"Snapping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about in the dark Phil reckoned that the unavoidable snapping of dry sticks in their scramble through the undergrowth would pass unnoticed long enough to enable them to get well away. Once or twice they crouched in silence to allow groups of men to pass them; for Kendrick was now taking a course parallel ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... a lonesome wood, With trembling hands, beneath a foreign stone. But there were some who said It moved its lips; And when they went away, the earth stirred And they heard it moan. Now it comes leaping down the tunnel roads Where the moss hangs like stalactites, Screaming out curses, snapping at the toads; Negroes who pass there on the moonless nights Behind them hear a sound that stops their breath. The keen wind whistles through its teeth, And the white skull goes bounding by ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... of honor!" the lawyer cried, snapping his fingers in the air. "And in any case, you're an accessory after the fact. You ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... out of the Lani's gaping mouth as he bent double from the power of the blow. Kennon clipped him on the chin with a driving knee, snapping George's head back and smashed the bearded face with the shackles. Blood spurted and George screamed with rage. One of the Lani's big hands wrapped around the shackles and tugged. Kennon let go and drove another left to ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... a moment later, "whin we rushed in here wid the spalpeens snapping at our heels, I hadn't any more hope that we'd ever get clear of 'em than the man who was transported to Botany Bay had of cutting out Prince Albert ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... it might have meant a fight. As things were, it was rather an execution; and though the fox died snapping, his neck was broken before he had decided upon his line of action. As Finn flung the furry corpse aside, Desdemona appeared in the mouth of the cave with most of the stolen rabbit between her jaws. It was noteworthy that she gave no heed ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... a confusion of sounds filling his ears, a snapping and snarling and growling that frightened and bewildered him. It was several moments before he could remember where he was or why he was there, lying on the ground ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... those of the Hudson Bay mail. The dogs from Wabinosh House were wildly famished and at the sight and odor of the great piece of meat which the courier began cutting up for them they set up a snarling and snapping of jaws, and began fighting indiscriminately among themselves until the voices of their human companions were almost drowned in the tumult. A full pound of the meat was given to each dog, and other pieces of it were suspended over beds of coals drawn ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... shaft had cut off the sky. Brydges didn't bother clambering out of the bucket. He was silent and kept hold of the dependent cable. Suddenly, there was a rumble as of the hoist flying backward, then the whip lash of a taut rope snapping, and the cable whirled down in a coil round ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the fields of maize, the steppes, dotted here and there with clumps of wild roses; the Carpathian pines, with their sombre murmur; and all the evening sounds which had been his infancy's lullaby; the cowbells, melancholy and indistinct; the snapping of the great whips of the czikos; the mounted shepherds, with their hussar jackets, crossing the plains where grew the plants peculiar to the country; and the broad horizons with the enormous arms of the windmills outlined against the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... account of its demoralizing tendency. Troops that have become accustomed to it cannot be expected to bravely face the enemy; and the habit is very rapidly formed. At Bull Run, in July, 1861, a whole company was seen to grovel in the dust at the mere snapping of a percussion-cap of one ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... bedraggled did his garments appear. The boys had made him do his share of the camp work. Chopping wood had made his palms blister, sparks had snapped out of the fires he had made and burned holes in his clothes, and hot fat snapping from the skillet had left red marks on his ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... or power of Dunn's he had acquired in far-off lands, where life may easily depend on the snapping of a twig or the right interpretation of a trampled grass-blade, and he was using it now, almost unconsciously, so as to make his presence near Ella and Clive as unobtrusive as possible, when his keen eye caught sight of a bush, of which leaves and branches ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... of their pausing I felt a surge of strength, a snapping of the spell that had bound us, an instantaneous withdrawal of the inhibiting force. Ventnor broke into a run, holding his rifle at the alert. We raced after him; were close to the shining shapes. And, gasping, we stopped short not a dozen ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... barn, so that no one heard distinctly the bellowing of the bull but the girl in the dairy, and she had been too long accustomed to the noises of a farm to give it a second thought. The animal, however, was so furious that he broke his fastenings, snapping the ropes, and coming out of the stall, and even trying to force the door of the shed; but in this he failed, as there was a wooden bar across it on the outside. After a little while he ceased to bellow, so no one was aware of the mischief which had ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... when he said it and made me go hot and cold, knowing (if he did not) that for two pins Mr. Saint Aubyn might have had him drowned like a puppy. However, he chose to make nothing of an insult from a factor. "Mercator tantum," replied he, snapping his fingers, and to my great joy; for any violence might have spoiled the story agreed on between us—that is, between Mr. Saint Aubyn, Mr. Godolphin, and me who acted as deputy ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... she said, snapping her fingers in his face, "your nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better fitted to your hands than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers of deer; but if a bear or a wild cat or a serpent were born among you, ye would flee. The Huron girls ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... shouting soldiers could not be heard above the crashing of timbers, the snapping of mooring chains. The bridge swayed, then caved in, where the pontoon had been struck and was sinking. Between the two broken-off ends, still crowded with struggling humanity, rushed the turbid current of the river. The last road to safety ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Irishman named Anthony Creagh the fellow O'Sullivan rushed up to my Lord, eyes snapping with excitement. He gave me a nod and a "How d'ye do, Montagu? Didn't know you were of the honest ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... behavior of a {trampoline} is to perform an error check once and then snap the pointer that invoked it so as henceforth to bypass the trampoline (and its one-shot error check). In this context one also speaks of 'snapping links'. For example, in a LISP implementation, a function interface trampoline might check to make sure that the caller is passing the correct number of arguments; if it is, and if the caller and the callee are both compiled, then snapping the link allows that particular path ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... spring-board, from which they threw somersaults, or dived straight down into the depths, where there were warm and cold currents mysteriously interwoven. They believed that these deep holes were infested by water-snakes, though they never saw any, and they expected to be bitten by snapping-turtles, though this never happened. Fiery dragons could not have kept them out; gallynippers, whatever they were, certainly did not; they were believed to abound at the bottom of the deep holes; but the boys ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... was a drone if he were your son," replied Mrs. Brauner. She knew that if any one else had dared thus to attack their boy, his father would have been growling and snapping like an angry bear. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... understand how it was that I happened to be left alone, and alive on the field of battle, I must inform you, that I inherited a considerable portion of my father's courageous temper, and not much liking the snapping of the pistols in my face, I had thrown myself down on the ground, and had remained there very quietly preferring to be trampled on, rather than interfere with what was ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... such day this year—a Wednesday—these mixed impressions and longings presented themselves with unwonted force and iteration. So wistful and sudden a craving for snapping all ties and hurrying away was after all spasmodic, perhaps whimsical; but it was quickened by that sultry, melting air of the parks and the tropical look of the streets. The pavements seemed to glare fiercely like ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... was discoursing to him with candid serenity. Now that he had done him an impertinence, he evidently found him less intolerable. Mr. Leavenworth stood stirring his tea and silently opening and shutting his mouth, without looking at the young sculptor, like a large, drowsy dog snapping at flies. Rowland had found it disagreeable to be told Miss Blanchard would have married him for the asking, and he would have felt some embarrassment in going to speak to her if his modesty had not found incredulity so easy. The facile ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... up with fans—all the Snow Man's family had a lovely floating gait—and the scholars took them with feeble curtesies, and began fanning. A stiff north wind blew in at the windows. The forest was all creaking and snapping with the cold. The poor children, fanning themselves, on an ice divan, would certainly have frozen if the Snow Man's wife had not suggested that they all have a little game of "puss-in-the-corner," to while away the time before dinner. ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... ice was thick on the river; but the early snows that had fallen were gone. It was the day after Christmas, and Helen and Ruth had been at home from school at Briarwood Hall less than a week. Tom, too, who attended the Military Academy at Seven Oaks, was home for the winter holidays. It was snapping cold weather, but the sun had been bright this day and for three hours or more the friends had enjoyed themselves ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... whispered, "I found your buried letter, oh, Men-Kheper-Ra. Behold that bird now flying toward you. It is my Ba—my Heart or Soul-bird carrying the gift of my love:" I should with difficulty have prevented myself from snapping out, "Thanks very much; but, my good girl, I'm in no mood to ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... and snapping from the tunnel halted him. It was the giving of the tortured timbers. On the heels of that came a dull, crushing roar. A blast of dust shot from the tunnel-mouth, like smoke from a cannon, preceded by a shock that nearly threw the boy off ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the zeal of the saint to work among the Indians. In the Indian school where he taught he had met his Fate—the thing he probably scouted—that fragile type of Indian beauty almost fawn-like in its elusiveness, pure spirit from the very prosaic fact that the seeds of mortal disease are already snapping the ties to life. It is a type you never see near the fur posts. You have to go to the far outer encampments, where white vices have not polluted the very air. He fell in love. What was he to do? If he left her to her fate, she would go back to the inclement roughness of tepee life mated to some ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... A snapping alertness of the eyes indicated that Trevison knew what was coming. That was the reason he had been so quiescent this far; it was why he made no objection when Braman passed his hands over his clothing in search of other weapons, after his pistol ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... him—did not feel happy. But for the fact that he was a guest at his uncle's home he might have made an unpleasant exhibition of his unhappiness; but he was a well-bred city boy, of which fact he was somewhat proud, and so his impatience was vented in snapping off the teeth of his pocket-combs, as he sat by the window and looked out ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... he was, I went to open it, and found on the doorstep a half-grown boy in sea-clothes. He had no sooner seen me than he began to dance some steps of the sea-hornpipe (which I had never before heard of far less seen), snapping his fingers in the air and footing it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; and there was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, that was highly pathetic and consisted ill with ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vowel, or tone, formation, efforts at good articulation are futile. Every technical vocal fault must be referred back to the fundamental condition of right formation of tone, that is, the vowel. Sputtering, hissing, biting, snapping, of consonants is not enunciation. The student should learn how without constraint, to prolong vowels; learn, if you please, the fundamentals of singing, and articulation, the formation of consonants, the jointing of syllables, will ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... heart and shortening breath; and at last, looming above him, was the welcome outlines of the great rock. But on neither side of it could he find sign of the trader or of his canoe. And already by the rustlings in the woods and the occasional snapping of dry sticks, he could tell that the pursuing Indians were drawing ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... is the continuous singing of the grasshoppers, and the peculiar snapping noise they make as they spring, leaping along the sward. The fierce sun of the ripe wheat pours down a fiery glow scarcely to be borne except under the boughs; the hazel leaves already have lost their green, the tips of the rushes are shrivelling, the grass becoming brown; it is a scorched ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... McChesney's New York training came to her aid. She ignored the voluble interpreter. She remained coolly unruffled by the fusillade of Portuguese. Quietly she opened her hand bag and plunged her fingers deep, deep therein. Her blue eyes gazed confidingly up into the Brazilian's snapping black ones, and as she withdrew her hand from the depths of her purse, there passed from her white fingers to his brown ones that which is the Esperanto of the nations, the universal language understood from Broadway to Brazil. The hand on her ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... forces were perpetually encountering each other in divers parts of the neighbourhood; and, as no one branch of the Chuzzlewit tree had ever been known to agree with another within the memory of man, there was such a skirmishing, and flouting, and snapping off of heads, in the metaphorical sense of that expression; such a bandying of words and calling of names; such an upturning of noses and wrinkling of brows; such a formal interment of good feelings and violent resurrection of ancient grievances; as had never been known in those quiet parts ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... bird. His Persian servant, with thoughts intent on cooking it, ran, knife in hand, to cut its throat in the orthodox manner, so as to make it lawful for a Mohammedan to eat. The bird, on being seized, struggled hard with its captor, and, snapping its elongated bill widely in wild terror, by accident got the man's head jammed between its mandibles. The keen cutting edges of the long strong beak scarified the man's cheeks, and made him scream with pain and with frantic fear that it was his throat which was being ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... arched their necks as if to offer her a greeting, and the Viking's wife spread out her arms towards them, as if she accepted it, and smiled through her tears. She was roused from deep thought by a rustling of wings and snapping of beaks; all the storks arose, and started on ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... dislocated thigh, and a fractured jaw or two. Later, however, affairs moved more briskly, one of the Spine-splitter forwards getting the ball well down to goal; but, being met with "opposition," he was carried senseless from the field. A lively scrimmage followed, amid a general cracking of ribs and snapping of spines. The field now being covered with wounded, the Police interfered, and the play terminated ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... this woman, her beauty fouled and bloody, who sought out my destruction where I lay powerless to resist her will. Low she bent above me, her dusky hair a cloud that choked me, and through this cloud the glitter of her eyes, red lips that curled back from snapping teeth, fingers clawed to rend and tear; then as I gazed, in horror, these eyes grew soft and languorous, these vivid lips trembled to wistful smile, these cruel hands clasped, soft-clinging, and drew me near and ever nearer towards that smiling, tender mouth, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... from a police lantern. Pelle and a dozen others recognized the man from the Eleventh, who could have but one midnight errand in the sleeping-room of the Tenth: the errand of a thief. Like wolves they leaped on him, snapping and growling, swearing the strange oaths of the Legion. Bayonets flashed in the moonlight; blood spouted red, for a soldier of the Legion may "decorate" himself with a comrade's belt, or bit of equipment, if another has annexed his: that is legitimate, even ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... and the pines were interspersed with young birch-trees, Meliton saw a herd. Hobbled horses, cows, and sheep were wandering among the bushes and, snapping the dry branches, sniffed at the herbage of the copse. A lean old shepherd, bareheaded, in a torn grey smock, stood leaning against the wet trunk of a birch-tree. He stared at the ground, pondering something, and played ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... lightly in his large hand, the stable and sure intelligence beside me calmly chirruped, and then as calmly switched his long whip at the distant rebel brute. How the switching and snapping galled his proud neck! How his black back curved, and his small head tossed! Still, he would not pull an ounce, but just pawed like a fairy horse, or as if he were born to tread on clouds alone, or to herald in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... with a foot upon the fender, her tired, passive face inclined meditatively, her rusty old black gown drawn back by one hand from the snapping sparks. "No," she said, slowly, joyless resignation mingling with pride in her voice. "I was born here ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... The cattle ran easily enough, with long, springy jumps that carried them over the ground faster than appearances would lead one to believe. The cow-pony, his nose stretched out, his ears slanted, his eyes snapping with joy of the chase, flew fairly "belly to earth." The rider sat slightly forward, with the cowboy's loose seat. A whirl of dust, strangely insignificant against the immensity of a desert morning, rose from the flying group. Now they disappeared ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... peculiarly developed feathers which produce special sounds. In some of the little manakins of Brazil, two or three of the wing-feathers are curiously shaped and stiffened in the male, so that the bird is able to produce with them a peculiar snapping or cracking sound; and the tail-feathers of several species of snipe are so narrowed as to produce distinct drumming, whistling, or switching sounds when the birds descend rapidly from a great height. All these are probably ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... smoke, and pursing the lips as if to make the sound o, one may make fifteen or twenty small rings by snapping the ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear
... that tragic end, when the tension was tightening up to the snapping point, the bitter hatred of the leaders yet more bitter, the crowds yet denser, the terms of discipleship yet more plainly put with loving, faithful plainness, that a characteristic incident happened.[49] A young man of gentle blood and breeding, and influential position, ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... people with their tricks, and deceiving mankind, but not openly.' That description would hold good at the present day. The Gipsies are still a lazy, thieving set of rogues, who get their living by robbing hen-roosts, telling fortunes, and 'snapping up unconsidered trifles' like Autolycus of old. Pilfering, varied with a rude sort of magic, and the swindling arts of divination and chiromancy for the special behoof of credulous servant-girls, are the stock-in-trade of the modern Zingaris. Without ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Darrell, a year or two after, married again for the sake of having some one to look after his house and little Edith as much as anything else. Mrs. Darrell No. 2 was in every respect the exact contrast of Mrs. Darrell No. 1. She was a brisk little woman, with snapping black eyes, a sharp nose, a complexion of saffron, and a tongue like a carving-knife. Frederic Darrell was by nature a feeble, helpless sort of man, but she galvanized even him into a spasmodic sort of life. He was master of three living ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Bloomfield's demand for a new race, and intended to stick to their ill-gotten laurels in spite of everybody. On the other side it was as freely asserted that Parrett's had funked it; and some went even so far to hint that the snapping of the rope happened fortunately for the boat, and saved it under cover of an accident from the disgrace of a defeat. The few who knew the real story considered Bloomfield was quite right in refusing another race till the ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... African nature, rich in beautiful monsters—as a wild heath where islands of fertility look the greener from the surrounding waste, where the loveliest plants now shine out among unsightly weeds, and now are choked by their parasitic growth, so intertwined that we cannot disentangle the weed without snapping the flower?—In this statement I have had no reference to the vulgar abuse of Voltaire, save as far as his charges are coincident with the decisions of Shakespeare's own commentators and (so they would ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... wife had brought the camera home she had me set up as a statue all over the lawn, and she was snapping at me like a Spitz doggie ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... mushrooms—asparagus tips—strong black coffee—cognac," he ordered with the curtness of an army officer snapping commands at a trooper. His voice was rich and cultivated, but had a very distinctly foreign quality in spite of the fact ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... matter of fact somebody else had gone out, and had come very near indeed to snapping him up; but there are things which do not bear thinking of. It was Hugh's firm conviction that Destiny and not Jane, had flung Rosemary in front of his motor; but Destiny could not be ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... the other woman, her eyes snapping, "but of course yesterday wasn't my first acquaintance with her. I know her every trick well. When we were in New York people were so struck by her neatness ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... us the girls for a little while? We'll be very careful of them," said Tommy, winking one eye to express apples, snapping his fingers to signify pop-corn, and gnashing his teeth to convey the idea ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... to ecstacy; lads and lasses leaped through and through, as on the wings of zephyrs; a hundred couples bounding at once on the green sward; the old folks chiming in the chorus of universal laughter, and snapping their fingers to the dances in which they had no longer the strength and nimbleness to join; the youngsters getting up mimic reels in sly corners; and the music seeming to stir into delight the branches of the great ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... weariness, and seeing dimly the hollow-eyed face of the man who stooped above the blaze. Now it grew quickly, and increased to a sharp-pointed pyramid of red flame. The bright sparks showered up, crackling and snapping, and when she followed their flight she saw the darkly nodding tops of the evergreens ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... half through the sentence, Meta's gun was directed between his eyes and she was wildly snapping the trigger. There was only hatred and revulsion in her expression. Kerk took her by the shoulders and sat her in his chair, before anything worse happened. It took a while before she could calm down enough to listen to Jason's words. It is not easy to have the carefully built-up ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... for nearly sixteen miles, to the village at its southern end, near Ocracoke Inlet. Upon entering the swash I thought of the sharks which the Hatteras fishermen had told me frequently seized their oars, snapping the thin blades in pieces, assuring me, at the same time, that mine would prove very attractive, being so white and glimmering in the water, and offering the same glittering fascination as a silver-spoon bait does ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... Cicely heard the snapping of a string, the rustling of paper, and then madame's affected little cry of admiration. But at the next word she knew just how the little Frenchwoman was shrugging her shoulders, with ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... turns and moves around in a circle, snapping his whip at each flourish, and calling the name of some animal. The players in the circle immediately imitate the animal, both as to its movements and cries. For instance, for a bear they claw or ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... loads were scattered everywhere; the askaris, their ancient muskets reloaded, had drawn near in curiosity. From the thorn trees across the tiny grass opening porters were descending, very gingerly, and with lamentations. It is comparatively easy to ascend a thorn tree with the fear of death snapping at your heels: to descend in cold blood is ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... James, turning her pretty face towards him, her black eyes snapping with fun, "that if conceit was consumption, there'd be another little green grave in the cemetery with O. Strout ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... the elater beetles are familiar to every school-boy. Elater signifies striking or bounding. Boys will know better what is meant by an elater beetle if they are told that it is the same thing as a skip-jack, or snapping-bug. If this beetle is laid on its back, its legs are unable to reach to either side and gain a foot-hold, and it can not roll over. It accordingly goes through a gymnastic movement. Curling its legs closely to its body, it arches itself a little, and ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to have it taken from me for my enemy's ironic enjoyment. I had a quite definite consciousness of my enemy. I had as a boy thought, you remember, of my uncle—and now, as I moved through the wood, I could hear the old man's chuckle just as he had chuckled in the old days, snapping his fingers together ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... patient intercourse. Talk is so solemn a rite it should be approached with prayer and must be conducted with nicety and forbearance. What steadiness and sympathy are needed if the thread of thought is to be unwound without tangles or snapping! What forbearance, while each of the pair, after tentative gropings here and yonder, feels his way toward truth as he sees it. So often two in talk are like men standing back to back, each trying to describe to the other what he sees and disputing because their ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... comfort—some people, again, live as if they were staying in somebody else's house—but what you want to induce men and women to do is to realise the sort of thing that life really is, and to attempt to put it in some kind of proportion. The mischief done by men like Fitzherbert, who was fond of snapping at people who produced ideas for inspection, is that ordinary people get to confuse wisdom with knowledge; and that won't do! And so the man who sets to work like Fitzherbert loses his alertness and his observation, with the result that instead of bringing ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... said again. I felt like one on the rack. It seemed to me I could hear my heart-strings stretching and snapping. "But what is one girl's affection to a man born to ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... partially, and we went to Laufenburg, where Turner had found the subject for one of his Liber Studiorum engravings. Here the subjects were entirely after my feeling, and, as my eyes had ceased to trouble me, I set to work on a large drawing of the town and fall from below. In the midst of it the snapping behind my eyes came back, worse than ever, and that time not to leave me for a long time. It was followed by an incessant headache, which made life a burden, with obstinate indigestion. Here Ruskin suddenly ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... derisca, pronounced pretty loud and slow, and the tones proceeded from high to low. In the intervals, he was perpetually busied in catching small cynips, and other kinds of flies,—keeping up a smart snapping of his bill, almost similar to the noise made by knocking pebbles together." There is a plaintive expression in this musical supplication, that is apparent to all who hear it, no less than if the bird were truly offering prayers to some tutelary deity. It is difficult, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... there was a second turn, this time toward the left! but it was more of a gentle curve, and we took it without trouble. After that it was plain sailing, though as far as I could know, there might be most anything ahead of us, and my nerves strained to the snapping-point every instant. After the second turn the channel ran comparatively straight for between one hundred and fifty and two hundred yards. The waters grew suddenly lighter, and my spirits rose accordingly. ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and a terrible nuisance he proved at the embarkation; for a long-time previous to the start he had been kept quiet with un limited sugar, but at last he seemed to have had enough of that condiment, and, with a violent tug, he succeeded in snapping his chain and getting away up the bank. What a business it was! drunken Iroquois stumbling about, and the bear, with 100 men after him, scuttling in every direction. Then when the bear would be captured and put safely back into his boat, half a dozen of the Iroquois would get out and run a-muck ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... his eyes snapping. "Fine! Now that you fellows have your canoe I don't suppose you'll be trying to go away anywhere this summer. Too much fun ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... throng of canines crowding and fawning round him, and snapping at one another, it was difficult for the rancher to draw the two particular ones apart so they could be looked over. At length he succeeded, and Wade drove back the rest of ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... cracks and chinks and crannies blindingly bright rays of light shot out and seemed to cut the darkness, which, after the sunshine of out of doors, seemed to be black and terrible. Now and then there came a peculiar crackling, as if something were snapping and flying to pieces under the great heat, and it was some time before I could see anything but the brilliant pencils of light that cut ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... sundry emphatic nods of the head, "I'm a sight more of a rascal than you ever dreamed on! and this snapping of you up by Injun deviltry, that you think so hard of, is but a small part of my misdoings: I've been slaving agin you this sixteen years, more of less, slaving (that's the word, for I made a ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... spared yourself and not spoiled the pie," thought Stannard as he looked about him over the scene of desolation. The men were snapping their tin mugs and the refilled canteens to the saddle rings. The captain rode over to 'Tonio, a kindly light in his blue-gray eyes. He whipped off the right gauntlet and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... it. But here, in London, Theodore Racksole was not quite the same Theodore Racksole. He dominated New York; but London, for the most part, seemed not to take much interest in him; and there were certainly various persons in London who were capable of snapping their fingers at him—at Theodore Racksole. Neither he nor his daughter could ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... her beauty. Now something furtive literally disfigured her, and she seemed trying to cover it with a dogged obstinacy which suggested a will stretched to the uttermost, vibrating like a string in danger of snapping. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... Masther Charles!" he exclaimed, snapping his fingers in a kind of wild triumph, "what are you lying there for? Bounce to your feet like a two-year ould. O, holy Moses, and Melchisedek the divine, ay, and Solomon, the son of St. Pettier, in all his glory, but that ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... she, 'I know the stag well,' and as she spoke a little dog ran out of the house and began barking and snapping at the stranger. ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... loose and sank into the bay with a suddenness that put the Tuckahoe in dire peril. The wave that followed the engulfing of an acre of land lifted the little bugeye and nearly capsized it, at the same time ripping the wharf to pieces and snapping the moorings. Captain Cromwell and his negro sprang to the tiller and succeeded in steadying her. When they had time to look about them they saw the red-headed King in the water a hundred feet away, swimming for what was ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... the room appeared a cube that was obviously copper. It stayed there but a moment, beaming brightly, then there was a snapping of energies about them—and it dropped to the floor and rang with ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... toward Clay and Helen, its neck drawn and contracted in the paroxysms of rabies; its deadly eyes, staring, unearthly yellow in the lantern light. Within two yards of Clay, who stood helpless with fear and uncertainty, it crouched to spring, growling and snapping at its own sides, and Helen screamed again as she saw Travis's quick, lithe figure spring forward and, grasping the dog by the throat from behind, fling himself with crushing force on the brute, choking ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... and the rest of them cost from a shilling to one and six the two-ounce packet; whereas now he got excellent loose honeydew for threepence halfpenny an ounce. But the crafty tradesman, who had marked him down as a buyer of expensive fancy goods, nodded with his air of mystery, and, snapping open the case, displayed the meerschaum before the dazzled eyes of Darnell. The bowl was carved in the likeness of a female figure, showing the head and torso, and the mouthpiece was of the very best amber—only twelve and six, the man said, and the amber alone, he declared, ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... in the very midst of a figure and Dick was snapping his fingers, and Cicely was making the grand chasse, Mistress Dorothy, glancing up from her music towards the window, had seen a pale face looking through the pane. She was not a woman to scream or to faint, for she was a quiet, staid, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... men!—and how they strode along, bearskins a- bob, savage eyes smouldering, snapping fierce phrases at each other as ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... The news was not inspiring. It was dark as ever outside; you could not see your hand before your face; the shower had accumulated to an alarming extent. Some roofs had fallen in under the weight of ashes; telegraphic communication with the mainland was interrupted owing, it was supposed, to the snapping of the cable in some submarine convulsion; a man had stumbled in the market-place over the dead body of a woman—choked, no doubt; two of the judge's Russian prisoners, unaccustomed to volcanic phenomena, had gone stark staring mad and ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... went Master Huckleberry, skipping and singing and snapping his fingers and twirling his cap, until he came to a wide crack in the ground, when he rolled himself up like a huckleberry dumpling, and went tumbling and bouncing down into the underground ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... peered into the opening, and could just descry the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a cat. He made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncomfortable. I placed him in the loft of an outhouse, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... flinging Gavin and the doctor at each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root or sank for a moment in a pool. I suppose the wood was a pretty sight that day, the pines only white where they had met the snow, as if the numbed painter had left his work unfinished, the brittle twigs snapping overhead, the water as black as tar. But it matters little what the wood was like. Within a squirrel's leap of it an old woman was standing at the door of a mud house listening for the approach of the trap that was to take her to the poorhouse. ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... chains having fallen within after a feudal rattling, an old man who looked born to the business of snapping up a drawbridge in lieu of a taste for any other exclusiveness peered at St. George through absurd smoked glasses, cracked quite across so ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... he sent out the signal of distress. He followed this with their location, also in code. Three times he repeated the message. Then snapping on his receiver, he ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... little attic room that night to escape his infuriated and brutal uncle, there was no refuge for him to seek except the camp of his chance friend, old Quonab the Indian. The story of his life outdoors, of the fight with the monster snapping turtle, of the journey to the great North Woods, and how the boy came to know the intimate life of the wild creatures, will make any boy's, or man's, heart beat ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... believe me, sir," concluded Brother Copas, snapping down the lid of his snuff-box, "this country of ours did not get rid of the Pope in order to make room for a thousand and one Popelings, each in his separate parish practising what seems right in his own eyes. At any rate, let us say, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... accordingly, backing the Metacomet and going ahead with the flagship, their heads were turned to the westward and they passed outside of the fatal buoy, about five hundred yards from the fort. As they went over the line the torpedo cases were heard knocking against the bottom of the ship and the primers snapping,[31] but none of the torpedoes themselves exploded and the Hartford ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... Him who has so cleansed it by His own blood, that the very Light of God can detect no stain of sin upon it, even though it be the chief of sinners. So amid the ruins of this earthly tabernacle may the triumphant song ascend above the snapping of cords, the breaking of golden bowls and pitchers, the very crash of nature's citadel: "Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God that giveth us the victory through our ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... up a large kite made of bamboo and silk, flown on a wire, of course; the wind increased, snapping the wire and blowing the kite into the ocean. Thereupon Guglielmo used a balloon filled with hydrogen gas and sent it up when the weather was clear, but the balloon broke away ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... late sun among the white-limbed cottonwoods. There Saul Chadron sat, like some distended monster, his hands spread upon more than he could honestly use, or his progeny after him for a thousand years, growling and snapping at all whose steps lagged in passing, or whose weary eyes turned ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... fortified and garrisoned, it would have done one's heart good to see the governor snapping his fingers and fidgeting with delight, as the trumpeter strutted up and down the ramparts twanging defiance to the whole Yankee race, as does a modern editor to all the principalities and powers on the other side of the Atlantic. In the hands of Anthony Van Corlear this windy ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... just ten minutes the experienced young pacifier had established the small boy as driver to Mother Mayberry's large rocking-chair, mounted him on the foot of the bed with snapping switch to crack and thus secured a two-hour reign of peace ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of ill-health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes. But one day, when she had been ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... huge body of the grizzly, twisting and swinging at the end of the rope, the blood flowing from the wound made by Bud's bullet, his little red eyes glowing like coals of fire, his strong jaws snapping and growling, and his huge paws striking furiously in the direction of Thure, did make a sight to chill the marrow in the bones ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... his lungs, a shrilly treble to the growling remonstrances of the enraged matron. Another part in this concert was sustained by the incessant yelping of a score of idle useless curs, which followed, snarling, barking, howling, and snapping at the horses' heels; a nuisance at that time so common in Scotland, that a French tourist, who, like other travellers, longed to find a good and rational reason for everything he saw, has recorded, as one of the memorabilia ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in through the lace curtains of the dining-room window. Encouraged thereby, the parrot preened its feathers, making little snapping and clicking noises meanwhile with its tongue and beak. The grass of the Green, seen between the black stems of the encircling trees, glittered with hoarfrost, while the houses on the opposite side of it looked flat and featureless owing to the ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... good-naturedly, for Belle's snapping eyes and brusque ways were beginning to interest him. "Oh, I forgot that you American working-women are all ladies. I am told that you speak of certain of your number ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... and leave my head where it is! And egad, if he behaves too badly, he shall pay hush-money, or the governor shall know! When we've taken him, lads, who—think you—dare complain?" And he laughed again; but at a bend in the river he turned suddenly with his eyes snapping—"Who a' deuce could that have been playing pranks in the woods the other night? Mark my words, Stanhope, whoever 'twas will prove the brains and the mainspring and the driving-wheel and the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... great big man with eyes piercing as a hawk's, and lips so thin that they looked like red lines on his face, parting and snapping together as he repeated the horrible things he had read in The California Star. He insisted that the Donner Party was responsible for its own misfortune; that parents killed their babies and ate their bodies ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... the past. He remembered his aunt Mary, though he had not seen her for years. His half brothers, Bill and Guy, had changed but little except perhaps to grow lean and rangy. Bill resembled his father, though his aspect was jocular rather than serious. Guy was smaller, wiry, and hard as rock, with snapping eyes in a brown, still face, and he had the bow-legs of a cattleman. Both had married in Arizona. Bill's wife, Kate, was a stout, comely little woman, mother of three of the children. The other wife was young, a strapping ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... city one blaze of lanterns, banners, and many-colored fire-works. All the ships in the harbor were gay with brilliant bunting, and the air echoed with the boom of cannon and the snapping of firecrackers, in honor of the Chinese New-Year. In fact, it was quite a Fourth-of-July celebration; and at night there began such a burst of sky-rockets and fire-balloons that the whole town ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... strength on to it, and it seemed to the pair of them as though the Swallow was for an instant checked in her flight—certainly her prow appeared to lift itself from the water. Suddenly there was a sound of something snapping—a sound that could be heard even through the yell of terror from the soldiers in the boat. It was the bowsprit which had gone, leaving the jib flying loose like ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... the end of the princess Rosetta, Louis," cried Frank; "I want to know how the fair animal got out of her watery bedroom, and whether the green dog ever got his nose nipped by the oysters he was so fond of snapping up." ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... merriest of us all, but on second thoughts he was not. Of course, there were times when it was very evident to me that my father was as comfortable and happy as he cared to be. When he stood upon the hearth-rug, before the snapping, blushing English fire (always poked into a blaze towards evening, as he was about to enter the parlor),—when he stood there with his hands clasped behind him, swaying from side to side in a way peculiar to him, and which recalled the many sea-swayed ancestors ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... becomes obvious what an advantage it is to know little, and to have forgotten very much of that little. I never love to mingle in the wrangles of the day, but I cannot forego the delight of quietly snapping my fingers at them. I trust that the small leaf inclosed may win a smile ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the bloodhounds were formerly a set of informers, thief-takers, and false evidences; the spaniels were heretofore courtiers, hangers-on of administrations, and hack journal-writers, all of whom preserve their primitive qualities of fawning on their feeders, licking their hands, and snarling and snapping at all who offer to offend their master; a former train of gamblers and black-legs are now embodied in that species of dog called lurchers; bull-dogs and mastiffs were once butchers and drovers; greyhounds and hounds owe their animation to country ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... sliding ground when a bush caught at his feet and yanked them from under him with a crackling of branches, and the bottom tread of a flight of stairs swung at his head like a gigantic club. Among the sudden splintering of branches and snapping of vines was a ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... a twig, and snapping it in two, threw it down again. "I fear the power of England no more than ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... becomes more and more laborious. Dredging in 150 fathoms is very hard work, if it has to be carried on by manual labour; but by the use of the donkey-engine to supply power,[2] and of the contrivances known as "accumulators," to diminish the risk of snapping the dredge rope by the rolling and pitching of the vessel, the dredge has been worked deeper and deeper, until at last, on the 22nd of July, 1869, H.M.S. Porcupine being in the Bay of Biscay, Captain Calver, her commander, performed the unprecedented ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... came out at the farther end, and there the prince found himself standing in the sunlight and not far from the seashore. The queen led the way towards the shore, when suddenly a great number of black dogs came running towards them, barking and snapping, and showing their teeth as though they would tear the two in pieces. But the queen drew from her bosom a whip with a steel-pointed lash, and as the dogs came springing towards them she laid about her right and left, till the skin flew and the blood ran, ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... Indian yell, instantly taken up and prolonged by a chorus of similar shouts, cut off the last of his words. Round the corner of the house shot a blood-bay stallion, red as the red of iron under the blacksmith's hammer, with a long, black tail snapping and flaunting behind him, his ears flattened, his beautiful vicious head outstretched in an effort to tug the reins out of the hands of the rider. Failing in that effort, he leaped into the air like a steeplechaser and ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... obstructed the street with a barricade of carts and furniture. Standing behind this crude barrier, they were watching the white strip of roadway which ran between the two hills covered with trees. Occasionally there sounded stray shots like the snapping of cords. "Ours," said the troopers. These were the last detachments of sharpshooters firing at the advancing Uhlans. The cavalry of the rear guard had the task of opposing a continual resistance to the enemy, repelling the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... answered nothing, and the fat duchess, who had so far been only a listener, drew her head in like a snapping turtle as she made the satisfactory observation that her "Todo" was now ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... cruel eyes snapping, "take him out and set him on his horse, and send him racing to hell after m'squitoes. And don't handle him ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... side, towards which I guided the mare, for though I could not check, I was in some measure able to direct, her course. This time, however, she either did not see the impediment in her way, or despised it, as, without abating her speed, she literally rushed through the gate, snapping into shivers with her chest the upper bar, which was luckily rotten, and clearing the lower ones in her stride. The blow, and the splintered wood flying about her ears, appeared to frighten her afresh, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... either side, two girls were fishing for shrimps. The taller of the two, a curly-haired, red-cheeked girl of eighteen, was rowing. The other, short and rather chubby, now and again lifted a pocket net of wire-screening, and, shaking a score or more of slimy, snapping creatures into one corner of it, gave a dexterous twist and neatly dropped the squirming ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell |
