"Siamese" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... third day of the fifth moon. Ch'eng Jih-hsing, who is in that curio shop of ours, unexpectedly brought along, goodness knows where he fished them from, fresh lotus so thick and so long, so mealy and so crisp; melons of this size; and a Siamese porpoise, that long and that big, smoked with cedar, such as is sent as tribute from the kingdom of Siam. Are not these four presents, pray, rare delicacies? The porpoise is not only expensive, but difficult to get, and that kind of lotus and melon must have cost him no end of trouble ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of a different race, and the races ranged from France to Slovenia, from Persia to China and Syria. There were negroes and Siamese and Czecho-Slovaks in this remarkable collection of elements from whose fusion Canada of ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... 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. When Martha spoke, ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... the king being so doubtful, the advance of the Siamese army in this direction could not be regarded with indifference by the British. The town of Martaban was the centre of the Burmese military power in Tenasserim, and the advance towards it of the Siamese army would place it in direct communication with that of Burma. ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... noble effort of art, and well deserves the thanks of mankind. The cook too enlivens the consultation by telling marvellous stories about strange dishes he has seen. He has eaten serpents with the Siamese, monkeys in the West Indies, crocodiles and sloths in South America, and cats, rats, and dogs with the Chinese; and of course, as nobody can contradict him, says they are delicious. Like a salmon, you must give him the line, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... deplored, among their respective friends, the disastrous Siamese twinship created by a haphazard improvident Liberal camp. Look at us! they said:—Beauchamp is a young demagogue; Cougham is chrysalis Tory. Such Liberals are the ruin of Liberalism; but of such must it be composed when there is no new cry to loosen ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... children and two grandsons similarly affected.[5] The face and body being covered with long hair, accompanied by deficient teeth (to which I shall hereafter refer), occurred in three successive generations in a Siamese family; but this case is not unique, as a woman[6] with a completely hairy face was exhibited in London in 1663, and another instance has recently occurred. Colonel Hallam[7] has described a race of two-legged pigs, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... efficacy of that cure was heavy on him. To endure the unendurable, this was his burthen; to be yoked through time with this dolt and fool. Wretchedest of miserable fates, to loathe one's own soul, to find the most despicable of creatures enclosed within one's own skin. To play Siamese twin to a pustulous convict were a trifle beside this. To be your own black beast; to loathe your own soul; with a full heart to despise your own understanding—this is to start upon Despair's Last Journey in ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... of 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
... The Siamese Government has decided that the soldiers were in the wrong, and a lieutenant and four privates who took part in the affair have been severely reprimanded, and suspended from their regiments ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 51, October 28, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... clustered round her, daring from long acquaintance, pulling the skirts of her white robe with their dark fingers, and showing their brilliant teeth in expectation of a shower of glass beads. She greeted them with a quiet smile, but always had a few friendly words for a Siamese girl, a slave owned by Bulangi, whose numerous wives were said to be of a violent temper. Well-founded rumour said also that the domestic squabbles of that industrious cultivator ended generally in a combined assault of all his wives upon the Siamese slave. The girl herself ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... (our) pains—'tis enough—the pleasure of the experiment has kept (our) senses, and the best part of (our) blood awake, and laid the gross to sleep." In this way we find many good things, and banish the rest; we attempt to "boke something new," and revive others. Thus we have described the Siamese Twins in a single number; and in others we have brought to light many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829. • Various
... the chief causes of their master's death. Having the king in their hands, they forced him to subscribe with his own blood to such agreement as they pleased to dictate, taking some of the chief palapos [384] or priests for hostages, and so departed with much treasure after much violence, the Siamese being unable to right themselves. On this occasion the kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos rebelled, as did also one Banga de Laa in Pegu. The king of Laniangh, or Lanshang, in Laos, came last year, 1611, with an army into Siam, within three ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... something tragic to me in this Siamese-twins arrangement of two so uncongenial. I am at one and the same time pupil and teacher, offender and judge, performer and critic, chaperone and protegee, a prim, precise, old maid and a rollicking schoolgirl, a tomboy and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Asiatic Indians of Philipinas, then, are almost the same as those of the other nations of East India, in what regards their genius [genio], temper, and disposition. Consequently, the Malays, Siamese, Mogoles, and Canarines [108] are distinguished only by their clothing, languages and ceremonies. I except the Japanese (who are, as Gracian [109] learnedly remarked, the Spaniards of Asia) and the Chinese, who, by their culture and civilization, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... wears the garb of a Mohammedan who has been to Mecca, and is not displeased by the stare of tourists. The Sultan of Johore, in the hands of money-lenders through unfortunate turf ventures, spends as much time in the city as in his Malay sultanate. A prince of the Siamese king's ministry, in Singapore to bestow orders for bridges and river steamers, goes nightly to witness a feeble production of "The Girl from Kays," and whistles "Sammy" as ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... that there was scarcely a yard anywhere, and in some places not more than a foot, between them. Thus occasional branches and even bosses and boles formed a series of footholds that almost amounted to a rude natural ladder. They must, I supposed, have been some sport of growth, Siamese twins of vegetation. ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... runs down from lat. 13 degrees 50' N. to 1 degree 41' N. The northern part, forming the Isthmus of Kraw, which it is proposed to pierce for a ship canal, runs nearly due north and south for one hundred and forty miles, and is inhabited by a mixed race, mainly Siamese, called by the Malays Sansam. This Isthmus is under the rule of Siam, which is its northern boundary; and the northern and eastern States of Kedah, Patani, Kelantan, Pahang, and Tringganu, are more ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... captains, still reigned at Antioch and Alexandria. That barbarian warriors, led by barbarian chiefs, should win a pitched battle against Greek valor guided by Greek science, seemed as incredible as it would now seem that the Burmese or the Siamese should, in the open plain, put to flight an equal number of the best English troops. The Tarentines were convinced that their countrymen were irresistible in war; and this conviction had emboldened them to treat with the grossest indignity one whom ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... large ships, and the city was very anxious. For should those galleons be lost, then was lost the strength of the islands. But, finally, the Lord brought them safely home, which was not a little fortunate. In the course of their wanderings they seized two ships or junks, one belonging to Siamese, the other to Japanese. They sent the Siamese vessel to Manila, but sacked and even burned the Japanese vessel. It is said they found great riches on it. Who could know the truth? This was learned in Japon, whereupon the hate and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... Early History of Mankind, London, 1878, pp. 115 et seq.; also Coleman, p. 203, and Charton, Voyageurs anciens et modernes, tome i, pp. 365, 366, where engravings of one of the imprints, and of the temple above another, are seen. There are five which are considered authentic by the Siamese, and a multitude of others more or less strongly insisted upon. For the imprint os Moses' body, see travellers from Sir John Mandeville down. For the mark of Neptune's trident, see last edition of Murray's Handbook of Greece, vol. i, p. 322; and Burnouf, La Legende Athenienne, p. 153. For imprint ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... 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 ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... discovery, nor did I make any remarks on the astonishing love that existed between these Siamese twins; still, I kept my eye on Ormond's barracoon until I found his stock had gradually augmented to three hundred. Thereupon, I dropped in one morning unceremoniously, and, in a gentle voice, told him of his treacherous design. My ancient patron was ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... only because thousands of people had told him so—people only half liars, too; who did, in the depths of their slavish respect, admire the man almost as much as they said they did. If, when he appeared in his five-hundred-million coat, as he is said to have done, before the Siamese ambassadors, the courtiers began to shade their eyes and long for parasols, as if this Bourbonic sun was too hot for them; indeed, it is no wonder that he should believe that there was something dazzling about his person: he had half a million of eager testimonies to this idea. Who ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out. But I could figure there's a monkey wrench somewhere—and since the two of you have been sticking together like Siamese twins, I know it will be perfectly all right to ask ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... 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 his pen ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... original exchanges of social degradations between the civilised man and the savage, the savage getting very much the worst of the bargain, so the practices largely disappear together. Pipe and glass, cigar and sherry-cobbler, like the Siamese twins, who could only live connected, have both died out in our model city. Tobacco, by far the most innocent partner of the firm, lived, as it perhaps deserved to do, a little the longest; but it passed away, and the tobacconist's ...
— Hygeia, a City of Health • Benjamin Ward Richardson
... dependent state of Manipur, by the Mishmi hills, and by portions of Chinese territory; on the E. by the Chinese Shan States, portions of the province of Yunnan, the French province of Indo-China, and the Siamese Shan, or Lao States and Siam; on the S. by the Siamese Malay States and the Bay of Bengal; and on the W. by the Bay of Bengal and Chittagong. The coast-line from Taknaf, the mouth of the Naaf, in the Akyab district on the north, to the estuary of the Pakchan at Maliwun on the south, is about ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... you must understand," he said, "that it's all due to Coddy here. We heard something of it from an old Siamese in Hanoi, but we never put much trust in it. Then Coddy began to look around, to hunt up some of his fusty records, and after awhile he began to think that there might be something in the story after all. You see it's this way: ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... scoundrel; you COULDN'T have been anything else, however your lot was cast; and blessed it was that you were born among the prigs,—for had you been of any other profession, alas! alas! what ills might you have done! As I have heard the author of "Richelieu," "Siamese Twins," etc. say "Poeta nascitur non fit," which means that though he had tried ever so much to be a poet, it was all moonshine: in the like manner, I say, "ROAGUS nascitur, non fit." We have it from nature, and so a ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 shading maples. Midway between the two Centres these dwellings stand further ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... wish to reap the full advantages of a blockade of the Siamese coast they must be prepared, by becoming belligerent, to face the disadvantages which may result from the performance by this country of her duties as ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... enough wantonness to capture a multitude of readers, the Lettres Persanes (1721) contain a serious criticism of French society in the years of the Regency. It matters little that the idea of the book may have been suggested by the Siamese travellers of Dufresny's Amusements; the treatment is essentially original. Things Oriental were in fashion—Galland had translated the Arabian Nights (1704-1708)—and Montesquieu delighted in books of travel which told of the manners, customs, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... places, where one could land for a little on the slope of the orchestra, but a sort of horror prevented one from staying long, and made one plunge back again into the dead waters. Then my dream changed, and I was a sort of Siamese pirate, on a very high deck with several others. The ship was almost captured, and we were fighting desperately. The hideous engines we used and the perfectly incredible carnage that we effected by means of them kept me cheery, as you may imagine; especially as I felt all the time ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... if a gentleman sticks a pin in his choker, you may be sure it has not a head as big as a potatoe, and is not a sort of Siamese Twin pin, connected by a bit of chain, or an imitation precious stone, or Mosaic gold concern. If he wears studs, they are plain, and have cost not less at the least than five guineas the set. Neither does he ever make a High Sheriff of himself, with chains dangling over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... 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, the cook, got breakfast to the tune of "St. Patrick's day in the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... we lay presented an animated scene, from the arrival and departure of native boats, with fruit, vegetables, and live stock, as well as from the numbers of neat sampans plying for hire, or attending upon the commanders of vessels; while at anchor were numbers of the Cochin-Chinese, Siamese, and Chinese junks, as well as the Bugis and other prahus from all the ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... requirements, was continued in command of the Nan-Shan, and applied himself to the careful navigation of his ship in the China seas. She had come out on a British register, but after some time Messrs. Sigg judged it expedient to transfer her to the Siamese flag. ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... postulating as the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. Contemporaneously, a heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate Madden and Mr Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological dilemma created in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other, the difficulty by mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom for instant submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... generally rude. When he had risen in the House to make his maiden speech, calling the attention of the Speaker to what he described as 'a thorough draught', he had addressed himself with such severity to that official, that a party of Siamese noblemen, who, though not knowing a word of English, had come to listen to the debate, had gone away with the impression that he was the prime minister. No wonder the ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... that pervades the Orient, if it is not due to the inheritance of a common psychic nature, to what is it due? Surely to the possession of a common civilization and social order. It would be hard to prove that Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Siamese, Burmese, Hindus (and how many distinct races does the ethnologist find in India), Persians, and Turks are all descendants from a common ancestry and are possessed therefore by physical heredity of a common racial psychic nature. Yet such is the requirement of the theory we are opposing. ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... smiled Susan, showing her dimples. "You see, Marjorie and Connie are inseparable, so, of course, we naturally mistook you for her. I never saw two girls look so much alike. If we have a fancy dress party this year you two can surely go as the Siamese Twins. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... of 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 ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the Hudson, ascended the Niagara from Lewiston to the famous Falls, made his way thence to Fort St. George on the Ontario, crossed the lake, landed at York, the capital of Upper Canada (sic), passed Lakes Siamese, Huron, and Superior, where he was joined by twenty-four Canadians, and on the 29th June, 1825, came to Lake Methye, then alive ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... is said by those who are in a position to know that there are no better cats shown in England now than can be seen at the Beresford Show in Chicago. The exhibits cover short and long haired cats of all colors, sizes, and ages, with Siamese cats, Manx cats, and Russian cats. At the show in January, 1900, Mrs. Clinton Locke exhibited fourteen cats of one color, and Mrs. Josiah Cratty five white cats. This club numbers one hundred and ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... a watery grave. Fortunately, there were no passengers. Homeward-bound China ships are not encumbered in that way, unless to astonish the metropolis with such monstrosities as the mermaid, or as the Siamese twins, coupled by nature like two hounds (separated lately indeed by Lytton Bulwer, who has satisfactorily proved that "unity between brethren," so generally esteemed a blessing, on the contrary, is a bore). In a short time all ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... theology and theogony, which has been gradually forgotten or perverted by succeeding ages to the purposes of a ridiculous superstition. It is elaborately carved and painted with numerous symbols, each of which has a profound significance. The liturgy of the Siamese connected with it consists of fifty measured lines of eight syllables each, and contains the names of a hundred and eight distinct symbolical objects,—such as the lion, the elephant, the sun and moon in their cars drawn by oxen, the ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... was seriously engaged upon Two Books at the same time, and it was by the merest accident that they did not appear simultaneously. As it was, only a few months divided one from the other, and they are always, in my own mind, inseparable, or Siamese, twins. The book of poems called Undertones was the one; the book of poems called Idyls and Legends of Inverburn was the other. They were published nearly thirty years ago, when I was still a boy, and ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... like a thumb and finger of a buried hand. Soon after, he passed through the belt of black tents which at all seasons encircles Oued Tolga as a girdle encircles the waist of an Ouled Nail, and so he rode into the strange city. The houses were crowded together, two with one wall between, like Siamese twins, and they had the pale yellow-brown colour of honeycomb, in the evening light. The roughness of the old, old bricks, made of baked sand, gave an effect of many little cells; so that the honeycomb effect was intensified; and the sand which flowed in small ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a figure to look like a gentleman. The showman seemed very proud of Ellen Jewett, and spoke of her somewhat as if this wax-figure were a real creation. Strong and Mrs. Whipple, who together murdered the husband of the latter. Lastly the Siamese twins. The showman is careful to call his exhibition the "Statuary." He walks to and fro before the figures, talking of the history of the persons, the moral lessons to be drawn therefrom, and especially ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the other animals already housed in their adjoining rooms. Out in the garden there were pigeons fluttering in and out of a cote, and hens solemnly inspecting the newly-seeded flower-beds. A big silver Persian cat, and a smaller yellow Siamese one regularly attended breakfasts, and Rags irregularly attended everything. The cats were Mr. Hoover's favorites. He liked to have one on his ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... at the other men, and March said: "You ought to be in charge of a Siamese white elephant, Fulkerson. It's a disgrace to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... great annoyance to George. He was constantly obliged to bear their ridicule because he would not conform to their habits, and sometimes the insults he received were almost beyond his power of endurance. He and Hardy received the name of the "Siamese youths," and were generally greeted with such salutations as "How d'ye do? Is mamma pretty well?"—or something equally galling. But George bore it all with exemplary patience, and he did not doubt that after a while ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... southren climates constitutionally excel, from a sensibility more exquisite than is the attribute of the more northern people; but a sensibility ballanced by too many disadvantages to be envied them. The Siamese, we are told, have three dances, called the Cone, the Lacone, and the Raban. The Cone is a figure-dance, in which they use particularly a string-instrument in the nature of a violin, with some others of the Asiatic make. Those who dance are armed and masked, and seem to be a fighting ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... 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 that beyond his ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... things: of the bark of willows and linden trees, ropes are sometimes made. The Siamese make their cordage of the cocoa tree bark, as do most of the Asiatic and African nations; in the East Indies, they make the bark of a certain tree into a kind of cloth; some are used in medicines, as the Peruvian ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... Gentleman. And this is much to his credit, for the Perfect Gentleman, as thus wistfully contemplated, is a high ideal of human behavior, although, in the narrower but honest admiration of many, he is also a Perfect Ass. Thus, indeed, he comes down the centuries—a sort of Siamese Twins, each miraculously visible only to its own admirers; a worthy personage proceeding at one end of the connecting cartilage, and a popinjay prancing at the other. Emerson was, and described, one twin when he wrote, 'The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, and ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... eclipse of the moon. This belief in a monster swallowing the moon and the wild efforts to frighten it away are very widespread. It is found among the Batak of Palawan and in other parts of Malaysia as well as in the South Sea, Mongol, Chinese, Siamese, and Hindoo mythology. Even in Peru we find the belief that an evil spirit in the form of a beast was eating the moon, and that in order to scare it the people shouted and yelled and beat their dogs to make them add to the noise. ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... worn the stones away. Often when the wind was favorable, they intrusted themselves to their kites, and slipping the ropes, flew to the opposite side of the bay, forerunners in the air of a certain Lyonnais of 1783, and contemporaneous with the Siamese who centuries ago indulged their levitative dreams ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... I distinguished two horses walking slowly abreast, jammed together; the riders presenting an indistinct outline of two individuals rolled into one; and it was from this amalgamation that the low, pigeon-like murmurs proceeded. An instinct of delicacy prompted me to pause, and let the Siamese twins pass in peace; but, unfortunately, I happened to be straight in the way, and just as I started to creep aside, one of the horses extended his neck, and, with a low, protracted snore, touched me on the back with the coarse velvet of his nose. Then followed two quick snorts of alarm; the horses ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... them thin, and in short skirts, were already pirouetting, and humming airs. Older girls stood about with their legs crossed, or, half-stooping, displayed their bosoms while retying the laces of their pink shoes. Others, wearing a kind of Siamese headdress with ornaments of gold, were laughing and clashing together their little silver cymbals. Awkward fellows with false beards, dressed like high priests in robes of yellow, striped with red, elbowed past and jostled against the girls quite unceremoniously. An usher, dressed a la Francaise, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... those Islands and China have been maintained for centuries. What is most objectionable and unfair is that the Chinese should be singled out for discrimination, while all other Asiatics such as Japanese, Siamese, and Malays are allowed to enter America and her colonies without restraint. It is my belief that the gross injustice that has been inflicted upon the Chinese people by the harsh working of the exclusion law is not known to the ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... volunteered to show to people, with his handkerchief to his eyes. Every fine evening, about sunset, these two, the cook and steward, used to sit on the little shelf in the cook-house, leaning up against each other like the Siamese twins, to keep from falling off, for the shelf was very short; and there they would stay till after dark, smoking their pipes, and gossiping about the events that had happened during the day in the cabin. And sometimes Mr. Thompson would take ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... influence reaching into present-day Cambodia and Thailand, as well as over all of what is now Laos. After centuries of gradual decline, Laos came under the domination of Siam (Thailand) from the late 18th century until the late 19th century when it became part of French Indochina. The Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1907 defined the current Lao border with Thailand. In 1975, the Communist Pathet Lao took control of the government ending a six-century-old monarchy and instituting a strict socialist regime closely aligned to Vietnam. A ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... those who have skill to seize peculiarities which do not amount to deformity. The 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 of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of Seurat we do not know, but we lately came across the following: "the Siamese twins married; the living skeleton was crossed in love, but afterwards consoled himself with a corpulent widow." The authority is George Augustus Sala in "Twice Round the Clock." We strongly suspect that the wit extracted the information out of ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... witness in the child excessive development, as five fingers, a large cranium, which results in dropsical effusion, or deficient brain, as in idiots; sometimes a hand or arm is lacking, or possibly there is a dual connection, as in the case of the Siamese twins; or, two heads united on one body. It is difficult to give any satisfactory explanation of these abnormal developments. From age to age, the type is constant, and preserves a race-unity. The crossings ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... world's smallest human being; age, forty-two years, eight months; height, twenty-eight inches; weight, fourteen and one-half pounds, certified scales. Enter and see the original and only authentic Siamese Twins! The Ossified Man! You are cordially invited to stick pins into this mystery of the whole medical world. Jastrow, the world's most famous strong man end glass-eater, will perform his world-startling feats. Show about to begin! Our ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... uniformity until they are as indistinguishable as a bag of unpainted marbles or of black-eyed peas; and, if God had intended that we should all invariably think, feel, and act after one pattern, He would have populated the world with Siamese twins; whereas, the first couple that were born on earth were so dissimilar that all the universe was not wide enough to hold them both, and manslaughter began when the race only numbered a quartette. If mankind had not arrogated the privilege of being its 'brother's keeper,' ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... up the river a few miles, and then returned for His Majesty to disembark at his own palace. King George occasionally wears the full English dress, either civil or military, but generally only the hat, coat, linen and shoes, with the Siamese pah-nung in lieu of pantaloons. The regent, the minister of foreign affairs and many of the princes and nobles have adopted this mongrel costume, and, to a greater or less extent, our language, manner of living and forms of etiquette. Visitors to the kings now ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... believed his peculiarity was due to the fact that his mother while carrying him in utero was knocked down at the circus by an elephant. In some countries the exhibition of monstrosities is forbidden because of the supposed danger of maternal impression. The celebrated "Siamese Twins" for this reason were forbidden to exhibit themselves for quite ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... with the entire management of family affairs, in order that Mr. Judson might not be interrupted in prosecuting the study of the language, yet she made more rapid progress in acquiring it than he did. Subsequently, she studied the Siamese language also, and translated a Catechism and one of the Gospels into that tongue. As soon as she was able to make herself understood, she diligently endeavored to impart the knowledge of the truth, as it is in Jesus, to those who would ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... an important part in the national life, and the present King has greatly encouraged the art. Both men and women all over the country are more or less musical, and a great number play some form of instrument, often joining in concerted music. The Siamese have four kinds of bands, divided, as we divide our orchestras, into brass or stringed bands, each with a certain combination of instruments. Some years ago, at one of the London Exhibitions, the King of Siam sent ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... tropical. It has, however, fine parks, streets and open places. The principal hotel is the "Raffles," which I should imagine is also the worst. The most notable feature of Singapore is the variety of "natives" domiciled there—Ceylonese, Burmese, Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, Hindoos and Malays. After leaving Singapore we looked in at Penang, where we had time to inspect a famous Chinese temple. An American Army General, D——, and his wife were among the passengers, and I found much pleasure in their company; ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... accordingly taken exceeding pains to find out the reason of this harsh restriction. We think we have succeeded; but, while admiring the principle at which he aimed, and while cordially recognising in the Siamese potentate the only man before ourselves who had taken a real grasp of the umbrella, we must be allowed to point out how unphilosophically the great man acted in this particular. His object, plainly, was to prevent any unworthy persons from bearing the sacred symbol of domestic ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... BALLOEN. A Siamese decorated state-galley, imitating a sea-monster, with from seventy to a hundred oars ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... far as I know it has turned out that almost everybody all over the world has a mind. Nobody nowadays travels, even in Central America or Thibet, without bringing back a chapter on "The Mind of Costa Rica," or on the "Psychology of the Mongolian." Even the gentler peoples such as the Burmese, the Siamese, the Hawaiians, and the Russians, though they have no minds are written ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... 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
... Tavor was the last year. When the ambulance picked him up, he'd crawled around the Horn in a Siamese tramp." ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post |
