"Tom Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'at fowk's actions should be regarded through a different standpoint to owt else i' th' world. A little tree is a tree, an' it's nobbut a tree ha big it is—a puttate is nobbut a puttate if it grows as big as a churn-an' a man considers hissen a man whether he's a Goliah or a Tom Thumb. But actions are different altogether. Whether they're to be considered gooid or bad depends entirely o' th' bugth on 'em. A chap 'at can chait somdy aght ov twenty thaasand paands is considered smart: but a poor begger 'at stails ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... a woodcutter lived with his wife in a small cottage not far from a great forest. They had seven children—all boys; and the youngest was the smallest little fellow ever seen. He was called Tom Thumb. But though he was so small, he was far cleverer than any of his brothers, and he heard a great deal more than anybody ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... the dove's quill he forced the door of Tom Thumb's house, and penetrated the entry. At that he heard a confused murmuring and muttering and shouting; and, pulling away the feather, he saw rush out after it a dozen little fellows, all as angry as ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... for Christmas, and of one of Planche's charming fairy extravaganzas, these led up in the end through what must be called circuitously Dickens's emendations of O'Hara's version of Fielding's burlesque of "Tom Thumb," to the manifestation of the novelist's remarkable genius for dramatic impersonation: first of all, as Aaron Gurnock in Wilkie Collins's "Lighthouse," and afterwards as Richard War dour in the same author's ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... trick was done: and that reminds us to give the history of Ceylon in its two sections, which will not prove much longer than the history of Tom Thumb. Precisely three centuries before Waterloo, viz. Anno Domini 1515, a Portuguese admiral hoisted his sovereign's flag, and formed a durable settlement at Columbo, which was, and is, considered the maritime capital of the island. Very nearly halfway on the interval ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... another, and looked down lovingly on her mother's face, and was horrified by its extreme ugliness. There was no longer any gallant Tom Thumb wit strutting about her eyes and mouth, no little tender cheeping voice to distract the attention from the hideous ruin time had worked in her. Age diffused through her substance, spoiling every atom, attacking its contribution to the scheme of form and colour. It had pitted her skin with ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... what we wished for, and we will love him very much," and they named him according to his stature, "Tom Thumb." And though they gave him plenty of nourishment, he grew no bigger, but remained exactly the same size as when he was first born; and he had very good faculties, and was very quick and prudent, so ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... Pavilion the State made its main corn display. Nebraska had a larger exhibit of corn than any State making an exhibition of cereals. There were more than 57 varieties, running from the little "Tom Thumb" ears of popcorn to mammoth ears of field corn. One species of corn which attracted particular attention was the result of grafting experiments, whereby several varieties of corn of various colors and shades were made to grow on one cob. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... I cannot tell; I was thinking of the very same thing when you spoke; and of Tom Thumb, who strewed peas to find his way back, but could not do it, because the birds picked ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... of, and a good many of these were right. Then fancy names were thought of. I was asked to think of certain fancy names, and mark them down and hand them round to the company. I thought of and wrote on paper, 'Blue-beard,' 'Tom Thumb,' 'Cinderella.' and the ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... rank did not choose to be stared at by strangers; and I was obliged to take my leave, though with sincere regret, for the little lord had just squeezed himself into an attitude than which I never saw anything more ludicrous in General Tom Thumb. When the ladies of the Seraglio come to that bazaar with their cortege of infernal black eunuchs, strangers are told to move on briskly. I saw a bevy of about eight of these, with their aides-de-camp; but they were wrapped ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and lay the pots on their sides in a shaded spot, and rest until August. Beside the large white calla most commonly seen, there are several other forms which will be found described in good catalogues, among them Tom Thumb or Little Gem, a dwarf sort; Elliottiana, the Yellow calla; Godfrey, a dwarf ever-blooming sort, especially desirable as a pot plant where, as is often the case, the ordinary large white sort is too big to be managed conveniently; albomaculata, white with purple throat, etc. The red and black ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... are you? That stupid fool has made 'em too tight for anybody but Tom Thumb, and be hanged to him. Ever read fairy tales, Fairlegh? I did when I was a little shaver, and wore cock-tailed petticoats—all bare legs and bustle—'a Highland lad my love was born'; that style of thing, rather, you know; ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... had always obeyed the soul, he would have been a genius of the first order. As it is, he lived on the slope of greatness and could not be steadfast and calm. His life was one long agony of self-assertion. Poor, poor Haydon! See how the world treats those who try too openly for its gratitude! 'Tom Thumb for ever' over the heads ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... "Nennillo and Nennila," in which the three kings' children find their way home twice by similar devices, but at the third time scatter peas, which the birds eat up. Perrault has the same beginning in his "Petit Poucet," which has been Englished as "Hop o' my Thumb," who shares some of the adventures of Tom Thumb, as well as of the valiant Tailor. Lang has an interesting but, as usual, inconclusive discussion of the incidents of our tale in his Perrault civ.-cxi., and finds many of the incidents among the Kaffirs, Zulus, and ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... One Ring Circus Denslow's Tom Thumb Denslow's Humpty Dumpty Denslow's Old Mother Hubbard Denslow's Jack and the Bean-Stalk Denslow's ZOO Denslow's House That Jack Built Denslow's Three Bears Denslow's Little Red Riding-Hood Denslow's 5 Little Pigs Denslow's Mary Had A ...
— Denslow's Humpty Dumpty • William Wallace Denslow
... his father was dead, and Furibon was now lord of all: disdaining, therefore, any repulse, he raised an army of four hundred thousand men, and put himself at the head of them, appearing like another Tom Thumb upon a war-horse. Now, when the Amazons perceived his mighty host, they gave the princess notice of its who immediately dispatched away her trusty Abricotina to the kingdom of the fairies, to beg her mother's instructions as to what she ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... fond of singing Hamburg. 3. Belle Prescott only failed once last year. 4. Eveline never learned to control herself. 5. Where is Towser, Gertie? 6. I met Homer in Oregon. 7. Where did you find such a queer fossil, Kenneth? 8. Tom Thumb is a tiny specimen of humanity. 9. Did Erasmus Lincoln lose all his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... gentleman, who, like many others, made the most of his cases, to enhance the value of his services; like Tom Thumb, who "made the giants first, and then killed them,"—"a great deal of fever, indeed—I do not like the symptoms. But we must see what ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... endeavour to 'civilize' her husband, as she called it. It did not follow because he was a butcher that he was to have butchering ideas for ever, or that he was to know nothing of 'literature,' as she termed it—that is, novels. Mr. Mumbles had read 'Puss in Boots,' 'Jack the Giant Killer,' 'Tom Thumb,' 'Jack and the Bean Stalk,' 'Whittington and his Cat,' and 'Mother Goose' in his childhood. In his boyhood he had gone through 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and 'The Seven Champions of Christendom,' and ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... was the period of his first flush of prosperity, when he drove about in a hired carriage resplendent with the d'Entragues coat of arms, which cost him five hundred francs a month; had a majestic coachman in fine livery and a Tom Thumb groom; sported himself in gorgeous garments and strutted about in the Opera foyer, amidst the real or ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... subsistence! that nothing should make a man a sure title to his own writings but the stupidity of them! that the works of Dryden should meet with less encouragement than those of his own Flecknoe, or Blackmore! that Tillotson and St. George, Tom Thumb and Temple, should be set on an equal foot! This is the reason why this very paper has been so long delayed; and, while the most impudent and scandalous libels are publickly vended by the pirates, this innocent work is forced to steal abroad as if it ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... in the discharge of his former functions. Then Grivet and Camille listened to the stories of the commissary with the affrighted and gaping countenances of small children listening to "Blue Beard" or "Tom Thumb." These tales terrified ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... press of Daniel Fowle, who in the previous July had removed from Boston, where he had undergone a brief but uncongenial imprisonment on suspicion of having printed a pamphlet entitled "The Monster of Monsters, by Tom Thumb, Esq.," an essay that contained some uncomplimentary reflections on several official personages. The "Gazette" was the pioneer journal of the province. It was followed at the close of the same year by "The Mercury and Weekly Advertiser," ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... awakened out of sleep in the morning by the sniffings and sighings of a cow, who poked round my tent until I thought she had the intention of swallowing us up after the manner in which the cow disposed of Tom Thumb. At such times I would turn Philo loose upon the intruder. Philo used to suffer at night from the cold, and would wake me up by insisting upon burrowing his way down into my tightly laced valise. There he would sleep till he got so hot that he woke me up again ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... parvitude[obs3], parvity[obs3]; duodecimo[obs3]; Elzevir edition, epitome, microcosm; rudiment; vanishing point; thinness &c. 203. dwarf, pygmy, pigmy[obs3], Liliputian, chit, pigwidgeon[obs3], urchin, elf; atomy[obs3], dandiprat[obs3]; doll, puppet; Tom Thumb, Hop-o'-my- thumb[obs3]; manikin, mannikin; homunculus, dapperling[obs3], cock-sparrow. animalcule, monad, mite, insect, emmet[obs3], fly, midge, gnat, shrimp, minnow, worm, maggot, entozoon[obs3]; bacteria; infusoria[obs3]; microzoa[Microbiol]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... 1714. A later example was executed by Defoe's son-in-law Henry Baker in No. XIX of his Universal Spectator, February 15, 1729.[5] And that year too provided the large-scale demonstration of the Dunciad Variorum. The very "matter" of Tom Thumb reappeared under the same light in Fielding's Tragedy of Tragedies or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great with the Annotations of H. Scriblerus Secundus, 1731. Addison's criticism of the ballads was scarcely ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... consented to part with him on the condition that she be allowed to give him a farewell birthday party, he being nearly a year old. She was going to ask the children of all her friends. But getting a hint of the event her friends hastily arranged a Tom Thumb wedding for charity, and then assured Beatrice it was merely a coincidence that the two things interfered with each other, wasn't it a shame? Realizing that this dominating note was not a social asset Beatrice hastily sided in with her father and ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Hay-market, where it met with a favourable reception. In the following year it was enlarged to three acts (in the first version there had been but two), and reproduced at the same theatre as the Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great, "with the Annotations of H. Scriblerus Secundus." It is certainly one of the best burlesques ever written. As Baker observes in his Biographia Dramatica, it may fairly be ranked as a sequel to Buckingham's Rehearsal, since it includes the absurdities of nearly all the writers ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... the rising of the curtain, we behold the figure of Mr. Yates displayed to great advantage in the dress usually assigned to Noodle and Doodle in the tragedy of "Tom Thumb." He represents the Count Ollivarez, and the head of a political party—the opposition. The Court faction having for its chief the Duchess of Albafurez, who being Mistress of the Queen's robes is of course her favourite; for the millinery ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... looked the prettiest little fellow ever seen, and the Fairy Queen kissed him over and over again, and gave him the name of Tom Thumb. ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel |
