"Boa" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afraid to love me, and I told her that she needn't have any fear and that she might let herself out at once. And after a good deal of talk she did. I put her arms around my neck and made her squeeze me, and I called her a divine boa constrictor. She didn't exactly know what I meant, but it tickled her all the same. Then I went over into the field to consult the old man about the time I'd have to wait, and when I mentioned day after tomorrow he snorted. 'Young fellow,' said he, 'I like your pushing ways, ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... in the absence of the master, when attacked by the red men of the woods. It was not infrequent to find the negro as a sentinel at the meeting-house door; or serving as a barricade for the master's mansion. The Indian was more of a terror to him than the boa-constrictor; though slaves, they knew that if captured by the Indians their fate would be the same as that of the white man; consequently they fought with a desperation equal to that of the whites, against the common enemy. So accustomed did they ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... which a moment before wore scales, now wore a skin—such is the nature of that dragon. It was no longer a crocodile: it was a boa. The skin, lead-coloured and dirty, looked thick, and was crossed by heavy wrinkles. Here and there, on its surface, bubbles of surge, like pustules, gathered and then burst. The foam was like a leprosy. It was at this moment ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... continued to whirl about faster and faster in the swirling waters. Five times each minute now it made the circuit, and, like the coils of a boa constrictor that is enfolding its victim, the circles continually ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... the boa-constrictor in the Zoo were gems of humanity in comparison with those of the negroid-Egyptian's as he turned to obey, and then stopped mulishly until a third little reminder chipped splinters from the marble at his heel, whereupon he stooped ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... perusal of Jane Eyre. Mr. Thackeray is a keen ruthless satirist. I had never perused his writings but with blended feelings of admiration and indignation. Critics, it appears to me, do not know what an intellectual boa-constrictor he is. They call him "humorous," "brilliant"—his is a most scalping humour, a most deadly brilliancy: he does not play with his prey, he coils round it and crushes it in his rings. He seems terribly ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... were forced, and the army of Wallace was enveloped in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor—tightening, closing, crushing every semblance of life from the victim enclosed in his toils. The flanking parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and though, as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a general flight ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... side show a powerful young man of the Colusa sort, and would see his money's worth. Blandly and with conscious pride the Professor directs the young man's attention to his fine collection of living snakes. Lithely the blacksnake uncoils in his sight. Voluminously the bloated boa convolves before him. All horrent the cobra exalts his hooded head, and the spanning jaws fly open. Quivers and chitters the tail of the cheerful rattlesnake; silently slips out the forked tongue, and is as silently ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... oiseau ne passe en fouettant de son aile L'air epais, ou circule un immense soleil. Parfois quelque boa, chauffe dans son sommeil, Fait onduler son ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... blackbird : merlo. blacking : ciro. bladder : veziko. blade : klingo; (of grass), folieto blaspheme : blasfemi. bless : beni. blind : blinda. "window"-, rulkurteno. blond : blonda. blood : sango. blot : makulo. blow : blovi; bato, frapo. blouse : bluzo. blue : blua; -"bell", hiacinto, kampanoleto. boa-constrictor : boao. boast : fanfaroni. boat : boato. bobbin : bobeno. body : korpo. bog : marcxo. boil : boli; absceso. bold : kuragxa, sentima. bolt : rigl'i, -ilo; bolto. bomb : bombo. bombard : bombardi. bond : obligacio, garantiajxo bondage : ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... which the railway robbed us. For miles before reaching it, we used to look out for the wooded park, with its herds of mottled deer, and the great lake, where the sight of the swans always brought up that story of the big pike, choked like a boa, with a swan's neck. A story that seems to belong ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... to the lion house, on the other side, is the reptile house, where live snakes, crocodiles, and lizards, and all sorts of curious animals. The most interesting are the enormous snakes, called boa-constrictors, with bodies nearly as thick as a child's, and many yards in length. They are not in cages, but in glass houses, like glass boxes. The glass is very thick and strong, and the snake does not dash himself against it to get out. He would not take the trouble to do that, for ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... to me if, to all future posterity coming after us, the word 'Macleod' don't shut up their jaws from bragging of British valour just about as tight as the death-squeeze of a boa-constrictor round ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... specimens were represented. Besides these there was a colossal menagerie. In it there were more than twenty elephants, giraffes, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, zebras, dromedaries, camels, and the rarest kinds of antelopes. Then came the reptiles,—from the boa constrictor, who was ten yards long, to the smallest blind-worm, amongst them some of the most dangerous kinds. Crocodiles twenty feet long, monstrous toads, tortoises as big as donkeys. Then there were the wild beasts too. Lions from Abyssinia, from Atlas, tigers from Bengal, from ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... escrava, de 22 annos, boa figura, lava, engomma e cose bem; informa-se na rua de S. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... tree was bound to the next by vines like tangled ropes, some drawn as taut as the halyards of a ship, and others, as thick as one's leg; they were twisted and wrapped around the branches, so that they looked like boa-constrictors hanging ready to drop upon one's shoulders. The moonlight gave to this forest of great trees a weird, fantastic look. I felt like a knight entering an enchanted wood. But nothing disturbed our silence ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... it was that the canoe had been stopped. From the lower branches of a large leafy tree jutting out into the very course of the canoe was hanging a long, mottled object, swaying and weaving. Charley saw the head—a snake's head! A boa constrictor, as large around as a barrel, and with most of its ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... el Rey por embaixadores, a el rey dom Duarte de Inglaterra Ruy de Sousa-pessoa principal e de muyto bon saber e credito; de que el Rey muyto confiua: e ho doutor Ioam d'Eluas, e fernam de Pina por secretario. E foram por mar muy honradamente cum muy boa companhia: hos quaes foram en nome del rey confirmar as ligas antiquas com Inglaterra, que polla-condican deltas ho nouo Rey de hum zeyno e do outro era obrigado a mandar confirmar: e tambien pera monstrarem ho titolo que el rey tinha no senhorio de ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... her eyes beaming from among her tumbled curls, at once turned happy and expectant, and when her hat had been straightened and her boa removed so that her necklace could gleam resplendently about her fair, round throat, she was seated against a tree-trunk and listened with all her ears to ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... self-command. His face was only a bit paler, a bit tighter than usual; he was only a trifle slower and more fastidious in his speech. It was midnight when he left Clifford peacefully slumbering in somebody's arm-chair, with a long suede glove dangling in his hand and a plumy boa twisted about his neck to protect his throat from drafts. He walked through the hall and down the stairs, and found himself on the sidewalk in a quarter he did not know. Mechanically he looked up at the name ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... have his attention drawn to that family of serpents of which the Boa is the great representative. These are all grouped together in cases (12-15). This family has what naturalists call "the rudiments of legs." They are a nobler family than that which the rattlesnake represents, inasmuch ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... red mouth were both suggestive of demure humor. There was a mirthful air about the dimple which came and went in the left cheek like Cupid peeping mischievously from the folds of his mother's robe. A boa of long-haired black fur lay carelessly about her neck, pushed back so that a touch of red and gold brocade showed where she had loosened her coat. Maurice noted that she seemed to care as little for the lecture as he did, and he gave ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... the faded, white-rose face, with its peevish crumples that were not yet lines, and the false little smile that tried to draw attention away from them. He noticed that she was no longer shabby, but wore a smart new dress and hat, with a huge boa of ostrich feathers half covering her thin, bare neck. There was a glint of jewels about her as she moved. The man with the young, weak voice gazed at her admiringly, with a half-pitiful, half-comic air of pride in being seen with ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... vital power, an expenditure so vast that the brain is atrophied (as it were), that a second brain, located in the diaphragm, may come into play, and the suspension of all the faculties is in itself a kind of intoxication. A boa constrictor gorged with an ox is so stupid with excess that the creature is easily killed. What man, on the wrong side of forty, is rash enough to work after dinner? And remark in the same connection, that all great men have been moderate ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... knew that this was occasioned by an increased secretion of mucus by the lining membrane of the throat, consequent upon slight inflammation. The cause he attributed to thin shoes and wet feet; and he was not far wrong. The warm boa and muff were not sufficient safeguards for the throat when the feet were ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... upon sooner than one who is in the beaten track. Do you know, Richard, my dear boy, I've often thought that if we could by any means appropriate to our use some of the extraordinary digestive power that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices, there is really no manner of reason why we should not comfortably dispose of as much of an ox as our stomachs will hold, and one might eat French dishes without the wretchedness of thinking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the river below, coiled his forces around Vicksburg like a boa-constrictor, and held it in his grasp. After forty-seven days of endurance the city surrendered to him. Port Hudson, after the surrender of Vicksburg, gave up the unequal contest, and the Mississippi was ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... 28. The Boa Bidarra, or Rhamnus Jujuba of Linnaeus. This is a round yellow fruit, about the size of a gooseberry; its flavour is like that of an apple, but it has ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... nothing else to say, proposed—the breakfast being now finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor—that they should start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the orders of that gentleman, the two ladies, the Major and himself, took their seats in it; the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr Towlinson being left behind; ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Boulevard, and a few steps brought us in view of the stately white shrine on Claremont Heights. But I looked instead at her brilliant face against the velvety background of black hat and feather boa. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... the reply. "There are large boa-constrictors in the forest suspended by their tails, waiting to gobble up travellers. You cannot travel without being covered by ants, and they sting like wasps. There are leopards in countless numbers. Gorillas ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... with one curious glance, took in her sister's defiant smiling ease and the stranger's embarrassment; then she went on to find Catherine. The two left behind exchanged a few banal questions and answers. Langham had only allowed himself one look at the dazzling face and eyes framed in fur cap and boa. Afterwards he stood making a study of the ground, and answering her remarks in his usual stumbling fashion. What was it had gone out of her voice—simply the soft callow sounds of first youth? And what a personage she had grown in these twelve months—how formidably, consciously ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the library. In fancy he could see the forest and jungles of South America. He saw a sluggish river flowing along between rank green banks, while, from the overhanging trees, long festoons of moss hung down, writhing now and then as the big water anacondas or boa constrictors looped their sinuous folds ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... dry, and slightly sloping, so that the head of the bed may be higher than the foot. Above all, it must be free from big stones and serpentine roots of trees. A root that looks no bigger that an inch-worm in the daytime assumes the proportions of a boa-constrictor at midnight—when you find it under your hip-bone. There should also be plenty of evergreens near at hand for the beds. Spruce will answer at a pinch; it has an aromatic smell; but it is too stiff and humpy. Hemlock is smoother and more flexible; but the ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... of the net-work in which he now held the whole arrondissement of Ville-aux-Fayes. To avoid too many explanations it is necessary to state, once for all, succinctly, the genealogical ramifications by means of which Gaubertin wound himself about the country, as a boa-constrictor winds around a tree,—with such art that a passing traveller thinks he beholds some natural effect ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... sitting in one of the largest hotels at Rome waiting for her husband to come in. The day was so balmy and genial that it was almost impossible for Hilda to believe that the time of year was early February. Dressed in dark-green velvet, with a creamy feather boa lying by her side, Hilda sat amidst all her unaccustomed surroundings, her eyes looking straight down the lofty room and her thoughts far away. The bride was thinking of her English home—she was an intensely happy bride—she loved her husband devotedly—she looked forward to a good and blessed ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... idea of man in my [1] mind, I can improve my own, and other people's individ- uality, health, and morals; whereas, the opposite image of man, a sinner, kept constantly in mind, can no more improve health or morals, than holding in thought the [5] form of a boa-constrictor can aid an ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... headlong with fear and exhaustion upon the turf, had not a gentle female caught the slender youth in her arms, and embraced him with all the energetic affection of a boa-constrictor. ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... flowing curls, flashing black eyes, and the gift of oratory—and a desire to exhibit them all; while those in pantaloons have their hair combed smoothly back, as if preparing to be swallowed by a boa-constrictor, wear white cravats, talk softly, and show a good deal of the whites of their eyes, from a chronic habit of looking up towards the moon and stars. As a general thing, these latter are of no practical use in the world, and make as good ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... has a rule in dis house dat nobody can use huh chiny or fo'ks or spoons who ain't boa'ding heah, and de odder day when yuh asked me to bring up a knife and fo'k she ketched me coming upstairs, and she says, "Where yuh goin' wid all dose things, Annie?" Ah said, "Ah'm just goin' up to Miss Laura's ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... to do My Lady never knew; for she was so frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words and strangled by the sentence. A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company enough: but what was a boa constrictor made ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... or tari. The largest specimens of this are about 15 or 20 feet in length. They are perfectly harmless, and live on small animals, chiefly the rodentia; occasionally the steinbuck and pallah fall victims, and are sucked into its comparatively small mouth in boa-constrictor fashion. One we shot was 11 feet 10 inches long, and as thick as a man's leg. When shot through the spine, it was capable of lifting itself up about five feet high, and opened its mouth in a threatening manner, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... The glutton bear—scandalised as it may be by its name—might even be deemed a creature of moderate appetite in comparison: with their human reason in addition, these people, could they always command the means, would doubtless outrival a glutton and a boa-constrictor together.' ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... one asserts that this treatment of the human pigeon is cruel, we can only reply, with a correspondent of the Times who writes to rebuke the humanitarians who would rob a poor boa of his squealing rabbit—away with such cant! Is a married woman to be stinted of her "small pleasures" because prudes affect to think the means by which they are obtained unfeminine? As well might they think it unfeline in pussy ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... speak the door burst open, and the boisterous Rosamund Hunt, in her flamboyant white hat, boa, and parasol, stood framed in the doorway. She was in a breathing heat, and on her open face was an expression of ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... at the door hastened the completion of the meal. The boys might have sat there longer and, like boa-constrictors, gorged themselves ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... rim. I felt sorry that I had not been there to watch it, because after all, what I saw, was only the dead record of something that had been very much alive and vociferatingly noisy. And in another place it had reared and raised its head like a boa constrictor, ready to strike at its prey; up to the flashing, forked tongue it was there. But one spot I remember, where it looked exactly as if quite consciously it had attempted the outright ludicrous: ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... are very clean, and their attachment is beyond all conception to those who have not seen them. They will leap on their master's shoulder, or get into his bed, and coil their long bushy tails round his neck like a boa, remaining there for hours if permitted. I recollect one poor little fellow who was in his basket dying—much to the grief of his master—who, just before he expired, crawled out of his straw and went to his master's cot, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... hundred miles? May he not cut off it, as his due, twenty-five miserable little miles in the train?' Sleep coming over me after my meal increased the temptation. Alas! how true is the great phrase of Averroes (or it may be Boa-ed-din: anyhow, the Arabic escapes me, but the meaning is plain enough), that when one has once fallen, it is easy to fall again (saving always heavy falls from cliffs and high towers, for after these there is no more falling).... Examine the horse's knees before you buy him; ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... him. Her face was scarlet, for the coupling of their names, and Drexley's quiet smile, was significant. But Douglas only laughed gaily as he reached for his hat, and drew Cicely's feather boa around her with a little air ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... head, and a little, low, plaintive whistle, is the only reply, but they speak in thunder of boa-constrictors, anacondas, and cobra ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... to any person to whose lot it should fall to rescue a person from the crushing folds of a boa-constrictor, that it is no use pulling and hauling at the centre of the brute's body; catch hold of the tip of his tail,—he can then be easily unwound,—he cannot help himself;—he "must" come off. Again, if you wish to kill a snake, it is no use hitting and trying to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... had always felt that the imagination, what is called, for want of a better term, the "creative faculty," was there, but it was lethargic; it sometimes roused itself to spurts and flashes during wakeful nights, but slept like a boa-constrictor that had swallowed a pig when he tried to invoke it. No doubt, as Gora had told him, his life had been too easy and agreeable; he made a good deal of money with no particular effort, he was a ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... from the church door, is a stone in which are carved fourteen rings: they announce that fourteen farms were given to the cloister, in order that he who moulders here might have this place, fourteen feet within the church door. It was Boa Johnson Grip, a great sinner; but the cloister's power was greater than that of all sinners: the stone on his grave records it with no ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... peering about in silence, while I lay gradually recovering my equanimity, and congratulating myself on the fact that my nocturnal visitor had been a serpent of the boa kind, and not a deadly cobra, when the man suddenly held up his finger, and pointed to a spot beyond the lamp, where the roof and canvas wall ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... dressed in a pearl grey and pink sports coat, with a large black hat, and carried a silver chain handbag. Around her throat was a white feather boa, while her features were half concealed by the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... had neglected this inquiry, immediately hoped Mrs. Pendennis and the children were well. The overpowering mother had taken utter possession of this poor little thing. Rosey's eyes followed the Campaigner about, and appealed to her at all moments. She sat under Mrs. Mackenzie as a bird before a boa-constrictor, doomed—fluttering—fascinated—scared and fawning as a whipt spaniel before ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... creature for which no human language has a name, form without substance, a being without life, or life without action. She was under the spell of that timid curiosity which impels women to seek perilous excitement, to gaze at chained tigers and boa-constrictors, shuddering all the while because the barriers between them are so weak. Although the little old man's back was bent like a day-laborer's, it was easy to see that he must formerly have been of medium height. His excessive thinness, the slenderness of his limbs, ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... first day until now can find full justification for itself on the simple ground that it exists! Under such an argument a howitzer is as good as a plough, a sword is as good as a sickle, a pillory is as good as a baby-wagon. By such reasoning a shark is as useful as a horse. By this logic a boa-constrictor is as good as a reindeer, a tiger is as useful and salutary in his office as an ox or a St. Bernard, and a cancer is as beautiful as a blush. That is, everything is good, not because it is useful and just, but ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Possession and Life-rent, what is the issue to be looked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep-down the smaller sort of vermin; but what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can protect us against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of Boa-constrictors? If, therefore, the more sequestered Thinker have wondered, in his privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written Program in the Public Journals, with its high Prize-Questions and so liberal Prizes, could have proceeded,—let him now cease such wonder; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... his strong, crooked claws, his long and sharp teeth, darkly dyed with the coloring matter of the trees and shrubs which constituted his diet, was thrust in our faces in every street; and the variegated venomous serpent, with his prehensile fangs, and the huge boa constrictor, writhing in captivity, were encountered as desirable articles of ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the next day, as she sat in George's fast cutter, proved so charming that her escort was stricken to soft words instantly, and failed to control a poetic impulse. Her rich little hat was trimmed with black fur; her hair was almost as dark as the fur; a great boa of black fur was about her shoulders; her hands were vanished into a black muff; and George's laprobe was black. "You look like—" he said. "Your face looks like—it looks like a snowflake on a lump of coal. I mean a—a snowflake that would be ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... muffler and the mittens. The mother had crocheted them herself for Keith and insisted that they should be worn whenever he went outdoors during autumn and winter. The muffler was long and white, with blue rings two inches apart, and in shape more like a boa. ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... got me a new silk dress and fur boa, my daughter bestowed a fine pair of No. 6 kid gloves, and each of my sons contributed a pair of skates and a sled. There is nothing like having Santa Claus remember you well, ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... Gaspar Cortereal and his brother Miguel disappeared from history somewhere in the waters of Hudson's {26} Bay or Labrador; but they were followed by other adventurous sailors who have left mementos of their nationality on such places as Cape Raso (Race), Boa Ventura (Bonaventure), Conception, Tangier, Porto Novo, Carbonear (Carboneiro), all of which and other names appear on the earliest maps of the north-eastern waters ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... quaint spectacle to the Lowestoft fishermen, for Posh assures me that he always went to sea in a silk hat, and generally wore a "cross-over," or a lady's boa, round his neck. Now a silk hat and a lady's boa aboard a longshore punt would be about as incongruous as a court suit in a shooting field. But FitzGerald was not vain enough to be self-conscious. He knew when he was comfortable, and that was enough for his healthy intelligence. Why ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... importance. It's a bromide," he added. "But travel certainly broadens one. Every day I have been in the Congo, I have been assimilating new ideas." Upsher nodded vigorously in assent. An older man could have told Everett that he was assimilating just as much of the Congo as the rabbit assimilates of the boa-constrictor, that first smothers it with saliva and then ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... occupied two chairs at the end of the room, against the wall under a dim mirror in which the melancholy hall was reflected. Elena listened with bent head, slowly drawing through her fingers the long ends of her boa. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Beach, Accra Rolling Cacao, Gold Coast Rolling Cacao, Gold Coast Carrying Cacao to the Railway Station, Gold Coast Wagon Loads of Cacao being taken from Depot to the Beach, Accra The Buildings of the Boa Entrada Cacao Estate, San Thome Drying Cacao, San Thome Barrel Rolling, Gold Coast Bagging Cacao, Gold Coast Surf Boats by the Side of the Ocean Liner, Accra Bagging Cacao Beans for Shipment, Trinidad Transferring Bags of Cacao to ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... crimson velvet toque. Her jacket was bright blue, and she had a skirt to match. On her neck she wore a rich necklet of flaming beads, which was extremely becoming to her; and thrown carelessly round her neck and shoulders was a boa of white fur, and she had a muff to match. Altogether her radiant dress and radiant face were quite sufficient to dazzle Tom. But Susy pushed past Tom ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... looking-glass shaped like a cut of pie and; I tell you, it looks gay. That's what it does. It looks gay. Some of the hook-and-ladder trucks are just one mass of golden-rod and hydrangeas, and some of them are all fixed with this red-white-and-blue paper rope, sort of chenille effect, or more like a feather boa. Everybody has on white cotton gloves, and those entitled to carry speaking trumpets have bouquets in the bells of them, salvias, and golden-rod, and nasturtiums, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... face he told himself that it was marvellous how well she had managed to preserve an effect of youthfulness. Under the flaring wings in her hat her eyes were still clear and large and heavy lidded, her thin red lips still held the shape of their sensual curve. A white fur boa was thrown carelessly about her neck, and he remembered that underneath it, encircling her short throat there was the soft crease of flesh which the ancient poets had named "the necklace ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... was sometimes warned; but for that very reason all the more necessary. The more Bigotry writhed and raged, the more I felt that our policy was telling. Borrowing a metaphor from Carlyle's "Frederick," I likened Superstition to the boa, which defies all ponderous assaults, and will not yield to the pounding of sledge-hammers, but sinks dead when some expert thrusts in a needle's point and punctures ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... are that halt upon his crutches,— Shame take that smoothness and that sleeke subjection! I am myself, as great in good as he is, As much a master of my Countries fortunes, And one to whom (since I am forc'd to speak it, Since mine own tongue must be my Advocate) This blinded State that plaies at boa-peep with us, This wanton State that's weary of hir lovers And cryes out 'Give me younger still and fresher'! Is bound and so far bound: I found hir naked, Floung out a dores and starvd, no friends to ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... here attracted by the voices. Sophy started up from the ground, made some unintelligible excuse, and while Mademoiselle was confounded with admiration at the sight of the book, inflicted another boa-constrictor embrace, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was her adorer, to have a cup of chocolate with her, and for a week afterwards he was in bliss. He had saved money and lent it but not on interest. "I can't lend you any, your son-in-law would gamble it away. No, I can't." The son-in-law is the husband of the daughter who once sat in a box in a boa; he lost at cards and embezzled Government money. The official, who was accustomed to herring and vodka, and who had never before drunk chocolate, felt sick after the chocolate. The expression on the lady's face: "Aren't I ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... carrying her smart bags, and, even with so much assistance, she was draped with extra garments, which hung from her arms in varying and seductive shades of green. She herself was in green of a subtle olive shade, and her plumes and boa, her chains and chatelaine, her hand-bags and camera, marked her as the traveler triumphant and expectant. Like an Arabian princess, borne across the desert to the home of her future lord, she came panoplied with ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... to eat, and after dinner feels herself sleepy, like a boa constrictor, eructs loudly, drinks water, hiccups, and, by stealth, if no one sees her, makes the sign of the cross over her mouth, through ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... very well for you to talk about the grandeur of the governments of BOADICEA, and ELIZABETH and CATHERINE, but I don't believe that BOA, or LIZZY, or KATE would have been very nice as a companion, if she and you were sitting before the fire, and she wanted stamps and was going for them as a matter of business. Besides, there was only one of them at a time, and they didn't ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... Cutting some sharp-pointed stakes, I waited till he was again quiet, when I suddenly pinned his tail to the ground with my hunting-knife, and thrusting the pointed stake into the hole, I drove it deeply into the ground with the butt end of my rifle. The boa made some objection to this, and again he commenced his former muscular contortions. I waited till they were over, and having provided myself with some tough jungle rope (a species of creeper), I once more approached ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... most poisonous creature, and the strangest and unaccountablest, and the hardest to fight with, and the most difficult to run away from, that ever came out of the earth's inside. It had a tail like a boa-constrictor; its body was like I do not care what; and it had three separate heads, one of which was a lion's, the second a goat's, and the third an abominably great snake's. And a hot blast of fire came flaming out of each of its three mouths! Being an ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Puff was usually with her, and oftenest hung over her arm, looking more like a fur boa than a cat. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... various circumstances. Thus, they are uniformly required after dining at a friend's house, or after a ball, picnic, or any other party. These visits should be short, a stay of from fifteen to twenty minutes being quite sufficient. A lady paying a visit may remove her boa or neckerchief; but neither her ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... whole quarter of a musk-ox; they tear the meat into long shreds, which they place in their mouths; then each one, cutting off at his lips what his mouth cannot hold, passes it over to his companion; or else the gluttons, letting the shreds hang down to the ground, swallow them gradually, as a boa-constrictor swallows an animal, and like it stretched out at full length ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... This did not save me from more jokes, either; for a husky-voiced gentleman with a rough face, who had been eating out of a sandwich-box nearly all the way, except when he had been drinking out of a bottle, said I was like a boa-constrictor who took enough at one meal to last him a long time; after which, he actually brought a rash out upon ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... of his awakening, I slowly let down the window of the coach, and stretching forth my hand, turned the handle cautiously and slowly; I next disengaged my legs, and by a long continuous effort of creeping—which I had learned perfectly once, when practising to go as a boa constrictor to a fancy ball—I withdrew myself from the seat and reached the step, when I muttered something very like a thanksgiving to Providence for my rescue. With little difficulty I now climbed up beside the guard, whose astonishment ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... possible, recapture it at the very earliest opportunity. Though the Advertiser has succeeded in temporarily securing three lions, a chimpanzee, a couple of hyaenas, and a young hippopotamus in the Vicarage drawing-room, and has managed to envelope a boa-constrictor in a lawn-tennis net, yet, as five full-grown Bengal tigers, and about thirty other wild beasts of a miscellaneous character are at large in the village, and have, to his knowledge, already devoured the Postman, the Curate, a School ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... breath for fear of breaking it, yet which was broken at recent intervals by stealthy, unaccountable rustlings, or sudden, violent commotions beginning close at hand and gradually dying away in the distance. These strange, sudden, unaccountable sounds, caused in all probability by a boa-constrictor, a buck, or some other creature startled into quick movement by the scent of a human being, wafted to their nostrils by an errant draught of air, were even more startling to the nerves than the distant roar of the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... tame tarpon, which could swallow anything—croquet balls, door scrapers—and once ate an entire cottage pianoforte in half-an-hour. Here I may add that in my travels in Turkestan I was attacked by a boa-constrictor, and, though I escaped with my life, it proceeded to swallow the Bactrian camel on which I was riding. On the following day, however, when the boa was still in a comatose condition, I killed ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... whatsoever nation that the right of trade and navigation from Cape Verde to the Cape of Good Hope belonged exclusively to the king of England. Holmes ordered the Dutch to vacate their forts and to abandon the coast within six or seven months[8]. Thereupon he seized the island of Boa Vista, one of the Cape Verde group claimed by the Dutch since 1621. Later he sent a frigate into the mouth of the Gambia. Otto Steele, the Courland commander of Fort St. Andre, unable to discern whether friend or foe was ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... performance. As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors. The saint may simply give the universe into the hands of the enemy by his trustfulness. He may by non-resistance cut off his ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding a fragrance from the boa which she loosened ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... On the evening before, in the darkness, the barricade had been approached silently, as by a boa. Now, in broad daylight, in that widening street, surprise was decidedly impossible, rude force had, moreover, been unmasked, the cannon had begun the roar, the army hurled itself on the barricade. Fury now became skill. A powerful ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... not (as ghosts oft use) To be 'dearheaven'd!' and 'oh'd!' But briskly said: "Good-evenin'; what's the news? Consumption? After boa'd? ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... like a child whose broken toy is glued together. "Oh, do make him!" she implored. "I'll ask them to come in the afternoon—we'll make it into a little tea—a five o'clock. I'll send word at once to everybody!" She gathered up her beruffled boa and sunshade, settling her plumage like a reassured bird. "It will be too lovely!" she ended in a ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... the fortress, the thunder of whose footsteps, as he approached the house with uncommonly fierce strides, had perhaps broken his slumbers. A frown was on his brow, and the grasp of his hand, in which every finger seemed doing the duty of a boa-constrictor, spoke of a spirit up in ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... wife, what are you going to say about it? We hope that this rapid review of the question does not make you tremble, that you are not one of those men whose nervous fluid congeals at the sight of a precipice or a boa constrictor! Well! my friend, he who owns soil has war and toil. The men who want your gold are more numerous than those who want ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... a fat idol, in silk and false pearls. There the idolatry ceased. In her hand was an umbrella and on her head a hat of rose-leaves which a black topknot surmounted. About her shoulders was a feather boa. It seemed a bit mangy. Seated on Cassy's bed she looked at a window that gave on a wall. Cassy was standing. Behind Cassy was a door which the extinguished light had closed. Beyond, in the living-room, was the marquis. Anything that he did not ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... (the "boa," as it is commonly designated by Europeans, the "anaconda" of Eastern story), which is supposed to crush the bones of an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is found, though not of such portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon gardens ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... Bulky was wyding, one morning, with rod in hand, when, all of a sudden, he felt something on his leg. Looking down, he sawr a big black water-snyke coiled round his boot, and jabbing awy at his leg. It hung on to him like a boa-constrictor, and squeezed his leg so tight that it gyve him a bad attack of gout. He had to get on shore and sawr it in two with his knife before the snyke would leave go. Fortunately, the brutes are not venomous, but that beggar's ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... inhabiting the swamps and rivers of the dense forests of tropical South America. It is the largest of all modern snakes, said to attain over 30 ft. in length. The Eunectes murinus (formerly called Boa murina) differs from Boa by the snout being covered with shields instead of small scales, the inner of the three nasal shields being in contact with that of the other side. The general colour is dark olive-brown, with large oval black spots arranged in two alternating rows along ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... batteries lined the opposite hills; but now, for the first time, Lowe intended to make an ascent whereby he could look into Richmond, count the forts encircling it, and note the number and position of the camps that intervened. The balloon was named the "Constitution," and looked like a semi-distended boa-constrictor, as it flapped with a jerking sound, and shook its oiled and painted folds. It was anchored to the ground by stout ropes affixed to stakes, and also by sand-bags which hooked to its netting. The basket lay alongside; ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... of the boa-constrictor is a wonderful picture. A boy must be hard to please if he wishes for ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... all she was dowered with an overwhelming power of enthusiasm. Eleanor dressed well and had a handsome, commanding profile with small, compressed lips and large, prominent, melancholy eyes that wickedly reminded Gregory of the eyes of a beetle. Beneath the black feather boa that was thrown round her neck, her thin shoulder-blades, while she talked to Mrs. Forrester and sketched with pouncing fingers the phrasing of certain passages, jerked and vibrated oddly. Mrs. Forrester nodded, smiled, acquiesced. She was rather fond of Eleanor. Their talk was for each other. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... brilliant as those of the vegetable world. Monkeys chattered in crowds above their heads, and made grimaces like the fiendish spirits of these solitudes; while hideous reptiles, engendered in the slimy depths of the pools, gathered round the footsteps of the wanderers. Here was seen the gigantic boa, coiling his unwieldy folds about the trees, so as hardly to be distinguished from their trunks, till he was ready to dart upon his prey; and alligators lay basking on the borders of the streams, or, ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... they are; marching along by the low grounds here, intending to sweep gradually leftwards towards Janus-Hill quarter; there to sweep home upon him, coil him up, left and rear and front, in their boa-constrictor folds, and end his trifle of an Army and him. "Why not, if we do our duty at all, annihilate his trifle of an Army; take himself prisoner, and so end it?" Report says, Soubise had really, in some moment of enthusiasm lately, warned the Versailles ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... and piles of foreign treasure. Vast coils of cable, like tame boa-constrictors, served as seats for men with large stomachs, and heavy watch-seals, and nankeen trowsers, who sat looking out of the door toward the ships, with little other sign of life than an occasional low talking, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis |
