"Snap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the cold water did not seem to bother the others, but I could not get comfortably warm during this cold snap. Added to this, it took me some time to get over my scare, and I could see all kinds of danger, in rapids, where Emery could see none. I insisted on untying the photographic cases from the boats, and carrying them around a number of rapids before ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... is the chief beauty of the Hydro-Vapor Lift? There are no cables to break! That's the great feature. This car may be loaded with ton after ton; but if she's overloaded, she simply stops. There are no risky wire-ropes to snap and let down ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... have to add that nothing is easier than to procure horses, or even to escape on foot; we are all hunters and more or less mountaineers. It will take us six hours on horse back to get out of France, or twelve on foot. Once in Switzerland we can snap our fingers at citizen Fouche and his police. That's all I ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... of three stops; has two finders, one for vertical and one for horizontal exposures; and is also provided with two sockets for tripod screws, one for vertical and one for horizontal exposures. Fitted with improved rotary shutter, for snap-shots or time exposures. Can be loaded in daylight. Handsomely ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 34, July 1, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... hand went into his pocket and closed around the weapon. He would need to be quick and sure, to have a steady hand, to make a swift movement. He allowed himself some moments to decide. Then the blade of the knife shot back with a snap. ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... the cause of ten thousand failures, and has taken all the "snap" out of ten thousand more, that were considered a success. The intellect never leaps and bounds with vivacity when it ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... they might be exposed to the smoke and heat of the fire, although not so much as to cause them to be broiled. The whole process was now ended—excepting that it would be necessary for us to look occasionally to the fire, as well as to see that the dogs and wolves did not leap up and snap off the meat, that hung down from the lines like so many strings of sausages. In about three days the flesh of the elk would be 'jerked,' and capable of being, carried to any distance ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... taste not to mention names, and I had been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to myself when there was no need. Oh, it was sickening! I hated myself, I hated with all my heart the girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I was ashamed to look up at my friends on the platform. What was Miss Dillingham thinking of me? Oh, what a fool I had been! I had ruined my own triumph. I had disgraced myself, and my friends, and poor Mr. Swan, and the Winthrop School. The monster vanity had ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... plumy tail hanging dejectedly in my direction. An occasional dispirited wag showed that she appreciated the kindness being shown her. The boy was evidently busy at something that elicited from the animal, every now and then, faint cries of pain. I heard something snap, and saw him lay two parts of an arrow on the ground to his right; then he drew a handkerchief from his pocket, dipped it in the brook, and apparently washed ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... through the garden with its army of children and nurses, leaning on my stick with halting step, how I regret my General's cocked hat, my paper plume, my wooden sword and my pistol. My pistol that would snap caps and was the cause of my ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... to borrow at ruinous usuries, or to fail to meet their payments. Their default involves others; others fail, and others again. The bowels of the banks, with us the great money-lenders, close with the snap and tenacity of steel-traps; and then a general panic, or want of commercial confidence, brings on a paralysis of the domestic exchanges, and wide-spread bankruptcy and ruin. Importations are checked, of course; but they are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. The Chief Justice has refused to pay his customs! The President proposed to have an expensive house built for himself, while the King, his master, has none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a silent subject, up to then; but now I snap my fingers at their malo. It is damned, and I'm damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last "Wainiu," when I sent Fanny off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news that the Chief Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies to improve his mind. I showed my way of thought to his guest, Count ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conceals an asp, And bliss coquetting flies the grasp: And, waking up, snap goes the slight Poor cord that held my foolish kite,— Your slave, you may not care to know it, Your humble slave will be ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... been reading the book for the second time, in Kingsley-land. It's like the Bible almost, in Bideford. I should pity the person who dared pick a flaw in the story, in the hearing of a Bideford man, woman, or child. Why, I believe even a Bideford dog would understand the insult, and snap! ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to sew, and talk with you if you are talkative, and darn the stockings, and make tea. You come home tired, and likely enough, surly, and gloom about like a thundercloud if dinner isn't ready for you the instant you are ready for it, and then sit mum and eat it; and snap at the children, and show yourselves the selfish, ugly things you are. Am I to have no fun, never go to the opera, never go to a ball, never have a party at home? Men are tyrants, Mr. Potiphar. They are ogres who entice us poor girls into their castles, and then eat up our happiness and scold ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... Hedin for years and now, despite the improbability of the story, he believed it implicitly. And it was with a heavy heart that he had watched the studied coldness of each toward the other. McNabb was a man of snap decisions. He would teach these young fools a lesson, and at the same time find out which way the wind blew. With a clenching of his fists, he ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... climb more than one tree. And there was not a single tree big enough to hold more than nine of them. The record of the story is now obscure, but the horrid tale goes on to relate that the lion gave a frightful roar and leaped upon the tenth man, biting him to death in a single snap. The dilemma of the others is obvious. They knew better than to disturb a lion while it is eating. To do so would be to court sudden death. So they sat still and watched the beast slowly and greedily devour their comrade. Having finished his meal the great ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... die!' he replied, shaking with mirth; 'that fat girl asked me to get her something to eat that I never heard of: I believe she called it slam dowdy, or rip snap, or something like that, and, of course, there is nothing of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "you make no mistake in accepting him as a friend. Call me Alf. What's your first name?" I told him, and he added: "And I'll call you Bill. No; the truth is I didn't care to say that I thought it was going to rain; I don't give a snap for rain, except the rain that is pouring on my heart. You remember that girl that came out upon the gallery. I know you do, for no man could forget her. You know that Guinea asked me if Millie was at home. Well, that was ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... jaw with a vicious snap, resting his half-dazed head on his mutilated arm. Louder came the baby's cries from the back room. Thinking Lem had ended his tirade, Scraggy made a ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... owl, he is so ugly. When we find an owl we get in a circle around him and snap our great beaks, and jerk our tails up and down and scream. He is very much ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... 21. — The Chancellor is now crowded with all the canvas she can carry, and at times her topmasts threaten to snap with the pressure. But Curtis is ever on the alert; he never leaves his post beside the man at the helm, and without compromising the safety of the vessel, he contrives, by tacking to the breeze, to urge her on at her ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... continued Bruce; "I know it isn't exactly proper to criticise, but then if they'd had a little system about it old Eli Osborne's barn would still be standing. Now it's a heap of cinders. I tell you any ordinary troop of Boy Scouts has more snap than the Woodbridge Fire Department. I believe— By Jove, fellows. I've an idea! Let's organize a fire department of our own. A motorcycle fire department. I was reading in a magazine only the other day how they started one over in England ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... most of the universities of Christendom and at Rome; when the pope presented his toe to be kissed, as customary, the Earl of Wiltshire and his party refused. Indeed, it is affirmed, that a spaniel of the Earl's, attracted by the glitter of the pope's toe, made a snap at it, whence his holiness drew in his sacred foot, and kicked at the offender with the other. Upon the pope demanding the cause of their embassy, the Earl presented Dr. Cranmer's book, declaring that his learned friends had come to defend it. The pope treated ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... sell, Jud," he said promptly. "I'm glad I went when I did, and found out for myself. You see it's like this, Jud: I could have stayed and made my way; but I found out in a few days that I wouldn't give a snap for the way when it was made. We fellows are better off right where we are, and a lot of us are ready to throw away exactly what many of the men in Multiopolis are wild to get. Now ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... hand, neither did he utter any criticism after the contest was over. Instead, he laid off more than half the line-up on Monday and Tuesday, and, since the weather continued almost unseasonably warm, the rest was just what the fellows needed. Wednesday's practice went with a new snap and vim and those who broiled in the afternoon sun and watched it found grounds ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... with a sympathetic wink. He cared little how his visitor took his remark. He was used to the vagaries of his customers, and cared not a snap ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... running amuck against old party creeds, On-howl their packs and glory in the fight. See mangy curs, whose editorial ears Prick to all winds to catch the popular breeze, Slang-whanging yelp, and froth and snap and snarl, And sniff the gutters for their daily food. And these—are they our prophets and our priests? Hurra!—Hurra!—Hurra!—for "Liberty!" Flaunt the red flag and flutter the petticoat; Ran-tan the drums and let the bugles ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... panier; to put it on the horse's back we have not the heart. Beneath the beauty of R. L. S., to say nothing of his verses, which the publishers find heavy enough, and the genius of the god-like sculptor, the spine would snap and the well-knit limbs of the (ahem) cart-horse would be loosed by death. So you are to conceive me, sitting in my house, dubitative, and the medallion chuckling in the warehouse of the German firm, for some days longer; and hear me meanwhile on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... if he wears a sombrero and gives five-dollar tips to the bell-hops—is sure to break into the prints. But it was a strange coincidence, when Rimrock jumped out of his taxicab and headed for the Waldorf entrance, to find a battery of camera men all lined up to snap him and a squad of reporters inside. No sooner had Rimrock been shot through the storm door into the gorgeous splendors of Peacock Alley than they assailed him en masse—much as the bell-boys had just done to gain his grip and ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... little crusty chap, As sharp and sudden as a snap, "A weasel suck them in the shell! What matter birds, or flying well, Or fly at all, or sporting weather, If fools with ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... out a foot, bringing it down on a dead stick so hard that it broke with a sharp snap, but instantly drew away to the shelter of another bush. A rifle cracked in front of them and a bullet cut the air over the broken stick. Before the warrior who fired the bullet could sink back Black Rifle pulled the trigger at a certain ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Jana repeat this manoeuvre, and at the third onslaught I saw to my horror that the roots were loosening. I heard some of them snap, and a crack appeared in the ground not far from the bole. Fortunately Jana never noted these symptoms, for abandoning a plan which he considered unavailing, he stood for a while swaying his trunk and lost ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... did notice that they fought most brutally, scratching away savagely on each other's hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, however. But one of them had lost one eye in the fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving the other to snap his tongs together in anger because he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing to want to hurt somebody ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... most turbulent. It seemed reckless, but my prahu, heavily laden, acted admirably, shooting through the waves without much exertion. After nearly an hour of refreshing passage we approached the main rapid, Kiham Raja. I kept behind the rest of the fleet, in order, if possible, to get a snap-shot. In the beautiful light of the afternoon the prahus afforded a splendid sight as, at short intervals, they passed along one after another, the first ones already considerably lower than mine. My Kenyahs, all standing, seemed to know exactly where to go ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... nose, that would take on a blue colour on a cold day, quivered, her thin mouth shut with a snap, and she ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... pawn and shuddered violently. The metal board was wired. Thenceforth every move in the game he must play with the metal men would complete the circuit and send the biting needles through his frame. It was delicately gauged, a nerve-racking discomfort without definite pain, a thing to snap the dreadful tension of a ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... he cried, with a snap. "Get in. We'll lose no more time. In a few moments we shall be ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... now in such vogue here. I have to have Italian gut strings. The wire E cuts my fingers, and besides I notice a perceptible difference in sound quality. Of course, wire strings are practical; they do not 'snap' on the concert stage. Speaking of strings that 'snap,' reminds me that the first time I heard Sarasate play the Saint-Saens concerto, at Frankfort, he twice forgot his place and stopped. They brought him the music, he began for the third time and then—the E string ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... she exclaimed, "to think of you suggestin' that, an' I was just wonderin' at that very minute whether if I was to ask you—you'd snap my head off, you being chapel ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... Jadwin, through his set teeth. "I'll show those brutes. Look here, is it money we want? You cable to Paris and offer two million, at—oh, at eight cents below the market; and to Liverpool, and let 'em have twopence off on the same amount. They'll snap it up as quick as look at it. That will bring in one lot of money, and as for the rest, I guess I've got some real estate in this town that's pretty ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... of the full might of the stream until he felt it around his body. The waters were fed from the snowfields on the dark peaks, and every nerve in his system seemed to snap and break in the first shock of immersion. But he quickly rallied, battling the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... on the playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... many places. My father had recently found himself in a dilemma in regard to the requirements of the Illustrated London News. In those days the universal snap-shotting hand-camera was unknown. Every scene that it was desired to depict in the paper had to be sketched, and in presence of all the defensive preparations which were being made, a question arose as to what might and what might not be sketched. General Trochu was Governor of Paris, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... come on!" he shouted, advancing on her. "This is just a silly mood. As soon as you get going, you'll snap out of it. There's nothing really wrong with ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... listen to their answer, and then march on again. He had youth in his heart, and love and curiosity; also he had some change in his trousers' pocket, and a ten dollar bill, for extreme emergencies, sewed up in his belt. If a photographer for Peter Harrigan's General Fuel Company could have got a snap-shot of him that morning, it might have served as a "portrait of a ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... "now you are nicely seated I am going to feed you." So, taking a little of the dirt in his fingers, he was going to put it into the blind man's mouth; but the man, who now perceived the trick that had been played him, made a sudden snap at his fingers, and getting them between his teeth bit them so severely that the wicked boy roared out for mercy, and promised never more to be guilty of such wickedness. At last the blind man, after he had put him to very severe ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... of July there was a snap of cold weather such as sometimes comes in the middle of our English summer, and yet I gave up having a fire in my room, and for the cooking of my food I bought a small spirit stove which cost ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... way, almost finished—hold my heart—hold it still; I'll make Emily's eyes snap when I get home, ha, ha!" and then a sort of gurgling sound filled his throat, and he placed both hands over his chest, and sank back, while for an instant all the blood left his face. I put my hand into Louis', and groaned, trying hard to control myself, for I knew we were close to ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... that my brother is more a dunce than his neighbours. Put him into the hands of a clever grinder or crammer, and they would soon cram the necessary portion of Latin and Greek into him, and they would get him through the university for us readily enough; and a degree once obtained, he might snap his fingers at Latin and Greek all the rest of his life. Once in orders, and he might sit down upon his fat living, or lie down content, all his days, only taking care to have some poor devil of a curate up and about, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... coldest night in forty years, if one can believe the weather bureau." Here Hawkins allowed "Bleak House" to drop listlessly into his lap while he indulged in a moment or two of retrospection. "Let's see; that was said to have been the deadliest cold snap Chicago has ever known. Scores of people were frozen to death on the streets and many of them in their homes. I hope there is no one so luckless as to be homeless tonight. The hardiest man would be helpless. Think of the ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... is expecting to get a fat job through pull is working on a false basis. The young man whose objective is to get a snap shows he has not ambition, and surely this young man will occupy inferior positions as long as he gets ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... in the moment when he had his picture taken. He had the dragon just where he wanted him. But it is to be feared that if some one had followed him with a kodak, some of the snap-shots might have been less satisfactory. Let us suppose a moment ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... constantly indulged in, to scrutinize those things, so common in our own lives we do not notice them, which may be but the illusions of this spirit of darkness showing as a fictitious spirit of light: Hurry and carelessness both in thought and in action; snap-judgment at short range; compromise with the spirit of the time in the interest of "good business," "practical considerations" or "sound policy"; worship of the doctrine of "get results," acceptance of the horrible ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... taken himself off by this time, and there must have been several hundreds of these newcomers. A merry time they had of it; the whole place was full of the green, hurrying eyes, and amidst the snap of teeth and yapping and quarrelling I could hear the flesh being torn from the red bones in every direction. One wolf-like individual brought a mass of hot liver to eat between my feet, but I gave him a kick, and sent him away much to his surprise. Gradually, however, the sound of this unholy ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... surprise, Halstead was on his good behavior. He was polite to the girls and helped them over the brush fences; and when, on coming nearer the pines, Addison asked us to go in as quietly as we could, he complied, not even allowing a twig to snap ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... feebly with the hatchet, fraying it, but there was no chance for a free swing to sever the tough wood. Instead of widening the hole at once, they kept laboring at the root, working the stump back and forth, as though they hoped to crystallize that stubborn taproot and snap it like a wire. Still it held and defied them. They laid hold of it together and tugged with a grunt; something tore beneath that effort, but the stump held, ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... infernal cold to read—I'm awful cold. I wisht that cove in there'd get a move on him, an' get better. He's got a snap. Some one sent him a bottle of milk to-day, too," he concluded, with a solemn wink, the tongue again appearing on the scene to bear internal witness—"but I forgot—I'll read them words to you myself," which he proceeded to do, swaying ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... at him, but he volunteered nothing further, having again bent over his search. For several minutes we watched in silence. Then he sat up with a snap, as a ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... days on flowery beds of ease, of course. Really, I find this story-book kind of thing we're doing is warm stuff, as you Americans say. And then there's Shaw—think of the difference it will make to the dear old chap if we find the gold—buy a ship of his own and snap his fingers at the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... torch to the rick within a yard of me, the smoke concealing me from him. I struck him with a backhanded blow on the elbow as he bent it, and I heard the bone of his arm break as clearly as ever I heard a twig snap. With a roar of pain, he fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there and singed him. The other man stood amazed at this, not having yet gained sight of me, till I caught his fire-brand from his hand, and struck it into his countenance. With that he leaped at me, but I caught him in a manner learned ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... little abbe," replied De Bouillon, superciliously. "Methinks, were I so disposed, I might snap the feeble thread of your existence, without any extraordinary display of valor, but I have no desire to deprive the countess of so valiant a knight. I come, not to arrest, hut to deliver her. I come to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... slightest indication of peril, she consented to the removal of her skates, at Papillon's earnest entreaty, who wanted her aunt to walk with her before dinner. After dinner there would be the swift-coming December twilight, and Christmas games, snap-dragon and the like, which Papillon, although a little fine lady, reproducing all her mother's likes and dislikes in miniature, could not, as a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Mr. Tortoise would almost step on him before he would move. And that was just what Mr. Tortoise wanted, for about the next time he came along he came right up behind my ancestor, but instead of stepping on him, he gave his head a quick snap, just as if he were catching fish, and grabbed my Grandpaw Hare by that beautiful plumy tail, and held on, and pinched, and my ancestor gave a squeal and a holler and set out for that rail fence, telling ...
— How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail • Albert Bigelow Paine
... careful search of the area I found precisely nothing. You who may read this will probably laugh, but I cannot. To me this is no laughing matter. I find myself jumping at the slightest noise, an increase in the wind, the snap of an expanding hull plate, the crackle of static over my radio. I whirl around to see who, or what, is watching me. My skin crawls and prickles as though I were covered with ants. My mind is filled with black, inchoate dread. ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... dreadfully poor Phil was really upset, for her lovely voice was quite snappy; and I've always thought she would not snap on the rack or in boiling oil. As for me, my bath began to feel like that—boiling oil, I mean; and I splashed about anyhow, not caring whether I got my hair wet or not. Because, if we had to go on being poor after our great expectations, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... position, "a little beast in the guise of an angel—the singing of chansonettes with such a devil in the body—and at the same time a complexion, a look, a smile, which scatters a kind of mystic, lily perfume. This is precisely that dissonance, that snap, that mystery with which she has conquered Europe. This rouses curiosity; it excites; it is opposed to rules, to harmony—do ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... warned me with a fierce growl not to touch it. The snow melted, the season changed, and I was standing in mud and mire up to my neck. Ropes were tied around me, and horses were hitched to them to drag me from the deeps, but in trying to draw me out the ropes would snap asunder and I was left imbedded in the clay. They could not move me, because Christ had commanded me to stand there. A little while before the break of day the Savior appeared and told me to go. I started to run, but when I got alongside the old depot there burst from it the ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... and it flew open with a snap. We peered eagerly into the trunk. Commonplace enough! Uncle David handed out one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... tried, by obvious methods, to get rid of the two punchers, but they persisted in hanging around until at length the near approach of the train-hour forced the old man to drop the letter into the mail-bag with the others and snap the lock. On the plea of seeing whether their package had come, both Stratton and Jessup escorted him over to the station platform and did not quit his side until the train had departed, carrying the mail-sack ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... spring upon his unsuspecting prey; but, though there was no tree, the idea gave birth to a plan. The eaves of the hut were just above the heads of the sentries—from them he could leap upon the Tarmangani, unseen. A quick snap of those mighty jaws would dispose of one of them before the other realized that they were attacked, and the second would fall an easy prey to the strength, agility and ferocity of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... busy hauling in and striking off the fish until his arms ache, and the tough skin on his hands is nearly chafed through. Sometimes the hooks are baited with bits of clam or porgy, though usually the mackerel, when biting at all, will snap with avidity at a naked hook, if tinned so as to shine in the water. Mr. Nordhoff, whose reminiscences of life on a fishing boat I have already quoted, describes this method of ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... unlike any steam engine. Steam engines will do so much work—no more. Dynamos or motors will do so much work—and then more. They can be overloaded, unsparingly. But the strain tells. Stout, dependable parts become hot, wear away, crumble, snap. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... been a snap cinch in the right circumstances; the Saarkkada weren't difficult to get along with. A staff of top-grade men could have handled them without ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the great laid low, Upon the rich made poor by love and its despite! Once, jealous of the breeze that blew on thee, I was, Alas! on whom Fate falls, his eyes are veiled with night. What boots the archer's skill, if, when the foe draws near, His bow-string snap and leave him helpless in the fight? So when afflictions press upon the noble mind, Where shall a man from ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... stiff glass of rum and called them fine fellows, and mixed them two more glasses while they talked; and when the time came to say "so long," Billy was quite sure he didn't care for appearances one snap ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and remove scales. Cut off the hard part of spears as far up as they will snap. Retie, and cook in boiling salted water until tender (about fifteen minutes), leaving the tips out of water the first ten minutes of cooking. Drain, remove strings. Arrange in hot serving dish and pour over two tablespoons melted ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller
... at these evening gatherings as in a military campaign. His restlessness was such that he found it hard to sit still, especially in his own house, two minutes at a time. His terse sentences, leaving no doubt in the mind of the hearer as to what he meant, always had the same snap. One of his military letters is worth reviving. When he was carrying on his campaign in Georgia against Hood, the latter was anxious that the war should damage general commercial interests as little as possible; so he sent General Sherman a letter setting forth the terms and conditions ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... and free from his limb, and got down without much trouble, and it took him all the afternoon to go around from tree to tree and pry the rest of my ancestors loose, and unwind them, because those new-fangled tails would snap together like springs, and it took several days' steady practice and straightening before they were really useful at a moment's notice. By that time, another strange thing had happened: The fur on them had curled so tight at first that it was like very close wool; then it kept right on getting tighter ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... last dregs of its interest—to play with it, in short, nervously, vaguely, incessantly, as she might have played with a medallion containing on either side a cherished little portrait and suspended round her neck by a gold chain of a firm fineness that no effort would ever snap. The miniatures were back to back, but she saw them forever face to face, and when she looked from one to the other she found in Charlotte's eyes the gleam of the momentary "What does she really want?" that had come and gone for her in the Prince's. So again, she saw the ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... too, in this school which the freshman is entering. There is the student who errs on the side of leading too workaday a life, and in so doing has lost something of the buoyancy and breadth and "snap" which would make her associations and her work fresher and more vigorous. "The Grind," she has been called, and if she recognize herself in this sketch, let her take care to reach out for a bigger and fuller life than she is leading. And there is, too, the selfish student ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... thundering away within a few paces of my back. I stopped, and as I did so rapidly cocked the rifle and slued round upon my heel. By this time the brute was within six or seven yards of me, but luckily his head was up. I lifted the rifle and fired at him. It was a snap shot, but the bullet struck him in the chest within three inches of the first, and found its way into his lungs. It did not stop him, however, so all I could do was to bound to one side, which I did ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... suspicion. Shoeblossom was skimming through the pages with starting eyes, when suddenly his attention was taken from his book by a sound. It was a footstep. Somebody was coming down the passage, and under the door filtered a thin stream of light. To snap the dark slide over the lantern and dart to the door, so that if it opened he would be behind it, was with him, as Mr Claud Trevelyan might have remarked, the work of a moment. He heard the door of study number five ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... houses forenent were all astir at their respective vocations; and at the foot of the wynd, looking straight up, was a change-house, into which there was, even at that early hour, a great resorting of bein elderly citizens for their dram and snap. Moreover, at the head of the wynd, an aged carlin, with a distaff in her arms and a whorl in her hand, sat on a doorstep tending a stand of apples and comfits; so that, to a surety, had I made any attempt to escape by the window, I must have been seen by some one, and laid hold ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... man, of his impudence and of his daring, Chauvelin felt an icy grip on his heart. His cheeks became ashen white, his thin lips closed with a snap, and the hand which held the lamp aloft trembled visibly. Sir Percy stood before him, still smiling and with a graceful ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... in my face. "I snap my fingers at your evil powers and your God of Love. I don't believe in either of them. I'm not afraid of either of them. Evil powers! Ha! Let them come if they want to. Here! We'll drink defiance to the powers of evil. Come ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... in the seventh heaven. I trod on air. It was the first frank admittance of her love. And with such benediction I was made so strong that I knew I could kill a score of Fortinis and snap my fingers at a score of ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... had sunk into the soft banks of a small, ditch-like spring branch. Mr. Stewart had to stay on our wagon to hold the bronco, but all the rest, even Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, gathered around and tried to help. They hitched on a snap team, but not a trace tightened. They didn't want to unload the game in the snow. The men lifted and pried on the wheels. ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... movement among the rushes in the ditch, evidently not made by the dogs; then a silence. But the dogs come back, and as they give tongue the rabbit rushes past a bare spot on the slope of the bank. I fire—a snap shot—and cut out some fur, but do no further harm; the pellets bury themselves in the earth. But, startled and perhaps just stung by a stray shot, the rabbit bolts fairly at last twenty yards in front of Orion, the spaniel tearing at ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... had daily, for weeks, and even for months, been doing all that humanity and professional skill could suggest in order to relieve him, let us suppose of great suffering, and one fine morning to see the patient leap out of bed, laugh, and snap his fingers in their faces, and tell them that there had been nothing the matter with him all the while!—ninety-nine of them would probably look upon the next patient with some suspicion, and if deception was at all frequent, the really diseased would ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... I can do it still! (Putting a biscuit on her nose.) Here is the last of my supper. Say 'snap,' Daddy. ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... had saved him. Yet one of the racing cow ponies struck the boy and his horse a glancing blow. For the moment, Tad felt sure his left leg must have been broken. He imagined that he had heard it snap. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... but I howp they'll no' be learnin' ye to gie fowk jimp wecht, or it'll juist be the ruin o' your trade. I've nae objections to you haein' a hobby; but shurely you cud get a better ane gin a lot o' thae blethers o' Bandy Wobster's. Get ane o' thae snap-traps, or whativer ye ca' them, for takin' photographs; get on for the fire brigade or the lifeboat, join the Rifles or something. There wud be some sense in the like o' that. But fykin' an' scutterin' awa' amon' exyems, as you ca' them, an' triangles, an' a puckle things like laddies' girds and ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... of entrance." She was never beaten, and she killed on the spot several of the country bullies who came out upon her when following her master in his rounds. She generally sent them off howling with one snap, but if this was not enough, she made an end ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... blinked hard and shook his head. Something let go with a soggy snap, and the misty man was gone. I'd better take it easy on the whiskey, he thought. You got to wait, Donegal, old lush, until Nora and Ken get here. You can't get drunk until they're gone, or you might get them mixed up with ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... with as little regard for what she might think as if she were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a man as this. Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and a desperate man. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb, I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and my girl! Both could be saved if I could but silence that foul tongue. I did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I have ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... He then slowly closed his eyes, and a convulsive shudder ran through his frame. This was repeated at rapid intervals, with more or less violence. He next passed his hands alternately over his forehead, as if he were wiping it, and throwing some invisible, sticky substance, with a vicious snap, to right and left. At last, after a final shudder, which stiffened him into the image of death for a moment, he rose to his feet and, leaning on the railing, began to intone, in a dismal whine, a speech of which we need give ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... still good to eat and that the presence of poison would not affect the consumer's stomach in the least; in fact, most of the game these Indians get is procured in this manner. I was lucky enough to secure a snap-shot of this man in the act of using his blow-gun. It proved to be the last photograph I took in the Brazilian jungles. Accidents and sickness subsequently set in, and the fight for life became too hard and all-absorbing even to think ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... it to Sary, and then you can look for trouble! She'll snap pictures of Jeb at dinner, of Jeb at the pump, and Jeb ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... have been undergoing minor changes, but without at all losing its identity. Mr. ——— says that this old oak wood, though it looks as strong and as solid as ever, has really lost its strength, and that it would snap short off, on application ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... accomplished one purpose. Just as the mad dog is about to snap at the child, the young medical student snatches the boy away, and throws him to the rear. The child rolls over and over, and then, sitting up, begins to cry, more from surprise at the rough treatment than because ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... mumble-the-peg, high-spy, snap- the-whip, a rather dangerous performance, in which a long row of boys, with the biggest boy at one end, and tapering down to the smallest at the other end, would run over a field or open space until suddenly the big boy ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... of capturing their hated foe. A couple of running bowlines were prepared. Higson dropped the tempting morsel, and let it sink down deep, then rapidly drew it up again. Quick as lightning the shark darted at it, and down his throat it went, his jaws closing with a snap which made Higson draw up his leg. The monster's sharp teeth, however, could not ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... the officer sternly, at this moment. Although Grosvenor's eyes blazed at the insult, and he looked more than half- inclined to forcibly resent it, he closed his lips with a fierce snap, and obeyed the injunction, at the restraining touch of Dick's hand. A moment later the officer who had brought them to the island entered, and, closing the door behind him, advanced, saluting as ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... would forget, but she has not, and every fortnight she begins to sew her dress and I go over the mountains to give her peace; for each time she draws nearer to the end, and wears away more and more; and some day the thin blade will snap." ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... laugh and scream around that fountain, and snap torpedoes and fire-crackers, and shout with wild delight when the rockets shot up into the sky, or the burning wheels span round and round, scattering showers of real fire right in ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... Williams & Van Horne, printed on the uppermost envelope. The reminder aroused a host of associations. Flossy had not been much in her thoughts lately, yet she had not failed to plume herself occasionally with the reflection that she could afford now to snap her fingers at her. She had wondered more than once what Flossy would think when she heard that she was ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... New-Year! Hero of promise, fraught with cheer! Bright promise of the glad return Of glowing fires that erst did burn On hearths long desolate! Thy stainless youth supports our faith That thou wilt break the bonds of death And snap the web ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... back, prepared himself for cutting the Indian in two, when I saw Captain Nemo rise suddenly, and then, dagger in hand, walk straight to the monster, ready to fight face to face with him. The very moment the shark was going to snap the unhappy fisherman in two, he perceived his new adversary, and, turning ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... his rifle. He jerked it to his shoulder as, out of the shadows, a figure emerged sharp and black against the moonlight. As if she were in a trance Peggy saw Roy's hand slide under the barrel of the little repeater and then came the sharp click of the repeating mechanism, followed by the snap of the hammer as it ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... Dismukes, all snap and smartness, went over him as though he had never seen him before in all his life. If Jeff had been a horse for sale and the doctor a professional horse coper, scarcely could the examination have been carried forward with ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... of prey, and has a strong and peculiar odour, which makes European dogs shy at first of attacking him, doubtless intimidated too by his snapping mode of fighting; for it is observed of poodles, and all which snap, that few other dogs are fond of engaging them. He is most destructive on breaking in among a flock of sheep, as he bites a piece out of every one he seizes; not holding fast and worrying dead like the fox, but snapping at all he can ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... defile his Ancestral Tablets and goats propagate within his neglected tomb!" chanted the band in unison. "May the sinews of his hams snap suddenly in moments of achievement! May the principles of his warmth and cold never be ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... of two feet. It lives in the river, and on warm days suns itself on the sandbanks with which the stream abounds. It is active, strong, violent, and passionate. When laid on its back it easily recovers itself. If provoked, it will snap at sticks and other objects, and endeavor to tear them to pieces. It is of an olive-green color, with large irregular ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... snap at the bone, upon which its sharp teeth clapped, and then with a growl bounded off, but stopped and came back, dropped the bone in the sand, looked up at Tom, and threw up its ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... like to the Huldah of seventeen was the Huldah of thirty-six! It was incredible that the pangs of disappointed love could make so little inroad on a woman's charms. Rosy cheeks, plump figure, clear eyes, with a little more snap in them than was necessary for connubial comfort, but not a whit too much for beauty; brown hair curling round her ears and temples—what an ornament to a certain house he knew in ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to fall off in the direction of that bay. The effect was that the next sea caught us full on the weather-bow with a shock that pitched everything movable out of its place. There was a twist and a grind from the machinery, a snap and a crash, and then part after part gave way, as the strain fell upon it in turn. Marston, with an engineer's instinct, shut off the steam; but the mischief was done. We felt the 'Ercolano' give a wild sheer, and then ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... So far the ships had avoided delay by tacking along the edges of the ice-fields, from lake to lake of ocean surrounded by ice. Now the ice began to crush together, driven by wind and tide with furious enough force to snap the two ships like egg-shells. Radisson watched for a free passage, and, with a wind to rear, scudded for shelter of a hole-in-the-wall. Here he met the Eskimo, and provisions were replenished; but the dangers of the ice-fields ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... be rewers[123]. Those who are so fond of a thing as to snap at it, should not repent when ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... but, say, did you ever hear a flock of Union Square sparrows chirp faster than them fellers is talkin' now? Nix. You go into the village gay with these Schwabs by the sewer line, I guess." Truxton pricked up his ears. "The old man has had a hole chopped in the sewer here, they tell me, and it's a snap to get into the city. Not very clean or neat, but it gets you there. Well, so long! They're ready, I see. They don't monkey long when they've got a thing to do. I'd advise you not to be too stubborn when they get you to headquarters; it may go easier ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... I'm no penny-squeezer; I like good stretchy legs myself,' I says; 'I like to see them elastic so they'll give a plenty when they're pulled; but,' I says, 'if you take that step,' I says, 'if you declare yourself, then the rubber in your legs,' I says, 'will just naturally snap; you'll find you've overplayed the tension,' I says, 'and there won't be any more stretch left ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... beginning to form nice feminine habits. For Beth had taken kindly to the sewing and tea-drinking and long quiet chats; it was a delight to her to have some one to wait on, and help, and talk to. "I'm so fond of you, Aunt Victoria," she said one day; "I even like you to snap at me; and if we lived quite alone together, you and I, I ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... and laughed aggravatingly. 'Do you think you'll cure the neighbourhood with that marriage?' he exclaimed. 'Before another two years Catherine will be following her sister's example. They all go the same way, and as they end by marrying, they snap their fingers at every one. These Artauds flourish in it all, as on a congenial dungheap. There is only one possible remedy, as I have told you before: wring all the girls' necks if you don't want the country to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... It has the charm of its acquired taste, and it can corrupt because it can speak with an authority unknown in Philistia. Because it pretends to care about art, artists are not indifferent to its judgments. Culture imposes on people who would snap their fingers at vulgarity. With culture itself, even in the low sense in which I have been using the word, we need not pick a quarrel, but we must try to free the artist and the public too from the influence of cultivated opinion. The liberation will not be complete until those who have already ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... to note results. He was busy. The fat sergent had leaped snarling upon his arm, and was struggling to hold it still long enough to snap a hand-cuff round the wrist; while the commissaire had started forward with a bellow of rage and two hands extended and itching ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... six months, not longer, to go on the way he's been going," said John M. Gibbs, with a vicious snap of his teeth. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Italy was desirable; but it was especially towards great Rome that the soul of the illustrious poet, the confined State Councillor of Weimar, had been ever yearning. So that when came the longed-for day, and the Duke gave leave of absence, and Goethe, closing his official portfolio with a snap and imprinting a fervent but hasty kiss on the hand of Frau von Stein, fared forth on his pilgrimage, Tischbein was a prospect inseparably bound up for him with that of the Seven Hills. Baedeker had not been born. Tischbein would be a great saviour of time and trouble. Nor was this hope ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... now entirely ignored my letters of the 1st and the 5th instant. You probably think that I am not a person about whom any one need take much trouble; a mean cur, perhaps, who can do no more than snap at a mastiff's heels. I am very well aware (having had the benefit of a year's experience of your character and temperament) that you have very little respect for unmoneyed people and are contemptuous of their ability to interfere with the moneyed. ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... face, were those of my classmate Quinet! An involuntary start of mine rustled a fallen dry branch, and the snap of a dry twig of it seemed to dissolve his determination; the hand dropped, he sprang off—and rushed quickly away ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... just three days after his seventeenth birthday. Sir Edward Sullivan writes me that when Oscar matriculated at Trinity he was already "a thoroughly good classical scholar of a brilliant type," and he goes on to give an invaluable snap-shot of him at this time; a likeness, in fact, the chief features of which grew more and more characteristic as the ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... with a quick b, b, A; b, b, b, b![69] Very often, however, the designer is satisfied with one surprise, but I never saw a good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of any kind was ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome with the large balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series: the single baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street below through the gap, simply makes the whole composition right, when otherwise it ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... spiritual life over the whole aspects and manifestations of Nature. The question, then, cannot be laid aside concerning the nature of the life of the spirit in itself. What is it now? What is it capable of becoming? Why should its evolution snap at its highest point? Why cannot the power that has accomplished so much in the history of our world, and has always done this the more efficiently the more a remove from the realm of the sensuous took ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... of the cold snap that arrived quite early in December, it also became the sleeping place of Rutherford, Rosemary and Harold, the tiniest of the children, who piled in with the uncomplaining occupant and kept him awake three-fourths of the night trying to determine whose ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... there to shove your head into that den of wolves, are you?" Without waiting for an answer she pushed on to a prediction. "Because if you do, they'll surely snap it off." ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... belief that La Tournoire was not to be taken by one man with a few hired knaves. The captor of La Tournoire can afford to earn Montignac's displeasure by deviating from his orders. Should you take this Huguenot, you would be in a position to snap your fingers at Montignac." ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... inhaled a first deep breath of smoke. "You feel that that little white curl from the end of your cigarette is the last puff of smoke from the boats you have burned; and that, with your own four walls around you, you can snap your fingers at the world. I know! God, don't ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... just before he was taken ill. He was not going to risk cutthroats getting together. He overestimated my ability to keep clear of disaster. But after all, I'm not sorry—I don't want anything more than I have earned. For you always pay for it in some way. The world may not know but these snap-judgment profiteers, these get-rich-quick phenomena, always have to pay. But you don't understand," he added, gently, "do you? You must not be blamed for not understanding anything unless ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... half bacchanalian, half devout, "Wake 'em, brudder!" "Stan' up to 'em, brudder!"—and still the ceaseless drumming and clapping, in perfect cadence, goes steadily on. Suddenly there comes a sort of snap, and the spell breaks, amid general sighing and laughter. And this not rarely and occasionally, but night after night, while in other parts of the camp the soberest prayers and exhortations ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the cold-blooded and covetous courtesan, cannot be said not to be real—they and almost every one of the minorities are an immense advance on the colourless and bloodless ticketed puppets of the Middle Fiction. But they still want something—the snap of the fingers of the artist. Moll is perhaps the most real of all of them and yet one has no flash-sights of her being—never sees her standing out against soft blue sky or thunder-cloud as one sees the great characters of fiction; never hears her steps winding ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... town; and as for Glycera, she behaved confoundedly ill to me. Well, well, now that we understand each other, it is for ever that our hearts are united, and we can look at Sir Cresswell Cresswell, and snap our fingers at his wig. But this Maria of the last century was a woman of an ill-regulated mind. You, my love, who know the world, know that in the course of this lady's career a great deal must have passed that would not bear the light, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A snap of the whip, horses prancing, and with the notes of the horn waking the echoes in the hills, we drove out from "Redstone" just after luncheon and commenced the first stage of our sixty-mile drive to Normandie-by-the-Sea, where we were to spend ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... corn, and played round his cap, which was a little higher, and was so tinted by the sun that the butterfly was inclined to settle on it. Guido put up his hand to catch the butterfly, forgetting his secret in his desire to touch it. The butterfly was too quick—with a snap of his wings disdainfully mocking the idea of catching him, away he went. Guido nearly stepped on a humble-bee—buzz-zz!—the bee was so alarmed he actually crept up Guido's knickers to the knee, and even then knocked himself against a wheat-ear when he started to fly. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies |
