"Reptile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as its name implies, is marked like the back of the reptile from whence it has its name; it ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... punished in the ordinary way it will only make matters worse, as the Mudir says. Something's needed that will play our game and turn the tables on the reptile too." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rapidity of a single bullet the whole contents of the automatic's magazine poured out and every missile took effect in the reptile's huge head. In its death agony it straightened out its folds and Frank's senseless body dropped from them, seemingly limp ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... refrain from repining to any great extent at the result. We simply claim the right to deny the truth of every statement made by him in yesterday's paper, to annul all apologies he coined as coming from us, and to hold him up to public commiseration as a reptile endowed with no more intellect, no more cultivation, no more Christian principle than animates and adorns the sportive jackass-rabbit of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... had encircled the room, he was so disturbed at what he saw that he could scarcely complete his frightful inspection. In every enclosure he viewed a monstrosity that in some way resembled a human. Every reptile, every insect, every queer, misshapen animal not only looked human in some shocking manner, but also seemed to possess human characteristics. It seemed as though some demented creator with a perverted sense of humor had attempted to mock ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... all seen a viper, basta feroce—a reptile that every one runs from except me, and those who know, as I do, how to humour him. I have a viper in this box whom I have so perfectly tamed, that he lives with two others, and never quarrels with them. I will open the box, and, as you will see, they will all lie as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... distinguishing marks or signs of the clans or tribes into which the various nations are divided. They are not the personal emblems of the chiefs, although in signing treaties they employ them as their sign manual. Each tribe or clan had its emblem, consisting of the figure of some bird, beast, or reptile, and is distinguished by the name of the animal which it has assumed as a device, as Wolf, Hawk, Tortoise. To different totems, says Parkman in his "Conspiracy of Pontiac," attach different degrees of rank and dignity; and those of the ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder
... all their damning profusion. The Doctor stepped back dramatically. "Hardbake!" he gasped; "wine, pots of strawberry jam! Oh, Bultitude, this is a revelation indeed! So I have nourished one more viper in my bosom, have I? A crawling reptile which curries favour by denouncing the very crime it conceals in its playbox! Bultitude, I was not prepared ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... Nature. Every kind of Animal is diversified by different Magnitudes, each of which gives rise to a different Species. Let a Man trace the Dog or Lion-Kind, and he will observe how many of the Works of Nature are published, if I may use the Expression, in a variety of Editions. If we look into the Reptile World, or into those different Kinds of Animals that fill the Element of Water, we meet with the same Repetitions among several Species, that differ very little from one another, but in Size and Bulk. You find the same Creature that is drawn at large, copied out in several Proportions, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... purpose, and as exhibiting an extraordinary degree of arrogance, by dictating to future parliaments, and prescribing to future ministers a mode of action to be adopted some thirty years hence. He remarked:—"None but a novice, a sycophant, a mere reptile of a minister, would allow this act to prevent him doing what, in his own judgment, circumstances might require at the time; and a change in the situation of the country might render that which is proper at one time inapplicable at ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... stalks, he happened to disturb a big black snake, which lay sleeping under them. Grayskin had heard Karr speak of the poisonous adders that were to be found in the forest. So, when the snake raised its head, shot out its tongue and hissed at him, he thought he had encountered an awfully dangerous reptile. He was terrified and, raising his foot, he struck so hard with his hoof that he crushed the snake's head. Then, away he ran in ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... Lear, which are thoroughly contemptible, and which we follow with contempt. But it is to be observed that there is nothing laughable in Oswald; nothing that we can either laugh with or laugh at: he is a sort of human reptile, such as life sometimes produces, whom we regard with moral loathing and disgust, but in whose company neither mirth nor pity can find any foothold. On the other hand, the feelings moved by a Bottom, a Dogberry, an Aguecheek, or a Slender, are indeed very ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... lived a beautiful purple life, went to sleep under a tree in the forest. Jove sent a huge serpent to destroy him. The man awakened as the reptile drew near. ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... Now all you've got to do is to make sure where he keeps his swag. Only do be quick about it! I can't stand much longer this crawling-on-the-stomach business so as not to scare your gentleman. What do you think a fellow is—a reptile?" ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... waltz was over I threw myself on a chair; my heart beat wildly: "Oh, heaven!" I murmured, "how can it be possible? Oh, superb monster! Oh! beautiful reptile! How you writhe, how you coil in and out, sweet adder, with supple and spotted skin! Thy cousin the serpent has taught thee to coil about the tree of life holding between thy lips the apple of temptation. Oh! Melusina! Melusina! The hearts of men are ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... dead; the snake had a poisoned arrow in his brain, which evidently had been shot at him by the poor little boy, whose blow-pipe was lying by his side. The snake must have struck the boy before it died, as we found a wound on the boy's neck. This reptile ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal. Many infidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally gazed on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restored the reptile's sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing is so well attested by the ancients as the existence of the basilisk, but the cocks ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... reptile and the fly, Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant And flower o' the field, are all in a common pact To worthily defend the trust of trusts, Life from ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... there was nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing which answered anything in himself with a smile of recognition; but he now looked again, and found something worse than emptiness. He found lurking in the obscure darkness a reptile with cruel fangs which at any moment might turn upon him when he was at his weakest and least able to defend himself. He had that in him by nature which would have prompted him to desperate deeds. He could have flung himself from her with a curse, or even have ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to a whale. Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though the creature encountered ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... no obvious reason why some animals excrete urea and others uric acid. As uric acid is a satisfactory and unirritating form in which waste nitrogen is expelled from the body of the active alert bird, as well as from the slow moving reptile, it is surprising if a very much smaller quantity acts as a poison in man. Many physicians are convinced that uric acid is absolutely unirritating. Uratic deposits may occur to an enormous extent in gouty persons without the occurrence ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... note below informed the public that 4 A.M. was the time. Hardly had the audience grasped this important fact when a long waterproof serpent was seen uncoiling itself from behind a stump. An inch-worm, perhaps, would be a better description, for it travelled in the same humpy way as that pleasing reptile. Suddenly a very wide-awake and active fowl advanced, pecking, chirping, and scratching vigorously. A tuft of green leaves waved upon his crest, a larger tuft of brakes made an umbrageous tail, and a shawl of many colours formed his flapping wings. A truly noble bird, whose legs had the ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... point of view, we may assert that he developed himself from the protoplasm of ignorance, and in the gloomy fog of fear and superstition grew by degrees into a formidable monster, being changed by the overheated imaginations of dogmatists into a reptile, an owl, a raven, a dog, a wolf, a lion, a centaur, a being half monkey, half man, till, finally, he became a polite and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... than aught else but his Whose echoes they are; yet all love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, 40 And its familiar voice wearies not ever. Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air, It makes the reptile equal to the God: They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now; but those who feel it most 45 Are happier still, after long sufferings, As I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... don't some of you shoot the reptile?" asked the colonel. "A fine lot of soldiers you are, I must say! Afraid of a snake! Where will you be when you go up against the Germans? Some one get a rifle ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... reptiles—alligators, huge bird-eating spiders, and snakes of many varieties. Snakes, both the poisonous and non-poisonous kinds, find here conditions precisely to their liking. The bush-master is met with in the more open places, and there are many that are venomous, but the most terrifying, though not a biting reptile is the water-boa, the sucuruju (Eunectes murinus) or anaconda. It lives to a great age and reaches a size almost beyond belief. Feeding, as generally it does at night, it escapes common observation, and white men, heretofore, have not seen the largest specimens ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... instant there is a flaw, a 'damned spot' to be concealed, it is glossed over with a doubtful name. Again, we dress up our enemies in nicknames, and they march to the stake as assuredly as in san Benitos.... Strange, that a reptile should wish to be thought an angel; or that he should not be content to writhe and grovel in his native earth, without aspiring to the skies! It is from the love of dress and finery. He is the Chimney-sweeper on May-day all the year round: the ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... rilato. religion : religio. remain : resti. remedy : kuracilo, rimedo. remember : memori. remove : translogx'igxi, -igi. rent : luprezo. repeat : ripeti, rediri. repent : penti. report : raporti; famo; (official) protokolo. represent : reprezenti. reptile : rampajxo. republic : respubliko. repugnance : antipatio. require : bezoni, postuli. resemble : simili. reserve : rezervi. resign : eksigxi. resignation : resignacio; eksigxo. resin : rezino. "-wood," keno. resolve : decid'i, -o; solvi. respect : respekti. responsible : (for), responda ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... symbol for Calli (House). The cross on the Palenque Tablet has so many features in common with those in the blue and red loops of the Fejervary Codex as to induce the belief that they were derived from the same type. We see in that of the Tablet the reptile head as at the base of the cross in the blue loop, the nodes, and probably the bird of that in the red loop, and the ...
— Notes on Certain Maya and Mexican Manuscripts • Cyrus Thomas
... amusing himself with their dying convulsions. He also frequently took pleasure in roasting them alive. He once received a present of a very large snake from some person who seemed to understand how to please this remarkable young prince. After a time, however, the favorite reptile allowed itself to bite its master's finger, whereupon Don Carlos immediately retaliated by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ancient Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name— But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of mortal life! For to this earthly frame Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... fangs of the rattlesnake, are happily more rare each year, since, as the country is becoming more populated, the crotalus is rapidly being exterminated. Yet, considering the recklessness which characterizes the cow boy in his treatment of this reptile, it is astonishing that this class of injury is not more common. Thus it is the invariable custom among the cattlemen to dismount and destroy these snakes whenever they are seen. This is readily accomplished, since a slight blow will break the back. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... The reptile press of the South began on the President a bitter, malignant and unceasing vilification for this, his first ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... to be careful," said Frank, as he kicked aside the still writhing body of the disgusting looking reptile. "There is just a chance that Muley-Hassan, with the cunning of an Arab, may have put several more of those customers in here ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Petrolacosaurus kansensis Lane, a Pennsylvanian reptile from Kansas. Univ. Kansas Paleont. Contrib., Vertebrata, Art. 1: 1-41. 1958. An embolomerous amphibian in the Garnett fauna (Pennsylvanian) of ...
— A New Order of Fishlike Amphibia From the Pennsylvanian of Kansas • Theodore H. Eaton
... laughing at me, at your master, you villain you wretch, you sickly hound, you priest-ridden worm! It is intolerable! It is the first time you have ever dared; do you think I am going to allow you to think for yourself after all the pains I have taken to educate you, to teach you my art, you ungrateful reptile?" ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... profound to permit of such a sentiment as hatred—one can scarcely hate that which one scorns—but whenever he came near her with his tobacco and spirit-laden breath, she was conscious of an inward shudder which closely resembled that with which she passed through the reptile house ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... out? Go by science into nature, and there's no proof of it; God never forgives what seems to be the mistake of even a reptile!" ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... was sitting in the garden, dozing, Egbert by my side, when I was awakened by a hoarse bark from my faithful companion, and, looking down, I perceived him hopping rapidly towards the pond, pursued by an enormous oojoobwa snake, a reptile not dangerous to man, being non-poisonous, but a great scourge among the minor fauna of Assam, owing to its habit of pouncing upon them and swallowing them alive. This snake is particularly addicted to bull-frogs, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... Clam, a Snail or a Cuttle-Fish,—or of the Articulate plan, without calling up at once the form of a Worm, a Lobster, or an Insect,—or of the Vertebrate plan, without giving it the special character of Fish, Reptile, Bird, or Mammal. Yet I insist that all living beings are but the different modes of expressing these formulae, and that all animals have, within the limits of their own branch of the Animal Kingdom, the same structural elements, though each branch is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... could not help feeling alarmed at the sight of this horrible reptile lying in his path, for he must either turn back or walk right over its body. He was a brave man, however, and putting aside all fear went forward dauntlessly. Crunch, crunch! he stepped now on the dragon's body, now between its ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... when it was evident that their calls were not going to be heeded. With that she threw a stone at the nearest alligator. Her aim was exceptionally good. Betty admitted that herself, afterward, the missile falling on the broad and scaly back of the reptile. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... Garden. At least this is not an unfair deduction from the scheme to instal a huge python in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park Corner. I do not profess to know much about snakes, but I believe the python is a most dangerous reptile, and I see it stated that the pythons which have just arrived at Regent's Park are "large and vigorous, already active and looking for food." Surely this monstrous suggestion, threatening the safety of the peaceful frequenters of the Park, calls for a national protest. Can it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... thread of our lives will spin out, Ere we ever again attempt such a rout. Alas! we must own we were never designed To flit in the sunshine, or soar on the wind; Nature's changeless decree has allotted its share To each beast of the field, to each bird of the air, To each reptile that creeps, to each insect that flies; And who dares to rebel against ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... something scientifick into the conversation, addressed him thus: 'Are you a botanist, Dr. Johnson:' 'No, Sir, (answered Johnson,) I am not a botanist; and, (alluding no doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I must first turn myself into a reptile.' BOSWELL. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... inject that amount of the culture corresponding to 1 per cent. of the body-weight of a healthy frog, into the reptile's dorsal lymph sac. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... is rotten! You are a traitor! What do you mean by talking to me of your master, you reptile! Your master is the German government, of which His Majesty the Kaiser is supreme overlord! There is a picture of your master!" He pointed with a thumb over his shoulder to the full-length atrocity in oils behind ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... measure. When the newspaper is brought in, I walk round and round it as a dog will do round the spot he is about to lie down upon. I would fain not touch it; but at last, like a fascinated bird who falls per force into the reptile's mouth, so do I plunge into its columns, read it with desperation, and when the poison has circulated, throw it away in despair. If I am reminded to say grace at dinner, I commence "My Lords, and gentlemen;" and when I seek my bed, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... an opera-glass, probably all our party on board the Rangoon would have been personal witnesses to the existence of a great sea-serpent. But, alas for romance! One glance through the lenses, and the reptile was resolved into a bamboo, root upwards, anchored in some manner to the bottom,—a "snag," ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... water—less for one swimming upon its surface. And the river is deep, its current rapid, the "reach" they are in, full of dangerous eddies. In addition, it is a spot infested, as all know—the favourite haunt of that hideous reptile the alligator, with the equally-dreaded gar-fish—the shark of the South-western rivers. All these things are in ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... this system of separate interests, I venture to aver that gentlemen would turn from them with disgust; aye, sir, they would shun them as they would shun man's worst enemy, and flee from them as from a poisonous reptile. (Page ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a good deal of pluck, I think, rushed into the shallow water and grabbed hold of their comrade. The snake did not let go, but the dress was torn from her body by the wrestle between the strength of the reptile and that of the four girls. I know one of the sisters quite well. She's an old woman, now, but she lives in Sangre ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and as the Bedouins do not like to expend a cartridge upon so small a bird, they are very bold. When we lighted our fire in the evening, I was startled by the cries of Hamd "to take care of the venemous animal!" I then saw him kill a reptile like a spider, to which the Bedouins give the name of Abou Hanakein [Arabic], or the two-mouthed; hanak meaning, in their dialect, mouth. It was about four inches and a half in length, of which the body was three inches; it has five long legs on both sides, covered, like the body, with ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... then, leaving my breast, departed with it. And at the very moment of the serpent's departure the day lost its brightness, and a thick shadow came behind me and covered me all over, and the farther the serpent crept, the more lowering grew the heavens, and it seemed almost as if the reptile dragged after it in its course the masses of thick, black clouds that appeared to follow in its wake, Not long afterward, just as a white stone flung into deep water gradually vanishes from the eyes of the beholder, so it, too, vanished from my sight. Then the heavens became darker and ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... them, and when they fall, as fall they must—I'll not attempt to give an idea of the utter desolation they leave, of the waste place they make of the heart, lest you should think I have thus humbugged myself; for self-humbug it certainly is; and this is the most intensely human. Not a fish, or reptile, bird, or beast; not a thing crawling, swimming, flying, or walking, but the human creature, humbugs himself. 'Man was made to mourn,' I would change into, Man was made to be humbugged. It is better to be greatly gullible, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... green reptile, looking like a miniature crocodile, disturbed by the lad's investigating hands, darted out from beneath the heath into the sunshine; and Mike snatched off his cap, and dabbed it over the little fugitive with so true an aim that as ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... was strolling about the encampment, he accidentally trod upon a rattlesnake, and the venomous reptile, sounding his rattle, made a spring and fastened his teeth into the boy's pants, just below the knee. I chanced to be looking towards him at the moment, and saw him, without the least hesitation ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... through the gateway of mathematics. The old antinomies of the infinite were, I imagine, the irritant that first woke his faculties from their dogmatic slumber. You all remember Zeno's famous paradox, or sophism, as many of our logic books still call it, of Achilles and the tortoise. Give that reptile ever so small an advance and the swift runner Achilles can never overtake him, much less get ahead of him; for if space and time are infinitely divisible (as our intellects tell us they must be), by the time Achilles reaches the tortoise's starting-point, the tortoise has already got ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Selina Jemima Townsend as she appeared when afraid. Afraid—of what? Why, a poor tiny reptile, a harmless frog, that had jumped into her hat full of daisies, with a croak, as much as to say—"How do you do? Good morning, Lady Townsend; I am glad to see you down in the country." But what do you think she did? Why, the little ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... the squire, with infinite satisfaction, "you've got it, you ungrateful brute! You've found something harder than your own head at last, you cursed reptile! Friend Crayon, that's a capital gun of yours, and you ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... saw that far behind rose the tufted tail of the king of the forest. From the two great eyes of the gigantic reptile shone dazzling streams of white light, like the rays of a mariner's beacon, and everywhere twinkling yellow lights were moving about the face of the great rock, across the platform whereon the colossal figure rested, even to the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... bird, not an insect, not even a reptile to be seen, the solemn, melancholy silence is unbroken by the voice of any living creature." From the summit of these hills the commander saw New Bay, that known as Admiralty, which communicates by a current with that in which the Astrolabe was anchored; and he was anxious to explore ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... consul for Rome, was warring against Carthage, a serpent suddenly crept out of the palisade of the Roman army and lay there. By his command the Romans slew the reptile and having flayed it sent its skin, a great prodigy, to the Roman senate. And when measured by the same senate (as the same Dio says) it was found to have a length of one hundred and twenty feet. In addition to its length its thickness was also notable. ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... a vicious little reptile he was," Beverly replied. "But Uncle Esmond told me that his father took him away early and had him schooled like a gentleman in the best Saint Louis had to give. I wonder whose company ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... terror and gloom in the frog world, every reptile winced and squirmed, when he heard of this new enemy. All crawlers, creepers, and jumpers had so long imagined that the land was theirs and had been made solely for their benefit! Nor did they know how to conquer the storks. The frog daddies could do nothing, and the frog mothers ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... of such glands; they vary in size according to the age of the reptile, but they are generally about as large as a hazel-nut, when dried. Two glands are situated in the groin, and two in the throat, a little in advance of the fore-legs. I have noticed two species of crocodiles throughout all the rivers of Abyssinia, and in the White Nile. One of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... with the hot stove around which we had congregated. But the stove was only an excuse for our listless, gregarious gathering; warmth and idleness went well together, and it was currently accepted that we had caught from the particular reptile which gave its name to our camp much of its pathetic, lifelong search for warmth, and its habit ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... twirling round his leg, and with a single vigorous movement, crushed the reptile's head. "Let him do so," he quietly assented. "Your god has been too slow. It is I who have decided the dispute, Now go," added he, addressing the crowd, "and tell everyone how ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... around the sliding door and thought herself unobserved, an expression of intense disgust came out upon her expressive face, and with her lace handkerchief she rubbed the hand he had kissed, as if removing the slime of a reptile; and the large mirror at the further end of the room had faithfully reflected the suggestive little pantomime. He saw and understood all ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the universe; and yet you have the folly to believe you are acquainted with the past, the present, and the future. I am an intelligence somewhat superior to you, though there are millions of beings as much above me in power and in intellect as man is above the meanest and weakest reptile that crawls beneath his feet; yet something I can teach you: yield your mind wholly to the influence which I shall exert upon it, and you shall be undeceived in your views of the history of the world, and of the system you inhabit." At this moment the ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... He stands, as one that in unwary guise, Has chanced on fell and poisonous snake to tread, Which, in the grass, opprest with slumber lies; And, pale and startled, hastens to retire From that ill reptile, swoln ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... caring to move out of the way of passers-by, as other snakes generally do; still, if not molested or trodden upon, it does not attack man. If any unfortunate creature, however, should be bitten by this reptile, death occurs in a few hours. When irritated or alarmed, this snake has the power of swelling out the whole body, from which fact ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... days began after the bookseller's agent came round, and teased my father into taking in the Penny Cyclopaedia; and those numbers in which there was a beast, bird, fish, or reptile were ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... The Age of Reptile developed a wide variety of monsters in the central regions of the continent from Montana to the Gulf of Mexico. The dinosaurs of the Triassic and Jurassic periods sometimes had gigantic size, the Brontosaurus attaining a length of sixty feet or more. The femur ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... nimble than the rest, and is now in my glove; to-morrow I will hang it, and before Heaven, if I had them, I would hang them all." "My lord," said she, "this is marvellous; but yet it would be unseemly for a man of dignity like thee to be hanging such a reptile as this. And if thou doest right, thou wilt not meddle with the creature, but wilt let it go." "Woe betide me," said he, "if I would not hang them all could I catch them, and such as I have I will hang." "Verily, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... with the poker next time he comes. I'll throw a kettle of boiling water on him as sure as eggs are eggs. Fancy the reptile leering around me: I felt nearly poisoned as it was, but I didn't know he was a murderer as well! Oh, the hide of him to come here! I really will throw boiling ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... to be—" But she could not tell her father of what nature was the message. "Father, he is a reptile. If you knew all, you would be unable to keep your hands from his throat. And now he dares to come here and talk to me of his affection. You had better bid him leave the room and have done ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... world, not those which have chanced to be the oldest not destroyed,—or the first which existed in profoundly deep seas in progress of conversion from sea to land: if they are first they give up. Not so Hutton or Lyell: if first reptile{118} of Red Sandstone really was first which existed: if Pachyderm{119} of Paris was first which existed: fish of Devonian: dragon fly of Lias: for we cannot suppose them the progenitors: they agree too closely ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... They pretended to turn water into blood, when there was not one drop of water in all the land of Egypt, which Aaron had not previously converted into that substance. They pretended to send frogs over the land of Egypt, when every corner of it was swarming with that loathsome reptile. It is further remarkable that, with the three first only of Moses's miracles they proposed to vie; on the appearance of the fourth, they fairly resigned the contest, and acknowledged very honestly that the hand of God was visible in the miracles of Moses;—a plain confession that no supernatural ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... namely, that those men and women, who do not even approximately fulfil the conditions of their elevated rank, who will not endeavour after the great human-divine idea, striving to ascend, are sent away back down to that stage of development, say of fish or insect or reptile, beyond which their moral nature has refused to advance. Who has not seen or known men who appeared not to have passed, or indeed in some things to have approached the development of the more human of the lower animals! Let those take care who look contemptuously upon the animals, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... children—emphatically the children, too—of the abominable French nation massacred off the face of the earth? This illustration of the new war- temper is artlessly revealed in the prattle of the amiable Busch, the Chancellor's pet "reptile" of the Press. And this was supposed to be a war for an idea! Too much, however, should not be made of that good wife's and mother's sentiments any more than of the good First Emperor William's tears, shed so abundantly ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... to petty perfidy, Have I not seen what human things could do,— From the loud roar of foaming calumny, To the small whispers of the paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... offered to help him. Just as soon as the animal was out of the water and placed on the platform, the pilot put his foot on his back. Then, closing the animal's massive jaws, he tried to tie his big snout tight with the rope. The reptile made a last effort, doubled up his body, struck the floor of the platform with his powerful tail and, breaking loose, made a leap into the water of the lake, on the other side of the weir, at the same time dragging with him his captor. It seemed that ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... world without ideas, yet with a capacity to receive knowledge of every kind, and is therefore capable, to a certain extent, of becoming intelligent and wise. An infant would take hold of the most poisonous reptile, that might sting him to death in an instant; or attempt to stroke the lion with as little fear as he would the lamb; in short, he is incapable of distinguishing a friend from a foe. And yet so wonderfully is man formed by his adorable Creator, that he is capable of increasing his knowledge, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... d'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne-Esperance" (Paris, 1842), pages 349 sq., 422-24.) A Mandingo porter has been known to offer the whole of his month's pay to save the life of a python, because the python was his totem and he therefore regarded the reptile as his relation; he thought that if he allowed the creature to be killed, the whole of his own family would perish, probably through the vengeance to be taken by the reptile kinsfolk of the murdered ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... As Kenabeek, the great serpent. Very crafty, very cunning, Is the creeping Spirit of Evil, Was the meaning of this symbol. Life and Death he drew as circles, Life was white, but Death was darkened; Sun and moon and stars he painted, Man and beast, and fish and reptile, Forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers. For the earth he drew a straight line, For the sky a bow above it; White the space between for daytime, Filled with little stars for night-time; On the left a point for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... nose Was like his mother's, skin was dark like hers. His shapely body, hands and feet belonged To some patrician face, not to Marat's. And his was like Marat's, fanatical, Materialistic, fierce, as it might guide A reptile's crawl, but yet he crawled to peaks Loving the hues of mists, but not the mists His father loved. And being a rebel soul He thought the world all wrong. A nothingness Moving as malice marred the life of man. 'Twas man's great work to ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... out of a purely quantitative difference in the visible manifestation of power, we are to infer a total inversion of quality—it is extremely difficult to see. Moses, we are informed, produced a large reptile; Jannes and Jambres produced a small one. I do not possess the intellectual faculty which would enable me to infer, from those data, either the goodness of the one or the badness of the other; and in the highest recorded manifestations ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... thy valiancy laid, or unhilted thy blade, When came onwards in battle array The sepulchre-swarms, ensheathed in their arms, To sack and to rifle their prey? How they joy in their spoil, as thy body the while Besieging, the reptile is vain, And her beetle-mate blind hums his gladness to find His defence in the lodge of thy brain! Some dig where the sheen of the ivory has been, Some, the organ where music repair'd; In rabble and rout they come in and come out At the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... court in a carriage made of gold and drawn by six white elephants; but wherever it appeared on the way, the people fled in terror at the sight of the fearful reptile. ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... capable. But, so fixed was its attention upon the still sleeping cub that it had heard nothing until the growl apprised it of the presence of danger; and then it was too late. The great paw fell upon the back of the reptile with a crash, shattering the bones and crushing the flesh into a pulp. Out of the cavity darted the arrow-shaped head, hissing and lunging frantically and blindly in all directions, while the latter half of the body writhed impotently and twisted ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... cet oiseau qui porte le tonnerre, Blesse par un serpent elance de la terre; Il s'envole, il entraine au sejour azure L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entoure. Le sang tombe des airs. Il dechire, il devore Le reptile acharne qui le combat encore; Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs; Par cent coups redoubles il venge ses douleurs. Le monstre, en expirant, se debat, se replie; Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie; Et l'aigle, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... Some have bought ermine, venal Honour's veil, When set by bankrupt Majesty to sale Or drew Nobility's coarse ductile thread >From some distinguished harlot's titled bed. Not thus ennobled Samuel!-no worth from his mud the sluggish reptile forth; No parts to flatter, and no grace to please, With scarce an insect's impotence to tease, He struts a Peer-though proved too dull to stay, Whence (885) even poor Gybbons is not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the woman in the dim background ceased her weird rubbing of the drum. Haddo seized the snake and opened its mouth. Immediately it fastened on his hand, and the reptile teeth went deep into his flesh. Arthur watched him for signs of pain, but he did not wince. The writhing snake dangled from his hand. He repeated a sentence in Arabic, and, with the peculiar suddenness of a drop of water falling from a roof, the snake fell to the ground. The blood flowed ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... Are the Reptile things not alive then? You think Pindar wrote that carelessly? or that, if he had only known a little modern anatomy, instead of 'reptile' things, he would have said 'monochondylous' things? Be patient, and let us attend to the ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... the Irishman with a sick horror, as if the big fellow were turning into a reptile before his eyes. On the face of Harrigan there was an expression like that of the starving man whom the fear of poison induces to push ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... said Livia. 'How strange, that Aurelian, who knows so well how to subdue the world, should have so little power to shake off this reptile.' ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... nothing at all! Only Miss Lacordere has been good to us—which it's more than can be said for everybody! (Scowls at MRS. C. JAMES proceeds to lift THOMAS. She flies at him.) Put the old gentleman down, you sneakin' reptile! How many doors have you been a hearkenin' at since mornin'—eh, putty-lump? You touch the old man again, and I'll mark you! Here, Bill! I'll take his head—you take his feet. We'll carry him ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... the shadows of that fairer Paradise which is our home, where there is no beast of prey, no venomous reptile, no sin. My child, should I not feel this more than you? Those who are shut up in crowded cities see but the work of man, which is evil. It is the compensation of my flight from Carthage that I am brought before the face ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the heat of my passion's abated, That the Dean hath lampoon'd me, my mind is elated:— Lampoon'd did I call it?—No—what was it then? What was it?—'Twas fame to be lash'd by his pen: For had he not pointed me out, I had slept till E'en doomsday, a poor insignificant reptile; Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious, Obscure, and unheard of—but now I'm notorious: Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one; The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one: If the end be obtain'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... letech.(554) And there were two chains to it, one by which the priest drew it down, and one by which he held it from above, that it should not be rolled about; and it was useful for three purposes, as a covering over the live coals, and as a covering over the reptile on the Sabbath, and it was also used to carry down ...
— Hebrew Literature
... dame Were base as spotted infamy! "And if they dare deny the same, My herald shall appoint a week, And let the recreant traitors seek 440 My tourney court—that there and then I may dislodge their reptile souls From the bodies and forms of men!" He spake: his eye in lightning rolls! For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned 445 In the beautiful lady the child of ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Doctor Nagoya, whom I could barely recognize in the inverted photography, seized one of the rattlers. It was a close-up and we could see the reptile dart out its forked tongue, seeking to get at the hands of the Japanese, locked firmly about its neck. Then another man walked into the picture, holding a jar. At once the snake struck at the glass. As it did so it was possible to see drops of the venom projected ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... Immoral! Still worse is it with your Bungler (Pfuscher): such I have seen reading some Rousseau, with pretences of interpretation; and mistaking the ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous reptile.' Was the Professor apprehensive lest an Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might mistake the Teufelsdroeckh Serpent-of-Eternity in like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? Or ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... prophecy and celestial description I was regaled as I completed my toilet, and I hurried out of doors for an opportunity to think without disturbance. Strolling past the henyard I saw a meditative turtle, and picking him up and shouting to my nephews I held the reptile up for their inspection. Their window-blinds flew open, and a unanimous though not exactly harmonious "Oh!" greeted ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... containing eight young birds. The serpent devoured them, and immediately afterwards seized and devoured the mother bird, which had been fluttering around the nest. Then suddenly, before the eyes of the astonished Greeks, the reptile turned into stone. Amazed at this occurrence, and believing it to have some connection with their expedition, the assembled chiefs asked the soothsayer Calchas to explain what it meant. The seer replied, telling them that it was a sign that the ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... right, mum," in a cringing tone, and left. She was a determined-looking woman, and Alligator's yellow eyes glared unpleasantly—besides, the dog's chawing-up apparatus greatly resembled that of the reptile ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... yes, and read in the dust how he had come at last and made the fateful step; but steel will break and iron will bend. The great Bear-trail was there to tell the tale: for a while he had raged and chafed at the hard black reptile biting into his paw; then, seeking a boulder, he had released the paw by smashing the trap to pieces on it. Thenceforth each year he grew more cunning, ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever seen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile reptile! atheist!" they cried, "you pollute ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner
... of him." Quick as thought he stooped down, seized firm hold of the snake by the tail, and, whirling him rapidly round his head three or four times, he dashed him against the boards of the hut and let him drop, crushing the reptile's head with his boot-heel. The snake was four feet six inches in length, and said to be of a ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... threw a beam, long and bright, that burrowed into the black void far in front. But for this and the few red-glowing chinks in her firebox and the thunder of the wheels, the freight might have been some phantom reptile rushing through the land with two red eyes ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... trip. Paul had snug quarters and spent much of his time feeding the red birds and playing with his alligator. He saw great fun ahead in the tricks he hoped to spring on his sisters and friends with the cunning little reptile. Whenever the boat made a landing, he was always on deck watching the negroes, as they rolled bales of cotton down the steep bluffs or struggled with the refractory hogs who refused to come aboard. The loud commands and fierce oaths of the mate made ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Christian Church. He felt sure of sympathy and succor from this source. The Church had stood through the centuries as a refuge for the unfortunate and afflicted. But, alas! the Church shrank from the Negro as if he had been a reptile. If he gained admission it was to the "Negro pew" in the "organ loft." If he secured the precious "emblems of the broken body and shed blood" of his Divine Master, it was after the "white folks" were through. If the cause of the Negro were mentioned in the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... differentiation further and further back, prior to segmentation and, according to some, in the very protoplasm itself. Nothing could be more inaccurate than to say "every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile before arriving at that of a mammal and finally of man." [64] All that can be truly said is that the embryonic man is at certain stages not superficially distinguishable from the embryonic fish—quite a different thing, and no more significant than that the adult man possesses organs ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Illakaree did not form an attractive object in the lovely landscape surrounded by hills, in and out amongst which the Reptile River ran, for a building hastily raised of corrugated iron never was ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... comes on, and the warm sun bursts forth, a formidable snake-like creature, nearly three feet in length, is often seen frequenting the plantations of the sweet potato, or coiled up beneath the roots of an old tree; its keen eye watching for any small reptile or insect which may be passing. The head is small in proportion to the body, and of a pyramidal form—mottled at the sides with black and green, the jaws edged with yellow. Its abdomen is bright yellow; and the upper part of the ear is marked with numerous lines ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... a treasonable ambition. In the State where he had found his chief support, he ever after ranked in infamy next to Benedict Arnold. Thenceforth he became a stranger and a wanderer on the face of the earth. His friends left him and society shunned him. "I have not spoken to the damned reptile for twenty-five years," said former ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and wished him anywhere but where he was. It seemed an age that I thus lay, not daring even to draw a breath. I felt at last that I must give up the contest. I prayed for mercy. The oppression on my chest became almost insupportable. Still I dared not move. The deadly reptile stretched out its head—slowly it began to uncoil itself—the dread sound of its rattle struck my ear. I felt that now I must muster all my nerve and resolution, or be lost; the huge reptile stretched itself out and slowly crawled on—oh, horror!—it passed ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... my body turn into worms, but deliver me [from them] even as thou didst deliver thyself. I beseech thee, let me not fall into rottenness as thou dost let every god, and every goddess, and every animal, and every reptile to see corruption when the soul hath gone forth from them after their death. For when the soul departeth, a man seeth corruption, and the bones of his body rot and become wholly loathsomeness, the members decay piecemeal, the bones crumble into an inert mass, ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... a man-Folk on board who had caught, and wanted to carry to a great park in some far-distant land, a crocodile. Boo! a great sea-reptile that I wonder any one should want to have around, even as a curiosity. It had been taken from the river Nile in Egypt, much farther up the Mediterranean borders than I had ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... Provence is an old turtle! Not exactly a reptile, for there is food in him. But of a devilish flat head and cruel ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... acquire, but to attract a short-liv'd admiration, which, when I am truly known, will be succeeded with an adequate derision:—Could I but say I was descended from honest, tho' mean parents, I would not murmur at my fate, but I have none,—none to own me;—I am a nothing,—a kind of reptile in humanity, and have been shewn in a genteel way of life only to make my native misery ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... him by the arm). Stay! who is the bride-groom? Speak, reptile, speak! Who? When? Reply, thou ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... weapon with which he conquered all obstacles in science was patience. He knew how to sit immovable, a part of the rock he rested on, until the bird, the reptile, the fish, which had retired from him, should come back, and resume his habits, nay, moved by curiosity, should come ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... pale with fury, and, finding Ryder near the door, shrieked out, "Take that reptile to his den, if he is mean enough to lie in this house,"—then, lowering her voice, "and bring Thomas ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... Bacchus, notwithstanding its plastic superiority, rather inclines that way. The Apollo has been loudly extolled for the pride of its attitude and its divine calm in the encounter with the serpent Python; and still it is said that "a god could not have cause for so great pride in the conquest of a reptile." But the art-critics have exaggerated the import of the figure, which is wonderfully beautiful without being accurately expressive. The civilization of the new era has developed in man moral and physical qualities, which furnish new expressions ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... see if the reptile would surface again, sighted another object, a rounded shape floating on the sea, bobbing lightly as had ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... despatched on a trifling commission to one of his estates, my presence being an obstacle to his designs; for poor and despised as I was, Gomez Arias nevertheless looked upon me with a feeling of dread. He could crush the reptile, but he feared the sting. I was strong in my very weakness, for as I had but one solitary motive to link me to life; that being removed, my oppressor felt aware my life would then only serve as the price by which I was to ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... words, the infernal crew joined with Kifri, and all at once pronounced in harsh discordant sounds, "Tremble, vile reptile, for ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep, and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... me," he said. "Your sympathy is for Oscar. He is the victim; he is the martyr; he has all your consideration and all your pity. I am a coward; I am a villain; I have no honor and no heart. Tread Me under foot like a reptile. My misery is only what I deserve! Compassion is thrown away—isn't it?—on such a scoundrel as ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... knees, and wound her arms about him in a convulsive grasp: he shook her off with loathing, as if a poisonous reptile had ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... nice clean bandages and an attendant sitting daintily on his chest. When he saw me he calmed down and dismissed the menagerie for the nonce. 'Dearie,' he said, taking my shrinking little hand in his, 'it was awful. It's only by mere chance that you find me custodian of this Reptile Bazar instead of one of these "mangled remains" things. It was this way. I had been down to the bar lapping up a few drinks and pretty soon a band comes up the street. I go out to look it over and there is nothing in sight, so I go back and get Arthur to mix me up another to see ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes A visitor unwelcome into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, The chamber, or refectory, may die. A necessary act incurs no blame. The sum is ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... believe that miserable reptile, instead of this honest man? Beside, think of the illogical position. If this man is a spy, you have to admit that there is a war between your people and his, ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... then, like one frantic, made an effort to snatch the creature away from me. The viper now hissed amain, and raised its head, in which were eyes like hot coals, menacing, not myself, but my brother. I dropped my captive, for I saw my mother running towards me; and the reptile, after standing for a moment nearly erect, and still hissing furiously, made off, and disappeared. The whole scene is now before me, as vividly as if it occurred yesterday—the gorgeous viper, my poor dear frantic brother, my agitated parent, and a frightened hen clucking ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... soothe her fears no one but himself ever knows. She, too, has been picking berries, and has come suddenly upon a monster snake just gliding from a cedar bough almost over her head. When her fright subsides he at once hunts for and kills that reptile with far more satisfaction than he ever felt in killing one before. It is an ungrateful return, for although the boy knew it not, the snake has done him a greater kindness than he ever realized. Then when all danger is removed, how sweet it ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... undulations, from the direction of the mountains. Oceaxe knelt down on the bank, and peered into the depths. Presently her look became tense and concentrated; she dipped her hand in and pulled out some sort of little monster. It was more like a reptile than a fish, with its scaly plates and teeth. She threw it on the ground, and it started crawling about. Suddenly she darted all her will into her sorb. The creature leaped into the air, ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... was undiscovered, the Dahcotah raised his person again, and bending forward, he moved his dark visage above the face of the sleeper, in that sort of wanton and subtle manner with which the reptile is seen to play about its victim before it strikes. Satisfied at length, not only of the condition but of the character of the stranger, Mahtoree was in the act of withdrawing his head, when a slight movement of the sleeper announced the symptoms of reviving consciousness. The ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... saved my life. I would never have seen the reptile in time," the Hermit said feelingly, as he patted the head of the gratified dog. The rattles were carried home as trophies and the love between man and dog was deepened, if such a ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... whether a book is good or bad, without reading it?" There is always something suspicious about a bad book. I never knew an exception. Something suspicious in the index or the style of illustration. This venomous reptile almost ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... place, and be sure no other Guinea-pigs or Tadpoles come near it. Then put it in a clean gown, and quickly, before it can get at the ink, put it in a large glass bottle and fasten down the stopper. Label it, 'Specimen of a curious reptile formerly found at Saint ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... suddenly threw aside these infamous letters as she would have thrown off some venomous reptile and ran to the window and began to cry piteously. Then, collapsing, she sank down beside the wall, and hiding her face in the curtain so that no one should hear her, she sobbed bitterly as ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the last of the fields in his sight. "And one of them was less nimble than the rest, and is now in my glove; to-morrow I will hang it." "My lord," said she, "this is marvellous; but yet it would be unseemly for a man of dignity like thee to be hanging such a reptile as this." "Woe betide me," said he, "if I would not hang them all, could I catch them, and such as I have I will hang." "Verily, lord," said she, "there is no reason that I should succor this reptile, except to prevent discredit unto thee. Do ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... manner in which frogs, lizards, and birds invade the privacy of one's apartments. Not one of these is harmful, but one naturally grows curious about whether a cobra or some other less desirable member of the reptile world is not likely at any time to join their interesting company. The lizards scale the walls and ceiling in search of flies, frogs hop sociably about the floor, and a sparrow now and then twitters ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Reasons, it is impertinent to ascribe to the Diety. Our Thoughts of God should be as worthy of him as we are able to frame them; and as they can not be adequate to his Greatness, so they oughts at least to be abstract from every Thing that does or can belong to silly, reptile Man: And it is sufficient, whenever we venture to speak of a Subject so immensly far beyond our Reach, to say, that there is a perfect and compleat Goodness in the Divine Nature, infinitely surpassing not only the highest Perfection, which the most virtuous Men can ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the mentality of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance by a thousand grades; but in the matter of the morals which they left us we have gone backward as many grades. That evolution is strange, and to me unaccountable and unnatural. Necessarily we started equipped with their perfect and blemishless morals; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that fatal day that we espied a long blue line crawling serpent-like around a distant hill. Silently we watched, as it uncoiled itself, ever drawing nearer and still nearer, until the one great reptile developed into many reptiles and took the form of men. Men in blue tramping everywhere, horsemen careering about us with no apparent object, wagons crashing through fences as though they had been made of paper. The negroes stood like dumb things, in stupid dismay. ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... crocodile, and played touchingly on the piano, after which it again changed into a table, but the gin, the whisky, the pale ale, and the other intoxicants which are indispensable at seances in England, had been entirely consumed by the transcendental reptile to fortify him on his return journey to the mud-banks of the Nile. Nor has the spontaneous apparition been wanting to complete the experiences of Dr Bataille. He was seated in his cabin at midnight pondering ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... believe his wolfish genealogy. The must savage animals are capable of affection for those to whom they have been accustomed, and by whom they have been well treated, and therefore we give full credit to several accounts of this sort related of the wolf, the lion, and even the cat and the reptile: but in no other animal—in no other, even in the genus 'Canis'—do we find the qualities of the domestic dog, or the slightest ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... package that came last night?" inquired Eleanor, as they were sitting down to breakfast. Maria shuddered, as though something loathsome had crossed her. She shook off the reptile thought, which had all the character of some crawling and offensive thing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... reptile to the bird is no great distance. Then the Wood-pigeon's iridescent hues, the eyes on the Peacock's tail, the Kingfisher's sea-blue, the Flamingo's carmine are more or less closely connected with the urinary excretions? ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... filth, and fever. Think, too, of my father set against me, of the Mischianza business,—but for that I blame him not,—and, last, of his involving me in the vile net of Arnold's treason. I could as soon forgive a snake that had bit me as this reptile. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... rendered "himself odious to a greater portion of the citizens of this community," and why should Fraser's Magazine, three thousand miles away, call Cooper "a liar, a bilious braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a grub, and a reptile"? ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... yesterday I took a turn in Medicis' kitchen, I suppose the reptile accidentally fell into my pocket; these creatures are very short-sighted. Since I have got it," added he, "I should like to keep it. I will tame it and paint it red, it will look livelier. I am sad since Phemie's departure; it will be a companion ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... Dunston Porter hurried back to one of the bungalows. He reappeared with a shotgun, and lost no time in making for the vicinity of the rock where the reptile had been seen. In the meanwhile the four boys rejoined Luke and Shadow, and all swam back to ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... it. I, who had been so witless as to let this come upon us! Moa's weapon prodded me. Her voice hissed at me with all the venom of a reptile enraged. "So that was your game, Gregg Haljan! And I was so graceless as to admit ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... the orient mists, when the chief of the three black slaves once more stood in the presence of the grand vizier, who had passed the night in the anteroom, alone, and a prey to the most lively mental tortures. So noiselessly and reptile-like did the hideous Ethiopian steal into the apartment, that he was within a yard of the grand vizier ere the latter was aware that the door had even opened. Ibrahim started as if from a snake about to spring upon ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the vertebrate series have risen through the fish, the reptile, the mammal, to man, unless the manward impulse was inherent in the first vertebrate; something that struggled, that pushed on and up from the more simple to the more complex forms? Why did not ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... for doubting, his entrance into that crypt had disturbed the repose of a snake of some description; for now he could feel the loathsome reptile crawling slowly up his back, turning the skin beneath to scorching ice in ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr. |
