"Viper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dallas quaintly remarks on the process: "This must be an unpleasant operation for the worm, much as its captor may enjoy it." Toads, frogs, mice, and even snakes are eaten by the European hedgehog. It would be interesting to find out whether the Indian hedgehog also attacks snakes; even the viper in Europe is devoured by this animal, who apparently takes little heed of its bite. The European species also eats eggs when it can get them, and I have no doubt does much damage to those birds who make their nests ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they wanted legitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no question about it, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to their bosom—or is it a viper?—and the Harbison man was the creature. Although I must say that, looking over the table, at Jimmy's breadth and not very imposing personality, at Max's lean length, sallow skin, and bold dark eyes, at Dallas, blond, growing bald and florid, and then at the ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... She had traced the symmetrical and marvellous network which the fern extends as a canopy over the wood strawberry; she had listened to the murmuring of streams through the long reeds and stems of the water-grass, where the hissing of the "amorous viper" may be heard; she had followed the wild leaps of the Will-with-a-wisp as it bounds over the surface of the meadows and marshes; she had pictured to herself the chimerical dwelling-places toward which it perfidiously attracts the benighted traveller; ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... is difficult to get red cloth, except in the shape of handkerchiefs, a substitution has been made, the two colors having a close mythologic relation. In former days a piece of buckskin and the small glossy, seeds of the Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare) were used instead of the cloth and beads. The formulistic name for the bead is s[^u][']n[)i]kta, which the priests are unable to analyze, the ordinary word for beads or coin ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... modern science, possessing thousands of powers as great as any used yet, you see no glory:—the only thought is so many Acids and Alkalies. You require a metaphor for treachery, and of course you think of our puny old friend the Viper; but the Alkaline, more searching and more unknown, that may destroy you and your race, you have never heard of,—and yet this possesses more of the very quality required, namely, mystery, than any other that ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... him in the face—and she would read the truth there. She would see it staring at her in his shifting eyes, his slack lip, and his weak frown. Her first glance at him would be loyal and frank, just an eager flash of love and confidence, seeming to say, "Be quick, Will, and put your foot on this viper that we've both of us warmed, and that is trying to bite me;" then she would turn pale, avert her head, and drop upon a chair. And for why? Because she had seen the nauseating truth, and her heart ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... their abhorrence." And he refers to an outrage on the part of a barbarian of the North, who, not satisfied with cutting out a lawyer's tongue, sewed up his mouth, in order, as he said, that the viper might no longer hiss. The well-known story of the Czar Peter, himself a Tartar, is here in point. When told there were some thousands of lawyers at Westminster, he is said to have observed that there had been only two in his own dominions, and he ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... bring cockatrices; and some men Seem hatch'd and brooded in the viper's den. Some eggs bring wild-fowls; and some men there be As wild as are the wildest fowls that flee. Some eggs bring spiders, and some men appear More venom'd than the worst of spiders are.[16] Some eggs bring piss-ants, and some seem to me As much for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... tune of thirty shillings. No," continued Lawless, who had quite worked himself into a state of excitement, "whatever follies I may have been guilty of, nobody can accuse me of having neglected my duty in regard to that brat's education; and now, after all my solicitude, the young viper goes and spreads reports that a 'scamp,' meaning me, is about to marry your sister! I'll flay him alive, and ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... She brought Constance up in what is now considered to be the most approved fashion in high society. The chap who had nothing but health and ambition and honour and brains to offer, in addition to that unprofitable thing called love, was a viper in Mrs. Blair's estimation. He was very properly and promptly stamped upon by the fond mother and doubtless was very glad to crawl off into the high ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... venomous spirit is in that serpent Milton, that black-mouthed Zoilus, that blows his viper's breath upon those immortal devotions from the beginning to the end! This is he that wrote with all irreverence against the Fathers of our Church, and showed as little duty to the father that begat him: the same that wrote for the Pharisees, that it was lawful for a man to put away his wife ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... 64: Echidna.—Ver. 501. This word properly means, 'a female viper;' but it here refers to the Hydra, or dragon of the marsh of Lerna, which Hercules slew. It was fabled to be partly a woman, and partly a serpent, and to have been begotten by Typhon. According to some accounts, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... have but few words to cast upon a thing so vile as you have become. If I submit to your presence for a moment it is because that agony must be endured in order that I may cast you from me at once, like the viper that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... declared that the vipers had a king, a terrible creature, which he had encountered, and from which he had managed to escape. After telling me that strange story of the king of the vipers, he gave me a viper which he had tamed, and had rendered harmless by extracting its fangs. I fed it with milk, and frequently carried it abroad with ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... stealing. He stole right enough—stole the money from an old woman, and what was I to do when it came to the trial but say what I knew. And him like a viper a-looking at me—more like a viper than a human boy. He leans on the bar and looks at me. 'All right, Aunt Flo,' he says, just that and nothing more. Time after time, I've dreamt of it, and now he's come. 'They've Reformed me,' he says, 'and made me a ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... where they placed him, away from the gaping, murmuring, gesticulating knot of villagers that had marked his progress to the police-station—for news flies fast in the country, especially when there is a viper-tongue like Borkins's to wing it on its way—he was thankful for the momentary peace and quiet that the place afforded. At least he could think—think and pace up and down the narrow room with its tiny barred window too high for ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... H. Davies) through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal from Holtenau to Brunsbttel. Magnificent condescension! I blush when I look at this yellow document and remember the stately courtesy of the great lock gates; for the sleepy officials of the Knigliches Zollamt little knew what an insidious little viper they were admitting into the imperial bosom at the light toll of ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... comforter to-night, my brother,' said Guatemoc, 'and yet I fear that your words are true. Well, if we must fight, let us strive to win. Now, at least, there is no Montezuma to take the viper to his breast and nurse it till it stings him.' Then he rose and went in silence, and I saw that his heart ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... but had denied him insensibility. He writhed under the jokes, practical and otherwise, which were perpetually made at his expense, and yet never ceased, it seemed wilfully, to expose himself to them. He was constantly wounded, and yet his good-nature was such that he could not bear malice: the viper might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and had no sooner recovered from his pain than he tenderly placed it once more in his bosom. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knockabout farce. Because I did not laugh at him he was ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... expensive whims, and, instead of leaving you with a curse, as all the rest did that ever knew you, and as you deserve, I bought your consent to lead a respectable life, and be blessed with a virtuous love. You took the bribe, but robbed me of the blessing—viper! You have destroyed me, body and soul—monster! perhaps blighted her happiness as well; you she-devils hate an angel worse than Heaven hates you. But you shall suffer with us; not your heart, for you have none, but your pocket. You have broken faith ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... infer that a cricket ball will do so, we do not reason by analogy, but make instinctively a deductive extension of an induction, merely omitting the explicit generalisation, 'All missiles of a certain weight, size and solidity break windows.' But if, knowing nothing of snakes except that the viper is venomous, a child runs away from a grass-snake, he argues by analogy; and, though his conduct is prudentially justifiable, his inference is wrong: for there is no law that 'All snakes are venomous,' but only that those are venomous that have a certain structure of fang; a point ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... tongue and knee and elbow was an unknown knight, ever conspicuous; it might be but by a leg waving for one brief moment in the air. He did not want to go in, would not go in though they went on their blooming knees to him; he was after a viper of the name of Tommy. Half an hour had not tired him, and he was leading another assault, when a magnificent lady, such as you see in wax-works, appeared in the vestibule and made some remark to a ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... "That viper? Certainly. Nobody is talking of her. Nobody expects better of her. There is no villainy she will stick at, if it feed her spite; and she hates her son. Her signing it is of no consequence. The ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... old Hinkley, who re-entered the room at this moment, and had heard the last words of the speaker. "You shall not leave the house. Had I fifty sons, and they were all to behave in the manner of this viper, they should all leave it before you should stir ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... different piece of machinery for the injection of the poison. It is formed by a pair of peculiarly modified legs which act as jaws, and are armed each with a powerful claw, at the tip of which, as in the poison-fang of the viper, is a small hole. Out of this hole a drop of poison oozes when the prey is seized, and this has the effect of paralysing the victim. The poison is formed in a curious bag, or 'gland' (G.L), which communicates with the claw by means of a long ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... protect are constantly giving information to the enemy of all our movements, and using their property whenever they can to aid and comfort the cause of treason. We are too forcibly reminded of the fable we used to read in our schoolboy days, of the Farmer and the Viper. We are only warming into new life and strength this virus of Rebellion, to have it recoil upon ourselves. We hope our authorities will soon discover their error, and ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... sprang to his feet as if stung by a viper, and exclaimed: "Stop playing that foul magic! You know as well as you are living that I don't ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... living upon such an one as will be content to share, and on Sunday to say nothing; whereas your proud university princox thinks he is a man of such merit the world cannot sufficiently endow him with preferment. An unthankful viper, an unthankful viper, that will sting the man that revived him. Why, is't not strange to see a ragged clerk Some stamel weaver or some butcher's son, That scrubb'd a-late within a sleeveless gown, When the commencement, like a morris-dance, Hath put a bell or two about his legs, Created ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... to deny the force of the language. But I cannot separate thought and form: and if I do occasionally admire this Hebrew God, it is with the same sort of admiration that I feel for a viper, or a ...—(I'm trying in vain to find a Shakespearean monster as an example: I can't find one: even Shakespeare never begat such a hero of Hatred—saintly and virtuous Hatred). Such a book is a terrible thing. Madness is always contagious. And that particular ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... that ever came out of the bottomless pit of the lowest hell.' In reply to a protest by Ralegh as to his liability for some underhand practices of Cobham, as Warden of the Cinque Ports, Coke foamed out: 'All he did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor! I will prove thee the rankest traitor in all England.' 'No, Master Attorney,' was the answer: 'I am no traitor. Whether I live or die, I shall stand as true a subject as ever the King hath. You may call ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the present connotation. —Gutenberg ed. "True enough," said the king, "I prefer the duc de la Vauguyon: he has a good reputation—" "And well deserved," said the old marechal, sneering. "Yes, sire, he is a pious man; at least, he plays his part well. " "Peace, viper; you spare nobody." "Sire, I am only taking my revenge." "Why do you not like the governor of my grandsons?" "In truth, sire, I must confess to you, that except yourself and the ladies, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... I don't know his tribe, but before he settled here he was a nomad, one of the wanderers who dwell in tents, a man of the sand; as much of the sand as a viper or a scorpion. One would suppose such beings were bred by the marriage of the sand-grains. The sand tells ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... craven type which Stryker graced so conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to learn that if Stryker's nature was like a snake's for low cunning and deviousness, Hobbs' soul was the soul of a viper. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... If those words had been included in the indictment, this prosecution must have been at an end upon merely reading the charge, and those words, therefore, the Association avoided, as cautiously as they would the poison of a viper. They felt, that though the indicted words standing alone might perhaps admit of a doubt for a moment, yet the context completely explained them, and gave an air of perfect innocence to the whole passage. But you shall judge for yourselves: I will read the passage,—"Something more than a petitioning ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... the slave to him. "Oh! do not despise me for my feebleness! I have lived in the palace. I can wind like a viper through the walls. Come! in the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot of gold beneath every flagstone; an underground path leads ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... my duty, as your captain, to propose that our laws should be enforced. Tell me, now, what is it that you wish. I am only here as your captain, and to take the sense of the whole crew. I have no animosity against that lad; I have loved him—I have cherished him; but like a viper, he has stung me in return. Instead of being in arms against each other, ought we not to be united? I have, therefore, one proposal to make to you, which is this: let the sentence go by vote, or ballot, if you please; and whatever the sentence ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... dignified a step, that she had nearly reached the door, before Burrell acquired sufficient courage to stay her departure. He laid his hand on her arm as she touched the lock, but she shook it off as coolly, yet as firmly, as the apostle threw from him the viper into the flames at Melita. Burrell, however, had too much at stake tamely to relinquish his purpose. He spoke in a ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... heir to his home. But, alas! no human skill could avert the dark fate which clung to him. The last night he had to pass alone in the turret, a bundle of faggots was conveyed to him as usual, in which lay concealed a viper, which clung to his hand. The bite was fatal; and, instead of being borne in triumph, the dead body of his only son was the sad spectacle which met the sight of ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... joy; But grows more sensible of grief or pain. The stupid peasant with as quick a sense Enjoys the fragrance of a rose, as I; And his rough hand is proof against the thorn, Which rankling in my tender skin, would seem A viper's tooth. Oh blissful poverty! Nature, too partial! to thy lot assigns Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace, Her real goods; and only mocks the great With empty pageantries! Had I been born A cottager, my homely bowl ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... made into wine and vinegar. The fruit of this tree is called Coco. The rind roasted, crushed, and applied to sores or wounds, has a most healing quality. The juice of the roots and tops, mixed with incense, is a sovereign antidote against the bite of a viper and other poisons. From all these useful properties, this is the most profitable tree that is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... briony is "a furious martial plant," and brank ursine "an excellent plant under the dominion of the moon." Of rosemary he says, "the sun claims privilege in it, and it is under the celestial ram," and of viper's bugloss, "it is a most gallant herb of the sun." The bay-tree rouses him to real eloquence, though not for Apollo's sake. "It is a tree of the sun and under the celestial sign of Leo, and resists witchcraft very potently, as also all the evils that old Saturn can ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... young lady with one child. They were to depart on the morrow. At about eleven or twelve o'clock that night, Laura came to where my bed was fixed, and asked me to take her to see Tommy, this being her last opportunity. "You little viper," I was going to say, but I jumped up and led her quietly across the camp to where Tommy was fast asleep. I woke him up and said, "Here, Tommy, here's Laura come to say 'good-bye' to you, and she wants to give you a kiss." To this the uncultivated young cub replied, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... "I'll kill that viper yet!" he muttered between his teeth, and, reaching out for the first thing to hand, his long smooth fingers locked around the neck of the Great Dane—so tight that the dog, half strangled and snarling, lunged at his tormenter. Nina ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... the sceptre tipped with the head of a jerboa or a hare, which we misname the cucupha-headed sceptre.* He put on the many-coloured diadems of the gods, the head-dresses covered with feathers, the white and the red crowns either separately or combined so as to form the pshent. The viper or uraeus, in metal or gilded wood, which rose from his forehead, was imbued with a mysterious life, which made it a means of executing his vengeance and accomplishing his secret purposes. It was supposed to vomit flames and to destroy those who should dare to attack ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... observations upon venemous exhalations, are not less extended, nor ought the, as well useful as ornamental, plates added to this last edition, to pass unnoticed, particularly, "The anatomical description of the parts in a viper, and in a rattlesnake, which are concerned in their poison," by our great anatomist the learned and ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his ...
— English Satires • Various
... from their breath they took: So all our minds with his conspire to grace The Gentiles' great Apostle, and deface 20 Those state-obscuring sheds, that like a chain Seem'd to confine and fetter him again; Which the glad saint shakes off at his command, As once the viper from his sacred hand: So joys the aged oak, when we divide The creeping ivy ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... wholly blind, From files a random recipe they take, And many deaths of one prescription make. Garth,[29] generous as his Muse, prescribes and gives; The shopman sells; and by destruction lives: Ungrateful tribe! who, like the viper's brood, From medicine issuing, suck their mother's blood! 110 Let these obey; and let the learn'd prescribe; That men may die, without a double bribe: Let them, but under their superiors, kill; When doctors first have sign'd the bloody bill; He 'scapes the best, who, nature to ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... three Lions of England, each shield being supported from the bottom by a monk in his full dress and cowl. In the foreground in front of each monk was a plant of the deadly nightshade, and over his head a sprig of the same, while in the lower part was the figure of a wivern—i.e. a viper or dragon with a serpent-like tail—this being the device of Thomas Plantagenet, the second Earl of Lancaster, who was highly esteemed by the monks. We did not notice any nightshade plant either in or near the ruins of the abbey, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... aunt went to his room when he didn't show up, but not finding him expected Hen had gone off to my house. And his uncle is whopping mad over it. He nearly took a fit when the expert Chief said he reckoned someone had chloroformed him. He called Hen a viper that he had fostered, and said if he could only ketch him he'd see that ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... priest the proud Marrubians led, By King Archippus sent to Turnus' aid, And peaceful olives crown'd his hoary head. His wand and holy words, the viper's rage, And venom'd wounds of serpents could assuage. He, when he pleas'd with powerful juice to steep Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep. But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art, To cure the wound giv'n by the Dardan dart: Yet his untimely fate th' Angitian woods In ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... three kittens (for we have so many in our retinue) looking with fixed attention at something, which lay on the threshold of a door, coiled up. I took but little notice of them at first, but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more closely, when behold—a viper! the largest I remember to have seen, rearing itself, darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating the afore-mentioned hiss at the nose of a kitten, almost in contact with his lips. I ran into the hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... not grow silent for that, but they took another tone. They began to hiss and to pant be hind him. A big viper came gliding. Its tongue dripping venom hung far out of its mouth, and its bright body shone against the withered leaves. Beside the snake pattered a wolf, a big, gaunt monster, who was ready to seize fast in his throat when the snake had twisted about his feet and bitten him in the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... tyrant who had come to de Sigognac's rescue, and now suddenly roared out in his stentorian voice, "What the deuce is nipping me? Is it a viper? I felt two sharp fangs meet in the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the tyrant. "You shall do that. Down with you. And you conspire with him against me, do you, viper? There, that is ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... describe Lavengro with any chance of distinctness to those who have not read it, it would be necessary to give a series of sketches in words, like those famous ones of the pictures in Jane Eyre. East Dereham, the Viper Collector, the French Prisoners at Norman Cross, the Gipsy Encampment, the Sojourn in Edinburgh (with a passing view of Scotch schoolboys only inferior, as everything is, to Sir Walter's history of Green-breeks), the Irish Sojourn (with the horse whispering ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... still be allowed to eat horseflesh and to practice exposure of infants.[980] In old German law infanticide was treated as the murder of a relative. The guilty mother was buried alive in a sack, the law prescribing, with the ingenious fiendishness of the age, that a dog, a cat, a rooster, and a viper should also be placed in the sack.[981] In ancient Arabia the father might kill newborn daughters by burying them alive. The motive of the old custom was anxiety about provision for the child and shame at the disgrace of having become the father of a daughter.[982] In the Koran it is ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... said the usher. Dubois stretched out his viper's head, darted a look at the opening which was left between the usher and the door, and, behind the official introducer, perceived a little fat man, pale, and whose legs shook under him, and who coughed to give himself assurance. A glance sufficed to inform Dubois ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... lantern out o' the freight wagon, an' let's chalk up." said a deep, heavy voice. In about a minute a light ripped its way into darkness an' I never saw a worse sight. Jabez was lyin' face down with a hairy viper on top of him face up. The feller'd been pinked in the bridge o' the nose an' it was most horrid ghastly. Two others lay still with their bodies inside the shack an' their legs outside; while another was lyin' just at my feet. Some ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... with the oar in my hand. 'You boasted that you could swim to Portsmouth,' said I, 'and so you shall. Into the water with you, you sea-viper, or I'll push you in as sure as my name ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the first thought of all of us, on finding a snake in the grass, would be, Is it a venomous one? So I think you will like to know that poisonous snakes are rare in Europe; and Mr. Wood [Footnote: Natural History p. 521.] tells us that the Viper, which is our only venomous serpent, is one of those least dangerous to life, although far from a friend to those who shrink from pain. It may be known by dark spots down the back. When we speak of venomous serpents, we mean those whose bite is to be dreaded, because ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... smuggler paid no sort of regard to: and we all began to suspect some mistake: as the light increased, and we could use our glasses with effect, we found too certainly that there was. The smuggler was painted so as to resemble the Viper; and Sir Morgan had taken her for that vessel on the night before: but we now suspected (and the event proved) that she was her partner, the Rattlesnake—a ship of much greater force with a piratical crew from the South Seas, and strengthened by some of the picked ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... neckties, why he came home earlier than was his wont, and why he hung about the pale-faced girl who seemed unconscious of his presence. Mrs. Heron began to feel, as she would have expressed it, that she had taken a viper into her bosom. She was ambitious for her only son, and wanted to see him married to one of the daughters of a retired city man who had settled in Woodgreen. Ida was all very well, but she was absolutely penniless and not ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! 95 I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without, Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... shall be an instigator or accomplice of such a crime, although a stranger, shall suffer the penalty of parricide. This is not execution by the sword or by fire, or any ordinary form of punishment, but the criminal is sewn up in a sack with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and in this dismal prison is thrown into the sea or a river, according to the nature of the locality, in order that even before death he shall begin to be deprived of the enjoyment of ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... Mr. Jolter ran of the room, Gauntlet drew his hanger, and Peregrine himself was disconcerted. The operator, perceiving their confusion, desired them to retire, and, calling them back in an instant, there was not a viper to be seen. He raised their admiration by sundry other performances and the Welshman's former opinion and abhorrence of his character began to recur, when, in consideration of the civility with which he had been treated, this Italian imparted to them all the methods by which he had acted such ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... occasional puff of his cigar, suddenly shot into silent activity as the two men turned their backs on him and bent, apparently absorbed, over the desk in the corner. Like a flash (it reminded me of the lightning-like movement of a viper) his long, thin fingers went into a waistcoat pocket; like a flash emerged, shot to the glasses on the table and into two of them dropped something small and white—some tabloid or pellet—that sank and dissolved as rapidly as it was put in. It was all over, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Greene took no such responsibility, but referred the whole matter to Congress, while relaxing not one whit of his vigilance. Leslie then asked permission to purchase supplies for his army, that he might evacuate Charleston. The wary Greene refused to allow it, for in so doing he might be nourishing a viper that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... at himself indeed, trying to puzzle out the secret of that repugnance, having no particular dread of a snake's bite, like one of his companions, who had put his hand into the mouth of an old garden-god and roused there a sluggish viper. A kind of pity even mingled with his aversion, and he could hardly have killed or injured the animals, which seemed already to suffer by the very circumstance of their life, being what they [24] were. It was something ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... discover in two flagitious events how early such subtle wickedness has infected the simplicity of the republic, and the chaste virtues of the Roman matrons.[35] The parricide, who violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey were successively added as the most suitable companions. Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be felt till the middle of the sixth century first revealed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... dust and heat? Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... found here and there, but they are for the most part of innocuous species: three poisonous varieties only are known, and their bite does not produce such terrible consequences as that of the horned viper or Egyptian uraeus. There are two kinds of lion—one without mane, and the other hooded, with a heavy mass of black and tangled hair: the proper signification of the old Chaldaean name was "the great 'dog," and they have, indeed, a greater resemblance ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... a viper; she is only a woman bent on protecting herself. However, I wish you would remember that she is to be your daughter-in-law, and try and meet her on a pleasant basis. Any more scandal about Braelands will compel me to shut up this house absolutely ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... thought, Long years of sorrow I endure, And bear of weary life the strain; But not in vain! And I would still return, In spite of all my sad experience, Towards such a goal, my course to recommence; For through the sands, and through the viper-brood Of this, our mortal wilderness, My steps I ne'er so wearily have dragged To thee, that all the danger and distress Were not ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... forgot. Count Nobili loves her; he will keep her—in luxury, too—and in a Guinigi palace!" She hissed out these last words. "She has learned her way there already. Let her go—go instantly," the marchesa's hand was on the bell. "Let her go, the soft-voiced viper!" ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... your Passion swell To such a Torrent, it o'erwhelms your Reason, And preys upon the Vitals of your Soul. You do but feed the Viper by this View; Retire, and drive the Image from your Thought, And Time will soon replace your ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... of before!" he continued. "A messenger comes into my house, and goes upstairs without being seen by anybody! I will look into this. And the idea of you, Mme. Alexandre, you, a sensible woman, being idiotic enough to persuade that little viper not to keep ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... "You can't be seen creeping out of my house now. Keep her here, you young viper, you; keep her till I come back; and then if you choose ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... conscious of a continual drift of insects, an ebb and flow of infinitesimal living things between the trees. Nor are insects the only evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see a crooked viper slither across the road. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Most of these spirits are in the hells behind the back, and are called genii; and there they delight to make themselves invisible, and to flutter about others like phantoms secretly infusing evil into them, which they spread around like the poison of a viper. These are more direfully tormented than others. But those who are not deceitful, and who have not been so filled with malignant craftiness, and yet are in the evils derived from the love of self, are also in the hells behind, but in those less deep. On the other ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... you see, Grabbed me by the hair an' out with a knife, An' demanded my gold. I thought fer my life He wuz jokin'; but no, when I seed that fierce look Of murder an' pillage, I knowed what I'd done; I'd thawed out a viper upon my hearth-stun An' now ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... to our king, Chilperic—Queen Faileube, learning that Septimanie, the governess of the young princes, had conspired against the king's life—Queen Faileube said to the lord, 'My lord, the viper waits until you are asleep to give you a mortal wound. She has conspired with Sinnegisile and Gallomagus against your life! She has poisoned her husband, your faithful Jovius, to live with Droeckteufel. Let your anger come down upon her like lightning, and ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... Queen. "The sailor's blundering loyalty will not suffer him to hold his tongue. I would lay my two lost crowns that he is down on his honest knees before my Lord craving pardon for having unwittingly fostered one of the viper brood. Then, via! off goes a post—boots and spurs are no doubt already on—and by and by comes Knollys, or Garey, or Walsingham, to bear off the perilous maiden to walk in Queen Bess's train, and have her ears ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... breast, and I sat for a time holding the letter mutely, uncertain how to proceed. Should I return it unread, and thus hurl the gauntlet in the traitor's face, or be governed by expedience (word ever so despised by me of old), and trace the venom of the viper, by his trail, back ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... means of a secret charm, to draw All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep or swim or fly or run, After me so as you never saw! And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole and toad and newt and viper; And people call me the Pied Piper." (And here they noticed round his neck A scarf of red and yellow stripe, To match with his coat of the selfsame check; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; And his fingers, they noticed, ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... bits of sugar. It is not fair that you must always remember and always love that boy who played with you when you were little—after he has grown up to be another person. Eh no! youth passes, but all its memories of unimportant things remain with you and are less kind than any self-respecting viper would be. Decidedly, it is not fair, and some earnest-minded person ought to write to his morning paper about it. . . . I think that is the reason I am being a ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... but think that my daughter was safe, and out of the power of that viper, whom I have warmed in my bosom, death would not be unwelcome ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... decidedly out of his element. He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast. ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... have only my mother to love me, and she is far away, and you who came to me from my mother. No, you will not leave me alone amid all the scandals that are creeping around me. It is awful—if you only knew! At the club, at the play, wherever I go I seem to see the little viper's head of the Baroness Hemerlingue, I hear the echo of her hiss, I feel the venom of her bite. Everywhere mocking looks, conversation stopped when I appear, lying smiles, or kindness mixed with a little pity. And then ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... vehemence, for there was no doubt about Ms jury. But withal, he gave no fair grounds for any such retort as is falsely attributed to Emmet, the very style of which proves its falsity. It is now well known that the apostrophe in the death-speech, commencing "you viper," alleged to have been addressed to Plunkett, was the interpolation many years afterwards of that literary Ishmaelite—Walter Cox of the Hibernian Magazine,—who through such base means endeavoured to aim a blow at Plunkett's reputation. The ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... plainly written out Upon this paper, worth your kingdom's crown, This letter, stolen by a trusty spy, Out of the inmost chamber of the Pope Sixtus himself, here is your murder planned: Blame not your Ministers who with such haste Plucked out this viper, Mary, from your breast! Read here—how, with his thirty thousand men, The pick of Europe, Parma joins the Scots, While Ireland, grasped in their Armada's clutch, And the Isle of Wight, against our ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... thief of the world, old Brown, after axing Ussher a sight of questions, was sthrong for sending 'em back; and then Counsellor Webb axed Ussher how he could prove that the boys knew the stuff was in it; and he, the black-hearted viper, said, that warn't necessary, so long as they war in the same house; and then they jawed it out ever so long, and Ussher said as how the whole counthry through war worse than ever with the stills; and Counsellor Webb said that war the fault of the landlords; ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... expected, the beautiful Imperia, puffing like a dolphin, denounced all the cowardice of the priest. She was not then a sufficiently good Catholic to pardon her lover deceiving her, by not knowing how to die for her pleasure. Thus the death of Philippe was foreshadowed in the viper's glance she cast at him to insult him, which glance pleased the cardinal much, for the wily Italian saw he would soon get his abbey back again. The Touranian, heeding not the brewing storm avoided it by walking out ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... be remembered that the Godfreys, accompanied by their faithful friend Paul Guidon, arrived at Halifax in the "Viper." Paul remained twelve days with his friend, and then a vessel being about to sail for Quebec, Commander Greaves secured him a ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... appointment is to the "Viper", a brig which is barely stable. They almost upset on one occasion, and then really do sink when off the coast of Africa. Our friends and a couple of other seamen are lucky enough to have got off on a simple raft, though all the rest of the crew ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... him when in the future they should chance to meet. And then she abated her severity to the extent of thanking the Count with tears in her eyes for the service that he had done her in tearing off this viper's disguise. Naturally, the Count was charmed by Ma-dame Carthame's energetic indignation. He perceived that his unselfish investigations of the actions of Monsieur Jaune were bearing excellent fruit. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... of heathen with Christian magic, we may cite the following from a medieval medical book as a salve against "nocturnal goblin visitors": "Take hop plant, wormwood, bishopwort, lupine, ash-throat, henbane, harewort, viper's bugloss, heathberry plant, cropleek, garlic, grains of hedgerife, githrife, and fennel. Put these worts into a vessel, set them under the altar, sing over them nine masses, boil them in butter and sheep's grease, add much holy salt, strain through a cloth, throw the worts into running ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... which they may slumber as on a pillow. Some have wooed death—but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with Friar John) give thee to six-score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation, or more frightful ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... easy to give a lie unless you can prove it a lie. I made her realise this, and she bit her lip in vexation. Dame! What a pretty viper I thought ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... "The young viper!" he said to himself. "He's sold us, as sure as my name's Marlowe. I'll wring his neck for him. He'll find he's ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... Sir William, 'what a viper have I been fostering in my bosom! And so fond of public justice too as he seemed to be. But he shall have it; secure him, Mr Gaoler—yet hold, I fear there is not legal evidence ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... confederates. He was a squat, dark ruffian, as malignant as a moccasin snake, and as dangerous as one. He was filthy in speech and vile in habit, being in his person most unpicturesque and most unwholesome, and altogether seemed a creature more viper than he was man. The sheriffs of two border States and the officials of a contiguous reservation sought for him many times, long and diligently, before a posse overcame him in the hills by over-powering odds ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... flowers of eloquence are not encouraged at the modern bar. But they were common enough, even in the English law-courts, in former times. Mr. Attorney-General Coke's language to Raleigh at his trial—"Thou viper!"—comes quite up to Cicero's. Perhaps the Irish House of Parliament, while it existed, furnished the choicest modern specimens of this style of oratory. Mr. O'Flanagan, in his 'Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland', tells us that a member for Galway, attacking an opponent when ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... which we visited they were exceedingly scarce. In fact, I have never been in a place where there were so few reptiles and batrachians. We obtained only one species of poisonous snake here. It was a small green viper which we sometimes saw coiled on a low bush watching mouse holes in the grass. Several species of nonpoisonous snakes were more common but were ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... the earth, to which all we mortals must one day come, grant me to tell a simple tale and declare unto you the truth. Not to look upon the blackness of Tartarus have I come hither, nor yet to bind in chains the snaky heads on Cerberus. It is my wife I seek. A viper's sting has robbed her of the years that were her due. I should have borne my loss, indeed I tried to bear it, but I was overcome by Love, a god well known in the world above, and I think not without honor in your kingdom, unless the story of Proserpina's theft be a ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... streak after it as it crawls, and so using up its vitality, serves as a remedy for boils. The sting of a hornet is healed by the house-fly crushed and applied to the wound. The gnat, feeble creature, taking in food but never secreting it, is a specific against the poison of a viper, and this venomous reptile itself cures eruptions, while the lizard is the antidote to the scorpion.[191] Not only do all creatures serve man, and contribute to his comfort, but also God "teacheth us through the beasts of the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... to observe that worm in some places still means a serpent; but I believe it has usually a prefix, as "hag-worm" in Westmoreland and the West Riding of Yorkshire; so also in the latter "slow-worm" means a species of small snake or viper found on some of the moors. (For "slow-worm," see "N. & Q.," Vol. viii., pp. 33. and 479.) I have been told that "blind-worm" in Surrey means a viper. I conclude with a Query, Does Wurm in modern German ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... days are as the sands in the hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring a nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is to me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Self-Control and the Imperfection of it: if a man yields to pleasures or pains which are violent and excessive it is no matter for wonder, but rather for allowance if he made what resistance he could (instances are, Philoctetes in Theodectes' drama when wounded by the viper; or Cercyon in the Alope of Carcinus, or men who in trying to suppress laughter burst into a loud continuous fit of it, as happened, you remember, to Xenophantus), but it is a matter for wonder when a man yields to and cannot contend against those pleasures or pains ...
— Ethics • Aristotle |
