"Hissing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shelter, and went rattling through the town and out into the country, a quarter of a mile away, to where the little forked tongues had grown to a mammoth size, darting their vicious heads from beneath the rafters, reaching down to touch the heated panes, hissing defiance at the people below, and rolling over the doomed building until billow of flame leaped billow, both licking up in their mad chase the streams of water poured continually ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... aside; Each grave her nationality has pieced By its own majestic breadth, and fortified And pinned it deeper to the soil. Forlorn Of thanks be, therefore, no one of these graves! Not Hers,—who, at her husband's side, in scorn, Outfaced the whistling shot and hissing waves, Until she felt her little babe unborn Recoil, within her, from the violent staves And bloodhounds of the world,—at which, her life Dropt inwards from her eyes and followed it Beyond the hunters. Garibaldi's wife And child ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... glassy billows ceaselessly arose, projected wonderful curves of translucent parapets which threw shadows ahead of their deliberate advance, lost their delicate poise, and became plunging fields of blinding and hissing snow. We sped past them and were at sea. Yeo's knowledge of his work gives him more than the dexterity which overcomes difficulties as it meets them; it gives him the ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... view, emerging from a cluster of poplars. She rode up to the doors, dismounted and entered. Old Bauer himself was at the bellows, and the weird blue light hissing up from the blown coals discovered another customer. She turned and met his frank glance of admiration. (If she hadn't turned! If his admiration hadn't been entirely frank!) Instantly she sent Bauer a warning glance which that old worthy seemed immediately to understand. The stranger ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... down to ask her for it from the ground-level above. The 'Invidia,' again, should have had some look on her face of envy. But in this fresco, too, the symbol occupies so large a place and is represented with such realism; the serpent hissing between the lips of Envy is so huge, and so completely fills her wide-opened mouth that the muscles of her face are strained and contorted, like a child's who is filling a balloon with his breath, and that Envy, and we ourselves for that ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... his eyes blazing, with a white face and teeth set as furiously as Madame de Sainfoy's own, turned round upon him, seized him with his free hand by the other arm, and shook him with all his young strength, hissing out: "Will you be quiet, Uncle Joseph! Will you hold your tongue, if you please, and leave me ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... have never visited these primitive fields of nature." And when Rene and Atala were escaping through those forests they "advanced with difficulty under a vault of smilax, amidst vines, indigo-plants, bean-trees, and creeping-ivy that entangled our feet like nets.... Bell serpents were hissing in every direction, and wolves, bears, carcajous and young tigers, come to hide themselves in these retreats, made them resound with their roarings." [Footnote: Chateaubriand, "Atala," trans. ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... cities, the hisses of half a dozen stupid boys or evil-disposed persons were always sufficient to delude the public, and to frustrate the best intentions of my somewhat disheartened friends. In the newspaper criticisms these hissing critics are sure to find numerous supporters and pleasant re-echoes as long as the one object of the majority of my judges of this species is to get me out of their way. The improvement, which is said of late to have shown itself in regard to my position, may be interpreted ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... the disorder. The dark-visaged and apparently unemotional civilians threw off their armour of unconcern, and hurled epithets and shook clenched fists and defiance at their military fellow-countrymen. Then they all rushed out of the building in a body, hissing and spluttering like a badly constructed fuse in a powder trail. It was like the explosion of a small magazine. I had no idea what had happened, but took in the full significance of the scene I had witnessed when ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... the wisdom of the strangers, so he inquired, "What walks along the grass, steps on the edge of the fence, and walks along the sides of the reeds?" "The bee," replied the magician.[91] "What drinks from the brooks and wells, and from the stones on the bank?" "The rainbow." "What comes hissing from the meadow, and rushing from the blue forest?" "The rain." The giant was pleased with the answers to his riddles, and told his daughter to carry the men back to where she had found them, but the wise man asked her to take them to the ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... it was who sent the snowflakes Sifting, hissing through the forest; Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers, * * * * * Shinbegis, the diver, feared ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and Nature where they fell, And leaving earth as desolate as hell. The pleasant hues of woods and fields were past, And Nature's beauties had enjoyed their last: The colour'd flower, the green of field and tree, What they had been for ever ceased to be: Clouds, raining fire, scorched up the hissing dews; Grass shrivell'd brown in miserable hues; Leaves fell to ashes in the air's hot breath, And all awaited universal Death. The sleepy birds, scared from their mossy nest, Beat through the evil air in vain ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... give them to me!" cried Enid. "They make such a lovely hissing noise, I like to hear them ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... fire of the English as surely as in broad daylight. At the head of a small squadron of gunboats Captain Curtis barred the passage of the salvors; the conflagration became general, only the discharges from the fort replied to the hissing of the flames and to the Spaniard's cries of despair. The fire at last slackened; the English gunboats changed their part; at the peril of their lives the brave seamen on board of them approached the burning ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... these webs of darkness, fear, hitherto unknown, took possession of her soul. She listened to the howling of the wind—to the vibration of the rafters—to the thunder's roar, and to the hissing rain—till she, who never trembled at the thought of danger, became filled with vague uneasiness. Lights were ordered; and when her old attendant returned. Lady Rookwood fixed a look so wistful upon her, that Agnes ventured to ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was a kind of a lamp out on the floor beyond, and it burned with a sputtering and a hissing and a roaring, and it threw a big bluish kind of a flame straight out, like water ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... touched the nozzle. Instantly a hissing, blinding flame-needle made the steel under it incandescent. The terrific heat from one nozzle made the steel glow. The stream of oxygen from the second completely consumed the hot metal. And the force of the blast carried a fine spray ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... bright but spotty Diarists become more dotty. When the sun is dim and hazy Diarists become more crazy. When the nights are calm and still Faster travels GARVIN'S quill. When the blizzard's blast is hissing REPINGTON is reminiscing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... hissing hot, a few feet in the rear of what doctors would call a compound-comminuted car. His engineer was kneeling down among his drivers, but he did not call.007 his "Arab steed," nor cry over him, as the ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... sees the gyves that bind mankind And strives to strike them off Shall gain the hissing hate of fools, Thorns, and ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... night!—the beauties of a night on shipboard!—down in your berth, with the sea hissing and fizzing, gurgling and booming, within an inch of your ear; and then the steward conies along at twelve o'clock and puts out your light, and there you are! Jonah in the whale was not darker or more dismal. There, in profound ignorance and blindness, you lie, and feel yourself rolled upwards, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... aroused, and we had scarcely checked our animals and exchanged a few words with the foot-soldiers, when a column of smoke shot up from the wall in front.—"Now look out!" exclaimed some one. I looked, but saw nothing to follow, and had turned my attention elsewhere, when I heard a hissing noise, as of something rushing swiftly past, and at the same time turf is thrown into the air, the horses start aside in affright, and outcries of pain and terror assail the ear. After a confused moment, I saw that the shot had struck in the line of infantry a few feet on our right. One man, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round, sprang to my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure, and through their stormy ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... far out, but, from an upper window, I fancied, at intervals, that I could see the plash of the surf-wave on the distant limit of the sand; perhaps, however, it was only a gleam on the sky. Constantly there have been sharp spatters of rain, hissing and rattling against the windows, while a little before or after, or perhaps simultaneously, a rainbow, somewhat watery of texture, paints itself on the western clouds. Gray, sullen clouds hang about the sky, or sometimes cover it with a uniform dulness; at other times, the portions ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to do that either. She could not even move in the slightest degree. So, full of terror, she thought she stood there, helplessly, while the engine rushed nearer and nearer, puffing forth vast clouds of black smoke, and roaring and hissing and clanking. Again she tried to scream, and could not: again she tried to run aside, but could not move. She seemed so small, so tiny and weak, beside that monster! And she wondered how it could possibly bear to hurt her, a big, powerful thing like that—it was ...
— Every Girl's Book • George F. Butler
... her eyes upon him, and they held him so that he could not stir. Then, in strange contrast to the hissing whisper, there broke from her lips a ringing and unearthly laugh that chilled him to the marrow. So they stood ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... spoke, the mass of clouds which had been collecting to the eastward, and gradually approaching, now came driving up bodily across the sky at a rapid rate—the dark waters below it, hitherto so smooth and calm, presented a sheet of snow-white foam, hissing and bubbling as if it were turned up and impelled onward by some gigantic besom. Ada, as she gazed with feelings of mingled terror and admiration, saw it in one long line near the brig—it reached her side—the ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... but not without a riot, which conveys a vivid picture of those "good old" or turbulent days; for the mob, encouraged by well-dressed people from the shops and balconies, who cried out, "Well done, boys! bravely done, boys!" set up such a hissing, that the sheriff's horses were frightened, and brave Alderman Hurley with difficulty reached the place where the paper was to be burnt. The mob seized what they could of the paper from the burning torch of the executioner, and finally thrashed the officials ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... a spectacle was witnessed in this world of sin and sorrow since the creation of Adam. I pulled up the window and looked out—and, lo and behold! the very next house to our own was all in a low from cellar to garret; the burning joists hissing and cracking like mad; and the very wind that blew along, as warm as if it had been out of the mouth of a ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... canoe seemed to leap into the air in the center of a volcano of light, and then all three came down in a rain of hissing and steaming fragments. The crash was stunning, and the light for a moment or two was intense. Then it sank almost as suddenly and again came the darkness, in which Henry heard the steaming of burning wood, the turmoil of riven waters ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tires, punctured tire; escaping steam, steam, steam radiator, steam release valve. V. hiss, buzz, whiz, rustle; fizz, fizzle; wheeze, whistle, snuffle; squash; sneeze; sizzle, swish. Adj. sibilant; hissing &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... comfort her by assuring her that the crocodile would not attack us, and would more likely swim away than follow us. On landing, we hauled up the canoe, and then commenced collecting sticks for a fire. Kate's kettle was soon hissing merrily, suspended by a high tripod over the fire, and by the time the provisions were spread, Stanley and his companions had arrived. While we were so engaged, we saw, approaching among the trees, a black man, with a shield on one arm ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... for them, to which these readily consented. The brothers then taking some stones, heated them in a fire, and thrusting them into pieces of mahee, desired one of the Taheeai to open his mouth; on which one of these pieces was dropped in, and some water poured down, which made a boiling or hissing noise, in quenching the stone, and killed him. They entreated the other to do the same; but he declined it, representing the consequences of his companion's eating. However, they assured him that the food was excellent, and its effects only temporary; for that the other would soon recover. His ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... ceremonies armed with a mallet and clad in the short shirt of the killers. The ignominy of all this revolted the Christians, and whoever had nerves at all sensitive. The bloody mud in which passers slipped, the hissing of the fat, the heavy odour of flesh, were sickening. Tertullian held his nose before the "stinking fires" on which the victims were roasting. And St. Ambrose complained that in the Roman Curia the senators who were ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... the candle, deliberately proceeded to cast them into the fire: palette, paints, bladders, pencils, brushes, varnish: I saw them all consumed: the palette-knives snapped in two, the oil and turpentine sent hissing and roaring up the chimney. ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... those on board of the tender much better. The rolling and pitching motion of the ship was excessive; and, excepting to those who had been accustomed to a residence in the floating light, it seemed quite intolerable. Nothing was heard but the hissing of the winds and the creaking of the bulkheads or partitions of the ship; the night was, therefore, spent in the most unpleasant reflections upon the condition of the people on the beacon, especially in the prospect ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the floor. His eyes wide open in the dark began to sting violently. He caught his breath and burst into a spasm of coughing. Somewhere from the wall by the bedside came the faint sound of gas hissing from a cylinder. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... with buckets, and amid frightened cries, confused questions, and a general hurrying, scurrying of feet, a few had presence of mind to cover the main building with wet blankets, lest the trees now snapping and hissing might drop a blazing brand and the whole place ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... questa mia patria!"), Byron affirms that the Italians execrated Castlereagh "as the cause, by the conduct of the English at Genoa." "Surely," he exclaims, "that man will not die in his bed: there is no spot of the earth where his name is not a hissing and a curse. Imagine what must be the man's talent for Odium, who has contrived to spread his infamy like a pestilence from Ireland to Italy, and to make his name an execration in all languages."—Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... gold of the clock, flushed with the red winter sun, he was at this moment grooming the coat of a powerful black mare. That he had not been brought up a groom was pretty evident from the fact that he was not hissing; but that he was Marquis of Lossie there was nothing about him to show. The mare looked dangerous. Every now and then she cast back a white glance of the one visible eye. But the youth was on his guard, and as wary as fearless in his handling ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... station and box cars, at the sound of a freight engine hissing lazily, Frank came back to the buggy and looked up inquiringly into the faces of man and boy. When at a store awning Earle tied the horse, he followed close at their heels, confidence suddenly gone out of him. Association and instinct stirred vague recollections of a former life. Whence came ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... with Sigismund. To him the roaring tempest was mute, the boiling and hissing lake had no horrors, and he had plunged into the fathomless Leman as recklessly as he could have leaped to land. The shriek, the "Sigismund! oh, Sigismund!" of Adelheid, was in his ears, and her cry of anguish ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... her and the child to share his fortunes. There she stood in the archway and looked down, and the terror of the scene overwhelmed her. Through a broken arch beyond the barricade pale moonbeams crossed the darkness, like the bars of some soft melody; in the middle the serpent coil was hissing with the deadly nitre; at the foot of the steps was her false lover—husband he had called himself—with his hat off, and his white face turned in the last supplication towards her, as hers had been turned towards him just now. Should a woman be ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... disordered. Her eyes, fiercely and restlessly anxious, at moments grew dull as if with exhaustion. On the day before, while circling at her viewless height above a lake far inland, she had marked a huge lake-trout, basking near the surface of the water. Dropping upon it with half-closed, hissing wings, she had fixed her talons in its back. But the fish had proved too powerful for her. Again and again it had dragged her under water, and she had been almost drowned before she could unloose the terrible grip of her claws. Hardly, and late, had she ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... like the paper of a Japanese screen. The smell of burning wood was in the air, and once and again a rook slowly swung its wheel, cutting the air as it flew. The cold was so pleasantly sharp that it was the best possible thing for Uncle Mathew, who was accustomed to an atmosphere of hissing gas, unwashen glasses, and rinds ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... eyes Rouse in us painful joys and blissful sighs; When on Bellona's ranks thy glance descends, All spears are broken and each buckler bends: To-day soft Hymen conquers cruel Mars; Thy gentle hand the hissing serpents tears } From Discord's hydra front, emblem of ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... and to the electro-motive force or potential difference; small alterations may transform one into the other. The brush resembles a luminous core whose apex touches the conductor. It is accompanied by a slight hissing noise. Its luminosity is very feeble. The negative conductor gives a smaller brush than that of the positive conductor and discharges it more readily. When electricity issues from a conductor, remote from an oppositely excited one, it gives an absolutely silent discharge, showing at the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... the refreshments are served in the dining-room instead of in the drawing-room or outdoors as is sometimes done at simpler teas. The hissing urn always holds the place of honor (except on very warm days when iced tea or iced coffee may be served). Trays of thinly sliced bread are on the table, and dainty sandwiches in large variety. Fruit salads are never amiss, and strawberries ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... show, And changes this vast plane of weal, This kingdom's tomb of rasping night To elfin cheer as dances bloom, And speeds his flight from Terror's urn, Past jasper lanes where moonstones glow, And turns his eyes at writhing Hell, Upon the spectral haunts of Doom, Where fiends in hissing Cesspoles burn 'Mid howls of pain from vassals flow That rake each skull-blown vale ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... with a start and sensed a peculiar odor in the room. He lay perfectly still for a moment wondering what it could all mean, when a voice as smooth and as evil as the hissing of a snake, cut through the air. He listened but ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... soon believe that the cat curls the end of its tail when preparing to spring, in order to warn the doomed mouse. It is a much more probable view that the rattlesnake uses its rattle, the cobra expands its frill and the puff-adder swells while hissing so loudly and harshly, in order to alarm the many birds and beasts which are known to attack even the most venomous species. Snakes act on the same principle which makes the hen ruffle her feathers and expand ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... apparently puzzled by this proceeding, and threw itself round a tree, hissing furiously as it menaced its assailant. Then sending a wave along the free part of its body to the tail, the Malay was driven flying on to his back amidst ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... bit the stem of his clay pipe so hard that it broke in his mouth, so great was his rage. Then, as though words of denial were of no use, he took to the more cowardly argument of violence, and, hissing the words, "Ye auld liar, take that," raised his hand, and struck a blow ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... away again, and passed through the main channel; and in another hour she was in the midst of the Union fleet. There was a rattling of drums, a hissing of steam, and energetic commands heard as soon as the Judith was made out in the darkness, and doubtless a vision of prize-money flitted through the brains of officers and seamen. But Christy soon impaired the vividness of these fancies by ordering the foresail ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of his velveteen waistcoat, holding it over her ear, she was charmed into a prolonged silence. The clack of Tippy's spoon against the crock came in from the kitchen, and now and then the fire snapped or the green fore-log made a sing-song hissing. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... your service—a laborious and thankless calling it ever was to me—but now, dearest, as I drive the hissing goose across the smoking seam, I shall think of my own angel and my dear cottage, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... the town he turned aside and, riding into the yard of the Castle Inn, called for ale and, while he drank, stood by to watch the hissing ostlers as they rubbed down "The Terror" and gave him sparingly of water. So, into the saddle again and, bearing to the right, off ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the quarter, strong and steady. Almost immediately the good steamer felt the canvas, leaning gently over to leeward, adding another mile to her great speed. The sea was black, and the air seemed to be full of the sounds of waves breaking and hissing. Ahead the mast-head and the side-lights shone down on the face of the waters and lighted up an occasional white-capped wave. In the air, brisk and masterful, there was a sense of purpose and tension which sailors understand, while mere printed words cannot ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... and, lest the animal should spring out of the tree and escape, we circled it at a distance. On catching a fair view of the quarry, Uncle Lance called for a carbine. Two shots through the shoulders served to loosen the puma's footing, when he came down by easy stages from limb to limb, spitting and hissing defiance into the upturned faces of the pack. As he fell, we dashed in to beat off the dogs as a matter of precaution, but the bullets had done their work, and the pack mouthed the fallen ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... and somewhat alarming spectacle. The fears of the beholders, however, if they had any, were groundless, for, though the threatening wave swept forward with a velocity of some twelve knots per hour, it swept harmlessly enough over and along the cylindrical sides of the Flying Fish, hissing and roaring most ominously, but failing to throw so much as a single drop of spray on her deck. This wave was quickly followed by several others, each of which, however, was less formidable than the preceding one. Meanwhile, the drama, it appeared, had only begun. ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... own letter, I found sad news of poor Mr. Engelman. Time and change had failed to improve his spirits. He complained of a feeling of fullness and oppression in his head, and of hissing noises in his ears, which were an almost constant annoyance to him. On two occasions he had been cupped, and had derived no more than a temporary benefit from the employment of that remedy. His doctor recommended strict attention to diet, and regular exercise. ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... First Consul to the latter, "we are going to mass. What do they think of that in Paris?"—"Many persons," replied M. Cambaceres, "will go to the representation with the intention of hissing the piece, if they ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... tete-a-tete relations with Cornelia herself; and even then if the house had been a tower ten stories high, Cornelia's mother, rustling up the stairs, could not have swished her skirts any more definitely like a hissing snake. ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... and the hissing of flames rise their heart-rending cries. They call for help. Will they be allowed to perish? A gendarme rushes forward, and with him a farmer from Brechy. But their heroism is useless: the monster keeps its prey. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... flyer was due at the tank at 11.15 P. M. At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and Ike took the other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned weak all over. I would have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have been out of that affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business have told me that they felt the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... blew the wind, A gale from the northeast; The snow fell hissing in the brine; And the ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... mention the faculty that snakes have of stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any animal while in a good humour and unalarmed; but as soon as a stranger or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of Ray's Synop. Ouadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a pestilent and fetid smell ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... put the light to the wick, which crackled and sparkled, hissing and spitting like a serpent; then, running as fast as I could, I returned ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... unhappiness! Why had she not been open with him from the first? His round, innocent stare of amazement cut her to the quick. But he was not looking at her. His stare was directed to Heemskirk, who, with his back to him and with his hands still up to his face, was hissing curses through his teeth, and (she saw him in profile) glaring at her balefully ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... vibration. There was a humming, throbbing, hissing sound. Suddenly the boys, and all within the projectile, felt it swaying. A moment later it began to shoot through space like a ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... wondrous sort of death has heaven designed For so untamed, so turbulent a mind? Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar, Are doomed to avenge the tedious bloody war; But poison drawn through a ring's hollow plate, Must finish him—a sucking infant's fate. Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool, To please the boys, and be ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... vii., sermon iii.), he expands the doctrine that natural men—which includes all men who have not gone through the mysterious process of conversion—are God's enemies. Their heart, he says, 'is like a viper, hissing and spitting poison at God;' and God requites their ill-will with undying enmity and never-ceasing torments. Their unconsciousness of that enmity, and even their belief that they are rightly affected towards God, is no proof that the enmity does not exist. The consequences may be ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... subvocal stud at his neck, moved his speaking muscles without opening his mouth. A surf-hissing voice filled the matching transceiver in ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... the acute inflammation would be present, and impairment of hearing which sometimes comes so gradually as not to be noticed by the patient. It will be better and then worse. A harassing, hissing, blowing, ringing, usually accompanies it. Pains soon or later add to the discomfort. One side is usually ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... rocked and crumbled into the burning well; the molten lead and iron poured down, white hot, upon the ground. Women and children shrieked, and men encouraged each other with noisy shouts and cheers. The clanking of the engine-pumps, and the spirting and hissing of the water as it fell upon the blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar. He shouted, too, till he was hoarse; and flying from memory and himself, plunged into the thickest of the throng. Hither and thither he dived that night: now working at the pumps, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... Lieutenant leaned forward, then with difficulty smothered an exclamation, for he heard another voice now—the voice of John Gale. The words came to him muffled but distinct, and he raised his hand to knock, when, suddenly arrested, he seized Poleon and forced him to his knees, hissing ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... cried as, far away up the harbour, the signal rocket shot hissing aloft and exploded with a tremendous detonation. The roar of it filled their ears; but Cai scarcely heeded the roar. It reverberated from shore to shore, and the winding creeks took it up, to re-echo it; but Cai did not hear ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the anvil ringing Stroke of hammer; on the gloom Set 'twixt cradle and the tomb, Showers of fiery sparkles flinging; Keep the mighty furnace glowing; Keep the red ore hissing, flowing Swift within the ready mold; See that each one than the old Still be fitter, still be fairer For the servant's use, and rarer For the Master to ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... stern. Mark Vandean sprang up, gave one glance toward the stern window as if he were going to spring out, and then flung himself between the burning train and the powder tins, rolling himself over and over in the hissing flame, and at the same time sweeping the powder, so carefully laid in zigzag curves, right and left and away toward the cabin window, where it ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... figure seemed to dilate and he made a queer hissing noise as he looked after her. Turning to me ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... not to be obvious to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young rogues dilated at the savour. JAMES WHITE, as head waiter, had charge of the first table; and myself, with our trusty companion BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... at Fort-Augustus, and there witnessed scenes of cruelty and spoliation of which the recollection, after the lapse of seventy years, and in his extreme old age, had still power enough to set his Scotch blood aboil. While scores of cottages were flaming in the distance, and blood not unfrequently hissing on the embers, the men and women of the army used to be engaged in racing in sacks, or upon Highland ponies; and when the ponies were in request, the women, who must have sat for their portraits in Hogarth's "March to Finchley," took their seats astride ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the young ensorcelled Prince said to the King, "When I smote the slave with intent to strike off his head, I thought that I had slain him; for he groaned a loud hissing groan, but I had cut only the skin and flesh of the gullet and the two arteries! It awoke the daughter of my uncle, so I sheathed the sword and fared forth for the city; and, entering the palace, lay upon my bed and slept till morning when my wife aroused me and I saw that she had cut off ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... bubbling and loud hissing urn," "welcomed the evening in." Lorenzo brought from his library a volume of Piranesi, and another of engravings from the heads of Vandyke. Lisardo, in looking at them, beat time with his head and foot; ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... the city, the water all electrified, resolved into piped hydrogen and oxygen. Like a tremendous clock ticking, the water, momentarily dammed back, was released in a torrent to the electrolysis vats. The hissing gases, under tremendous pressure, raised up the heavy-weighted tops of two expanding tanks. Another tick of this giant clock—the gases released, were merged again to water. The tops of the tanks lowered, each in turn, one coming down as the other went ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... suspended over the blaze. The sap was collected by the women in tin or birchen buckets and poured into the canoes, from which the kettles were kept filled. The hearts of the boys beat high with pleasant anticipations when they heard the welcome hissing sound of the boiling sap! Each boy claimed one kettle for his especial charge. It was his duty to see that the fire was kept under it, to watch lest it boil over, and finally, when the sap became ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... effect, so impotent for posterity. In the Pythian fury of his gestures—in his screaming voice—in his directness of purpose, Fox would now remind you of some demon steam-engine on a railroad, some Fire-king or Salmoneus, that had counterfeited, because he could not steal, Jove's thunderbolts; hissing, bubbling, snorting, fuming; demoniac gas, you think—gas from Acheron must feed that dreadful system of convulsions. But pump out the imaginary gas, and, behold! it is ditch-water. Fox, as Mr. Schlosser rightly thinks, was all of a piece—simple in his manners, simple in his style, simple ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... matter bubbled up violently, with a hissing and crackling noise, like that which attends the playing off of an artificial firework; and by the continued splashing up of the vitrified matter, a kind of arch, or dome, was formed over the crevice from whence the lava ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Outside the door his gaoler motioned to him to mount the stairs. He himself followed close behind. On the floor above Conrad opened a door and Tommy passed into a small room. Conrad lit a hissing gas burner and went out. Tommy heard the sound of the key ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... very bright and clean, with a cluttered kind of cleanliness that bespeaks many housewifely tasks under way. There were mixing bowls, and saucepans, and a kettle or so, and from the oven there came the sounds of sputtering and hissing. About the room there hung the divinely delectable scent of freshly baked cookies. Emma McChesney saw herself in an all-enveloping checked gingham apron, her sleeves rolled up, her hair somewhat wild, and one lock powdered with white where ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... or a family vault you can sit in. But I detest these modern arrangements; I object to be stuck in a tight position between two boards, with my feet in somebody else's hat, and somebody else's feet in mine, and to have people breathing down my collar and hissing and ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... Gray leaped over that hissing electric surf, running toward Jill. A hungry worm of light reared up, searching for Dio's gun. Gray's hand swept it down, to be instantly buried in a mass of glowing ropes. Dio's hatchet face snarled ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... type of man hitherto known to an abstract statement of his qualities and efforts, and he appears in dangerous company: say that, like Copernicus and Galileo, he was immovably convinced in the face of hissing incredulity; but so is the contriver of perpetual motion. We cannot fairly try the spirits by this sort of test. If we want to avoid giving the dose of hemlock or the sentence of banishment in the wrong ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... one, Socrates, tell the elements of an element? I can only reply, that S is a consonant, a mere noise, as of the tongue hissing; B, and most other letters, again, are neither vowel-sounds nor noises. Thus letters may be most truly said to be undefined; for even the most distinct of them, which are the seven vowels, have a sound only, but ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... his victim's struggles, the trader's half insane rage cooled from its mad heat without losing any of its virulence. One of the Navahos had dismounted and run forward to stone the rattlesnake. Slade uttered a guttural hissing command. Instead of crushing the snake, the Indian teased it with the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... dozed a fire of beechen logs that bred Strange fancies in its embers golden-red, And nursed the loggerhead, whose hissing dip, Timed by nice instinct, creamed the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... the lock grated, the door lurched open, and the pale visage of Dale teetered at his shoulder. An attempt at grinning ended in a hissing sob of in-taken breath. The limp frame flung itself in the bunk beside Peter, and Dale's white, perspiring face ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... recipe, if not for happiness, at all events for that far more attainable commodity, comfort, with which we are acquainted. 'A noisy man,' sang poor Cowper, who could not bear anything louder than the hissing of a tea-urn, 'a noisy man is always in the right,' and a positive man can seldom be proved wrong. Still, in literature it is very desirable to preserve a moderate measure of independence, and we, therefore, make bold to ask whether it is as plain as the 'old hill ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... approached the Federal ships we were met by a veritable storm of shells which must have sunk any ship then afloat—except the Merrimac. They struck our sloping sides, were deflected upward to burst harmlessly in the air, or rolled down and fell hissing into the water, dashing the spray up into ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... who thinks it unavoidable." "Nay, Madam, perhaps it may: I don't think a little war would do us any harm." Just as if he had said, losing a little blood in spring is very wholesome; or that a little hissing would not do the Mingotti ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... his eyes flashing fire. "I will burn them! Not a scorched syllable shall escape! Would you have me a damned author?—To undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise, bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! A hissing and a laughing-stock to my own traitorous thoughts! An outlaw from the protection of the grave,—one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... neighboring valleys just across the western divide, the principal one of which Mr. Griggs, with picturesque inaccuracy, named the "Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes"; for, from its floor and sides and the floors and sides of smaller tributary valleys, superheated steam issues in thousands of hissing columns. It is an appalling spectacle. The temperatures of this steam are extremely high; Griggs reports one instance of 432 degrees Centigrade, which would equal 948 degrees Fahrenheit; in some vents he found a higher temperature at the surface ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... not a person of sufficient importance to be able to put a stop to bad or idle talk. Indeed, any attempt on your part to do so would make things worse. Acting as as I bid you to do you will remain unharmed amid the hissing of serpents and, like the strawberry, will not assimilate their poison even though licked by ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... sorrow and by joy, by light and by dark, by giving and withholding, by granting and refusing, by all the varieties of our circumstances, and by everything that lies around us, God works to prepare us for Himself and to polish His instruments, sometimes plunging the iron into 'baths of hissing tears,' and sometimes heating it 'hot with hopes and fears,' and sometimes 'battering' it 'with the shocks of doom,' but all for the one purpose —that it may be a polished shaft in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... young shepherd, an honest industrious fellow, who passed most of his time in the hills looking after his master's flocks. One afternoon he happened upon a bush which some gipsies had set a-fire. As he stopped to watch it he heard a strange hissing, whistling sound. He went as close as he could and in the center of the bush which the flames had not yet reached he saw a snake. It was writhing and trembling ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... oiled and made ready to heave up the anchor; the big tow-rope lay in long bights along one side of the main deck, with one end carried up and hung over the bows, in readiness for the tug that would come paddling and hissing noisily, hot and smoky, in the limpid, cool quietness of the early morning. The captain was ashore, where he had been engaging some new hands to make up his full crew; and, the work of the day over, the ship's officers had kept out ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... or ten fish as they came across, passing through a great shoal of herrings. In half an hour the kettle was boiling over the fire, the fish were hissing and crackling in the frying-pan over it, and a strip of deer's flesh, with the ramrod run through it, was frizzling. It was pronounced excellent. There was a slight aromatic bitterness that gave a zest and flavour to it, and the flesh inside was ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... night. Those who rejoiced over a victory gained over the northern despot were those who had successfully resisted the despotism of a band of rebels. The streets were almost impassable from the crowds who thronged them. Hand-rockets exploded almost into people's eyes—serpents and squibs were hissing and cracking over the pavements—and people were rushing in all directions for fuel for the different bonfires. The largest of these was opposite the St. Lawrence Hall. It was a monster one of tar-barrels, and lighted up the whole street, paling the sickly flame of the gas-lamps. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... filled with leaves and branches flying like birds; and the sound of the trees falling shakes the earth. It rains, too, as it never rains at home. You can hear a shower while it is yet half a mile away, hissing like a shower-bath in the forest; and when it comes to you, the water blinds your eyes, and the cold drenching takes your breath away as though some one had struck you. In that kind of weather it must be dreadful indeed to live in the woods, one man alone by himself. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... common about Calcutta, frequenting ruins, dark places and hollow trees. It is allied to N. tenuis (Horsfield), and it is mentioned as inhabiting hollow trees in such numbers as to attract attention by the hissing noise from within, every available spot in the interior being occupied. A synonym of the genus ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... if ever one came near him (and as there were a good many dogs about the castle, it was quite impossible to keep them from coming near him now and then) he would set his teeth, and rise slowly from his seat, and begin to make a low hissing noise, craning his neck forward, and swelling and rounding his back in such an extraordinary way that the first time Eileen saw him doing it she thought he was going to have a ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... huge lagoon, Slave Lake, named after defeated Indians who had taken refuge here; and the question was, which way to go through the fog across the marshy lake! Poking through rushes high as a man, MacKenzie found a current, and, hoisting a sail on his fishing pole, raced out to the river again on a hissing tide. Here lived the Dog Rib Indians, and they frightened MacKenzie's men cold with grewsome tales of horrors ahead, of terrible waterfalls, of a land of famine and hostile tribes. The effect was instant. MacKenzie could not obtain a guide till "English Chief" ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... north-north-west of the town of Aigle. It was at a great elevation in the atmosphere; for, the inhabitants of two hamlets, a league distant from each other, saw it at the same time above their heads. In the whole canton over which this cloud was suspended, there was a hissing noise, like that of a stone discharged from a sling; and a great many mineral masses, exactly similar to those distinguished by the name of 'meteor-stones,' were seen to fall. The district in which these ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... Mrs. Vimpany's courage. She played her assumed character against the contemptuous incredulity of Iris, as she had sometimes played her theatrical characters against the hissing and hooting of ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... When night came on I went into a cave, where I thought I might repose in safety. I secured the entrance, which was low and narrow, with a great stone, to preserve me from the serpents; but not so far as to exclude the light. I supped on part of my provisions, but the serpents, which began hissing round me, put me into such extreme fear that I did not sleep. When day appeared the serpents retired, and I came out of the cave trembling. I can justly say that I walked upon diamonds without feeling any inclination to touch them. At last I sat down, and notwithstanding ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... answer when he knocked at the inner door. Nevertheless he entered, having quite got over all shyness or ceremony by this time. The room was empty, but two tumblers and the black bottle stood on the table, and the kettle was hissing away on the hob. "Ah," thought Tom, "he expects me, I see;" so he turned his back to the fire and made himself at home. A quarter of an hour passed, and still Hardy did not return. "Never knew him out so long before at this time of night," thought Tom. "Perhaps he's at some party. I hope so. It would ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... scratched and beat against my face as I passed through them; then of a sudden and rapid descent, with the broad bright surface of a river below me. I clutched at a branch, but my fingers had no strength to retain their grasp—there was a hissing, splashing noise, and the waters closed over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... ringing out in shattering disturbance of the peace of the fair spring evening, followed by a dead silence, the birds all scared and dumb—a silence so dead, that Katherine Calmady held her breath, almost awed by it, while the hissing and crackling of the little flames upon the hearth seemed to obtrude as an indecent clamour. This lasted a few seconds. Then the noise of a plunging struggle and the muffled thud of something falling heavily upon ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... was tremendous, so heavy indeed that all sound of individual reports was lost, and the noise was one hoarse hissing roar. Even the crack of Rait's guns was lost in the general uproar, but the occasional rush of a rocket, of which two troughs with parties of Rait's men accompanied ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... battle joins. In short, the fiery baptism prophesied in the dark scrolls of Stoic sage and Hebrew and Scandinavian scald alike wraps the universe. The dwarfs wail in their mountain-clefts. All is uproar and hissing conflagration. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... bodily and disappeared, apparently up the chimney, with a rattling, rasping sound, as of the creaking of cogged wheels, leaving a wide opening where it had been. The coals which still glowed on the hearth presently died with a hissing noise, and only the soft light of the shaded lamp diffused itself through the room. Out of the mysterious depths of the fireplace stepped the white-clad ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... fall an easy prey to the curser and his friends.[643] More amiable and not less effectual are the prayers offered to the spirits of the dead over a sick man. At the mention of each name in the prayer the supplicants make a chirping or hissing sound, and rub lime over the patient. Before administering medicine they pray over it to the spirits of the dead; then the patient gulps it down, thus absorbing the virtue of the medicine and of the prayer in one. In ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... before it began. This elegant harangue produced the desired effect, and appeased the angry passions of the gods and goddesses. A parley ensued. Peace was made. A promise was given that Vaughan should be allowed to proceed without hissing—and he accordingly came out and recited the epilogue, now and again looking among the audience to discover who was murmuring a slight hiss, which the keen ears of the speaker would not let escape. As soon as he was ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold |
