"Eel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... big. Why, them little pirani fishes will be at him in thousands, and there's 'gators enough within fifty yards to make a supper of him as if he was spitchcocked eel. Ah! there he goes—part of him's in the water already; but I should have liked the master to have ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... it has dwindled away to nothing! For who can be of any use whatsomdever such a day as this, excepting out of doors?" Or it might be interrogatory summons to "A hard trot of three hours?" or intimation as laconic "To be heard of at Eel-pie House, Twickenham!" When first I knew him, I may add, his carriage for his wife's use was a small chaise with a smaller pair of ponies, which, having a habit of making sudden rushes up by-streets in the day and peremptory standstills in ditches by night, were changed in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... and ate it, leaving the bare skeleton only. In about thirty minutes he rejected the hairs in the manner of birds of prey and carnivorous animals. He also ate dogs in the same manner. On one occasion it was said that he swallowed a living eel without chewing it; but he had first bitten off its head. He ate almost instantly a dinner that had been prepared for 15 vigorous workmen and drank the accompanying water and took their aggregate allowance of salt at the same time. After this meal his abdomen was so swollen ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... horsemen, "and the young brat is as slippery as an eel. He and this Coyote Pete, as they call him, escaped me once before in the Grizzly Pass. I have a debt to even ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... oscillating gracefulness. The acme of this sinuosity of movement is reached with those long-drawn-out fishes the eels. Of these there are two gigantic species represented here—the conger, a dark-skinned, rather ill-favored fellow, and the beautiful Italian eel, with a velvety, leopard-spotted skin. These creatures are gracefulness itself. They are ribbon-like in tenuousness, and to casual glance they give the impression of long, narrow pennants softly waving in a gentle breeze. The ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... small turtle, and yet the huts were full of carapaces, all broken and eight-ribbed. One species, the Sakar, supplies tortoise-shell sold at Suez for 150 piastres per Ratl or pound; the Bsa'h, another large kind without carapace, is used only for eating: both are caught off the reefs and islets. An eel-like water-snake (Marrna Murna Ophis) showed fight when attacked. The Arabs do not eat it, yet they will not refuse the Shaggah, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... where: Voices I call 'em: 'twas a kind o' sough Like pine-trees thet the wind's ageth'rin' through; An', fact, I thought it was the wind a spell, Then some misdoubted, couldn't fairly tell, Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel, I knowed, an' didn't,—fin'lly seemed to feel 60 'Twas Concord Bridge a talkin' off to kill With the Stone Spike thet's druv thru Bunker's Hill; Whether 'twas so, or ef I on'y dreamed, I couldn't say; I tell ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Gunn, I am," replied the maroon, wriggling like an eel in his embarrassment. "And," he added, after a long pause, "how do, Mr. Silver! Pretty well, I thank ye, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saw less. He shipped with the fishing boats in the summer and cruised with any vagrant craft for the winter. When he came ashore he was as small and eel-like and shy and awkward as ever, with the same dumb fidelity ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... of lean meat or fish—excluding eel, salmon, and herring; a small quantity of vegetables, but no potatoes, parsnips, carrots, beets, peas, or beans; one ounce of toast, fruit, or fowl; two glasses of red ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... himself of Miss Portfire's invitation. But after the departure of the Princess he spent less of his time in the hut, and was more frequently seen in the distant marshes of Eel River and on the upland hills. A feverish restlessness, quite opposed to his usual phlegm, led him into singular freaks strangely inconsistent with his usual habits and reputation. The purser of the occasional steamer which stopped at Logport with the mails reported to have ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... lion's whelp as touched your father; for didn't Aunt Stanshy pitch into him! I heard it all. It was when he was a-splittin' fish, and Aunt Stanshy came out, and didn't she walk into Tim! I never see an eel skinned more purtily than she dressed Tim for temptin' a poor, motherless boy, as she called your father. 'Don't!' your father would go, tryin' to pacify her; 'don't!' It had no more effect than tryin' to fan ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... against the newer mode of interpretation was heard when the chancellor, referring to the matter in the House of Lords, characterized the ecclesiastical act as "simply a series of well-lubricated terms—a sentence so oily and saponaceous that no one can grasp it; like an eel, it slips through your fingers, and is ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of fellers wot hav brown-stone manshuns up town, and French cooks wot dish em up everything good, from frogs' lim—er—leg to the posterier xten-shun of a eel's spinal collum, frickerseed, with mushrum catchup sauce. B'sides that, they've got lots of munney in the bank, and wuldn't think no more of givin sum Anglo Saxton perfesshunal beggar a thousand-dollar keepsake than they wuld of let-tin ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... of Tasmania are not so well supplied with fish as those of many other countries. The largest, except an eel, is one called the black-fish, which, in some of the rivers which discharge themselves into the sea on the north coast, attains a weight of six to eight pounds. This fish, it is said, does not exist in the river Derwent, or in any ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... discard, And Fame shall triumph in her city bard. Then, pent secure in some commodious lane, Where stagnant Darkness holds her morbid reign. Perchance snug-roosted o'er some brazier's den, Or stall of nymphs, by courtesy not men, Whose gentle trade to skin the living eel, The while they curse it that it dares to feel[7]; Whilst ribbald jokes and repartees proclaim Their happy triumph o'er the sense of shame: Thy city Muse invoke, that imp of mind By smoke engendered on an eastern wind; Then, half-awake, thy patent-thinking ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... a single moment," Sir Richard answered. "The law has no terrors for him. He is as slippery as an eel. He has his story pat. He even has his witnesses ready. I can assure you that Mr. Teddy Jones isn't by any means an ordinary ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his victim into the control cabin and threw him to the floor. But Rapaju was like an eel. He wriggled from under him and snatched from the heap of clothing the ray-pistol of the disintegrated guard. With a yelp of triumph he rose to his knees and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... did we see any useful birds. The large bats or vampyres, common to this country, and called flying-foxes at Port Jackson, were often found hanging by the claws, with their heads downward, under the shady tops of the palm trees; and one solitary eel of a good size, was caught on clearing out the hole where our water casks had been ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... towards home, bending to his oars till the water foamed under the bow of his boat. Now he has landed; now he drags the boat up as if she were an eel-pot. Now he strides ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... indulgent compassion. "How excellent is the saying of one of old: 'He that adventureth upon matrimony is like unto one who thrusteth his hand into a sack containing many thousands of serpents and one eel. Yet, if Fate so decree, he may draw forth the eel.' And thou art comely, and of an age when it is natural to desire the love of a maiden. Therefore be of good heart and a cheerful eye, and it may be that, when I ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... ambitious young eel Who determined to ride on a wheel; But try as he might, He couldn't ride right, In spite of ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... was wrong, for Needham's eels prove that God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies the fiat lux. Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger; you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is good for nothing but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that great All, which torments me! Hurrah for Zero which leaves me in ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Rittmeister; "an eel, and a Frenchman, and nine long lives! Here, you hussar, what's the matter ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... into the Eel River country in '46," he answered. "They give us a lot of trouble in them days. They would steal cattle, and our boys would shoot. But we've never had much difficulty with them since the big fight we had with ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... dangerous; so Isom rose and ran on, and, splashing into the angry little stream, shot away like a roll of birch bark through the tawny crest of a big wave. He had done the feat a hundred times; he knew every rock and eddy in flood-time, and he floated through them and slipped like an eel into the mill-pond. Old Gabe ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... Black Friars sitting back to back Fished from the bridge for a pike or a jack. The first caught a tiddler, the second caught a crab, The third caught a winkle, the fourth caught a dab, The fifth caught a tadpole, the sixth caught an eel, And the seventh one caught ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... Netop broke loose, and bolted headlong, fairly into Captain Church himself, among the baggage and the horses. This was a surprise for the captain, too. He grabbed him but could not keep him, because he was a naked Indian and as slippery as an eel. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... suppressed with extreme difficulty by the united manhood of us three elder boys. Then it was I noted first the blazing blueness of her eyes. She was light and very plucky, so that none of us cared to climb against her, and she was as difficult to hold as an eel. But all these traits and characteristics vanished when ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... are to be found in divers sorts of Vinegar, I have little to add besides their Picture, which you may find drawn in the third Figure of the 25. Scheme: That is, they were shaped much like an Eel, save only that their nose A, (which was a little more opacous then the rest of their body) was a little sharper, and longer, in proportion to their body, and the wrigling motion of their body seem'd ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... old Duke [Wellington] will at last give salt eel to that cowardly, bawling vagabond O'Connell." Borrow detested O'Connell as a "Dublin bully . . . a humbug, without courage or one particle of manly feeling." Again (17th June) he had written: "Horrible news ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... Eleven. Made some rappee snuff. Read the magazines. Received a present of pickles from Miss Pilcocks. Mem. To send in return some collared eel, which I know both the old lady and miss are ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... John, in his short and roomy trousers and ill-used straw hat, picking his barefooted way over the rocks along the river-bank of a cool morning to see if an eel had "got on," you would not have fancied that he lived in an ideal world. Nor did he consciously. So far as he knew, he had no more sentiment than a jack-knife. Although he loved Cynthia Rudd devotedly, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... than he, but he seemed amazingly strong and active. He wriggled like an eel, all the time making frantic efforts to get his right hand free, and use his ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... don't you, ducky?" said Huish. "Stand away from that binnacle. Surely your w'eel, my ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... part of his wearing apparel, than the chal either tore himself away, or contrived to slip out of it; so that in a little time the chal was three parts naked; and as for holding him by the body, it was out of the question, for he was as slippery as an eel. At last the engro seized the chal by the Belcher's handkerchief, which he wore in a knot round his neck, and do whatever the chal could, he could not free himself; and when the engro saw that, it gave him fresh heart, no doubt: "It's of no use," said he; "you had better give in; hold out ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... fact could be more striking than this sea of grass, from which whirls of dust rise up continually, although not a breath of wind is felt at Calabozo, in the centre of this vast plain. Humboldt first tested the power of the gymnotus, or electric eel, large numbers of which are met with in all the tributaries of the Orinoco. The Indians, who were afraid of exposing themselves to the electric discharge of these singular creatures, proposed sending some horses into the marsh ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... were represented. Cod and haddock were, of course, numerous, but hake and pollock struggled on many a hook. Besides these, there was the brim, a small, red fish, which is excellent fried; the cat fish, also a good pan fish; the cusk, which is best baked; the whiting, the eel, the repulsive-looking skate, the monk, of which it can almost be said that his mouth is bigger than himself, and last, but not least, that ubiquitous fish, the curse of amateur harbor fishers, the much-abused sculpin. Nor were fish alone caught on the hooks, for stones were frequently ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... stepped down to another branch directly over the bear, and tried again to rope him. It was of no use. He slipped out of the noose with the sinuous movements of an eel. Once it caught over his ears and in his open jaws. He gave a jerk that nearly pulled me from my perch. I could tell he was growing angrier every instant, and also braver. Suddenly the noose, quite by accident, caught his nose. He wagged ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... saw no country or island. But at the end of that time a man of them went up into the head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough grey cliff. They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an eel's back. And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to the foot ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... he had issued his command, the octopus, the cuttlefish, the bonito, the oxtail fish, the eel, the jelly fish, the shrimp, and the plaice, and many other fishes of all kinds came in and sat down before Ryn Jin their King, and arranged themselves and their fins in order. Then the Sea King ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... toward books. Painfully, reluctantly he trudged his way. Learning came hard—especially Latin, French, and history. To hold fast a French verb was for him a thousand times harder than to grip in his clutch a writhing eel; and as for algebra—well, the unknown quantity was the only ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the door and stakes set against the window-shutters, so that, though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out—-an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Cosmopolis were decorated with taste, and his own private suite was a shrine of all that was best and most artistic. His tastes were quiet and restrained, and it is not too much to say that the Wigmore Venus hit him behind the ear like a stuffed eel-skin. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... thought," he writes in 821 to his sister, "that anyone who was not cock-ide drunk would have known better than to of tried to walk bear-foot through that eel-grass from the beech up to the bath-house without sneekers on, which is what that ninn Aethelbald tryed to do this AM. Well say laffter is no name for what you would of done if you had seen him. He looked like he was trying to walk a tide-rope. Hey I yelled at him all the way, do you think ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... proper ones) are the eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... they'll shape me in your arms, "A toad, but and an eel; "But had me fast, nor let me gang, "As you do love ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... transparent skin, a neck like a swan, and a wealth of wavy brown hair, which was a wonder to look at and was in striking contrast to the whiteness of her complexion. A free life in the open air had made her as supple as an eel and as agile as a deer. It was said that, encumbered by her womanly raiment, she had been known to place one hand upon a six-barred fence and clear it at a single bound. And now her agility was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... The wind received his breath, As to the ear of death. That beast of many heads and light,[7] The crowd, accustom'd to the sound Was all intent upon a sight— A brace of lads in mimic fight. A new resource the speaker found. 'Ceres,' in lower tone said he, 'Went forth her harvest fields to see: An eel, as such a fish might he, And swallow, were her company. A river check'd the travellers three. Two cross'd it soon without ado; The smooth eel swam, the swallow flew.—' Outcried the crowd With voices loud— 'And Ceres—what did she?' 'Why, what she ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... were, frozen by the calm threat of the old man's voice. "Been eel fishing," he said. "Saw that young reporter skate around the corner with two men after him. Then I noticed Scotty and Rick looking out, and I thought I better take a hand. Didn't know just what to do until I spotted this BB gun in front of ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... known. Wilfrid was not absolutely engaged to Lady Charlotte (she had taken care of that), and being free, and feeling his heart beat in more lively fashion, he turned almost delightedly to the girl he could not escape from. As when the wriggling eel that has been prodded by the countryman's fork, finds that no amount of wriggling will release it, to it twists in a knot around the imprisoning prong. This simile says more than I mean it to say, but those who understand similes ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "The biggest, fattest eel I ever saw," he declared exultantly. "Guess it must have been the first one Chris ever saw. They certainly ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... swum straight on, darting through the water like an eel; until a large town came in sight, with high walls and Palaces, and ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... much as if it were a dipper, in which she expected to catch the words which dropped from the lips of her mistress. "Betsey, have you attended to your sister—to my little child, I mean? Then go out and make some sassafras cakes, and some eel-pie, and some squirrel-soup; and set the table in five ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... and the eel and the warming-pan, They went to call on the soap-fat man. The soap-fat man he was not within: He'd gone for a ride on his rolling-pin. So they all came back by the way of the town, And ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... most approved physicians. Cornelius Gemma, lib. 2. de nat. mirac. c. 4. relates of a young maid, called Katherine Gualter, a cooper's daughter, an. 1571. that had such strange passions and convulsions, three men could not sometimes hold her; she purged a live eel, which he saw, a foot and a half long, and touched it himself; but the eel afterwards vanished; she vomited some twenty-four pounds of fulsome stuff of all colours, twice a day for fourteen days; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... are small, and rise only at the end of the village, yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's thumb (gobius fluviatilis capitatus), the trout (trutta fluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (lampoetra parva et fluviatilis), and the stickleback ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... Laugh and ask: 'What will the passado cost, Fencing-master Allerts? Have you polished rapiers?' Perhaps he wouldn't even answer at all, and we saw just now how he acts. His glance slipped past me like an eel, and he had wax in his ears. Whether I reproach, or a cur yelps at him, is all the same to his lordship. If only a Renneberg or Brederode had been in my place just now, how quickly Wibisma's sword would have flown from its sheath, for he understands how to fight and is no coward. But I—I? Nobody ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... she was particularly amiable. She called the inspector to her to show him a huge eel which had been the wonder of the market when exhibited at the auction. She opened the grating, which she had previously closed over the basin in whose depths the eel seemed to be ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... kiss the child slipped away like an eel, and disappeared behind a muck-heap which was piled at the top of a mound between the path and the house; for, like many Breton farmers who have a system of agriculture that is all their own, Galope-Chopine put his ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... bellowing in vain, in the Queen's name, to us, and to the grinning tailors on the landing. At last, as Downes's life seemed in danger, he wavered; the Jew-boy seized the moment, jumped up, upsetting the constable, dashed like an eel between Crossthwaite and Mackaye, gave me a back-handed blow in passing, which I felt for a week after, and vanished through the street-door, which ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the higher animals live parasitic lives. The nearest approach to a true parasite among the vertebrates is the lamprey-eel (Fig. 1) which attaches itself to the body of a fish and sucks the blood or eats the flesh. Among the Crustaceans, the group that includes the lobsters and crabs, we find many examples of parasites, the most extraordinary of which is the curious crab known as Sacculina (Fig. ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... of the combat between David and Goliath. Anyone at all familiar with the music of Couperin and Rameau will recall the variety of fantastic titles assigned to their charming pieces for the clavecin—almost always drawn from the field of nature: birds, bees, butterflies, hens, windmills, even an eel! It is but fair to state that we also find attempts at character drawing, even in those early days, as is indicated by such titles as La Prude, La Diligente, La Seduisante.[165] Haydn's portrayal of Chaos, in the Prelude to the Creation, ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... is attached a string of gut. Lakes and rivers are also filled with hideous-looking alligators of all sizes. These grow to the length of twelve or fifteen feet in these warm waters, and the tail is considered quite a delicacy. Besides these varied dishes, there is the electric eel; and, sunk in a yard depth of mud, is the lollock, of such interest to naturalists The lollock is a fish peculiar to the Chaco. Though growing to the length of three and four feet, it has only rudimentary eyes, and is, in consequence, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... high crown, bearing a plume of pigeons' feathers, and a coat of unusual pattern, with broad hems, and covered with talismanic characters. In his hand he had a whip, the thong of which was made of the skin of an eel, and the handle of bone. With this he drew a circle around him, outside of which, at a proper distance, he kept those persons who came to him, whilst he went through his mystic sentences and performances."—Montgomeryshire Collections, vol. vi, ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... turned to him, laid his finger on his lips, smiled kindly, and saying "You promised!" caught up a loaf from the table, slipped from among them like an eel, and darted out of the door, and out of the close. They followed him to the great gate, and there stopped, some cursing, some laughing. To give Martin Lightfoot a yard advantage was never to come up with him again. Some called for bows to bring him down with a parting shot. But Hereward forbade ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... like lightning, and seized him by both wrists at the very instant that his pistol exploded; the bullet grazing the left side of my head, and neatly clipping off a lock of my hair. The fellow was as lithe as an eel in my hands, and made the most desperate efforts to stab me with his long, murderous-looking knife; but I had him fast in so powerful a grip that, after a furious struggle of a few seconds, he dropped both his weapons with a gasp of pain, my clutch having, as it presently appeared, forced ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... of November 25th-27th. On the first pleasant morning afterwards—on the 28th, that is—my out-of-door comrade and I made an excursion to Nahant. The land-breeze had already beaten down the surf, and the turmoil of the waters was in great part stilled; but the beach was strewn with sea-weeds and eel-grass, and withal presented quite a holiday appearance. From one motive and another, a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of the city had turned out. The principal attraction, as far as we could perceive, was a certain big clam, of which ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... was taken to the Vice-Provost's house; it was his turn to offer hospitality. As there was no fish there apart from eel (this was certainly the fault of the storm, as he is a magnificent host otherwise) I lunched off a fish dried in the open air, which the Germans call Stockfisch, from the rod used to beat it—it is a fish which I enjoy at other times: but I discovered that part of this one had not been properly ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... down through the balusters, I see 'im lookin' at a photograft. That's a funny place, I thinks, to look at pictures—it's so dark there, ye 'ave to use yer eyesight. So I giv' a scrape with me 'eel [She illustrates] an' he pops it in his pocket, and puts up 'is 'and to knock at number three. I goes down an' I says: "You know there's no one lives there, don't yer?" "Ah!" 'e says with an air of innercence, "I wants the name of Smithers." "Oh!" I says, "try round ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... they came into the duck-yard. There was a terrible row going on in there, for two families were fighting about an eel's head, and so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... One year I started with a lone newt and before the summer was over I had thirteen sunfish, pickerel, bass, minnows, catfish, carp, trout, more newts, pollywogs or tadpoles, five kinds of frogs, an eel and all sorts of bugs, waterbeetles and insects. I soon found that one kind of insect would kill another and that sometimes my specimens would grow wings over night and fly away. But to learn these things, even at our own disappointment is "nature study." If we knew ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... eel which has a habit of sticking to stones by its mouth," said Medenham. Then he added, after a pause: "Henry the First was sixty-seven years of age when he died, so the dish of ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Penn took Thomas Fairman's house at Shackamaxon—otherwise Eel-Hole—and in this pleasant springtime, April 4, 1683, he met King Tammany under the forest elm, with the savage people in half-moon circles, looking at the healthy-fed and business-like Quaker. There Tammany and his Indian ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... was largely due the foundation of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Bala Lake, the largest in Wales (4 m. long by some 3/4 m. wide), is subject to sudden and dangerous floods, deep and clear, and full of pike, perch, trout, eel and gwyniad. The gwyniad (Caregonus) is peculiar to certain waters, as those of Bala Lake, and is fully described by Thomas Pennant in his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... his big knife, and as a great eel about three feet long was drawn over the side they did not trouble to extract the hook which was swallowed right down; but Josh cut the string of the snooding close to the living creature's jaws, and let it drop in the boat, about which it began to travel ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... sixty-five, if she's a day, and she's got a hare-lip and a cock-eye. She's uglier than sin, and snugger than eel-skin; one o' them kind that when you prick 'em they bleed sour milk; and what she wants is for her brother-in-law to send her his wife's clo'es, 'cause he's goin' to marry again. All Shellback's ben talkin' about it ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... under simpler, though similar, contrivances. A flounder will jump and jerk about uneasily if we lay it upon a piece of tinfoil and place over it a thin plate of zinc, and then connect the two with a bent metal rod; which will happen to an eel also, if we expose it to a gentle ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... saw, "Here eggs, ham, eel-pies, and white wine may be had!" At this sight, Gorenflot's whole face expanded ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... for a moment, and then gradually a broad grin spread over his face as he replied: 'Oh, yes, sir, if I can find it, but I am not sure about that,' However, he removed the lid from a glass case containing several lively little creatures just about as large as a fresh-water eel at the age at which it is known to the small boy who tries to catch it in his hands as the 'darning needle.' After groping about in the sand at the bottom of the case he found the specimen required and handed it over to Mr. Bartlett, who ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... puny by its place of concealment in thy closet. What thou hast written on the immortality of the soul goes rather to prove the immortality of the body; and applies as well to the body of a weasel or an eel as to the fairer one of Agathon or of Aster. Why not at once introduce a new religion, since religions keep and are relished in proportion as they are salted with absurdity, inside and out? and all of them must have one great crystal of it for ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... is an eel that wriggles through your hands; but the prettiest eel, as white and sweet as sugar, as amusing as ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... philosopher once "compared a man about to marry to one who was about to put his hand into a sack in which were ninety-nine serpents and one eel; the moral of which is that there are ninety-nine chances to one against a fortunate selection." If this is true of a man about to marry, it is probably equally true that a woman under the same circumstances has nine hundred ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... in your arms, Janet, A toad, snake, and an eel But hold me fast, nor let me gang, As you do love ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... great fish struggled in its captor's arms. It was slippery as an eel, and its strength tremendous. No digging of his ten nails into it was of any use. Slowly but surely it was wriggling out of his tight embrace when Hendrick inserted his great thumbs into its gills, and grasped ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... (without the assistance of any hand) to come of its own accord out of his shoe and fling itself to the other side of the room; the other was crawling after it (!) but a maid espying that, with her hand drew it out, and it clasp'd and curl'd about her hand like a living eel or serpent. A barrel of salt of considerable quantity hath been observed to march from room to room without any human assistance,' ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... as if in self-abandonment to her fate, Cecily thought with more repugnance of home the nearer she drew to it. It was not likely that Reuben had returned; there would be again an endless evening of misery in solitude. When the cab was at the end of Eel size Park, she called the driver's attention, and bade him drive on to a certain other address, that of the Denyers. Zillah's letter of appeal, all but forgotten, had suddenly come to mind and revived her sympathies. Was there not some resemblance ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... Netherland; for in these schools all the children, girls as well as boys, and not boys only, received a free education. In later visits he heard of Captain Kidd and his fellow pirates, who wore striped shirts and red caps, and had pigtails of hair, tied in eel skins, and hanging down their backs. These fellows wore earrings and stuck pistols in their belts and daggers at their sides. Instead of getting their gold honestly, and giving it to the poor, or making presents to the children, the pirates robbed ships. Then, as 'twas said, they buried their ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... spoke, the nurse was making an attempt to capture and silence the noisy little fellow. She might as well have tried to pick up a ball of quicksilver. Tag slipped through her fingers like an eel, scurrying from one end of the cot to the other, and barking excitedly ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... Wabash and Eel rivers, which unite at Logansport,—the head of steamboat navigation of the Wabash, and termination of the W. and E. canal. Surface, generally level, rolling towards the rivers with abrupt bluffs; soil, near the rivers, a mixture of loam and sand; at a distance from them, ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... my God, I have suffered. | . . Drink a cognac to me! I once ate in the restaurant 'Under the Star' such a cutlet that I lay in bed a whole week after it and writhed like an eel ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... horned toads; the American bull frogs; and the Brazilian pipa, the female of which deposits its eggs upon the back of the male, who carries them about till they burst from their shells; the repulsive siren of Carolina, which Mr. J.E. Gray likens to an eel with fore-legs; and lastly, here is the blushing proteus, which in its native subterranean caverns is of a pale pink, but when brought to the light of day, deepens into a crimson blush; this is represented by a waxen model. It is strange that political and controversial literature, so rich in chameleons, ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... hold in no longer. He had become so excited that he kept rubbing one shoe against the other, twisting and squirming like an eel. At ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... climbed up, and began squatting on it in contempt. After some time they began to think themselves ill-treated in the appointment of so inert a Ruler, and sent a second deputation to Jupiter to pray that he would set over them another sovereign. He then gave them an Eel to govern them. When the Frogs discovered his easy good nature, they sent yet a third time to Jupiter to beg him to choose for them still another King. Jupiter, displeased with all their complaints, sent a Heron, who preyed upon the Frogs day by day till ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... are you to-night, my lads? Playing cards here, eh? Who wins? - Why, Mr. Field, I, the sulky gentleman with the damp flat side-curls, rubbing my bleared eye with the end of my neckerchief which is like a dirty eel-skin, am losing just at present, but I suppose I must take my pipe out of my mouth, and be submissive to YOU - I hope I see you well, Mr. Field? - Aye, all right, my lad. Deputy, who have you got up-stairs? Be pleased to ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... you who've let me in for cocking the house," said Tempest, with a laugh. "Anyhow, you've a right to talk to me like a father. All the same, I fancy you've a little downer on old Wales. He's a good sort of chap, and there's nothing of the eel about him." ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... neither, for his was the parish bull; fait, I don't know what I mane, except that they had all horns on their heads, and vomited fire, and had each of them a tail at his stern, twisting and twining like a conger eel, with a blue light at ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... aboard and looked over into the water, we could see him going down out of reach of a harpoon; and his body seemed to be silver-plated, flashing and glittering like a burnished eel, so completely did the skin of air envelope him, held there by ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... the boys have gone to fish; They bothered me, too, to go, But for fun like that I hadn't a wish, For I think it's mighty "slow" To sit all day at the end of a rod For the sake of a minnow or two, Or to land, at the farthest, an eel on the sod: I'd rather have ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... should set himself to "cutting out the root of heresy with rigor and rude chastisement;"—such explosions of savage bigotry as these, alternating with exhibitions of revolting gluttony, with surfeits of sardine omelettes, Estramadura sausages, eel pies, pickled partridges, fat capons, quince syrups, iced beer, and flagons of Rhenish, relieved by copious draughts of senna and rhubarb, to which his horror-stricken doctor doomed him as he ate—compose ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... all have ossified spinal columns and limbs. The special interest attaching to the two first is that they represent a type of Labyrinthodonts hitherto unknown, and corresponding with Siren and Amphiuma among living Amphibia. Ophiderpeton, for example, is like an eel, about three feet long with small fore legs and ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... of game to be found in Missouri forests. As showing the chief varieties of fish, were exhibited rainbow trout, lake trout, brook trout, large-mouthed black bass, crappie, channel cat, buffalo, sunfish, perch, eel, and carp. ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... lair. Helped him with the white Sea-bass and Barracuda haul, Shared the Tuna's sprayful sport and heard his Hunter-call, Me an' Grey are fishin' friends.... Pals of rod and reel, Whether it's the sort that fights ... or th' humble eel, On and on, through Wonderland ... winds a-blowin' free, Catching all th' fins that grow ... Sportsman ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... does not respect oaths. Then why subject him to the test of oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why, then, he respects them. Turn which way you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious obligations as you are; but no eel in the well-sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the eve of being skinned, ever twisted and writhed as an orthodox parson does when he is compelled by the gripe of reason to admit anything in ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... small shoal of a handsome black-banded fish, called by the natives Acara bandeira (Mesonauta insignis, of Gunther), came gliding through at a slow pace, forming a very pretty sight. At another time, little troops of needle-fish, eel-like animals with excessively long and slender toothed jaws, sailed through the field, scattering before them the hosts of smaller fry; and at the rear of the needle-fishes, a strangely-shaped kind called Sarapo came wriggling along, one by one, with a slow movement. We ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... so shall it lie," said Wayne's voice out of the darkness, and it had the same sweet and yet horrible air that it had had throughout, of coming from a great distance, from before or after the event. Even when he was struggling like an eel or battering like a madman, he spoke like a spectator. "As the tree falleth, so shall it lie," he said. "Men have called that a gloomy text. It is the essence of all exultation. I am doing now what I have done all ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... moon, the stars, and the rivers. First he made the great eel (kasili), a fish that is like a snake in the river, and wound [31] it all around the world. Diwata then made the great crab (kayumang), and put it near the great eel, and let it go wherever it liked. Now, when the great crab bites the ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... It was striking to see the complete indifference with which even two little girls waded in the water in the face of the great monsters. Fortunately the latter appeared to be satisfied with their ample rations of fish. Four kinds of fish are said to be found in the lake, amongst them an eel; but we ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... bird, Mas'r Harry, and no mistake," muttered Tom, as he hastily set my uncle at liberty. "It was that darkness as done it. He slipped away like an eel just as ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... Hockins. Perhaps we may find room to stay where we are, after all, till morning. Come here, Ebony, you've got something of the eel about you. Try if you ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... am inclined to think that we were happy in proportion as we got tired, hungry, wet, and dirty. Mother never scolded us when we came home in this condition. Though we smelt terribly of mud and fish, and were often smeared over with the dried slime of a great slippery eel which had swallowed the hook, and coiled himself in knots all over our lines, and required three or four of the boys to cut off his head and get the hook out, yet all she did was to make us wash ourselves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... hilly and picturesque miles north of Fort Bragg, we turned again into the interior of Mendocino, crossing the ranges and coming out in Humboldt County on the south fork of Eel River at Garberville. Throughout the trip, from Marin County north, we had been warned of "bad roads ahead." Yet we never found those bad roads. We seemed always to be just ahead of them or behind them. The farther we came the better the roads seemed, though this was ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... to and fro between Billingsgate and our fleets of steam-trawlers on the Dogger Bank, most sailing trawlers and long-line fishing-boats were built with a large tank in their holds, through which the sea flowed freely. Dutch eel-boats are built so still, and along the quays of Amsterdam and Copenhagen you may see such tanks in fishing-boats of almost every kind. Our East Coast fishermen kept them chiefly for cod. They hoped thus to bring the fish fresh and good to market, for, unless they were overcrowded, the cod lived ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... angled for my own clothes with the dexterity and success of Izaak Walton himself. I caught my hat, my jacket, my waistcoat, my trousers, my fingers, and my thumbs—some devil possessed my hook; some more than eel-like vitality twirled and twisted in every inch of my line. By the time my host arrived to assist me, I had attached myself to my fishing-rod, apparently for life. All difficulties yielded, however, to his patience and skill; my hook was baited for ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... please, sir!' And here, Noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of Oliver Twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was at that ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... sick-room. His patience in gratifying her morbid fancies is graphically described in a vein of ridicule and he tells how by the hour he threaded what he terms her "imaginary locks." He also dwells at length upon her conversational powers and likens her tongue to the elasticity of an eel's tail, which would wag if it were skinned and fried. Charles Dudley Warner has described this writing of Mr. Willis as "funny but wicked"; it was more than that—it was cruel! Willis made another ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... mantel. At the same moment he sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife, and I lashed at him with the hammer. I got him somewhere; for the knife tinkled down on the floor. He dodged round the table as quick as an eel, and a moment later he'd got his gun from under his coat. I heard him cock it; but I had got hold of it before he could fire. I had it by the barrel, and we wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more. It was death to the man that lost ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... old," said the youth; "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever: Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— What ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... knows!" said Titus; "he's as slippery as an eel—and, like a cat, turn him which way you will, he is always sure to alight upon his legs. I wouldn't wonder but we lose him now, after all, though he has such a small start. That mare ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast, To continue and be employ'd there all my life, The briny and damp smell, the shore, the salt weeds exposed at low water, The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher; I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear, Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man; In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... has become of your famous General Eel?" said the Count d'Erleon to Mr. Campbell. "Eel," said a bystander, "that is a military fish I never heard of;" but another at once enlightened his mind by saying to the count, "General Lord Hill is now Commander-in-Chief ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... partnership, for the purpose of printing some expensive works, and styled themselves "the Printing Conger." The term "Conger" was supposed to have been at first applied to them invidiously, alluding to the conger eel, which is said to swallow the smaller fry; or it may possibly have been taken from congeries. The "Conger" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... time, the eel was safely landed on the wharf, and proved to be indeed a monster. It was a wonder that the children had ever been able to pull him in. Harvey tried to unhook him, but failed; for just as the boy thought he had him, ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... time, loaded, that gave more than a hint of some unknown—and therefore the more sinister—haunter of those muddied depths of pollution, who took a more than passing interest in the smell of blood, and must, to judge by the swirl, have been too big to be safe. And that was probably a giant female eel, as dangerous a foe as any swimmer of his size—though he ate eels—might care to face. Then there was the marsh-harrier—and the same might have been a kind of owl if it wasn't a sort of hawk—who flapped up like some gigantic moth, and dogged his steps, only ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... imperiousness of his will of desire over her to be led to look upon the Red One face to face. It was the old story, he recognized, that the woman must pay, and it occurred when the two of them, one day, were catching the unclassified and unnamed little black fish, an inch long, half-eel and half-scaled, rotund with salmon-golden roe, that frequented the fresh water, and that were esteemed, raw and whole, fresh or putrid, a perfect delicacy. Prone in the muck of the decaying jungle-floor, Balatta threw herself, clutching his ankles with ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... delighted to drive his canoe alone out into the storm. He fought with the monsters of the deep, as well as with men. He captured the great shark that abounds in the bay, and he would clutch in the fearful grip of his hands the deadly eel or snake of these seas, the terror of ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... ended in the triumphant eviction of Uncle Jim from the inn premises, there came next after a brief interval the futile invasions of the premises by Uncle Jim that culminated in the Battle of the Dead Eel, and after some months of involuntary truce there was the last supreme conflict of the Night Surprise. Each of these campaigns merits a section ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... followed us, to whom we called and beckoned him to come to us. On Bill saying a few words to him which I did not understand, the boy advanced to the edge of the pond and gave a low, peculiar whistle. Immediately the water became agitated, and an enormous eel thrust its head above the surface and allowed the youth to touch it. It was about twelve feet long, and as thick round the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... some o' these days he'll wheedle his men back wi' fair promises; that they'll just get cheated out of as soon as they're in his power again. He'll work his fines well out on 'em, I'll warrant. He's as slippery as an eel, he is. He's like a cat,—as sleek, and cunning, and fierce. It'll never be an honest up and down fight wi' him, as it will be wi' Thornton. Thornton's as dour as a door-nail; an obstinate chap, every inch on ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... quarry by the elbows from behind and keep out of the reach of her hands. But the tussle that ensues in the water is a short one, for the rescuer is no match for the supposed involuntary resistance of the convulsed suicide, who eludes the coming grasp of her hand with eel-like dexterity, and has her round the waist and drags her under water in ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... square a line, EEl, across what is to be the inside of the leg. The template is applied to the end side of the leg and moved up till its sloping edge occupies a position in which a perpendicular dropped on to it from C is 1/2 inch long. Mark the line EF (Fig. 2, b) and the perpendicular CG. The bevel is marked on the ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... tortoise-shells, teeth and claws of various beasts of prey, strips of skin from all kinds of animals, inflated gall bladders, bones, and pieces of wood. In his hand he carried a bag made by cutting the skin of a wild cat around the neck, and then tearing it off the body as one skins an eel. Out of this he drew a long, living, green snake (inusbwa, the boom-slang), which he hung over his shoulder, where it began to coil about, darting out its ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... could not bear the sight of it. I one day took it in my hand, and opened its mouth with a penknife, to show a gentleman how different it was from that of the adder, which I had dead by me: its teeth being no more formidable or terrific than the teeth of a trout or eel; while the mouth of the adder had two fangs, like the claws of a cat, attached to the roof of the mouth, no way connected with its jaw-teeth. While examining the snake in this manner, it began to smell most horridly, and filled the room with an abominable odour; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... trigger when the gun was whirled from his hands and a man who had stolen up from the back closed with him. The newcorner was slim, and Rogers felt that he might break him between his hands if he could only get a proper grip; but the drunken drover—for it was he—was as sinuous as an eel, and a moment later Joe was on the broad of his back with the 'darbies' on his wrists and a trooper kneeling on his chest, while the drover, transformed into Detective Downy, stood over them, mopping his face ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson |
