“…he must need wish in a hurry; and wish he did, that the black pudding may come off his nose.”
English Fairy Tales (1890), More English Fairy Tales (1894), The Three Wishes
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Joseph Jacobs 17
British historian 1854–1916Related quotes
The Epitaph, St. 2
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)
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Context: "Howard takes great care to develop mood and atmosphere in his best stories, and in so doing makes the reader feel the dark, desperate undercurrent of his character's schemes and struggles. It is in this that I feel closest to Howard, and it is something that his conscious imitators have never captured. The disparity of writing styles aside, the mood immediately sets pastiche-Howard apart from the real article. Pseudo-Conan is out having just the best time, 'cause he's the biggest, toughest, mightiest-thewed barbarian on the block, and he's gonna have a swell time of brawling and chopping monsters and rescuing princesses and offing wizards and drinking and brawling and … and... etc... etc.... But in Howard's fiction the underlying black mood of pessimism is always there, and even Conan, who enjoys a binge or a good fight, is not having a good time of it at all. This is particularly true of Solomon Kane and King Kull-driven men whom not even a desperate battle can exorcise their black mood, while Conan at times can find brief surcease in excesses of pleasure or violence. I think Solomon Kane and King Kull were closer to Howard's true mood, while Conan represented the ability to escape briefly from black reality that Howard wished he could emulate. He failed. Of all Howard's characters I most prefer King Kull, and it is Kull who is closest to my own Kane..." ~ Karl Edward Wagner, Midnight Sun, "The Once and Future Kane", 2007, (First published in REH: Lone Star Fictioneer #1, Spring 1975)
“He who cuts off his nose takes poor revenge for a shame inflicted on him.”
Male ulciscitur dedecus sibi illatum, qui amputat nasum suum.
De Hierosolymitana peregrinatione acceleranda (1189), cited from Mary Beth Rose (ed.) Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986) p. 29; translation from John Simpson The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) p. 55.
A similar proverb, Qui son nez cope deshonore son vis, appears in the late 12th century chanson de geste Garin le Loheren, line 2877.
“No attack yet by Archmage. Wish he'd hurry up.”
The Bartimaeus Trilogy Official Website, Bart's Journal
Dispatch to Brig. Gen. Stephen Hurlbut (July 1862)<!-- published where? -->
1860s, 1862, Dispatch to Stephen A. Hurlbut (July 1862)
Context: No rebels shall be allowed to remain at Davis Mill so much as an hour. Allow them to go, but do not let them stay. And let it be known that if a farmer wishes to burn his cotton, his house, his family, and himself, he may do so. But not his corn. We want that.
