"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was satirical or insolent, as the case might demand, in three degrees, of which the snuff-box was the comparative, and the spy-glass the superlative. He had learned this on the stage; in annihilating Quin he had just used the snuff weapon, and now he drew his ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... alarm, [laws to prevent fire] fire code, fire regulations, fire; fire inspector; code violation, citation. V. go out, die out, burn out; fizzle. extinguish; damp, slack, quench, smother; put out, stamp out; douse, snuff, snuff out, blow out. fireproof, flameproof. Adj. incombustible; nonflammable, uninflammable, unflammable[obs3]; fireproof. Phr. fight fire ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, That I should one day find thy lord and thee. Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; For thou hast gone where I shall never go, And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, Corn ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... she thus acknowledged as her husband, had sunk exhausted into a chair near her. He took out his gold snuff-box, and refreshed himself with a leisurely pinch of snuff, looking about him curiously all the while, with a senile grin. That flash of passion which for a few minutes had restored him to the full possession of his reason had burnt itself out, and his mind had relapsed into the condition in ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Nobody is less of a visionary theorist; nobody has drawn his speculations more from practice. No peer has condescended to superintend with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor commons. "With thrice great Hermes he has outwatched the Bear." Often have his candles been burned to the snuff, and glimmered and stunk in the sockets, whilst he grew pale at his constitutional studies; long, sleepless nights has he wasted, long, laborious, shiftless journeys has he made, and great sums has he expended, in order to secure the purity, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the whole ignorant troop of our predestined, of our legions of snivelers, of smokers, of snuff-takers, of old and captious men that Sterne addressed, in Tristram Shandy, the letter written by Walter Shandy to his brother Toby, when this last proposed to marry the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... trophy wreathed with flowers, and made of little crooks, on which were hung rich Turkish handkerchiefs, tippets, ribbons, laces, etc., for the small prizes. The empress gave the first with her own hand, which was a fine ruby ring set round with diamonds, in a gold snuff-box. There was for the second, a little Cupid set with brilliants; and besides these, a set of fine china for a tea-table enchased in gold, japan trunks, fans, and many gallantries of the same ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... of silver pennies doled out by his almoners to a duplicated dozen of old men and women who had lost their better days in circumstances of the utmost respectability; and shocked at the poverty of the display he had been glad to learn that a more Christian gift of tea, clothes, snuff, and tobacco was added outside the Church door when the ceremony was over. But even so its ritual had not attracted him: it had lost its human values, and seemed to have been kept in life ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... late. To write of the past was not what he desired. Reality was what he longed for, things that he had seen. Yet how to make this compatible with romance. He rose, putting on his hat, offering the old man a cigarette. The centenarian accepted with the air of a grandee, and extended his horn snuff-box. Presley ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... I saw him in the garden, leaning pensively on his hoe—a becalmed and striking figure in a ragged snuff-colored coat, and a hat marked by numerous small orifices, through which, here and there, strands from his silvery fringe of hair strayed and waved ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... 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 ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
... a little case, containing a curious old watch, set in pearls; a snuff-box which had been in the possession of the family for ages, and a variety of similar treasures. Among them was a miniature painting, on ivory, of exquisite workmanship, and set in a gold frame, which was studded with ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... power to conquer it. Absence, you know, is the first and the most difficult step, and this she has taken. Her course of reading displeases you: I cannot defend it: but I am persuaded that it is not a proof of her taste being vitiated. Many people read ordinary novels as others take snuff, merely from habit, from the want of petty excitation; and not, as you suppose, from the want of exorbitant or improper stimulus. Those who are unhappy have recourse to any trifling amusement that can change the course of their thoughts. I do not justify Olivia for having chosen such comforters ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... was sitting before a deal table, littered with papers strewn round a central bottle of ink, in which a steel pen stuck upright. The Judge wore his usual dilapidated business suit of brown cheviot that had once been snuff-coloured and was now a streaky drab. On his feet, stretched out under the magisterial table till they joined the jury, a pair of moccasins; on his grizzled head a cowboy hat, set well back. He could spit farther than any man in Minook, and by the same token was ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... official aware of the fears of the family of Maulincour about this mysterious person who was bold enough to swear the death of an officer of the Guards, in defiance of the law and the police. The chief pushed up his green spectacles in amazement, blew his nose several times, and offered snuff to the vidame, who, to save his dignity, pretended not to use tobacco, although his own nose was discolored with it. Then the chief took notes and promised, Vidocq and his spies aiding, to send in a report within a few days to the Maulincour family, assuring them meantime that there ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... 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 had above a thousand francs, and a pension ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... observed a calm, highly-dressed young buck, with an eye-glass in his eye. "Snuff, indeed!" growled the angry crowd, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... spoken in fashionable circles, continued, in the mouth of Lord Foppington, to excite the mirth of theatres. [129] The atmosphere was like that of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any other form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination. If any clown, ignorant of the usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of the waiters soon convinced him that he had better go somewhere ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "Snuff, ma'am," he replied, with a comical wink, which ought to have shocked the old lady, but which, somehow, had ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... easy Motion, the Volubility of your Discourse, the Suddenness of your Laugh, the Management of your Snuff-Box, with the Whiteness of your Hands and Teeth (which have justly gained You the Envy of the most polite part of the Male World, and the Love of the greatest Beauties in the Female) are intirely to be ascribed to your own personal Genius ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... table, was decorated with flowers, and singers, often placed in a gallery at one end, were employed the whole time. A gentleman usher acted as butler, and a yeoman was always at hand to keep out strange dogs, snuff candles, and light to bed the guests, who were not always in a condition to find their way upstairs without his help. The hours at this time were nine or ten o'clock for dinner (except on fast-days, when it was at noon), and three or four for ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... Jerry dumb for some time; the officers, however, continued as before. The surgeon dropped his plate, full of damascene tart, on the deck. The first-lieutenant spilt his snuff on the table-cloth, and laid his snuff-box on the table, which he knew to be the captain's aversion; and the master requested a glass of grog, as the rotgut French wines had given him a pain in the bowels. Captain Bradshaw could ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the other. "Sixty thousand pounds in one year; and that after so many drains!—And there's only my own life—there's only my own life!"—and then there was a pause for four or five minutes, during which Lord Kilcullen took snuff, poked the fire, and then picked up a newspaper, as though he were going to read it. This last was too much for the father, and he again roared out, "Well, sir, what are you standing there for? If you've nothing else to say; why don't you go? I've done with you—you can not get more ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the same," said the old hunter; and, taking a pinch of snuff, he began to tell the deeds of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... recounting my jewvenile follies (what trix we used to play the applewoman! and how we put snuff in the old clark's Prayer-book—my eye!); but one day, a genlmn entered the school-room—it was on the very day when I went to subtraxion—and asked the master for a young lad for a servant. They ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lookin', but dey couldn' find Burrus. De nex' day Ole Marse went down to de county jail an' got de blood houn's. He brung home er great passel of dem yelpin' an' pullin' at de ropes, but when he turned dem loose dey didn' find Burrus, kaze he done grease de bottom of his feets wid snuff an' hog lard so de dogs couldn' smell de trail. Ole Marse den tole all de niggahs dat if anybody housed an' fed Burrus on de sly, dat he goin' to shoot dem like he done shot Leonard. Den he went every day an' searched de cabins; he even looked ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... again. He was a big man, strong and bronzed, as if he lived in the open. When he smiled, his very blue eyes smiled too, and many little wrinkles appeared about them, as if his smile sent out rays, like the sun. He wore loose, snuff-coloured clothes, and a ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... "with good emphasis and good discretion." He laughs at all his master's jokes, flatters him to the top of his bent, and speaks of him as a mere chicken compared to himself, though his lordship is seventy and Canton about fifty. Lord Ogleby calls him his "cephalic snuff, and no bad medicine against megrims, vertigoes, and profound thinkings."—Colman and Garrick, The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... afterward. The effect of the first ceremony was somewhat injured by the easy-going manners of some of the attendant cardinals. It was difficult to imagine that they believed really in the tremendous doctrine involved in the mass when one saw them taking snuff in the midst of the most solemn prayers, and going through the whole in the most perfunctory fashion. At the close of the service, the Pope, being borne on his throne by Roman nobles, surrounded by ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... one corner of the ceiling, and then to the opposite corner, arching the one eyebrow on that side, although of course there was nothing to be seen there." "Many years ago I laid a small wager with a dozen young men that they would not sneeze if they took snuff, although they all declared that they invariably did so; accordingly they all took a pinch, but from wishing much to succeed, not one sneezed, though their eyes watered, and all, without exception, had to pay me the wager." "I put my face close to the ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... meeting a telegram was sent over the country stating: "Miss Anthony stalked down the aisle with faded alpaca dress to the top of her boots, blue cotton umbrella and white cotton gloves, perched herself on the platform, crossed her legs, pulled out her snuff-box and passed it around. On the platform were Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Rose and other noted women, all dressed in unmentionables cut bias, and smoking penny drab cigars. Susan was quite drunk." ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... was an old woman, Lord Cumnor was that peer; but he was a very good-natured old woman, and rode about on his stout old cob with his pockets full of halfpence for the children, and little packets of snuff for the old people. Like an old woman, too, he enjoyed an afternoon cup of tea in his wife's sitting-room, and over his gossip's beverage he would repeat all that he had learnt in the day. Lady Cumnor was exactly in that state of convalescence when such talk as her lord's was ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... came and seated himself on the stove-couch, occupied by Madame Wang, and, directing a servant to light the candles, he started copying in an ostentatious and dashing manner. Now he called Ts'ai Hsia to pour a cup of tea for him. Now he asked Yu Ch'uan to take the scissors and cut the snuff of the wick. "Chin Ch'uan!" he next cried, "you're in the way of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 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 ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... high as the kipples, came out o' the wood near Deadman's Grike, just after the sun gaed down yester e'en; I knew weel what he was, for his feet ne'er touched the road while he made as if he walked beside me. And he wanted to gie me snuff first, and I wouldna hev that; and then he offered me a gowden guinea, but I was no sic awpy, and to bring you here to-night, and cross the candle wi' pins, to call your lover in. And he said he's a great lord, and in ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... turkey or deer. A somewhat archaic story among river boatmen tells of the way in which "Mike Fink," a famous character among them, secured a supply of mutton. Seeing a flock of sheep grazing near the shore, he ran his boat near them, and rubbed the noses of several with Scotch snuff. When the poor brutes began to caper and sneeze in dire discomfort, the owner arrived on the scene, and asked anxiously what could ail them. The bargeman, as a traveled person, was guide, philosopher, and friend to all along the river, and ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... supervisor of all these cribs, you understand. We have several of them. Some of these 'drifts' we kidnap, and some come and be locked up of their own accord-merely for the feed and drink. We use them, and then snuff them out until we want them again." Having turned from George, and complimented the vote-cribber for his skill, he bids him good-night. Together George and the politician wend their way to an obscure part of the city, and having passed up two flight of winding stairs, into a large, old-fashioned ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... After this they were permitted to stroll about, and received many tokens of amity in the shape of green boughs, and were then entertained at a banquet, the principal dishes being fish and bread-fruit. Whilst at dinner, Solander had his pocket picked of an opera glass, and Monkhouse lost his snuff-box. As soon as this was made known, Lycurgus, as they had named one of their friends, drove off the people, striking them and throwing anything he could lay his hand to, at them. He offered pieces of cloth as compensation, and when these were refused, extended his offer to everything he possessed. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... slight, sallow man of about 43 appeared, wearing an old-fashioned stovepipe hat and a shabby suit of snuff-colored garments. The look of the attendants testified that the deity was before me. Taking off his antiquated chapeau he began a profuse apology for the accident, explaining that accidents were most unusual events in France; that he would order ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... to be crushed by single elephants endued with great strength.[399] And in that battle, in the midst of large forces, many elephants, scenting the odour of the temporal juice of their compeers, began to snuff the breeze repeatedly. And the whole field was strewn with slain elephants, deprived of life by means of broad-headed shafts and falling down with the wooden edifices and the guides on their backs. And many elephants, in the midst of large forces crushed, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... be as small as I had thought, not taller than my own shoulder, with a bent little figure dressed in wrinkled and baggy store clothes of a snuff brown. His bullet head had been cropped so that his hair stood up like a short-bristled white brush. His rather round face was brown and lined. His hands, which grasped the doorposts uncompromisingly to bar the way, were lean and veined ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... decrepit people, and among them a stately ruin of a woman on a very large scale, with a profile—for I did not see her front face—that stamped itself into my brain as a seal impresses hot wax. By the tragic gesture with which she took a pinch of snuff, I was sure it must be Mrs. Siddons. Her brother, John Kemble, sat behind,—a broken-down figure, but still with a kingly majesty about him. In lieu of all former achievements, Nature enables him to look the part of Lear far better than in the meridian of his genius. ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sir," cried Cross. "Might make small charges up with a snuff of powder wrapped up in paper; and then I could prick ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... assent, but was apparently interested by something which caught his eye. He then took out a snuff-box, and, looking round about him ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... and acknowledgement was made him for his attentions to the shipwreck'd crew by a salute of twenty guns from H.M. sloop, four of my cut glass tumblers as sherbet glasses, and 1 lb. of Mr. Fribourg's and Palets' best snuff. I think you will laugh at our presents to him, but I assure you it was thought much of, and highly valued. I think the Turks, tho' they speak seldom, yet when they do are more profuse in their compliments ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... disturbing the ashes of the old poets by perverting their sense.... At another table were seated a parcel of young, raw, second-rate beaus and wits, who were conceited if they had but the honour to dip a finger and thumb into Mr. Dryden's snuff-box" (Cunningham, ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... the incoming guests, whispered something in his ear that made him laugh, listened while he whispered to her in return, and in obedience to the summons crossed the room to meet a group of the neighbors, among them old Judge Woolworthy, in a snuff-colored coat, high black stock, and bald head, and his bustling little wife. Bart's last whisper to Lucy was in explanation of the little wife's manner—who now, all bows and smiles, was shaking hands ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... who could not choose her world was stopped, suddenly, by the dipping of the thick fingers into an old snuff-box. That very afternoon the court-yard saw another arrival; this one was treated in quite a ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... and after fumbling among broken teacups and milk-jugs, lidless wooden cotton-boxes, and a miscellaneous litter of rags and crockery, produced a tin snuff-box with a sliding lid; a shabby, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... but it was a crackling, dry laugh, painful in its cheerlessness. He drew his snuff-box from his pocket, opened it, and slowly taking a pinch, raised it towards his nose, but the hand paused half-way, as though ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... who was engaged in telling Mrs. Allen of Mr. Salsify's prosperity, and how he was "rising in his profession," and how he meditated adding another story to his house and putting a piazza round it next spring, dropped all, even her snuff-box, and rushed to the window as a large covered wagon, drawn by a span of elegant black horses, drove rapidly into the adjoining yard. First alighted a tall man in a black overcoat,—the master no doubt, the gazers decided,—then ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... of the well-known firm of Trevor Pilkington, fixed his horn spectacles carefully upon his nose, took a pinch of snuff, sneezed twice, gave his papers a preliminary rustle, looked slowly round the crowded room, and began to read the will. Through forty years of will-reading his method of procedure had always been the same. But Jack Summers, who was sharing an ottoman with two of the outdoor servants, thought that ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... he began to pour, the noise of the battering-ram and the trampling of the foe and the shouts of 'Surrender!' and 'De Talbot for ever!' all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle; the little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy-turvy, and when the children came to themselves there they were safe and sound, in the big front bedroom of their own house - the house with the ornamental nightmare ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... as would give a just preference to their labours. The shipwrights of Charleston in a petition pictured their distress under the present condition of trade and begged relief by proper legislation. Petitions soon followed from coach-makers, soap-boilers, snuff-grinders, makers of mathematical instruments, manufacturers of sheepskin trousers—in fact, nearly every form of industry wished to take advantage of this opportunity to secure national where they had formerly been able to get only local protection. The ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... say so to Mr. Carlyle in the first chapter of this history. The earl was the one who might be supposed to know best. Whatever may have been Lady Mount Severn's malady, she—to give you the phrase that was in people's mouth's at the time—"went out like the snuff of a candle." It was now the turn of Lady Isabel. She had no more decided disorder than the countess had had, yet death had marked her. She felt that it had, and in its approach she dreaded not, as she once had done, the consequences ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... eye, which will blink while the "sufferer" will swear; bending back the thumb and pressing in the end of the nail, when the hand will be withdrawn in feigned but not in true epilepsy; blowing snuff up the nose, which induces sneezing in the sham fit alone, or using a cold douche will all expose ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... unanimously trying to do. Having made a pile, he proposed to make a bigger pile. Meanwhile he slapped his soul on the back and smacked his lips in anticipation. To Jesus the fat farmer was a tragic comedy. In the first place, an unseen hand was waiting to snuff out his candle. To plan life as if it consisted in an abundance of material wealth is something of a miscalculation in a world where death is part of the scheme of things. In the second place, Jesus saw no higher ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... the shame of my madness," Sancho cried out, "Woe's me, your worship, do not die this bout; take my counsel, and live many a good year. For it is the maddest trick a man can play in his whole life to go out like the snuff of a candle, and die merely of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... elegance. His brow was broad; the nose thin, cartilaginous, white of colour, springing out at a notably sharp angle, much bent,—a parrot-nose, and very sharp in the point (according to Dannecker the Sculptor, Schiller, who took snuff, had pulled it out so with his hand). The red eyebrows, over the deep-lying dark-gray eyes, were bent too close together at the nose, which gave him a pathetic expression. The lips were thin, energetic; the under-lip protruding, as if pushed forward ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... "Survey," pursued the sire, "this airy throng, As, offer'd to thy view, they pass along. These are th' Italian names, which fate will join With ours, and graff upon the Trojan line. Observe the youth who first appears in sight, And holds the nearest station to the light, Already seems to snuff the vital air, And leans just forward, on a shining spear: Silvius is he, thy last-begotten race, But first in order sent, to fill thy place; An Alban name, but mix'd with Dardan blood, Born in the covert of a shady wood: Him ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... south wing,' he said, 'and if the rooms ain't up to snuff now, why, I'll make 'em so. The fact is, Bill, I've got money enough—three millions and better; but somehow it doesn't seem to do the thing. It doesn't fetch us to the quality and make us fust-cut. We need better blood than the Peterkins or the Moshers—need boostin', and you ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing; When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... of weariness and disgust; I came, I went, I returned, without pleasure; yet if by any means I passed by the usual time of my going thither, I was remarkably uneasy, and was not quiet till I had got into my old track. They who use snuff, take it almost without being sensible that they take it, and the acute sense of smell is deadened, so as to feel hardly anything from so sharp a stimulus; yet deprive the snuff-taker of his box, and he is the most uneasy mortal ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... rascals to be off to their work, or they should taste of my thong, and proceeded, as well as I could, to comfort Mrs. Fitzsimons under her misfortunes. 'Had she lost much?' 'Everything: her purse, containing upwards of a hundred guineas; her jewels, snuff-boxes, watches, and a pair of diamond shoe-buckles of the Captain's.' These mishaps I sincerely commiserated; and knowing her by her accent to be an Englishwoman, deplored the difference that existed between ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... time, but never has it included even the smallest of the characteristics of William Rawlings. He reminds me of nothing so much as the very shaggiest bear I have ever seen at the Zoo—not even a nice white Polar bear, but one of those nondescript, snuff-coloured kinds that are all ragged ends from top to toe. That a man with such a rough exterior could be capable of such sickening sentimentality as Elizabeth had just described quite nauseated me. It made me dislike him more, if possible, than I ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... Woodcock" he gasped between his peals of laughter "I didn't at all expect you, in fact I forgot all about you" and here he sank into a chair and offered a snuff box ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... stiffly starched white cap, her fingers flying over her knitting-work, as precisely and perseveringly she "seams," "narrows," and "widens." At the old lady's right hand stands a cherry table, on which burns a yellow tallow candle that occasionally the dame proceeds to snuff. There is no carpet on the floor, and the furniture is poor and plain. A kitchen chair sits at the other side of the table, and in, or on it, sits a half-grown boy, a ruddy, freckled, country boy who wants to whistle, and prefers to ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... got her ministers to tell her what to do," said Mrs Carey, taking a pinch of snuff. "Poor innocent young creature, it often makes my heart ache to think how ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... apparently not stirred since last we were in his office. He opened his eyes, thumbed a pinch of snuff and asked Gootes, "Where the bloody hell is that stuff ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... hands. This ceremony is in general performed by the present Speaker with a gloved hand towards those not particularly distinguished by wealth or pedigree. When the new member for Preston was introduced to him, he was in the act of taking snuff, with his glove off. Mr. Hunt made a bow, not remarkable for its graceful repose, at a distance—apprehensive, as it struck me, that the acknowledgment would be that of a noli me tangere, exclusive. He ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... ruffianism. His "dandyism" was only comparative. The impulse of poverty and scheming which led him to affect the "gentleman" having been removed, the natural brutality of his nature showed itself quite freely. Mr. Francis Wade took a pinch of snuff with a sharp motion of distaste. "I do not want to hear of your debaucheries," he said; "our name has been sufficiently ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the children find it so hard to keep up that they are taught to chew snuff—as a stimulant—before they are six year old. Jane Addams, writin' o' the torture chambers they call cotton mills in parts o' the South, said she saw on the night shift, with her teeth all blackened and decayed from excessive snuff chewin', a little girl o' five ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... nose is the most impertinent nose in the universe, MON CHER MYLORD [Queen-Dowager snuff, SPANIOL from the fountain-head, of Marischal's providing; quality exquisite, but difficult to get transmitted in the Storms of War]; I am ashamed of the trouble it costs you! I beg many pardons;—and should be quite ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... all of one family; sisters more or less exactly alike; all fair and rosy, with light snuff-coloured eyes, heavy eyelids, and round faces; they form a train of rather an insipid type round the Virgin with her long nose and bird-like head kneeling at the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... before the assassination took place. Three times over he dreamed that he saw a small man, dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat, enter the Lobby of the House of Commons, when immediately another person, dressed in a snuff-coloured coat, took a pistol from under his coat and shot the little man in his left breast. On asking who the sufferer was he was informed that it was Mr. Perceval, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was so much impressed by the dream that he consulted his friends as to whether he should ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... "What do you want? What's the matter?" made Natasha approach more swiftly to what was lying in the corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see him. She passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she saw Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... sans-culottes, and was hence in high glee, a man rejuvenesced. His sallies grew livelier and more barbed as the death-tide rose higher about him. His one regret was that he had been so hasty in casting his snuff box from him, for he was missing its familiar stimulus. At his side the Marquis was fighting desperately, fencing with his left arm, and in the hot excitement seeming oblivious of the pain his broken ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... paused, took a pinch of snuff, and then said good-humouredly: "Although I am not a prophet, I know one thing; this war will be followed by an European Congress, and a Congress about Italian Affairs is even worse for us than war. There will be changes in Italy, but mark my words, whatever these changes are, the Pope will ever ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... confessed she found herself somewhat over-awed on reaching Broome street, and being taken into the tiny, dwarfed-looking parlor of number twenty-three; Miss Elizabeth Gower herself was there, in her company-cap, and long-cherished company-dress of snuff-colored satin. There were not many shades of difference in either her snuff-colored gown, or her snuff-colored skin, or her neat, snuff-colored false-front, Theo fancied, but she was not at all afraid of her. She ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great-coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke dribbled through ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... cavern, and is answered by the wolves as they crowd up to the edge of the plateau. But though their reply is bold they hesitate to advance further. For they know who dwells where the broken, bleaching bones lie, and fear is in their hearts. They snuff at the air with muzzles up-thrown, and their mangy coats bristle with sullen anger. The crowd increases, the courage of the coward begins to rise within them. A fierce argument arises, and the debate takes the form of a vicious clipping of huge fangs. A mighty roar interrupts them, seeming ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... deposit from every individual so honoured, was, they told us, to prevent the possibility of bribery being used to corrupt any envoy of the Republic. I should think it would be a better way to select for the office such men as they felt could not be seduced by a sword or a snuff-box. But they, doubtless, know their own ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... 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; ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... hath spread its noisome stain, While shudd'ring virtue weeps, but weeps in vain? And (O shame's nauseous dregs!) did noble lips Here taste that stream with epicurean sips? And mitred heads, as o'er its scum they bent, Snuff the rank steam, and chuckle at the scent?— My soul is sick!—I turn with sated ear, And find a cordial in my brethren here. Peers who their conscience to no market bring; Respect themselves, their country, and their king: ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... emancipation, during his tour in this country, when on one occasion he was the cynosure of a protracted antislavery meeting at Peterboro, the home of Gerrit Smith, deeply offended some of his co-workers, and lost the admiration of many of his admirers, the maiden devotees of green tea, by his use of snuff. To "lift up the voice" and wear longhair were signs ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... craggy defiles he pointed out the fertile plains of Andalusia, and regaled the eyes of his soldiery with the rich country they were about to ravage. The fierce Gomeres of Ronda were flushed with joy at the sight, and even their steeds seemed to prick up their ears and snuff the breeze as they beheld the scenes ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... without it, however he might contrive to do without his breakfast." But, indeed, this was true. So thoroughly was he steeped in drunkenness—in the low, frequent, and insatiable appetite for whiskey—that, like tobacco or snuff, it became an essential portion of his life—a necessary-evil, without which he could scarcely exist. At all events, the poor children had one comfortable meal, which made them happy; the little stock that remained ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... kept up an undismayed countenance: he went down to Gorhambury, attended by troops of friends. "This man," said Prince Charles, when he met his company, "scorns to go out like a snuff." But at Gorhambury he made his will, leaving "his name to the next ages and to foreign nations;" and he wrote a prayer, which is a touching evidence ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... motor near the brink of the cliff above the Falls and the two climbed down the steep bank, stopping now and again to yield to the fascination of rushing water and to snuff the fresh-flying mist as it swept into ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... paved star, from painful and degrading contemplations of dead bodies, "the snuff and loathed part of nature which burns itself out," let a man turn away, and send his interior kingly glance aloft into ideal realms, let him summon up the glorious sentiments of freedom, duty, admiration, the noble experiences of self sacrifice, love, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... roof of the house opposite." "Who are you for, the Pope or Vittorio?" "For neither. I am a stupid girl; I am for the one that will feed and clothe me. But I have often laughed at the Zouaves. One of them was standing here one day, taking pinch after pinch of snuff, and he said to me: 'The Italians will never enter Rome.' I replied: 'Not if they take snuff, but they will if they storm the town.'" "Do you think that the Pope will win?" "No, I think his cause is lost. Perhaps there will even come a time when no one goes to churches here." She: "Who ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... for that he was a brother of the convent. I replied that I had heard that all the friaries had been broken up and the brothers dismissed; whereupon he sighed, and said it was too true. He was then silent for a minute, and his better nature overcoming his angry feelings he produced a snuff-box and offered it to me. The snuff-box is the olive-branch of the Portuguese, and he who wishes to be on good terms with them, or to conciliate them, must never refuse to put his finger and thumb ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... of Amiens, one side passing through Albert, or possibly through the village of Bucquoy, the other through Montdidier. Such a formation would mean positive disaster. It would be worth a quarter of a million men to the Allies to strike both north and south across the base of this angle and snuff it out. It would mean to Germany the loss of a mass of artillery and tens of thousands of men. And the Allies would not be slow to see this opportunity and strike. The German High Command, therefore, did not dare to take the chance with matters as ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... caused by very little people inside the box, who were obliged to do exactly as I bade them. They were in a perfect ecstasy of delight for ever so long, retreating rapidly, however, to a distance whenever I wound it up. The old luduna took snuff copiously all the time, and made me affectionate speeches, which resulted in the gift of an old great coat, which he assured me he never would live to wear out, because he was quite in a hurry to die and go to the white man's land now that he ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... from the depths of his waistcoat pocket a capacious gold box, and opened it with a tap, as though he were about to offer me a pinch of snuff. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... staring, fierce, black, goggle eyes, with huge circular spectacles 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 ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... fingers held at pleasure, and the hand and arm advanced to the point and held steady. This signifies justice, a just person, that which is just and right. The same sign may denote friendship, a menace, which specifically is that of being brought to justice, and snuff, i.e. powdered tobacco; but the expression of the countenance and the circumstance of the use of the sign determine these distinctions. Its origin is clearly the balance or emblem of justice, the office of which consists in ascertaining ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... bribery, I can vouch for, as I am acquainted with the two parties, one of whom purchased the snuff-box in which the other enclosed the notes and presented to the jurymen. A gentleman at New York of the name of Stoughton, had a quarrel with another of the name of Goodwin: the latter followed the former down the street, and murdered him in open day by passing a ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... snuff, and pepper," answered the leech. "Let his little highness be put into a special suite of rooms; admit no person to them until he has been examined for head-cold, and has put on germ-proof garments; and as his little highness grows older, forbid the use ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... and wrung his hands, and walked about the deck uttering all sorts of extraordinary expressions, calling on I don't know how many saints to come and help him—while blackie followed him with his snuff-box and a handkerchief, and seemed trying to console him. La Motte, however, laughed at my apprehensions. He said that of course it was known that I had not willingly left the ship, and that I had a right to save my life in the best way I could. Still I was not satisfied. On came ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... on the plantation. Lawd, they was good to us. Us didn' know nothin' 'bout bad times and cutting and whipping and slashing. I had to work in the house and I 'member one thing I has to do was scrub Mistus' gol' snuffbox twict a week. She kep' sweet, Scotch snuff and sometimes ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... the man, with iron-grey hair and gold spectacles, who came to our house after my father's death. I think he was a lawyer. He took lots of snuff, so that Henrietta sneezed when he kissed her, which made her very angry. He put Rupert and me in front of him, to see which of us was most like my father, and I can recall the big pinch of snuff he took, and the sound of his voice saying "Be like your father, boys! ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... other we've heard snuff Came in the days of frill and ruff; And here's a noble ill at ease Giving the ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... a prodigality of stains, Is fashioned this last entry and design, By one aware of cold, approaching rains,— Who senses, through each iridescent line, A presence at the shoulder—chills and blights, Winds that will snuff his letters out ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... were few and far between, and she would leave her own house on an evening only when all circumstances were favourable, and with many precautions against wind and water. Some said that she was becoming old, and that she was going out like the snuff of a candle. But Sir Peter Mancrudy declared that she might live for the next fifteen years, if she would only think so herself. "It was true," Sir Peter said, "that in the winter she had been ill, and that there had been danger as to her throat during the east winds of the spring;—but those ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... person of general utility and was especially good at all kinds of conjuring tricks. Watches, snuff-boxes, cigar-cases, silver spoons, and even heavy bronze paper-weights acquired the property of suddenly vanishing from under his hands, and of suddenly reappearing in a quite unexpected quarter. This valuable ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... be sure that you have any religion to speak of." She looked up prettily in Susannah's face. "What a beautiful creature you are!" she cried. "And is it to please my cousin Angel that you wear a snuff-coloured dress and a white cap and a neckerchief like an old ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... the royal Leopold would present him a snuff-box, studded with pearls, diamonds, and rubies,—monarchs have a habit of presenting snuffboxes to men who do not take snuff,—in token of his princely appreciation of the learning of the distinguished American professor. Or, perhaps, "Le Roi de Belge" would inform him that he desired to promote ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... a snuff of a Candle; no body will be able to endure it. [Aside. —So Fortune, I see, provides for me: On this hand Wealth, on that young Pleasures lie; He ne'er wants these, who ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... looked on with distrust, dashed with derision. When Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia, heard what was afoot, he wrote to his brother in Boston, "Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack, and your teeth are not accustomed to it; but some seem to think that forts are as easy taken as snuff." [Footnote: Sparks, Works of Franklin, VII. 16.] It has been said of Franklin that while he represented some of the New England qualities, he had no part in that enthusiasm of which our own time saw a crowning example when the cannon opened at Fort Sumter, and which pushes to its end without ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... affable tone, and asked for a pinch of snuff. The old man drew forth a horn snuff-box. "Hoot, man," said Scott, "not that old mull: where's the bonnie French one that I brought you from Paris?" "Troth, your honor," replied the old fellow, "sic a mull as that is ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... looked his best in these days. His complexion was a bright blonde, and he dressed with the taste of Disraeli. Henry B. Stanton describes him as he appeared at church in Rochester on a Sunday during the campaign. "He wore an elegant snuff-colored broadcloth coat with velvet collar; his cravat was orange with modest lace tips; his vest was of a pearl hue; his trousers were white duck; his silk hose corresponded to the vest; his shoes were morocco; his nicely fitting gloves were yellow kid; his long-furred beaver hat, with broad brim, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... beholder, excited general enthusiasm. Imitation is a proof and consequence of it; and many an orthodox believer, who trembled in private, ridiculed religion in public, because he had heard that the king was an atheist; and many a gallant soldier, who hated the sight and smell of snuff, disfigured his nose and lip with rappee, because such was the royal fashion. As a general, he was looked upon as the first of his time. The feeble moment at Molwitz had not become generally known; and the few who had witnessed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various |
