"Siamese" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... get married. We may be helping towards furnishing the home. There was a Siamese prince fellow at my dame's at Eton who had four wives when he arrived, and gathered in a fifth during his first summer holidays. It was done on the correspondence system. His Prime Minister fixed it up at the other end, and sent him the glad news ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... women, with gaily-colored scarfs around their heads and children in their arms; Poles in shabby coats and astrakhan caps; tall blond Scandinavians, square-jawed, cool-blooded and patient; short, sturdy Italians with felt hats and gay cravats; a handful of pale-brown Siamese jugglers or gymnasts with flat gold-embroidered caps on, and tired, listless faces, melancholy and pallid from cold and seasickness. And amid this dirty chattering human assemblage, devouring nuts and oranges, sometimes making music and gaming, all half dulled and frightened by the usual ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... a great deal of Louis XIV., whom Crebillon had known well for fifteen years, and he related several very curious anecdotes which were generally unknown. Amongst other things he assured me that the Siamese ambassadors were cheats paid by Madame de Maintenon. He told us likewise that he had never finished his tragedy of Cromwell, because the king had told him one day not to wear out ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... one of its returns, in 1846, it astonished its watchers by suddenly splitting in two. The two comets thus formed out of one separated to a distance of about one hundred and sixty thousand miles, and then raced side by side, sometimes with a curious ligature connecting them, like Siamese twins, until they disappeared together in interplanetary space. In 1852 they came back, still nearly side by side, but now the distance between them had increased to a million and a quarter of miles. After that, at every recurrence of their period, astronomers looked ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... unravel a knotty problem or hold his peace as he chose. He missed Tommy. But he knew that although they had been partners over a hard country, had bucked a hard trail like men and grown nearer to each other in the stress of it, they could not be Siamese twins. His road and Tommy's road was bound to fork. A man had to follow his individual inclination, to live his own life according to his lights. And Tommy's was for town and the business world, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... custom. Others in South America double up the corpse, turning the face to the east. The Peruvians place their mummies in a sitting position, looking to the west; the natives of Jesso also turn the head to the west. The modern Siamese never sleep with their faces turned to the west, because this is the attitude in which they place their dead before burning them on the funeral pile. Finally, the Greeks and all other peoples, both civilized and barbarous, including ourselves, had and continue to have special customs ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... in the sinister prophetic properties of the owl confined to the white races; we find it everywhere—among the Red Indians. West Africans, Siamese, and Aborigines of Australia. ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Siam, enumerates three species of fishes which leave the tanks and channels and traverse the damp grass[1]; and Sir John Bowring, in his account of the embassy to the Siamese kings in 1855, states, that in ascending and descending the river Meinam to Bankok, he was amused with the novel sight of fish leaving the river, gliding over the wet banks, and losing themselves amongst the trees of ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... written very legibly in Siamese. Two workmen lose their sight and the small command of language ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... must needs call him, for dear was his friendship to me; at least, I have paid for it dearly. At our first meeting he told me that henceforth we should stick to each other like the Siamese twins. And the man whom he thought worth catching was clever indeed if he could extricate himself from the meshes which encircled him. He was altogether a wonderful fellow. Of athletic build, striking beauty, great agility and versatility in all ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... building of brownstone about which there was the poetry of a prison. Inside, great folds of lace swept down in orderly cascades, as water trained to fall mathematically. The colossal chandelier, gleaming like a Siamese headdress, caught the subtle flashes from ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... pleasure under the same curse with vice; but sects are cometic, and are not to be judged of after the generalisations of national character. Practically, we find that rigidness and vice, amusements and morality, go together, Siamese-like. In the year of the Crystal Palace, the London magistrates had fewer petty criminals brought before them than at any other period of the same duration; and what Mr Wilson proves in his cricket-ground, what London shewed in the time of the World's Fair, generations and countries would always ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... labored with a Siamese joint hose throwing a stream as big as a man's thigh. It got away from them, and for a while there was panic and a struggle up on the heights as well as in the street. The throbbing hose bounded over the roof, thrashing right and left, and flinging ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... addition very dark; the noise of coaling and shifting cargo was incessant, and the roaring of the water between the two ships most disturbing. Before she sailed away the Prize Captain handed to my wife most of her jewels which had been recovered from the bottom of our lifeboat. As many of these were Siamese jewellery and unobtainable now, we were very rejoiced to obtain possession of them again, but many rings were missing and were ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... Complices, and Novensiles, are all disguised relics of the Atlanteans; while the Etruscan arts of soothsaying their Disciplina revealed by Tages comes direct and in undisguised form from the Atlantean king Thevetat, the "invisible" Dragon, whose name survives to this day among the Siamese and Burmese, as also, in the Jataka allegorical stories of the Buddhists as the opposing power under the name of Devadat. And Tages was the son of Thevetat, before he became the grandson of the Etruscan Jupiter-Tinia. Have the Western Orientalists ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. * * * The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this they generally eat a ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... slighter those peculiarities, the greater is the merit of the limner who can catch them and transfer them to his canvas. To paint Daniel Lambert or the living skeleton, the pig-faced lady or the Siamese twins, so that nobody can mistake them, is an exploit within the reach of a sign painter. A thirdrate artist might give us the squint of Wilkes, and the depressed nose and protuberant cheeks of Gibbon. It would require a much higher degree ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... possibly needless, to ask readers to keep clearly in mind that the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, while knit together like the Siamese twins, are distinct geographical entities. A leading British periodical once accused the writer of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Caribbean Sea, because of his unwillingness to admit the name of any other state in connection with a body of water over which his own country claimed predominance. ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... assistance I was able to catechize him. He did not deny that his people were "papagentes," but he declared that they confined the practice to slain enemies. He told a number of classical tales about double men, attached, not like the Siamese twins, but dos-a-dos; of tribes whose feet acted as parasols, the Plinian Sciapodae and the Persian Tasmeh- pa, and of mermen who live and sleep in the inner waters—I also heard this from M. Parrot, a palpable believer. He described his journey down the great river, and declared ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... not attempt any piece of duty or work separately. They always acted together, when possible; and might, in fact, without much inconvenience, have been born Siamese twins. Whatever Martha did, Jane attempted to do or to mend; wherever Jane went, Martha followed. Not, by any means, that one thought she could improve upon the work of the other; their conduct was simply the result of a desire to assist each other mutually. ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... response to the resolution of the Senate of February 24, 1897, a report from the Secretary of State, in relation to the claim of M.A. Cheek against the Siamese ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... a kingdom is relatively modern but like Burma it has been subject to several influences. The Siamese probably brought some form of Buddhism with them when they descended from the north to their present territories. From the Cambojans, their neighbours and at one time their suzerains, they must have acquired some Hinduism and Mahayanism, but they ended ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... beliefs of those ancient people have questioned me on the strange idea of burying such beautiful objects of art at so great a depth, yet the reason is very simple. The nations that inhabited the whole of Central America—the Mayas, the Nahuas, the Caras or Carians—had, with the Siamese even of to-day, and the Egyptians of old, many notions in common concerning the immortality of the soul, and its existence after its earthly mission was accomplished. They believed that the sentient and intelligent principle, pixan, which inhabits the body, survived the death of that ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... proved by the study of Indo-Chinese comparative philology) who moved into the present territory of Tibet and are known as Tibetans; in what is now the province of Yuennan were the Shan or Ai-lao (modern Laos), who, forced by Mongol invasions, emigrated to the peninsula in the south and became the Siamese; and in Indo-China, not related to the Chinese, were the Annamese, Khmer, Mon, Khasi, Colarains (whose remnants are dispersed over the hill tracts of Central India), and other tribes, extending in prehistoric times into Southern China, but subsequently ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... affecting the distribution of plants, and the lower animals, materially influence the migrations of man also; and as the botany, zoology, and climate of the Malayan and Siamese peninsula advance far westwards into India, along the foot of the Himalaya, so do also the varieties of the human race. These features are most conspicuously displayed in the natives of Assam, on both sides ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... actuality of the possible as possible. Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Prince of Siam visited St. Louis and was the guest of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company. His entertainment was so generous and his reception throughout the entire country so cordial that he decided to use his influence toward inducing His Siamese Majesty to participate in the exposition of 1904. The plan, consequently, that suggested itself as to the character of Siam's display was to send to St. Louis the most interesting articles and the best examples ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... do not know, the City of Penang lies on the western coast of the Malay Peninsula, just below the Siamese border. It is the shipping point of the Federated Malay States, where 65 per cent. of the world's tin is produced, as well as a great amount of rubber and copra. With a population of 246,000, it is growing by leaps and bounds and gives every ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... in the shoemaking trade, for are they not now got up of American leather, brass nails, and other abominations, free of import duty! My master, I remember, came for me (please consider that I am also representing my brother, for, like the Siamese twins, the one can do nothing without the other) on a Saturday. He told the old man that he was going to play a match with the Leven Crowers that very afternoon, and must have me. I was barely finished, but Tate's son got the bars put on ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... any of these islands are found many small white snail shells, called siguei. The natives gather them and sell them by measure to the Siamese, Cambodians, Pantanes, and other peoples of the mainland. It serves there as money, and those nations trade with it, as they do with cacao-beans in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... likewise in ancient Rome, and the custom may yet be found among the tent-gypsies of Transylvania, in Persia, and even within the present century has been met with in Naples and Gottingen. The Maori mother, in like manner, suckles young pigs, the Arawak Indian of Guiana young monkeys (as also do the Siamese), the natives of Kamtschatka young bears. An old legend of the city of Breslau has it that the fashion certain ladies have of carrying dogs around with them originated in the fact that Duke Boleslau, in the last quarter of the eleventh century, punished the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... dragon appeared to brandish his forked tail as he clawed at the Burmese peacock; the double-headed eagle of Russia pecked at the Turkish crescent with one beak, while the other seemed to be screaming to the English royal beast, "Come on and lend a paw." In the hurry of hoisting the Siamese elephant got turned upside down, and now danced gayly on his head, with the stars and stripes waving proudly over him. A green flag with a yellow harp and sprig of shamrock hung in sight of the kitchen window, and Katy, ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... protection of the Chinese. There are no more charming people in the world than the Shans. They are courteous, hospitable, and honest, with all the virtues and few of the vices of Orientals. "The elder brothers of the Siamese, they came originally from the Chinese province of Szechuen, and they can boast of a civilisation dating from twenty-three centuries B.C." So Terrien de Lacouperie tells us, who had a happy faculty of drawing upon his imagination ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... were flashing across our minds, the men kept approaching us, and at length their leader introduced himself as the captain of a Siamese man-of-war. He informed us, in broken English, that he had not long arrived with the Governor of Bangkok, who was proceeding for the rest of the way to Pekin by land. Our fears were gradually dispelled, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... inconceivable how Mrs. Wilton and Miss Pamela, with no actual consultations to that end, practised economies and maintained luxuries. They seemed to move with a spiritual unity like the physical one of the Siamese twins. Meagre meals served magnificently, the most splendid conservatism with the smallest possible amount of comfort, ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... reached the city of Ganggayon. It was formerly a great city, the black stones of whose fortress survive even to this day. This fortress is at the extremity of the river Djoher. The name Ganggayon in the Siamese tongue means "treasury of emeralds." The King of the city was Rajah Tchoulin; he was a powerful prince, to whom all the kings of ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... Malays but numerous other races are represented there, especially Chinese and Indians. Without much trouble I succeeded in engaging the services of five porters: a Malay, an Indian, a Chinese, a Siamese and a Sam-Sam, quite a lad. Together they formed a little Babel which I congratulated myself would prove of great help in ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... arrangement of the roads meeting at that point, while the farther assemblage of houses bears a similar appellation, "The Four Corners," for a similar reason. The two parts of the town are in reality two distinct villages, although existing as one corporate body, and are banded together like the Siamese twins by a road leading directly from the heart of one to that of the other. On each side of this rural street, at neighborly distances, stand pretty white cottages, a story and a half high, nestling behind white fences under ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... flags; the troops, on the other hand, seizing every chance of entertaining friends and foes alike with instrumental music, comic, sentimental, and patriotic songs. Even on the warpath, tragedy and comedy seem as inseparable as the Siamese twins; in proof whereof here follows the programme of one such soldierly effort to aid a local church charity in ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... Grierson's and Kuhn's linguistic conclusions, to ascertain whether any of the Mon-Khmer people in Anam and Cambodia and neighbouring countries possess social customs in common with the Khasis. In case it may be possible for French and Siamese ethnologists in Further India to follow up these inquiries at some subsequent date, it may be stated that information regarding social customs is required with reference to the people who speak the following ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... Schleswig-Holstein should be permitted to join the German Federation. Holstein was a German fief, Schleswig was a Danish fief; unfortunately an old law linked them together in some mysterious fashion, as indissolubly as Siamese twins. Both wanted to join the Federation. Holstein had a good legal claim to do as it liked in this respect, Schleswig a bad one; but the law declared that both must be under the same government. Prussia interfered on behalf of the duchies; England, Austria, ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... restorations. In the S. wall of the nave is the recumbent effigy of a layman (cp. Cleeve). Beneath the tower is a tablet commemorating a local "freak"—the two ladies of Foxcote, who appear to have been an early edition of the Siamese Twins. A neighbouring garden contains a good Elizabethan dovecot. Norton St Philip claims to possess the oldest licensed house in England—the George—a stately 15th cent. hostelry standing at the top of the village. It is a fine old half-timbered building, with a small bay window in front and ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... of official barbarity was perpetrated at our expense while Sanchez de Toca was Alcalde. This gentleman is a Siamese twin of Maura's when it comes to garrulousness and muddy thinking, and he had resolved to do away with the distribution of bread by public delivery, and to license only deliveries by private bakeries. The order was arbitrary enough, but the manner ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... march without the path. And even as they watched and waited, so at Petersburg and Richmond a small but sleepless David watched the grim Goliath, stretched in its huge bulk before their gates. Ceaselessly the trains flashed back and forth over the iron link between those two cities—now Siamese-twinned with a vital bond of endurance and endeavor. Petersburg, sitting defiant in her circle of fire, worked grimly, ceaselessly—with what hope she might! and Richmond worked for her, feeling that every drop of blood she lost was from ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon |
