"Serpentine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... do not think you are wise to have asked a large circle of distinguished French sporting friends to bring their rods over with a view to salmon-fishing in the Serpentine. Trout, there may be; no doubt, there are, but we have some doubts about salmon. Your suggestion that if you can't get a rise you might perhaps "bang away" at the waterfowl, certainly has a more promising sound, but we would advise ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... white serpentine phosphorescent pathway, I thought of the countless wakes that had been made in like manner since vessels sailed upon the seas, on their way to different lands, for thousands of years past, yet not one of those tracks has ever ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... their destination, was now exactly above their heads. The last ascent boldly skirted the shoulder of the mountain, and then doubled upward in a series of serpentine coils. Below them the whole of Lake Garda was spread like a map. Mr. Wilder and the Englishman, having paused at the edge of the declivity, were endeavouring to trace the boundary line of Austria, and they called upon the officers for help. The two relinquished ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of serpentine aloes without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July—you then perceive it gradually ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... flowed like water over the edge of the precipice on either side, and fell with a thudding sound into the unmeasured depths beneath. And this was but a little thing, a mere forerunner, for after it, with a slow, serpentine movement, rolled the body of ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... implements I specify an ax of serpentine, ten inches long, two thick, and four broad, having plain sides and a straight edge ground down on both of the flat faces; hatchets ("tomahawks") of green stone, flint, and diorite, from five to eight inches long, with rounded faces and sides, contracted ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... probably describe as the "sister" stuff when the gentleman emerges in his natural colours. That is what makes the story-book Southerner so fiery. Place these complex characters in an imaginary Carribean Republic, a sort of transpontine Ruritania; add a revolution fostered by the serpentine diplomats of a European power; let the American eagle issue a few screams, and there you have the environment in which The Unspeakable Perk lives and moves and has his unreal being. The keynote of SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS' story is what the Perk person would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... extent of Kensington Gardens, when reckoned together with Hyde Park, from which it is separated only by a fence of iron rods, is very great, comprising miles of greensward and woodland. The large artificial sheet of water, called the Serpentine River, lies chiefly in Hyde Park, but comes partly within the precincts of the gardens. It is entitled to honorable mention among the English lakes, being larger than some that are world-celebrated,—several miles ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... edge of the cliffs or the plains, but we saw two snakes of very distinct kinds, each exceeding five feet in length; the one black with a yellow belly, the other green and black, but they quickly escaped into holes, leaving a serpentine impression of their bodies upon the sand. These marks were seen and remarked near the edge of all the holes, which were very numerous upon the surface of the island, before I discovered that they were the tracks of reptiles, from which it may be inferred ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... devious and serpentine paths by which love finds the way to its ends. It had not occurred to him to approach her with those secret tones and stolen looks which speak for themselves. She answered with the straightforward directness of which ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... imagine," writes Sir Alexander Burnes, "a plain about twenty miles in circumference, laid out with gardens and fields in pleasing irregularity, intersected by three rivulets which wind through it by a serpentine course, and dotted with innumerable little forts and villages, he will have before him one of the meadows of Cabul." To complete the picture the reader must conceive the grey barren hills, which, contrasting strongly with the fertility of the plains they encompass, ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... either be a thing by courtesy, as an air of Handel's, or else a solid, tangible object, as a piano or an organ, but always the thing must be linked on to matter by a longer or shorter chain as the case may be. I was thinking of this once while walking by the side of the Serpentine and, looking round, saw some ducks alighting on the water; their feet reminded me of the way the sea-birds used to alight when I was going to New Zealand and I set to work recalling attendant facts. Without help from outside I should have ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... we were ascending to its source was called the Araheoa. It was a rushing, noisy torrent, winding along a deep and narrow gorge, which in places almost met overhead. Some patches of olivine and serpentine encouraged me to think that we should find a heavy belt of the rock somewhere along the upper part of the valley, but my hopes were not realized. Day after day passed, and I found no more of it. When my companions washed the sands of likely stretches of river beach for fine ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... building, and was paved with variegated tiles; while the stained-glass doors of the dining-room, with its lofty frescoed ceiling and deep bow-windows, led by two white marble steps out on the terrace, whence two more steps showed the beginning of a serpentine gravel walk winding down to an octagonal hot-house, surmounted by a richly carved pagoda-roof. Two sentinel statues—a Bacchus and Bacchante—placed on the terrace, guarded the entrance to the dining-room; and in front of the house, where a sculptured ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... that part of the coast which is the scene of my story. Lantrig, as I have said, looks down upon Ready-Money Cove from the summit of Pedn-glas, its northern arm. The cove itself is narrow, running in between two scarred and rugged walls of serpentine, and terminating in a little beach of whitest sand beneath a frowning and precipitous cliff. It is easy to see its value in the eyes of smugglers, for not only is the cove difficult of observation from the sea, by reason of its straitness and the protection of ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... anything for himself,' he deemed it prudent to make a precipitate retreat. And the upshot of the matter was, that a lawyer's letter came next day, and an action was commenced next week; and that Mr. Augustus Cooper, after walking twice to the Serpentine for the purpose of drowning himself, and coming twice back without doing it, made a confidante of his mother, who compromised the matter with twenty pounds from the till: which made twenty pounds four shillings and sixpence paid to Signor Billsmethi, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... do not consider how much we have wound about. We have taken such a very serpentine course, and the wood itself must be half a mile long in a straight line, for we have never seen the end of it yet since we ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the lawn from the direction of the Serpentine; he looked unusually alert, vigorous, and bustling; by his side, hurrying to keep pace with him, was the New York detective. And Fullaway's keen eyes, roving about, fell on Allerdyke and the chief and he made through the crowd in their ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... of Schooley's mountain, distant at least forty miles. Others had no known type nearer than Connecticut, in the opposite direction, while the gneiss and mica slate of the island of New-York, with their various embedded minerals, the serpentine and many of the magnesian minerals of Hoboken, with sandstone and trap of the Pallisadoc range, were distinctly recognisable. In this great excavation, where a region of a mile square was wholly removed, to a depth, in many places, of thirty feet, no animal remains, as far as can ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... cross this quivering wavering bridge in the total darkness? Beneath our feet it swayed and leaped like rotten ice on the magic Serpentine. ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... is the famous Apsley House presented by the nation to the Duke of Wellington. At Cumberland Gate was Tyburn. The "Ring" near Grosvenor Gate was the scene of gallantries of the days of Charles II.; of late it has been devoted to the games of gamins and street urchins. The Serpentine is a rather suggestively and incongruously named serpentine body of water, which in a way serves to give a variety to an otherwise ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... is the loved one's face? In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign! O enemy sly and serpentine, Uncoil thee from the waking man! Do I hold the Past Thus firm and fast Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? This path so soft to pace shall lead Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed! Or narrow if needs the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... 1778 to 1781. His work must have shown considerable power to be hung beside the canvases of Reynolds, Romney, and Hoppner; but at the later date of 1784 his exhibited drawings—"Vauxhall Gardens," "The Serpentine," and "An Italian Family"—show already a tendency to the lighter side of art, and between the above date and 1787 the direction of his art has changed in ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... proclaimed regent. The Queen-dowager was wise and good, and tried her best to make her people happy. The only thing she had to vex her was the absence of her daughter; for the fairies, for reasons of their own, determined to bring up the little Princess Serpentine among themselves. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... wears out, take serpentine braid and stitch it across twice on the sewing machine. This makes the hem look neat and last a ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... a somewhat warlike expression, wherein consisting it would have been difficult to say; nor could it ever have been capable of much defence, although its position in that regard was splendid. In front was a great gravel space, in the centre of which lay a huge block of serpentine, from a quarry on the estate, filling the office of goal, being the pivot, as it were, around which all ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... in buttons did not feel like a god, so Michael made no attempt to explain his feelings to him, but followed him meekly enough down the trail of the serpentine staircase. He had no notion where or at what level he was. He was still full of the cold splendour of space, and of what a French writer has brilliantly named the "vertigo of the infinite," when another door opened, and with a shock indescribable he found himself on the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... language a sufficiency of words to express the baseness of your king, his ministry and his army. They have refined upon villany till it wants a name. To the fiercer vices of former ages they have added the dregs and scummings of the most finished rascality, and are so completely sunk in serpentine deceit, that there is not left among them ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Caroline especially showed her regard for the spot by exercising her taste in beautifying it according to the notions of the period. It was she who caused the string of ponds to be united so as to form the Serpentine; and he modified the Dutch style of the gardens, abolishing the clipped monsters in yew and box, and introducing wildernesses and groves to relieve the stiffness and monotony of straight walks and hedges. The shades of her beautiful maids of honour, "sweet Molly Lepell," Mary ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... in his pocket for a pencil, produced the rump thereof, spread the letter upon his knee, and began writing on the back of it. It was like an internal surgical operation, for his tongue protruded as he wrote, marking his progress by a series of serpentine writhings that suggested ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... river's mouth. They operate to remove the place of deposition further out, and into deeper water. Bars, however, act as breakwaters in most instances, and consequently secure smooth water within them. The deposit in all curvilinear or serpentine rivers will always be found at the point opposite to the curve into which the ebb strikes and rebounds, deepening the hollow and depositing on the tongue. Therefore if it be deemed advisable to change the position of a bar, it may be in some ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... fanatics. A California graduate, his companion along the cocktail route, recognized him; immediately, he was riding shoulder high. His bearers broke for the sidewalk, and down Market Street he went, a blue-and-gold serpentine dancing behind him. There was his first Jinks at the Bohemian club—an impromptu affair, thrown in between the revelling Christmas Jinks in the clubhouse and the formally artistic Midsummer High Jinks in the Russian River Grove. The Sire, noting his smile and figure, ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... magnificent thoroughfare of trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur, proudly flaps his tail at Paducah! . . . SIR, the ball is in motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread plain. Yes, Sir, and it will ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... been seen flying over the Serpentine. Most of the snap was taken out of the performance by the fact that none of them delivered The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... whirled and mounted and fell like the illumined filmy skirts of some invisible Titanic serpentine dancer, madly pirouetting across a carpet of stars. Then suddenly it all fell into a dull ember-glow and flashed out. The ragged moon dropped out of the southwestern sky. In the chill of the night, gray, dense fog wraiths crawled upon the hidden face ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... There was serpentine wisdom in these words, for their very vagueness attracted German liberals. Wilson did not demand a republic; he did not insist upon the Kaiser's abdication, for which Germany was not then prepared; all that he asked was a government responsible to the people, and more and more the ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... observed the inscriptions and remarkable figures on that elegant and extraordinary structure; ascended to the top, and there enjoyed one of the most magnificent views I ever beheld, embracing all Paris and its environs for many miles, the day being cloudless; the serpentine Seine, the richly cultivated country, its parks, its gardens, its arcades of trees, its villas, churches, colleges, hospitals, palaces, squares, and monuments, together with the elegant Tuileries, the noble Louvre, the magnificent Champs Elysees, the playing fountains, the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... has been erected in the south aisle of the Choir. A little further southward is a monument erected over the grave of Dr. Mill, Canon of Ely, and Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge, who died in 1853. It is an altar tomb of serpentine and alabaster, ornamented with marble mosaic and polished stones, bearing a recumbent effigy of Dr. Mill in his robes; at the feet are two kneeling figures, one an oriental character, and the other a student; the figure is in copper and was formed by the electrotype process. It ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... opened from the sea between towering cliffs, and behind a lonely rock, pierced with many caves and blow-holes through which the sea in storm time sent its thunderous voice, together with a fountain of drifting spume. Hence, it wound westwards in a serpentine course, guarded at its entrance by two little curving piers to left and right. These were roughly built of dark slates placed endways and held together with great beams bound with iron bands. Thence, it flowed up the rocky ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... not really a bridge at all. It was only the eastern extremity of the Serpentine; but as the boy leant over the stone balustrade, and gazed upon the artificial flood, broadening out indefinitely in the darkness, it might have been the noblest river in the world. Its banks were muffled in a feather boa of trees, bedizened by a chain of many lights; ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... men who were drowned in the Serpentine in the presence of a crowd, out of which no one moved for their rescue?" it may be asked. "What about the child which fell into the Regent's Park Canal—also in the presence of a holiday crowd—and was only saved through ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... favoured the Puckeridge hounds, it comes about that most of his landscape backgrounds are views in Hertfordshire. And when he preferred the more sober delights of the Row—not the same Row we now scamper along from Hyde Park Corner, but the old one along by the Serpentine, and, for a time, in Kensington Gardens—his tall graceful figure always attracted attention; and when he mounted his pony, which he called "Red Mullett," people who recognised him would turn and remark that Mr. Punch had come out for ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... is under three-quarters of a mile. This small point rises abruptly out of the depths of the ocean. Its mineralogical constitution is not simple; in some parts the rock is of a cherty, in others of a felspathic nature, including thin veins of serpentine. It is a remarkable fact, that all the many small islands, lying far from any continent, in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, with the exception of the Seychelles and this little point of rock, are, I believe, composed either of coral or of erupted ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... said. All peered around. None saw anything but the upstanding roots, the forest jumble, the misty serpentine lianas. None heard any sound but their own hoarse breathing, the solemn drip of water, the insect hum, and the occasional melancholy notes of birds. The place seemed bare of life. Yet upon McKay came again ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... in his own way," said the stork-father. "Swans fly slantingly, cranes in triangles, and plovers in serpentine windings." ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... group of statuary, and a very strange one; executed, as I first believed, in some kind of wax—but, pushing my researches (for the thing interested me) I found the material to be a white soapstone that crops out here and there in the crevices of our serpentine. Indeed, I know to a foot the spot from which the sculptor took it, close on two ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... note-book, the store in which he laid by for occasions of use the thoughts that thronged upon him, now feverishly, as with the exultant leap of a rough-coated canine companion, released from the thraldom of chain and kennel, and eager to seek the Serpentine haunts of water-nymphs, and of sticks that fell with a splash, and are brought back time and again whilst the shaken spray bedews the onlookers; now with the staid and solemn progression that is beloved of the equine drawers of four-wheeled chariots, protesting ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... following minerals produce slags only with soda: stilpnosiderite, plombgomme, serpentine, silicate of manganese (from Piedmont), mica from granite, pimelite, pinite, blue dichroite, sphenc, karpholite, pyrochlore, tungstate of lime, green soda tourmaline, ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... smooth turf. In one place clusters of rare and deeply crimsoned snapdragons, in another patches of aromatic thyme and wild strawberries keep up the charm of the place. As we draw nearer to the Tower the ground is laid out in a wilder and more picturesque manner, the walks are more serpentine. We turned a corner, and Mr. Beckford stood before us, attended by an aged servant, whose hairs have whitened in his employment, and whose skill has laid out these grounds in this beautiful manner. Mr. Beckford welcomed me in the kindest way, and immediately began pointing out the various ...
— Recollections of the late William Beckford - of Fonthill, Wilts and Lansdown, Bath • Henry Venn Lansdown
... goods in the cold, or at a lukewarm heat, when the supply of hot water can be drawn from a separate boiler. When, however, it is necessary to work at the boil, then the vat must be fitted with a steam coil. This is best laid along the bottom in a serpentine form. Above the pipe should be an open lattice-work bottom, which, while it permits the free circulation of boiling water in the vat, prevents the material being dyed from coming in contact with the steam pipe. This is important if uniform shades are to be dyed, ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... Tom got to the home of the water babies, in Saint Brandan's fairy isle, he found that the isle stood all on pillars, and that its roots were full of caves. There were pillars of black basalt and pillars of green and crimson serpentine; and pillars ribboned with red and white and yellow sandstone; and there were blue grottoes and white grottoes, all curtained and draped with seaweeds, purple and crimson, green and brown; and strewn with soft white sand, on which the water babies ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... olivine, augite or felspar in a finely crystalline groundmass. Olivine and augite are the commonest porphyritic minerals in basalts, the former green or yellowish (and weathering to green or brown serpentine), the latter pitch-black. Porphyritic plagioclase felspars, however, are also very common, and may be one or two inches in length, though usually not exceeding a quarter of an inch; when fresh they are dark grey with smooth lustrous cleavage ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... dozen clocks in the vicinity. The crowd, gathered from the four quarters of the globe, was in holiday humour, as, glass in hand, it fell into line, until each received the water doled out by uniformed officials. Occasionally a dispute as to precedence would take place when the serpentine procession filed up the steps of the old-fashioned belvedere; but quarrels were as rare as a lean man. A fat crowd is always good-tempered, irritable as may be its individual members. Hugh Krayne kept in position, while two women shoved ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... wooden roofs— The little white houses. The clatter of hoofs, And the music of wandering bands, up the walls Of the steep hanging hill, at remote intervals Reached them, cross'd by the sound of the clacking of whips, And here and there, faintly, through serpentine slips Of verdant rose-gardens deep-sheltered with screens Of airy acacias and dark evergreens, They could mark the white dresses and catch the light songs Of the lovely Parisians that wander'd in throngs, Led by Laughter and Love through the ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... everywhere we looked, the dry leaves were rustling and coiling with them; and we were in despair. In vain we said that they were harmless as kittens, and tried to persuade ourselves that their little bright eyes were pretty, and that their serpentine movements were in the exact line of beauty; for the life of us, we could not help remembering their family name and connections; we thought of those disagreeable gentlemen, the anacondas, the rattlesnakes, ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... They might judge of the long curvature of the conformation of the range just here, for on the opposite height was visible at intervals the road they had traveled, winding in and out among the trees, ascending the mountain in serpentine coils; they beheld the Cove beneath from a new angle, and further yet the barren cherty slope on which, despite the distance, the witch-face could still be discerned by eyes practiced in marking its lineaments, trained to trace the popular fantasy. ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... only does the mighty ocean obey this wonderful influence in the ebb and flow of its tides, but the Earth, as she rotates upon her axis, obeys this mighty power and manifests in her depths and heights in her serpentine movement ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... suit, shall die." (Now pray don't let this hurt you!) Although the time be out of joint, I should not think a bodkin's point The sole resource of virtue; Nor shall I, though your mood endure, Attempt a final Water-cure Except against my wishes; For I respectfully decline To dignify the Serpentine, And make hors-d'oeuvres for fishes; But if you ask me whether I Composedly can go, Without a look, without a sigh, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Bah! One would think, ARTHUR, we belonged to that society of lunatics who make a point of taking a matutinal plunge in the Serpentine every morning, all the year round, even if they have to break the ice to do ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... sold by auction during the Commonwealth, but resumed by the Crown at the Restoration, and in 1670 was enclosed with a brick wall and restocked with deer, who have left their traces in the name of Buck Hill Walk and Gate, close to the east bank of the Serpentine. This prettily-laid-out area, formerly known as Buckden Hill or the Deer Paddock, is now tenanted only by ...
— Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... little of Mary in her kindly moods. But this noble face was of marble, and never changed; Mary's changed every hour, so that the soft expression when it came seemed doubly sweet. By-and-by she walked away towards the bridge over the Serpentine, and in the narrow path, thickly bordered with trees and shrubs and late flowers, she stepped aside to make room for a lady to pass, who held by the hand a little angel-faced, golden-haired child, dressed in a quaint pretty costume. The child stood still ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... are emblematic of this sea-girt city, down to the grosser products of yesterday. Of marbles I have found cipollino, pavonazzetto, giallo and rosso antico, but no harder materials such as porphyry or serpentine. This, and the fact that the mosaics are pure white, suggests that the houses here must have dated, at latest, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... more we kept on in our serpentine course, for the river meandered as whimsically as if it still had a choice of its own in the matter. Then gradually the land about began to make overtures toward sociability. The trees on the banks disappeared, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... don't need practice and I'd like to preserve the beautiful illusion that maybe I could crack your shield if I wanted to. I'll work on Miss Snake-Hips here, the serpentine charmer—but say, I'll bet there's a bone in it. You can block ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... stood out against the sky in odder and more grotesque shapes than by daylight. A host of seamews were fluttering about and uttering the most unearthly hootings, but the sea was as yet quite calm, save where it broke in wavering, serpentine lines over the submerged reefs which encircle the island. The tidal current was pouring rapidly through the very narrow channel between Sark and the little isle of Breckhou, and its eddies stretching to us made it rather an arduous task to get Tardif's boat on shore safely. But the ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... done at twenty-six; but now her knowledge of the world was small, her enthusiasm great—and evidently she believed in Harriet's faithlessness—so that love added to the impatience of youth, which could not foresee the dreadful future. Without doubt, could they both have imagined the scene by the Serpentine three years later, they would have shrunk from the action which was a strong link in the chain that ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... says that I committed an economy in placing in my original title-page, that the question between him and me, was whether "Dr. Newman teaches that Truth is no virtue." It was a "wisdom of the serpentine type," since I did not add, "for its own sake." Now observe: First, as to the matter of fact, in the course of my Letters, which bore that title-page, I printed the words "for its own sake," five times over. Next, pray, what kind of a virtue is that, which is not done for its ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of an essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a hundred guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging himself into the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but for the help of Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced Sir Philip Baddely, a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of sense" with an oath, to endeavour to cut him out by ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... was not drawing against his superior. He was hacking at something ropy and writhing that squirmed on the ground as the lieutenant's blade bit into it. Within seconds, the serpentine thing gave a convulsive ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... calcareous rocks bordering the Gulf of Spezia, and abounding in Oolitic fossils, assume a texture like that of Carrara marble, in proportion as they are more and more invaded by certain trappean and Plutonic rocks, such as diorite, serpentine, and granite, occurring in ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... moments when, in the analysis of so intricate and elaborate a thing as "reality" by means of so intricate and elaborate an instrument, as the complex vision, the most genuine and the least artificial of philosophies must appear to be following a devious and serpentine path. ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... his nose down the first tortuous street into which his irresponsible feet conducted him. At the lower end of it, on the bank of the serpentine stream, he perceived an open gate in a cemented rock wall. Inside he saw camp fires and a row of low wooden sheds built against three sides of the enclosing wall. He entered the enclosure. Under the sheds many horses were champing at their oats ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... indentation of the multitudinous body, and the rebound into its original position, gave an undulating appearance to the compact mass—reeking, dragging, groaning, and buzzing as it was, that resembled the serpentine motion of a rushing water-spout ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... for Confirmation and Baptism and Holy Communion classes, and so nice for me. Some ladies in Melbourne give a velvet altar cloth, Lady S. in Sydney gives all the white linen: our Communion plate, you know, is very handsome. Some day Joan must send me a solid block of Devonshire serpentine for my Font, such a one as there is at Alfington, or Butterfield might now devise even ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... denotes the passive nature or female principle or the emblem of water. The third symbol indicates the destroyer, the reformer or the renewer, (the uniter of the two) and thus the preserver or perpetuater eternally renewing itself. The universality of serpentine worship (or Phallic adoration) is attested by emblematic sculptures or architecture all ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... here. But you almost want taking care of." Then the tree was forgotten, and the Hellenic beauty reigned over her spirit, as she gazed upon the immense pastoral bounded by mountains and the sea; a green wilderness threaded by a serpentine river of silver—a far-flung river which lingered on its way, journeying hither and thither, making great curves as if it loved the wilderness and wished to know it well, to know all of it before being merged irrevocably with ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... pilastered precipices near Fort William. Copper[155] abounds in this region to an extent, perhaps, unsurpassed any where in the world. At the Coppermine River, three hundred miles from the Sault de St. Marie, this metal, in a pure state, nearly covers the face of a serpentine rock, and is also found within the stone in solid masses. Iron is abundant in many parts of Upper Canada; at Charlotteville, eight miles from Lake Erie, the metal produced is of a very fine quality. The Marmora Iron Works, about thirty-two miles ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... of several internodes, the lower ones bend together at the same rate, but one or two of the terminal ones bend at a slower rate; hence, though at times all the internodes are in the same direction, at other times the shoot is rendered slightly serpentine. The rate of revolution of the whole shoot, if judged by the movement of the extreme tip, is thus at times accelerated or retarded. One other point must be noticed. Authors have observed that the end ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... executioner had lifted his sword with both hands. The sound of a dull blow was heard, and next second the head of the Queen's faithful servant rolled across the polished floor, while from the decapitated trunk the blood gushed forth and ran in an ugly serpentine stream over the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... garden used for the tir de l'arc, of which the Vaudois, in common with the other Helvetic people, are extremely fond. On the right hand side of the road is a deep ravine planted in the style of an English garden, with serpentine gravel walks, and on the other side of the ravine stands the upper part of the city, the Cathedral, Hotel de Ville, and the Chateau du Bailli, which is the seat of Government. From the terrace of the Cathedral you enjoy a fine view, but a still finer and far more comprehensive ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... himself in company with Mr. Barrallier set off to join Paterson. They found the country level and swampy near the river, but with delightful views in the distance. "The river took a serpentine course, and for many miles appeared to be as broad as the Thames at Kingston. From the marks on the trees it would seem that it is subject to be greatly overflowed at times. The cedar (or rather the mahogany of New Holland) appeared ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... to go as I would to my own king, who was the greatest in all the world and, pulling off my hat, he threw a piece of cloth round my shoulders and we went on. About a quarter of a mile farther towards the hills, through a delightful shade of breadfruit trees, we stopped at the side of a small serpentine river: here I was in view of a house on the other side at about fifty yards distance. From this house the young king was brought out on a man's shoulders, clothed in a piece of fine white cloth, and I was desired by Tinah to salute him by the name of Too Earee Rahie. The present ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... London, you must come here on a fine summer day in June, at about four o'clock, and you will gaze on the finest and gayest equipages of England. A very pretty piece of water is in this park, which is called "the Serpentine River." The best skating of London is to be seen here, we are told, in hard winters. The entrance from Piccadilly is by a fine threefold arch. Here is the great Achilles of bronze, in honor of Wellington, made out of the cannon which ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... I'm going; but there's your gents as goes and breaks the ice in the Serpentine, and them as goes to be cooked in a hoven, and shampooed; and you pull your strings and has it in showers, and your hot waters and cold waters; but this gent seems to have liked his stronger than anyone I ever knowed afore. I say, ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... bluff in the wilderness—the enamelled prairie, the thousand grassy hills that were visible, with their golden heads and long deep shadows, (for the sun was setting,) and the Missouri winding in its serpentine course, the whole scene was of the most beautiful and tranquil kind. The soft whispering of the evening breeze, and the distant, subdued and melancholy howl of the wolf, were the only sounds that reached my ears. It was a very solitary, and ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... feet long may be called a toy ship, but it is a toy that can teach much to an Admiral, and I should not like to have as my comrade on a voyage the man of forty who can pass the Serpentine without a glance at the little ragged urchin there, who is half in the water himself while he reaches with a twig his tiny lugger after its long voyage across the lake among ducks, and row-boats, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... is a red-brick edifice (temp. Elizabeth, 1587), consisting of two Tudor wings, connected by a central block designed by Inigo Jones. The most noticeable objects in the entrance corridor are a fine pair of columns of Cornish serpentine, nearly ten feet high, tapering from a base some two feet square. The white veining of the steatite (soapstone) is in beautiful contrast to the rich red and black colours of the marble. These columns were purchased at the great Exhibition ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... only a few days ago, had looked out upon life a marvellous panorama of life and colour and things beautiful, that death after all was the one thing to be desired. Yet he carried himself bravely through those evil days. Every morning he stripped and swam in the Serpentine, stiff enough often after a night spent out of doors, but ever with that vigorous desire for personal cleanliness which never left him even at the worst. As soon as his clothes fell into rags about him he presented the strange appearance of a tramp whose face ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... Kieff he came, and Kieff waited for him, quite motionless, with thin lips drawn back, showing a snarling gleam of teeth. But just as Burke reached him he moved. His right arm shot forth with a serpentine ferocity, and in a flash the muzzle of ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... hence, from them, the straits frequently receive the name of the Dardanelles. This strait is thirty-three miles long, occasionally expanding in width to five miles, and again being crowded by the approaching hills into a narrow channel less than half a mile in breadth. Through the serpentine navigation of these straits, with fortresses frowning upon every headland, one ascends to the Sea of Marmora, a vast inland body of water one hundred and eighty miles in length and sixty miles in breadth. Crossing this sea to the northern shore, you enter the beautiful straits ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... man spoke of much that passes nowadays for criticism. He said Hazlitt was exactly the opposite of Lord Chesterfield, who advised his son, if he could not get at a thing in a straight line, to try the serpentine one. There were no crooked pathways in Hazlitt's intellect. His style is brilliant, but never cloyed with ornamentation. Hazlitt's paper on Gifford was thought by Procter to be as pungent a bit of writing as had appeared in his day, and he quoted this paragraph as a sample of its ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... power to contribute to the gratification of the prevailing passion; then take the next best to your aid. There are many avenues to every man; and when you cannot get at him through the great one, try the serpentine ones, and you will arrive ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to Death. What solace have the gods for such as thou, That is not stabbed by this one thrust through me? From this black hour, this curse anointing hour, The currents of thy heart are all corrupt; The motions of thy thoughts are serpentine; And thy death-doing and bedabbled soul Is maculate with spots of Erebus. Aye me!—and yet—Oh that I should say so! Thou wast a noble scroll of Beauty's pen, Where every turn was grandly charactered. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... luck, Doris found her godmother, perching in London between a Devonshire visit and a Scotch one. They talked long, and Doris walked slowly home across the park. A glory of spreading sun lay over the grassy glades; the Serpentine held reflections of a sky barred with rose; London, transfigured, seemed a city of pearl and fire. And in Doris's heart there was a glory like that of the evening,—and, like the burning sky, bearing with it a promise of fair days to come. The glory and the ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... the Ballantrae region there is a remarkable development of volcanic rocks—lavas, tuffs and agglomerates—of Arenig age, their horizon being defined by graptolites occurring in cherty mudstones and black shales interleaved in lavas and agglomerates. These volcanic materials are pierced by serpentine, gabbro and granite. The serpentine forms two belts running inland from near Bennane Head and from Burnfoot, being typically developed on Balhamie Hill near Colmonell. Gabbro appears on the shore north of Lendalfoot, while on the Byne ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... carried with rude daubs of red and black, to imitate the spirits of the earth and air on whom he relied for aid in the coming fight. Noiselessly the Indians proceeded along the banks of the river, trailing in a serpentine course among the rocks so as to avoid being seen upon the higher ground. They seemed to Hearne to have been suddenly transformed from an undisciplined rabble into a united band. Northern and Copper Indians alike were animated by a single purpose and readily shared with one another ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... necessary to look carefully for a bit of smooth ground on the shore, far enough above the water to be dry, and slightly sloping, so that the head of the bed may be higher than the foot. Above all, it must be free from big stones and serpentine roots of trees. A root that looks no bigger that an inch-worm in the daytime assumes the proportions of a boa-constrictor at midnight—when you find it under your hip-bone. There should also be plenty of evergreens ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... climbed slowly up, for a whole day, first along the highroad, sometimes above and sometimes below the twisting, serpentine railway, then afterwards along a path on the side of the hill—a path that went through the crew-yards of isolated farms and even through the garden of a village priest. The priest was decorating an archway. He stood on a chair in the sunshine, reaching up with a garland, whilst ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... seems to shoot out a thousand serpentine heads or knots of water, which wriggle down deliberately through the air and expend themselves in mist before half the descent is over. Then a new set burst from the body and sides of the fall, with the same fortune on the remaining distance; and thus the most ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... bright little mountain stream, whose wild spirit the villagers of Lasgird have curbed and tamed for their own benefit, by turning it from its rocky, precipitous channel, and causing it to descend the hill in a curious serpentine ditch. The contour of the ditch is something like this: ; it brings the water down a pretty steep gradient, and its serpentine form checks the speed of its descent to an uniform and circumspect pace. The road ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... except in Devonshire, where everybody doted on him. He was "a man of desperate fortunes," and he did not shrink from violent methods. In studying his life we are amused, we are almost scandalised, at his snake-like quality. He moves with serpentine undulations, and the beautiful hard head is lifted from ambush to strike the unsuspecting enemy at sight. With his protestations, his volubility, his torrent of excuses, his evasive pertinacity, Sir Walter ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the book, with one knee bent and one leg hanging down—somewhat in the attitude of the amazons of Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne on horseback. She was so small that her swinging foot did not reach the table, over which the trail of her dress extended in a serpentine line. But her face and figure were those of an adult. The fulness of her corsage and the roundness of her waist could leave no doubt of that, even for an old savant like myself. I will venture to add that she was very handsome, with a proud mien; for my iconographic studies ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare engineer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little little less-than-little wit from them that they have! which short-arm'd ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their massy irons and cutting the ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... he did so, and ordered the porter up to the house. The magnificent avenue was a serpentine one, and our friends had barely time to get out of sight of the lodge, by a turn in it, when they heard the voices of the pursuers, hallooing for the porter, and ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... striving so frantically? Above the apex of the pyramid, amid the sheen of the lightning, was revealed a vast figure, naked and indeterminate, dim and yet seeming of a denser texture than the most abysmal beasts, a figure at the same time human and serpentine, that twisted in attitudes of human anguish, yet appeared, like a maddened serpent, to ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... fountain, and, by its margin, seated on a delicate Persian carpet, a venerable Turk. Some slaves were near him, one of whom, at a little distance, was playing on a rude lyre; in the master's left hand was a volume of Arabian poetry, and he held in his right the serpentine tube of his narghileh, or Syrian pipe. When he beheld me, he saluted me with all the dignity of the Orient, pressing his hand to his heart, but not rising. I apologised for my intrusion; but he welcomed me with serene cordiality, ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... and not tease them, for 'thaay be God's creeturs.' Or possibly the pastor himself may be overheard discoursing to a bullet-headed woman, with one finger on the palm of his other hand, 'That's their serpentine way; that's their subtlety; that's their casuistry; which arguments you may imagine to refer, as your fancy pleases, to the village curate, or the tonsured priest of the monastery over the hill. For the tonsured priest, and the monastery, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... the fair Imperia established in her hotel, for she was flying from Rome as from a pernicious place, where children were begotten, and where she had nearly spoiled her beautiful figure, her celebrated perfections, lines of the body, curves of the back, delicious breasts, and Serpentine charms which placed her as much above the other women of Christendom as the Holy Father was above all other Christians. But all her lovers knew that with the assistance of eleven doctors of Padua, seven master surgeons of Pavia, and five surgeons ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... latter of which there was a grand display of fireworks; while, still further to amuse the John and Jenny Gulls of the cities of London and Westminster, there was a sham naval engagement got up on the Serpentine River, representing a battle between the British and American fleets. Of course the British fleet was victorious, and the Americans struck their colours, amidst the huzzas and shouts of the family of the Gulls, who, having for nearly a quarter of a century been gulled out ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... and banging it upon her head, he held his arm about her heaving breast, as she turned to him with a serpentine movement of voluptuous delight. ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... doing justice in his appearance to his sixteen years, if there was one accomplishment in which Johnny Liston was a proficient, it was swimming. Living in the neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens, he had made a habit of going into the Serpentine every morning during the summer months, and sticking at it as long as the weather permitted, although he did not go to the lengths of some intrepid bathers, and have the ice broken for him in winter; and by constant practice, and imitating the best swimmers amongst whom ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... an immense height, and then tinkled back into the central reservoir. On either side of the court a tall, graceful palm-tree shot up its slender stem to break into a crown of drooping green leaves some fifty feet above their heads. All round were a series of Moorish arches, in jade and serpentine marble, with heavy curtains of the deepest purple to cover the doors which lay between them. In front, to right and to left, a broad staircase of marble, carpeted with rich thick Smyrna rug work, led upwards to the upper storeys, which were arranged around the central court. The temperature ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Flame, rising on a sudden, moving with great Velocity through the Air, according to any Determination upwards from the Earth horizontally, obliquely, downwards in a right Line, or in several right Lines as it were in serpentine Tracts joined at various Angles, and commonly ending with ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... finding himself ignored and left out of the conversation, had apparently determined to amuse himself in his own way. He had meandered back and forth across the road, as was shown by the serpentine character of his tracks; now, catching sight of a tempting stalk of mullein by the fence, he had walked across the gutter and was just stretching his head forward to seize the coveted morsel, when Mrs. Adams interrupted ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... valley of the Aar. That is the name of the stream which flows through it. It is one of the most remarkable valleys in Switzerland. I have been studying it in the guide book and on the map. It is about fifty miles long, and it winds in a serpentine manner between two lofty ranges of mountains, so steep and high that it is not possible to make any road ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... great quantity of hornblende, partly decomposed, a little quartz, and a reddish-white feldspar seldom crystallized. This fine syenite, the strata of which incline to the north-west, alternates twice with serpentine. The layers of intercalated serpentine are three toises thick. Farther south, towards Regla and Guanabacoa, the syenite disappears, and the whole soil is covered with serpentine, rising in hills from thirty to forty toises high, and running from east to ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... side of you rise high ranges of beautifully wooded hills; here and there a cottage peeps out among the trees, the winding path that leads to it being now lost to sight in the thick foliage, now visible again as a thin serpentine line of soft grey. Midway on the slopes appear the gardens of Looe, built up the acclivity on stone terraces one above another; thus displaying the veritable garden architecture of the mountains of Palestine magically ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... tiger, softly, and went out awestruck, holding her hand, and paddling three steps to each of her serpentine glides. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... had not the gardener, whose patience was quite exhausted, and who had never heard of the Red-Cross Knight and his achievements, dragged me away to a sunburnt, contemptible hillock, commanding the view of a serpentine ditch, and decorated with the title of Jardin Anglois. Some object like decayed limekilns and mouldering ovens, is disposed in an amphitheatrical form, on the declivity of this tremendous eminence: and there is to be ivy, and ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... monte-dealers, duellists, carriers of conceal'd weapons, deaf men, pimpled men, scarr'd inside with vile disease, gaudy outside with gold chains made from the people's money and harlots' money twisted together; crawling, serpentine men, the lousy combings and born freedom-sellers of the earth. And whence came they? From back-yards and bar-rooms; from out of the custom-houses, marshals' offices, post-offices, and gambling-hells; ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... across the room toward a low opening. Just before they struck the wall upon either side of the doorway the great wings snapped shut, the fins retracted, and the long and heavy body struck the floor of the passage without a jar. With a wriggling, serpentine motion he sped like a vibrant arrow along the hall and into a wardroom. There, after a brief glance around the room, he coiled up beside a fellow officer who, with one eye, was negligently reading a scroll held in three or four ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... was becoming deplorable; the Home Secretary had been chased into the Serpentine; the Prime Minister and a dozen members of Parliament had taken permanent refuge in the vaults of the Bank of England; a vast army of suffragettes was parading the streets of London, singing, cheering, and eating bon-bons. Statues, ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... there is no limit to the number of times the eight-bar measure may be played—or rather, the limit is set according to the fancy of the leader, for he may, if he pleases, and if the audience manifests no impatience, lead his side back and forth in a serpentine track, round and round for ever so long, till finally they wind ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... Poor Phil was fourteen when he was drowned. Under the ice on the Serpentine. He had just been licking me for boning a strap of his skate. I was doing the best way I could without it ... to get mine on, you see ... when I heard a stop in the grinding noise—what goes on all day, you know—and a sort of clicky slooshing, and I ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... formed part of the river's bed, which is indicated by the nature of the soil. The bluffs and bottoms invariably alternate; and when you have bluffs on one side, you are sure to have bottom on the other. The windings are extremely uniform, with few exceptions, curving in a serpentine form in so regular a manner, that the Indians always calculated the distance by the number ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... serpentine path which was bordered with masses of brilliant chrysanthemums, Beryl walked rapidly, feeling almost stifled by the pressure of contending emotions. Recollecting that these spice censers of Autumn were her mother's favorite flowers, she stooped and broke several lovely clusters ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... trunks, and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres, serpentine, Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved— Nor uninformed with Phantasy and looks ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... time. It must have been my eloquence, the power of my dramatic art to so vividly portray the hideous Hosley that she became quite as much affected as if she had intimately known the criminal, and had followed his creeping, serpentine ways for bringing the next creature into his power. It rather pleased me to find that I could exercise this wonderful influence—a force so long latent in a superior intellectual equipment, obscured by a disenchanting personal appearance, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... are so strongly chosen that they are a great element in his great plays. And a translation at best is something of a parody, especially a translation from a northern tongue, with its force and backbone, so to speak, into a southern, serpentine, gliding language. You have heard the absurd rendering of that passage from Macbeth where the witches salute him with 'Hail to thee, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!' into such French as 'Comment vous portez vous, Monsieur Macbeth; ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... full-length of Captain Coram at the Foundling. On the other hand, he says a great deal about Hogarth which has no very obvious connection with History Painting. He discusses the Analysis and the serpentine Line of Beauty with far more insight than many of its author's contemporaries; refers feelingly to the Act by which in 1735 the painter had so effectively cornered the pirates; and finally defines his satirical pictures succinctly ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... with the lower world. The modern carriage road runs from the Messina gate, and, quickly dropping behind the northern spur, winds in great serpentine loops between the Campo Santo below and old wayside tombs, Roman and Arabic, above, until it slowly opens on the southern outlook, and, after two miles of tortuous courses above the lovely coves, comes out on the main road ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... this welcome fete champetre during three consecutive years), the elite of the Quebec beau monde left the city to attend Sir James Craig's kind invitation. Once opposite Powell Place (now Spencer Wood) the guests left their vehicles on the main road, and plunged into a dense forest, following a serpentine avenue which led to a delightful cottage in full view of the majestic St. Lawrence; the river here appears to flow past amidst luxuriant green bowers which line its banks. Small tables for four, for six, for eight guests are laid out facing the cottage, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... transfigured by the new-born light from heaven. The white chalkstone glitters from afar; the light grey feldspar assumes a warm flesh tint; the limestone becomes straw color; the crystals of hornblende flash like fire-flies; and the veins of white quartz, running with their nodules of serpentine and chlorite through the dark clay-slate, gleam as do chain lightnings through ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... river view at this point is somewhat marred by the wooden piers and quays that line it on either side, and the floating houses, representing elongated A's. From the deck, at a convenient height above the level of the river and the narrow serpentine canals and creeks, we looked down upon conical roofs thatched with attaps, and diversified by the pyramids and spires and fantastic turrets of the more important buildings. The valley of the Meinam, not ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... little with his presence. He became a cardinal, and in 1316 was elected Pope at the conclave of Lyons. He at once dropped down the Rhone, and fixed the seat of his pontificate at Avignon. Able, learned though he was, he was not above the superstitions of his age. He had been given a serpentine ring by the Countess of Foix, and had lost it. He believed that it had been stolen from him wherewith to work some magic spell against his health. The Pope pledged all his goods, movable and immovable, for the safe restoration of his ring: he pronounced ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... are called, occupy the whole of Capo Corso and the east of the island. They consist of talcose-schiste, bluish-grey limestone, talc in beds, serpentine, black marble similar to the oldest in the ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... traceable shows where the Avon wends its way thence towards Severn, till Bredon Hill hides the sight both of it and Tewkesbury smoke: just below on either side the Broadway lie the grey houses of the village street ending with a lovely house of the fourteenth century; above the road winds serpentine up the steep hill-side, whose crest looking westward sees the glorious map I have been telling of spread before it, but eastward strains to look on Oxfordshire, and thence all waters run towards Thames: all about lie the sunny slopes, lovely of outline, flowery and sweetly grassed, dotted ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... fine fellow, which gave a serpentine sort of a wriggle, and regained the water in ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... audibly utters, with bared head, some growl of rugged prayer, far from orthodox at times, but much in earnest: that lifting of his hat for prayer, is his last signal on such occasions. He is very cunning as required, withal; not disdaining the serpentine method when no other will do. With Friedrich Wilhelm, who is his second-cousin (Mother's grand-nephew, if the reader can count that), he is from of old on the best footing, and contrives to be his Mentor in many things besides War. Till his quarrel with Grumkow, of which we shall hear, he ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle |
