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Serpent   Listen
verb
Serpent  v. t.  To wind; to encircle. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Serpent" Quotes from Famous Books



... curious ear Close to the stone, a serpent lay. "'T is false," he hissed with crafty sneer, "For well I know ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... are in reality more a devil than a man, for you lead my soul into temptation. I must submit. I will become a serpent, reposing on the bosom of my poor Laura, poisoning her love and lacerating her heart. Ah, count, if you knew how my conscience reproaches me when I listen to the pure and holy confession of her love, when trembling and blushing she whispers to me ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... tingle. He would be emperor of the army; he would be emperor in the matter of confiscations. The last article shows how he won the soldier's heart. Perhaps in framing his terms, he gave something to his wounded pride. If he did, the luxury cost him dear, for here he trod upon the serpent that stung his life. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... out the most central recess of this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain."—Zech. 8:3. "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and the dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers

... as if a serpent had stung him, so unexpected, so direct. He jumped aside and turned deadly pale. She knew her chance arrow had struck the truth. But he recovered himself almost immediately when he saw what a harmless looking ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... intervening. But how will crimes lie open if they are not disclosed to the priest by confession? Thus in several passages Chrysostom himself refutes this opinion, which Jerome also overthrows, saying: "If the serpent the devil have secretly bitten any one, and without the knowledge f another have infected him with the poison of sin, if he who has been struck be silent and do not repent, and be unwilling to confess his wound to his brother and instructor, the instructor, who has a tongue wherewith to cure ...
— The Confutatio Pontificia • Anonymous

... a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, with a snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. "A serpent in duckling's plumage," was her private comment; merciful chance had revealed him to her in his ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... mangled foemen's blood and brains. Its heavy mass of jagged steel Was like a thunderbolt to feel. It shattered, as on foes it fell, The city where the senses dwell.(469) Fierce Dushan seized that ponderous mace Like monstrous form of serpent race, And all his savage soul aglow With fury, rushed upon the foe. But Raghu's son took steady aim, And as the rushing giant came, Shore with two shafts the arms whereon The demon's glittering bracelets shone. His arm at each huge shoulder lopped, The mighty body reeled and dropped, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... to appear as a gypsy; she had made her too proud and serious. A more proper part for her was that of a heroine, a queenly heroine,—that of Theresa of Hungary, for example; or, better still, that of Brynhilda the Valkyrie, the beloved of Sigurd, the serpent-killer, who incurred the curse of Odin, because, in the tumult of spears, she sided with the young king, and doomed the old warrior to die, to whom Odin ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... supreme: Love is the master of hate; Truth, [1] the victor over a lie. Hath not Science voiced this les- son to you,—that evil is powerless, that a lie is never true? It is your province to wrestle with error, to handle the serpent and bruise its head; but you cannot, as a [5] Christian Scientist, resort to stones and clubs,—yea, to matter,—to kill the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... thine own feet bleed, Submissive to the purblind guides that lead Thy weary steps along this rugged course. Yet ... when I glance abroad, and track the source More selfish far, of other nations' deed, And mark their tortuous craft, their jealous greed, Their serpent-wisdom or mere soulless force, Homeward returns my vagrant fealty, Crying, "O England, shouldst thou one day fall, Shatter'd in ruins by some Titan foe, Justice were thenceforth weaker throughout ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... know and call to them by name, And they will change. At present he is sick, And wills that none disturb him." So they lay, And there was silence, for the forest tribes Came never near that cave. Wiser than men, They fled the serpent hiss that oft by night Came forth of it, and feared the wan dusk forms That stalked among the trees, and in the dark Those whiffs of flame that wandered up the sky And made ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... slaves and the negro question still looks you in the face. You invent printing and then must say with Browning's Fust, "Have I brought man advantage or hatched so to speak a strange serpent?" ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... left hand down, saber or lance exactly poised, every foot motionless, horse and rider still as if wrought from bronze. And then he tells of the labyrinthine evolutions when the long line moving over the school floor coils and uncoils itself more swiftly than any serpent, each horse moving at speed, each one obeying as implicitly as any creature of brass and iron moved by steam. And then he talks of broadsword fights, in which the left hand, managing the horse, outdoes the cunning of the right, and of the great reviews, when, if ever, a monarch must feel his ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... Mary did bring forth the son who bruised the serpent's head, which brought sin into the world by the woman Eve, so the Virgin Mary was the occasion of grace as the Virgin Eve was the cause of damnation. Eve had not known Adam as yet when she was beguiled and seduced the man; ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge

... wildly pursuing the beautiful shape, like an eagle enfolded by a serpent and feeling the poison in his breast. His limbs grow lean, his hair thin and pale. Does death contain the secret of his happiness? At last he pauses "on the lone Chorasmian shore," and sees a frail shallop in which he trusts himself to the waves. Day and night ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow

... accepted as the typical Tory, and to all his party Mary probably appeared as the "philosophizing serpent." She seems always to have incurred his deepest scorn and wrath. He could not speak of her without calling her names. A year or two later, when she had published her book on the French Revolution, writing again to Hannah More, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... and furnished with comfortable settles, tables and chairs. It adjoined a wing of the dwelling, which stood but a few paces away and was evidently occupied by the women of the household. The old Duchessa, her face still like a death mask but her eyes glittering with the brightness of a serpent's, sat enthroned within a large chair in the center of a family group. It was her sharp voice that had first aroused the American's attention. Opposite her sat the Duke, his thin face wearing an expression of gloom and dissatisfaction. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... Instant Death; I splinter world-old forests with my laugh, And whirl the ancient snows of Hecla sheer into Orion's eyes. I dance on the deep under the big Indian stars, And wrap the water spout about my sinuous hips As a dancer winds her girdle. The ocean's horrid crew, The octopus, the serpent, and the shark, with the heart of a coward, Plunge downward when they hear my feet above on the sea-floor, And hide in their slimy coverts. Brave men pray upon the straining decks Till comes my mood to end them, and I strew the racing foam ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... her own whom she had commanded to accompany Rames, to an apartment of no great size, where he bade them be seated. Presently a door opened, and through it came Rames, plainly dressed in the uniform of an Egyptian general, on which they saw he wore no serpent crest or other of the outward signs of royalty. Only on his right hand that lacked the little finger, gleamed a certain royal ring, which Tua knew. With him also were several captains to whom he talked ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard

... in the Library two globes; three Mapps; two queres of larg paper to make tables; a paper fol-booke; A Ruleing penn; 24 dossen Chains; A geniological roul; and a larg serpent or snaks skin. ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... courtly now, this is sweete, this plaine, this is familiar, but by the Court of France, our peevish dames are so proud, so precise, so coy, so disdainfull, and so subtill, as the Pomonian Serpent, mort dieu the Puncke of Babylon was never ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... iron, nor saint Leonard himself, have gained for this forest so much celebrity as its famous DRAGON, or serpent! This venemous reptile, which some persons have rendered into some obnoxious proprietor, has been honoured with a long and minute description in ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley

... from scenes in the Old Testament which are supposed to prefigure acts in the life of Christ. Thus the treachery of Judas is prefigured by the sale of Joseph by his brethren. The farewell at Bethany has its type in the mourning bride in the Song of Solomon; the Crucifixion, in the brazen serpent of Moses. Sometimes the connection between the tableaux and the scenes is not easily traced; but even then the pictures justify themselves by their own beauty. Often five hundred people are brought on the stage at once. These range in ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... thing none else hath suffered even in dreams. Nor could I aid them as they cried ever on their mother; the evil that was upon them was past help. As a bird mourneth for her perishing little ones, devoured in the thicket by some terrible serpent while as yet they are fledglings, and the kind mother flutters round them making most shrill lament, but cannot help her nestlings, yea, and herself hath great fear to approach the cruel monster; so I unhappy mother, wailing for my brood, with frenzied feet ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. Zeke, nervously fingering the whip handle, looked down into the guileless face and mentally vowed never to betray the ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... have written that I myself do not like Mr. Slope, but I am constrained to admit that he is a man of parts. He knows how to say a soft word in the proper place; he knows how to adapt his flattery to the ears of his hearers; he knows the wiles of the serpent, and he uses them. Could Mr. Slope have adapted his manners to men as well as to women, could he ever have learnt the ways of a gentleman, he might have risen to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... spoon. Of knives he possesses more than enough, and heavy, long, sharp-pointed ones they are. When his hunger is appeased the knife goes, not to the kitchen, but to his belt, where, when not in his hand, you may always see it. With that weapon he kills a sheep, cuts off the head of a serpent—seemingly, however, not doing it much harm, for it still wriggles—sticks his horse when in anger, and, alas, as I have said, sometimes stabs his fellow-man. Being so far isolated from the coast, he is necessarily entirely uneducated. The forward march of the outer world concerns ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... and the sun is the mightiest animal as among many peoples, the thunder is the voice of the bear as among different woodland tribes or the flapping of the wings of the great ancient eagle as among the Dakota and cegiha, while lightning is the great serpent of the sky as among the Zuni. Subsequently the zoic concept fades, and the constant association of human intellectual qualities engenders an anthropic concept, when the sun becomes an anthropomorphic deity (perhaps bearing a dazzling mask, as among ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... right kind of a man," said the Idiot. "He isn't built that way. He wears men's clothes and he has sweet manners, and a dulcet voice, and the learning of the serpent; but when it comes to manhood he has the initiative of the turtle, lacking the cash value of the terrapin, or the turtle's mock brother; he wears a beard, but it is the beard of the bearded lady who up-to-date appears to be a useless appanage of the strenuous life; and when you try to get at his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... movement. It was the Greek symbol of Hippocrates and of healing. There is nothing of the kind in Hebrew literature, where the snake is figured as an attractive tempter. In Hindu fables the cobra is the ingenious and intelligent animal, corresponding to the fox in ours. Serpent worship was very widely spread. I therefore doubt whether the antipathy to the snake is very common among mankind, notwithstanding the instinctive terror that their sight inspires ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... hand to hand captains and generals, and have slain them with one blow from my sword' (and here he drew it out of its sheath and showed it to her. It was a fine piece of skilled workmanship). 'Should you become my bride no harm shall ever befall you, no enemy shall come nigh you, and no serpent or wild beast shall hurt you; for I have killed all kinds of animals and reptiles. Most lovely one, if thou wilt become my bride, all my soldiers shall obey thy word, and I ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... white light. The firs of Caddam were so near that it seemed to have arrested them in a silent march upon the hill. The grass would not hide a pebble. The ground was scored with shadows of men and things. Twice the light flickered and recovered itself. A red serpent shot across it, and then ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... eagerness of his valiant heart went of old the son of Danae, for that Athene led him on his way, unto the company of that blessed folk. Also he slew the Gorgon and bare home her head with serpent tresses decked, to the island folk a stony death. I ween there is no marvel impossible if gods have ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar

... That is just as a dentist jams one little bit of gold-foil home, and then another, and then another. He does not put one large wad on the hollow tooth, and then crowd it all in at once. Capel Lofft says that this reflection—going forward as a serpent does, by a series of backward bends over the line—will make a dull book entertaining, and will make the reader master of every book he reads, through all time. For my part, I think this is cutting it rather fine, this chopping the book up into separate ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... panther, even asleep, could not fail to produce the effect which the magnetic eyes of the serpent are said ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac

... will either kill you or cure you. That's one reason I let you go look for them things. The harder you hit the trail, and can stand it, the quicker you'll get built up." Then Overland, realizing that his companion was worse than tired, that he was dispirited, became as wily as the proverbial serpent. His method, however, could hardly be compared with the dove's conciliatory cooing. "You sure are ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... evening like this, it's not often anyone even comes out to sit at his gate; but in Moscow now there's walking and playing, and a fearful racket going on in the street; a continual roar. And what's more, Marfa Ignatievna, ma'am, they've harnessed a fiery serpent to drive: all, look you, for the ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky

... of haggling or hesitation might have hardened me even now; the serpent within me would have lifted its head and struck. But you have saved yourself—and very well for that! The articles are those six ball-and-claw-foot chairs with violin backs. I will pay fifty dollars apiece for ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... The serpent had crept into Eden. The Perkins household for ten years had been little less than Paradise to its inmates, and then in a single night the reptile of political ambition had dragged his slimy length through those happy door-posts ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... old days floated before him, days on the section with his crew of "snipes" back in the Honour Flag times. Memories returned to him, of blazing hours in the summer, when even the grease-lizards panted and died, when the heat rays curled in maddening serpent-like spirals before ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... himself, but the malaria drives him out of it, and all its costly beauty is almost thrown away. Only during the desolation of winter, or the fair promise and half-developments of spring, can one wander safely through the place. The sting of the serpent is in this Eden. Cursed is the ground for man's sake in the fairest scene that his industry, and genius, and virtue can make for himself; but cursed with a double curse is the ground that he makes a wilderness ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... good-for-nothin' serpent, Jake Fairthorn!" cried Miss Lavender. "I see it all now. Much Gilbert could tell you, howsever, or you him, o' my business, and haven't I a right to it, as well as other folks; but never mind, fine as it's spun it'll come ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... wildly in the wind. It seemed impossible that any human being could escape from amid that furious mass of foam, except the strongest of swimmers; but notwithstanding this, ere another minute had passed, a black line was seen here and there, like some enormous serpent, crawling over the yellow sand from the dark wreck, the Arabs being distinguished by their coloured dresses as they made their way on shore. Onward went the miserable blacks, the line becoming thinner and thinner; still the headmost were flying, ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... beech-trees ever seen. The ground sloped both towards and from it. It was of immense size, and threw out arms that struck into the soil like those of the banyan-tree, and rose again from it. Two of the branches thus inserted themselves twice, which gave to each the appearance of a serpent moving along by gathering itself up in folds. One of the large boughs of this tree had been torn off by the wind before we left Alfoxden, but five remained. In 1841 we could barely find the spot where the tree had stood. So remarkable a production of nature ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... deep, is a long, narrow, curved ridge with rounded top and almost vertical sides. The upper part, apparently an old lava flow, is darker in color than the surrounding precipices, its surface checkered and seamed by weathering and erosion, so that it has an almost startling resemblance to a huge serpent crawling out of the side of the mountain and, with head laid flat on the extreme point of the cliff, watching something in the stream bed a thousand feet below. If the old Hawaiians had been familiar with ophidians, as were the American Indians, this ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... equestrian statue on a pedestal, where, properly speaking, it never could be; and suggested a rock, on which the hero was to have the appearance of galloping, but suddenly be arrested at the sight of an enormous serpent, which, with other obstacles, he overcomes for the happiness of the Muscovites. None but a Catherine II., who so gloriously accomplished all the great ideas of that hero, could have brought to perfection this ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... of figures, some by living actors. Before each group walks a penitent, barefoot and heavily veiled in black gown and hood, carrying an inscription to explain the group which follows. Abraham appears with Isaac, Moses with the serpent, Joseph and Mary, the Magi, and the flight into Egypt. Then come incidents from the life of Jesus, and the great tragedy of its close. The Host and its attendant priests conclude the procession. It is all ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... nation, have fallen, endangered as all of them were, in spite of the volcanic outburst of the startled North which answered the roar of the first gun at Sumter? Worse than all, are we permitted to doubt that in the very bosom of the North itself there was a serpent, coiled but not sleeping, which only listened for the first word that made it safe to strike, to bury its fangs in the heart of Freedom, and blend its golden scales in close embrace with the deadly reptile of the cotton-fields. Who ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... against her breast, as if she were repressing an inward voice which claimed her attention. Leaning her head against her chair, she had quite pushed out her comb, her hair dropped on her shoulder, and looked like a brown, coiled serpent. Veronica, who had been silently observing her, rose from the sofa, picked up the comb, and fastened her hair, without speaking. As she passed she ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... degraded ones; I wish to gain a thought of pity for those who are blameless; and I want to stir up the blameless ones, who are generally ignorant creatures, so that they may exercise a little of the wisdom of the serpent in time. Be it remembered that, although the ruined and blameless man is not subjected to such moral scorn as falls to the lot of the wastrel, the practical consequences of being down are much the same for him as for the victim of sloth or sin. He feels the pinch of physical ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... said to have been established in honor of the victory that Apollo gained at Delphi over the serpent Py'thon, on setting out to erect his temple. This monster, said to have sprung from the stagnant waters of the deluge of Deucalion, may have been none other than the malaria which laid waste the surrounding country, and which some early benefactor ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... a Song, to mend the heart design'd, Quenching the fiery passions of mankind; When lurking hate and deadly rage combine, To charm the serpent of revenge is mine; By heavenly verse the furious deed restrain, And bid the lost ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... Shawanoe!" exclaimed Deerfoot, his voice as firm and unwavering as his nerves; "coward! Serpent that creeps in the grass and strikes the heel of the hunter; Arorara speaks with a double tongue; he says he took the scalp of Deerfoot, but the scalp of Deerfoot is here, and he dares Arorara and Waughtauk and Tecumseh and all the chiefs and ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... not conceive, that the generality of the satire can be well extenuated; but I am not inclined to regard it as having been a very heinous offence. The ability displayed in it is a sufficient compensation. The beauty of the serpent's skin appeases the aversion to its nature. Moreover, a toothless satire is verse without poetry- -the most odious of ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... unnecessary as a means of their protection. In the government of nature the weaker animals and insects, dependent on themselves for safety and life, are provided with means of defense. The bee has its sting and the despised serpent its deadly poison. So, in the Governments of men, the weak must be provided with power to inspire fear at least in the strong, if not to command their respect. Political power was claimed originally by the people as a means of protecting themselves against ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... forth poison and death into the air, which those beloved of God and himself must breathe, and crushing in its pestilential folds the bodies and souls of immortal men. He was one of the young St. Michaels called by God to give combat to that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which was deceiving ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... midday to sunset, but the nights are comparatively cool. One afternoon we saw a great number of serpent-birds perched high up on a bulbous tree, and, as they are good to eat, stopped to shoot some. They were not at all shy and did not depart after several shots had been fired, but wheeled round and round ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide On the great cross-support in the center, that goes to each side; He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his 30 pangs And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs, Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come With the springtime—so agonized Saul, drear and stark, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... No, no; my motto is, "TOUCH NOT, TASTE NOT, HANDLE NOT." The wise man of Scripture knew what he was about when he said, "Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup; at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." The same wise man said also, that "the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty." But, Jack, what are poverty and shame, bad as they are, in comparison with the loss of the soul? Think of that—the loss ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... drawings in the world is on the side of a cave in France, and represents a man fleeing naked and defenceless from a great serpent—man still in bondage to material conditions. One of the most stirring of modern scenes is that in which Siegfried waits at the mouth of the cavern—leaves rustling, light shimmering, birds singing about him. The glory ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the instincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment of parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a sack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the Forum with a tablet on which was written, "I refuse to rear thee, lest thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon the blank walls of Rome an iambic line which reminded all who read it that Nero, Orestes, and Alcmaeon were murderers ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... saw thee, O Eurydice! The serpent slew thee, O Eurydice! Stealing amongst the grass, Eurydice; The long rank grass, that stretched Briarian arms To clasp thee to itself, Eurydice! And soon they laid thee from the sight of men; Laid thee beneath the rankly waving grass; Opening Earth's portals ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... despised and shunned by all the world? No! I can bear it no longer! Not one step further! Here, O life accursed, here will I end thee! On these branches let the most disastrous fruit hang!" He untwined his girdle and twined it about his neck. "Ha, ha! come, thou serpent, entwine my neck and ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead

... considerable sensation by having on his table a morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always wore round his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent—emblem of eternity—with the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon his little morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar—generally he had flowers upon it; in the middle of a conversation he would start ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... people where our knowledge of medicine will cause us to be looked upon as superior beings. I have discovered a remedy for the bite of a cobra which will stand one in good stead, should a native be bitten. They believe, you know, as does the rest of the world, that the bite of this serpent is certain death. But I have discovered a remedy, the necessary drugs of which I carry in this case," touching the leather ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... daughter of Henry Braddon, solicitor, and widow of John Maxwell, publisher, was born in London in 1837. Early in life she had literary aspirations, and, as a girl of twenty-three, wrote her first novel, "The Trail of the Serpent," which first appeared in serial form. "Lady Audley's Secret" was published in 1862, and Miss Braddon immediately sprang into fame as an authoress, combining a graphic style with keen analysis of character, and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... it. Set him not by thee, lest he overthrow thee and stand in thy place; let him not sit on thy right hand, lest he seek to take thy seat, and at the last thou acknowledge my words, and be pricked with my sayings. Who will pity a charmer that is bitten with a serpent? or any that come nigh wild beasts? Even so who will pity him that goeth to a sinner, and is mingled with him in his sins? For a while he will abide with thee, and if thou give way, he will not hold out. And the enemy will speak sweetly with his lips, and in his heart take counsel ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various

... you, willing to be third-rate, anything; for you are stung with the poison that never leaves your blood. So it has been with me: even when I found that I must choose a calling, I chose the one that gave me most time to nurse the serpent that had ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... of credible men, there are serpent-tamers in this country. They are said to pipe the serpents out of their holes, directing their movements, and stopping and handling them at will, without being injured by them. The most famous individual amongst them, however, had been carried ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... they saw performed in honour of the elements and deified heroes, but heard not one voice tuned to the praise or employed in the service of the one God. Unacquainted with the moral perfections of Jehovah, they saw this immense population prostrate before dead matter, before the monkey, the serpent, before idols the very personifications of sin; and they found this animal, this reptile, and the lecher Krishnu {u-caron} and his concubine Radha, among the favourite ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... the historian, Nicetas, thus describes the comet of the year 1182: "After the Romans were driven from Constantinople a prognostic was seen of the excesses and crimes to which Andronicus was to abandon himself. A comet appeared in the heavens similar to a writhing serpent; sometimes it extended itself, sometimes it drew itself in; sometimes, to the great terror of the spectators, it opened a huge mouth; it seemed that, as if thirsting for human blood, it was upon the point of satiating itself." ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... indeed, that it had a ritual, or even a symbolism. I am inclined to think that it was made up of abstract propositions, derived from antediluvian traditions. Dr. Oliver thinks it probable that there were a few symbols among these Primitive and Pure Freemasons, and he enumerates among them the serpent, the triangle, and the point within a circle; but I can find no authority for the supposition, nor do I think it fair to claim for the order more than it is fairly entitled to, nor more than it can be fairly proved to possess. When Anderson calls Moses a Grand Master, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... the throne, framed her chalk-white body so that it curved starkly sensual, dominating the great chamber with beauty. It was a beauty one knew this woman used as a tool, a weapon, keen and polished and ready, and it struck at me swift as a great serpent, the fires behind her ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell

... Torrington was more obdurate than the winter wind and the serpent's tooth. She said those two things often and often, and the one about the winter wind shows that she has read 'As You Like It.' I don't know the one about the serpent's tooth. It may be in Shakespeare, but is not in Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' I think she meant ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... ecclesiastical power with the yoke of a justice, meagre, indeed, and sadly unfruitful, but still ominous of a better day. Within the alabaster vase of despotism, frail, yet old as ambition, the lamp of freedom had long burned dimly: now its flames were licking, with serpent-like tongues, the enclosure so long deemed sacred, and threatened, as they dyed the air with their amber flood of light, to shiver their temple to fragments. The theory of the divine right of kings was but another 'Luck of Edenhall.' Its slender stem trembled now within the rough grasp of ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... strange kind of gnat.] We haue not yet found any venomous Serpent or other hurtfull thing in these parts, but there is a kind of small flie or gnat that stingeth and offendeth sorely, leauing many red spots in the face, and other places where she stingeth. They haue ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... classical mytholology, the water serpent with nine heads slain by Hercules: each head, on being cut off, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... spite of all her reasoning there remained in the back of Mary's mind a feeling of cold horror, born of those few sentences she had overheard while Pedro was saddling the horses. Like a poisonous serpent, it reared its ugly head persistently, to demolish in an instant her most specious arguments. The very thought of it now filled her with the same fear and dread that had overwhelmed her when the incredible words first burned into her consciousness, and made her glance with a sudden, sharp ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... a big fellow of about forty, stared at a vine-tree, quite exposed to view, which stood close to the farmhouse, twining like a serpent under the shutters the ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... A Hoa returned from a preaching tour in the country to find their home in a state of siege. Right across the threshold lay a monster serpent, eight feet in length. A Hoa shouted a warning, and seized a long pole, and the two managed to kill it. But their troubles were not yet over. The next morning, Mackay stepped outside the door and sprang back just in time to escape another, the mate of the one killed. This ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith

... the prince of the wicked spirits is called the serpent, and Satan, and the devil, as you can learn by looking into our writings, and that he would be sent into the fire with his host, and the men who followed him, and would be punished for an endless duration, Christ foretold." ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... that!" he cried. "What is it like down there? Do sharks come by,—swish! with their great tails? And why don't they eat you, like the man in the geography book? And is there really a sea-serpent? And do the oysters open and shut their mouths, so that you can see the pearls, or how do you know which are the ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... thou wast as fierce as a lion and as subtle as a serpent. The devil perhaps may place thee as high in his black list of heroes as Alexander or Caesar. It is not my business to interfere with him in settling thy rank. But hark thee, friend Cortez. What right hadst thou, or had the King ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... have seen people that came from there," said Helen: "they were too tired to talk much about the country, but something in their attitude and appearance seemed to suggest that they had seen the sea-serpent. Dear doctor, I have no desire ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... the why, these words let fall His judge and jailor, proud and tall:— 'Thou type of all ingratitude! All charity to hearts like thine Is folly, certain to be rued. Die, then, Thou foe of men! Thy temper and thy teeth malign Shall never hurt a hair of mine.' The muffled serpent, on his side, The best a serpent could, replied,— 'If all this world's ingrates Must meet with such a death, Who from this worst of fates Could save his breath? Upon thyself thy law recoils; I throw myself upon thy broils, Thy graceless ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... Sophocles, "mortal women bear immortal gods." His mother is the daughter of Cadmus, himself marked out by [24] many curious circumstances as the close kinsman of the earth, to which he all but returns at last, as the serpent, in his old age, attesting some closer sense lingering there of the affinity of man with the dust from whence he came. Semele, an old Greek word, as it seems, for the surface of the earth, the daughter of Cadmus, beloved by Zeus, desires to see her lover in the glory with ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... Blue, red, and green lights were seen to glimmer from its casements, and then suddenly disappear. The clanking of chains succeeded, together with the howlings of persons as in great pain. Then a ghastly spectre, in pea-green, with long, white beard and serpent's tail, appeared at the principal windows, shaking his fist at the passers-by. This went on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... said Mrs. French. Then Mrs. French went home, and early on the following morning it was thought good by Arabella that she also should pay a visit at Ottery St. Mary's. "Good-bye, Cammy," said Arabella as she went. "Bella," said Camilla, "I wonder whether you are a serpent. I do not think you can be so base a serpent as that." "I declare, Cammy, you do say such odd things that no one can understand what you mean." And so ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape; The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, but ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd With mortal sting: about her middle round A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep, If aught disturb'd their noise, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the man, and with one mower-like sweep of his spear-handle he caught the serpent a few inches below its threatening head, and it dropped writhing at once, with its ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... its force the poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crestfallen, unembraced, I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; When the Nemaean lion own'd their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse; The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: E'en Cerberus did his weak strength deplore. This sinewy arm did overcome with ease That dragon, guardian of the Golden Fleece. My many conquests let some ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... going forward lightly and gracefully beneath them. Lightness and grace are the painter's great qualities, marking the hithermost limit of unconscious elegance, after which "style" and science and the wisdom of the serpent set in. His charm is natural fineness; a little more and we should have refinement—which is a very different thing. Like all les delicats of this world, as M. Renan calls them, Benozzo has suffered greatly. The space on the walls he originally covered with his Old Testament stories is immense; ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... devil," said the niece, "but a magician who came on a cloud one night after the day your worship left this, and dismounting from a serpent that he rode he entered the room, and what he did there I know not, but after a little while he made off, flying through the roof, and left the house full of smoke; and when we went to see what he had done we saw neither ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... up till they glowed like carbuncles, at the sight of the gold snuff-boxes. Fraisier, cool and calm as a serpent, or some snake-creature with the power of rising erect, stood with his viper head stretched out, in such an attitude as a painter would choose for Mephistopheles. The three covetous beings, thirsting ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... thunder." Then there ascended from the valley a thick vapor, which waved itself in the air like a fluttering veil. It rose, as a plume of feathers, from a steam engine, to which, on the lately-opened railway, a string of carriages was linked, carriage to carriage, looking like a winding serpent. The train shot past with the speed of an arrow. "They play at being masters down there, those spirits of strength!" exclaimed the Ice Maiden; "but the powers of nature are still the rulers." And she laughed and sang till her ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... thee, set not thou upon me Those maids with bloody face and serpent hair: See, see, they come, they're here, they ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... the Fiend our foe Had unto man in hearte, for his wealth, Sent a serpent, and made her for to go To deceive EVE; and thus was manis health Bereft him by the Fiend, right in a stealth, The woman not knowing of the deceit, God wot! Full far was it from ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... ever been stretched forth from His throne of Light to consecrate the flag of freedom—to bless the patriot's sword! Be it in the defence, or be it in the assertion of a people's liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon; and if, my lord, it had sometimes taken the shape of the serpent, and reddened the shroud of the oppressor with too deep a dye, like the anointed rod of the High Priest, it has at other times, and as often, blossomed into celestial flowers ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, has suffered a similar transformation. He is shrunk into a poor little reptile, the merest worm, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... the serpent; thou knowest earth very well. The serpent envied the bird: thou knowest heaven very well. And both envied man: thou knowest heaven and earth. Man replied: "My knowledge and my ignorance make me ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic

... to its point. She didn't seem to be moving. One couldn't catch the stir and draw of muscles. And yet she slowly glided to the end; then began her wait. Her head sunk low, her body grew tense, her tail whipped softly back and forth, with as easy a motion as the swaying of a serpent. The light flamed and died and flamed and died again in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... promise, weather-bound: "Strike sail, slip cable, here the bark be moored For once, the awning stretched, the poles assured! Noontide above; except the wave's crisp dash, Or buzz of colibri, or tortoise' splash, The margin's silent: out with every spoil Made in our tracking, coil by mighty coil, This serpent of a river to his head I' the midst! Admire each treasure, as we spread The bank, to help us tell our history Aright; give ear, endeavour to descry The groves of giant rushes, how they grew Like demons' endlong tresses we sailed through, What mountains yawned, forests to give ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... wake; No truce with Slavery make, Thy deadly foe; In fair disguises dressed, Too long hast thou caress'd The serpent in thy breast, Now ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various

... noon work was finished, and stayed until time to get supper. They did have heaps of fun and wild excitement. May was gentle, and tender with everything else on earth; so I 'spose she had a right to bruise the serpent with her heel—really she used sticks and stones—if she wanted to. I asked her how she COULD, and she said there was a place in the Bible that told how a snake coaxed Eve to eat an apple, that the Lord had told her she mustn't touch; and so she ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... assume it to yourself? do you not prejudge yourself guilty? I did not, but your own conscience, it seemeth, doth accuse you. You are so jealous and suspicious, as persons overwise or guilty use to be." So meaneth this serpent out of the hedge securely and unavoidably to bite his neighbour, and is in that respect more base and more hurtful than the most ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... sins, be born of a woman, hanged on the Cross, etc., for them: for all along you may see that when He speaketh to them of the new covenant, He mentions their seed—their seed—still aiming at Christ; Christ, the Seed of the woman, was to break the serpent's head (Gen 3:15; 17; Psa 89:36). Now to Abraham and his Seed was the promise made; his Seed shall endure for ever, and His throne as the days of Heaven, etc.; still pointing at Christ. And, 3. To stir up their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... can claim no relief from suffering save death, though in the case of a human being 'twould suffice to temper vengeance with mercy, as thou saidst. Wherefore I, albeit no eagle, witting thee to be no dove, but a venomous serpent, mankind's most ancient enemy, am minded, bating no jot of malice or of might, to harry thee to the bitter end: natheless this which I do is not properly to be called vengeance but rather just retribution; seeing that vengeance should be in excess of the offence, and this my ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... and begin the new with a clean record. It is a measure absolutely necessary. The snake does not put on his new skin over the old one. He sloughs off the first, before he dons the second. He would be a very clumsy serpent, if he did not. One can not have successive layers of friendships any more than the snake has successive layers of skins. One must adopt some system to guard against a congestion of the heart from plethora of loves. I go in for the much-abused, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... he 'must be born again.' He showed him clearly how it must be brought about. You remember what He said about the Israelites when bitten by serpents in the wilderness, and how they were cured immediately they looked on the brazen serpent, taking Moses at his word when he told them to do so. So if we only take God at His word, and look to Jesus on the cross suffering for and bearing our sins, we shall be forgiven, and through the power of the Holy Spirit be born again. What I am sure God wants ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... burning brightly, and the reflection showed on the painted visage. Jack, having stepped forward into the circle of light, was also plainly discerned by the Indian, who, turning his black, serpent-like eyes upon him, said, without a ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... opinion, could surpass the insolence of the Netherlanders, save their ingratitude. That was the serpent's tooth which was ever wounding the clement King and his indignant brother. It seemed so bitter to meet with thanklessness, after seven years of Alva and three of Requesens; after the labors of the Blood Council, the massacres of Naarden, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... caught yesterday, and sentenced to execution, received their reprieve on paying fines of cattle and young damsels—their daughters. A variety of charms, amongst which were some bits of stick strung on leather and covered with serpent-skin, were presented and approved of. Kaggao, a large district officer, considered the second in rank here, received permission for me to call upon him with my medicines. I pressed the king again to send men with mine to Kamrasi's to call Petherick. ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... slightest resistance or the slightest delay, and who expected to acquit himself thus of his word, and of the reciprocal engagement both had taken; and then he returned to fresh insults and fury against this serpent, as he said, whom he had warmed and nourished so many years in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... which burst; Of elephants Airavata; of males the Best and First; Of weapons Heav'n's hot thunderbolt; of cows white Kamadhuk, From whose great milky udder-teats all hearts' desires are strook; Vasuki of the serpent-tribes, round Mandara entwined; And thousand-fanged Ananta, on whose broad coils reclined Leans Vishnu; and of water-things Varuna; Aryam Of Pitris, and, of those that judge, Yama the Judge I am; Of Daityas dread Prahlada; ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... the lion in strength and with the lamb in meekness. He equally possessed the wisdom of the serpent and the simplicity of the dove. He brought both the sword against every form of wickedness, and the peace which the world cannot give. He was the most effective, and yet the least noisy, the most radical, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of my almost forgotten boyhood I remember reading in the Book of all books that the Wise Man, in a fit of blank despair, declared that there were several things under heaven which he could neither gauge nor understand, viz., "The way of a serpent upon a rock, and the way of a man with a maid," and I beg leave to doubt if Solomon, in all his wisdom, could understand the little ways of a camp liar in his frisky glory. Whence he cometh, whither he goeth, and why he was born, are conundrums which might tax the ingenuity of all the prophets, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... know," he said, standing before Pollnitz, and looking smilingly into his cunning face—"do you know that you do not descend, as the rest of mankind, from Adam and Eve, but in a direct line from the celebrated serpent? And truly you do honor to your ancestor! No paradise is holy to you, and to do evil gives you pleasure. But you shall not disturb my paradise; and as much of the old Adam as is still in me, I will not be foolish enough ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... Historical Inquiry into the True Principles of Beauty in Art (1849), and A History of Architecture in all Countries from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1865-67). He also wrote Fire and Serpent Worship, etc., and a book on the use ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... show it to her; and then she said if she could only keep the golden snake, she could release her husband from prison with it. Naturally I did not stop to think for a minute, but ran away and left the woman alone with the golden serpent-bracelet. The next day there was much excitement. The poor woman was brought to the castle and the people said she had stolen it. Thereupon I grew very angry and explained with holy zeal that I had given ...
— Memories • Max Muller

... and listened at the kitchen door. I heard nothing. Finding an old cloak in the entry, I wrapped myself in it and left the house. The moon was out-riding black, scudding clouds, and the wind moaned round the sea, which looked like a vast, wrinkled serpent in the moonlight. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... England now? For forty-three years, like a bird fascinated by the serpent, she has been creeping gradually closer to the outstretched arms of the great enchantress. Is she blind and deaf? Has she utterly forgotten all her history, all the traditions of her greatness? It is not quite ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... forms of animal life about the Igorot that he will not and does not eat. The exceptions are mainly insectivora, and such larger animals as the mythology of the Igorot says were once men — as the monkey, serpent-eagle, crow, snake, etc. However, he is not wholly lacking in taste and preference in his foods. Of his common vegetable foods he frequently said he prefers, first, beans; second, rice; third, ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... in these marshy lands, and in the ancient forests, serpents, scorpions, and other venomous reptiles abounded. Unfortunately, they were not only to be found on land. A sailor in search of marteaux, a very rare kind of bivalve mussel, was stung by a serpent. The fearful suffering and violent convulsions which followed only subsided at the expiration of five or six hours, and at last, the theriac which was administered to him after the bite, effected a cure. This accident was a sad ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... Then, at the far end of the chamber, grew the semblance of the horned moon, gleaming faintly in the darkness, and betwixt the golden horns rested a small dark cloud, in and out of which the fiery serpent climbed. ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... eyes suddenly filled with tears. She seized a silk embroidered handkerchief and threw it over her face. In a moment it was all wet; and she sat for some time with her beautiful head thrown back, and her snowy teeth set on her lovely under-lip, as though she suddenly felt the sting of a poisonous serpent, without removing the handkerchief from her face, lest he should see ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... sleep. When he woke up with a start, he tried to recall what had been going on when he dropped off. Then he remembered. He had been indulging in his famous imitation of an angry serpent. Had any of the men been awake at the moment he might have seen the fat boy's blanket shaking as if the boy were sobbing. But Stacy Brown ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin

... to the Azores with two pinases, the one called the Serpent, and the other the Mary Sparke of Plimouth, both of them belonging to Sir Walter Raleigh, written by John Euesham Gentleman, wherein were taken the gouernour, of the Isle of Sainct Michael, and Pedro Sarmiento gouernour of the Straits of Magalanes, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... its stern guardianship Echo Canyon stretched grim and desolate, running far back into the very heart of the gold-ribbed mountains. The canyon, a mere shapeless gash in the side of the great hills, was deep, long, undulating, ever twisting about like some immense serpent, its sides darkened by clinging cedars and bunches of chaparral, and rising in irregular terraces of partially exposed rock toward a narrow strip of blue sky. It was a fragment of primitive nature, as wild, gloomy, desolate, and silent as though never yet explored ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... it, showed that she had been recently there, and would probably soon return. Mr. Lisle took two or three agitated turns about the room, one of which brought him close to the writing-desk, and his glance involuntarily fell upon the unfinished letter. Had a deadly serpent leaped suddenly at his throat, the shock could not have been greater. At the head of the sheet of paper was a clever pen-and-ink sketch of Lucy Stevens and himself—he, kneeling to her in a lovelorn, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... the superficial Could play anybody else's hand better than his own Culture is certain to mock itself in time Disease of conformity Disposition of people to shift labor on to others' shoulders Do not like to be insulted with originality Eve trusted the serpent, and Adam trusted Eve Fit for nothing else, they can at least write Good form to be enthusiastic and not disgraceful to be surprised Housecleaning, that riot of cleanliness which men fear Idle desire to be busy without doing anything Imagining ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger

... sharpness of his nose, the liveliness of his forehead, lend to his countenance a decided expression of his belief in the resurrection of life. His principles are settled, not so much because that is required for the happiness of a good conscience, but because the old serpent has crammed the ways of man with so many deceits in this world of vanity and vexation of spirit, that a heart of the honesty of George Black, cannot possibly have any sympathy with the crooked ways of rogues and vagabonds; and ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... prison, Pinocchio sets out to return to the Fairy; but on the way he meets a Serpent and later ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini

... off her horrible night-mares, and I had once more started into identity, the anguish of the past day and night again seized me. Pains innumerable, and intolerable, rushed upon me. Each new thought was a new serpent. Mine was the head of Medusa: with this difference; my scorpions ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... to sink to peace, Like birds the charming serpent draws— To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... time and almost forgotten in the hurry of events, sprang up to confirm it. M. de Pavannes'—the other M. de Pavannes'—suspicions had been well founded. Worse than Bezers was she? Ay! worse a hundred times. As much worse as treachery ever is than violence; as the pitiless fraud of the serpent is baser than ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... along.— O Paris, Paris, once my seat of triumph, But now the scene of all thy king's misfortunes; Ungrateful, perjured, and disloyal town, Which by my royal presence I have warmed So long, that now the serpent hisses out, And shakes his forked tongue at ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... of the first of those Yankee clippers that have since almost monopolized the China carrying trade. The "Sea Serpent," bound for the United States, passed close to us, and a magnificent specimen of naval architecture she was. She excited a strong yearning for home, and gladly would I have exchanged on board ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... bade him do, was just what Jiraiya wished to accomplish. He set out on his journey with a light heart. "I can now make the storm and the waters obey me, and all the frogs are at my command; but alas! the magic of the frog cannot control that of the serpent. I shall ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis

... where Billy and I put things for each other. He is only three and a half—"thrippence, ha'penny," he says if you ask him, but beguiling—oh, as beguiling as Cleopatra, or the serpent in the Garden of ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... chronicles the destruction of "Lutheranism" in France as an accomplished fact! The passage is not unworthy of notice. After explaining the significance of the fleurs-de-lis on the royal escutcheon by the wonderful efficacy of the lily as the antidote of the serpent's poison, and remarking that the kings of France had thrice extracted the mortal virus from the bite of Mohammed, "serpentis venenosi," the writer adds: "Et, his temporibus, videmus nostram fidem et religionem Christianam sanatam esse a morsu pestiferi serpentis Lutheri, qui infinitas ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... serpent we ever remember to have read, was of one killed near one of our settlements in the East Indies; in whose body they found the chaplain of the garrison, all in black, the Rev. Mr. ——, and who, after having been missing ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... were mysterious monsters, to whom the ancients ascribed the most varied forms. They were depicted most frequently with the face and bosom of a woman and the body of a serpent. Here Aristophanes endows them with organs of virility. It was said that the blood of young men had a special attraction for them. These lines, abusive of Cleon, occur again ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... veins and entrails thus are racked with pain And horrid agony, while the serpent's bite Spreads its black venom ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... been perfectly sincere in classifying German spies with sea-serpents; and here was a sea-serpent right before his eyes, raising his head through the floor ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... the grassy slope of the old rath. The wide plain stretched before them—green, well wooded, beautiful. There lay Adair's plantations, the Six Mile Water winding like a serpent among the fields, the woods of Castle Upton, and the young trees on Lyle Hill, with the distant water of Lough Neagh glistening in the sunlight. Nearer at hand thatched farmhouses smoked, signs that the yeomen were enjoying the fruits of victory. ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... a definition, is indisputably correct. A dragon is a serpent breathing flame: the word means that. The tacit assumption, indeed (if there were any such understood assertion), of the existence of an object with properties corresponding to the definition, would, in the present instance, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... stranger to Spiridion, A wealthy merchant from the Syrian land, Who, greeting, said: "Good father, I have here A golden casket filled with Roman coin And Eastern gems of cost uncountable. Great are the dangers of the rocky road, False as a serpent is the purple sea, And he who carries wealth in foreign lands Carries his death, too often, near his heart, And finds life's poison where he hoped to find Against its pains a pleasant antidote. I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various



Words linked to "Serpent" :   colubrid snake, sea snake, diapsid, Serpentes, blind snake, serpent star, viper, serpent fern, pyrotechnic, ophidian, firework, diapsid reptile, suborder Serpentes, trumpet, Ophidia, trump, worm snake, serpent-worship, snake, elapid snake, suborder Ophidia, cornet, constrictor



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