worm-eat

Updated: May 11, 2025

For many, the stage was the port of refuge to which they fled from the lonely habitations of erudition, where they ... sit now immur'd within their private cells, Drinking a long lank watching candle's smoke, Spending the marrow of their flow'ring age In fruitless poring on some worm-eat leaf. Many of these beggar students sought a livelihood by joining the players.

Jacob Feis - Shakspere and Montaigne

But how Is one to keep free from those mental microbes that worm-eat people's brains those Theories and Diets and Enthusiasms and infectious Doctrines that we are always liable to catch from what seem the most innocuous contacts? People go about laden with germs; they breathe creeds and convictions on you whenever they open their mouths.

Logan Pearsall Smith - Trivia