"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for Clover, "swear that you won't tell, for this is a real secret,—the greatest secret that ever was, and Mrs. Florence would flay me alive if she knew that I knew!" She paused to enjoy the effect of her words, and suddenly began to snuff the ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... essay the chase. Parnassus, thick perplex'd with horrid shades, With deep-mouth'd hounds the hunter-troop invades; What time the sun, from ocean's peaceful stream, Darts o'er the lawn his horizontal beam. The pack impatient snuff the tainted gale; The thorny wilds the woodmen fierce assail: And, foremost of the train, his cornel spear Ulysses waved, to rouse the savage war. Deep in the rough recesses of the wood, A lofty copse, the growth of ages, stood; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... A snuff-box made of the wood of the Victory, mounted in silver, is one of the clerks' valued possessions, and they have a goodly store of plate, in spite of the fact that they, like many of their distinguished brethren, the Livery ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... negotiate the war contribution in the name of the town. At that time, too, I was obliged, in the service of the Council, to take with me many valuable presents. I may enumerate among them the diamond-set staff for General von Fermore, and the snuff-box, with the portrait of the empress, surrounded by brilliants, which I delivered to the General Field-Marshal Count Butterlin, in the name of the magistracy and town of Berlin. But, gentlemen, you will find the accounts of all ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... at half-minute intervals and as frequently remarked that the day was hot even for the time of year. Mr. Benny was solicitous to know if Mr. Tulse preferred the window up or down. Mr. Tulse preferred it down, and took snuff in such profusion that by and by Myra could not distinguish the floating particles from the dust which entered from the roadway, stirred up by the feet of the crowd backing to let the carriages pass. Myra had never seen, never dreamed of, such a crowd. It lined both sides ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by he pulled the stalks, and dried the leaves. Some of them he pressed into cakes of tobacco; some he rolled into cigars; and some he ground into snuff. ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews
... To dream of snuff, signifies your enemies are seducing the confidence of your friends. For a woman to use it in her dreams, foretells complications which will involve her separation ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... of the evil, the negro got the habit of work from slavery. The rank and file of the race, especially those on the Southern plantations, work hard, but the trouble is, what they earn gets away from them in high rents, crop mortgages, whiskey, snuff, cheap jewelry, and the like. The young man just referred to had been trained at Tuskegee, as most of our graduates are, to meet just this condition of things. He took the three months' public school as a nucleus ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... it be for you to find her," replied the Raven, "Anyhow, leave your silver snuff-box with us. We will look at it ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his voice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. "Miss ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Foker, the three gallant young dragoons, and your 'umble servant. Gad, sir, it put me in mind of one of our old nights when I bore His Majesty's commission in the Foighting Hundtherd and Third." And he pulled out an old snuff box, which he presented with a stately ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looks oddly here, and shows the poverty of a country which had been to the predatory proconsuls of Rome an inexhaustible repertory of the highest treasures of art. A VERRES REDIVIVUS would now find little to carry off but toys made of amber, lava snuff-boxes, and WODEHOUSE'S MARSALA—one of which he certainly would not guess the age of, and the other of which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... for his journey in a loose white suit, which, though designed for the East, was almost aggressively British. A Cheapside tailor had cut it, and, had it been black or gray or snuff-coloured instead of white, its wearer might have passed all the way from the Docks to Temple Bar for a solid merchant on 'Change—a self-respecting man, too, careless of dress for appearance' sake, but careful of it for his own, and as ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... while he was staying with us—to sell his goods, I suppose. He wore curious clothes, not like most gentlemen, but all wool things, even to his collars and his boots, which were soft and soppy like felt; and he took snuff to that degree I wouldn't have believed any human nose could have borne it, and he must have been a great trial to Mrs. Oliver until she got used to him and his pottering about all over the house in his soft-soled shoes; and the mess he made of his ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... his snuff-box, and helped himself to a pinch. "Well, I don't know so much about that," he said, cautiously; "I am her grandfather, and I thought, when I picked up that old newspaper the other day, and read about her being saved, I'd ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... the Nor'-West, in far from good humour. We had been twenty-four days from Greenhithe to Cape Farewell, and sixteen days from the latter point to our anchorage; hurry being out of the question when a thing like the "Emma Eugenia" was pounding the water in a trial of speed with perfect snuff-boxes, like the "Resolute" and "Assistance." Patience and a four-day tow had at last finished the work: and to all our anxious inquiries about the prospect of the season, as to where Penny was, and whether any intelligence had reached the settlements? not ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... from the crown to the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he flapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered, round-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not like youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the world but a model ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... repelling influence on me. In the mad excitement, the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to "fraternize" with anybody who encouraged me in my game. I accepted the old soldier's offered pinch of snuff; clapped him on the back, and swore he was the honestest fellow in the world—the most glorious relic of the Grand Army that I had ever met with. "Go on!" cried my military friend, snapping his fingers in ecstasy—"Go on, and win! Break the bank—Mille ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... light upon the two chambers at once; but it was suddenly blown out, and one commissioner said that he had "seen the similitude of a horse's hoof striking the candle and candlestick into the middle of the chamber, and afterwards making three scrapes on the snuff to put it out." Upon this, the same person was so bold as to draw his sword; but he asserted positively that he had hardly withdrawn it from the scabbard before an invisible hand seized hold of it and tugged with him for it, and prevailing, struck him so violent a blow with the pommel that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... never carried a six-shooter in my life. In all my experience I have seen few secret agents who do carry it. The only protective article I ever carried was a little silk bag containing a mixture of cayenne pepper, snuff and certain chemicals. It is very effective to throw into the faces of those who ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... Gipsies who do that. And when my wife died, I never took snuff again. Sometimes in her life she'd take a bit of snuff out (from) my box; and when I'd say, 'Dear wife, what do you do that for?' she'd tell me, 'It's good for my head.' And so when she died I never took ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... barber, shave a pig, How many hairs will make a wig? "Four and twenty, that's enough." Give the barber a pinch of snuff. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a dainty, slim little maiden, with yellow, flossy hair in short curls all over her head. Her eyes were very sweet and round and blue, and she wore a quaint little snuff-colored gown. It had a very short full waist, with low neck and puffed sleeves, and the skirt was straight and narrow and down to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... her. He had forgotten that he had promised to save her. He had forgotten that he meant to snuff out as many lives as might stand between her and freedom. The very remembrance sheered off his morbid introspection. She made a difference. How strange for him to realize that! He felt grateful to her. He had been forced into outlawry; she had been stolen ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... about half-an-hour ago I was so silly (taking an immense pinch of snuff and priming his nostrils with it) as to get married I "Perfectly true. He set out for Hastings about an hour after he left me, and upon my conscience I verily believe that, if I had had your MS. to have put into his hands, as sure as fate he would have sat with me reading it [Footnote: ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... West Africa and is kept as a secret among them. This particular specimen I obtained under very extraordinary circumstances in the Ubangi country." He opened the paper as he spoke and disclosed a heap of reddish-brown, snuff-like powder. ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned for him. All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King's street to catch him; and now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else. And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my fourpenny-piece that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will think his daughter has ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I don't call him a friend. Looks after the money his poor pa left, and doles it out once a month, and comes and takes snuff and blows his nose all over the room, as if he was a human trombone, and then says, 'hum!' and 'ha!' and 'send me word how he is now ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... apply the pressure from without, when, amidst shouts and yells, and curses in a dozen different languages, we slid along the surface of the bank until we reached a deeper channel. The outside passengers then scrambled on board, and again we darted on; while the captain took snuff with the triumphant air of a man who was not to be trifled with, and informed the lady confidentially that she (the steam-boat) was not a bad little craft after all, but it did not do to let her have her ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... of the inn behind him the gallants were taking their snuff in little silver ladles, and talking of princesses they had met, and of whose coach they had ridden home in last from tennis at my lord's. Some were eating, some were drinking, and some were puffing at long clay pipes, while others, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... snuffed a button up its nostril and the mother, in an attempt to remove it, had caused the button to be pushed farther up the channel. Doctors probed for the button without success. The distracted mother happened to think of snuff, and, as there was some at hand, took a pinch of snuff between the thumb and forefinger and held it close to the child's nose. The violent sneezing caused the button to be blown out. Such an accident may come under the observation of any parent, and if so, this method ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... was a small bowl of polished brass in which water was kept in order to give a certain moisture to the air. Oliver Haddo put his hand in his pocket and drew out a little silver box. He tapped it, with a smile, as a man taps a snuff-box, and it opened. He took an infinitesimal quantity of a blue powder that it contained and threw it on the water in the brass bowl. Immediately a bright flame sprang up, and Margaret gave a cry of alarm. Oliver looked at her quickly and motioned her to ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... soul!" cried the astonished man, dropping into his chair and apostrophizing the fire with startled energy. "If I ever saw the like,—where's my snuff-box,—I never did to be sure; streak of insanity, must be attended to; fine eyes, but ferocious young woman; hum, ha!—I'll sit here ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... aldehyde) which is the perfume of hawthorn blossoms. But treating the other of the twin products, the fragrant oil, with dry acetic acid ("Perkin's reaction") we get cumarin, which is the perfume part of the tonka or tonquin beans that our forefathers used to carry in their snuff boxes. One ounce of cumarin is equal to four pounds of tonka beans. It smells sufficiently like vanilla to be used as a substitute for it in cheap extracts. In perfumery it is known as "new ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... with passion; Mr. D—— was usually quite calm. He would stand by and give orders for a slave to be cruelly whipped, and assist in the punishment, without moving a muscle of his face; walking about and taking snuff with the greatest composure. Nothing could touch his hard heart—neither sighs, nor tears, nor prayers, nor streaming blood; he was deaf to our cries, and careless of our sufferings. Mr. D—— has often stripped me naked, hung me up by the wrists, ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... she never comes here? True enough—fine ladies let their brats live in cow-dung, but they must have Indian carpets under their own feet. Well, ask the abate, then—he has lace ruffles to his coat and a naked woman painted on his snuff box—What? He only holds his hands up when you ask? Well, then, go ask your friends on the chapel-walls—maybe they'll give you a pair of shoes—though Saint Francis, for that matter, was the father of the discalced, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... took," went on Drysdale. "I thought old Murdock would have wept on his neck. As it was, he scattered snuff enough to fill a pint pot over him out of his mull, and began talking Gaelic. And Blake had the cheek to jabber a lot of gibberish back to him, as if ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Mamma, a little Trifle, by way of keepsake and memento [Snuffbox of Meissen Porcelain, with the figure of a Dog on the lid]. You may use the Box for your rouge, for your patches, or you may put snuff in it, or BONBONS or pills: but whatever use you turn it to, think always, when you see this Dog, the Symbol of Fidelity, that he who sends it outstrips, in respect of fidelity and attachment to MAMAN, all ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Mecca. Most of its ancient glories have indeed long since departed. The rich bronze which embossed its gates, the myriads of lamps which illuminated its aisles, have disappeared; and its interior roof of odoriferous and curiously carved wood has been cut up into guitars and snuff-boxes. But its thousand columns of variegated marble still remain; and its general dimensions, notwithstanding some loose assertions to the contrary, seem to be much the same as they were in the time of the Saracens. European critics, however, condemn ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... dawn was now strengthening slowly over the lonely roadway and on the walls of the lofty houses. Of the groups of idlers of the lowest class who had assembled during the evening in the street to snuff the fragrant odours which steamed afar from Vetranio's kitchens, not one remained; men, women, and children had long since departed to seek shelter wherever they could find it, and to fatten their lean bodies on what had been charitable bestowed ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... felt by many to be quite too pointed and out of place; and for a young man, like him, very bold and immodest. One member took out his box and struck the lid a smart, emphatic rap before taking a pinch of snuff,—another coughed—and three or four of the older ones gave several loud "a-h-h-hems!" Throughout the church there was an uneasy movement. But soon all was still again, for the minister had commenced the narrative of something which he said had occurred in ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... Henriette quickly reentered, and slammed and locked the door on the future Dictator of France. 'Twas only a little door slam, but it re-echoed later, even at the Gates of Death! Rubbing his long nose Robespierre took snuff. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... man springs aside. The bull squeals; he staggers; he is down. Behind the ear. I say it. There the bullet went in. There will be much meat." The old man took snuff, and cast a proud look around as if he alone had done ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... lying in its usual disorder; here one violin, there another, one snuff-box on the bed, another under one of the boy's playthings. Music, money, caps, letters, watches, and boots were scattered about in the utmost confusion. The chairs, tables, and even the bed had all been removed from their proper places. In the midst of the chaos sat ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... son to his senses, receiving his repentance, and bringing him once more home into the bosom of his flock. We have not forgotten the brace of arguments with which he provided himself in order to bring about this charitable determination. Stevens was a shot. He could snuff his candle at ten paces, sever his bamboo, divide the fingers of the hand with separate bullets without grazing the skin—nay, more, as was said in the euphuistic phraseology of his admirers, send his ball between soul and body without impairing ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... indeed in the stable attending to the horse. He had, moreover, to run the cart under shelter. Mehetabel put out a trembling hand to snuff the candle. Her hand was so unsteady that she extinguished the light. Where to find the tinder box she knew not. She felt for a bench, and in the darkness when she had reached it, sank on it, and ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... struck twelve-and, bounce! -the lid flew off the snuffbox; but there was not snuff in it, but a little black goblin; you see, it ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Alceste. These witty Frenchmen. Rabelais, Montaigne, Moliere, are great as were their marshals and preux chevaliers; when the Frenchman tries to be poetical, he becomes theatrical, but he can be romantic, and also dignified, maugre shrugs and snuff-boxes.' ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... say, "you are now acquainted with the composition of Thomas Roch's explosive. Does it really possess the destructive power that the inventor attributes to it? Has it ever been tried? May you not have purchased a composition as inert as a pinch of snuff?" ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... at Kosa, of whom he took no further notice, Menzi saluted the new-comers by lifting his hand above his head. Then with the utmost politeness he drew a snuff-box fashioned from the tip of a buffalo-horn out of a slit in the lobe of his left ear, extracted the wooden stopper and offered Thomas ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... could not tear myself away from Isshur. I was always puzzling out the one question—What was Isshur like before he was Isshur? That is to say, before he got those terrifying eyebrows, and the big hooked nose that was always filled with snuff, and the big brass beard that started by being thick and heavy, and ended up in a few, long straggling, terrifying hairs. How did he look when he was a child, ran about barefoot, went to "Cheder," and was beaten ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... the floor, on three small pegs. Through the middle a "pin" was placed so that the griddle might revolve as the bread etc., cooked on the side near the hottest part of the fire. Matches, a luxury, were then sold in small boxes the size of the average snuff box at ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... ladies showed me a snuff box on which was a picture of Lady Carlisle's mother, the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire, taken when she was quite a little girl; a round, happy face, showing great vivacity and genius. On another box was an exquisitely beautiful miniature of ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... years dictated the policy of the New Pork Herald in these momentous matters. Denzil also knew a great deal about many other esoteric matters, including weaving machines, the manufacture of cabbage leaves and snuff, and the inner economy of drain-pipes. He had written for the trade papers since boyhood. But there is great competition on these papers. So many men of literary gifts know all about the intricate technicalities of manufactures and markets, and are eager to set the trade right. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... his vices. I have intimated that he was fond of a jest. "The Sacred College," I heard him remark one day, "has fifty centres of gravity. I sometimes fear that I am its centre of levity." He was also fond of music. He was also fond of snuff: ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... somewhat acute expression of her physiognomy. Her teeth were mostly gone, and what did remain were of a tight yellow. The skin of her nose was drawn tightly over the member, to hang in large wrinkles in her cheeks and about her mouth. She took snuff in such quantities as to create the impression that she owed the saffron of her lips and the adjacent parts to this circumstance; but it was the unvarying color of her whole face. She presided over the female part of the domestic arrangements, in the capacity of housekeeper; was a spinster, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... a snuff-box in one pocket, a watch in another and a handkerchief in a third; then he would walk about the room just as any old gentleman would walk about the street, stopping now and then, as if he were looking into shop-windows. All the time the boys ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... say anything of the sort," exclaimed Tom. "I never heard you utter her name till now, and I don't believe she cares the snuff of a candle ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... you what I know," he answered gravely, tapping his great horn snuff-box and taking a pinch, tobacco being forbidden him by the rules of his Order. "I have told you what I know—and also what I suspect. You can make whatever use of the knowledge you like. Yolanda Romanelli is a handsome woman—as you will see for yourself ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... good-for-naught, inviting rain, Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone. Nor e'en the maids, that card their nightly task, Know not the storm-sign, when in blazing crock They see the lamp-oil sputtering with a growth Of mouldy snuff-clots. So too, after rain, Sunshine and open skies thou mayst forecast, And learn by tokens sure, for then nor dimmed Appear the stars' keen edges, nor the moon As borrowing of her brother's beams to rise, Nor fleecy films to float along the sky. Not to the sun's warmth then ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... tea so strong a mouse could walk on it. And the butcher's meat o' Christmas, sure your old ma must have a taste, too. And many's the brown egg you let me have, and they bringing a high price on the Wednesday market. And the ha'porth o' snuff—sure you never came home without it, and you at Dundalk fair. Kindly you were as the rains of April, and my heart ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... cleared, wine and glasses brought and set upon it, between the candles. The young folk vanished. Bright as was the night, the air carried an edge. Mr. Touris, standing by the fire, warmed himself and took snuff. Strickland, who had left the hall, returned and placed her embroidery ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... like an old gentleman of seventy-two?' I shall say. 'Very clean and neat, and who does not take snuff, who is as sound as a bell, and as good as a young man? He will marry you (in the Thirteenth Arrondissement) and be very kind to you; he will place seven thousand francs in your account, and furnish you a room all in mahogany, and if you are good, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... Some of these were quite regular in their walks for instance, Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin and General Rochambeau, who came at three o'clock or thereabouts on Wednesdays and Saturdays, summer and winter. At six paces on the far side of the elm— such was their punctilio—they halted, took snuff, linked arms again and turned back. (Dorothea had entertained them both at Bayfield, and met them at dinner in one or two neighbouring houses.) On the same days, and on Mondays as well, old Jean Pierre Pichou, ex-boatswain of the Didon frigate, would come along arm-in-arm with Julien Carales, ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... jades and lacquers—among the latter, the ordinary inkwells and sword-guards; a few snuff-boxes; some puppets in costume from Mexico and Italy; a few begrimed vellum-bound books in foreign languages (which he could not always read); and now and then a friend who was "breaking up" would give him a bit of Capo di Monte or an absurd enigmatic musical instrument ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... on), modified by the personals, used demonstratively, and of "done" and "gwine" as auxiliaries, is peculiar to the mountains, as well on the Wabash and Alleghany, I am told, as in Tennessee. The practice of dipping—by which is meant not baptism, but chewing snuff—prevails to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... passed in waiting for him to come to Waterbury every Saturday; and in the enjoyment of the two days he passed with me. In March Aunt Eliza wrote me that Lemorne was beaten! Van Horn had taken up the whole contents of his snuff-box in her house the evening before in amazement at the turn things ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
... eight o'clock; such an author is engaged on such a subject; this writer is busy with the third volume of his novel; that one is putting his works to press. Those things procure you consideration in every society, and if people are ignorant of them, I would not give one pinch of snuff for all the wit they ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... standing up like fortifications in front of them; a shaggy beard and mustache of mixed black, white, and grey; a prodigious cameo ring on the forefinger of one hairy hand; the other hand always in and out of a deep silver snuff-box like a small tea-caddy; a rough rasping voice; a diabolically humourous smile; a curtly confident way of speaking; resolution, independence, power, expressed all over him from head to foot—there is the portrait of the man who held in his hands (if Nugent ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... she asked us to sit down and drink whisky. She is religious, and though the kirk is four miles off, probably eight English miles, she goes thither every Sunday. We gave her a shilling, and she begged snuff; for snuff is the luxury of a ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... which project above the muzzle like a two-pronged pitchfork; swords, pistols, and the brave but antique display of warlike paraphernalia characteristic of the East. One of them, I am pleased to observe, is the genial young mirza whose snuff-colored roundabout is held in place by the "dieu et mon droit" belt of yesterday; his companion is the ordinary sowar, or irregular horseman of the country. They announce themselves as bearers of the Ameer's salaams, and as ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... personal violence, but I have a vague impression of some "pet names" flying wildly about in the air in that vicinity. Then we trundled safely down the lane. We were to go in the direction leading away from home,—the horse's. I don't think he perceived it at first, but as soon as he did snuff the fact, which happened when he had gone perhaps three rods, he quietly turned around and headed the other way, paying no more attention to my reins or my terrific "whoas" than if I were a sleeping babe. A horse is none of your woman's-rights men. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... bad, and was about to give change, when one of the officers entered, and took the deluded child into custody, whilst his companion secured the elder prisoner (Smith), and on searching her pockets he found twelve bad shillings, some parcels of snuff, several balls of cotton and worsted, and other trifling articles, which the child had purchased in the course of the day. The officers who had secured them, learned from the child that her parents lived in Cross ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... appointed, will ever be better than poor creatures. Lady L[ouisa] S[tuart] used to tell me of Mr. Hoole, the translator of Tasso and Ariosto, and in that capacity a noble transmuter of gold into lead, that he was a clerk in the India House, with long ruffles and a snuff-coloured suit of clothes, who occasionally visited her father [John, Earl of Bute]. She sometimes conversed with him, and was amused to find that he did exactly so many couplets day by day, neither more or less; and habit had made it light to him, however ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... perhaps—and reasons do seem as plenty as blackberries, now that I begin to write them down—we are so near home the echoes of business affairs begin to sound in our ears. We snuff the battle as it were afar off. It is impossible to become so entirely absorbed in the story of the Cenci as to prevent the morning's telegram from home intruding, and so it came about that this time we did less moralizing than before. We were fortunate ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... dare say," returned her uncle. "You American ladies are so—up to snuff, as you say. But your aunt thought we'd better have her with us, in ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... and use tea and coffee moderately; and a few of the old members take snuff. They are mostly Americans, with a few Scotch and English, and more than half of the adult members came in when they were full-grown. About forty years ago there was in Rhode Island a religious revival among a sect of Baptists who ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... Mlle. Mars would have a fricassee of pearls now and then—an idea she had taken from some celebrated Egyptian actress. As to the Emperor, his waistcoat pockets were lined with leather, so that he could take a handful of snuff at a time; he used to ride at full gallop up the staircase of the orangery at Versailles. Authors and artists ended in the workhouse, the natural close to their eccentric careers; they were, every ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... livery. Oh, it was a splendid festival which Mr. Shaw—that was the gentleman's name—gave him on that day. At length Mr. Shaw asked the doctor to give him a souvenir, whereupon he presented him with a snuff-box he had purchased in the course of the day for a few shillings; and when my husband requested the lady of the house, whom he pronounces the most beautiful woman on earth, to give him likewise a souvenir; ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... the usual questions as to what pay I got, and who gave me my food and clothing, and the meaning of the knots in my girdle. Then he asked me if I ate meat, and when I said that I did, he took a large pinch of snuff, saying that I was not a true Guru, because a true Guru never eats meat. Someone then called him away to supper. I invited him to come and see the church next day, but the following morning they all moved on to the next village. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... said, and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light on an awkward corner. Mr. Riley, meanwhile, was not impatient. Why should he be? Even Hotspur, one would think, must have been patient in his slippers on a warm hearth, taking copious snuff, and sipping ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... glorious!" Spouter waved his hands eloquently. "Why remain cooped up here within the dingy walls of a school when the mighty plains, the boundless forests, the leaping streams, and the azure blue of the skies await you? Why snuff the tainted air of the musty classroom when the free ozone of the hills and mountains beckons to you? Why waste time over musty books when rifle and fishing rod can be had, when one can fling himself in the saddle and ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... joy to think that the last syllables of her Christian name and surname in a way spelt the appellation, fell in love with the boy and made his fortune. But for her Crabbe would probably have subsided, not contentedly but stolidly, into the lot of a Doctor Slop of the time, consoling himself with snuff (which he always loved) and schnaps (to which we have hints that in his youth he was not averse). Mira was at once unalterably faithful to him and unalterably determined not to marry unless he could give her something like a position. Their long engagement (they were not married ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... brandy additional, he rambled out into the fog, and came back with a cold. Peste! I knew it was all over with him; but I nursed him like a babe, and he died, like a true Austrian, with his meerschaum in his mouth, bequeathing me his snuff-box, the certificate of his pension, and his blessing. I buried him, got pensioned, and was broken-hearted. What, then, was to be done? I was born for society. I once or twice thought of an eleventh husband; but I was rich. I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... is a violent, involuntary contraction of the respiratory muscles, as in hiccough. When an acrid stimulant, as snuff, is applied to the mucous membrane of the nose, an irritation is produced which is accompanied by a violent expulsion of air from the lungs. This is owing to the connection between ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... do this evening to pass the time? He might as well go to the Rainbow, and hear the talk about the cock-fighting: everybody was there, and what else was there to be done? Though, for his own part, he did not care a button for cock-fighting. Snuff, the brown spaniel, who had placed herself in front of him, and had been watching him for some time, now jumped up in impatience for the expected caress. But Godfrey thrust her away without looking at her, and left the room, followed humbly by the unresenting Snuff—perhaps because ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... benefitting the trachea, it produced a sympathetic affection of the stomach and diaphragm, and the oesophagus formed the medium of communication between the patient and myself. Having taken a pinch of snuff, I was about to give my other infallible remedy a fair trial, when the patient opened his eyes. But, gracious heaven! what eyes! The visual orb was swoln, blood-shot, troubled and intolerably dull. At ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... devils worse than itself; and presently they saw the candle and candlestick in the passage of the door, dasht up to the roof of the room, by a kick of the hinder parts of a horse, and after with the hoof trode out the snuff, and so dasht out the fire in the chimnies. As this was done, there fell, as from the ceiling, upon them in the truckle-beds such quantities of water, as if it had been poured out of buckets, which stunk worse than any earthly stink could make; and as this was in doing, something crept under ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... content with moderate gains, he may win sufficient—taking the good days and the evil days in a lump—to keep him in a decent kind of affluence all the year round. Indeed, I once knew a croupier—we used to call him Napoleon, from the way he took snuff from his waistcoat pocket, who was in the way of expressing a grave conviction that it was possible to make a capital living at Roulette, so long as you stuck to the colours, and avoided the Scylla of the numbers and the Charybdis of the Zero. By degrees, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... several of Ovid's Elegies, for Tonson's Miscellany. With Wycherly, Gay, Dennis, the popular actors and actresses of the day, and with all the frequenters of Will's, Cromwell was familiar. He had done more than take a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box, which was a point of high ambition and honor at Will's; he had quarrelled with him about a frail poetess, Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, whom Dryden had christened Corinna, and who was also known as Sappho. Gay characterized this literary ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... than Franklin was in France. The French regarded him as "the personification of the rights of man." They followed him on the streets, gave him almost frantic applause when he appeared in public, put his portrait in nearly every house and on almost every snuff box, and bought a ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... thousand that they will ... but you may bring one up from being a cub ... and, one morning, because of something you can't read in its animal mind—it not liking its breakfast or something—it may jump you, give one crunch, and snuff you out like a candle ... it's that chance that you take that makes it ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... interested by the preceding sketch, taken down from my own observation, and who may wish to know a little more about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum of local history put into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman, in a small brown wig and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I became acquainted shortly after my visit to the Charter House. I confess I was a little dubious at first whether it was not one of those apocryphal tales often passed off upon inquiring travellers like myself, and which have brought our general character for veracity ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far more ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... around the nail driven into the door-post of the outlying sheepcote. Then he turned around, took out his handkerchief, and, putting it to his nose, blew vigorously. This done, he folded the handkerchief together again, wiped his mouth and nose, and took out his snuff horn. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... adventures in which she had been engaged. There was something very wild in her gestures. She goggled frightfully with her eyes." And then speaking of the old Gipsy woman whom he went to see:—"Here, thrusting her hand into her pocket, she discharged a handful of some kind of dust or snuff into the fellow's face. He stamped and roared, but was for some time held fast by the two Gipsy men; he extricated himself, however, and attempted to unsheath a knife which he wore in his girdle; but the two young Gipsies flung themselves ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... not easy to estimate. We younger members of that dinner-party sat in the seventh heaven of happiness, and were translated into other spheres. Accidentally, of course, I had a seat just in front of the honored guest; saw him take a pinch of snuff out of Washington Allston's box, and heard him joke with old President Quincy. Was there ever such a night before in our staid city? Did ever mortal preside with such felicitous success as did Mr. Quincy? How he went on with his delicious ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... for Gretchen brought, Them hath a priest now made his own!— A glimpse of them the mother caught, And 'gan with secret fear to groan. The woman's scent is keen enough; Doth ever in the prayer-book snuff; Smells every article to ascertain Whether the thing is holy or profane, And scented in the jewels rare, That there was not much blessing there. "My child," she cries, "ill-gotten good Ensnares the soul, consumes ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... however, it will take. I have experienced enough to feel sure that the cold-water cure is a great and powerful agent and upsetter of all constitutional habits. Talking of habits, the cruel wretch has made me leave off snuff—that chief solace of life. We thank you most sincerely for your prompt and early invitation to Hitcham for the British Association for 1850 (28/1. The invitation was probably not for 1850, but for 1851, when the Association met at Ipswich.): if I am made ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... might be discovered and robbed, and we knew we could not stay long after our grub was gone. All the game we could catch was the marten or sable, which the Indians called Waubusash. The males were snuff color and the female much darker. Mink were scarce, and the beaver, living in the river bank, could not be got at till the ice went out in ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... up and go. I never saw men look down on the erring and afflicted more compassionately. The bishop was quite concerned for me also. But the other, although he professed to feel even more, and said that it must surely be the pain of purgatory to me, took a pinch of snuff, opened his waistcoat, drew down his ruffles, and seemed ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... hands, bent his head toward his knees, and betrayed his suppressed hilarity by his shaking shoulders. Even the more important of the two physicians pursed his lips into a smile, and proffered his snuff-box to his colleague, who, smothering ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... me see, let me see, my lord, I broke my glass that was in the lid of my snuff-box. Hum! Deuce take me, I have encouraged a pimple here too. [Takes the glass ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... soon let you know how you strike her. Either she will pet you, or she will snuff you out like winking. I don't know a woman who has a ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... what this lady has said, to aim it at her husband. I looked round for a mark, therefore, and I had the extreme misfortune to blow your cigar out of your mouth when my intention had merely been to snuff the ash. I was betrayed by my pistol. This is my explanation, sir, and if after listening to my apologies you still feel that I owe you satisfaction, I need not say that it is a request which I am ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Doctor who gave the good woman absolution, I suppose," said Papiol, tapping his snuff-box, and gathering a huge pinch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... deluge reached its height in England—so thinks the amusing and indefatigable Mr. Fairholt, author of "Tobacco and its Associations"—in the reign of Queen Anne. Steele, in the "Spectator," (1711,) describes the snuff-box as a rival to the fan among ladies; and Goldsmith pictures the belles at Bath as entering the water in full bathing costume, each provided with a small floating basket, to hold a snuff-box, a kerchief, and a nosegay. And finally, in 1797, Dr. Clarke ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... me by what I offer. Do you want a pretty room, in a fine house, a servant to wait on you, two delicious meals every day, coffee every morning, and fifty francs a month for your snuff or other little fancies? Eh! what do you ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... what I should have done but for some of the 'O be joyful' I had in a jug. I tried my best to fortify my stomach, and keep up my sperits agin the damp, but I didn't seem to succeed. Finally, thinks I to myself, I'll go and take a snuff of the night air, perhaps it will set me up So I sort o' strolled down towards the shore, and then I walked up a piece, and then I walked back agin, and once in a while I'd step into the shanty and take a pull at old Rye. Well, seeing ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... as Lord J * *, on that occasion, presented him with a hundred pound share in the theatre; while Lord Byron sent him, next day, the sum of fifty guineas[29]; and, not long after, on seeing him act some of his favourite parts, made him presents of a handsome snuff-box ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... level with the ground; waste; atomize, vaporize. deal destruction, desolate, devastate, lay waste, ravage gut; disorganize; dismantle &c (render useless) 645; devour, swallow up, sap, mine, blast, bomb, blow to smithereens, drop the big one, confound; exterminate, extinguish, quench, annihilate; snuff out, put out, stamp out, trample out; lay in the dust, trample in the dust; prostrate; tread under foot; crush under foot, trample under foot; lay the ax to the root of; make short work of, make clean sweep of, make mincemeat of; cut up root and branch, chop into pieces, cut into ribbons; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... footsteps, raised a portiere, and entered a gallery, which was the only means of communication between the tower and the castle. In the center of this gallery there was a glass cabinet which had attracted Lupin's attentions. It contained a valuable collection of watches, snuff-boxes, rings, chatelaines and miniatures of rare and beautiful workmanship. He forced the lock with a small jimmy, and experienced a great pleasure in handling those gold and silver ornaments, those exquisite and delicate works ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... toes. With that as he the Nectar fills From pot to pot, some on't he spills Upon the Songster. Oh cries he. Pox, what dost do? thou'st burnt my knee; No says the boy, (to make a bald And blind excuse.) Sir 'twill not scald. With that the man lends him a cuff O' th' ear, and whips away in snuff. The other two, their pipes being out, Says Monsieur Mopus I much doubt My friend I wait for will not come, But if he do, say I'm gone home. Then says the Aguish man I must come According to my wonted custome, To give ye' a visit, although now ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Raphael's cartoon of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. Miss Hawkins describes him sitting with one leg twisted round the other as though to occupy the smallest possible space, and playing with his gold snuff-box with a mild countenance and sweet smile. The gentle, modest creature was loved by Johnson, who could warm into unusual eloquence in singing his praises. The doctor, however, was rather fond of discussing with Boswell ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... used, and the quantity of free nitrate of silver present. The action commences at a point nearly coincident with the mean red of the luminous spectrum, where it gives a dull ash or lead color, while the most refrangible rays impress a ruddy snuff-brown, the change of tint coming on rather suddenly about the end of the blue or beginning of the violet rays of the luminous spectrum. Beyond the extreme violet rays, the action rapidly diminishes, ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... France in 1801, by order of the Directory, of a translation of Young's agricultural works, under the title of "Le Cultivateur Anglais." Arthur Young also corresponded with Washington, and received recognition from the Empress Catherine of Russia, who sent him a gold snuff-box, and ermine cloaks for his wife and daughter. He was made a Fellow of ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... reach it through the sight or smell, usually the latter. There is no mental process at all in the matter, not the most rudimentary; there is simple reaction to stimuli, as strictly so as when we sneeze on taking snuff. Man alone has ideas of what is good to eat and what is not good. When a fox prowls about a farmhouse, he has no general idea that there are eatable things there, as the essayist above referred to ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... Pennsylvania. I confess that I burst out laughing, and a picturesque contadino, wending his homeward way in the dusk, stared at me as if I were an iconoclast. He noticed the petroleum only, I imagine, to snuff it fondly up; but to me the thing served as a symbol of the Italy of the future. There is a horse-car from the Porta del Popolo to the Ponte Molle, and the Tuscan shrines are fed ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... subject to it, to keep an ounce of camphor mixed with lard, in a wide-mouthed bottle, or jar; and corked tight. The cayenne pepper and honey gargle should also be kept ready mixed, and used when the first symptoms appear; or in a violent attack, a plaster of snuff and lard may be applied with benefit, keeping it on only a few minutes at a time. Sometimes a bag of hot ashes sprinkled with vinegar, and applied hot as can be borne, has cured a sore throat in one night. Persons that have been afflicted for ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... his way of handling the glass, in his preliminary snuff at the aroma, in his first cautious sip of the wine, and the gustatory skill with which he gave his palate the full advantage of it, it was impossible not to ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these latter-day prejudices regarding the use of tobacco by the gentler sex. One whom I distantly recall, among childhood's happy memories, carried this liberal-mindedness to a point where she not only dipped snuff and smoked a cob pipe, but sometimes chewed a little natural leaf. This lady, on being called in, would brew up a large caldron of medicinal roots and barks and sprouts and things; and then she would deluge the interior of the sufferer ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... beheld a second storey with attics, that has arisen on the basis of my small domicile at Gandercleugh, the walls having been aforehand pronounced by Deacon Barrow to be capable of enduring such an elevation. Nor has it been without delectation that I have endued a new coat (snuff-brown, and with metal buttons), having all nether garments corresponding thereto. We do therefore lie, in respect of each other, under a reciprocation of benefits, whereof those received by me being the most solid (in respect that a new house and a new coat are better than a new tale ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... passed to-night at Rochester,' Cromwell said. He clapped his hands for a man to snuff the candles. ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... adopted, according to Indian custom, into one of the tribes of the Six Nations, and was called in its language the Evergreen Brake. Charles James Fox, the statesman, was also among the admirers of the War Chief. Fox caused a beautiful silver snuff-box to be sent to Brant, engraved with his initials. The Prince of Wales was attracted by the chieftain and took Brant with him on many of his jaunts about the capital. Brant was amazed at some of the places to which his royal conductor resorted. ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... making the famous Barcelona Snuff, as it was perform'd at the Lyon at Barcelona; from the same. This is also call'd ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... them; but in half an hour some crooked-pated bell-wether perhaps, gives a south-down a little dig in the ribs, and this example is followed by a Merino; and before the ending of the fair their heads are all one way, and you'll find them bleating together in full chorus. Now, in the case of man, a snuff-box instead of the sheep's horn, is an admirable introduction; for, if he refuses to take a pinch, he'll generally give you a sufficient reason why he does not, and that's an excellent chance to form, perhaps, a lasting friendship, but to scrape ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... peculiar,—a snuff-colored coat reaching to his knees, a long vest of the same color, buff breeches, and a three-cornered hat. With him the fashion never changed; he had but one suit; not an extra coat, hat, or even two handkerchiefs. When his wardrobe gave out, and he was forced ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Litchfield and Ashby de la Zouch, toward Sherwood, until he came to a place called Stanton. And now Robin's heart began to laugh aloud, for he thought that his danger had gone by, and that his nostrils would soon snuff the spicy air of the woodlands once again. But there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and this Robin was to find. For thus ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... the seeds of the tree is used as an enema. I am indebted to Mr. Cook for calling my attention to two articles by Mr. W. E. Safford in which it is also shown that from seeds of the huilca a powder is prepared, sometimes called cohoba. This powder, says Mr. Safford, is a narcotic snuff "inhaled through the nostrils by means of a bifurcated tube." "All writers unite in declaring that it induced a kind of intoxication or hypnotic state, accompanied by visions which were regarded by the natives as supernatural. ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... one who was not forthcoming, that in fact he had little hope of establishing anything like a show of a defence, and contented himself with watching the case, and lying in wait for any legal objections that might offer themselves. He lay back on the seat, occasionally taking a pinch of snuff in a manner intended to be contemptuous; now and then elevating his eyebrows, and sometimes exchanging a little note with Mr. Bridgnorth behind him. The attorney had far more interest in the case than the barrister, to which he was perhaps excited ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that "private school of dingy aspect and still dingier pretensions, where there were no object lessons, and the studies of book-keeping and French were pursued (but never effectually overtaken) under the guidance of an elderly gentleman, who wore a nondescript gown and took snuff, wrote copperplate, explained nothing, and used a cane with remarkable dexterity and gusto." But, properly considered, that inadequate elderly gentleman may be regarded as our benefactor. If he had been ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... when the children had gone to bed and they were sewing by the fire. "Oh, ma! she told me more to-day about me insides than I would care to remember. Mind ye, ma, there's a sthring down yer back no bigger'n a knittin' needle, and if ye ever broke it ye'd snuff out before ye knowed what ye was doin', and there's a tin pan in yer ear that if ye got a dinge in it, it wouldn't be worth a dhirty postage stamp for hearin' wid, and ye mustn't skip ma, for it will disturb yer Latin parts, and ye mustn't eat seeds, or ye'll get the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung |
