"Hiss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warm ferments of the Var Vale, at a season when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss of fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate. The ready bosoms existing there were impregnated by their surroundings. July passed over their heads and the weather which came in its wake seemed an effort on the part of Nature to match the state ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... company was awed into silence with the haggard realism of his narrative. The cabin must have been air-tight—it was as close as possible—yet we heard the shrieking of the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the long hiss of the waves rushing past us with lightning speed. Sometimes an avalanche of foam buried us for a moment, and the Petrel trembled like a living thing stricken with sudden fear: we seemed to be hanging on the crust of a great ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... strength returned. All through the night we scoured between the hills: The moon went down behind us, and the stars Dropped after her; but long before I saw A planet blazing straight against our eyes, The road had softened, and the shadowy hills Had flattened out, and I could hear the hiss Of sand spurned backward by the flying mares.— Glory to God! I was at home again! The sun rose on us; far and near I saw The level Desert; sky met sand all round. We paused at midday by a palm-crowned well, And ate and slumbered. Somewhat, too, was said: The words have slipped ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... call to thee. The roaring artillery's clouds thicken round me, The hiss and the glare of the loud bolts confound me. Ruler of battles, I call on thee O Father, lead ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... this; just as his notion of a Hell arose from the squalid mess into which his own foolish habits of thought and action turned this Paradise. At least, so it struck me then: and, thinking it, there was a hiss in my breath, as I went up into what more and more acquired the character of a mountain pass, with points of almost Alpine savagery: for after I had skirted the edge of a deep glen on the left, the slopes changed in character, heather was on the mountain-sides, a fretting beck sent ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... of the ship were now leaping fifty feet into the air. The river manuals played upon it, but made little or no impression. It seemed to hiss back contempt and defiance ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... heaped high the pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and fur collars and the shaggy manes of horses—even THEN there will be shining hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window where, in a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, and to the hiss of the samovar, there will be in progress a discussion which warms the heart and soul, or else a reading aloud of a brilliant page of one of those inspired Russian poets with whom God has dowered us, while the breast of each member of the company is heaving with a rapture unknown under ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... no mistake; a sailing-ship somehow seems always ready to spring into life with the breath of the incorruptible heaven; but a teamer, thought Captain Whalley, with her fires out, without the warm whiffs from below meeting you on her decks, without the hiss of steam, the clangs of iron in her breast—lies there as cold and still ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... dazzling head-light shining afar up the westward right of way, and throwing into heavier shade, by force of contrast, every object outside its beams. In the solemn stillness of nature in those high levels, almost the only sound was the soft hiss of escaping steam from the cylinder-cocks or an occasional rumble from the boiler. Even murmured words seemed audible and intelligible sixty feet away, and twice big Ben Tillson, the engineer of 705, had pricked up his ears as he circled about his giant steed, oiling the grimy joints, elbows, ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... carried his prize to a lapidary's bench. He perched himself on a stool and reached for his magnifying glass. A queer little hiss broke through his lips. Cut-glass beads, patently Occidental, and here in ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... muttered Billy to himself, and at the next second be knew. A faint hiss sounded in the corporal's very ear. Billy thought of the vipers that swarmed on some parts of the heath, and jumped round in affright, and at that instant a ball was flipped into his eye from some ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... there were plenty of them coiled or crawling near, yet their instinct probably taught them that he was a monster with a more deadly poison than themselves, and whose fangs were sharper, though his tongue did not hiss a note of warning. Captain Brand put down his burden and crept forward on hands and knees, the blazing torch lighting up the damp and dripping rocks, all green and slimy from the tracks of the snake and lizard. Where the narrow fissure seemed to end by a wall ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... surge and shock of that frigid sea rushed upon me. I felt the swirl and hiss of the broken wave higher about me before it sank away down whatever dreadful strand it owned. My life ebbed with it, draining low. My enemy spoke the ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... swept over the camp with reckless disregard of all aim. It came with a sharp rattle. The bullets swept on with a biting hiss, and some of them terminated their careers with a vicious "splat" against the great overhang of rock or the ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... stood out like ropes; and then Balmung, descending, cleft the air from right to left. The waiting lookers-on in the plain below thought to hear the noise of clashing steel; but they listened in vain, for no sound came to their ears, save a sharp hiss like that which red hot iron gives when plunged into a tank of cold water. The huge Amilias sat unmoved, with his arms still folded upon his breast; but the smile ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... a loss which must be sold at a given moment Permissible neither to applaud nor to hiss Respectful without servility She awaits your replies without interruption These liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple Wish you had the generosity to show, now and again, less wit You know, madame, that he generally gets everything ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... was falling from the clouds glimpses were caught of armor. Elsewhere there was the clashing of drums and cymbals and the notes of flutes and trumpets. A serpent of huge size was suddenly seen and gave a hiss incredibly loud. Meanwhile comet stars came frequently into view and ghosts of the dead took shape. The statues frowned: Apis bellowed a lament and shed tears. Such was the status of things in ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... can hardly distinguish the true culprit, and allot to him his due share of blame; but the number of these is still so limited that their judgment has little weight; and the hostile conductor—in presence of the public who would pitilessly hiss a vocal accident of a good singer—reigns, with all the calm of a bad conscience, in his baseness and inefficiency. Fortunately, I here attack an exception; for the malevolent orchestral conductor—whether ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... they do, they easily neglect it. If a stone fall upon a man's head, that's evil indeed; but dishonesty, infamy, villainy, ill reports carry no more hurt in them than a man is sensible of; and if a man have no sense of them, they are no longer evils. What are you the worse if the people hiss at you, so you applaud yourself? And that a man be able to do so, he ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... hundred; and another, who may be looked upon as commander in chief, takes up his station close to the wall which they are repairing, and frequently repeats the beating which I just mentioned, which is instantly answered by a loud hiss from all the labourers within the dome,—those at work labouring with ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... shotgun would come projecting right across our well-planned getaway. Which was just what happened, and almost at once. Probably that great horned owl had been hooting for some time, but we had been too busy to notice. I heard the wicket door turning on its hinges, and ventured a warning hiss to Brower and Tim Westmore, who had not yet descended. An instant later I could make out shadowy forms stealing toward the willows. Evidently those who served Old Man Hooper ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... wicked flames may hiss Round the heroes who have fought For conscience and for home in all its beauty, But the grim old fortalice Takes little heed of aught That comes not in the measure ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... post. Then the tempest broke over all the Piedmont lands, and the wind arose as a giant refreshed with his rest, and drove the dark thunder- clouds upward before the sounding pinions of his might like demon hounds upon the track of a flying world. Then came the sharp swift hiss of the stinging hail and rain, and the baying of the hurricane, and the awful roll of the storm that shook the whole broad heaven from end to end. Strange! that in the tumult of such a wild and terrible night as this, so gentle and ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... Hindrance malhelpo. Hindu Hindo. Hinge cxarniro. Hint proponeti. Hip kokso. Hippodrome hipodromo. Hippopotamus hipopotamo. Hire dungi. Hire, cost of salajro. Hireling salajrulo. His lia, sia. Hiss sibli. Historian historiskribanto. History historio. History, natural naturscienco. Hit frapi. Hit against ektusxegi. Hitch malhelpajxo. Hive abelujo. Ho! ho! Hoard amaso. Hoarfrost prujno. Hoarse rauxka. Hoarseness rauxkigxo. [Error in book: raukigxo] ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the wild rose face of me Ladybird looking through. I see the swale rocking, smell the sweetness of the blooming things, and the damp, mucky odor of the swamp; and I hear me birds sing, me squirrels bark, the rattlers hiss, and the step of Wessner or Black Jack coming; and whether it's the things that I loved or the things that I feared, it's all a ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... were speckled black and yellow like toads, and had scales or knobs on their backs like those of crocodiles, plated on to the skin, or stuck into it, as part of the skin. They are very slow in motion, and when a man comes nigh them they will stand still and hiss, not endeavouring to get away. Their livers are also spotted black and yellow; and the body, when opened, hath a very unsavoury smell. I did never see such ugly creatures anywhere but here. The guanos I have observed to be very good meat, and ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... not until the carnival time—in the spring. Nothing impressed me, so much, in my visits here (which were pretty numerous) as the uncommonly hard and cruel character of the audience, who resent the slightest defect, take nothing good- humouredly, seem to be always lying in wait for an opportunity to hiss, and spare the actresses ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... up, his desk chair collapsed with a quiet hiss against the cabin wall, and, on greased tubes, the desk dropped out of sight beneath the bunk bed, giving Lord the luxury of an uncluttered floor space eight feet square. He had the only private quarters on the ship—the usual distinction ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... hearth-cricket's song, but much harsher, and of course louder, and without any sweetness; only in the monotony and unintended aimless construction of it, reminding one of various other insect and reptile cries or warnings: partly of the cicala's hiss; partly of the little melancholy German frog which says "Mu, mu, mu," all summer-day long, with its nose out of the pools by Dresden and Leipsic; and partly of the deadened quivering and intense continuousness of the ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... out from him the bitter word And serpent hiss of scorning; Nor let the storms of yesterday Disturb his quiet morning. Breathe over him forgetfulness Of all save deeds of kindness, And, save to smiles of grateful eyes, Press down his lids ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... then, before Jack could check the motion, drifted off the roof like a piece of thistledown blown by the wind. Instinctively, to check the downward motion, Jack's hand sought the gas valve. With a hiss the volatile vapor rushed ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... case contains those lizards of India and Africa which have long held the regard of eastern nations, upon the slender report that they hiss upon the approach of a crocodile, and so warn the incautious traveller to retreat in time. The truth is, these sauria prey upon the crocodile's eggs, no doubt to the particular annoyance of the crocodile, who are, therefore, it is more than probable, no friends of the monitors. ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... know, we chaps, A-putten on our woldest traps, Went up the highest o' the knaps, An' meaede up such a vier! An' thou an' Tom wer all we miss'd, Vor if a sarpent had a-hiss'd Among the rest in thy sprack vist, Our fun 'd a-been ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... moments, which I occupied in making a list of the gear I wished to take with me. Then there was a hiss and a crackle, and in the receiver of the desk a book appeared. I unzipped the case, took it out, and opened it to the pages marked on the attached ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... wish anybody in a barrack would say what you do," cried out this uproused British lion. "I should like to hear a man breathe a word against her, by Jupiter. But men don't talk in this way, Ann: it's only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and cackle. There, get away—don't begin to cry. I only said you were a couple of geese," Will Dobbin said, perceiving Miss Ann's pink eyes were beginning to moisten as usual. "Well, you're not geese, you're swans—anything ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a moment, and the profound wisdom lying underneath. Wise or dull, laudatory or otherwise, we put their opinions aside. If they applaud, we are pleased: if they shake their quick pens, and fly off with a hiss, we resign their favors and put on all the fortitude we can muster. I would rather have the lowest man's good word than his bad one, to be sure; but as for coaxing a compliment, or wheedling him into good-humor, or stopping ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... like a Japanese. The sight of her countrymen in their drab monotonous thousands sickened her. The hiss and cackle of their incomprehensible tongue beat upon her brain with a deadly incessant sound, like raindrops to one who is impatiently awaiting the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... shore What demon vessel glides, Stemming the unstemm'd tides, Where maddening breakers roar In hostile surges round her path, Or hiss, recoiling from her prow, That reeling, staggers to their wrath; While distant shores return the glow That brightens from her burning frame, And all above—around—below— Is wrapt ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... storm and the darkness seemed like twin enemies determined to bar her advance. She felt that Nature was her foe, even as man had been, and as Rehoboth would be when it knew of her return. Why did the rain hiss, and dash its cold and stinging showers in her face? Why did it saturate her thin skirts so that they, in chill folds, wrapped her wasted frame and clung cruelly to her weary limbs to stay her onward travel? And why that strange, weird sound—the sound muttered by miles ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... pace according to his strength, quickened his steps. Rod was close beside him now, his eyes ceaselessly searching the chasm wall for signs that would tell him when they were nearing the rift. Suddenly Wabi halted in his tracks and gave a low hiss ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... that they taste! Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress-trees! Their chiefest prospect murthering basilisks! Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings! Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss, And boding screech-owls make the consort full! All the foul terrors ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... tensely, hardly breathing. I think we both felt that something was about to happen: a pent-up force had been released, and it was raging. We could almost hear the rumble of the volcanic explosions and the ear-splitting hiss ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... Prussia—and, to the strains of martial music, moving down the Champ Elysees to the Place de la Concorde, was distributed thence over certain sections of the city agreed upon beforehand. Nothing that could be called a disturbance took place during the march; and though there was a hiss now and then and murmurings of discontent, yet the most noteworthy mutterings were directed against the defunct Empire. Indeed, I found everywhere that the national misfortunes were laid at Napoleon's door—he, by this time, having become a scapegoat for every ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... dost thou hiss If ever thou art bored with Ocean's play? And is it the correct hypothesis That thou of gills or lungs dost ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... a moment later he heard the water hiss along the deck. He was not in the least sorry for what he had done; still, he regretted the act. Craig was a beast, and there was no knowing what he might do or say. But the hose had been simply irresistible. He chuckled audibly ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... wild days of her trial, he had answered "Yes, yes," without a muscle of his face moving, and pushed on straight to his destination. For many a year he was to receive every contrite huzza, as he had received every fierce hiss, with no more than the twinkling of an eyelid or the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... his brown friends, with their wives, went ashore. Night fell, and they were preparing to sleep, when, above the thud and hiss of the waves they heard the noise of approaching crowds. The footsteps and the talking came nearer, while the little group of Christians listened intently. At last a chief, carried by his warriors, came near. He was the fiercest ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... hiss new master, was in every respect a great contrast with Mr. Gordon. He was not so brilliant in his acquirements, nor so vigorous in his teaching, and therefore clever boys did not catch fire from him so much as from ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... of yesses that it might have been taken for a general hiss. But limping in the rear came again the half dissentient voice of Jamie Joss, whom the master had just ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... and blister, with steam that knows no master when she's loose. Literature? Art? Old friend, these gods seem very impotent sometimes. They seem impotent, as when, for instance, my first gauge-glass burst. Pacing up and down in front of my engines, there is a hiss and a roar, and one of my firemen rushes into the engine-room, his right hand clasping the left shoulder convulsively. He has been cut to the bone with a piece of the flying glass. Men of thirty years' sea-time tell me ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... of myself. It's the artistic temperament, I suppose. We must always be admired, praised. We're not the stuff that martyrs are made of. We must for ever be kow-towing to the cackling geese around us. We're so terrified lest they should hiss us." ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... There was the hiss of something scorching; a sickening smoke arose and curled up about his head, and ascended to the roof. But in the midst of this Dudleigh stood as rigid as Mucius Scaevola under another fiery trial, with the hand that held the glowing iron and the arm that felt the awful torment as steady as ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... Errington, though hiss color heightened. "Nothing, I assure you! It's just a matter of curiosity with me. I should like to know who she is—that's all! The affair ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... saw the roses bud; This year I'm ankle deep in mire, and most of it is blood. Last year the mother in the door was glad as she could be; To-day her heart is full of pain, and mine is hurting me. But it's shoot, shoot, shoot, And when the bullets hiss, Don't let the tears fill up your eyes, ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... Congreve; Motteux and Guildon resent it to the last degree. Is their nothing in their Works Illustrious, or that cou'd merit Censure? Indeed some People are not to be reclaim'd by Ridicule; and Mr. Collier knowing their Vertues, with how much Compos'dness and Resignation they can bear a Hiss, out of Compassion, took Example by the Town and ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... hissed on her next appearance, and Lord Hartington, the cherished of Mr. Pelham, being son-in-law of Lady Burlington, the ministry were in great agitation to secure a good reception for the Violette from the audience, and the Duke was even desired to order Lord Bury (one of his lords) not to hiss. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... con-sideration. The blood streamed down inter my face, and the smell of that and the flesh choked me. My arms wor straightened clean out with holding on; and sometimes I could jest see the green eyes o' the painter, an' feel his hot breath, as he opened his jaws to hiss and spit at me jis' like a big cat. I felt the eend uv all things wor at hand; an', shettin' my eyes, I tried hard ter say a prayer, or somethin' good an' fittin'. I couldn't think o' none, hows'ever: so I jis' turned ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark, hark! the horrid sound Has raised up his head; As awaked from the dead, And amazed he stares around. Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, See the Furies arise! See the snakes that they rear, How they hiss in their hair, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain And unburied remain Inglorious on the plain: Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew! ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... beasts. Man and wolf alike disown them. Little but reptile life is here found: tortoises, lizards, immense spiders, snakes, and that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the aguano. No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of life here is a hiss. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... really love that man Kennedy," he exclaimed, in a tone that was almost a hiss. "But I tell you, Elaine, he is all bluff. Why, he has been after that Clutching Hand now for three months—and ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... repeated, bringing out the word with a prolonged hiss, and then—before I could even guess at his intention—there was the swift gleam of a knife, a splash of the severed painter, and caught by the tide the old boat swung out, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... politeness permitted them to leave. At length, however, they found themselves again on the ferry-boat. Water and sky were grey, with a dividing gleam of sunset that sent sleek opal waves in the boat's wake. The wind had a cool tarry breath, as though it had travelled over miles of shipping, and the hiss of the water about the paddles was as delicious as though it had been splashed into their ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... bi way of a caution. A chap 'at's two paand i' debt an' goas an' spends three paand at a watterin' place, maks hiss en five paand behund; whereas if he'd paid what he owed he'd still ha had one paand to spend, an' that ud goa as far o' th' top o' Blackstonedge as three paand at ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... part is just to coach and coach, to go over the lines a thousand times and the stage business ten thousand, and then to stay behind the scenes and hiss at them: 'More spirit! More life! Throw yourself into it!' and then to watch them walk it through like puppets! Well, The Taming of the Shrew is pretty stiff work for amateurs, no doubt of that—there's that much to be said. Breakfast time, childie! ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... "You are courageous indeed, Hiss Elfrida. That is done by a woman who is invited, every where in her proper person, and knows 'tout Paris' like her alphabet I believe she holds stock in Raffini; anyway, they would double her pay rather than lose her. You would have more ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... sit by the fire, Cradled warm 'twixt thought and will, Sit and drowse like sleeping dogs In the equipoise of all desire, Sit and listen to the still Small hiss and whisper of green logs That burn away, that burn away With the sound of a far-off falling stream Of threaded water blown to steam, Grey ghost in the mountain world of grey. Vapours blue as distance rise Between the hissing logs ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... feast, And you alone should be the welcome guest. But, dearest Sal! the flames that you impart, Like chop on gridiron, broil my tender heart! Which if thy kindly helping hand be n't nigh, Must like an up-turned chop, hiss, brown, and fry; And must at least, thou scorcher of my soul, Shrink, and become ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... whose big hands tore at the neck of his shirt, as if he was choking; from Alfred, who now strode hotly forward, to be stopped by the cold and silent Nels; from Monty Price, who uttered a violent "Aw!" which was both a hiss and a roar. ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... course, day and night for a week after. Brain fever, indeed, 'tis just as sweet a little fit of delirium tremens, my dear Madam, as ever sent an innocent burglar slap into bliss;' and the word popped out with a venomous hiss ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... more at ease after finding out that this monster was a creature of human contrivance than they were the night before when they thought it the Lord of heaven and earth. They started, in fright, every time the gauge-cocks sent out an angry hiss, and they quaked from head to foot when the mud-valves thundered. The shivering of the boat under the beating of the wheels was sheer ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... stood, A giant spectre, weeping tears and blood; Guilt shrunk appall'd, Despair embraced his shroud, And Terror shriek'd, and Pity sobb'd aloud;— Then, first Thalia with dilated ken And quicken'd footstep pierced the walks of men; Then Folly blush'd, Vice fled the general hiss, Delight met Reason with a loving kiss; At Satire's glance Pride smooth'd his low'ring crest, The Graces weaved the dance.—And last and best Came Momus down in Falstaff's form to earth. To make the world one universe ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land. But gropers both through fields of thought confined We stumble and we do not understand. You only saw your future bigly planned, And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each other's dearest ways we stand, And hiss and hate. And the blind fight ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... vista of retreating beams of mighty wood on which the eye of the Newark priest droning from the altar must have rested; perhaps for his sleepy congregation there was the same glimpse of ivy tendrils creeping in under the eaves, and on drowsy afternoons in May the same chatter and hiss of nesting starlings. From the scanty scraps of the paintings on the wall you can only guess vaguely at the texts of the old Sunday sermons: manna falls in the wilderness; Moses brings water out of the rock; probably the congregation listened with ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... not shriek—he did not faint—he did not move—but from between his teeth two words came like a burning hiss, "Curse her!" Then, seizing his pen, he dashed off a few lines, bidding Rosamond "not to delay a single moment, but ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... the moon had risen full and round, so that the clouds of smoke that rose in the air appeared as white as snow. The air seemed full of the hiss and screaming of shot, each one of which, when it struck the galleon, was magnified by our hero's imagination into ten times its magnitude from the crash which it delivered and from the cloud of splinters it would cast up into the moonlight. At last he ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... the theatres have got up a plot," continued the manager; "they will even hiss the piece, but I have made arrangements to defeat their kind intentions. I have squared the men in their pay; they will make a muddle of it. A couple of city men yonder have taken a hundred tickets apiece to secure a triumph for Florine ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Will said again. He was silent for a moment while a great green rocket rushed upwards with a hiss and burst in a shower of many-coloured stars. Then as they watched them fall he spoke very kindly and earnestly. "But it is worth while all the same—even though one may be turned back from Paradise. Remember—always remember—that it's something ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... them, and being asham'd, as well as discourag'd, they sneak'd out of the World as well as they could; in short the Customers fell off, and the Priests, who were the Shopkeepers, having no Business to do, shut up their Shops, broke, and went away; the Trade and the Tradesmen were hiss'd off the Stage together; so that the Devil, who, it must be confess'd, got infinitely by the Cheat, became bankrupt, and was oblig'd to set other Engines at work, as other Cheats and Deceivers do, who when one Trick grows stale, and ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... every attack he would be swiftly on his feet, hurling forth fresh accusatory words and ignoring the punishment he had just received—would be himself the scourger of sin. Sometimes he even took to imitating Chamberlain's own methods, and pointing a finger at his distinguished victim, would hiss out his charges word by word with a vibrant slowness. Even the impassive Chamberlain used sometimes to color a little under this mimicry. If ever a man went thoroughly out of his way to be hated it was Lloyd George. But he gained way. Once under an unsparing attack ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... open of the hall-doors for the gentlemen presented a framed picture of a deluge. All the young-leaved trees were steely black, without a gradation of green, drooping and pouring, and the song of rain had become an inveterate hiss. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dropped flat upon the deck at once, his rifle clattering against the boards; but before Brace was down, a couple of arrows came ping, ping, to stick in the deck, while a third pierced and hung in one of the sails, a fourth dropping with a hiss a little short of the brig ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... ago—with the Germans in Douaumont, and the fighting still going on—but the spirit of the French not a jot changed. Here, among the civilians, they say: "Verdun will never fall," and out at the front, they tell us that the poilus simply hiss through their clenched teeth, as they fight and fall, "They shall not pass." And all the time we sit inactive on the hilltop holding that thought. It's ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... fifty feet away, Jerry would "Whuff!" softly the information that there was a noise he did not know; and Nalasu, with different sibilances, would hiss to him to stand still, to whuff more softly, or to keep silent, or to come to him noiselessly, or to go into the bush and investigate the source of the strange noise, or, barking loudly, to ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... best to follow this hot trail for a time, and holding his gun ready cocked he stepped softly onward. A bluejay cried out, "jay, jay!" with startling loudness, and seemingly enjoyed his pent-up excitement. A few steps forward at slow, careful stalk, and then behind him he heard a loud whistling hiss. Instantly turning he found himself face to face with a great, splendid buck in the short blue coat. There not thirty yards away he stood, the creature he had been stalking so long, in plain view now, broadside on. They gazed each at the other, perfectly still for a few seconds, then Rolf ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... slowly heaven is nighing, Needs that offence must come; Ever the Old Wrong dying Will sting, in the death-coil lying, And hiss till ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... calling, "All abawd! All abawd." There was the clang of a bell, a hiss of steam, and in a second the ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... detail was being decided, a clanging bell and the hiss of an engine announced the incoming train. Before the two waiting cavaliers could reach the gate, Eleanor Bartlett came through, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... With a loud hiss the creature abandoned its prey to turn upon me, but the spear, imbedded in its throat, prevented it from seizing me though it came near to overturning the skiff in its ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of good, acknowledged his defeat with a howl of baffled rage: and then fled away in a blue flame and a flash of lightning that made the waters of the East River (which stream he was compelled to wade, thanks to General Newton, who took away his stepping-stones) fairly hiss and bubble. And never did he dare to show so much as the end of his wicked nose in ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... burnt to ashes! burnt to ashes! The flames dart their serpent tongues through the nursery window. I cannot quit thee, my Elizabeth! I cannot lay down our Edmund! Oh, these flames! They persecute, they enthral me; they curl round my temples; they hiss upon my brain; they taunt me with their fierce, foul voices; they carp at me, they wither me, they consume me, throwing back to me a little of life to roll and suffer in, with their fangs upon me. Ask me, my lord, the things you ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the courts. You and your Church may go to the devil;" he seemed to hiss rather than to ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... back to the pylon, and Menes put some fuel under a brass kettle. He blew the flame and soon the water was boiling. On the kettle was a perpendicular spout covered with a heavy stone. When the kettle began to hiss, Menes said, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... I dare say that we part for the last time, and therefore I make a request to you. It is as to one who is dead to me. Macumazahn, I believe that Umbelazi the thief"—these words broke from his lips with a hiss—"has given her many cattle and hidden her away either in the kloof of Zikali the Wise, or near to it, under his care. Now, if the war should go against Umbelazi and I should be killed in it, I think evil will fall upon ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... snakes that lived and slept even in their own garden, in the sun, so that he, going forward with the spade, would see a curious coiled brownish pile on the black soil, which suddenly would start up, hiss, and dazzle rapidly away, hissing. One day Winifred heard the strangest scream from the flower-bed under the low window of the living room: ah, the strangest scream, like the very soul of the dark past crying aloud. She ran out, and saw a long brown snake ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... spinning purr, When no stiff hair disturbs the glossy fur, The whining wail so piteous and so faint, When through the house Puss moves with long complaint, To that unearthly throttling caterwaul, When feline legions storm the midnight wall, And chant, with short snuff and alternate hiss, The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... father, drawing in his breath with a low hiss; "and we must not neglect this warning. Morgan, I'll get in here with the boys; you go back, make your boat fast at the landing-place, and run up to the house, and bring your ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... prairies, whose destructive range has been checked by the hand of man. In vain the flames jet out on all sides, seeking fresh element. A wide space has been cleared around them. Soon the crackling of the large trees, and the hiss of the burning grass, cease to be heard; and the whole plain becomes enveloped under a cloud of smoke rising upward from the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... ahead he came to an old brick kiln. Here, prone among the broken bricks, lay the robber in greater straits than his victims. A huge cobra was tightly coiled round his right arm, while on the left hung the saree and the jewels. The rays of the lantern disturbed the snake. With an angry hiss it uncoiled itself and disappeared. The dacoit, more dead than alive from simple fear of the snake's fatal sting, yielded himself a prisoner, and it was subsequently discovered that the whole gang, of whom he was a member, ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... old English again-rising and resurrection; but there can be no doubt that conscience is better than inwit, and remorse than again-bite. Should we translate the title of Wordsworth's famous ode, "Intimations of Immortality," into "Hints of Deathlessness," it would hiss like an angry gander. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... and her lips were smiling. And she walked as though in sleep, staggering, with uncertain steps. We could not stand this calmly. We all rushed toward the door, jumped out into the yard, and began to hiss and bawl at her angrily and wildly. On noticing us she trembled and stopped short as if petrified in the mud under her feet. We surrounded her and malignantly abused her in the most obscene language. We told her ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... for was to hear her talk, but that way, he knew, lay disaster to the little supper in swift-returning memory. If she began to talk, the forbidden topic, now dormant, would uncoil its hideous length and hiss. He must hold her attention ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... caught the hiss of the approaching grenade. Instantly his eyes darted to the sonarscope on ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... iron muscles dripping oil And the sure-fingered rods that never miss. This long and shining flank of metal is Magic that greasy labor cannot spoil; While this vast engine that could rend the soil Conceals its fury with a gentle hiss. ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... terrific pull, he drew one of the harpoons out of the ice and with his knife speedily cut it loose from the lashings. Ootah, stunned for a moment, turned upon him. Maisanguaq desperately raised the weapon. Ootah heard it hiss through the air. He reeled backward—the harpoon grazed his arm and ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... said Belle; "do you hear? it already begins to hiss upon the embers; that fire of ours will ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Its superfluous energy must find expression, its pent-up passions are ready for explosion. It is all aweary of these piping times of peace—wildly eager for the glorious pomp and circumstance of war—the bullet's mad hiss and the crash of steel. Civilized man is but an educated savage sooner or later his natural ferocity will ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... ever fool enough to warm a serpent in his bosom. And the serpent never crosses the path of man if he can help it. The most deadly is that which is too sluggish to get out of his way—therefore bites in self-defense. And the serpent generally gives some warning hiss, or a rattle. Indeed, almost every animal gives warning of its foul intent. The shark turns over before seizing its prey. But the false friend (I am obliged to couple these words) takes you in without changing his side.... ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... miserable east-end music-hall so that her father might find some sort of employment," Tavernake said. "The people only forbore to hiss her father's turn for her sake. She goes about the country with him. Heaven knows what they earn, but it must be little enough! Beatrice is shabby and thin and pale. She is devoting the best years of her life to what she imagines ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "if you begin like that, they will hiss the players off the stage, and pull the house down." "My lord," replied Garrick, "what is the use of an address if it does not come home to the business and ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... and the histories of that age, which furnish the most authentic memoirs of his life. See what Dom Coutant, the Benedictin monk, has recorded of him in his excellent edition of his works; as also Tillemont, t. 7, Ceillier, t. 5, and Rivet, Hiss. Lit. t. 1, part 2, p. 139. The two books, the one of his life, the other of his miracles, by Fortunatus of Poictiers, 600, are inaccurate. Both the Fortunatases were from Italy; and probably one was the author of the first, and the other of the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... way," he whispered; "we've bumped a big patrol. Don't fire." And as he spoke, with a slight hiss a flare shot up into ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... suspended a very savage-looking circular saw, running at a high rate of speed. The operator caught one of the great horns by its tip, gave it a turn through the air before his eyes, seized it in both hands and applied it to the saw. With a sharp hiss the keen teeth severed the solid tip from the body of the horn, and another movement trimmed away the thin, imperfect parts about the base. The latter fell into a pile of refuse at the foot of the frame, the tip was cast into a box with others; the horn, if ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... for a safe shot; in a minute he went down into the meadow on the other side. I then crept on hands and knees towards the nut-bushes: as I got nearer there was a slight rustle and a low hiss in the grass, and I had to pause while a snake went by hastening for the ditch. A few moments afterwards, being close to the hedge, I rose partly up, and looked carefully over the fence between the hazel wands. There was the pheasant not fifteen yards away, his ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... detected came along the water harshly. Nostromo recognized that noise partaking of a hiss and a rustle which spreads out on all sides of a steamer making her way through a smooth water on a quiet night. It could be nothing else but the captured transport with troops from Esmeralda. She carried no lights. The noise of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... up behind the passion of a hero. For all his practical readiness of martial eye and ruling hand in action, he is also in his season "of imagination all compact." Therefore it is that in the face and teeth of all devils akin to Iago that hell could send forth to hiss at her election, we feel and recognise the spotless exaltation, the sublime and sun-bright purity, of Desdemona's inevitable and invulnerable love. When once we likewise have seen Othello's visage in his mind, we see too how much more of greatness is in this mind than in another hero's. For ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the sea vanished to within a few hundred yards of the beach, the voices of the gulls and the breaking of the waves became merged and vague in the hiss of the sheeting rain. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... hiss right at my elbow. I looked and found that, unbeknownst to myself, I'd taken the steel cube out of my pocket and holding it snuggled between my first and second fingers I'd punched the button with my thumb just as I'd ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... mysterious art true pleasure springs, To stall of garters, and to throne of kings. A simple scene, a disobliging song, Which no way to the main design belong, Or were they absent never would be miss'd, Have made a well-wrought comedy be hiss'd; So in a feast, no intermediate fault Will be allow'd; but if not best, 'tis nought. If you, perhaps, would try some dish unknown, Which more peculiarly you'd make your own, Like ancient sailors, still regard the coast,— By venturing out too far you may be lost. By roasting ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... smile of practiced art, More false than treason's kiss; But penetrate that dual heart, And hear the serpent's hiss. ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... muddy, was a writhing, twisting, tangled mass of snakes of dozens of kinds, though the dirty, sickening-looking, stump-tailed moccasin predominated. There must have been thousands of serpents in the mass which covered a space twenty by thirty feet, from which came the sibilant hiss of puff adders, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a quick, sharp, decided tone, prolonged almost to be a hiss. "That will do! Now use some of these pins—quick, fasten up your skirt, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... delicately the touch-holes of the very guns that had roared and snapped so fiercely at the Dons; and they peered down into the dark empty hold where the treasure-chests had lain, and up at the three masts and the rigging that had borne so long the swift wings of the Pelican. And they heard the hiss and rattle of the ropes as Hubert ordered a man to run up a flag to show them how it was done; and they smelled the strange tarry briny smell of ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... and night from the Brooklyn Bridge: The bees and fireflies flit and twinkle in their vast hives; curved clouds like the breath of gods hover between the towers and the moon. One hears the hiss of lightnings, the deep thunder of human things, and a fevered breathing as of some attendant and invincible Powers. The glow of burning millions melts outward into dim and fairy outlines until afar the liquid music born of rushing crowds ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois |
