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Thorn   Listen
noun
Thorn  n.  
1.
A hard and sharp-pointed projection from a woody stem; usually, a branch so transformed; a spine.
2.
(Bot.) Any shrub or small tree which bears thorns; especially, any species of the genus Crataegus, as the hawthorn, whitethorn, cockspur thorn.
3.
Fig.: That which pricks or annoys as a thorn; anything troublesome; trouble; care. "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me." "The guilt of empire, all its thorns and cares, Be only mine."
4.
The name of the Anglo-Saxon letter. It was used to represent both of the sounds of English th, as in thin, then. So called because it was the initial letter of thorn, a spine.
Thorn apple (Bot.), Jamestown weed.
Thorn broom (Bot.), a shrub that produces thorns.
Thorn hedge, a hedge of thorn-bearing trees or bushes.
Thorn devil. (Zool.) See Moloch, 2.
Thorn hopper (Zool.), a tree hopper (Thelia crataegi) which lives on the thorn bush, apple tree, and allied trees.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thorn" Quotes from Famous Books



... pro tem., had for years loyally supported it. The Los Angeles delegation with but few exceptions were pledged in favor. Many opponents of years' standing, feeling the pressure of popularity, were prepared to capitulate. Senator J. B. Sanford of Ukiah, who had long been a thorn in the flesh of the suffrage lobby, attempted to block it but was prevented by Senator Louis Juilliard and a spirited debate was led by Senator Lee C. Gates of Los Angeles, a leader of progressive measures. On January 26 the amendment came up for third reading and final passage. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... Starts, amidst the thirsty Wilds, to hear, New Falls of Water murmuring in his Ear: On rifted Rocks, the Dragon's late Abodes, The green Reed trembles, and the Bulrush nods. Waste sandy Vallies, once perplexd with Thorn, [8] The spiry Fir and shapely Box adorn: To leafless Shrubs the flow'ring Palms succeed, And od'rous Myrtle to the noisome Weed. The Lambs with Wolves shall graze the verdant Mead [9] And Boys in flow'ry Bands the Tyger lead; The Steer and Lion at one Crib shall meet, And harmless ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... frame steals the life-breath Of beautiful Spring! who with her amorous gales Kissing the violets, each stray sweet exhales Of May-thorn, and the wild flower on the heath. I love thee, virgin daughter of the year! Yet, ah! not cups,—dyed like the dawn, impart Their elves' dew-nectar to a fainting heart!— Ye birds! whose liquid warblings far and near Make music to the green turf-board of swains; To me, your light lays tell ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various

... little dreaming that they were standing within twenty yards of him. I answered by pointing my rifle across his horse's nose, and letting fly sharp right and left at the two buffaloes. A headlong charge, accompanied by a muffled roar, was the result. In an instant I was round a clump of tangled thorn-trees; but Isaac, by the violence of his efforts to get his horse in motion, lost his balance, and at the same instant, his girths giving way, himself, his saddle, and big Dutch rifle, all came to the ground together, with a heavy crash right in the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... who lived during the latter part of this century was Copernicus. NICOLAS COPERNICUS was born February 19, 1473, at Thorn, a small town situated on the Vistula, which formed the boundary between the kingdoms of Prussia and Poland. His father was a Polish subject, and his mother of German extraction. Having lost his parents early in life, he was educated ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... that poor Mr. and Mrs. Ward had bought and beautified; 'because it was so much better for the children to be out of the town.' The tears sprang into Mary's eyes at the veiled windows, and the unfeeling contrast of the spring glow of flowering thorn, lilac, laburnum, and, above all, the hard, flashing brightness of the glass; but tears were so unlike Ethel that Mary always was ashamed of them, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... But who, while the heart beats, can call himself safe from the temptation to this sin? It is mixed up with every generosity. It is a flood in the heart and a blinding wave over the eyes. It is the thorn in the side under the cloak of the beauty of youth. In Shakespeare's vision it is a natural force, incident to youth, as April is incident to the year. The young men live as though life were oil, and youth ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... was home, ill, and my mother, that I was at school, deeply immersed in study. However, with these and other delinquencies not uncommon among boys, I learned at McNanly's school, and a little later, under a pedagogue named Thorn, a smattering of geography and history, and explored the mysteries of Pike's Arithmetic and Bullions' English Grammar, about as far as I could be carried up to the age of fourteen. This was all the education then bestowed upon me, and this—with the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... live long after marriage. She was chilled to death, as it was thought, by the dignified iceberg of whose establishment she had become a part. She had left, however, a child, who had now grown to be a boy of twelve. This boy was a thorn in the side of his father, who had endeavored in vain to mould him according to his idea of propriety. But Ben was gifted with a spirit of fun, sometimes running into mischief, which was constantly bursting out in new directions, ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... Is life a thorn? Then count it not a whit! Man is well done with it; Soon as he's born He should all means essay To put the plague away; And I, war-worn, Poor captured fugitive, My life most gladly give - I might have had to ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... lady's general attitude to politics—a circumstance which, one regrets to say, did in those days, on both sides, rather improperly qualify the attitude of gentlemen to literary ladies as well as to each other. It is true that the author of Corinne and of Delphine itself had been rather a thorn in the side of the English Whigs by dint of some of her opinions, by much of her conduct, and, above all, by certain peculiarities which may be noticed presently. But Sydney, though a Whig, was not "a vile Whig," for which ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... complaint, for marriage without enjoyment is a thorn without roses. She was passionate, but her principles were stronger than her passions, or else she would have sought for what she wanted elsewhere. My impotent brother excused himself by saying that ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... so that he hesitated; then, hardening himself, he plunged the sword into her heart and a great moan was heard, and the fire disappeared, and only a withered rose-tree stood before him. Then he heard the voice say that he must pierce his own heart with a thorn from the tree and let the blood fall upon its roots. This he did, and as he did so he felt the sharpness of Death, as though the last dreadful moment had come; but as the drops of blood fell on the roots the beautiful maiden with veiled eyes, whom he had seen before stood before him and gave ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... said he, and stooping towards the fire showed me a middling-sized black thorn upon his open palm. "Not much to look at, master—no, but 'tis death sure and sarten, howsomever. I've many more besides; I make 'em into darts and shoot 'em through a blowpipe—a trick I larned o' the Indians. Aye, I spits 'em through a pipe—which is better ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock I' the chapel struck as I was pushing through The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past! So much the more delicious task to watch Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn, All traces of the rough forbidden path My rash love lured her to! Each day must see Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed: Then there will be surprises, unforeseen Delights in store. I'll not regret ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... Jack, vehemently. "What, that ugly, disagreeable woman, Ida's mother! I won't believe it. I should just as soon expect to see strawberries growing on a thorn-bush. There isn't the ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... rational being, though thus distinctive and common to every man that lives, is exceedingly marvellous. Like the air we breathe, like the light we see, it involves a mystery that no man has ever solved. Self-consciousness has been the problem and the thorn of the philosophic mind in all ages; and the mystery is not yet unravelled. Is not that a wonderful process by which a man knows, not some other thing but, himself? Is not that a strange act by ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... bowers; Hang the mute lyre the laurel shade beneath, And round her temples bind the myrtle wreath. —Now the light swallow with her airy brood Skims the green meadow, and the dimpled flood; 475 Loud shrieks the lone thrush from his leafless thorn, Th' alarmed beetle sounds his bugle horn; Each pendant spider winds with fingers fine His ravel'd clue, and climbs along the line; Gay Gnomes in glittering circles stand aloof 480 Beneath a spreading mushroom's fretted roof; Swift bees returning seek their waxen cells, And Sylphs ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin

... that, after a fashion. The hospital was very close to the war, so close that no one knew anything about the war, therefore it was very dull inside the enclosure, with no news and no newspapers, and just quarrels and monotonous work. As for the hedge, at such points as the prickly thorn gave out or gave way, stout stakes and stout boarding took its place, thus making it a veritable prison wall to those confined within. There was but one recognized entrance, the big double gates with a sentry box beside them, at which box or within it, ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte

... persuade her not to be so joyous, thinking that, if she would draw less lavishly upon her fund of happiness, it would last the longer. I remember doing so, one summer evening, when we tired laborers sat looking on, like Goldsmith's old folks under the village thorn-tree, while the young people ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... water for purification, and each helped the other, or each took a thorn from the other?" "For one purification it is allowed, for two purifications, it is disallowed." R. Jose said, "even for two purifications it is allowed, if it were made a ...
— Hebrew Literature

... undergarment. But in the cold weather sheepskins and the pelts of wild animals, as well as hose for the legs and shoes made of leather for the feet, were worn. The mantle was fastened with a buckle, or with a thorn and a belt. In the belt were carried shears and knives for daily use. The women were not as a general thing dressed differently from the men. After the contact with the Romans the methods of dress changed, and there was a greater ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... leave no heir lest the praise shall be divided. Finally, he is an enemy to God's favours, if they fall beside himself; the best nurse of ill-fame, a man of the worst diet, for he consumes himself, and delights in pining; a thorn-hedge covered with nettles, a peevish interpreter of good things, and no other than a lean and pale carcase ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... dark complexion, broad, high forehead, prominent cheek bones, gray, deep-set eyes, and bushy, black hair, turning to gray at the time of his death. Abstemious in his habits, he possessed great physical endurance. He was almost as tender-hearted as a woman. 'I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom,' he was able to say. His patience was inexhaustible. He had naturally a most cheerful and sunny temper, was highly social and sympathetic, loved pleasant conversation, wit, anecdote, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... tufts; the yellow flowering mustard, taller than the tallest man; giant thistle, and wild pumpkin with spotted leaves; the huge hairy fox-gloves with yellow bells; feathery fennel, and the big grey-green thorn-apples, with prickly burs full of bright red seed, and long white wax-like flowers, that bloomed only in the evening. He could never get high enough on anything to see over the tops of these plants; but ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... attached to Fanny, as far as he was capable of forming a real attachment, I could not for a moment doubt) to be laid bare to form a subject for Freddy Coleman to sharpen his wit upon; and to reflect that I had in any way assisted in bringing this result about, had thrown thorn constantly together—oh! as I thought upon it, the inconceivable folly of which I had been guilty nearly maddened me. Somehow, I had never until this moment actually realised the idea of my sister's marrying him; even that night, when I had spoken to my mother on the subject, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... nearest him to hold their fire a moment, to prepare to rush the enemy and use their bayonets, when, from a thorn thicket, an Ohio scout, Wilklow by name, one of Moseley's riflemen, stepped forward, and, singling out his victim, deliberately aimed at the General. Several of the 49th, noticing the man's movement, fired—but too late. The rifleman's bullet entered our hero's ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... cold, Her lehua bloom, fog-soaked, droops pensive; The thorn-fringe set ahout swampy Ai-po is A feather that flaunts in spite of the pinching frost. 5 Her herbage is pelted, stung ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... in his bosom this rankling thorn—the hated Fremont he rode out to bring in a captive, is now "His Excellency John C. Fremont," the first American ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... to the west, joined to the city by a continual row of palaces belonging to the chief nobility, of a mile in length, and lying on the side next the Thames, is the small town of Westminster; originally called Thorney, from its thorn bushes, but now Westminster, from its aspect and its monastery. The church is remarkable for the coronation and burial of the Kings of England. Upon this spot is said formerly to have stood a temple of Apollo, which was thrown down by an earthquake in the time of Antoninus Pius; ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... seemed to pay any attention to Tom and Jack. Steadily they flew on until an exclamation from Jack caused Tom to look down. He noted that they were over the German lines, and headed for the probable location of the battery that had been such a thorn in ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach

... cherish) of Lycaon's son! Forget, sweet Maids, forget your woodland song. "Come, king of song, o'er this my pipe, compact With wax and honey-breathing, arch thy lip: For surely I am torn from life by Love. Forget, sweet Maids, forget your woodland song. "From thicket now and thorn let violets spring, Now let white lilies drape the juniper, And pines grow figs, and nature all go wrong: For Daphnis dies. Let deer pursue the hounds, And mountain-owls outsing the nightingale. Forget, sweet Maids, forget ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus

... the plains, where there is less moisture, and where vegetation therefore is scantier, we find the unwonted forms of growth more distinct, and have the full sense of being in a southern land. Here the thorn palms, the cactus hedges, the penguin fences, resembling huge pineapple plants, and various trees and shrubs, being seen more isolated, make a stronger impression of the peculiarities of tropical ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... a wild-rose stem bearing a bud unclosed. And to a thorn a shred of silver birch-bark clung impaled. On it was scratched with a knife's keen point a message which I could not read until once more I crept in to our fire, which Mount had lighted ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... possession of Sais and of the western districts of the Delta; he refused, however, to sue for pardon in person, and asked that an envoy should be sent to receive his oath of allegiance in the temple of Nit. Though deserted by his brother princes and allies, he still retained sufficient power to be a thorn in his conqueror's side; his ultimate overthrow was certain, but it would have entailed many a bloody struggle, while a defeat might easily have shaken the fidelity of the other feudatory kings, and endangered the stability of the new dynasty. Pionkhi, therefore, accepted ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... fringes, were thin and unbroken lines of forest. Between these two lines of forest lay the open valley of soft and undulating meadow, dotted with its purplish bosks of buffalo-, willow-, and mountain-sage, its green coppices of wild rose and thorn, and its clumps of trees. In the hollow of the valley ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... The lovely Fanny, the queen, as it seemed, of the day, was capricious enough to wish to gather for herself a blooming branch; a thorn pricked her, and a stream, as bright as if from damask roses, flowed over her delicate hand. This accident put the whole company in motion. English court-plaister was instantly inquired after. A silent, meagre, pale, ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso

... more forest; but here the willows and poplar are mixed with wild apple-trees, and white-thorn forms the underwood. The island is ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... every side: but swelling uplands covered with massy foliage sloped down to its wild, irregular turf soil,—soil poor for pasturage, but pleasant to the eye; with dell and dingle, bosks of fantastic pollards; dotted oaks of vast growth; here and there a weird hollow thorn-tree; patches of fern and gorse. Hoarse and loud cawed the rooks; and deep, deep as from the innermost core of the lovely woodlands came the mellow note of the cuckoo. A few moments more a wind of the road brought ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... made a mighty lord, Of goodly gold he hath enow, And many a sergeant girt with sword; But forth will we and bend the bow. We shall bend the bow on the lily lea Betwixt the thorn and ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris

... Selikatsnek. Unless one was well acquainted with the highways and byways of that part of the country, one was in constant danger of losing the way; it is a long stretch of bush, consisting of the well-known thorn-bushes of the Hoogeveld, for a distance of about ten miles deep. The principal passes of the Magalies Mountains were occupied by the enemy—Wonderboompoort, Hornsnek, Selikatsnek, Commandonek, Olifantsnek. General de la Rey had made up his mind to take ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo

... that the faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and just as I was saying to myself, "I've got it, I've got it!"—for it is a great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the fields—I saw, near the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry bushes, a thorn-apple tree in full bloom. ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... plagued the colonists sorely. The very first shepherd of the wandering flock—Mr. Lyford, who preached to the planters in 1624—was, as Bradford says, "most unsavory salt," a most agonizing and unbearable thorn in the flesh and spirit of the poor homesick Pilgrims; and he was finally banished to Virginia, where it was supposed that he would find congenial and un-Puritanlike companions. Another bold-faced cheat preached to the colonists a most impressive sermon on the text, "Let ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... which runs round the summit of the apse is another beautiful feature of the exterior of the eastern part of the church. It seems to be formed of stalks from a thorn tree intertwining in such a way as to form triangular openings. This parapet or coronet is as much like lacework as it is possible for stonework to be, and gives to the building a peculiarly delicate and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse

... is the same with the intrenchments in the Grand Duchy of Posen, the existence of which was announced at a meeting of the Anthropological Society of Berlin.[228] Many of these defensive works, notably those of Potzrow and of Zabnow, bad been erected on piles. In the district between Thorn and the Baltic are numerous mounds of the shape of a truncated cone, the platform of which is surrounded by an embankment some 590 feet in diameter.[229] Near many of these were picked up many broken human bones, ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... a psychological fact of long standing we know that other elements may be injected into that system so as to change it, or that one system may be destroyed and another system built up to take its place. This is the secret of cures of this nature—of mental troubles—the irritating factor, the thorn in the mind, ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... my chin was sinking placidly on my breast, and the words of an Ave Maria dying upon my lips, I felt the charm all at once broken by a well-meant rap upon the occiput, conferred through the instrumentality of a little angry-looking squat urchin of sixty years, and a remarkably good black-thorn cudgel, with which he was engaged in thwacking the heads of such sinners, as, not having the dread of insanity and the regulations of the place before their eyes, were inclined to sleep. I declare the knock I received told to such a purpose on my head, that ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... the milkman (who was a big puppy dog) came along and said he was sorry he was late, but he couldn't help it, because he had stepped on a thorn and had a lame foot and couldn't go fast, so ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis

... Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate part of the shore, commanding a beautiful prospect The Borderers The Reverie of Poor Susan 1798 A Night Piece We are Seven Anecdote for Fathers "A whirl-blast from behind the hill" The Thorn Goody Blake and Harry Gill Her Eyes are Wild Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman Lines written in Early Spring To my Sister Expostulation and Reply The Tables Turned The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman The Last of the Flock The Idiot Boy The Old Cumberland ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... death was known, one of George IV.'s Ministers went to his master with the news: "Sir, your greatest enemy is dead." "Good G—-! they told me she was better," was the royal answer. Sir Charles spoke of Jerome Bonaparte, whom he knew; a dull man, a thorn in the side of Napoleon III. "You have nothing of the great Napoleon about you," Jerome said one day. "I have his family," answered the worried Emperor. From him we passed to the death of the Duc d'Enghien. The Princes were notoriously plotting against Napoleon's ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... pleasure, give me pain, Give me wine of life again! Death is night without a morn, Give the rose and give the thorn." ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... reprinted in W.J. Thorn's valuable collection of "Early English Prose Romances," where may also be found a story similar in nature, called "Helyas, Knight of the Swanne." I do not consider these productions worthy of more extended notice here, as they possess no interest ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... narrow valley, while the other, merely a rough trail, climbed the hill back of the village and followed the crest of a ridge to the place of intersection. Both passed through an almost impenetrable growth of small trees and underbrush, thickly set with palms, bamboos, Spanish-bayonets, thorn bushes, and cactus, all bound together by a tangle of tough vines, and interspersed with little glades of rank grasses. To the right-hand trail, miscalled the wagon-road, were assigned eight troops from two regiments of dismounted ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe

... things were in, and partly because they told him he would have to make a speech that night, and he had to spend two of his hardearned dollars for the hire of a dress-suit. Here, as always, the scarcity of dollars was like a thorn in his flesh. He had been obliged to leave Corydon heart-broken at home, because he had not been able to lay by enough to bring her; he had to stay at a cheap hotel—cheaper even than any of the actors; and when ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... advance in East Prussia, to the Vistula and bombard Thorn and Graudenz; panic in Danzig; battle between Russians and Austrians in Poland; Austrians defeated at Lemberg; Russians gain ground against Austrians and win battle at Zamost; Germans in East Prussia get reinforcements and report capture of 30,000 Russians; ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... picture of Christ which the good man in the pulpit had drawn, sitting in a mockery of purple, receiving the open-palmed blows of cowards. In his extremity the story recurred with sharp insistence and all night he had been haunted by this thorn-crowned remembrance. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... left at sunrise the following morning. One of the sailors had strayed inland. He got turned round and could not find the river; and we started before discovering his absence. We stopped at once, and with much difficulty he forced his way through the vine-laced and thorn-guarded jungle toward the sound of the launch's engines and of the bugle which was blown. In this dense jungle, when the sun is behind clouds, a man without a compass who strays a hundred yards from the river may readily ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... an Old Lady whose folly, Induced her to sit in a holly; Whereon by a thorn, Her dress being torn, ...
— Book of Nonsense • Edward Lear

... grass-grown foot-way tread, For all the bloomy flush of life is fled. All but yon widow'd, solitary thing That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; 130 She, wretched matron, forc'd in age, for bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn; She only left of all the harmless train, 135 The sad historian ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... long ago to maintain that no such animals exist within our precincts. But the other day a butcher-bird made us a flying call, and almost the first thing he did was to catch one of these same furry dainties and spit it upon a thorn, where anon I found him devouring it. I would not appear to boast; but really, when I saw what Collurio had done, it did not so much as occur to me to quarrel with him because he had discovered in half an hour what I had overlooked ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... time ago, and complained that his house had been robbed. The thief had been pursued without effect, but while running, he was observed to drop a chisel, and to tear up a piece of paper, which he also threw away. Captain Thorn, and a detective who was present, carefully examined the man respecting the mode by which the entrance had been effected, the marks left by the tools, the kind of property taken, and the action and bearing of the thief while ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... literally. There should be no floor cases, no alcoves in the room, no arrangements by which a knot of small mischief makers can conceal themselves from the librarian for she will find such an error in planning, a thorn in the flesh as long ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... forward, believing it will take place through death and the resurrection, as Christ has proved. By this faith we perceive the love of God, and break off our sins by righteousness. But while in the flesh, we feel a thorn—a hell of conscious guilt for the sins we have committed, and though the penitent may beseech God, that this messenger of satan, buffeting him, may depart from him, yet the answer will be, "my ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods

... WOMEN. I want to tell you a fable too, to match yours about Melanion. Once there was a certain man called Timon,[447] a tough customer, and a whimsical, a true son of the Furies, with a face that seemed to glare out of a thorn-bush. He withdrew from the world because he couldn't abide bad men, after vomiting a thousand curses at 'em. He had a holy horror of ill-conditioned fellows, but he was ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... of the road close to a telegraph post," he said, while a tall, grey-faced, well-dressed man of forty-five, of a somewhat military appearance, who was seated at the back of the room, leaned forward attentively to catch every word. "The thorn bushes beside the ditch were broken down by the body apparently being cast there. It was getting dusk when I arrived on the spot, but I could clearly see traces of blood for about forty feet from the ditch forward in ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... are no more, if quite so much) cannot do this, how shall they attain thereto, being now not only corrupted and infected, but depraved, bewitched and dead; swallowed up of unbelief, ignorance, confusion, hardness of heart, hatred of God, and the like? When a thorn by nature beareth grapes, and a thistle beareth figs, then may this thing be (Matt 7:16-18). To lay hold of and receive the gospel by a true and saving faith, it is an act of the soul as made a new creature, which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... is already in agitation to connect it with the Huron, and open a water communication from lake Erie, across the peninsula, direct to lake Michigan. Grand river is now navigable for batteaux, 240 miles, and receives in its course, Portage, Red-Cedar, Looking-glass, Maple, Muscota, Flat, Thorn-Apple, and Rouge rivers, besides smaller streams. It enters lake Michigan 245 miles south-westerly from Mackinaw, and 75 north of St. Joseph;—is between 50 and 60 rods wide at its mouth, with 8 feet water over its bar. The Ottawa Indians ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... alternate and glabrous. Flower solitary, terminal, whitish. The fruit is much larger than that of the other species, is covered with scales that end in a soft point or thorn and has ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... the great catastrophe. Some modern theologians may dismiss sin as "a mysterious incident" in the development of humanity, as a grain of sand that has unluckily blown into the eye, as a thorn that has accidentally pierced our heel, but the greatest of ethical teachers regarded sin as a profound contradiction of that eternal will which is altogether wise and good. More than any other teacher Jesus Christ emphasized the actuality and awfulness of sin; more than any other has He intensified ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... prompted the zealous prelate to this demeanor, for the same carrier-pigeon which had brought from the patriarch his appointment to the bishopric required him to insist on Orion's punishment, for he was a thorn in the flesh of the Jacobite church, a tainted sheep who might infect the rest of the flock. If the young man should offer an emerald it was therefore to be closely examined, to see whether it were the original stone ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... present objects, which wear out the past. You need not murmur, though you are sorry.' MURISON. 'But St. Paul says, "I have learnt, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content."' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that relates to riches and poverty; for we see St. Paul, when he had a thorn in the flesh, prayed earnestly to have it removed; and then he could not be content.' Murison, thus refuted, tried to be smart, and drank to Dr. Johnson, 'Long may you lecture!' Dr. Johnson afterwards, speaking of his not drinking wine, said, 'The Doctor spoke of lecturing (looking ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince and the judge ask for a reward: and the great man uttereth his mischievous desire; so they wrap it up. The best of them is a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. The world looked upon a continent of inexhaustible fertility, (whose harvest had glutted the markets, and rotted in disuse,) filled with lamentation, and its inhabitants wandering like bereaved citizens among the ruins of an earthquake, ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher

... you could so easily take him with you to America. He has no friends by his mother's side, to make any stir about his disappearance. Under your name his identity will never be recognized, and it would be taking a thorn ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... about a furlong's distance, and how I watched the calves in the fields beyond the river. It grew dark, and I fell asleep. It was towards the end of October, and it proved a stormy night. I felt the cold in my sleep, and dreamed that I was pulling the blanket over me, and actually pulled over me a dry thorn-bush which lay on the ground near me. In my sleep I had rolled from the top of the hill till within three yards of the river, which flowed by the unfenced edge of the bottom. I awoke several times, and finding myself wet, and cold, and ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... slippery as ghosts as we made our way through the timber on the slope. It was slow work, though; the woods were full of tangled vines and prickly bushes, and we got clawed up considerable and had all we could do to keep from cussing out loud when a thorn or something would rip a cheek open. It was blacker than any night I've ever seen before or since; we couldn't see a foot ahead, and the sounds we heard in the woods didn't make us feel any too comfortable, for all we'd got used to living in the open. We knew, of course, ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... through the crown of the former as neatly as they do the trick at the circus. The Professor jumped at the explosion as if he had sat down on one of those small CALTHROPS our grandfathers used to sow round in the grass when there were Indians about,—iron stars, each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a half long,—stick through moccasins into feet,—cripple 'em on the spot, and give 'em lockjaw in a day ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... other's nostrils, while the dark earth flew beneath their stride. The blackthorn was in front behind five bars of solid oak, the water yawning on its farther side, black and deep, and fenced, twelve feet wide if it were an inch, with the same thorn wall beyond it! a leap no horse should have been given, no steward should have set. Cecil pressed his knees closer and closer, and worked the gallant hero for the test; the surging roar of the throng, though so close, was dull on his ear; he heard nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... making itself felt in French art was a thorn in the flesh of the sensitive Gros. In vain were all the artistic honors showered upon him. In 1824 he was made a baron; since 1816 he had been a member of the Institute; and the crosses of most of the orders of Europe, and the medals ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... watched the tall, young cook, lean, tanned, and with an ugly triangle of fresh sunburn under his left shoulder-blade, where his shirt had been torn with a thorn that day. He loosed the aparejos and mantas, containing the kitchen-kit; almost magically a fire was started. Water was heating a moment later and slabs of bacon began to writhe.... Savage as he was from hunger, it was marvellously colorful ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... all as being feasible, and Reuben was much congratulated upon his inventive powers. Without delay, they set to work to carry out the plan. A piece of thin bark was first taken and, by means of a long thorn used as a needle, was sewn over the hole in the canoe, with the fibers of the cocoa. Then a large pile of nuts was collected, and the boys set to work at the task of emptying them of their contents. It took them some hours' work to make and fit the pegs. Another two days were ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... Christ!" came distinctly through the quiet night. The young man felt a distinct pain for the Christ by his side, like the pressing of a thorn into the brow. He seemed to know the prick himself. For these were some of those ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... said Penfentenyou, "whether it would puzzle a monkey?" He had forgotten the needs of his Growing Nation, and was earnestly parting the white-thorn stems with his fingers. ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling

... employs some Anglo-Saxon characters, such as the eth ( or , equivalent of "th") and the thorn ( or , also equivalent of "th"). These characters should display properly in most text viewers. The Anglo-Saxon yogh (equivalent of "y," "g," or "gh") will display properly only if the user has the proper font. To maximize accessibility, the character ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... Quebec, had joined the Algonquins and Hurons in an attack on them, which they never forgot; and, in spite of the noble efforts of French missionaries and a lavish bestowal of gifts, the Iroquois thorn remained in the side of New France. But with the other Indian tribes the French worked hand in hand, with the Cross and the priest ever in advance of the trader's pack. French missionaries were the first white men to settle in the populous ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... that gives the view, A hollow land as vast as heaven. "It is A pleasant day, sir." "A very pleasant day." "And what a view here. If you like angled fields Of grass and grain bounded by oak and thorn, Here is a league. Had we with Germany To play upon this board it could not be More dear than April has made it with a smile. The fields beyond that league close in together And merge, even as our days into the past, Into one wood that has a shining pane Of water. Then ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas

... English and Scottish poor—his own order, indeed. If twenty or thirty families would come out as an experiment, he was ready to give L2000 without saying from whom. He bids Mr. Young speak about the plan to Thorn of Chorley, Turner of Manchester, Lord Shaftesbury, and the Duke of Argyll. "Now, my friend," he adds, "do your best, and God's blessing be with you. Much is done for the blackguard poor. Let us remember ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... this day as independent of the great powers in its neighborhood as it was when the Assyrian armies first penetrated its recesses. Nature seems to have constructed it to be a nursery of hardy and vigorous men, a stumbling-block to conquerors, a thorn in the side of every powerful empire which arises in this part of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... in 1659 was the son of an English merchant.[25] There was no man in the colony during the second half of the 17th century that exerted a more powerful influence in political affairs than Philip Ludwell. He was for years the mainstay of the commons and he proved to be a thorn in the flesh of more than one governor. He was admired for his ability, respected for his wealth and feared for his power, an admitted leader socially and politically in the colony, yet he was of humble extraction, his father and uncle ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... rose," said the Tree, "you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde

... Bevis d'Aygremont, stolen in infancy by a female slave. As the slave rested under a white-thorn, a lion and a leopard devoured her, and then killed each other in disputing over the infant. Oriande la f['e]e, attracted to the spot by the crying of the child, exclaimed, "by the powers above, the child is mal gist ('badly nursed')!" and ever ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... now, the sky once more a pure lucid blue above me—all around me, in fact, since I am standing high on the top of the ancient stupendous earthwork, grown over with oak wood and underwood of holly and thorn and hazel with tangle of ivy and bramble and briar. It is marvellously still; no sound from the village reaches me; I only hear the faint rustle of the dead leaves as they fall, and the robin, for one spied me here and has come to keep ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... "There is evidently another thorn pricking. Let us have it out, and then I'll kiss the place to make it well as I used to do when I took the splinters from the fingers you are pricking so unmercifully," said the doctor, anxious to relieve his pet patient as soon ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... have been so lately playing with dolls that they feel as if babies were very much of the same nature. The abrupt seizure frightened me; I sprang from her arms in my terror, and fell over the railing of the balcony. I should probably enough have been killed on the spot but for the fact that a low thorn-bush grew just beneath the balcony, into which I fell and thus had the violence of the shock broken. But the thorns tore my tender flesh, and I bear to this day marks of the deep wounds ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... smooth, and staghorn sumachs, large-flowering currant, thimbleberry, blackberry, elder, snowberry, dwarf bilberry, blueberry, black haw, hobblebush, and arrow-wood. In the way of fruit-bearing shade trees he recommends sugar maple, flowering dogwood, white and cockspur thorn, native red mulberry, tupelo, black cherry, choke cherry, and mountain ash. For the same purpose he especially recommends the planting of the following vines: Virginia creeper, bull-beaver, frost grape, ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson

... are half-starved. Their "kitchen" is a meagre ration of bruised beans, and their daily bread consists of the dry leaves of thorn trees, beaten down by the Makhbat, a flail-like staff, and caught in a large circle of matting (El-Khasaf). In Sinai the vegetation fares even worse: the branches are rudely lopped off to feed the flocks; ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... fled to the winds. Her own personality fell from her like a mantle. She was Oonah, the bewitching little Irish maiden, on her way from Dublin to make her home with her grandmother in the country. In her hand she held the "twig of thorn," which, having been plucked on the first day of spring, had thrown her under the spell of the fairies. Around her shoulders she wore the peasant's cape with its quaint, becoming hood, and as she threw it off there was ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs

... with dirges due in sad array Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 115 Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... described as forming the park boundary. Luke plunged into the heart of this defile, fighting his way downwards, in the direction of the brook. His progress was impeded by a thick undergrowth of brier, and other matted vegetation, as well as by the entanglements thrown in his way by the taller bushes of thorn and hazel, the entwined and elastic branches of which, in their recoil, galled and fretted him, by inflicting smart blows on his face and hands. This was a hardship he usually little regarded. But, upon the present occasion, it had ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... orderly man, he set off gallantly on his new commission. After waiting a time, which in our state of suspense might almost be called a period, he leisurely returned, significantly saying, that neither man nor beast could pass that way! rubbing his thorn-smitten cheek. Now came the use of the syllogism, in its simplest form. "If the right road must be A, B, or C, and A and B were wrong, then C must be right." Under this conviction, we marched boldly on, without further ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... transports, her green notions—which she told me openly—her inexperience, or rather her awkwardness, enchanted me. I seemed for the first time to pluck the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and never had I tasted fruit so delicious. My little maid would have been ashamed to let me see how the first thorn hurt her, and to convince me that she only smelt the rose, she strove to make me think she experienced more pleasure than is possible in a first trial, always more or less painful. She was not yet a big girl, the roses on her swelling breasts were as yet but buds, and she was a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... as the 18th century, at which period we see such abbreviations as ytthat. It may be interesting to note that y in this combination and the similar combination "ye," used as the article, is not the semi-vowel y but is the survival, or revival, of an Anglo-Saxon letter of very similar form called "thorn" and equivalent in value to th. In the "yt" then, we have the y or thorn substituted for th and the vowel elided, but the sign should be pronounced "that." The sign "ye" as in the familiar phrase of the posters ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton

... come a visitor in the night, as evidenced by a scrawled warning, on a dirty piece of paper, fastened to a stubby tree by a long, sharp thorn. ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... thorn bush growing just beside the place. The edge of the canvas caught on the thorns and when they pulled it away it left these threads. See, here are three ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... and, though by good fortune they met no one, since the few who dwelt in these wild parts had gone up to Bonsa Town to be present at the great feast, the sun was sinking before ever they reached the place. Moreover, this promontory proved to be covered with dense thorn scrub, through which they must force a way in the gathering darkness, not without hurt and difficulty. Still they accomplished it and at length, quite exhausted, crept to the very point, where they hid themselves between some stones at ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... approached with panting, breathless eagerness, announcing a terrible misfortune, that Fanfan had got a thorn or something in his fore-foot. Lady Augusta received Fanfan upon her lap, with expressions of the most tender condolence; and Dashwood knelt down at her feet to sympathize in her sorrow, and to examine the dog's paw. Mademoiselle produced a needle ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... foot lifted as though it were hurt. The story is that this particular lion limped into the monastery in which this old man lived, and while all the other monks fled in terror, this monk saw that the lion's fore-paw was hurt. He raised it up, found what was the matter, and pulled out the thorn; and ever afterwards the lion lived peacefully in the monastery with him. Now, whenever you see a lion in a picture with an old monk, him you will know to be St. Jerome. He was a learned Christian father ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway

... over this display of vanity, but as he could do nothing with the obdurate Kitty, he allowed her to have her own way, and made a virtue of necessity by calling her his 'thorn ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... blue-coated, yellow-trousered policemen squatted, and smoked, and spat, in glorious idleness, from dawn to dusk, and exchanged full-flavoured compliments with the Pathan driver in passing. For the rest there was always the passionless serenity of the desert, with its crop of thriftless thorn-bushes, whose berries showed like blood-drops pricked from the hard heart of the land; and beyond the desert, looming steadily nearer with every mile of progress, the rugged ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... have arrived in the history of Hester, for in these days her heart was more sensitive and more sympathetic than ever before. The circumvolant troubles of humanity caught upon it as it it had been a thorn-bush, and hung there. It was not greatly troubled, neither was its air murky, but its very repose was like a mother's sleep which is no obstacle between the cries of her children and her sheltering soul: ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... live a separate life. It has taken only a few hours to prove how superficial was my philosophy of life. Guided simply by the instinct of love and duty, this faulty girl has accomplished more than I had supposed possible. But her mother will continue a thorn in her side," and Van Berg was not ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... placing the Ian thorn on the floor. He covered his face with his hands and began to cough incessantly, like a man dying of consumption. The glowing top of the lanthorn hissed and sputtered out in little sharp blows, like hammer strokes... Carlos had coughed like that. Carlos was dead. Now O'Brien! He ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... forest for the greatest king on earth. At last he came to where another road crossed the way he followed, and about the crossway was the ground clearer of trees, while beyond it the trees grew thicker, and there was some underwood of holly and thorn as the ground fell off as ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... write to you?—"The voice said, cry," and I said, "What shall I cry?"—O, thou spirit! whatever thou art, or wherever thou makest thyself visible! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun bicker in his gloamin route frae the fauld!—Be thou a brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... overhead. She and the stars, visible beside her, were no strangers where all else was strange: my childhood knew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its curve leaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old field, in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back beside a stately ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... bee without a sting, and no rose without a thorn. I know all those consoling proverbs, Mr Cargrim, but they don't apply ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven— ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... and helmet, said to have belonged to Charlemagne, a silver casket containing the royal seals, besides a set of rich hangings and altar-plate, and a jewelled cross and reliquary on which Charles set great value, because it held a sacred thorn and piece of wood from the holy cross, a vest of our Lady, and a limb of St. Denis, which were objects of his especial devotion. Many of these relics were eventually restored to the king, who, not to be outdone in courtesy, sent the marquis a favourite ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright

... inviting to her, and from which she hoped yet to obtain some grand dazzling piece of good fortune without having any accurate idea in what it was to consist. She still loved all mankind, and believed in their truth and rectitude. No thorn had yet wounded her heart; no disenchantment, no bright illusion dashed to pieces, had yet left its shadow on that clear, lofty brow of transparent whiteness. The expression of her large blue eyes was still radiant and undimmed, and her laugh was ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills—hills it might be of a greener kind—and ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... Willy and I were wedded: I wore a lilac gown; And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crown. But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born, Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn. ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven— ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... the General rallied his simple wit for the occasion, "very sweet and true, with a thorn, too, if one gripped it ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... know are thus modest; and some of the best are minute jewel cases for sweet sculpture. The Parthenon would hardly attract notice, if it were set by the Charing Cross Railway Station: the Church of the Miracoli, at Venice, the Chapel of the Rose, at Lucca, and the Chapel of the Thorn, at Pisa, would not, I suppose, all three together, fill the tenth part, cube, of a transept of the Crystal Palace. ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... pitched; even as the spider diligently worketh in her web—unto which also this hope is compared—in vain. This hope will bring that man that has it, and exercises it, to heaven, when leviathan is pulled out of the sea with a hook; or when his jaw is bored through with a thorn: but as he that thinks to do this, hopeth in vain; so, even so, will the hope of the other be as unsuccessful; 'So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish; whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... a thorn, The humble sheep a threat'ning horn: While the Lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her ...
— Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience • William Blake

... buds of the chestnut-trees shone with silvery lustre. In the orchards, though the tangled boughs of the apple-trees were still thickly covered with gray lichens, small specks of green among the gray gave a promise of early blossom. Thrushes were singing from every thorn-bush; and the larks, lost in the blue heights above us, flung down their triumphant carols, careless whether our ears caught them or no. A long, straight road stretched before us, and seemed to end upon the skyline in the far distance. Below us, when we looked back, lay the valley and the town; ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... And again, the Irishman in England can make havoc in his turn; he can harry the English, he can spite, and irritate and triumph and get his own back in a thousand ways. Living in England he would be a thorn ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair

... "to tell you that all is safe. Also to bid you good-bye. As soon as I can get employment I shall go down to Thorn to stir them up there. They ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... mad," said Macey, in a loud whisper; and screwing up his face into a grimace which he intended to represent horrible dread, but more resembled the effects produced by a pin or thorn, he crouched down right away in the stern of the boat, but kept up a continuous rocking which helped Distin's efforts to get her off into deep water. When the latter seated himself, turned the head, and began to row back, that is to say, he dipped ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... from among groves of olives; but an illimitable sea of waving downs lay bathed in the amber light of Spain. Then, olive woods again, with a foam, of field-flowers spraying their gnarled feet, hedges of sweetbrier, tangled with tall, wild lilacs, and blossoming thorn. Beyond, high hills up which the Gloria stormed boldly, frightening the horses of a troop of laughing soldiers who rode without saddles; over stony roads, mere rough tracks drawn through meadows, where bulls grazed, and bellowed at the automobile; ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... The atmosphere of the poem when it deals with these matters is often suggestive of a tyrant's attorney-general whose business is to find plausible excuses for an arbitrary despot. Milton had his share in creating that bad sort of fear of God which is always appearing as the thorn in the theological rose-bed of the eighteenth century, and, later on, becomes the nightmare of the Evangelical revival. None of these conceptions, the capricious despot, the remorseless creditor, the Judge whose {145} invariable sentence is hell fire, have proved easy to get rid of: and part ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... to Uterysdale, and long continued to use his power to protect the bold outlaws, and Robin Hood dwelt securely in the greenwood, doing good to the poor and worthy, but acting as a thorn in the sides ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven— All's right with ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... C. Aronia).—Aronia Thorn. South Europe, 1810. This tree attains to a height of 20 feet, has deeply lobed leaves that are wedge-shaped at the base, and slightly pubescent on the under sides. The flowers, which usually are at their best in June, are white and showy, and succeeded ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster

... being prepared for the two queens. Triumphal arches marked each entrance to the lists, at which stood French and English archers on guard. At the foot of the lists was erected the "tree of noblesse," on which were to be hung the shields of those about to engage in combat. It bore "the noble thorn [the sign of Henry] entwined with raspberry" [the sign of Francis]; around its trunk was wound cloth of gold and green damask; its leaves were formed of green silk, and the fruit that hung from its limb was made of silver ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... me generous, madam," said he. "Do not misapprehend me. I am not. I covet neither the title nor estates of Ostermore. Their possession would be a thorn in my flesh, a thorn of bitter memory. That is one reason why you should not think me generous, though it is not the reason why I cede them. I would have you understand me on this, perhaps the last time, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... log hut, where Colonel Wheeler used to shelter his corn. It sat in a lot behind a rail fence and thorn bushes, near the sweetest of springs. There was an entrance where a door once was, and within, a massive rickety fireplace; great chinks between the logs served as windows. Furniture was scarce. A pale blackboard crouched in the corner. My desk was made of three boards, ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... What told even more on his temper towards that country was a conviction that nothing but the joint action of France and England would in the end arrest the troubles of Eastern Europe. His intervention foiled for the moment a fresh effort of Prussia to rob Poland of Dantzig and Thorn. But though Russia was still pressing Turkey hard, a Russian war was so unpopular in England that a hostile vote in Parliament forced Pitt to discontinue his armaments; and a fresh union of Austria and Prussia, which promised at this juncture to bring about a close of the Turkish ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... Among these, we got at last into a picturesque dingle; the grey rocks peeped from among the ferns and wild flowers, and the steps of soft sward along its sides were dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch, and russet thorn, and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-king and his daughter might glide on their ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... battle fifty years ago, and quite another thing to be celebrated in the present. Susan was that thing. It was said of her that she had kept her husband, an elegant soft old gentleman, in Congress for a quarter of a century and up to the very day of his death by being a thorn in the side of the political life of the state. She kept scrapbooks in which she pasted dangerous and damaging information about politicians and prominent men generally. Whenever one of them became a candidate in opposition ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... Jesus Christ: we found our belief in the miracles on the Gospel, not our belief in the Gospel on the miracles. But it must be remembered that Pascal had been deeply impressed by a contemporary miracle, known as the miracle of the Holy Thorn: a thorn reputed to have been preserved from the Crown of Our Lord was pressed upon an ulcer which quickly healed. Sainte-Beuve, who as a medical man felt himself on solid ground, discusses fully the possible explanation of this apparent ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... Assembly a petition signed by 5,931 men and women, praying for the just and equal rights of women, which, after a spicy debate, was referred to the following Select Committee: James L. Angle, of Monroe Co.; George W. Thorn, of Washington Co.; Derrick L. Boardman, of Oneida Co.; George H. Richards, of New York; James M. Munro, of Onondaga; Wesley Gleason, of Fulton; Alexander P. Sharpe, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... on one side, and of Mr Rice Rice, junior, on the other. He scarcely knew which was most irritating, 'the idioms,' or her affected giggle. Trite but true is the proverb, 'There is no rose without its thorn;' and Howel was pricked severely by the thorns surrounding the rose of his ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... loins shall grow." 64 waded the swathes of the sword waded the swathes of the sword. 99 the blood of the Worm was mine the blood of the Worm was mine. 128 and the Gods are yet but young. and the Gods are yet but young." 140 All hail, O Day "All hail, O Day 141 the Sting of the Sleepful Thorn! the Sting of the Sleepful Thorn!' 143 I needs must speak thy speech.' I needs must speak thy speech." 183 as the sun-beams hide the way as the sun-beams hide the way. 189 God that is smitten nor smites God that is smitten nor smites. 216 his worth with thy worth.' his ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... wont, and formed themselves into the shadowy ribs of the vault above me. The drive to Bonaventure at this season of the year is very beautiful, though the roads are sandy; it is partly along an avenue of tall trees, and partly through the woods, where the dog-wood and azalea and thorn-trees are in blossom, and the ground is sprinkled with flowers. Here and there are dwellings beside the road. "They are unsafe the greater part of the year," said the gentleman who drove me out, and who spoke from professional knowledge, "a summer residence in them is sure to bring dangerous ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... convinced,—so he said,—that, for some of his parishioners, Mr. Puddleham was not a better teacher than he himself. He always shook hands with Mr. Puddleham, though Mr. Puddleham would never look him in the face, and was quite determined that Mr. Puddleham should not be a thorn in ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... In some cases in this sub-order, the calyx becomes detached from the carpels, so that the latter organs become more or less "superior," and distinct one from the other. This happens constantly in the double-flowered thorn, Crataegus Oxyacantha, in some blossoms of which the hollowed end of the peduncle still invests the base of the carpels, leaving the upper portions detached. In apples flowers are occasionally met with ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... on Christmas morning, as Dorothy looked out of a window, whose panes were laced with most delicate traceries of frost rime, there was a thorn-prickle ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... yield Venetia to Italy retaining only a small part of its former possessions on the Adriatic so as not to be cut off entirely from a maritime outlet. This small remnant of its former Italian possessions, however, proved to be a thorn in the body politic of the Dual Monarchy. The inhabitants of this province were preponderately Italian in language and Italian in feeling and ever since the formation of the kingdom of Italy a strong ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... tell you. Look, there is a quiet place in yon corner under the thorn-trees by that piece of water. See, they are leaving off work: I will go for a can of beer, and then, pray, let me join ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the scene the one that has most impressed the imagination of Christendom is the crown of thorns. It was something unusual, and brought out the ingenuity and wantonness of cruelty. Besides, as the wound of a thorn has been felt by everyone, it brings the pain of the Sufferer nearer to us than any other incident. But it is chiefly by its symbolism that it has laid hold of the Christian mind. When Adam and Eve were driven from the garden into the bleak and toilsome ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... cloudings on a piece of wood, carefully drawn, will be the best introduction to the drawing of the clouds of the sky, or the waves of the sea; and the dead leaf-patterns on a damask drapery, well rendered, will enable you to disentangle masterfully the living leaf-patterns of a thorn thicket or a ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... hat, Tommy Brown running after it, very cross, very red in the face, and breathing very hard. Way across the Green Meadows they ran to the edge of the wood, where they hung the old straw hat in the middle of a thorn tree. By the time Tommy Brown had it once more on his head he had forgotten all about Mrs. Redwing and her dear little nest. Besides, he heard the breakfast horn blowing just then, so off he started for home up the Lone ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess

... finger-nails, his ear took in the sense of his fathers words. Otherwise he might have served as a perfect model of intentness upon his hands, as the statue of the boy who to all eternity will be absorbed in the task of extracting a thorn from his foot. ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... as being that of the preacher. As to Reuben, he was unhurt himself, but in sore distress over my own trifling scar, though I assured the faithful lad that it was a less thing than many a tear from branch or thorn which we had ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... company, gladly. I am Pilgrim Serene; my companion is Pilgrim Joyful. These flowers came from the garden of Patient Endurance, which is situated on Mount Calm. The flowers are free to all pilgrims; but the road to the garden is a very rough road, and thorn-bushes fringe it for a considerable distance. Some pilgrims once organized a band to clear out the thorns; but the bushes have such a tough bark that no knife was able to cut through them. So they stand there still. Another band gathered out all the stones; but new ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry

... heard nothing, and he waded on again, until the water grew deep. At this point he marked a little below him a clump of trees on the farther side; and reflecting that that side—if he could reach it unseen—would be less suspect, he swam across, aiming for a thorn bush which grew low to the water. Under its shelter he crawled out, and, worming himself like a snake across the few yards of grass which intervened, he stood at length within the shadow of the trees. A moment he ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman



Words linked to "Thorn" :   annoyance, glochid, bother, pain in the neck, sticker, cockspur thorn, Mysore thorn, parsley-leaved thorn, hedge thorn, Jerusalem thorn, rune, irritant, spine, spikelet, common thorn apple, evergreen thorn, botheration, Christ's-thorn, pain, pricker, fire thorn, infliction, runic letter, pain in the ass



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