of the little muddy bays of our brown river, forming an amphitheatre for water-rats and draped with great dockleaves, nettle-flowers, ragged robins, and other weeds for which the learned young lady gave the botanical names. It was pleasant to hear her speak with the full authority of absolute knowledge of her subject. She has intelligence. She is decidedly too good for Charles, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... no need to waste On a tongue that's fur, and a palate—paste! A magnum for friends who are sound: the sick— I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loath, Henceforward with nettle-broth. [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... soon stroke a nettle myself," said the cook, "but there's no accounting for taste! You take my word for it, if she goes on stroking much longer, she'll get a sting as she ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to be apologetic and merciful toward those who, while they have great faults, have also great virtues. Some people are barren of virtues. No weeds verily, but no flowers. I must not be too much enraged at a nettle along the fence if it be in a field containing forty acres of ripe Michigan wheat. At the present time, naturalists tell us, there is on the sun a spot twenty thousand miles long, but from the brightness and warmth I conclude it is a good deal ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... a nettle And it stings you for your pains; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains; Thus it is with vulgar natures, Use them kindly, they rebel: But be rough as nutmeg graters, And the rogues obey ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... hoop; an ancient marine custom. Four or more boys having their left hands tied fast to an iron hoop, and each of them a rope, called a nettle, in their right, being naked to the waist, wait the signal to begin: this being made by a stroke with a cat of nine tails, given by the boatswain to one of the boys, he strikes the boy before him, and every one does the same: at first the blows are but gently administered; ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the French, signifies primarily a prick or a sting, as of a nettle; the word denotes a sudden feeling of mingled pain and anger, but slight and usually transient, arising from some neglect or offense, real or imaginary. Umbrage is a deeper and more persistent displeasure at being overshadowed (L. umbra, a shadow) or subjected to any treatment that one deems ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Beale," she said, "I confess I have never regarded Doctor van Heerden as a possible suitor, and if I thought he was I should be immensely flattered. But may I suggest to you that there are other ways of winning a girl than by giving her nettle-rash!" ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... by public men, such as Mr. Roosevelt and our own Prime Minister, might be cited in the same sense; but Professor Murray's has been chosen because he has had the courage to grasp the nettle. In his words the true position is quite clearly set forth. If Inter-State Law is to become a reality we must "be sure to go far enough." There is no half-way house between Law and no Law, between Government and no Government, between Responsibility and no Responsibility. If ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... of the proposed recreation! Eleanor would not have watched the most brilliant performance at His Majesty's Theatre for a single evening under such uncomfortable circumstances, and to be asked to watch lesser whitethroats creeping up and down a nettle "almost every evening" during the height of the season struck her as an imputation on her intelligence that was positively offensive. Impatiently she transferred her attention to the dinner menu, which the boy had thoughtfully brought in as an alternative ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... I, They will commaunde like mistresses, they will forbyd, If they be not serued, Trupeny must be chyd. Let them be as mery nowe as ye can desire, With turnyng of a hande, our mirth lieth in the mire, I can not skill of such chaungeable mettle, There is nothing with them but in docke out nettle. ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... couldn't without telling you—please let me speak!" She drew a long breath of desperation and grasped the nettle firmly. "I stole the clothes I came here in. My name isn't Manwaring—it's Sally Manvers. I was ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... sumptuous banquetings, bestowed. For I requesting to be Sestius' guest 10 Read against claimant Antius a speech, Full-filled with poisonous pestilential trash. Hence a grave frigid rheum and frequent cough Shook me till fled I to thy bosom, where Repose and nettle-broth healed all my ills. 15 Wherefore recruited now best thanks I give To thee for nowise punishing my sins: Nor do I now object if noisome writs Of Sestius hear I, but that cold and cough And rheum may plague, not me, but Sestius' self ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... was soon of the same opinion; for scarcely a day passed when Emma's truthfulness did not prove a nettle to her own vanity. ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... is not so polyonymous. With Tormentil, Archangel, and various forms of Dead-nettle, we find only Badman's Posies ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... while Doctor Tom monopolized Aurora; on the other hand, he sometimes would succeed in getting his fingers among Occasion's hair, and secure Aurora for his share, while Dr. Tom was apportioned with the slenderer charmer. But the behavior of all was civilized and urbane, and if a thorn pricked or nettle burned, the sufferer concealed his pain ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... marsh-lotus which he himself has plucked and watered with salt tears—the marsh-lotus from the fresh waters. And here is a nettle: what does its leaf say? What did he think on plucking it—on preserving it? Here are lilies of the valley from the woodland solitudes; here are honeysuckle leaves from the village ale-house flower-pot; and here the ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... first sight to be almost clean cut, they have very slight serrations, as if nature had rounded them with a blunt knife. The lobed ivy leaves are likewise highly polished, and they have sharp, pointed tips. The leaves of the common stinging-nettle ("'ettles" the labourers call them) have deep indents all round them. A great dock leaf, in which the chives have a strange resemblance to the arteries in the human frame, has small shallow indents all round it. Hazels are rough and almost round in form, save for a pointed tip at the end; ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... 'tis your wish To nettle me, to break my breeding down, And see what natural passions I have hidden Behind the outworks of my etiquette. I neither own nor feel the want of heart With which you charge me. You are more than cruel; You rouse my nerves until they ache with life, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... grandfather must at times have been left in strange berths and with but rude provision. I may instance the case of my father, who was storm-bound three days upon an islet, sleeping in the uncemented and unchimneyed houses of the islanders, and subsisting on a diet of nettle-soup and lobsters. ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to nettle the boy in many ways, but "Dodd" bore the slings and arrows with a good deal of fortitude, and seemed to avoid a clash. The experience with his grandfather had had a very softening effect upon him, and he was slow to forget the lesson. He tried to be good, ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... experimenting in making clothing from nettles. This is a chance that the nettle has long been ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... feet, like the Magdalen's cup of ointment. Believe me, a life of love is an exception to the laws of this earth; all flowers fade; great joys and emotions have a morrow of evil—if a morrow at all. Real life is a life of anguish; its image is in that nettle growing there at the foot of the wall,—no sun can reach it and it keeps green. Yet, here, as in parts of the North, there are smiles in the sky, few to be sure, but they compensate for many a grief. Moreover, women who are naturally mothers ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... chin, steadily regarded his swaying shoulders and the yellow hair beneath his cap. In her nostrils was the scent of printer's ink and pipe tobacco. She reflectively rubbed her chin, for it had been stung with a day-old beard that pricked like a nettle. Now she was recalling another woodland adventure of a dozen years before ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew. They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the year. The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of hair ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... I think I went to his lodgings—and he sketched out what he was going to say. The question was whether, in view of the Tyndall row, it was wise in him to take the line he had marked out. In the end I remember his saying,] 'Grasp your nettle, that is what I have got to do.'" [But apart from the subject, the manner of the address struck the audience as a wonderful tour de force. The man who at first disliked public speaking, and always ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... and he declined to be judged except by men of his own cloth. If they acquitted him, as they were morally certain to do, what Court of Appeal could reverse the decision of men who claimed to 'judge angels'? A riot arose in Edinburgh, the King seized his opportunity, he grasped his nettle, the municipal authorities backed him, and, in effect, the claims of true ministers thenceforth gave little trouble till the folly of Charles I. led to the rise of the Covenant. The Sovereign had overshot his limits of power as wildly as ever the Kirk had tried ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... he had to overhear this, and I had never seen him less sang fraw—if that's the word. He looked more like a case of nettle rash, especially when Vernabelle gripped his hand at parting ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the top, but we seemed to have been nearer its sources, and to have brought back a deepened sense of the magnitude of the forms, and of the depth of the chasm which we had heretofore gazed upon from a distance. Also we had plucked the flower of safety from the nettle danger, ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... over half a mile before the pale glow of the night turned to utter darkness. Something that looked like a vast sea-nettle was slowly sinking down toward them from the sky. Its tentacles glowed faintly as it fell—and it must have been a hundred yards across at the top. Once more bullets, lightning bolts and sheets of flame were hurled at the descending thing. It fell apart and came ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... the Knightly Tale of Galogras, The Temple of Glas, Lodge's Nettle for Nice Noses, or the Book of Fayts of Armes, by Christene of Pisa, or Caxton's Pylgremage of the Sowle, or his Myrrour of the Worlde, will be long inquired after before they come to the market, thoroughly contradicting that fundamental principle of political ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... suggested to Washington the way out of it. If the enemy could turn his right, why could not he turn their left? If they could cut off his retreat, why could not he threaten their's? This was sublimated audacity, with his little force; but safety here was only to be plucked from the nettle danger. It was then and there that Washington[6] proposed making a flank march to Princeton that very night, boldly throwing themselves upon the enemy's communications, defeating such reenforcements as might be found in ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... Laportea, N.O. Urticaceae, large scrub-trees, are called by this name—Giant Nettle, L. gigas, Wedd., and Small-leaved Nettle, L. photiniphylla, Wedd.; they have rigid stinging hairs. These are both species of such magnitude as to form timber-trees. A third, L. moroides, Wedd., is a small tree, with the stinging hairs extremely ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... much to loiter behind with her when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an AEolian harp; and particularly, why my pulse beat such a furious rattan, when I looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Thus with me began love and poetry, which at times have been my only, and till within the last twelve months, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... "A nettle leaf is small. But that's not the reason why it won't ever grow into an oak. Look here! A sheaf of winter grasses, rightly arranged in clear glass, has as much of the essence of beauty as a bronze vase of the Ming dynasty. I ask you just one question, How many people ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... punk husbands need not be discouraged, nor should husbands with nagging wives be cast down, for was it not Emerson who said, "It is better to be a nettle in the side of your friend ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... passion is the sooner it is out, like a running knot, that strains hardest, but is easiest loosed. He is never very passionate but for trifles, and is always most temperate where he has least cause, like a nettle that stings worst when it is touched with soft and gentle fingers, but when it is bruised with rugged, hardened hands returns no ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... Pneumonantha (blue gentian), Erica, Cinerea (heath), Malva Rotundifolia (round-leaved mallow), Marrubium Vulgare (white horehound), Calamintha Acinos (basil thyme), Eriophorum Angustifolium (cotton grass), Narthekium Ossifragum (bog asphodel), Galeopsis Bifida (hemp nettle), Senecio Sylvaticus (ragwort), three St. John’s worts, viz. Hypericum Pulchrum, H. Quaodrangulum, and H. Perforatum, Spergula Arvensis (corn spurrey), Saponaria Officinalis (common soap wort), Drosera Rotundifolia (round-leaved sundew), D. Intermedia (intermediate variety), Epilobium Macrocarpum ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... possessed ability, differing in kind, perhaps, which they used in the accomplishment of their own ends. France can never overestimate the great evil these two men did to the national cause. Napoleon's power and penetrating vision kept them in check only when he could grasp the nettle. Even when absent on his campaigns, they knew he was kept in close touch with what was going on. It was not until treason became entangled within treason that their evil designs had fuller scope and more disastrous results. Bourrienne, another rascal already referred to in this ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... a tree. Capas (Pangasinan) the cotton-tree (Igorrote dialect). Camagon Is. a tree. Cabuyao (Laguna) a tree. Calumpit (Bulacan) a tree. Culasi (Antique) a tree. Iba (Zambales) a plant. Lucbang (Tayabas) a small lime. Lipa (Batangas) nettle. Quiapo (Manila suburb) an aquatic plant. Sampaloc (Manila suburb) the tamarind-tree. Salomague (Ilocos) the tamarind-tree. (Igorrote dialect). Tabaco (Albay) the tobacco-plant. Taal (Batangas) a tree (same as Ipil). ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... an ass, Tom," said East, catching hold of him; "you know me well enough by this time; my bark's worse than my bite. You can't expect to ride your new crotchet without anybody's trying to stick a nettle under his tail and make him kick you off—especially as we shall all have to go on foot still. But now sit down, and let's go over it again. I'll be as serious ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... one of these can be called "a dominant historical personage," and the known facts permit themselves to be, and are, "romanticised" effectively enough. So the flower is in each case plucked from the nettle. And there is another flower of more positive and less compensatory kind which blooms here, which is particularly welcome to some readers, and which, from Cinq-Mars alone, they could hardly have expected ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... such a matter. Finally he said, "Mark my words, Chaplain, there will be blood shed over there within a month." This man was a singular genius, and I thought he might wish to start such a story to nettle the warden. Besides, they were as vigilant as possible at the prison, and the inmates would find them alert, should they attempt to rise. From all considerations, I thought it not worth while to speak of the case to any. Still, it would do no harm to prepare and deliver a discourse from the text, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... silence people who have had the hardihood to throw odium on their superstitions. Believers in amulets and charms remind us that it is a well-ascertained fact in nature, that for every bane there is an antidote. Wherever the stinging nettle grows, the slimy stem of the dock is near; whenever the wasp stings, honey gathered by the industrious bee may be had, without going far, to put on the injured part; when the cold is most intense without, the fire burns brightest within; and if there be evil spirits seeking man's hurt, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... which inheres in the private and particular nature,—and he does not call it any hard names at all from his scientific platform; indeed in the vocabulary of the Naturalist we are told, that these names are omitted, 'for we call a nettle but a nettle, and the faults of fools their folly,'—that exclusive good he finds both passive and active, and this also is one of those primary distinctions which 'is formed in all things,' and so too is the subdivision of passive good which follows. 'For there is impressed upon all things ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... dry nor dead, But still it blossoms sweet; 10 Then tell me why all round its roots The dock and nettle meet. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine. I hate, where I looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... their deaths, and my brother's death; and their destroyer shall not dandle a bairn upon his knee, or kiss its cheek, while mine are all, all dead, and in a strange grave, and even wi' no one near to pull up the noxious nettle that may be waving ower their once bonny ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... tendrils like a strawberry plant. I was abashed, tried to get out of it, to break through its clinging toils—that was no good.... I went away. Well, in that too I showed that I was an absurd person; I ought to have calmly waited for the storm to blow over, just as one waits for the end of nettle-rash, and the same kindly-disposed persons would have opened their arms to me again, the same ladies would have smiled approvingly again at my remarks.... But what's wrong is just that I'm not an original person. Conscientious scruples, please to ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... End.—First put a stop on at twice and a half the circumference of the rope from the end, which will leave about the length for pointing, unlay the rope to the stop and then unlay the strands. Split a number of the outside yarns and make a nettle out of each yarn. (A nettle is made by laying up the yarns with the finger and thumb left-handed.) When the nettles are made stop them back on the standing part of the rope; then form the point with the rest of the yarns by scraping them down to a proper size with a knife, and marl them down ...
— Knots, Bends, Splices - With tables of strengths of ropes, etc. and wire rigging • J. Netherclift Jutsum
... sky, in a great powdery plain without roads, without grass, without a thistle, without a nettle, I met several men who were walking with ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Suffering from an incurable disease, he occupied the last years of his life in observing and setting down for the instruction of others the habits of these insects. He found that ants of the species Atta barbara store up grains. They utilise plants of various kinds, but usually fumitory, oats, nettle, various species of Veronica, etc. They procure these grains towards the end of autumn, collecting them on the soil, or even, when they do not fall in sufficient quantities, climbing up the plants and gathering them in position. An ant will, for instance, ascend ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... "What nettle stings you, boy?" asked his grandfather sarcastically, and at that he looked up and rose to his ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... With the gentle tact peculiar to kindly people, he avoided looking at his disarmed antagonist. But something in the older man's attitude seemed to further nettle the over-stimulated sensibility ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... danger altogether. But we must not. We must rather say to ourselves, Now and here, if not in the past, I must play the man, and, by God's help, the wise man. I must pluck safety henceforth out of the heart of the nettle danger. Yes, I made a mistake. I did what I would not do now, and I must not be too proud to say so. I acted, I see now, precipitately, inconsiderately, imprudently. And I must not gloom and rebel and run away from the cross and the lion. I must not ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... among individuals, implies faith and risk-taking, not recklessness, indeed, but dangerous living, a willingness and a desire to take a hand in the largest game of life and continually to "pluck out of the nettle, danger, safety"; but this safety itself only as a momentary resting-place in the unceasing urge of nations to use their nationality, not for the achievement of some selfish separate perfection, but for the ever advancing realization ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson
... from a hedge when his hand was stung by a Nettle. Smarting with the pain, he ran to tell his mother, and said to her between his sobs, "I only touched it ever so lightly, mother." "That's just why you got stung, my son," she said; "if you had grasped it firmly, it wouldn't have hurt you ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... The nettle tree, which is also met with in the bushes, is not only seen by the traveller, but occasionally felt, and remembered, for ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighboured by fruits of baser quality, And ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... in texture, colour, and general appearance, even as a diamond differs from granite, yet all being equally protoplasm, just as a diamond and a block of granite are equally stones, or as heart of oak and the outer case of a nettle's sting are equally wood. The human ovum, he gives us to understand, is in its earliest stage but a single particle of protoplasm; the human foetus but an aggregation of such particles, variously modified; the human body perfectly matured, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... nettle and parsley, white In its own green light, Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadow-sweet Lifting at your feet, And ivy-blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take The loveliest— The ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... jungles, and our best game, I say it with pride, I invented. I got it out of the Bladesover saloon. We found a wood where "Trespassing" was forbidden, and did the "Retreat of the Ten Thousand" through it from end to end, cutting our way bravely through a host of nettle beds that barred our path, and not forgetting to weep and kneel when at last we emerged within sight of the High Road Sea. So we have burst at times, weeping and rejoicing, upon startled wayfarers. Usually I took the part of that distinguished general Xenophen—and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... used as a cure for asthma, the yarrow is used to cure jaundice, agaricos is used for blisters, aristolochia (the fruit of which has the form of a uterus) is used for the pains of child-birth, and nettle-tea for nettle-rash. This series may be voluntarily increased when related to the holy patron saints of the Catholic Church, who are chosen as protectors against some especial condition or some specific difficulty because they at one time had some connection with that particular matter. So ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... as I am by the side of a young or old woman now, I try to give our conversation a ticklish turn; I forget all reserve and I try to make her talk of those jokes which nettle, those words of double meaning which excite, and to lead her up to the only subject that interests and holds me, to find out what she feels in her body as well as in her heart, on that night, when for the first time, she has to undergo the nuptial ordeal. Some do not appear to understand me, blush, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... caterpillars slide down threads of their own making to the bushes below, but they are running terrible risk. For a pair of white-throats or "nettle-creepers" are on the watch, and seize the green creeping things crossways in their beaks. Then they perch on a branch three or four yards only from where I stand, silent and motionless, and glance first at me and next ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... raging woe, Alone, by other's presence unreprest, From his full eyes the tears descending flow, In a wide stream, and flood his troubled breast. 'Mid sob and groan, he tosses to and fro About his weary bed, in search of rest; And vainly shifting, harder than a rock And sharper than a nettle found its flock. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, 'out of this nettle danger, we pluck this ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... median nerve.[71] Steinheil has also recorded a Cerastium in which one of the leaves was provided with two midribs; above this leaf was a group of ternate leaves. I have seen similar instances in the common Elm, Ulmus campestris, and also in the common nettle, Urtica dioica, the leaves of which latter thus resembled those of Urtica biloba, which are habitually bilobed at the summit. M. Clos[72] mentions an instance where the terminal leaf and first ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... on the skin, often coming suddenly and going off again, but sometimes of long standing. It resembles in appearance the sting of a nettle—hence the name. It is accompanied by an intolerable itching, and is a very sore trouble where it continues, or frequently recurs. Its cause is usually defective digestion. We should not depend on drugs for a cure, but treat first the whole spinal ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... the extremities are treated with splints and bandages, as in Europe. Venereal ulcers are sprinkled with alkaline wood ashes, the astringent liquid of the nettle bark, or a macerated preparation from a particular kind of broad-leaved grass. Superficial wounds are left to themselves, and usually heal without much trouble. Malformations of the body are attributed to ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... they had nothing to do but go into a shop and buy kindliness. I hear you say that kindliness of heart can be "cultivated." Well, I hate to have even the appearance of contradicting you, but it can only be cultivated in the botanical sense. You can't cultivate violets on a nettle. A philosopher has enjoined us to suffer fools gladly. He had more usefully enjoined us to suffer ill-natured persons gladly.... I see that in a fit of absentmindedness I have strayed into the ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... and daisy sweetly bloomed, Hemlock and fern, in rank luxuriance spread; Where rose and lily once the air perfumed, Wild dock and nettle sprout, no fragrance shed: And here no more the throstle's mellow lay Awakes with gladsome ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... that the true ludicrous is its own end. When serious satire commences, or satire that is felt as serious, however comically drest, free and genuine laughter ceases; it becomes sardonic. This you experience in reading Young, and also not unfrequently in Butler. The true comic is the blossom of the nettle. ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Plant growing out of a Plant, or somewhat like the hairs of Animals) as there is to be found amongst small shrubs that compose bushes; but for the most part, they consist of small transparent parts, some of which grow in the shape of small Needles or Bodkins, as on the Thistle, Cowag-ecod and Nettle; others in the form of Cat's claws, as in Cliders, the beards of Barley, the edges of several sorts of Grass and Reeds, &c. in other, as Coltsfoot, Rose-campion, Aps, Poplar, Willow, and almost all other downy Plants, they grow in ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... father to the proof. Suppose that the account had not been carelessly overdrawn— Suppose— He never for one instant suspected the girl. As soon suspect a rosebud of foregoing its own sweet personality, and of being in reality something else, say a stinging nettle. The girl carried her patent royal of youth and innocence on her face. He made up his mind to say nothing about the check, to lose the ten dollars, and, since dollars were so far from plenty with him, to sacrifice some luxury for the luxury of the loss. He made ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... strewn With leaves—the holly's Autumn falls in June— And fir cones standing stiff up in the heat. The mill-foot water tumbled white and lit With tossing crystals, happier than any crowd Of children pouring out of school aloud. And in the little thickets where a sleeper For ever might lie lost, the nettle-creeper And garden warbler sang unceasingly; While over them shrill shrieked in his fierce glee The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow As if the bow had flown off with the arrow. Only the scent of woodbine and hay new-mown Travelled the road. In the field sloping ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... greatly distressed to learn that I had been supporting her all that time. But after that refreshing slumber a change seemed to come over her. Not only her great fatigue, but the tormenting apprehensions had very nearly vanished. Out of the nettle Danger she had plucked the flower Safety, and now she could rejoice in its possession and was filled with new life and spirits. The unaccustomed freedom and exercise, with constant change of scene, also had an exhilarating effect on mind and body. A new colour came ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... weeds reach about two feet high, being the tallest we have observed this season, though on the high plains and prairies the grass is at no season above three inches in height. Among these weeds are the sandrush, and nettle in small quantities; the plains are still infested by great numbers of the small birds already mentioned, among whom is the brown curlew. The current of the river is here extremely gentle; the buffaloe have not yet quite gone, for the hunters brought in three in very good order. It requires ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... with Luellin to Mr. Mount's chamber at the Cockpit, where he did lie of old, and there we drank, and from thence to W. Symons where we found him abroad, but she, like a good lady, within, and there we did eat some nettle porrige, which was made on purpose to-day for some of their coming, and was very good. With her we sat a good while, merry in discourse, and so away, Luellin and I to my Lord's, and there dined. He told me one of the prettiest stories, how Mr. Blurton, his friend that was with him at my house ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that bears the weedes wick' *that same Bears eke the wholesome herbes, and full oft Next to the foule nettle, rough and thick, The lily waxeth,* white, and smooth, and soft; *grows And next the valley is the hill aloft, And next the darke night is the glad morrow, And also joy is next the fine* of sorrow." ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... upright on his pinnacle, visible to Lily's eyes as being really excelsior. Of all this John Eames himself had an inkling which had often made him very uncomfortable. What the mischief was it she wanted of him; and what was he to do? The days for plucking glory from the nettle danger were clean gone by. He was well dressed. He knew a good many of the right sort of people. He was not in debt. He had saved an old nobleman's life once upon a time, and had been a good deal talked about on that score. He had even thrashed the man who had ill-treated ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... not his entertainment, namely his seat, his ground, his keeper, or the manner of his setting, comith up thick and rough in leaves, very like unto a nettle; and will be much bitten with a little black flye, who, also, will not do harme unto good hoppes, who if she leave the leaf as full of holes as a nettle, yet she seldome proceedeth to the utter destruction of the Hoppe; ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... cam to yon nettle bush, The nettles they war spread: 'O an my mither war but here,' she says, 'These nettles she ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Beanstalk The Little Good Mouse Graciosa and Percinet The Three Princesses of Whiteland The Voice of Death The Six Sillies Kari Woodengown Drakestail The Ratcatcher The True History of Little Goldenhood The Golden Branch The Three Dwarfs Dapplegrim The Enchanted Canary The Twelve Brothers Rapunzel The Nettle Spinner Farmer Weatherbeard Mother Holle Minnikin Bushy Bride Snowdrop The Golden Goose The Seven Foals The Marvellous Musician The ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... mocking smiles, as a mere boy, a disdain to her mature womanhood. Of this was he thinking as he tossed on the couch in the library; he had thought of it too much since leaving Heliodora yesterday afternoon. It began to nettle him that his grief should be for her merely an amusement. Never having seen the Gothic maiden, whose beauty outshone hers as sunrise outdoes the lighting of a candle, this wanton Greek was capable of despising him in good earnest, and Basil had never been of those who sit easy under ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... and selfish, to contemplate a mode of revenge which could not be accomplished without risk to himself. In any case, however, she was clearly convinced that the best plan was to go boldly upon him at once. It was like taking the sting out of a nettle, by grasping it suddenly. She thought he would shrink from publicity; and that if we refused to give him a struggle in the dark, we should effectually ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... that up! Never had less trouble! Shows we can do better without those Foundry chaps than with 'em! James, ye can have a quart brought in, if ye'n a mind, but I won't have them apprentices drinking! No, I won't! Mrs Nixon'll give 'em some nettle-beer if ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... he led Upon his brazen chair Made his hindquarters very red, While pricks, as from a nettle-bed, He felt both here and there: A burning sun, too, chanced to shine, And boiled down all his ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... voice that amid dispiritment, stupidity, and contradiction proclaims to us, Euge! Nothing ever was more ungenial than the soil this poor Teufelsdrockhish seed-corn has been thrown on here; none cries, Good speed to it; the sorriest nettle or hemlock seed, one would think, had been more welcome. For indeed our British periodical critics, and especially the public of Fraser's Magazine (which I believe I have now done with), exceed all speech; require not ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... all they know about it. I've told them till I'm tired that it's nettle-rash. I've had it before. I always do get the wretched thing when I eat sausages. They sort of poison me. It'll go away all right if they only let me alone. What did Miss Todd want bringing that black doctor up to see me? I had nearly ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... leg, an' so, ye see, ther' warn't no gret o' waste; Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they'd ben to college 'Twarn't heartier food than though 'twuz made out o' the tree o' knowledge. But I tell you my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant, An' var'ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement, 50 An' all o' me thet wuzn't sore an' sendin' prickles thru me Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin' Montezumy: A useful limb it's ben to me, an' more of a support Than wut ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the case, that my kisses—I shower them not, Allah the All-seeing is my witness! and they be given daintily as 'twere to the leaf of a nettle, or over-hot pilau. Yet haply kisses repeated might restore her to a bloom, and it is certain youth is somehow stolen from her, if the Vizier Feshnavat went before her, and his blood be her blood; and he is powerful, she wise. I'll decide to act the part of a rejoicer, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thought, and reason was much inside me; because the water was bitter cold, and my little toes were aching. So on the bank I rubbed them well with a sprout of young sting-nettle, and having skipped about awhile, was kindly ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... will she tempt the barren waste; Nor deigns the lurking strength to taste Of any noxious thing; But leaves with scorn to Envy's use The insipid nightshade's baneful juice, The nettle's sordid sting. ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... insect is illustrated in the figure in the upper portion—the peacock butterfly (Vanessa Io). The curious spiked and spotted caterpillar feeds upon the common nettle. This beautiful butterfly—common in most districts—is brilliantly colored and figured on the upper side of the wings, but only of a mottled brown on the under surface, somewhat resembling a dried and brown leaf, so that it is no easy matter to detect ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... it goes they fall amid brambles, And sting their toes on the nettle-tops, Till after a thousand scratches and scrambles They wipe their brows, and ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... endurance; indignant remonstrances were heard from all quarters, and the Government seemed for the first time fairly to comprehend that it had twenty millions of freemen at its back, and that forts might be taken and held by honest men as well as by knaves and traitors. The nettle had been stroked long enough; it was time to try a firm grip. Still the Administration seemed inclined to temporize, so thoroughly was it possessed by the notion of conciliating the Border States. In point of fact, the side which those States ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell |
