"Vermin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... how that can be," said Allan Redmain scornfully, "for the kingdom of which you boast is but a barren rock in the mid sea, and methinks your beasts of the chase are but vermin rats ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... one chiefly associates the idea of anonymous communications with everything cowardly and base. There are in all neighborhoods perfidious, sneaking, dastardly, filthy, calumnious, vermin-infested wretches, spewed up from perdition, whose joy it is to write letters with fictitious signatures. Sometimes they take the shape of a valentine, the fourteenth of February being a great outlet for this obscene spawn. If your nose be long, or ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... original chartulary or register was saved by the Abbe de la Rue, and is at this time preserved in his valuable collection. The charters of the Trinity were hid, during the revolution, by the nuns, who secreted them beneath the tiling of a barn. They were discovered there not long since; but damp and vermin had rendered ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... the best friends the gardener has; for they live almost exclusively on the most destructive kinds of vermin. Unsightly, therefore, though they may be, they should on all accounts be encouraged; they should never be touched nor molested in any way; on the contrary, places of shelter should be made for them, to which they may retire from the burning heat of the sun. If you have none in your ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the chamber of torture. The church appealed to the rack, and faith relied on the fagot. Science was an outcast, and philosophy, so-called, was the pander of superstition. Nobles and priests were sacred. Peasants were vermin. Idleness sat at the banquet and industry gathered the crumbs ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of re-sowing the land so thickly that there should be sufficient grain to allow for the depredations of our enemies. I set vermin traps and caught the guinea-fowl. Then the natural enemy appeared in the wild cats, who took the guinea-fowls out of the traps. At first the men were suspected of stealing the birds, but the unmistakable tracks of the wild cats were found close to the traps, and shortly after ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... mechanically towards him, as Maelzel's Turk used to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it went by cogwheels.—Cracking up all sorts of things,—native and foreign vermin ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... ma'am, and if we were to let them out, would soon be at him. No, no, John, sit still and put down your rifle; we can't afford to hurt wolves; their skins won't fetch a half-dollar, and their flesh is not fit for a clog, let alone a Christian. Let the vermin howl till he is tired; he'll be off to ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... He has no comfort in fixed principles: as soon as anything is settled in his own mind, he quarrels with it. He has no satisfaction but in the chase after truth, runs a question down, worries and kills it, then quits it like vermin, and starts some new game, to lead him a new dance, and give him a fresh breathing through bog and brake, with the rabble yelping at his heels and the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... infested by banditti. One journey from Syracuse through the center of the island revealed more wretchedness than Irving supposed existed in the world. The half-starved peasants lived in wretched cabins and often in caverns, amid filth and vermin. "God knows my mind never suffered so much as on this journey," he writes, "when I saw such scenes of want and misery continually before me, without the power of effectually relieving them." His stay in the ports was made agreeable by the officers of American ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... gave pause to this race of conquering vermin; a place in the expanse of this vast sea that brought panic to their hearts. And there came to him, as he stowed the remembrance away in his mind, the first glow of hope. These things could fear a mountain; it might be that they could be ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... and other prohibited and unaccustomed goods. These we meet at every coffee-house and corner of the streets, and they visit also every private house; the women have such a gust for everything that is foreign or prohibited, that these vermin meet with a good reception everywhere. The ladies will rather buy home manufactures of these people than of a neighbouring shopkeeper, under the pretence of buying cheaper, though they frequently buy damaged goods, and pay a great deal dearer for ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... sure, you Romans trouble yourselves more about matters of law and administration than the culture of the arts or the subtleties of thought. Well, it was my father's duty to pay these customs over to Eulaeus, who received them; but the beardless effeminate vermin, the glutton—may every peach he ever ate or ever is to eat turn to poison!—kept back half of what was delivered to him, and when the accountants found nothing but empty air in the king's stores where they hoped to find ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... lighter Air, In Beasts, and Apes, and Vermin, paints the Fair: The good Scriblerus in like forms displays The reptile Rhimesters of ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... window, followed by a burst of sunlight. As the morning enters the stained, foul, dingy places of dissipation, which early in the evening had been the gas-lighted, garish scenes of riot and senseless laughter, and later the fighting ground of all the vile vermin of the night with their uncanny noises—as when, the doors and windows having been at last opened, the light struggles in through stale tobacco-smoke, revealing dimly a discolored, reeking place, whose sights and odors are more in harmony ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of the external air, but much is attributable to antiseptics. One of the principal ingredients in the mummy balsam is colocynth, or bitter apple, powdered. The same drug is employed in Upper Egypt for destroying vermin in clothes' presses, and store-rooms; and ostrich feathers sent to Lower Egypt are sprinkled with it. A recent traveller found in the head of a mummy, of a superior kind, a balsam, in colour and transparency like a pink topaz. It burned with a beautiful clear ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... enabling us to say that, at a time so distant from us that we feel inclined to measure it by Indian rather than by our own chronology, the mouse was known, that is, was named, was conceived and recognized as a species of its own, not to be confounded with any other vermin. ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... friendly questions, opening vistas of reply and recollection; so that Rudolph, answering, felt the first return of homely comfort. A feeble return, however, and brief: in the pauses of talk, misgiving swarmed in his mind, like the leaping vermin of last night. The world into which he had been thrown still appeared disorderly, incomprehensible, and dangerous. The plague—it still recurred in his thoughts like a sombre motive; these friendly people were still strangers; and for a moment now and then their talk, their ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... silver flowers. The King and Queen were seated at the upper end of the room; and a number of dishes were brought in for dinner. They had not sat long, when a vast number of rats and mice rushed in, helping themselves from almost every dish. The captain wondered at this, and asked if these vermin ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... get at his hand—and in a moment he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was only an image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment—! And his gesture was exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit of vermin. I glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-horse. I was glad he hadn't seen the thing. "I say," I said, in an undertone, and indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, "you haven't many things like THAT about, ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... Necessities there. The King's stern orders must be fulfilled to the letter; the Crown-Prince is immured in that manner. At Berlin, there are the wildest rumors as to the state he has fallen into; "covered with rags and vermin, unshaven, no comb allowed him, lights his own fire," says one testimony, which Captain Dickens thinks worth reporting. For the truth is, no unofficial eye can see the Crown-Prince, or know what state he is in. And we find, in spite of the Edict, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... "You two halt to cover us just at the water's edge. That'll give the boys time to get aboard, and then we can laugh at the copper-skinned vermin. Look sharp and reload: ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... These fanged meridian vermin, Shrill gnats that crowd the dusk, Night-moths whose nestling ermine Smells foul of mould and musk, Blind flesh-flies hatched by dark ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... hand upon the floor it touched something which yielded to the pressure. Involuntarily he drew it back and placed himself instinctively in an attitude of defence. He hated vermin of every kind, and this he instantly resolved was a rodent ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... I. "I have to inform you that I am a gentleman. You do not know what that means, hey? Well, I will tell you. It is a comical sort of animal; springs from another strange set of creatures they call ancestors; and, in common with toads and other vermin, has a thing that he calls feelings. The lion is a gentleman; he will not touch carrion. I am a gentleman, and I cannot bear to soil my fingers with such a lump of dirt. Sit still, Philippe Goguelat! sit still and, do not say a word, or I shall know you are a coward; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prey to other animals, which determines the average numbers of a species. Thus, there seems to be little doubt that the stock of partridges, grouse, and hares on any large estate depends chiefly on the destruction of vermin. If not one head of game were shot during the next twenty years in England, and, at the same time, if no vermin were destroyed, there would, in all probability, be less game than at present, although hundreds of thousands of game animals are now annually ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... people strolling In ones or twos about the public square Hard by your quarters; set your men patrolling; Ask every knave what he is doing there; And, if in your good wisdom you determine To view their conduct in a dangerous light, Bring the machine-guns out and blow the vermin Into the Ewigkeit. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... fire against your whisky peg for peg, b'gosh, and keep as cool as a cucumber. If I thought I was drunk I would jump overboard—do away with myself, b'gosh. I would! Straight! And I won't go off the bridge. Where do you expect me to take the air on a night like this, eh? On deck amongst that vermin down there? Likely—ain't it! And I am not afraid ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... staffs—the cost of the preventive guard is no trifle—in fact, there are as many parasites living upon the taxation of this country as there are insects on a plot of unhealthy rose-trees. If we are to have free trade, let it be free and unconditional, and rid us of these swarms of unnecessary vermin. Open the ports by all means, but open them to every thing. Let the quays be as free for traffic as the Queen's highway; let us grow what we like, consume what we please, and tax us in one round sum according to each man's means and substance, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... on her knees, bending over him. But a second of the vermin lurched against her, and he too lay still. A pistol report from the cliff was simultaneous with each man's fall. Both were dead. A third sank in the trail with a shattered hip, and another behind knew the agony of a broken ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... sitting in front of the host's door, an old beggar passed us. He was as red as a lobster, dirty and unkempt and covered with rags and vermin. The sun shone on his dilapidated garments and on his purple skin; it was almost black and seemed to transude blood. He kept bellowing in a terrible voice, while beating a tattoo on the ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... his glory to run the beast down; but then he would not for worlds run him down, except in conformity with certain laws, fixed by old custom for the guidance of men in such sports. And the two-legged vermin is adapted for pursuit as is the fox with four legs. He is an unclean animal, leaving a scent upon his trail, which the nose of your acute law hound can pick up over almost any ground. And the more wily the beast is, the longer he can run, the more trouble he can give in the pursuit, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... your devoted friend. I should consider it a rascally thing to ask you for anything. A rascally thing, I say! You are in office, you are a minister, so much the better, yes, so much the better! But, at least, don't let your friends pester you, like vermin crawling before you, because you are all-powerful. I will never crawl before you, I warn you. I shall remain just what I am. You will take me just as I am or not at all. That will depend altogether upon the change of humor that the acquisition of honors ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... sure it was hers—made me careful not to render myself powerless. I remembered, then, that doubtless the man beside the driver would carry horse pistols, and the moment I caught the reins would shoot me down like a farmer shoots vermin. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... two wheeled quielas (ke-las) drawn by a very diminutive horse took me to the Hotel Oriente, since turned into a government office. I noticed that the floors were washed in kerosene to check the vermin that else would carry everything off bodily. The hotel was so crowded that I was obliged to occupy a room with a friend, which was no hardship as I had already had several shocks from new experiences. ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... hitherto been unknown to English saints, and the marvel was increased by the sight—to our notions so revolting—of the innumerable vermin with which the hair-cloth abounded—boiling over with them, as one account describes it, like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful sight all the enthusiasm of the previous night revived with double ardour. They looked at one another in silent wonder, ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... occasionally by some local engagement like this we dragged through the hot, fly-pestered days and cold, drafty, vermin-infested nights of September and early October. By the middle of October, 1915, disease and scarcity of water had depleted our ranks; instead of having four days on the firing-line and eight days' rest, we were holding the firing-line eight days ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... examined; it was new, but not of a costly material. Removing this, the man went out with his portion of the spoils, and locked the door, leaving the half-clothed, unconscious girl lying on the damp, filthy straw, that swarmed with vermin. It was cold as well as damp, and the chill of a bleak November day began creeping into her warm blood. But the stupefying draught had been well compounded, ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... political and semi-political character in the Teutonic mind. The Teutons incorporated the law of the jungle in their ethical code. Had not they the same right to expansion and to the usurpation of the territory and to the treasures of their neighbors that every weed in the fields and even the vermin of the soil and the air have? If they had the sanction of natural law, that was enough; they were quite oblivious to the fact that with man's moral nature had come in a new biological law which Darwin ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... lurch like this, making us be poor and insignificant? Why is he not more? If we had a father as he ought to be, he would be Earl William Brangwen, and I should be the Lady Ursula? What right have I to be poor? crawling along the lane like vermin? If I had my rights I should be seated on horseback in a green riding-habit, and my groom would be behind me. And I should stop at the gates of the cottages, and enquire of the cottage woman who came out with a child in her arms, how did her husband, who had hurt his foot. And I would pat the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... learned critics does submit, But scorns those little vermin of the pit, Who noise and nonsense vent ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Some people think that they will have as many chickens as there are sparks that fly out of the brands of the log when they shake them; and others place the extinct brands under the bed to drive away vermin. In Vienne, on Christmas Eve, when supper is over, the master of the house has a great log—the Christmas brand—brought in, and then, surrounded by all the spectators gathered in profound silence, he sprinkles salt and water on the log. It is then put on the fire to ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Teresa to the formation of an ideal religious family; Fox to the proclaiming of a world-religion in which all men should be guided by the Inner Light; Florence Nightingale to battle with officials, vermin, dirt, and disease in the soldiers' hospitals; Octavia Hill to make in London slums something a little nearer "the shadows of the angels' houses" than that which ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... to the ground, crushing the human serpent under him. And he continued to strike and choke as he had never struck or choked another man, all other things overwhelmed by his mad desire to tear into pieces this two-legged English vermin who was too foul to exist on ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... unfortunate to dream of big bullocks. If you dream you have lost a tooth, you may be sure that you will shortly lose a friend; and if you dream that your house is on fire, you will receive news from a far country. If you dream of vermin, it is a sign that there will be sickness in your family; and if you dream of serpents, you will have friends who, in the course of time, will prove your bitterest enemies; but, of all dreams, it is most fortunate if you dream that you are wallowing up to your ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... brought him into a hard fray with St. Jerome, who cast up to him the writings of his predecessors; but he did not care for that. If this example of St. Augustine had been followed, the pope would not have become Antichrist, the countless vermin, the swarming, parasitic mass of books would not have come into the Church, and the Bible would have kept its place ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Orth'ris's heart, we set ut in the ravine for a night; an' a thief av a porcupine an' a civet-cat av a jackal roosted in ut, as well we knew in the mornin'. I put ut to you, Sorr, is an elegint palanquin, fit for the princess, the natural abidin' place av all the vermin in cantonmints? We brought ut to you, afther dhark, and put ut in your shtable. Do not let your conscience prick. Think av the rejoicin' men in the pay-shed yonder—lookin' at Dearsley wid his head tied up in a towel—an' well knowin' that they can dhraw their pay ivry month widout stoppages ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... having no taste for what is ordinarily known as sport, and that he ever shot kids, goats, or bullocks is highly improbable. That he occasionally went shooting and got good sport in killing the rats and other vermin which made Longwood an insufferable habitation to live in is quite true. It is also quite true that Lowe became demented with fear in case the shooting should have sanguinary and far-reaching effects. Hence the foregoing communication to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... such vermin are used to being stared at. In London, Newgate and Bridewell are theatres as well as the Cockpit or the King's House, and the world of mode flock to the one spectacle as often as to the other. But see! the sloop ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... his face. "A lot you know of him. He thinks it his duty to rid the earth of vermin like us. He'd never let up till he got us or we got him. Well, we've got him now, good and plenty. He took his chances, didn't he? It isn't as if he didn't know what he was up against. He'll tell you himself it's a square ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... and berries for a few fishinghooks and some other small articles. we are infested with swarms of flees already in our new habitations; the presumption is therefore strong that we shall not devest ourselves of this intolerably troublesome vermin during our residence here. The large, and small or whistling swan, sand hill Crane, large and small gees, brown and white brant, Cormorant, duckan mallard, Canvisback duck, and several other species of ducks, still remain with us; tho I do not think that they are as plenty ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... population to the task of starving them. How hungry they look already —their checks are hollow! I must be firm. Perhaps they have wives and families at home, thinking of them at this moment. But, after all, they are Huns. What did the great writer say? 'Vermin—creatures no more worthy of pity than the tiger or the rat.' How true! And yet—Blink!" For his dog, seated on her haunches, was looking at him with that peculiarly steady gaze which betokened in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was four days dying—four days dying—of starvation and thirst," Foster went on, as if deciphering some terrible hieroglyphs written on the air. "His thigh swelled to the size of his body. Clouds of flies settled on him—flies and vermin—and he chewed his own arm and drank his own blood. He died mad. And my God! he crawled three miles in those four days! Man! Man! that's ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... upon the torturer, spoke to him long out of the heat of my indignation, calling him names at which he seemed to wither; and at length, pointing towards the residencia, bade him begone and leave me, for I chose to walk with men, not with vermin. He fell upon his knees, and, the words coming to him with more clearness than usual, poured out a stream of the most touching supplications, begging me in mercy to forgive him, to forget what he had done, to look to the future. "Oh, I try so hard," he said. "Oh, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... body, indeed some have denied that alkaloids can be absorbed from the unbroken skin; but there is no doubt that alkaloids can be absorbed when rubbed into scratches or into the quick of the nails, and it must be remembered that an unbroken skin is only possessed by those who are free from vermin and who wash regularly, and neither of these conditions would be likely to apply to a mediaeval witch. Cases of poisoning associated with delirium have actually been recorded following the application of belladonna plasters ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... all a chance. I don't allow a single weasel or hawk to be killed, though I have a great deal of trouble about it. But what is the result? I don't know whether there is such a thing as the balance of nature, or whether it is merely that the hawks and weasels and other vermin kill off the sickly birds: but I do know that we have less disease among our birds than I hear of anywhere else. I have sometimes shot a weasel, it is true, when I have run across him as he was hunting a rabbit—you ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... his word for their innocuousness, but I never can believe that they are not the enemies of man; and I lay down on the transom, not to sleep, however, for it seemed essential to keep watch on the proceedings of these formidable vermin. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... with me to be doing my duty; and in this case my duty is a thorough pleasure. To hunt down vermin is a noble occupation, fit for ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... sheik and three others and a certain Hassan Ah went down at midnight to the jail and lifted with the aid of long poles passed through the rings in them the largest floor stones of that vermin-infested building. But the vermin did not trouble them. What they were after and what they lifted out was the cases of guns and cartridges the Puncher ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... productions are issued to a wondering world. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance in the course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you are surrounded with whole scores of these diminutive vermin, singing in your ears, buzzing in your hair, and lighting incessantly on your face. In vain you turn aside, in hopes to get rid of the nuisance. Go where you will, a perfect cloud of midges keeps hovering round your head, each tiny ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... loathsome and a dark street, Foulsome odors rising from it, Rife and pregnant with diseases, Stood a hovel, foul and filthy; Lay a being, wane and wasted, On a straw heap in a corner; Scarce a rag to hide her person, Lice and vermin creeping on her; And beside her stood distraction, Woe, and want, and piercing hunger; And her look was wild and vacant, Like a spectre's, wandering madly. When the night came, it was laden Much with gloomy fear and sadness, And a trembling apprehension That the dawn would not approach ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... several employments round a fire in the centre. The interior displays as much filthiness as if the inhabitants belonged to the dirtiest class of the brute creation. The smoke; the stench of bad fish, and blubber; the repulsive figures of the women, disgustingly occupied in seeking for vermin on the heads or skins of the men, and actually eating them when found; the great utensil for the service of the whole family, which is also the only vessel capable of containing water to wash with; all this soon drives the most inquisitive ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... boarding-houses like this one, and in dismal billiard-halls? Wire-tapper, racing-tout, stool-pigeon, a cheater at cards, blackmailer and trafficker in baser things; in the next room, and he had let him go unharmed. Vermin. Pah! He was glad. The very touch of the man's collar had left a sense of defilement upon his hands. Ten years ago and thirteen thousand miles away. In the next room. He laughed unpleasantly. Chivalric fool, silly Don Quixote, sentimental dreamer, to have made a hash of his ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... father. "Have the Dakoon's vermin fastened on the young bull at last?" asked Pango Dooni, his eyes glowering. "They crawled and fastened, but they have not fed," answered Tang-a-Dahit in a strong voice, for his wounds had not sunk deep. "By ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... M. Emile Vedel tells it, this was perhaps one of the most beautiful episodes of our navy's activity, for there are few deaths as hideous as that to which they exposed themselves in taking in their arms poor beings touched with a malady essentially so contagious, and so dirty and covered with vermin that they made everyone shudder. With precaution and care that brothers do not always have for their own brothers, these near-corpses were taken to Corfu, where doctors and nurses from the French Navy saved some of them and made the end ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... between you and me there ought to be this,—" and he struck his heart,—"of which you have none. As soon as you thought you had a lever on us, you have tried to knock us over. I saved you from the horrors of starvation and vermin! You'll die like the idiot you are. We put you on the high-road to fortune; we gave you a fine social skin and a position in which you could grasp the future—and look what you do! Now I know you! and from this time forth, we shall ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... they were unacquainted with bread. Cabins of reeds plastered with mud, houses of wattled stakes, chimneyless peat fires, from which there was scarcely an escape for the smoke, dens of physical and moral pollution swarming with vermin, wisps of straw twisted round the limbs to keep off the cold, the ague-stricken peasant with no help except shrine-cure," i.e., cure by the touching bone of saint, or image of virgin (Draper's "Conflict between Religion and Science," p. 265). Even among ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... just before dawn on the 25th, Battalion Headquarters being in a dug-out in the high ground South of Pontru. Fortunately we were there only two days, for the discomfort was very great, the dug-outs and cellars swarming with flies and vermin, and there was little other protection from the enemy shelling, which was fairly frequent. On September 26th we were relieved on an intensely dark night by the 1st Black Watch and went back to bivouacs just off the Vendelles-Bihecourt Road, put up for us by the Battle Details, who ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... he is ready, you and your charge will be snug in Kilgobbin; and another thing, Kearney—for I have thought of the whole matter—you'll take out with you that little vermin Price, the doctor, and treat him well. He'll be as indiscreet as you wish, and be sure to give him the opportunity. There, now, give me your most affectionate grasp of the hand, for there's an attentive public ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... and the vermin That will silence at last the most impudent lip! Is the world but a bubble, a bauble, a joke? Heigho, Brother Fools, now your bubble is broke, Do you ask for a tear?—or is it worth while? Here's a sigh for you, then—but ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... night comes round me, And the soft chain of thought has bound me, I whisper, "Sir, your eyes are killing— You owe no mortal man a shilling— You never cringe for star or garter, You're much too wise to be a martyr— And since you must, be food for vermin, You don't feel much desire for ermine!" Wisdom is a mine, no doubt, If one can but find it out— But whate'er I think or say, I'm an April ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... personal servants. In Chhattisgarh the ordinary Rawats will clean the cooking-vessels even of Muhammadans, but the Thethwar or pure Rawats refuse this menial work. In Mandla, when a man is to be brought back into caste after a serious offence, such as getting vermin in a wound, he is made to stand in the middle of a stream, while some elderly relative pours water over him. He then addresses the members of the caste panchayat or committee, who are standing on the bank, saying to them, 'Will you leave me ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... earwigs, snails, woodlice, poultry, and small birds of almost all kinds, are reckoned amongst their foes. And, therefore, there should be no lack of vigilance on the part of the owner of bees, to keep the bee-house as clean as possible from all vermin. ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... reflect there, crossing these halls, black with lawyers and judges, studded with great green doors behind which one heard the imposing noise of the hearings; and up higher, in the corridor of the Juges d'Instruction, during my hour's waiting on a bench, where the prison vermin crawled on my legs, while I listened to a lot of thieves, pickpockets, and loose women talking and laughing with the gendarmes, and the butts of the rifles echo in the passages, and the dull roll of prison vans. I understood ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... like in aspect as a whole to so many gaunt wild beasts. Some are gibbering like fiends, others jabbering like idiots. They are there young and old; a few—the maniacs those—are chained; all are crawled over by vermin, most are crusted with excretions. The sight made me feel faint at the time, the very recollection of it to this day makes my flesh creep. We were fascinated by this peep at the Inferno. The moment these ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... 1904," says Mr. Voorhes, "I had five hundred of the children vaccinated in my office, and such dirt and vermin I never saw! Nearly every child had the high water mark on his wrist, and their clothes and bodies were filthy. They didn't know a bathtub from a horse trough; they don't now for the matter of that, because there are scarcely a dozen houses in this section that have bathtubs, ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... absorbent paper, with raisins or brown moist sugar; or a good way, practised by gardeners, is to wrap the seed in brown paper or cartridge paper, pasted down, and then varnished over.—To preserve seeds, when sown, from vermin. Steep the grain or seed three or four hours, or a sufficient time for it to penetrate the skin, or husk, in a strong ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... cross,—sooner would I rush out to the mob that was passing, and let them tear my vitals out. To forswear the One God, to bow before idols,—rather would I be seized with the plague, and be eaten up by vermin. I was only a little girl, and not very brave; little pains made me ill, and I cried. But there was no pain that I would not bear—no, none—rather ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... terrier side he inherits a lively mood, the quality of taking care of himself if attacked by another dog, and of his owner, too, if necessary, the propensity to be a great destroyer of all kinds of vermin if properly trained, and an ideal watch dog at night. No wonder he is popular, he deserves to be. The standard describes ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... to a place occupied by a single man. The house was so filthy, and vermin apparently so plentiful, that I whispered to my Lapp guide, "Let us go on." The Lapp was so tired that he looked at me with astonishment, and seemed to say: "Are not ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... all this, this dragon's tail, [I mean] the Mass, has begotten a numerous vermin-brood of ...
— The Smalcald Articles • Martin Luther
... of a military district. I may be pardoned for being circumstantial in details giving an idea of what travelling in Sardinia is. Things are much the same throughout the island. The tourist who sets foot on it must be steeled against brigands, vermin, intempérie, and indifferent fare. “Per aspera tendens” would be his suitable motto. He must be ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... know them in the men and women of this world to-day, and then to all the inhumanity, all the insubordination of nature. We are to shape our state in a world of uncertain seasons, sudden catastrophes, antagonistic diseases, and inimical beasts and vermin, out of men and women with like passions, like uncertainties of mood and desire to our own. And, moreover, we are going to accept this world of conflict, to adopt no attitude of renunciation towards it, to face it in no ascetic spirit, but in the mood of ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... at her abuser, but at me; and The Mute, fearing foul play and pole in hand, loyally brought up the rear of our strange procession. I shall not retail that search through robes and skins and blankets and boxes, in foul-smelling, vermin-infested wigwams. It was fruitless. I only recall the lowering face of the big squaw looking over my shoulder at every turn, with heavy brows contracted and gashed lips grinning an evil, malicious challenge. I thought ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... beneficial in itself, and it promotes the destruction of the foes which prey upon Gladiolus roots. Small Potatoes, roughly hollowed out, or pieces of Carrot, may be used as traps for wireworm and other vermin. Planting is sometimes done at the end of this month, but as a rule it is better to wait until ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... colored woman, named Soan, called at his shanty, and James besought her, in the most moving manner, even with tears, to tarry awhile and wash and mend him up, so that he might once more be decent and comfortable; for he was suffering dreadfully with the filth and vermin ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... of it," said Kelly, and put his arm around her. "These poisonous vermin don't die ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... warm'd thy varied mind; How would I now describe the motley groups Which crowd, in thoughtless ease, thy moving road. Mark the young Confidence of yesterday, Offspring of pride, and fortune's blinded fool, (Engender'd like the vermin of an hour) All would-be fashion, elegance, and ease, While, by his side, the weaker vessel smirks, In tawdry finery, with presuming gait, As though the world were made for them alone; Their liveried Lacquey, ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... have been taking the law into your hands for years," said Greg. "All I did tonight was clear the Earth of some vermin. Every one of those men was guilty of murder ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... man closed his eyes. "In my home town, the vermin, in my own town! They always laughed at me here but, by God, that was before the state saw fit to send me to the Senate. The last laugh's been mine. But now—right under my nose, you might say!" He opened his eyes ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... favors," he said, "that are crimes. It is one's duty to exterminate vermin, in the interest ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... before the place Is overrun with a plague of thieving rats. They'll eat me out of house and home: my God, I've come to this—an old blind crippled dobby, Forsaken of wife and bairns; and left to die— To be nibbled to death by rats: de'il scart the vermin! ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... Vault chance to be broken, they all, how high soever they were, come back again to mend up the breach, which being finished they proceed forwards again, eating every thing they come at in their way. This Vermin does exceedingly annoy the Chingulays, insomuch that they are continually looking upon any thing they value, to see if any of these Vaeos have been at it. Which they may easily perceive by this Case of dirt, which they cannot go up any where without ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... the lodging-room of man and beast; all the muleteers sleep there, with their cloaths on, upon a bundle of straw: but while your supper is preparing, the kitchen is crowded with a great number of these dirty fellows, whose cloaths are full of vermin; it would be impossible, therefore, for even a good cook to dress a dish with any decency or cleanliness, were such a cook to be found; for, exclusive of the numbers, there is generally a quarrel or two among them, and at all times a noise, which is not ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... speaker. "And he didn't get all of them. The man was his own cousin, and too sick to do anything. Well, thank God, we haven't got many vermin of that ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... and looked as though he was getting exhausted, and then he stopped and spit on his hands and yelled to the rest of the men, who had dismounted and were lined up at the edge of the corral, and said: "You condemned loafers, why don't you come in here and help us dogs kill off these vermin, cause I don't want to have all the fun. Come on in, the water is fine," and Pa laughed as though he was in swimming and wanted the rest of the gang ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... rough, ill-tempered animal, with too much tendency to stupidity, and often annoyed by vermin. He runs awkwardly, with his nose near the ground, and frequently springs his game. He also has the cloven or ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... see a column of slow-rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle slung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel; flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race! They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquenched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... beyond belief. Patriotism flies in arms about a hen; and if you comment upon the colour of a Dutch umbrella, you have cast a stone against the German Emperor. I give one instance, typical although extreme. One who had returned from Tutuila on the mail cutter complained of the vermin with which she is infested. He was suddenly and sharply brought to a stand. The ship of which he spoke, he was reminded, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forbear, Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath, Trampling, with heel that will not spare, The vermin that beset ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... rain, so that it was hardly possible to go forth with safety. And being weary with their journey, they laid themselves down and sought to sleep. And when they looked at the couch, it seemed to be made but of a little coarse straw full of dust and vermin, with the stems of boughs sticking up therethrough, for the cattle had eaten all the straw that was placed at the head and the foot. And upon it was stretched an old russet-coloured rug, threadbare and ragged; and a coarse sheet, full of slits was upon the rug, ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... the frost at that season & our poverty & weakness, so that famine compelled us wholly to devoure those Hogges, Dogges & horses that weare then in the Collony, together with rates, mice, snakes, or what vermin or carryon soever we could light on, as alsoe Toadstooles, Jewes eares, or what els we founde growing upon the grounde that would fill either mouth or belly; and weare driven through unsufferable hunger unnaturallie to eat those thinges which nature most abhorred, the flesh and excrements of man, ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various
... thorough cleansing, then smoaked it between decks, and lastly washed every part with vinegar. These operations were extremely necessary for correcting the noisome stench on board, and destroying the vermin; for, from the number of our men and the heat of the climate, both these nuisances had increased upon us to a very loathsome degree, and, besides being most intolerably offensive, were doubtless in some sort productive of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... alone was left. This last half hour was what Noel dreaded. To-day it was worse, for the farmer had no cartridges left, and the rabbits were dealt with by hullabaloo and sticks and chasing dogs. Rabbits were vermin, of course, and ate the crops, and must be killed; besides, they were good food, and fetched two shillings apiece; all this she knew but to see the poor frightened things stealing out, pounced on, turned, shouted at, chased, rolled over by great swift dogs, fallen ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Thomas, help me to turn them out, we wants nothing but English here. Be off, good people, be off, we harbours no vermin here. Eh, but they're a ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... No inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I apprehend, is consumed in journeys between them and Clifford's-inn—where, like a dove on the asp's nest, he has long taken up his unconscious abode, amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, apparitors, promoters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm and sinless peace." The fangs of the law pierce him not—the winds of litigation blow over his humble chambers—the hard sheriffs officer moves his hat as he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... shook him vigorously. "Shut up," he said, roughly, partly to hide his own feelings, "Charley's comin' back without a scratch. The good Lord, I reckon, don't make lads as true and white as he to be killed off by a pack of jail vermin. Come to the wall as he told us to. Maybe we'll get a shot at those murderers before the day is done. Come along an' stop that blubberin'," and he grabbed the soft-hearted little darky by the arm and dragged him to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... his belief That he had suffer'd by a thief, Brought up his neighbour fox— Of whom it was by all confess'd, His character was not the best— To fill the prisoner's box. As judge between these vermin, A monkey graced the ermine; And truly other gifts of Themis[7] Did scarcely seem his; For while each party plead his cause, Appealing boldly to the laws, And much the question vex'd, Our monkey sat perplex'd. Their words and wrath ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Associated Words: helminthology, helminthologist, vermeology, vermeologist, vermifugal, verminivorous, vermin, vermiculate, vermiculated, vermiculation, taenifuge, helminthic, helminthiasis, vermicious, vermicular, vermiculose, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... possessed in the world), Dick Whittington carried home his cat and put it in a cupboard or closet opening from his room. That night when he retired he let the cat out of the cupboard, and she evidently had "no end of fun"; for, according to these authentic accounts, "she destroyed all the vermin which ventured to make their appearance." For some time after that she passed her days in the cupboard (in hiding from the cook) and ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... to be told at St. Edmondsbury," said Father Peter on one occasion, "that many years ago they were so overrun with mice that the good abbot gave orders that all the cats from the country round should be obtained to exterminate the vermin. A record was kept, and at the end of the year it was found that every cat had killed an equal number of mice, and the total was exactly 1,111,111 mice. How many cats ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... was only one among thousands of fine fellows who were encouraged to go to bestial excesses by gangs of predatory vermin (men and women) who infested Wapping ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... all the ranks of nature he set over against each good and useful creation a counter-creation of rival tendency. "'Like a fly he crept into' and infected 'the whole universe.' He rendered the world as dark at full noonday as in the darkest night. He covered the soil with vermin, with his creatures of venomous bite and poisonous sting, with serpents, scorpions, and frogs, so that there was not a space as small as a needle's point but swarmed with his vermin. He smote vegetation, and of a sudden the plants ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... micht be up till, or hoo she micht set aboot it, my leddy. I wad hae ye mistrust her a'thegither. My daddy has a fine moral nose for vermin, an' he canna bide her, though he never had a glimp o' the fause face o' her, an' in trowth never spak ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... subjection of all the adjacent possessions of France. Major Dalling was sent to occupy Port Espagnol, now Sydney. Colonel Monckton was despatched to the Bay of Fundy and the River St. John with an order "to destroy the vermin who are settled there."[594] Lord Rollo, with the thirty-fifth regiment and two battalions of the sixtieth, received the submission of Isle St.-Jean, and tried to remove the inhabitants,—with small success; ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... only figure use. Well dost thou know it rests upon their deeds; But demonstrate their worth and all were well, And then we'll speed us to our native land. Quezox: But, noble Francos, we now wend our way To meet the vermin which do suck our blood, And they with tongues which serpent-like can charm May fool thee with their tales of dire intent. Francos: (striking his breast): Fear not, they soon shall feel how vain it were To seek to trick one who, in halls of state, Hath met the wiles of shrewd, self-seeking ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... drest for going out. No experience was so awful to me, and at the same time so pathetic, as this abrupt translation from the darkness of the infinite to the gaudy summer air of highest noon, and from the unutterable abortions of mis-created gigantic vermin to the sight of infancy and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... the people is simple, consisting of small black monkey skins, cat-skins, and the furs of any vermin they can get. These are tucked under a waist-strap, and, according to the number they possess, go completely or only half-way round the body, the animals' heads hanging in front, and the tails always depending gracefully below. These monkeys are easily captured ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... should be painted every year, at least a month before they are wanted for use; but if this cannot be conveniently done, be particular in washing them with boiling water, in which some unslacked lime must be mixed. This will in some measure answer the purpose of paint in effectually destroying the vermin, or the eggs which may have been deposited in the crevices ...
— The art of promoting the growth of the cucumber and melon • Thomas Watkins
... Any trade or occupation that is of use is ennobling. The street sweeper advances the interests of society by the cleanliness effected. The cat pays for the fragments it eats by clearing the house of vermin. The fly that takes the sweetness from the dregs of the cup compensates by purifying the air and keeping back the pestilence. But the gambler gives not anything for that which ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... within the next twenty days, and to burn everything that has been used in connection with them. We've cleared this land of disease germs, if there were germs in it, by turning it bottom-side up; now let's start free from the pestiferous vermin that make a hen's life unhappy. No stock, either old or young, shall be brought here. When we want to change our breeding, we'll buy eggs from the best fanciers and hatch them in our own incubators. It will then be our own fault if we don't keep our chickens comfortable and free from their enemies. ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... says one: 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess; Cocks and hens with vermin run, Mangy, filthy, featherless.' Says another: 'I confess Every hair I drop, I keep— Plague upon it, in a heap Falling off ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... ended with a dish of raw animalcula in a wicker cage. A cheese had been surrounded with little twigs and strings; then a hole made in it and a little sour wine poured in. This speedily bred a small but numerous vermin. When the cheese was so rotten with them that only the twigs and string kept it from tumbling to pieces and walking off quadrivious, it came to table. By a malicious caprice of fate, cage and menagerie were put down right under the Dutchman's organ of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... not? He's the most honest dip I ever see. He wouldn't touch a thing belonging to one of us—not a thing. He works only on these 'ere rich blokes wot thinks we're scum and vermin. But, I say, Jacky," he interrupted himself to say sagely, "I wouldn't be seen with 'im too often if I was you. He does have to make some very sudden escapes sometimes, unexpected like, and I doubt if you ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... friends—that is, outwardly, of course. Within my inmost heart I felt, Sir, that I could never again trust that shameless traitor—that I had in very truth nurtured a serpent in my bosom. But I am proverbially tender-hearted. You will believe me or not, I simply could not turn that vermin out into the street. He deserved it! Oh, even he would have admitted when he was quite sober, which was not often, that I had every right to give him the sack, to send him back to the gutter whence he had come, there to grub once more for scraps of filth and ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... took the battens from the hatches, and opened the ship. A few stifled rats were found; and what bugs, cockroaches, fleas, and other vermin there might have been on board must have unrove their life-lines before the hatches were opened. The ship being now ready, we covered the bottom of the hold over, fore and aft, with dried brush for dunnage, and, having levelled everything away, we were ready to take in ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... and went on peeling an overripe peach, striking out constantly, with the hand that held the knife, at the flies. They were green flies—huge, shiny-backed, buzzing, persistent vermin. There were a thousand of them; there seemed to be a million of them. They filled the shut-in room with their vile humming; they swarmed everywhere in the half light. They were thickest, though, in a corner at the back, where there was a closed, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... another hedgerow he shot a jay and gloried in its splendour. The keeper, however, moderated any secret intentions there might have been as to the plumage by one sentence: "That's another for the vermin book. I gets ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... on they generally managed to shoot deer enough for the needs of the whole party. Occasionally they slept in the kraals of chiefs, but greatly preferred their own little tents as the smoke in them was often blinding, and more than once the attacks of vermin kept them awake. Still, it would have been a slight to refuse such invitations, and they had to go to the kraals as it was necessary to frequently buy supplies of mealies. At times the travelling was very rough, and with the utmost exertions they could not make more than twelve ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... firmness and half the talent of a Napoleon. They would march the troops in, sweep away this gathering of imbeciles, establish martial law, disarm Belleville and Montmartre, shoot Floureus, Pyat, Blanqui, and a hundred of the most noxious of these vermin; forbid all assemblages, turn the National Guards into soldiers, and after rendering Paris impotent for mischief turn their attention to the Germans. The one thing that can save Paris to my mind is a military dictator, but I see no sign of such a ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... of the calamities which all great political convulsions never fail to engender, the streets of Paris present not at this day that vast crowd of beggars, covered with rags and vermin, by which they were formerly infested. This is to be attributed to the partial adoption of measures for employing the poor; and, doubtless, when receptacles come to be established here, according to the salutary plans introduced into Bavaria by Count ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... hustling and bustling, the crowding and packing—the suppressed stir as of human vermin imprisoned in a small space; the sham groans, and sham conversions which follow in their due course; and as he thus dwells on his national and personal degradation, his tone has the bitter irony of one who has both realized and accepted it. But the irony recoils on those who have inflicted the degradation—on ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... not meddle with rats for a long time after this, but at length she got stronger and would kill them and many other such vermin. She had plenty of work, for there were many rats at the farm house. While pursuing a large rat one day, she set her foot into a trap which had been set to catch them, and though she was taken out very carefully ...
— The Life and Adventures of Poor Puss • Lucy Gray
... went on, with a sudden flash of wrathful contempt, "if there's anybody under God's sun I like to slip something over on it's those damned vermin of private detectives! And the swells that employ them! I hope that Mrs. Allistair gets stung ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... them to lay where you want them to lay, and the places you select will naturally be those where they are secure, or nearly so, from their natural enemies, such as rats, cats, weasels, moles, and other vermin. ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... behind something and blush. According to your report, "the politicians are afraid to tax the people for the support" of so humane and necessary a thing as a hospital. And do your "people" propose to stand that?—at the hands of vermin officials whom the breath of their votes could blow out of official existence in a moment if they had the pluck to band themselves together and blow. Oh, come, these are not "people"—they are cowed school-boys with backbones made of boiled macaroni. If you are not misreporting those ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... continued strongly attached, and never attempted to conceal it. By this mode of life he aggravated his disease, which was slight in its origin, and for some time he was not aware that all his viscera were full of diseased matter. The flesh, being corrupted by the disease, was changed into vermin,[301] and though many persons were engaged day and night in taking the vermin away, what was got rid of was nothing compared with what came, for all his clothes, and the bath and the water, and his food, were filled with the matter that flowed ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... of Babylon and one to the rest of the world. Ten measures of pride came down to the world; Elam appropriated nine and to the rest of the world but one remained over. Ten measures of bravery came to the world; Persia took nine, leaving but one for the rest of the world. Ten measures of vermin came to the world; nine fell to the Medes and one to the rest of the world. Ten measures of sorcery came down to the world; Egypt received nine and one was shared by the rest of the world. Ten measures of plagues came into the world; nine measures ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... reserve, disparaging stories, that may or may not be true, concerning men of distinction, and the more prominent the man or woman, the more viciously the scandal-mongers pursue their contemptible occupation. These vermin invariably belong to a class of industrious mediocrities who have been born with a mental kink, and their treachery, falsehood, and cowardice are incurable. They are merely hurtful creatures who spoil the earth, and are to be found dolefully chattering about what they conceive ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... invalids coming from the rigid climate of the North. I am told that all snakes remain in a torpid state during the winter, and no danger might be expected from them, and as the floors of the hotel would be kept tight no vermin could crawl through. There can be no doubt that the Lake of the Dismal Swamp must become the great centre of health-seekers, and that at an early day. Its location and advantages, the known healthliness of the place, to say nothing ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... this gentleman given poor Sandy such a fright, and other poor things, for this night's work, God shall give him such a blow within a few days, that all the physicians on earth shall not be able to cure. Which likewise came to pass; for he soon died in great misery, vermin issuing from all the pores of his body, with such a nauseous smell that none could enter the room where ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... strength and ferocity, and those which he reveres on account of the benefits which he expects from them, there is another class of creatures which he sometimes deems it necessary to conciliate by worship and sacrifice. These are the vermin that infest his crops and his cattle. To rid himself of these deadly foes the farmer has recourse to many superstitious devices, of which, though some are meant to destroy or intimidate the vermin, others aim at propitiating them and persuading them by fair ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... attended in their places (Serendib language calls a farmer Riot) Look'd ruefully in one another's faces, From this oration auguring much disquiet, Double assessment, forage, and free quarters; And fearing these as China-men the Tartars, Or as the whisker'd vermin fear the mousers, Each fumbled in ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... "Memoires sur le Consulat," 204. (Apropos of the tribunate): "They consist of a dozen or fifteen metaphysicians who ought to be flung into the water; they crawl all over me like vermin."] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... her children—don't you recognise the beast? married for rank—could you expect otherwise from him? invites my Lord Highgate to his house in consideration of his balance at the bank;—sir, unless somebody's heel shall crunch him on the way, there is no height to which this aspiring vermin mayn't crawl. I look to see Sir Barnes Newcome prosper more and more. I make no doubt he will die an immense capitalist, and an exalted Peer of this realm. He will have a marble monument, and a pathetic funeral ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... board, is laid on the ties where the bricklayer is working, to catch any material that may be inadvertently dropped, this protection being raised as the work proceeds. A hollow wall tends to keep the building dry internally and the temperature equable, but it has the disadvantage of harbouring vermin, unless care be taken to ensure their exclusion. The top of the wall is usually sealed with brickwork to prevent vermin or rubbish finding its way into the cavity. Air gratings should be introduced here ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... know what makes canaries desert their eggs, and how they can be prevented.—[They cannot be "prevented." The most common cause is insect vermin. If these are found, burn all the old nests, use Persian powder freely on the birds, and paint the cracks in the cages with corrosive sublimate, and then varnish over ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... them opened his sack he espied his money" "They cried out the more exceedingly Crucify him" "The soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners" "Great injury these vermin mice and rats do in the field" "It is my son's coat an evil beast hath devoured him" "Peace of all worldly blessings is the most valuable" "By this time the very foundation was removed" "The only words he uttered were I am a ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... said Alan. "I am come of kings; I bear a king's name. My badge is the oak. Do ye see my sword? It has slashed the heads off mair Whigamores than you have toes upon your feet. Call up your vermin to your back, sir, and fall on! The sooner the clash begins, the sooner ye'll taste this steel ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... British foes in baulk Prior to trampling them to pulp like vermin; Russia is at your mercy—you can walk Through her to-morrow if you so determine; There is no France to fight— Your gallant WILLIE'S blade has "bled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... as ever Ki Ki was certain that Kapchack was really dead, he returned, and he has gathered to himself a crew of the most terrible ruffians you ever beheld. He has got about him all the scum of the earth; all the blackguards, villains, vermin, cut-throat scoundrels have rallied to his standard; as the old proverb says: 'Birds of a feather flock together'. He has taken possession of the firs, yonder, on the slope (which are the property of my friend the jay), and which command my copse. He has proclaimed himself king, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... world. Two whites would have taken such a little while to squander; and yet it would have been one more good taste in the mouth, one more smack of the lips, before the devil got the soul, and the body was left to birds and vermin. He would like to use all his tallow before the light was blown ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be esteemed a mass Of filth which grows corrupter every day; And in this heap, as always comes to pass, Reptiles and vermin breed, exist, decay. 'Tis now so huge, that he must be an ass Who thinks it ever can be clear'd away: And the time's quickly coming, to be candid, When funded men will swallow up the landed. 'Then will these debt-bred reptiles, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the spoiling of vegetables can be avoided if proper attention is given to them in the market. Food of this kind should be so displayed that it is not exposed to the dirt and dust of the street, nor to flies and other destructive vermin. The practice of displaying vegetables on a stand in front of a store is gradually losing favor with the housewife who understands the sanitary precautions that should be taken with foods. On the other hand, housewives owe it to the merchant not to handle the ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 - Volume 2: Milk, Butter and Cheese; Eggs; Vegetables • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... floor scantily covered with coarse rice straw, flatly mashed by the emaciated bodies of the Spaniards who had slept upon it. A few articles of Spanish uniforms, tattered and torn, were strewn about. In the cracks of the walls were hordes of vermin. Filth was present everywhere in its most germ-bearing form. In the center of the room were a few live coals and over them a quart cup about one-third full of boiling rice—probably the entire meal for the ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves |
