"Nipping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his head. "If you're ready, Pelly, open the door." He rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. He did not seem like the old MacVeigh; but the dogs were nipping and whining, and there was no time for ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... said, candidly; "I did not love Bingo. Bingo didn't love me, Lilian; he was always looking out for a chance of nipping me somewhere. Surely you won't quarrel with me ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... the hillside was the little pasture in which the old mare was grazing, moving slowly about and nipping at the short grass as if that which lay directly under her nose could not be nearly as choice as that which she could obtain by ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... a little more pointed than the Partridge-berry's; sometimes you might mistake them for the one, sometimes for the other. No marks of warning have been written upon them. If you find them, it is your fortune; if you taste them, it is your fate. For as you browse your way through the forest, nipping here and there a rosy leaf of young wintergreen, a fragrant emerald tip of balsam fir, a twig of spicy birch, if by chance you pluck the leaves of Wood-Magic and eat them, you will not know what you have done, but the enchantment of the treeland ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... boy! still speeding o'er the track Where none returns again, To Sigh for you, or cry for you, Or die for you were vain.— And so, speed on! the while I pray All nipping frosts forsake you— Ride still ahead of grief, but may All glad ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... her with all the strength I was capable of; my God, how she heaved to meet my attack! Her vagina seemed as stiff as my pintle, closing upon it with an extraordinary grasp, such as few women are capable of, nipping and squeezing the head of my affair each time it reached to ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... stultify my whole position. I cordially and conscientiously disapprove of the whole thing, and shall use all my influence against it. No, my good sir, I not only don't subscribe myself, but I hope to be the means of nipping a good many subscriptions in ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... up—there were about three thousand of them—began without zest to while away the time, nipping at the low, half-trampled grass. The sun had not yet risen, but by now all the barrows could be seen and, like a cloud in the distance, Saur's Grave with its peaked top. If one clambered up on that ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... continued the course of the march. The rain-laden clouds had rolled completely away. The sky looked hard and was scarcely blue; the country was swept by a strong nipping wind, for which they were very thankful, since it served to ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... that either she did not know Jesus' name, or thought Him too far beneath her to be named by her! The time during which Peter had been left outside alone, repenting now of, and alarmed for what might happen to him on account of, his ill-aimed blow at Malchus, and feeling the nipping cold, had taken all his courage out of him. The one thing he wished was to slip in unnoticed, and so the first denial came to his lips as rashly as many another word had come in old days. He does not seem to have remained with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... smell of the new milk, the pleasant sound of animals stepping about in the stable, the old mare reaching her long head over the stanchion to welcome me, and nipping at my fingers ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... could be no doubt that Margaret Shields was extremely pleasing. Beside her two shivering chamber-mates ("chamber-dekyns" they would have been called, in Oxford slang, four hundred years ago), Miss Shields looked quite brilliant, warm, and comfortable, even in the eager and the nipping air of Miss Marlett's shuddering establishment, and by the frosty light of a single candle. This young lady was tall and firmly fashioned; a nut-brown maid, with a ruddy glow on her cheeks, with glossy hair rolled up in a big tight knot, and with a smile (which knew when it was well off) always ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... hear me,' whispered Quilp, nipping and pinching her arm; 'worm yourself into her secrets; I know you can. I'm listening, recollect. If you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and woe betide you if I have to creak ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Susan and her daughter, and three of my wife's kin had come in from the country, all to make a merry Christmas with us. I felt sorry, but it was quite impossible, so I wished Mr. Bluff a "Merry Christmas," and hurried homeward through the cold and nipping air. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... there. Nan, pale and pinched, and looking plain in the nipping morning air, though wrapped in a fur coat. (One of the points about Nan was that, though she sometimes looked plain, she never looked dowdy; there was always a distinction, ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... her fancies like Mrs. Primrose. Thus Joanna was frequently abroad before breakfast, and, like most persons of healthy organization, was rather tempted to court the stinging air as it blew across the heather, bracing her whole frame, nipping her fingers and toes, and sending blush-roses into ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of these depots were rendered attractive and pretty by nicely arranged flower-beds and a few trees, imparting a home-like appearance. The ever-varying scenery kept mind and eyes busy, until by and by Night dropped her mantle over the face of nature, and with the darkness came a cool and nipping air. Then followed two hundred miles of tedious night travel, with no convenience for sleeping, except such as one could obtain sitting bolt upright, so that when daylight and Madrid arrived together, we were ready to ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... are brown, or autumn when the last yellow leaves are fluttering in the chill breeze? The young ladies in Milby would have told you that the Miss Linnets were old maids; but the Miss Linnets were to Miss Pratt what the apple-scented September is to the bare, nipping days of late November. The Miss Linnets were in that temperate zone of old-maidism, when a woman will not say but that if a man of suitable years and character were to offer himself, she might be induced to tread the remainder of life's vale in company with him; Miss Pratt was in that ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... dell'anno) came back to her, bringing all the contrasts which spring alone can bring to add to the heaviness of the soul. The little winged creatures filled the air with bursts of joy; the vegetation came bright and hopefully onwards, without any check of nipping frost. The ash-trees in the Bradshaws' garden were out in leaf by the middle of May, which that year wore more the aspect of summer than most Junes do. The sunny weather mocked Jemima, and the unusual warmth oppressed her physical powers. She felt very weak and languid; she was acutely sensible ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... raised their heads, craned their necks, and turned around, as far as their halters would permit, to watch the operation. They evidently had thought themselves forgotten to-night, and there was a keen edge to their appetites, so that some of them became a little unruly, kicking, neighing, and nipping at their neighbors out of sheer sportiveness. "Napoleon," the ancient stallion, had been devoured by such an acute sensation of hunger that as soon as the fat guard aforementioned came near him with the measure he tore it out of the man's ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... dogs each sought an especial adversary, hoping to wipe out some past defeat; while the pups, having no past to wipe out, diverted themselves by skirmishing about on the outskirts of the scrimmage, nipping joyously at any hind quarters that came handy, bumping into other groups of pups, thoroughly enjoying life, and accumulating material for future fights ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... exactly as Jean said and as quickly as possible. He reached the door in two jumps with Tam leaping after him and nipping his heels at each jump, and in another instant found himself on the doorstep with the ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... was not one floe, but formed by the close junction of two, so that our situation was by no means so secure as I had supposed for this bight was so far from being a protection to us, in case of ice driving on shore, that it would probably be the means of "nipping" us between the floes which formed it. I therefore determined on immediately removing the ships in-shore, and went in a boat to look out for a place for that purpose, there being no alternative between this and our returning some distance to the eastward, into the larger space ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... unbelievers and doubters were more courageous, believers would be less timorous. It is because they live in an enervating fool's paradise of seeming assent and conformity, that the breath of an honest and outspoken word strikes so eager and nipping on their sensibilities. If they were not encouraged to suppose that all the world is of their own mind, if they were forced out of that atmosphere of self-indulgent silences and hypocritical reserves, which is systematically poured round them, they would acquire a robuster mental habit. ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... seas had quenched that holocaust, That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead, Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost Had withered up those lilies white and red Which, while the boy would through the forest range, Answered each other ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... the syrup. So also must soda. If you use nuts, be careful to remove every particle of shell and skin before putting them into the syrup. Almonds are blanched by letting them stand in boiling water for a few minutes and then nipping off the skins between the fingers. They should be warmed in the oven before being put into the syrup. Dessicated cocoanut should be steamed a few minutes before being used; put in a dish in a colander over boiling water. Use the fresh cocoanut if you ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... down and begin fishing. Class ladies [Translator's Note: I.e., School chaperons, whose duty it is to sit in the classroom while the girls are receiving instruction from a master.] wander about on the banks, nipping at the green grass. The shepherd's horn can be heard now and then. White gulls, looking like the younger ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... vale, the promise of the year, Serene thou openest to the nipping gale, Unnoticed and alone I ncognit O Thy ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... trouble," replies Mr. Gause; "and it is owing to a way we have of nipping sea-lawyers ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... trotted straight up to the right horse, coaxed and coquetted with him for a minute, and then trotted back. Snowfoot followed, leering and nipping, and trying to ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... introduction to the metropolis. But the triple-hitch is a great leveller. In single harness, even though one does pull a load, there is chance for individuality. One may toss one's head; aye, prance a bit on a nipping morning. But get between the poles of a breast-team, with a horse on either side, and a twelve-ton load at the trace-ends, and—well, one soon forgets such vanities as pride of champion sires, and one ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... prison, the note of a cock crowing in the mid-seas—in short, I cannot tell you what it was like, you will have to fancy for yourself—but I could have wept to hear it. Once we were belated: the cattle could hardly crawl, the day was at hand, it was a nipping, rigorous morning, King was lashing his horses, I was giving an arm to the old Colonel, and the Major was coughing in our rear. I must suppose that King was a thought careless, being nearly in desperation ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... keen! How the nipping wind does drive Through yon tree-tops, bare and lean, Till their shadow seems alive,— Patters through the bars, and falls, Shivering, on the ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... rather underneath, his left shoulder, and trying to peep over or past it, he beheld a small portion of a most woe-begone little face, heavily swathed against the nipping March wind. Through the beclouding veil he could dimly make out that the eyes were swollen, the cheeks were mottled; even the nose—with regret I state it—was red and puffy. An unsightly, melancholy little spectacle to which the Tyro's young heart went out in prompt pity. It had a habit of going ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... devils was leading my animal, and me top of her, the biggest fool dug out, up the same canyon. The rocks on the sides was pecked smooth as a beaver-skin, ribbed with the grain, and the ground was covered with bits of cedar, like a cavayard of mules had been nipping and scattering them about. Overhead it was roofed, leastwise it was dark in here, and only a little light come through the holes in the rock. I thought I knew where we was, and eeched awfully to talk, but I sot still and didn't ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Certainly, in a moral point of view, it is better to be in a Puritanical State than in a State of Punch; but Massachusetts, it is said, is very sly about the liquor business, and takes her "nips," regularly, behind the door. This may account, probably, for the "nipping air" by which so many of her denizens are characterized. The Bostonian further states of the inhabitants of the "Hub," that "liquor finds little favor in their eyes." Now, we are acquainted with three thousand four hundred and seventy-three Bostonians of the most solid ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... with vegetables for the ensuing market, alone disturbed the quiet of the adjoining streets. In a dark angle might be seen the houseless wanderer, or the abandoned profligate, 341gathered up like a lump of rags in a corner, and shivering with the nipping air. The gloom which surrounded us had, for a moment, chilled the wild exuberance of my companions' mirth; and it is more than probable we should have suspended our visit to the Finish, at least for that night, had not the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was up at five-thirty. The air was cold and nipping and frost shone on grass and sage. A red glow of sunrise gleamed on the tip of the ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... beware Those hurtful days, that keenly-piercing air Which flays the herds; when icicles are cast O'er frozen earth, and sheathe the nipping blast. From courser-breeding Thrace comes rushing forth O'er the broad sea the whirlwind of the north, And moves it with his breath: the ocean floods Heave, and earth bellows through her wild of woods. Full many an oak ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... time and a few knock-out cuffs from bear's paw to teach a dog that there's two ends to a bear and only one of them safe to tackle, but that little ornery kiyi knew it from the start. If there's anything a bear can't stand, it's a dog nipping his heels, and when the cur began snapping at his hind legs and yelping, he lost interest in Brackett and attended to the disturbance in the rear. The little cuss was cute and spry enough to keep out of his reach, though, and he made such a nuisance of himself, ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... then ydle lokyng on before tyme had done. Shortly crepte in sickenes, and diseases, and the broyling heate and the nipping cold began to assaile their bodyes. Their first sonne was Cayin, and the seconde Abell, and then many other. And as the world grewe into yeares, and the earth began to waxe thicke peopled, loke as the nombre did encreace, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... be a serious malady, if he allowed it to come to a head? Do we not indeed give advice of this kind to the children of diseased fathers or mothers, bidding them take care and be cautious and not to neglect themselves, but at once to arrest the first germ, of the malady, nipping it in the bud while removable, and before it has got a firm footing in the constitution?" "Certainly we do," said all the company. "We are not then," I continued, "acting in a strange or ridiculous but in a necessary and useful way, in arranging their exercise ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... coal-dealer's wife once more: again resorting to the same excellent prescription for nipping a sigh in the bud. 'Ah! when they've seen as much trouble as I and my old man here have, they'll be as comfortable ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... broken by the cheery voice of Fulkerson, sent before him to herald Fulkerson's cheery person. "Well, I suppose you've got the glorious success of 'Every Other Week' down pretty cold in your talk by this time. I should have been up sooner to join you, but I was nipping a man for the last page of the cover. I guess we'll have to let the Muse have that for an advertisement instead of a poem the next time, March. Well, the old gentleman given you boys your scolding?" The person of Fulkerson had got into the room long before he reached this question, and had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... each cowboy that night would sleep. The herd was bunched a quarter of a mile away in a little cove backed by the rim of sand-hills. Captain Jack and Silver Tip, riderless but with their saddles still on, were nipping the grass near the camp—the Ramblin' Kid and Chuck were to take the first watch, until midnight, at "guard mount." Parker and the cowboys were squatted, legs doubled under them, their knees forming a table on which to hold the white porcelain plate of "mulligan," in a circle ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... tyrant who had come to de Sigognac's rescue, and now suddenly roared out in his stentorian voice, "What the deuce is nipping me? Is it a viper? I felt two sharp fangs meet in the calf of ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... swinging out of Broadway to meet the rapids which poured in from east, west, and north. On Fifth Avenue all the automobiles in the world were gathered together. On the sidewalks, pedestrians, muffled against the nipping chill of the crisp air, hurried to and fro. And, above, that sapphire sky spread a rich velvet curtain which made the tops of the buildings stand out like the white minarets of some eastern city ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... meal, and darted away at breakneck speed. Her show of fright gave courage to the toucans. They immediately took up the pursuit, their white throats flashing a sharp contrast to their black bodies as they hurtled after the fleeing monkey, easily keeping pace with her and nipping her ears and back and tail. At each pinch Myla emitted a scream and increased her speed until she seemed to fly through the branches handicapped though she was by the cub securely tucked under one arm. And Warruk, unable to fathom the new calamity that had befallen ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... round defiantly, but not otherwise moved, at the committee, the hitherto invisible gods of hospitals and medical units. The nipping wind of reality had blown into the back drawing-room. The committee was daunted. But some of its members, less daunted than the rest, had the presence of mind to wonder why it seemed strange and strangely chilling ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... had fed on this when Death's white arms Came sleeved in vapors and miasmal dew, Curling across the jungle's ferny floor, Becking each fevered brain. On bleak divides, Where Sleep grew niggardly for nipping cold That twinged blue lips into a mouthed curse, Not back to Seville and its sunny plains Winged their brief-biding dreams, but once again, Lords of a palace in Tenochtitlan, They guarded Montezuma's treasure-hoard. Gold, like some finny harvest of the ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... shone brightly upon the hills and plains of Monmouth. Over the meadows lay the snow, and on the streams a thick coating of ice; but the pines were green in the woodlands, and the air—though sharp and nipping—still breathed of spring and hope. The land was fair to see in its winter garb. Man alone was the discordant note in ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... opened his eyes again he contemplated the sun through the veil of bushes and reeds. It was great and red, but it had a chilly effect, and he knew the day was quite cold. The willows began to shake and quiver and the wind that stirred them was nipping. He did not care. Cold stimulated him, and, making ready for new endeavors, he dipped for his ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and one might for years remain, hospitably entertained, yet kept at a distance. But the stars, when they did form, were very fixed. Of such were the two friends who now came in eager for tea, after their nipping drive: Mrs. Pakenham, English, mother of a large family, wife of a hard-worked M.P. and landowner; energetically interested in hunting, philanthropy, books and people; slender and vigorous, with a delicate, emaciated face, weather-beaten to a pale, crisp red, her eyes as blue as porcelain, her ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... rip into the high and low Dutch like a nor'easter into a field of broom corn. Jake talked and talked, and drank and talked, and about midnight, the cocks crowing, the stars winking and blinking, and the wind nipping and whistling around the grocery, Sanders notified Jake and others that he was going to shut up the concern, and the crowd must be "putting out." Jake made a break for his nag, but she was gone. "Why," says Jake, "she's broke der ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... means inclined always to give in meekly, we had opportunities for plenty of amusement. The two were always skirmishing. When by a strategic short cut across the angle of a trail Buckshot succeeded in stealing a march on Dinkey, while she was nipping a mouthful, his triumph was beautiful to see. He never held the place for long, however. Dinkey's was the leadership by force of ambition and energetic character, and at the head of ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... It was a nipping frosty air, but Baldassarre could feel no chill—he only felt the glow of conscious power. He walked about and paused on all the open spots of that high ground, and looked down on the domed and towered city, sleeping darkly ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... grew too dark to read, I laid my book down and began to think, and presently it seemed as if a whole pack of Indians were dancing like wild round me, in full war-paint and feathers, and nipping little pieces out of my arms and legs. I stood it as long as I could, and then I began to hit out at 'em. All at once one of the creatures commenced flourishing his tomahawk at me, getting nearer and nearer all the time. "I have tried, but I can't get in," he ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... imagination had for the last few minutes been busy with more vital matters than the framing of fresh contributions to the Arabian Nights' Entertainment, and he was feeling none too well at ease. It had occurred to him that his drastic action might have more disastrous effects than merely nipping Denis's passion in the bud, and he wished to rejoin the company at Brineweald ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... with jealousy, mortified pride, and dread of exposure (for till she knew Gerard no public stain had fallen on her), sat where he left her, masked, with her arms straight out before her, and the nails of her clenched hand nipping the table. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... This building, I learned when I bought the place, had been used as a schoolhouse for several years prior to the breaking out of the war, since which time it had remained unoccupied, save when some stray cow or vagrant hog had sought shelter within its walls from the chill rains and nipping ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... resort of country carriers. The man would have gone in there where he was quite unknown or, indeed, he might even have lain down in the bleak court that gave access to the tenements above, but for Bobby's persistent and cheerful barking, begging and nipping. ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... a nipping wind down the northward running streets. I walked fast to avoid being overtaken. Every crossing was a danger, every passenger a thing to watch alertly. One man as I was about to pass him at the top of Bedford Street, turned upon me abruptly and came into me, sending ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... glance through the window caught a desolate picture of blackened dahlia stalks and shrivelled blooms. The gayety and color of the garden were gone, and in their place was shabby and dishevelled ruin. He flung the sash up and leaned out. The nipping autumn air was good to breathe. He looked about him, surveying the havoc the frost had wrought among the ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... leaves o'erhead and the soft rustle of the morning breeze. Presently the pallid veil at the east takes on a purplish blush, that is changing every instant to a ruddier hue. Faces are beginning to be dimly visible in the groups of defenders, pinched and drawn and cold in the nipping air, and Wayne notes with a half sob how blue poor Dana's lips are. The boy's thoughts are far away. Is he ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... wanted to know whether these birds were the same as our sparrows, which are so common everywhere, even in the busy streets London, and so mischievous in the country, eating the grain, and stealing the peas, and nipping off the ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... then sowes his herbs, his flowers & roots And carefully manures his trees of fruits. The Pleiades their influence now give, And all that seemed as dead afresh doth live. The croaking frogs, whom nipping winter kil'd Like birds now chirp, and hop about the field, The Nightingale, the black-bird and the Thrush Now tune their layes, on ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... you, but there is none warm.' The clothing was to guard against the nipping air that blew shrewdly on their hills, and it failed to keep them from the weather. We may be indulging in fancy in this application of our text, but still raiment is as needful as food, and its failure to answer its purpose ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... her summer clothing for warmer vestments. The ladies appear no more in light muslin dresses, and without any head covering. The gentlemen have eschewed their suits of white drill and Panama hats, and have assumed heavy over-coats and flannel under-clothing. It is a 'nipping and an eager air,' closely resembling winter, and reminding everybody of the fact, that in one short hour we have tripped lightly from the perpetual summer of the tropics into the coldest season of the north. Some sea water which had been hauled up ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... blue-stone, and was now at work regrading the seed. Against the wall behind him ranged the row of sacks. Harran cut the fastenings of these and examined the contents carefully, taking handfuls of wheat from each and allowing it to run through his fingers, or nipping the grains between his nails, testing ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... fireboxes. The punks in these were lighted, and when all were very hot they were wrapped in flannels and distributed about their persons inside their sealskins. With this arrangement, Jack Frost's chances of nipping their persons were ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... the long causeway made for the railroad through the meadows, I encountered many a blustering and nipping wind, for nowhere has it freer play; and when the frost had smitten me on one cheek, heathen as I was, I turned to it the other also. Nor was it much better by the carriage road from Brister's Hill. For I came to town still, like a friendly Indian, when the contents of the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the Moon, and her transparent honey the moonlight. The maid is the rosy-fingered Dawn, who rises before the Sun, her master, and hangs out the clothes (the clouds) across the sky; the particular blackbird who so tragically ends the tale, by 'nipping off her nose,' is the hour of sunrise. The time-honoured rhyme really wants, as Mr. Tylor remarks, only one thing to prove it a sun-myth, and that one thing is some other proof than a mere ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... and fix thy reign, And frame a fairer Athens than of yore In these blest bounds of Baltimore, — Here, where the climates meet That each may make the other's lack complete, — Where Florida's soft Favonian airs beguile The nipping North, — where nature's powers smile, — Where Chesapeake holds frankly forth her hands Spread wide with invitation to all lands, — Where now the eager people yearn to find The organizing hand that fast ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... dog proceeded to "go for" the caller. Had the latter run away, the brute would have been at his heels, nipping and biting at each step. But Mike had no thought of retreating. He was filled with anger at his inhospitable reception and gave his whole attention to the animal, which with a muttered growl charged full speed ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... or Elmes vtmost, set in comely rowes equally distant with faire Allies twixt row and row to auoide the boisterous blasts of winds, and within them also others for Bees; yet wee admit none of these into your Orchard-plat: other remedy then this haue wee none against the nipping frosts. ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... wool. And behind the wind slid Chieftain, who know the value of a hidden descent. He shot through the rent, racing down with the sun's rays to earth, and surprised a cock-grouse at his breakfast, nipping off the tender heather-shoots daintily one by one. So swiftly did Chieftain fall that the grouse never knew what had killed him; he was dead—in a flash. The great eagle swept on with the grouse in his claws, and, without stopping, beat ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... tearing along and put its chilly, icy, clammy clamps on the nose of Henry Hagglyhoagly, fastening the clamps like a nipping, gripping clothes pin on his nose. He put his wool yarn mittens up on his nose and rubbed till the wind took off the chilly, icy, clammy clamps. His nose was warm again; he said, "Thank you, mittens, ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg
... away. Every day brought a lessened list of arrivals at the hotels; and already there was that sense of a season over and done with and about to be laid up and shelved for the winter, which all watering-places know so well, and which is as a nipping frost to the hopes of landlords and letters of lodgings. Just why "Finis" should be written so early on the fair page of the Newport season, it is hard to explain; for, charming as is the summer, September and October are more charming still, and nowhere does the later autumn exhibit a ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... who had been gradually accumulating present dust and future rheumatisms on the "bad eminence" of a rumble-tumble, exposed to the nipping airs of an English sky, leaped to the ground and opened ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... family, Gertrude, its eldest daughter, felt nothing but loathing and contempt. Her father, a local government official in a western town, a small-minded domestic tyrant, ruined by long years of whisky-nipping between meals; her only brother, profligate and spendthrift, of whose present modes of life the less said the better; her brother-in-law, Henry Lewison, the man whom, in her callow, ignorant youth, she was once to have married, before her younger sister ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... snows but nipping airs, were the winters of this country of the cave men, and there were articles of food essential to variety which were, necessarily, stored before the cold season came. There were roots which were ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... meekness within the hour and had the chapel moved to a lot on a side street in town within the week. However, when a hunter comes suddenly upon a Harpeth jaguar he is glad to use his best repeater and he is careful how he shoots, though if he is very skillful he may tease the lion aloft with a few nipping shots. I felt suddenly very strong for the fight that I knew was on, though the lion didn't possess that knowledge as yet. Deliberately I fired a preliminary bullet that seemed to graze father, though ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... perpendicular rise of fully ten feet. Our hearts sank within us and we said that we should return to our friends as we went away, with our knapsacks on our backs, and the hope grew very small. The little mule was nipping some stray blades of grass and as we came in sight she looked around to us and then up the steep rocks before her with such a knowing, intelligent look of confidence, that it gave us new courage. It was a strange wild place. The north wall of the canon leaned far over the channel, overhanging considerably, ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... and can be had from most druggists. Weak acid may be understood as one part of this to twelve parts of water. In many cases, however, much greater weakness than this is necessary, owing to the tenderness of the parts treated. As a general rule, the dilute acid should only cause a gentle nipping sensation and heat in the sore. If it is painful, no good is done. Frequent gentle applications are always much better than a ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... the nipping air of Galesburg, Illinois, that turns the young sciolists of Knox College toward the rarefied ethers of literature? S.S. McClure, John Phillips, Ralph Waldo Trine, Don Marquis—are there other Knox men in the game, too? ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... of the day never goes off properly. In partridge time, the partridges are wild, and won't come to be killed. In hunting time the foxes won't run straight,—the wretches. They show no spirit, and will take to ground to save their brushes. Then comes a nipping frost, and skating is proclaimed; but the ice is always rough, and the woodcocks have deserted the country. And as for salmon,—when the summer comes round I do really believe that they suffer a great deal about the salmon. I'm ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... skirted a pivoting floe, darted into a nipping channel, and shot out into the open with the walls grinding together ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... divided against itself and yet stood. Metaphysics, commerce, social aspirations—all lived together in harmony. Mr. Ansell had done much, but one was tempted to believe in a more capricious power—the power that abstains from "nipping." "One nips or is nipped, and never knows beforehand," quoted Rickie, and opened the poems of Shelley, a man less foolish than you supposed. How pleasant it was to read! If business worried him, if Stephen was noisy or Ansell ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... watched with the keen avidity of love for the white snow and the wail of wintery winds, for the long, dark nights and gray, cold dawn. Each one brought her nearer and nearer; every day was a pain past and a nearer joy. Welcome to the nipping frost and the northern winds; welcome the hail, the rain, the sleet—it brought him nearer. How she prayed for him with the loving simplicity of a child. If Heaven would but spare him, would save him from all dangers, would send him sunny ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... in his approach, and the conscious coquettish air, miscalled ease, with which another invites his notice, are alike removed from the reality of either modesty or ease. Both result from a fictitious mode of education —both are the consequences of nipping in the bud those sisterly feelings that lay a fair foundation for the right use of those privileges to which she looks forward as a member of society; and if the subject be viewed through the clear medium of Christian principle, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... grew nipping cold. The clouds shed off their fleeces; a snow-hillock, each canoe; our ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... about, show her the city. Certainly Hope could not be so idiotic as to let clothes matter. In his sister's world clothes were the insignia of its order, and of late Hope had shown signs that needed nipping. He must see Hope. Next week would be time enough, but Hope and Dorothea must both ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... mound of snow. He cleaned a wide space and a path to the side of the cabin. Working in snow was not unpleasant for him. He liked the cleanness, the whiteness, the absolute purity of new-fallen snow. The air was crisp and nipping, the frost crackled under his feet, the smoke from his pipe seemed no thicker than the steam from his breath, the ax rang on the hard aspens. Wade swung this implement like a born woodsman. The chips flew and the dead wood smelled ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... growing country, in every business office, at the railway stations, and on street corners, large placards placed with "Do not slouch" printed thereon in distinct and imposing characters. If ever there was a tendency that needed nipping in the bud (I fear the bud is fast becoming a full-blown flower), it is ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... the ball flew off to the left instead of keeping close to the boundary. Who's Who was far across the ground, thinking hard as he galloped. He repeated stride for stride The Cat's manoeuvres with another Archangel pony, nipping the ball away from under his bridle, and clearing his opponent by half a fraction of an inch, for Who's Who was clumsy behind. Then he drove away towards the right as The Maltese Cat came up from the left; and Bamboo held a middle course exactly between them. The ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... and Blood, that was a nipping reply! And happy man is his dole who retains in grave years, and even to grey hairs, enough of green youth's redundant spirits for such excursiveness! He who never relaxes into sportiveness is a wearisome companion, but beware of him who jests at everything! Such men disparage ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... balmy day, one of those lovely autumn days which hang upon the edge of winter, and Miss Wendover was pacing her garden walks bare-headed, armed with gardening scissors and formidable brown leather gauntlets, nipping a leaf here, or a withered rosebud there, with eyes whose eagle glance not so much as an aphis could escape. From the slope of her lawn Aunt Betsy saw the cobs turn into the lane, and she was standing at the gate ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... been from a well-to-do patient who fostered a half-fancied illness, he might have been more put out than he certainly was when, upon turning into the street, he felt the keen east wind nipping his ears; but it was from a poor house lying in the midst of a very labyrinth of squalid back streets and foul courts, and yet but a mere stone's-throw from his own ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... began to rub her face against his breast. "Meow! meow!" she said. Still the shrill noise did not atop. Pussy put her front paws high up on papa's chest and rubbed her face against his chin, at the same time nipping it gently with her teeth and calling, "Meow! meow!" which meant, "Stop! stop! Please, master, I am here. What do you want? Oh, ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... the limbs; the first is covered to the bosom, the second bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the rail of the seat sustains; the other is outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon the thumb thoughtfully, as though some firm, wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is the coif, bearing in front the mystic uraeus, or twining ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... inwardly upbraiding her husband, lamenting at Fate, which had directed her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just having a good cry all to herself. The mosquitoes made merry over her, biting her firm, round arms and nipping at her ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... desert of lifeless, disgusting gardens and hay-fields, without a single tenement or smoke-stack in sight. How she did hate it all! There was only one sweet-smelling shrub in the whole horrible place, and that was in a neglected corner. She did enjoy nipping that and rolling in the leaves; it was a bright spot in the grounds; but the only one, for she had not found a rotten fish-head nor seen a genuine garbage-can since she came, and altogether it was ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... stakes and pickets that were obviously used by Mere Popeau as a drying-ground. To divert attention he gave a vivid demonstration of bombing along a C.T. with clods of earth, with myself as bayonet-man nipping round traverses and mortally puncturing sand-bags with a walking-stick. It must have been a pretty nervy business for the Major, for any minute we might have come across a notice-board about the hours of working parties knocking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... nipping colds of December, Christine only came in the afternoon, and it was about four o'clock, when the sun was sinking, that Claude escorted her back on his arm. On days when the sky was clear, they could see the long line of quays stretching away into space directly they had crossed the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... wrinkled her forehead—that noble, that startling forehead which had been written about in the newspapers of two hemispheres—laid down her American Squeezer pen, and sighed. It was an autumn day, nipping and melancholy, full of the rustle of dying leaves and the faint sound of muffin bells, and Belgrave Square looked sad even to the great female novelist who had written her way into a mansion there. Fog hung about with the policeman ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... waves like mad, is no easy task. The line cuts the fingers, and the long, hard pull wearies the wrists until they ache, as though with inflammatory rheumatism. But when all this had to be done in a wet, chilling fog, or in a nipping winter's wind that freezes the spray in beard and hair, while the frost bites the fingers that the line lacerates, then the fisherman's lot ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Unmindful of the nipping air, the ladies flew to the windows and raised them, while the gentlemen, in a body, rushed out upon the porch, many to the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Miss May. I declare, if you don't hop about through the snow like a robin; there—she's gone. Now, I should like to know what business old Stillinghast's niece has to be doing such work as this,—the nipping old miser; and I'd like to know what she ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... my delight, one of the dogs now ran out and began to bark and circle around us, jumping up at the horse's nose and nipping at his heels. This brought on new activities, for now Dr. Bell not only reared but elevated himself suddenly behind, to kick at the dog. However, there was one good result. We stopped running and began to trot rapidly about in circles, dodging the dog, and this finally brought us ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... furnished with three or four feet of chain, a precaution which is absolutely necessary; for a voracious shark will sometimes gobble the bait so deep into his stomach, that he would snap through the rope as easily as if he were nipping the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... red raiders had unwittingly followed his trail, only to turn in flight as if the devil was nipping after them once they glimpsed his bulky figure, heard his whimpering or his loud laughter. The men followed him to the Davis Cabin, each eager to contribute to the general gossip ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... intermission to the 24th February; some of the days in the middle of February being from 15 deg. to 18 deg. below the average. From the 24th February to the 6th March the weather was more moderate; but on that day the cold again set in, and the weather continued to the 26th June to be cold, nipping, and miserable beyond record. In January, on several days, the mercury was as low as 13 deg.. In February it was, on many days, as low as from 3 deg. to 10 deg.. The coldest day in London was the 18th, when ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... need to be solicited and tickled by some such nipping incitation as this. Do but observe what youth, vigour, and gaiety it inspired the good Anacreon withal: and Socrates, who was then older than I, speaking of an ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... If he would do such things as these for an acquaintance, at best a "pal," what would he not do for a woman beloved? I should have liked to duck that creature under the pump in the court, on just such a nipping night as this. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... run to meet the Kings so near, with our fougasso and our figs and our hay for the hungry camels. The day would be waning rapidly, the sun dropping down into a great cloud-bank above the mountains, the wind nipping us more shrewdly as it grew still more chill. Our hearts also would be chilling. Even the bravest of us would be doubting a little this adventure upon which we ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the schooner lay to with backed forestaysail, tumbling wildly on a dim, grey sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a dingy haze, and there was a low, grey sky to weather. Now and then a fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... said the Anywhere Man, gazing upon the pasture, where the fleecy ewes were nipping grass between the rocks and the eager lambs ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... for such a voyage, this queer little half-pumpkin! A frail and leaky shell. She bent and cracked from stem to stern among the nipping masses. Water oozed in through her dry seams. Any moment a rougher touch or a sharper edge might cut her through. But that was a risk they had accepted. They did not take time to think of it, nor to listen to the crunching and crackling of the hungry ice around. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... to the mind of most people soft airs—the scent of roses—a time when the young can sit out-of-doors in the moonlight, and the middle-aged may venture forth without risk of catching cold. But even on such a night in Thorhaven there is a nipping freshness at sunset which keeps the mind alert instead of lulling the senses—giving an exquisite clearness to the thoughts of lovers: at any rate, to the thoughts of lovers ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... The few passers-by strode rapidly along, wrapped up in comforters; naturally enough one does not care to tarry when the cold is nipping at your heels. However, Gervaise perceived four or five women who were mounting guard like herself outside the door of the zinc-works; unfortunate creatures of course—wives watching for the pay to prevent it going to the dram-shop. There was a tall creature as bulky as a gendarme ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... pleasure is in memory, and their ambition is in heaven. They can be kind to you, but you nevermore can be kind to them. You may be fed with the fruit and fulness of their old age, but you were as the nipping blight to them in their blossoming, and your praise is only as the warm winds of ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... below, and Vane sat at the helm with a frown on his face. An angry coppery glare streamed down upon the white-flecked water which gleamed in the lurid light. It was very cold, but there was a wonderful quality that set the blood tingling in the nipping air. Even upon the high peaks and in the trackless bush, one fails to find the bracing freshness that comes with ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... feeding, he soon came to reveal steadily increasing courage and independence. Oftentimes he would be the first to reach the box, and, what was more to the point, would hold his position against the other horses—hold it against rough shouldering from the family horse, savage nipping from the saddler, even vigorous cursing and ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... more than just smoke. The Arizona stars shot wondrous shafts of white fire through the nipping air as the chums sensed the comfortable companionship of horses moving slowly about the corral; and they heard the far, faint call of the coyote as a drift of wind brought the keen tang of the distant timberlands. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... looked a bit goose-fleshed last week, but we always have hay fever when we get near those grass skirts. Grass widows is what the profession calls the Hawaiian ladies. Hope the temperature isn't going up again. We love the old-fashioned Christmas and all that sort of thing. Nipping air makes cheeks pink; we love to see them nestled in fur coats on Chestnut Street. This is the time of year to do unexpected kindnesses. We know one man who stands in line for hours in front of movie theatres just in order to shout Merry Christmas through the little hole in the ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... drop whence it flew very prettily branched or creased, which was easily discoverable by the Microscope. This drop, after I had thus ground it, without at all impairing the remnant that was not ground away, I caused to fly immediately all into sand upon the nipping off the very tip of ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... while to have cast away those graver thoughts which had been stirring them of late; or at least, if the current still ran, it seemed for the time being to run in silence. Perhaps the knowledge that the cardinal had set himself to the task of nipping in the bud the dangerous growth of incipient heresy alarmed some of the more timid spirits; whilst others sought for truth and light as it was to be found amongst their recognized preachers and teachers, and were often ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... top when Starlight sings out, 'Stand! Bail up!' and the three of us, all masked, showed ourselves. You never saw a man look so scared as the passenger on the box-seat, a stout, jolly commercial, who'd been giving the coachman Havana cigars, and yarning and nipping with him at every house they passed. Bill Webster, the driver, pulls up all standing when he sees what was in Starlight's hand, and holds the reins so loose for a minute I thought they'd drop out of his ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown, A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air; 'Twas simple russet, but it was her own: 'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair, 'Twas her own labour did ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... now, laughing nervously, but with an undertone of snarl in his voice, "why on earth are you nipping my arm off, Horrocks, and dragging me ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... repertoire. Montgomery was favored in the hope that, being a college town, it would rally to the call of the serious drama. Unfortunately the college was otherwise engaged at the moment with a drama of more contemporaneous interest and authorship. An unusually severe January added to the eager and nipping air upon which the curtain rises in "Hamlet," and proved too much for the well-meaning players. Hastings (so ran tradition) had gallantly bestowed such money as he had upon the ladies of the company to facilitate their flight to New York. His father, a successful manufacturer of codfish ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... France would likewise vanish. For vanish it did: not for nearly half a century had France another free and truly democratic representative assembly. This result of Brumaire was unexpected by several of the men who plotted the overthrow of unpopular Directors, and hoped for the nipping of Jacobinical or royalist designs. Indeed, no event in French history is more astonishing than the dispersal of the republican deputies, most of whom desired a change of personnel but not a revolution in methods of government. Until a few ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... atmospheric effects become more rich and varied, until on reaching the Potomac you find an atmosphere as well as a climate. The latter is still on the vehement American scale, full of sharp and violent changes and contrasts, baking and blistering in summer, and nipping and blighting in winter, but the spaces are not so purged and bare; the horizon wall does not so often have the appearance of having just been washed and scrubbed down. There is more depth and visibility to the open air, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... to get their fingers into, so as to pull up the plate, but wide enough to allow the teacher to put a very narrow key in, when he desires to pull up the plate to put the lesson-post in the socket. No. 3, is a front view of the lesson-post, containing the slides nipping the lessons between them; the other figure represents a side view of the lesson post, and the small figure at the left hand side represents the groove of the two sliders to receive the lesson, and the back part of it the dovetails to clip, which come down behind ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... Everywhere there was a nipping curiosity to learn how Judge Pike had "taken" the strange performance of his daughter, and the eager were much disappointed when it was truthfully reported that he had done and said very little. He had merely discharged both ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... in their blankets, lay in a row almost at the edge of the forest. The heat from the fire was still great, but it would die down after a while, and the October air was nipping. Henry usually fell asleep in a very few minutes, but this time, despite his long exertions and lack of rest, he remained awake when his comrades were sound asleep. Then he fell into a drowsy state, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Clara," Mrs. Mallet went on, actually venturing to oppose the infallible authority. "A nipping morning. And such a flimsy coat! Might not the dear child be allowed to judge for herself in a matter purely ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... itself the dog ran, after a couple of goats that had strayed out into the level. These he drove back in a panic of haste, dodging this way and that, nipping, yelping now and then, until they had joined the others. Then he went on to the further fringes of the hand, which evened like the edge of a pie crust under the practised fingers of a ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... and was passing the open door of his step-mother's room when she called him. He found her standing by one of the big windows, a very girlish figure in her trim walking-suit and long furs. The face she turned to him, under her wide hat, was rosy from contact with the nipping ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... them on the parlour sofa when Crow brought them in out of the nipping early dark of December, Elmore staying behind in the yard with the horses. She sat on the sofa in her best black dress with the bead trimming on the neck and sleeves, a good deal pushed up and wrinkled across the bosom, which had done all that would ever be required of it when it gave Elmore ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... time of the year when the flies and manifold sort of vermin, flying, crawling, hopping, hungry, and ever biting, were in the full rampancy of their young vigor. It was not only spiteful enemies in human form, that sent crashing shells and piercing bullets, but every kind of nipping, boring, sucking, and stinging creatures in the air and on the earth, that our brave soldiers, and especially our wounded, had to face. Even to the swallowing of a mouthful of coffee, or the biting of a piece of hard tack, it was a battle. Flies, above, around, and everywhere, made ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... preceding winter had been mild, but this bade fair to break some records for severe and variegated weather. Now came the true test for Albert. To trudge all day long in snow, icy rain or deep slush, to paddle across the lake in a nipping wind, with the chilly spray all over him, to go for hours soaking wet on every inch of his skin—these were the things that would have surely tried the dwellers in the houses of men, even those with ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... been amazed to see how Mary V refrained from bullying her mount that night. There was no mane-pulling, no little, nipping pinches of the neck to imitate the bite of a fly, no scolding—nothing that Tango had come to take for granted when Mary V ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... number the hills should ultimately be thinned, making the final thinning when all danger from bugs and other vermin is past. The dwarfs may be planted four feet apart; but the running sorts should not be less than six or eight. The custom of cutting or nipping off the leading shoot of the running varieties is now practised to some extent, with the impression that it both facilitates the formation of fruitful laterals and the early maturing of the fruit. Whether the amount of ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... brief reign of Tungche and hoped to gain predominance in the imperial councils. But they found a determined mistress in the person of Tsi An, the Eastern Empress, as she was also called, who took vigorous action against them, punishing their leaders with death and effectually nipping in the bud all their projects for ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... of brains. 'And they hate railways!' He associated them, in the matter of intelligence, with Andrew Hedger and Company. They sank to the level of the temperature in his esteem—as regarded their intellects. He approved their warmth of heart. The nipping of the victim's toes and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... creatures God 'sets up for themselves' so independently of us, so successfully, with their strange happy minute inch of a candle, as it were, to light them; while we run about and against each other with our great cressets and fire-pots. I once saw a solitary bee nipping a leaf round till it exactly fitted the front of a hole; his nest, no doubt; or tomb, perhaps—'Safe as Oedipus's grave-place, 'mid Colone's olives swart'—(Kiss me, my Siren!)—Well, it seemed awful to watch that bee—he seemed so instantly ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... fluttered about the warm room in search of her mittens, and then she turned down the lamp, chucked a log in the stove, put on the dampers like a prudent householder, and, having made quite sure that the door was latched, scampered off to town in vast and twittering delight with the nipping frost, with the roistering wind, the fluffy snow, the stars, the whole of God's clean world, and with herself, too, and with the ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... through the thick of surging and plunging beasts. The sharp-eyed pony would see almost as soon as his rider which cow was wanted and he needed small guidance from that time on. He would follow hard at her heels, edging her constantly toward the flank of the herd, at times nipping her hide as a reminder of his own superiority. In spite of herself the cow would gradually turn out toward the edge, and at last would be swept clear of the crush, the calf following close behind her. There was a whirl of ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... perhaps there's none: Suppose there is no secret after all, But only just my fun. To-day's a nipping day, a biting day; 10 In which one wants a shawl, A veil, a cloak, and other wraps: I cannot ope to every one who taps, And let the draughts come whistling through my hall; Come bounding and surrounding me, Come buffeting, astounding me, Nipping and clipping through my wraps ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... putting on an angry, suspicious look, and being roused by even the slightest whisper. During the voyage it ate corn and fruit, and when these became scarce, took to cockroaches; of which it cleared the vessel. It would dispatch twenty large, besides smaller ones, three or four times in each day, nipping off the head of the former, and rejecting the viscera, legs, and hard wing cases. Besides these, it fed on milk, sugar, raisins, and bread-crumbs. It afterwards made friends with a cat, and slept and eat with this animal, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... other sign of life visible. When dusk came the lights were lit, and the drummer and fifer from the booth of tumblers were sent into the town to entice an audience. They marched quickly through the nipping, windy streets, and then returned with two or three score of men, women, and children, plunging through the snow or mud at their heavy heels. It was Orpheus fallen from his high estate. What a mockery the glare of the lamps and the capers of the mountebanks were, and ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... to her by custom, sympathy, or what I fondly call parental love, would direct me to study her present happiness, and leave her to the care of those whom she thinks her dearest friends; but they are friends only in the sunshine of fortune; in the cold nipping frost of disappointment, sickness, or connubial strife, they will forsake the house of care, although the very house which they may ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... benefite and inurie: and therby neither fast to frend, nor fearefull to foe: inquisitiue of euery trifle, not secret in greatest affaires: bolde, with any person: busie, in euery matter: sothing, soch as be present: nipping any that is absent: of nature also, alwaies, flattering their betters, enuying their equals, despising their inferiors: and, by quicknes of witte, verie quicke and readie, to like none so well as ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... came he took his stand with Horatio, and Marcellus, one of the guard, upon the platform, where this apparition was accustomed to walk: and it being a cold night, and the air unusually raw and nipping, Hamlet and Horatio and their companion fell into some talk about the coldness of the night, which was suddenly broken off by Horatio announcing that ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... not be amiss to relate how they geld their Cattel. They let them be two or three years old before they go about this work; then casting them and tying their Legs together; they bruise their Cods with two sticks tied together at one end, nipping them with the other, and beating them with Mallets all to pieces. Then they rub over their Cods with fresh Butter and Soot, and so turn them loose, but not suffer them to lye down all that day. By this way ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... been cooking at the camp for weeks. The meals were good, the men respected her, and she went her way to and from her shack at the canyon as regularly as the world went around. The autumn slipped by, and the nipping frosts of early winter and the depths of early snows were already daily occurrences. The big group of solid log shacks that formed the construction camp were all made weather-tight against the long mountain winter. Trails were beginning to be blocked, streams to freeze, and "Old Baldy," ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... spawned fish which he could obtain in the course of the winter months during their sojourn in the rivers. As soon as he had hauled the fish ashore, he made peculiar marks in their caudal fins by means of a pair of nipping-irons, and immediately threw then back into the water. In the course of the following fishing season great numbers were recaptured on their return from the sea, each in its own river bearing its peculiar mark. "We have also," Mr Young informs us, "another proof of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... both of them are keyes To vnlocke Chastitie vnto Desire; Come in Ofelia, such men often proue, "Great in their wordes, but little in their loue. Ofel. I will my lord. exeunt. Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus. Ham. The ayre bites shrewd; it is an eager and An nipping winde, what houre i'st? Hor. I think it lacks of twelue, Sound Trumpets. Mar. No, t'is strucke. Hor. Indeed I heard it not, what doth this mean my lord? [C3] Ham. O the king doth wake to night, & takes his rowse, Keepe wassel, and the swaggering vp-spring reeles, And ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... bawling of great bulls and the bleating of the calves brought news of a huge herd of cattle, but these sounds only made his solitary vigil the more impressive. The sleepy chirp of the crickets and the sound of his horse nipping the grass, calmly careless of the wolves, were the only aids to sleep; all else had the effect to keep his tense nerves vibrating. As the cold intensified, the crickets ceased to cry, and the pony, having ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland |
