Noel (Eusebe), schoolmaster of Bout du Monde. “His clothes are old and worn, and his manner vacant.”—E. Stirling, The Gold Mine, or Miller of Grenoble, act i. sc. 2 (1854).
Noggs (Newman), Ralph Nickleby’s clerk. A tall man of middle age, with two goggle eyes (one of which was fixed), a rubicund nose, a cadavarous face, and a suit of clothes decidedly the worse for wear. He had the gift of distorting and cracking his finger-joints. This kind-hearted, dilapidated fellow “kept his hunter and hounds once,” but ran through his fortune. He discovered a plot of old Ralph, which he confided to the Cheeryble brothers, who frustrated it, and then provided for Newman.—C. Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1838).
Noko´mis, mother of Weno´nah, and grandmother of Hiawatha. Nokomis was the daughter of the Moon. While she was swinging one day, some of her companions, out of jealousy, cut the ropes, and she fell to earth in a meadow. The same night her first child, a daughter, was born, and was named Wenonah.
There among the ferns and mosses ...
Fair Nokomis bore a daughter,
And she called her name Wenonah.
Longfellow, Hiawatha, iii. (1855).
Non Mi Ricordo, the usual answer of the Italian courier and other Italian witnesses when on examination at the trial of Queen Caroline (the wife of George IV.), in 1820.
“Lord Flint,” in Such Things Are, by Mrs. Inchbald (1786), when asked a question he wished to evade, used to reply, “My people know, no doubt, but I cannot recollect.”
“Pierre Choppard,” in The Courier of Lyons, by Edward Stirling (1852), when asked an ugly question, always answered “I’ll ask my wife, my memory’s so slippery.”
The North American society called the “Know Nothings,” founded in 1853, used to reply to every question about their order, “I know nothing about it.”
Nona´cris’ Stream, the river Styx, in Arcadia. Cassander says he has in a phial some of this “horrid spring,” one drop of which, mixed with wine, would act as a deadly poison. To this Polyperchon replies:
I know its power, for I have seen it tried.
Pains of all sorts thro’ every nerve and artery
At once it scatters,—burns at once and freezes—
Till, by extremity of torture forced,
The soul consents to leave her joyless home.
N. Lee, Alexander the Great, iv. i (1678).