"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... son of a seventh son, he was himself a wonder of wonders. The story ran that he could even cure the "shingles," which is a very troublesome disease. It is called also by a Latin name, which means a snake, because, as it gets worse, it coils ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... of screams—cries of men in stress, traveling thinly over the distance. Scott checked at it as a horse checks at a snake in the road, for the cries had a note of wild ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... husbands regarding the unfortunate and disappointing results of too much drink, particularly when it led the men to go out and shoot at Indians—and miss them. [Long continued laughter.] It is supposed that these men, like many others, generally began drinking on account of the bite of a snake, and usually had to quit on account of attacks ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... desire to sweep off my old friends with the old year, and begin the new with a clean record. It is a measure absolutely necessary. The snake does not put on his new skin over the old one. He sloughs off the first, before he dons the second. He would be a very clumsy serpent, if he did not. One can not have successive layers of friendships any more than the snake has successive ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... and unless Adam's age be thrust back to a distance which no ingenuity can torture the letter of Scripture into recognising, men and women lived and died upon the earth whole millenniums before the Eve of Sacred History listened to the temptation of the snake. Neither has any such deluge as that from which, according to the received interpretation, the ark saved Noah, swept over the globe within the human period. We are told that it was not God's purpose to anticipate the natural course of ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... this respect, but highly obliges us. We have heard his envoy, and considering the circumstances we are in, we think it right so to do. We have resolved to give an account of this matter to the King, which is but reasonable; some imagine that we propose to send the original decree, but here lies the snake in the grass. I protest, monsieur," added he, turning to the First President, "that the members did not understand it so, but that the copy only should be carried to Court, and the original be kept in the register. I could wish there had been no occasion for explanation, because ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... then forced open its mouth with a stick and plucked out the tongue, which he supposed to be the sting, with his fingers; "by which act," he says, "had not God been merciful unto me, I might, by my desperateness, have brought myself to an end." If this, indeed, were an adder, and not a harmless snake, his escape from the fangs was more remarkable than he himself was aware of. A circumstance, which was likely to impress him more deeply, occurred in the eighteenth year of his age, when, being a ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... record of applied science, it becomes us not to report the chatterings of these two till they reached the base of the vast brick chimney, towering nearly eighty feet into the air above them. Its long shadow lay like a stiffened snake upon the fields, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... he answered. "My book shows more than two pints last month, and my journey was costly. To make both ends meet I shall have to wriggle," he added jestingly, "like the snake that tries to get its tail in its mouth." He cut open a packet, discovering that a friend had sent him some conserve of red roses from Amsterdam. "Now am I armed against fever," he said blithely. Then, with a remembrance, "Pray take some up to our poor Signore. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... silence devouring bread and jam at the housekeeper's well-spread table, with his own ears he heard her dare to speak of the Grand Old Man as "that there Gladstone," and the butler, an imposing gentleman in black, actually described him as "a snake in ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... in the chase over the Pampas, had Dick Venner felt such a sense of life and power as when he struck the long spurs into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving a wound behind it,—sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale explosion,—is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm the hand of man. The old Romans ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... going to a big meetin' we heared som'in rattling in the weeds. It was a big snake, it made a track in the dust. When we got home missis asked me if I killed any snakes. I said to missis, snake like to got ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... raised his foot on a rock, exposing his boot-leg. The veteran Husky began to yeh-yeh! He understood. Standing off about twenty-five feet, he gathered the lash up; then, swinging the handle around his head, let the long thong go circling around him like a black snake. Faster and faster revolved the black gyres,—twenty times, I have no doubt. Presently he fetched a snap. The black thong shot out like lightning. Thut! A bit of the leather flew up, spinning in the air. Donovan caught away his leg with a profane exclamation. We crowded round. There ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... possible results to himself personally; and a little after eleven o'clock, that good man, at peace with all the world—calm and serene—retired to repose. He had that night rather a singular dream; it was of a snake encircling a monkey, as if in gentle and playful embrace. Suddenly tightening its folds, a crackling sound was heard; the writhing coils were then slowly unwound—and, with a shudder, he beheld the monster licking over ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... heedless of the sarcasm, was already engaged in an exhaustive examination of Agatha's dress. She crossed the room and delicately rectified some microscopic disorder of the snake-like hair. With a final glance up and down, she crossed her arms at her waist and ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... a squarer hit. The pigskin spirals over the fence and plunks Mr. Maxwell Tincup smack on the side of the head. The blow's so unexpected it knocks the nozzle of the hose out of his hands and before anybody can say "Ask me another!" the hose squirms around like a snake and soaks him from head to foot. Mr. Tincup begins yelling like he's in the middle of the ocean, going down for the last time. It takes him a couple of seconds to get on to what's hit him, but the minute he sees the ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... to deal with, and Theodore Roosevelt has shown his bravery by the way in which he speaks of them in his accounts of outdoor life. He says to a man wearing alligator boots there is little danger, for the fang of the reptile cannot go through the leather, and the snake rarely strikes as high as one's knee. But he had at least one experience with a ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... of green (hoist side), white, and red; the coat of arms (an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake is its beak) is centered in the ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of its contents; on the other hand it was violently assailed. The Jesuit pulpits resounded with abuse of it and of its author. All Paris was disturbed by the noise which it made. “There must be a snake in the grass somewhere,” it was wittily remarked, “for the Jesuits were never so excited when only the glory of God was at stake.” The learned Petavius, and even the Prince de Condé, did not disdain to mingle in the combat. For a time Arnauld seemed to triumph, but finally the influence of Rome was ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... enervated, I remember chuckling to myself, with great gratification, "I have done it—I have done it!" There was a degree of pleasure in having put my foot on the head of the tyrant who had so long led me captive at his will, but although I had "scotched the snake," I had not killed him, for every inch of his frame was full of venomous vitality, and I felt that all my caution was necessary to prevent his stinging me afresh. I went home, retired to bed, but in vain did I try to sleep. I pondered upon the step I had taken, and passed a restless night. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... the river which, sparkling and bright, wound through the green plain like a silver snake. Smaller hills covered with forests fell away on all sides and the tops of the trees caught the radiance of the sinking sun. Over the snow-fields of the further mountain-ranges, a rosy shimmer spread that made him think of the peach blossoms at home; a purple mist obscured the rocky ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... large snake which entangles itself round the legs of the cow so that it cannot move and then sucks it, in such wise that it almost dries it up. In the time of Claudius the Emperor, there was killed, on the Vatican ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... our throats. To do so would imply some desire and feeling, and we have no desire and no feeling; we are only cold. We do not wish to live, and we do not wish to die. One day a snake curls itself round the waist of a Kaffer woman. We take it in our hand, swing it round and round, and fling it on the ground—dead. Every one looks at us with eyes of admiration. We almost laugh. Is it wonderful to risk that for which we ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... on in a jiffy; and when she had several on, she would press a lever, and a stream of sausage meat would be shot out, taking the casing with it as it came. Thus one might stand and see appear, miraculously born from the machine, a wriggling snake of sausage of incredible length. In front was a big pan which caught these creatures, and two more women who seized them as fast as they appeared and twisted them into links. This was for the uninitiated the most perplexing work of all; for all that ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... from his boyhood. After his return from the chase, he was in the habit of cutting the throats of hares and other animals, and of 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... them to us, and He gave us the power to endure the cold and the rain. The clouds above are His, and they are shelter and warmth enough for us. He will not deceive and rob us. The white man is faithless; with two tongues he speaks: like the snake, he shows these before he bites. Never again shall the white man's house open for me, or the white man's roof shelter me. I have lived his enemy, and his enemy I will die." The grunt of approval came ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, For it was just at the Christmas time; So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 100 And sought for a shelter from cold and snow In the light and warmth of long-ago: He sees the snake-like caravan crawl O'er the edge of the desert, black and small. Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 105 He can count the camels in the sun, As over the red-hot sands they pass To where, in its ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... let a slow smile spread over his face. "You've been gulling me, you snake. All right; I deserved it. Tell ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... on a stool by her grandmother, under penalty of being sent off to bed if she disturbed her father, sprang up with a little cry of gladness, and running up to Ambrose, entreated for the tales of his good greenwood Forest, and the pucks and pixies, and the girl who daily shared her breakfast with a snake and said, "Eat your own side, Speckleback." Somehow, on Sunday night she had gathered that Ambrose had a store of such tales, and she dragged him off to the gallery, there to revel in them, while his brother remained with ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... knows you haven't been at it long, and you've got to make a start. Besides, anybody's likely to make a mistake. That's why they put rubbers on the ends of pencils. Ride in now and snake out the next ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... miraculous. If some one should tell me that a stick had been transformed into a snake by a miracle, naturally I should not believe it; but if I should be asked whether there was not something miraculous in the very existence of a stick or of a snake, I should be constrained to ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... splendor of distance—you never see distance in Deptford; the magpie that perched on a stump and cocked a bright eye at the travellers; the thing that rustled a long length through dead leaves in a beech coppice, and was, it appeared, a real live snake—all these made the journey a royal progress to Dickie of Deptford. He forgot that he was lame, forgot that he had run away—a fact that had cost him a twinge or two of fear or conscience earlier in the morning. ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... inches apart, the bottoms rising at the back half an inch, as well as at the front toward the horns. The laths are fastened on with alternate diagonal lashings, are two inches wide, and close together. Such a komatik will "work" like a snake, adapting itself to the inequalities of the ground, and will not spread or "buckle." Long nails are driven up right through the runners, and clinched on the top to prevent splitting. The runners should be shod with spring steel, one inch wide; and ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... of all narrative, nay, of all poems is, to convert a series into a whole, to make those events, which, in real or imagined history, move on in a straight line, assume to our understandings a circular motion—the snake with its tail in its mouth. Hence, indeed, the almost flattering and yet appropriate term, Poesy, i. e. Poieses—making. Doubtless, to His eye, which alone comprehends all past and all future, in one eternal, what to our short sight appears straight, is but a part of the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... a long, silken tress of golden hair. It curled around Miriam's fingers as though it were alive, and she thrust it from her. It was cold and smooth and sinuous, like a snake. She folded up the letter, put it back in the envelope with the lock of hair, then returned it to its ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... or woman can be reasonably expected to stand; after that period there comes upon the jaded appetite unlawful longings after strong meats and anchovies, after turtle-soup and devilled bones, such as no sugar-fed couple has the poetic right to indulge in. Nevertheless, like a snake in the grass, the insidious desire will creep into the soul of one or other of the two. There will be, doubtless, a noble struggle to stifle the treacherous thought; a vigorous effort to bring back the wandering mind into the path of duty; a conscientious effort to go on ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... evidence to substantiate his accusation. The evidence Cargrim wished to obtain was that of the cheque butt and the pistol, but as yet he did not see his way how to become possessed of either. Pending doing so, he hid himself in the grass like the snake he was, ready to strike his unsuspecting benefactor when he could do so ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... to note how the grandeur of this treatment results, not merely from choice, but from a greater knowledge and more faithful rendering of truth. For whatever knowledge of the human frame there may be in the Laocoon, there is certainly none of the habits of serpents. The fixing of the snake's head in the side of the principal figure is as false to nature, as it is poor in composition of line. A large serpent never wants to bite, it wants to hold, it seizes therefore always where it can hold best, by the extremities, or throat, it seizes ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... be hatched naturally, which is the safer way. An ostrich at close quarters is certainly an unpleasant looking beast; his neck, moving rapidly in all directions, surmounted by a small head, with bright wicked-looking eyes, reminds one of a snake. He has a fancy for anything bright, and will make for a button on your coat if it happens to gleam. I asked the age of ostriches, but could obtain no information. They look wiry enough to ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... door of the small building, within the inclosure, and looking intently at me, made strange faces as we passed by. His skin was sallow, and singularly speckled, probably from some cutaneous disease; he had no eyebrows, and his eyes were small and glittering like those of a snake; in his countenance there was a mingled expression of cunning and cruelty that made me shudder. When we were nearest to him in passing, he struck himself violently on the breast, and cried out in a strong but dissonant voice, pointing with his long, skeleton fingers, towards the young chief:—'Mowno, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... and watched out many days, And am well sick of watching. Three days since, I had gone out upon the slopes for herbs, Snake-root, and subtle gums; and when the light Fell slantwise through the upper glens, and missed The sunk ravines, I came where all the hills Circle the valley of Gargaphian streams. Reach beyond reach ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy for his stupidity in ever trading with that low-down, twisting snake in the grass, Henry Hooker. She alternated this with floods of tears. Caroline had no sympathy for her offspring. She said she had thrown away years of self- sacrifice, years of washing, a thousand little comforts her money would have bought, all for nothing, for ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... draw her murd'ring knife, Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare; Cadmus and Progne's metamorphoses (She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake); And whatsoever contradicts my sense, I hate to see, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... birth to birth." Already it had failed in what may be called one conspiracy; already it had entered upon a second, viz. to rear up an Anti-Kirk, or spurious establishment, which should twist itself with snake-like folds about the legal establishment; surmount it as a Roman vinea surmounted the fortifications which it beleaguered; and which, under whatsoever practical issue for the contest, should at any ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... more, though this time involuntarily, the snake look came into Wilhelmine's eyes. Her Highness did not shrink, but returned the gaze fully with a glance of quiet animosity. Johanna Elizabetha was a brave woman, of good blood, and it is remarkable that, through ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... what a sailor would term the fore and after part of his head. He reaps his hirsute crop dry, using no lather. His cue is pieced out by silken braid, so interwoven as gradually to taper into a slim tassel, something like a Missouri mule-driver's "black snake" whip-lash. To lose this cue is to lose caste and standing among his fellows. No misfortune for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... author—or part author—of the Boke of St. Albans, a "Treatyse perteynynge to Hawkynge, Huntynge, Fysshynge, and Coote Armiris." Probably she wrote no more than the hunting, but it is pleasant to think that she may have watched her greyhounds "headed like a snake, and necked like a drake" on the downs above Horsley. Another Berners, the second Baron of the name, translated Froissart. Of the Nicholas family, Sir Edward was a Royalist and Secretary of State under ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... floor, where he knelt upon one knee and supported me. O Skenedonk! how delicious was the warmth of your healthy body—how comforting the grip of your hunter arms! Yet there are people who say an Indian is like a snake! I could have given thanks before the altar at the side of the crypt, which my fixed eyes encountered as he held me. The marble dripped into its gutter as if ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... feature; And the tiger, black-barr'd, with the gaze of a creature That knew gentle pity; the bristle-back'd boar, His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore; And the laughing hyena—but laughing no more; And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes; The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine; And the elephant stately, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... considerable discomfort. Even the Mrs. Romaine of whom her father spoke as if she would be a friend, was not very congenial to her. Rosalind's eyes remained cold, despite their softness, and Lesley was vaguely conscious of a repulsion—such as we sometimes feel on touching a toad or a snake—when Mrs. Romaine put her hand on the girl's listless fingers. No, what it was Lesley could not tell, but she was sure of this, that she could never ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... frightened creatures, many of them hit, several of them felled, by the plunging fire from the far hillsides. Even though driven back, the Sioux never meant to give up the battle. On every side, leaving their ponies at safe distance, by dozens the warriors crawled forward, snake-like, to the edge of the burned and blackened surface, and from there poured in a rapid and most harassing fire, compelling the defence to lie flat or burrow further, and wounding many horses. The half hour that followed the repulse of their grand assault had been ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... strongest Indian pepper is used, but this he has already planted round his hut. The pounded fangs of the labarri snake and those of the counacouchi are likewise added. These he commonly has in store, for when he kills a snake he generally extracts the fangs and keeps ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... long cries, which has a resemblance to the rattling that is the well-known signal of the venomous serpent of this country when he would admonish the traveller to move quickly, and which certainly produces the same startling effect on the nerves of the mule as the signal of the snake is very apt to excite in man. This interruption caused the dialogue to be dropped, all riding onward, musing in their several fashions on what had just passed. In a few minutes the party turned the crag in question, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... glanced down at his pocket saw the "snake" had gone, but thumping it once or twice to make sure turned upon Faith, his face red and puckered, yet with a gleam of fun in his eye that detracted from the fierceness ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... deep within my heart. The old abbot, out of thankfulness that the tall poles were not erected before the monastery gateway, has turned the fields back of the temple into a freeing-place for animals. There one may acquire merit by buying a sheep, a horse, a dog, a bird, or a snake that is to be killed, and turning it loose where it may live and die a natural death, as the Gods intended from the beginning. I have given him a sum of money, large in his eyes but small when compared to my happiness, to aid him in this worthy ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... voice were so insistent that the giant and the colored man had no choice but to obey. They dropped the hose which, half unreeled, lay like some twisted snake in the grass. Had it been pulled out all the way the water would have spurted from the nozzle, for it was of the automatic variety, with which Tom ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... Is it not good for me to come and draw forth a spirit, to see what kind of spirit people are of? I see that some of you have got the spirit of a goose, and some have got the spirit of a snake. I feel at home here. I come to you, citizens of New York, as I suppose you ought to be. I am a citizen of the State of New York; I was born in it, and I was a slave in the State of New York; and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... A little beast, half snake and half cat, crawled across a roof, spread leathery wings, and flapped to the ground. The sour pungent reek of incense from the open street-shrine made my nostrils twitch, and a hulked form inside, not human, cast me a surly green ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... soaked with swamp water, at a burning log to warm, and hardly saw a mocasson snake glide round the fire and stop, as if to dart at her, and glide away; for Virgie's mind was attributing this kindly fire to ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Lion, the Jackals, and the Bull The Story of the Monkey and the Wedge The Story of the Washerman's Jackass The Story of the Cat who Served the Lion The Story of the Terrible Bell The Story of the Prince and the Procuress The Story of the Black Snake and the Golden Chain The Story of the Lion and the Old Hare The Story of ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Blindworm, is not a snake, nor yet a worm. It is a half-way animal—between a lizard and a snake. The lizards shade off so insensibly into the snakes, even the boa preserving rudimentary hind legs, that some naturalists counsel their union into a single class of Squamate, or scaled reptiles. By a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... have taken their dispute over Ukrainian-administered Zmiyinyy (Snake) Island and Black Sea maritime boundary to the ICJ for adjudication; Romania also opposes Ukraine's reopening of a navigation canal from the Danube border through Ukraine to the Black Sea; Hungary amended the status law extending special social and cultural benefits ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... Ascidia of the snake-plantain or Plantago lanceolata are narrow tubes, because the leaves are oblong or lanceolate, while those of the broad leaved species of arrowhead, as for instance, the Sagittaria japonica, ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... again, as my boy Tom. A spy to look after Mr. Davager was, of course, the first requisite in a case of this kind; and Tom was the smallest, quickest, quietest, sharpest, stealthiest little snake of a chap that ever dogged a gentleman's steps and kept cleverly out of range of a gentleman's eyes. I settled it with the boy that he was not to show at all when Mr. Davager came; and that he was to wait to hear me ring the bell when Mr. ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... sick all the medicine we took was turpentine—dat would cure almost any ailment. Some of the niggers used Sampson snake weed or peach ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... happens, don't let this heredity bogey get the upper hand of you. The taint you speak of is no more, as yet, than inherited tendency: and this accident—if you believe in accident, I don't—gives you the chance of killing the snake in the egg. Now light up, there's a good chap; ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... gasped, then broke simultaneously for the door as it flew open to reveal a tableau resembling the Laocoon group sans snake and party of the third part. Back to the door and struggling valiantly to defend it stood the receptionist, Miss Thomas. Held briefly but volubly at bay was a red-thatched, buck-toothed individual—and I do mean individual!—with a face like the map of Eire, who stopped ...
— Lighter Than You Think • Nelson Bond
... for games, a slave, a bandied thing— Since as the oath was made so must I swing From bed to bed. But while I stood and wept, Melted in fruitless sorrow, up she crept For me, his Goddess, gliding like a snake, Who wreathed her arms and whispering me go make The nuptial couch, 'What oath binds love?' did say. Loathing him, I must go. He had his way, As well he might who paid that goodly price, Honour, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... ploughed her way through the sea, raising a mass of foam brilliant with globules of light. These globules swept astern along the sides of the ship, and disappeared further on. We left behind us an undulating luminous wake, resembling a long bright snake following us, which was gradually in the distance engulfed by the ocean. This luminous track seemed to be reeled off from a windlass at the stern ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... pointing. "No, you're too late! I thought it looked like a snake in the water at first, but I see it was only a piece of rope hanging from the ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... will-o'-the-wisp, a glitter in the cunning lights, she led him to a far end of the room where many cushions were, There she turned on him with a snake-like suddenness that was one of ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... and the father heard and understood; and, to save a scandal, he took them away from the town where they lived, and made every effort to give them another start in a place where they were not known. But the coils of that snake of deified sin had twisted round the boy, body and soul; he could not ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... hard to say. This phenomenon, which is widely known as totemism, appears to be suggested by the prominence given to the wild boar on Celtic coins and ensigns, and by the place assigned on some inscriptions and bas-reliefs to the figure of a horned snake as well as by the effigies of other animals that have been discovered. It is not easy to explain the beginnings of totemism in Gaul or elsewhere, but it should always be borne in mind that early man could not regard it as an axiomatic ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl
... promptly—"lots of them. Why, I had a man named Considine working for me, and he thought he got bitten by a snake, so his mates ran him twenty miles into Bourke between two horses to keep him from going to sleep, giving him a nip of whisky every twenty minutes; and when he got to Bourke he wasn't bitten at all, but he died of alcoholic poisoning. What about this Considine, anyhow? ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... there. Was it possible he knew an enemy was near? Evan could make out his head turning this way and that. The tension was hard on nerves. Though he lay as still as a snake it seemed incredible to Evan that Charley did ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... Good Herb Remedy for.—Add enough water to one ounce of snake root to make one-half pint." Give in doses according to the age of the child. This is a good remedy, and has been used by many mothers ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... "Mahstah Jere" and "Little Miss," of a visiting Cousin Peavey whom he had been obliged to "whup" for his repeated misdemeanors; and darkly and often had he whispered, so low I could scarcely hear it, of an enemy that was entering the room with a fell design. "Tha' he is—he go'n' a' sprinkle snake-dust in mah ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the Atharva-veda, in the section containing the question asked by Satyakma, read as follows: 'He again who meditates with this syllable Aum of three Mtrs on the highest Person, he comes to light and to the sun. As a snake frees itself from its skin, so he frees himself from evil. He is led up by the Sman verses to the Brahma- world; he sees the person dwelling in the castle who is higher than the individual souls concreted with bodies and ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the window shut, the boys seemed safe enough for the present. They could see that the big snake was extremely uneasy. As the wind whistled by him, his great tail twisted and untwisted, and he seemed to be trying to get a better hold on the smooth surface, while his beady eyes glared at them only a moment in the glow of the flashlight, and then he transferred his attention ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... with relief that he came to the end of it, for at least there was nothing which compromised him seriously with the king; but every nerve in his great body tingled with rage as he thought of the way in which his young scape-grace had alluded to him. "The viper!" he cried. "Oh, the foul snake in the grass! I will make him curse the day that ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... small rods of wood, polished smooth with resin, oil, or wax. They could be thrown long distances. Long Moose—Lightning Bow and Flying Squirrel's father—could throw a snow-snake a mile and a half, over the crust of the snow. But the snow-snakes he used were eight feet long and tipped ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... others swung chairs about, and meanwhile a slim, nude girl's figure was seen to emerge, like white smoke, from the vessel on the table. Bastide knew the face, it was that of the false witness Clarissa; with snake-like glistening eyes she gazed at him, always only at him. All the men followed her glance and they hurled themselves upon him. "You must die! You must die!" resounded from hoarse throats, but while they were still shouting their voices died away, the shadowy arms of the false witness ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... out of the car. Billy gripped the gun and dropped silently to the ground, sliding as stealthily into the shadows of the trees as if he had been a snake. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... story of a fairy, who, by some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who injured her during the period of her disguise were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... a boy in his own class, and you could always tell him a long way off because his head was covered with red hair as thick as a thatched roof, and his face was spotted all over, like a snake's, with freckles. ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... snake, moccasin snake, bull snake, and the various snakes usually found in the Atlantic states are here. Of the venomous kinds, multitudes are destroyed by the deer and swine. Chameleons and scorpions exist in the Lower Valley, and lizards everywhere. The alligator, an unwieldy and bulky animal, is ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... behind the hillock, only to appear again much nearer, around a clump of weeds. His curiosity was mingled with malicious contempt, till the ram chanced to rise and shake his head. Then the weasel saw the rope that wriggled from the ram's neck. Was it some new and terrible kind of snake? The weasel respected snakes when they were large and active; so he forgot his curiosity and slipped away from the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... anger was much too great for words; but there was something more than anger: there was a revulsion of feeling, that made the woman he had loved seem hateful to him—hateful in her fatal beauty, as a snake is hateful in its lithe grace and silvery sheen. She had deceived him so completely; there was something to his mind beyond measure dastardly in her stolen meetings with George Fairfax; and he set down all her visits ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... principal room, which was surrounded by a divan a la Turque; but it had no carpet, so we went straight in with our boots on. A German chest of drawers was in one corner; the walls were plain white-washed, and so was a stove about six feet high; the only ornament of the room was a small snake moulding in the centre of the roof. Some oak chairs were ranged along the lower end of the room, and a table stood in the middle, covered with a German linen cloth, representing Pesth and Ofen; the Bloxberg being thrice as lofty as ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... The snake about her cradle twined, Shall infant Kansas tear; And freely on the Western wind Shall float her golden hair! So tell the ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... eye and the inscription underneath: "England expects that every man this day will do his duty." Jack had explained with considerable pride that this did not constitute all, as on his father's back was a wonderful representation of the Victory, and on other parts of his body a lion, a snake, and other fauna, but Richard Bridges had protested laughingly and refused to undress further for ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... a deliberate attempt on my life, and I am hard upon the tracks of the man who extracted that venom—patiently, drop by drop—from the poison-glands of the snake, who prepared that arrow, and who caused it to be ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... as yet we have not, in my lectures, advanced so far as flesh-wounds. They would know what to do, I hope, if confronted with frost-bite, snake-bite, sunstroke or incipient croup—from all of which our little expedition will be (under Providence) immune, and I have as yet confined myself to directing them, in all cases which apparently differ from these, to run to the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the temple (an old gorgon whom I shall suppress before the honeymoon is out) looked askance at me, and pulled her daughter by the sleeve whenever she seemed disposed to listen. They evidently thought the rattle might belong to a snake; did me the injustice to take me for an adventurer. On the third day, however, the ice had melted. I soon found out the cause of the thaw. The head-waiter, whom a little well-timed liberality had rendered my devoted slave, informed me that Madame Sendel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... you not?" reiterated Del Fortis in a whisper that hissed through the close precincts of the cell like the warning of a snake ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the first strip of wood and was in the succeeding stony sterile space when a gleam of brilliant colour close by on the ground caught my sight. It was a snake lying on the bare earth; had I kept on without noticing it, I should most probably have trodden upon or dangerously near it. Viewing it closely, I found that it was a coral snake, famed as much for its beauty and singularity as for its deadly character. It was about three feet long, and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... time, 'this ban't home no more. Mister Jan's home be mine,' I sez to myself. An' each time as I breaks bread, an' sleeps, an' wakes, an' looks arter faither's clothes I feels 'tis wan time nigher the last. They'll look back an' think what a snake 'twas they had 'bout the house, I s'pose. Mother'll whine an' say, 'Ah! 'er was a bitter weed for sartain,' an' faither'll thunder till the crocks rattle an' bid none dare foul the air wi' my name no more. But I be wearyin' of 'e wi' my ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the bullrushes growed, and the cattails so tall, And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all; And it mottled the worter with amber and gold Till the glad lilies rocked in the ripples that rolled; And the snake-feeder's four gauzy wings fluttered by Like the ghost of a daisy dropped out of the sky, Or a wownded apple-blossom in the breeze's controle As it cut acrost some ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... and watchful as the red squirrel is, he is frequently caught by the cat. My Nig, as black as ebony, knows well the taste of his flesh. I have known him to be caught by the black snake and successfully swallowed. The snake, no doubt, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small water-snake, about ten inches long, ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... place on the long table in the middle of the room. Above, swinging in a loop, and looking as if she was alive, hung Polly, who died at an advanced age, had been carefully stuffed, and was no presented by Mrs. Jo. The walls were decorated with all sorts of things. A snake's skin, a big wasp's nest, a birch-bark canoe, a string of birds' eggs, wreaths of gray moss from the South, and a bunch of cotton-pods. The dead bats had a place, also a large turtle-shell, and an ostrich-egg proudly presented by Demi, who volunteered to explain these rare curiosities to guests ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... probability due to a different toxin from that which causes the acute symptoms of poisoning or possibly to a modification of it sometimes formed in specially large amount. It is interesting to note that in the case of the closely analogous example of snake venoms, there may be separated from a single venom a number of toxic bodies which have a selective action on different ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... him, he divorced them and espoused sixteen thousand shepherdesses. The people imagined that he would appear some time or another in the form of a horse, but thought that until that metamorphosis took place he would wallow in a sea of milk, with his head supported by a beautiful snake. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... here, too, thou snow-white, silvery snake? Oh, hiss no more, nor shoot thy forked tongue With honied words upon it! Thou hast got What thou didst wish—a husband at the last! For this, then, didst thou show thyself so soft And smooth-caressing, for this only wind Thy snaky coils so close ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... expression, a subdued, fierce urgence of manner. Chrystie looked at him and looked away, almost afraid of him. He was staring at her with an avid waiting as if ready to drag the answer out of her lips. She fluttered like a bird under the snake's hypnotic eye. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... conquer self; oh, still conceal By the smooth brow the snake that coils below; Break, break my heart! it comforts yet to feel That she dreams ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those of a wind-swept hillside farm beside Lake Erie, where Tomlinson's Creek runs down to the low edge of the lake, and where the off-shore wind ripples the rushes of the shallow water: that, and the vision of a frame house, and the snake fences of the fourth concession road where it falls to the lakeside. And if the eyes of the man are dreamy and abstracted, it is because there lies over the vision of this vanished farm an infinite regret, greater in its ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... a provincial accent. It lives entirely in the surfaces of things, and, as the surface of life is frequently rough and prickly, it is frequently uncomfortable. At such times it peevishly darts out its little sting, like a young snake angry with a farmer's boot. It is amusing to watch it venting its spleen in papers the bourgeois never read, in pictures they don't trouble to understand. John Bull's indifference to the 'new' criticism is one of the most pleasing features of the time. Probably ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?"' Macaulay's Essays, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... You've driven my poor brother to the dogs with your beastly temper! And now you would dirty the reputation of Dolores! And she's a saint! A saint, do you hear! And a woman like you isn't good enough to kiss the bottom of her shoe, you snake! And now, get out of here, and do it quick, damn quick! Get out of here, or I'll kill you like ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... last, Sigurd's weapon itself began to change from one hand to the other. Without abating a particle of his swiftness, in the hottest of the fray he made a feint with his left. Before the other could recover from parrying it, the weapon leaped back to his right, darted like a hissing snake at the opening, and pierced the ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... went to the travelling shows. They charged 2 sen. We were shown a mermaid, peepshows, a snake, an unhappy bear, three doleful monkeys and some stuffed animals which may or may not have had in life an uncommon number of legs. There was a barefaced imposture by a young and pretty show-woman who insisted that two marmots in her lap were the offspring of a girl. "Look," she ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... black man was the old harry. was he, anne, I want to know. Mr. kimball over at spenservale is very sick and will have to go to the hospitable. please excuse me while I ask marilla if thats spelled rite. Marilla says its the silem he has to go to not the other place. He thinks he has a snake inside of him. whats it like to have a snake inside of you, anne. I want to know. mrs. lawrence bell is sick to. mrs. lynde says that all that is the matter with her is that she thinks too much about ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... boys will gather round, and they'll launch me in the ground, And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil; And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave, Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil. And they'll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire's glow, As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to Kingdom Come, And who went the pace in England ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service |
