"Worm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spoken at any length, he had done so in a general sort of way and with marked modesty. Indeed, at moments of the kind his discourse had assumed something of a literary vein, in that invariably he had stated that, being a worm of no account in the world, he was deserving of no consideration at the hands of his fellows; that in his time he had undergone many strange experiences; that subsequently he had suffered much in the cause of Truth; that he had many enemies seeking his life; and that, being desirous of rest, he ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... mansion despoiled of its heirlooms—rare opportunities for the collector. Really, Major, you should see some of the stuff that was landed on me when I began, years ago, with a story almost as good. Reproductions, every piece of it, with as fine an imitation of worm-eaten backs as you ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... with cannibal ferocity, and computed how many pounds of steaks might be cut from his well fattened carcass. Nay, the rage of his enemies was such that, in language seldom heard in England, they proclaimed their wish that he might go to the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, to the worm that never dies, to the fire that is never quenched. They exhorted him to hang himself in his garters, and to cut his throat with his razor. They put up horrible prayers that he might not be able to repent, that he might die the same hardhearted, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... eunuch-hearted King Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world— The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I! Slain was the brother of my paramour By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too, Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell, And stings itself to everlasting death, To hang whatever knight of thine I fought And tumbled. Art thou King?—Look to thy life!" He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... all, the "thing itself" which matters—the thing which "owes the worm no silk, the cat no perfume." Forked straddling animals are we all, as the mad king says in the play, and it is mere effeminacy and affectation to ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... acting upon it determines. Again, it is a well-established fact that the larva of a working-bee will develop into a queen-bee, if, before it is too late, its food be changed to that on which the larvae of queen-bees are fed. Even more remarkable is the case of certain entozoa. The ovum of a tape-worm, getting into its natural habitat, the intestine, unfolds into the well-known form of its parent; but if carried, as it frequently is, into other parts of the system, it becomes a sac-like creature, called by naturalists the Echinococcus—a creature so extremely different ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... last, I have been into the country. I journeyed by night—no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number XIX—mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith I had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... this long awn lies upon the ground, it extends itself in the moist air of night, and pushes forwards the barley corn, which it adheres to; in the day it shortens as it dries; and as these points prevent it from receding, it draws up its pointed end; and thus, creeping like a worm, will travel many feet from the parent stem. That very ingenious Mechanic Philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth, once made on this principle a wooden automaton; its back consisted of soft Fir-wood, about an inch square, and four feet ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... can see! 'Tis no shadow of the tree Swaying softly there, but she!— Maenad, Bassarid, Bacchant, What you will, who doth enchant Night with sensuous nudity. Lo! again I hear her pant Breasting through the dewy glooms— Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers Of the starlight;—wood-perfumes Swoon around her and frail showers Of the leaflet-tilted rain. Lo, like love, she comes again, Through the pale, voluptuous dusk, Sweet of limb with breasts of musk. With her lips, like blossoms, breathing Honeyed pungence ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... scarce kissed the brow of the fair maid, and already the canker worm of sorrow is preying upon her heart-strings. Poor thing, so young and yet so sad! What can have caused this sadness! Perhaps she loves one whose heart throbs not with answering kindness—perhaps loves one faithless to her beauty, or loves where cruel fate has interposed the ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... utterly against reason,' said Mr. Edmonstone, angrily. 'If he was a fellow like Philip, or James Ross, I could believe it; but he—he make a book-worm! He hates it, like poison, at the bottom of his heart, I'll answer for it; and the worst of it is, the fellow putting forward such a fair reason one can't—being his guardian, and all—say what one thinks ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... primeval ooze, Ruined, dishonoured, spoiled, They lie where the lean water-worm Crawls free of their secrets, and their broken sides Bulge with the slime of life. Thus they abide, Thus fouled and desecrate, The summons of the Trumpet, and the while These Twain, their murderers, Unravined, imperturbable, unsubdued, ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... are thousands of scholastic merit Who worm their sense out but ne'er taste their spirit. Witness each pedant under Bentley bred; Each commentator that e'er commented. 70 (You scarce can seize a spot of classic ground, With leagues of Dutch morass so floated round.) Witness—but, Sir, I hold a cautious pen, Lest I should wrong some honourable ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... the unstirr'd leaves; The glow-worm glisten'd brightly as he pass'd; The thrush still chaunted, but the swallows fast Hied to their home beneath ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... and verify, but also possessed imagination, and could thereby see the motive idea at work behind the facts. At first it has a repellent sound, but we quickly learn how clumsy and prejudiced have been our views of the despised worm thrown up by ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Supper? Where? Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten, a certaine conuocation of wormes are e'ne at him. Your worm is your onely Emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat vs, and we fat our selfe for Magots. Your fat King, and your leane Begger is but variable seruice to dishes, but to one ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... term for a fishing-hook [from the Anglo-Saxon ongul, for the same]. It means also a red worm used for a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Jimmy glanced up. "Chickie, Chickie, Chickie," he said. "I can't till by your dress whether you are a hin or a rooster. But I can till by your employmint that you are working for grub. Have to hustle lively for every worm you find, don't you, Chickie? Now me, I'm hustlin' lively for a drink, and I be domn if it seems nicessary with a whole river of drinkin' stuff flowin' right under me feet. But the old Wabash ain't runnin "wine and milk and honey" not by the jug-full. It seems to be ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to me it seemed a weird event when I the wonder learnt; that the worm swallowed sentence of man (thief in the dark) document sure, binding and all. The burglar was never a whit the more wise for the words ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... the chestnuts (noticing carefully if any are worm-eaten), and boil for half an hour in sufficient water to cover; remove the shells and skins and fry a few minutes in the butter, stir in the flour and salt and fry again, then pour in the milk and parsley and stir five minutes, ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... reptiles—hideously rare; While others search the mouldering wrecks of time, And drag their stores from dust and rust and slime; Coins eat with canker, medals half defac'd, And broken tablets, never to be trac'd; Worm-eaten trinkets worn away of old, And broken pipkins form'd in antique mould; Huge limbless statues, busts of heads forgot, And paintings representing none knows what; Strange legends that to monstrous fables lead, And manuscripts that nobody ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... an old book-worm, supposed to be engaged in writing some mighty and learned work, who lived in a cottage on the Nearminster road. The children knew it and its owner very well, for it was not more than half a mile from the rectory, and they passed it whenever they drove into Nearminster. Its casement window ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... death are with the Great Spirit," he said. "At his pleasure he breathes into our nostrils, and we live; or he turns away his face, and we die. Let not my brother give too much credit to a worm." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the room—some at small tables, some at large tables —the worshipers sit, in their eyes that resolute, concentrated look which is the peculiar property of the British luncher, ex-President Roosevelt's man-eating fish, and the American army worm. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... silkworms when ready for spinning will spin the silk around their bodies until they are completely covered up, gradually forming a cocoon. In order to determine when they have finished spinning it was customary to take the cocoon and rattle it near the ear. If the worm was exhausted you could plainly hear the body rattle inside the cocoon. The cocoon is then placed in boiling water until it becomes soft. This, of course, kills the worm. In order to separate the silk a needle is used to pick up the end of the thread ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... flowers expand but to decay; The worm is in thy core, thy glories pass away; Arts, arms and wealth destroy the fruits they bring; Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring. Crime walks thy streets, Fraud earns her unblest bread, ...
— Eighteen Hundred and Eleven • Anna Laetitia Barbauld
... said Nick in answer, closing his eyes again. "But you don't by any chance imagine she's in love with me, do you? You know how a woman looks at a worm she has chopped in half by mistake? That's how Muriel Roscoe looked at me to-day when she expressed ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the early bird gets the worm, he determined to be out in good time this morning. But for once in a way the bird was too early for the worm, and Bloomfield prowled about for a good quarter of an hour before the aspiring youth of ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... present at that time whereof your Grace complains. Your Grace accused me that I had irreverently handled you in the pulpit; that I denied. Ye said, what ado had I with your marriage? What was I that I should mell with such matters? I answered as touching nature I was ane worm of this earth, and ane subject of this Commonwealth, but as touching the office whereintil it has pleased God to place me, I was ane watchman both over the Realm, and over the Kirk of God gathered within the same, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... restore order. This expedition failed, and with its failure the prestige of the Hojo fell in a region where hitherto it had been untarnished—the arena of arms. The great Japanese historian, Rai Sanyo, compared the Bakufu of that time to a tree beautiful outwardly but worm-eaten at the core, and in the classical work, Taiheiki, the state of affairs is ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... saw the flames of Genius devour the old worm-eaten crumbling skeletons, attached themselves to the musical school of which the most gifted, the most brilliant, the most daring representative, was Berlioz. Chopin joined this school. He persisted most strenuously in freeing himself from the servile formulas of conventional style, while ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... its university; and its library of eighty thousand volumes and nine hundred manuscripts, among which are the Greek palimpsests of Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostom, and the manuscripts of Ariosto and Tasso, is becoming, equally with Ariosto's dust, which reposes in its halls, the prey of the worm. ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... write now, don't you? I'm giving you a bit of psychology—showing you the point of view of the worm writhing beneath the boot of lordly Man. But, always, I meant to turn, if I got the chance. I washed myself; I shaved; I slipped into your nice clean clothes. I'll admit that the warm water removed some encrusted mud ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... my sword and of my spear; nevertheless, seeing that there may be a turning from thy evil ways, and a returning to those which are good, if the Lord enlarge thy date for repentance and amendment, wherefore should it be shortened by a poor sinful mortal, who is, speaking truly, but thy fellow-worm." ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... the head of his friend to be cut off,—a figure that nothing can explain but his remorse for having avenged his father on his mother. Was he a Catholic Hamlet, or merely the victim of incurable disease? But the undying worm which gnawed at the king's vitals was in Ernest's case simply distrust of himself,—the timidity of a man to whom no woman had ever said, "Ah, how I love thee!" and, above all, the spirit of self-devotion without ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... being folded over the spot in question, may take the plague and die. Hence be wisely counsels that the bodies of such animals should be buried in sandy or calcareous soils where earth-worms are not numerous. But it is perfectly legitimate to go a step farther. If such worm-borings retain the slightest savor of animal matter, flies will settle upon them and will convey the infectious dust to the most unexpected places, giving ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... and by You turned a yellow-green, Like a large glow-worm in the sky; And then I could ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... go any further, Rebecca wondered, and her soul filling with righteous wrath, she cast discretion to the winds and spoke a little more plainly, bending her great swimming eyes on the now embarrassed Abner, who looked like an angle-worm, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... array within the wash of the water, or sweep in vast clouds above it. Ibises[1], storks[2], egrets, spoonbills[3], herons[4], and the smaller races of sand larks and plovers, are seen busily traversing the wet sand, in search of the red worm which burrows there, or peering with steady eye to watch the motions of the small fry and aquatic insects in the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... it. The ground before us was open for more than half a mile. It sloped down gently, then it rose gradually to a long, bare ridge, or slight elevation of ground, which extended parallel to our front. The road was enclosed by an old-time staked and ridered fence, of the "worm" pattern. On our right, and on the other side of the road, was a thick forest of tall trees, in which the 43rd Illinois was posted. The cemetery was thickly studded with tall, native trees, and a few ornamental ones, such as cedar ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts. Howling there spread, as curs, Under the rainy deluge, with one side The other screening, oft they roll them round, A wretched, godless crew. When that great worm Descried us, savage Cerberus, he op'd His jaws, and the fangs show'd us; not a limb Of him but trembled. Then my guide, his palms Expanding on the ground, thence filled with earth Rais'd them, and cast it in his ravenous maw. E'en as a dog, that yelling bays for ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... prodigal expense, of sensual gratification, I remembered another opera staged in the mysterious twilight of Bayreuth where from the gloom emerged the hoarse bass of Fafner's cry,—"I lie here possessing!" The voice of the great worm proved to be the voice of Germany. Is ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... the loveliest of cities glittering like a rival firmament with answering constellations? And yet I recant. For if there is one piece of art which is better than nature, 't is Botticelli's so-called "Spring," which, long misprised and now worm-riddled, adds the last magic to the wonderful flower-city. To her that ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... did on that platform! At his word, which at certain moments was as the thunder, prejudices, fictions, abuses, superstitions, fallacies, intolerance, ignorance, fiscal infamies, barbarous punishments, outworn authorities, worm-eaten magistracy, discrepit codes, rotten laws, everything that was doomed to perish, trembled, and the downfall of those things began. That formidable apparition has left a name in the memory of men; he should be called Revolution,—his name ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... scholastic knowledge, is a solitary barren plant, when opposed to the higher occupations of the mind, to the flights of fancy, the daring combinations of genius, and the sublime pictures of imagination. Dick is an isolated being, a book-worm, who never embarks in any party of pleasure, from the fear of expense; he has no talents for general conversation, while his ridiculous affectation of learning subjects him to a constant and annoying ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... God please, I will assuredly work my deliverance!" Then he went to the stream and made his ablutions and prayed to his Lord, laying his brow in the dust and saying, "O my God, Thou that makest the dew to fall and feedest the worm in the rock, vouchsafe me, I beseech Thee, my livelihood, of Thy power and the graciousness of Thy compassion!" Then he pronounced the salutation that closes prayer and sat, turning right and left and knowing ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... the last; so that, allowing me to have had but a common spunk of reflection, I must, like others, have cast a wistful eye on the ongoings of men: and, if I had not strength to pour out my inward lamentations, I could not help thinking, with fear and trembling, at the rebellion of such a worm as man, against a Power whose smallest word could extinguish his existence, and blot him out in a twinkling from the roll of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... or some self-love we have wounded; and, dullards that we are, how seldom we are aware of our offence! You may be hated by a man you have never seen in your life: you may be hated as often by one you have loaded with benefits; you may so walk as not to tread on a worm; but you must sit fast on your easy-chair till you are carried out to your bier, if you would be sure not to tread on some snake of a foe. But, then, what harm does the hate do us? Very often the harm is as unseen by the world as ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... oil, if it came to be placed on the lamp-post. The other was a piece of touchwood, which also shines, and always more than a stock-fish; besides, it said so itself, it was the last piece of a tree that had once been the pride of the forest. The third was a glow-worm; but where it had come from the lamp could not imagine; but the glow-worm was there, and it also shone, but the touchwood and the herring's head took their oaths that it only shone at certain times, and therefore it could never ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... citizens care only for their own present, and not for the future of their country! the future, in which they have to live immortally by children and children's children, with whose glory and happiness and power they ought now to sympathize. Men or nations secluded are like the silk-worm, which secretes itself in a self-woven case, and at length creeps out to die. So will it at length be with the nation which is ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground, professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not hurt, ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... halt, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal fire. And if thine eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is good for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... him, Saying: "Behold the fool who first went o'er!" So be it when, as now the promise is, Next summer sees the edifice complete Which some do name a crematorium, Within the vantage of whose greater maw's Quicker digestion we shall cheat the worm And circumvent the handed mole who loves, With tunnel, adit, drift and roomy stope, To mine our mortal parts in all their dips And spurs and angles. Let the fool stand forth To link his name with this fair enterprise, As first decarcassed by the flame. And if With rival greedings for the fiery ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... magnified rind of an orange. A sabot filled with salt, a frying-pan, and a large kettle hung inside the chimney. The farther end of the room was completely filled by a four-post bedstead, with a scalloped valance for decoration. The walls were black; there was an opening to admit the light above the worm-eaten door; and here and there were a few stools consisting of rough blocks of beech-wood, each set upon three wooden legs; a hutch for bread, a large wooden dipper, a bucket and some earthen milk-pans, a spinning-wheel on the top of the bread-hutch, and a few wicker mats for ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... been made to naturalize the silk-worm in this country, but, after rather large sums have been expended on it, it is now quite clear that, although it be possible to obtain large quantities of silk of a certain quality, the undertaking cannot be made to pay: the climate ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... the Aboriginal Tasmanian was naturally mild and inoffensive in disposition, appears to be beyond doubt. A worm, however, will turn, and the atrocities which were perpetrated against these unoffending creatures may well palliate the indiscriminate, though heart-rending slaughter they entailed. Such was the character of the Tasmanian native before roused by oppression, and ere ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... can't make me die," said she, seizing the trembling little oriole, and holding him close to her bosom. "O, you birdie darling! Did your mamma go 'way off, and couldn't find a worm? Dotty'll be ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... we have had no trouble with worm in our chestnuts. In fact we have not found a single wormy chestnut. This interests us appreciably, as when the old American chestnuts were common on our farm it would seem as if hardly a chestnut escaped a worm hole ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... hatches from the egg, it is a little white, wriggling worm called a maggot, like those that some of you may have seen in decaying meat or fish or cheese. The maggots must have decaying substances to eat and live upon while they are growing, and this is why the eggs are laid in manure ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... to warn her of the dangers abroad, so when she came to the railroad track she just settled upon it, with no more fear than if it were a twig. An ugly brown worm that had been sunning himself on a sleeper crept up ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... pomegranate, which he would grasp and drink from its rich, red pulp, a portion that would cool and 'suage a burning thirst; while Constance, by the side of Katherine, was like a russet apple, into whose heart the worm of worldly knowledge had eaten its surfeit and taken all sweetness away, and the poor thing hung low, all dried and spiritless upon a broken bough to the convenience of any passing hand. "Nay, nay; give me only the rich, ripe pomegranate; ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... introduction if all the workers in the one section may be called upon through some central or national body to help in the introduction and disposition of the desired material into the other section. Or, take the case of the boll worm investigation already alluded to. The chances of success would be much greater if the entomologists in all the States interested were to give some attention to such lepidopterous larvae as are found to be affected with contagious diseases and to follow out some specific plan of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... rise to a discussion that sent its reverberation all over the civilized world. Men of the present generation who in childhood rummaged in their grandmothers' cosy garrets cannot fail to have come across scores of musty and worm-eaten pamphlets, their yellow pages crowded with italics and exclamation points, inveighing in passionate language against the wicked and dangerous society of the Cincinnati. Just before the army was disbanded, the officers, at the ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... sloped, as nearly as I could estimate them, at an angle of 45 degrees or 50 degrees with the horizon, and they were covered, especially on the northern side, with long coarse grass, beneath which many worm-castings were found. These had flowed bodily downwards, and others had rolled down as pellets. Hence it is certain that as long as a mound of this kind is tenanted by worms, its height will be continually lowered. The fine ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... long time to do it, many of the boarding-houses and family hotels afford a swifter and more multitudinous style of moral incubation, and one old gossip will get off the nest after one hour's brooding, clucking a flock of thirty lies after her, each one picking up its little worm of juicy regalement. It is no advantage to hear too much about your neighbors, for your time will be so much occupied in taking care of their faults that you will have no time to look after your own. ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... present there was no frost, although for a fortnight threatening; and I was too young to know the meaning of the way the dead leaves hung, and the worm-casts prickling like women's combs, and the leaden tone upon everything, and the dead weight of the sky. Will Watcombe, the old man at Lynmouth, who had been half over the world almost, and who talked so much of the Gulf-stream, had (as I afterwards called to mind) ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... leaped five-barred gates and pursued the coach and its shrieking inmates as far as the little Mains brook that passes the kirk door at the entrance of the village. Then there was a huge, undistinct, crawling horror, half sea-serpent, half slow-worm, that had looked at them over the hedge, and, flinging out a sudden loop, had lassoed Peter Chafts, the running footman, whose duty it was to leap down and clear stones out of the horses' hoofs. ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... his own fun. Sometimes he will find a tempting worm and call all the hens, and, just as they are about to seize it, he will swallow it, and give a sly wink, as much as to say, "Don't you wish you may ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... made of flower-dust, honey, and water, as they would if they intended it to grow up a Worker or a Drone. Instead, they make what is called royal jelly, which is quite sour, and tuck this all around the Larva, who now looks like a little white worm. ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... are but worms, we husbands; yet 'tis said, When the sad worm lies broken and at bay, There comes a moment when the thing sees red, And one such moment has occurred to-day; "Look at this hat," I said, "this old top-hat; I will not wear another one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... face, you worm!" cried Jim, contemptuously. He was standing in the centre of the room. Everybody had made way for him, and now he confronted a circle of accusing faces. He glanced swiftly round till his dark eyes rested on the hawk-like visage of ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... me then why the folk would be leaving peats for the wee folks, as they said, when they would be taking down the creels from the hills; for the Nameless Man threw more on the fire from some hidden store, likely nearer his worm, when we had finished eating. The great dog lay at the rock by which we entered, and I saw that the stone was swung on a balance; but if there was a way to open from the outside I never knew till long ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... time your wife, whom you oft have told you loved," she replied, in a tone of deep dejection. "What I soon shall be, the greedy worm may best tell." ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... horror and repugnance, and he discovered that it was moving toward him from the other side of the wall. His eyes were fascinated, and for the moment he was unable to move. Silently, slowly, from side to side like a thick worm, it crawled forward into the room beneath his frightened eyes, until at length he could stand it no longer and stretched out his arm to touch it. But at the instant of contact he withdrew his hand with a suppressed scream. It was ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... my Lord, who, out of a pool so filthy as I am, bringest forth water so clean as to be meet for Thy table! Praised be Thou, O Joy of the Angels, who hast been thus pleased to exalt so vile a worm! ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... you one thing," Cora shot back, and Bess was curiously reminded of the turning worm. "I don't believe Nan Sherwood is any thief. I think she's a mighty nice girl. And every time I think of the mean trick you played on her, and how you nearly wrecked the school ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... staircase with banisters led to this unknown region, but an oaken door forbade access to the stairs. We had to get around the obstacle by passing from the railing to the banisters, and walk down the outside of the worm-eaten balusters. There was a dark void below us whose depth we could not fathom. We had only a little taper (a "rat"), and that hardly let us see more than the first steps of ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Holden who wanted a bite of my apple, and when I turned it around to give her a good chance at it, she bit straight into a worm, and said I did it on purpose, though I never knew the worm was there ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... how the prospect comforted me. I had been slack so long that almost any chance of activity was welcome. When I had to sit alone with that corpse and wait on Fortune I was no better than a crushed worm, but if my neck's safety was to hang on my own wits I was prepared to ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... was seeking the touchstone, with matted locks tawny and dust-laden, and body worn to a shadow, his lips tight-pressed, like the shut-up doors of his heart, his burning eyes like the lamp of a glow-worm ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... through if provided with an apron on one or both sides, inclined at an angle of about 45 deg., as indicated in Figs. 13 and 14. This form was much used in South Africa for connecting lines between blockhouses. When used in this way the lines of fence may be 300 to 600 yds. long, in plan like a worm fence, with the blockhouse at the reentrant angles. Fixed rests for rifles, giving them the proper aim to enfilade the fence, were prepared at the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... One. Give unto me in this hour the strength of Samson that I may overturn the pillars of this temple of abominations, even though we all perish in its destruction. Yea, visit us with power and righteousness, and scatter Thy enemies over the face of the earth. O Lord! I am as nothing, a mere worm of the dust: smite me if Thou wilt, yet I but wrestle with Thee in prayer that through me the heathen may be brought low, and led to see the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... these enchanted woods, You who dare. Nothing harms beneath the leaves More than waves a swimmer cleaves, Toss your heart up with the lark, Foot at peace with mouse and worm. Fair you fare. Only at a dread of dark Quaver, and they quit their form: Thousand eyeballs under hoods Have you by the hair. Enter these enchanted woods, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... making; carpentry, cabinet-making; upholstery; tin-smithing; black-smithing, boot and shoe making; basket and broom making; pottery, plain and glazed; brick-making; agricultural products, including all the cereals and fruits raised in the country; silk-worm culture; fruit preserving; flour from a mill, and machinery from a foundry owned by a colored man; patented inventions and improvements, nearly all of them useful and practical, were quite numerous; drugs and medicines; ...
— The American Missionary—Volume 39, No. 07, July, 1885 • Various
... nothing!" says the Eternal Painter. "If you feel important, remember that man's hectic bustling makes but worm-work on the planet. Live and breathe joyfully and magnificently! Do not strain your eyes over embroidery! Come to my open gallery! And how do you like the way I set those silver clouds a-tumbling? Do you know anything better under the dome of any church or capitol? Shall ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... him? What could I oppose to such might? Nothing except the arms of a new man—that bit of intelligence acquired by hard work and effort. He declared a mute war on me. I have defended myself. With what? With the arms which nature has given me. When you step on a worm you must not take it amiss if the worm bites you; he cannot defend himself otherwise. It is the law of nature. I placed everything on one card, and I won—or rather it is not I, but intelligence which has conquered. This force—the ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... for the gnawing worm of graves. Thy gods still live with thee, Hypatia! Glory and Victory may dwell with ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... neck isn't right, and my back isn't right! My skirt sticks out where it should be flat, and is flat where it ought to stick out. My hat looks like the ark, and my gloves are too big. I ought to be superior like Esther, and not care a bit, but I do. I care frightfully. I feel a worm, and as it I'd like to crawl away and hide myself out of sight,"—and Mellicent's fair face clouded over with an expression of such hopeless melancholy, that Peggy, catching sight of it, came forward instantly to discover ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... Arabia's spice we know, Free from the scorching sun that makes it grow; Without the worm in Persian silks we shine, And without planting ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... cannot define. And that is how my life is spent when I let myself be dominated by this artistic monster in me. It is much better, then, that I should live as I have imagined living, that I go to all kinds of excess, and that I kill this never-dying worm that people like me modestly term their inspiration, but which I call, ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... sure gettin' 'round some spryer this year. An' I snum! there's Marty, too. He's workin' in his mother's garden reg'lar. I seen him. 'Fore you came, Miss Janice, if Marty was diggin' in the garden an' found a worm, he thought he was goin' fishin' and got him a bait can and a pole, an' set right off for the lake—that's right!" and Walky shook all over, and grew so red in the face over his joke that Janice was really afraid ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... musically home, a motley troop of men and women, merchant clerks and navy officers, dancing in its wake, arms about waist and crowned with garlands. Long ago darkness and silence had gone from house to house about the tiny pagan city. Only the street lamps shone on, making a glow-worm halo in the umbrageous alleys or drawing a tremulous image on the waters of the port. A sound of snoring ran among the piles of lumber by the Government pier. It was wafted ashore from the graceful clipper-bottomed schooners, where they lay moored close in like dinghies, and their crews were ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... first formed by Him. No sudden effort of man's will, such as that by which Pygmalion was believed to have animated the work of his chisel, nor any industrious current of electricity, passed for uninterrupted weeks through the purest gum, and stimulated by the enthusiasm of a Cross, can transform the worm to a breathing being, or reach the human climax by slow steps, even if the first one be in the humble form of a louse. When a new plant appeared, it was the hand of God that formed the seed. When a new species of animal came upon the earth, it was the same Power that created it. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... anbiq, a still; cognate to the Gr. ambix, a cup), an apparatus for distillation, used chiefly by the alchemists, and now superseded by the retort and the worm-still. It varied considerably in form and construction, but consisted essentially of three parts—a vessel containing the material to be distilled and called, from its gourd-like shape, the cucurbit or mattrass; a vessel to receive and condense the vapour, called the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... would careless tread one worm that crawls the sod, That cruel man is darkly alienate from God; But he that lives embracing all that is in love, To dwell with him God bursts ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the seeds that have come to resemble beetles; among these may be mentioned the seeds of the castor-oil plant and of the Iatropha. The pod of the Biserrula looks like a worm, and a worm half-coiled might well have served as a model for the mimicry of the Scorpiurus vermiculata. All these are much more likely to enlist the services of birds than if their resemblances ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... second, a report made to him by Hillbrant, one of his prisoners, that Christian, on the night before he left Tahiti, had declared his intention of settling on Duke of York's Island; and third, the discovery on Palmerston Island of the Bounty's driver yard, much worm-eaten from long immersion. It must be confessed that hopes founded on these clues did little credit to Edwards' intelligence. Aitutaki, having been discovered by Bligh, was the last place Christian would have chosen: he might have guessed that a man of Christian's ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... pass a roadside ditch or pool in spring-time, take from it any bit of stick or straw which has lain undisturbed for a time. Some little worm-shaped masses of clear jelly containing specks are fastened to the stick: eggs of a small snail-like shell-fish. One of these specks magnified proves to be a crystalline sphere with an opaque mass in its centre. And while you are looking, the opaque mass begins to stir, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... The tape worm, so common in many other parts of Persia, is absolutely unknown in Sistan, and this is probably due ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... sorrows of too enthusiastic love, and the tortures of ungoverned passion. Here, too, you will witness, not without a shudder, the interior economy of vice; and from the stage be taught how all the tinsel of fortune fails to smother the inward worm; and how terror, anguish, remorse, and despair tread close on the footsteps of guilt. Let the spectator weep to-day at our exhibition, and tremble, and learn to bend his passions to the laws of religion and reason; let the youth behold with alarm the consequences ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... explained: "'Tis a gentleman by the name of Ford as is advertising for a pocket-book, a seems to have lost on the downs, near to Master Lake's windmill. 'Tis thy way, too, Gearge, after all. Thee must get up yarly, Gearge. 'Tis the yarly bird catches the worm. And tell Master Lake from me, 'll have all the young varments in the place a driving their pigs up to his mill, to look for the pocket-book, while they makes believe ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... made when she started away. I would sooner face an 'army with banners,' than that little brown-eyed woman of mine when she takes the lapel of my coat in one hand, raises the forefinger of the other, turns her head sideways like a thrush watching a wriggling worm, and says, in a voice that rises as fast as the sound a mouse makes racing up the treble of the piano keys: 'Ump! whew! Didn't I tell you so? The minute my back was turned, of course you made ducks and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... They are useful in tearing down the barbed-wire entanglements on the Boche side of No Man's Land, and they can clear the way up to and past the trenches, which they can straddle and wriggle across like some giant worm. ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... shall love teach some virtuous youth To draw out of the object of his eyes The whilst they gaze on thee in simple truth Hues more exalted a refined form, That dreads not age, nor suffers from the worm, And ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... garden-plot—all so happily, so feverishly, so exultantly captured last night when Anticipation strengthened the little muscles that wielded the heavy spade. All safe in their black soil they wait, coiled round and round each other into a solid worm-ball in the ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... little mother. Don't be afraid," whispered the child; and, as if it understood, the bird settled down on her nest with a comfortable chirp, while its mate hopped up to give her a nice plump worm ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... your salad herbs as fresh as possible; if you suspect they are not "morning gathered," they will be much refreshed by lying an hour or two in spring-water; then carefully wash and pick them, and trim off all the worm-eaten, slimy, cankered, dry leaves; and, after washing, let them remain a while in the colander to drain: lastly, swing them gently in a clean napkin: when properly picked and cut, arrange them in the salad dish, mix the sauce in a soup plate, and put it into an ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... creek and is canopied by sycamore, elm and birch trees or grape vines and other creepers. It is screened by thickets of pawpaw, blackberry, sumac or elderberry bushes which grow thick in the corners of the abutting worm fences. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... said Val, "to resume business; I was alluding to the seizure of a Still about a month ago near Drum Dhu, where the parties just had time to secure the Still itself, but were forced to leave the head and worm behind them; now, that I give as a fair illustration of our getting the papers, and missing the arms. Besides," said he, in a wheedling and confidential tone, addressed to a clique of his friends, the jobbers, whom he joined at the lower end of the room, "you are all aware that my fellows are ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... girl and Winthrop followed the chauffeur. They had passed out of the light of the lamps, and in the autumn mist the electric torch of the owner was as ineffective as a glow-worm. The mystery of the forest fell heavily upon them. From their feet the dead leaves sent up a clean, damp odor, and on either side and overhead the giant pine trees whispered and rustled in ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... the shop, a worm-eaten wooden staircase led to the two upper floors which were in turn surmounted by an attic. The house, backing against two adjoining houses, had no depth and derived all its light from the front and side windows. Each floor had two small chambers only, lighted by single windows, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... Carlotta," he said impatiently, "stop making love to that wretched boy. He wriggles like a worm if you ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cab, in charge of Peridon and Catkin. Those two would have writhed like head and tail of a worm, at a division on the way to the station. Point a finger at Peridon, you run Catkin through the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of peasantry makes him so slow. He waggles his head before he speaks, like a cow before she crops. He bends to the habit of dragging his feet up under him, like a measuring-worm: some of his forefathers, stooped over books, ruled short straight lines under two rows of figures to keep their thin savings from sifting to the floor. Should you strike him with a question, he will blink twice or thrice and roll his head about, like an owl in the pin-pricks of a dawn he ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay |
