"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sorrel like to know what noise really was? Then let him be hooked into a triple Boston backing hitch and snake a truck down West Street, with the whiffle-trees slatting in front of him, the spreader-bar rapping jig time on the poles, and the gongs of street-cars and automobiles and fire-engines and ambulances all going at once. Noise? Let him mix in a Canal Street jam ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... with the cause of her frightful vision, but as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she saw something more real and appalling! The well was no longer sealed! Fragments of bricks and boards lay around it! One end of a rope, coiled around it like a huge snake, descended its foul depths; and as she gazed with staring eyes, the head and shoulders of a man emerged slowly from it! But it was NOT the ghostly apparition of last evening, and her terror changed to scorn and indignation as she recognized the ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the omens to individuals is more strongly emphasized than in the series of birth portents. Naturally so, for it was the individual as a general thing who encountered the signs. In the case of the appearance of a serpent or snake, for example, the omen consisted in the fact that a certain person beheld it, and that person was involved in the consequences. Fine distinctions are again introduced that illustrate the intricacies ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... Mr. Bingham jumped out of the carriage and knocked it down with his hat; but it was so like the colour of leaves in grass that in the twilight nobody could distinguish it, and, to our great disappointment, we could not find it. We were equally unsuccessful in our attempted capture of a water-snake a couple of feet long. We threw sticks and stones and our syce waded into the stream, but all to no purpose; it glided away into some safe little hole ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... seemed to have that effect. With a loud oath, Blacksnake cracked his whip like a pistol shot. The whip was as strong and tough as a bull whip, with a loaded stock and a long, braided lash, thick in the middle, like a snake. The outlaw had aimed for The Kid's thigh, and he was an expert with it. The lash landed with such cutting force that it cut through the Texan's clothing and ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... to the resolution. The act of resolving is always the act of an instant. And when men are plunged in darkness and profligacy, as are, perhaps, some of my hearers now, there is far more chance of their casting off their evil by a sudden jerk than of their unwinding the snake by slow degrees from their arms. There is no reason whatever why the soundest and solidest and most lasting transformation of character should not begin in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... no fire. The flood had put out all the fires in the world. They looked at the moon and wished they could secure fire from it. Then the Spider Indians and the Snake Indians formed a plan to steal fire. The Spiders wove a very light balloon, and fastened it by a long rope to the earth. Then they climbed into the balloon and started for the moon. But the Indians of the Moon were suspicious of the Earth Indians. The Spiders said, "We came to ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... The snake had flopped from its hollow, plunged at full length aside; had started to crawl, writhing, dragging its hinder parts. But with a swoop the pony arrived before we were noting; the recruit plumped into the hollow; and bending over in his swift circle the courier snatched the snake ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Cowper was in good spirits his joy, intensified by sensibility and past suffering, played like a fountain of light on all the little incidents of his quiet life. An ink-glass, a flatting mill, a halibut served up for dinner, the killing of a snake in the garden, the arrival of a friend wet after a Journey, a cat shut up in a drawer, sufficed to elicit a little jet of poetical delight, the highest and brightest jet of all being John Gilpin. Lady Austen's voice ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... time, his aspect was nearly that of a man. He held his head erect, the cringe disappeared from his back, the obsequiousness from his manner. Then while an eye might wink, he took on the appearance of a snake with high-held ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... stopped near a huge pile of rocks at the road-side to gather some flowers for her teacher. She found a great many, and, among others, some which she had never seen before. As she stooped forward hastily to pluck them, she heard a sound close by her. Looking quickly about her, she spied a large snake just below her naked feet, among the loose stones. Uttering a loud scream, she sprang terrified from the spot; nor did she slacken her speed until she reached the schoolhouse, her delicate feet cut and bleeding in several ...
— The Allis Family; or, Scenes of Western Life • American Sunday School Union
... rising from the water, coiled around its stem a snake, whose efforts fail to reach ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... river—scarce less defined in its margin than the river itself, for it winded wherever the stream winded, and ran straight as an arrow wherever the stream ran straight—occupied the whole length of the valley, like an enormous snake lying uncoiled in its den. The numerous turf cottages on either side were invisible in the darkness, save that ever and anon the brief twinkle of a light indicated their existence and their places. In a recess of the stream the torch of some adventurous fisher ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... you're the only man in the Sage-Brush State who needs enlightening. No, Gantry; you've got only one man to fight; but you mustn't forget that his name, also, is Blount. Go to it and send me word, and let the first word be that you have scotched the head of this lumber-company snake. That's all for ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... emitting a swift breath of delight, as her wide-open eyes surveyed the marvellous scene of mingled loveliness and grandeur. The stream, curving like a great snake, gleamed amid the acres of green grass, its swift waters sparkling in the sun. Here and there it would dip down between high banks, or disappear for a moment behind a clump of willows, only to reappear in broader volume. Beyond, seemingly at no distance ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... Mohammedanism in Africa. 2. The True History of Buddha. 3. Influence of Christianity in history. 4. Startling Calculations for the Future. 6. The Snake Charmers in Tunis. 6. Mesmerism in China before the Christian Era. 7. Dr. Montgomery on the Cell Theory. 8. A Race of Dwarfs in the Pyrenees. 9. Religious Hallucination in the Bahamas. 10. Philosophy of Death. 11. The Delsarte System of Elocution and Acting. 12. Why Should the Chinese go? an eloquent ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... snake-devils is death, yes. But it is a quick death, a death which can come to any living thing that is not swift or wary enough. For to the snake-devils all things that live and move are merely meat to ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... is not the gloom of the leaves of the forest, that is the sea swelling like a dark black snake. That is not the dance of the flowering jasmine, that is flashing foam. Ah, where is the sunny green shore, where is your nest? Bird, O my bird, listen to me, ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... they discovered, could be increased two and three fold by the addition of borax fertilizer. The presence of "snake heads" or sprouts in summer walnut growth and "die-back" or winter kill noticeable in some walnut trees during the winter months are now generally recognized ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... dangerous spikes, which sting one's hands severely and remain rankling in the flesh. Another filled his mouth with live coals from a brazier, and walked around blowing out sparks. Another swallowed a living scorpion, a small snake, broken glass and nails. The spectator was in the midst of these enthusiasts, being touched by them in their antics, yet he could detect no foul play, except that he imagined the sword in the first-named ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Democrats will support, and see absolute salvation in these one or two planks of the platform. All this I admit, and once again say it is a hopeful sign, and yet once again I say there is a snare in it—a snake ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... replied, translating, "they say in Mexico, kill a snake but never hurt his feelings. Down in the hot country, MUCHACHA," turning to Thea, "people keep a pet snake in the house to kill rats and mice. They call him the house snake. They keep a little mat for him by the fire, and at night he curl up there and ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... which all ropes are disposed of on board ship for convenience of stowage. They are laid up round, one fake over another, or by concentric turns, termed Flemish coil, forming but one tier, and lying flat on the deck, the end being in the middle of it, as a snake ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... not—so beautiful With her dark eyes, earnest and still, and hair Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze; And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven, Resting upon her eyes and face and hair, As she awaits the snake on the wet beach, By the dark rock, and the white wave just breaking At her feet; quite naked and alone,—a thing You doubt not, nor fear for, secure that God Will come in thunder from the stars ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... the Rue Saint Jacques ran nightcapped to peer at the brawl. Then as Francois hurled back his sword to slash at the priest's shaven head—Frenchmen had not yet learned to thrust with the point in the Italian manner—Jehan le Merdi leapt from behind, nimble as a snake, and wrested away the boy's weapon. Sermaise closed with ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... when it was passed midnight; when every snake in Buzabub had coiled himself up, shut his eyes and gone quietly to sleep; when pestering centipedes, lizards, and cockroaches were gone peaceably to their holes; and not even a monkey winked, lest he disturb the elements, which ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the big snake back into its warm coverings, and shut down the trunk cover and clasped it. Bart, highly edified at the ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... Heaven, never buy a book from one of those men who meet you in the square, and, after looking both ways, to see if the police are watching, shows you a book—very cheap. Have him arrested as you would kill a rattle-snake. Grab ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... of native bird population by the rapid proliferation of the brown tree snake, an ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... fashionable. Profligacy, which we shrink from in its open profession, and which appears abominable in its avowed haunts, finds encouragement wherever the libertine receives the smile of beauty, and the guilt of the meanest sort of a man is excused on account of an agreeable manner. Thus the poison of the snake, and the blight of his venom on many a reputation and many a womanly heart, is all forgotten in the drawing-room, because of the fascination of his hiss and the glitter of his skin. Again, the Tempter ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... ones. Each style of character, kind and grade of experience breathes itself out in corresponding expressions. "Self is the man"; "Look out for Number One"; "Devil take the hindmost"; "One for me is as good as two for you"; "Every man has his price"; "Draw the snake from its hole by another man's hand"; "Vengeance is a feast fit for the gods." The fact that such infernal sentiments are proverbs must be no excuse for not trampling them out of sight with disgust and scorn. Discrimination is needed not only to reject bad sayings, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... on a stool by her grandmother, under penalty of being sent off to bed if she disturbed her father, sprang up with a little cry of gladness, and running up to Ambrose, entreated for the tales of his good greenwood Forest, and the pucks and pixies, and the girl who daily shared her breakfast with a snake and said, "Eat your own side, Speckleback." Somehow, on Sunday night she had gathered that Ambrose had a store of such tales, and she dragged him off to the gallery, there to revel in them, while his brother remained ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Like hounds returning to the huntsman's call, Obedient to the unwelcome note That stays them from the quarry's bursting throat?— Famine and Pestilence and Earthquake dire, Torrent and Tempest, Lightning, Frost and Fire, The soulless Tiger and the mindless Snake, The noxious Insect from the stagnant lake (Automaton malevolences wrought Out of the substance of Creative Thought)— These from their immemorial prey restrained, Their fury baffled and ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... and unholy cavern, with its gloomy quaintness of appurtenance. The fox regarded them from his corner with his keen and fiery eye: and as Glaucus now turned towards the witch, he perceived for the first time, just under her seat, the bright gaze and crested head of a large snake: whether it was that the vivid coloring of the Athenian's cloak, thrown over the shoulders of Ione, attracted the reptile's anger—its crest began to glow and rise, as if menacing and preparing itself to spring upon the Neapolitan—Glaucus caught quickly at one of the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... at all until long afterwards, and then it was too late; but to this day Gleason stood an unsparing, bitter, but secret and treacherous enemy of the younger officer. He hated Ray with the venom of a snake. ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... preceded him—the age of the followers of Horus, as the Egyptians termed it—are few and scanty. Egypt was divided into several kingdoms, which were gradually unified into two only, those of the north and the south. The northern kingdom was symbolised by the snake and papyrus, the southern kingdom by the vulture and aloe. The vulture was the emblem of Nekheb, the goddess of the great fortress whose ruins are now called El-Kab; and it is probable that the city of Nekhen, which stood ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... that marsh hen's nest which he had found. He would never steal another egg. He wished that he didn't have that drawerful at home. He would give them to Sairy Jane if she wanted them—all except the snake's egg, which he might keep, because serpents were an accursed race. Yes, Sairy Jane might have them all, and he wouldn't pull her hair again when he caught her looking at them ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... me in this town that Merriwell has some kind of a curve which twists like a snake. They say it curves in and out. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... time for words. Neither he nor she had uttered a sound since his dash for the viper had shaken her clinging fingers from his arm; and it was only when the poisoned flesh and the burnt match had been flung after the dead snake that Max could glance ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... went to the travelling shows. They charged 2 sen. We were shown a mermaid, peepshows, a snake, an unhappy bear, three doleful monkeys and some stuffed animals which may or may not have had in life an uncommon number of legs. There was a barefaced imposture by a young and pretty show-woman who insisted that two marmots in her lap were the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... for a sudden action of the young chief, who had stood motionless, with raised hand and unmoved face, during the werowance's bitter speech. Now he flung up his hand, and in it was a bracelet of gold, carved and twisted like a coiled snake and set with a green stone. I had never seen the toy before, but evidently others had. The excited voices fell, and the Indians, Pamunkeys and Paspaheghs alike, stood ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... the mode in which war-parties start off for war. The budget, or medicine-bag, is first made up. This bag contains something belonging to each man of the party—something usually representing some animal, such as the skin of a snake, the tail of a buffalo, the horns of a buck, or the feathers of a bird. It is always regarded as a very sacred thing. The leader of the party goes before with this; the rest follow in single file. ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... ominously interested in the subject, "that is a great mystery—the seeming moral meaning of the forms of things. Some shapes, however beautiful, suggest evil; others, however ugly, suggest good. As we look at a snake, or a spider, we know that evil is shaped like that; and not only animate things but inanimate. Some aspects of nature are essentially evil. There are landscapes that injure the soul to look at, there are sunsets that are ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... animals lured to death by the glare of the powerful headlights on the fast trains at night; the excitement at the great ballast pit where the gangs at work were running an unpopular cook out of camp; the very old Indian who had stared at the dragging chain and muttered "Heap big snake," and the very young Englishman who had gone crazy from fly-bites and whom the sawmill gang had strapped to a rough litter in preparation for rushing him to the North Bay hospital by the first train they could flag. In spite ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... unwilling hoofs, squatted on its haunches and, tail sweeping the dirt, tobogganed down to the road, jumping catwise the moment it was reached, away from the squirming terror. Sandy forced him back, leaned far down, tucked the barrel of the gun under the snake's body and hurled it looping into the gorge. Sam got his roan and the mare under ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Yakshini. By this, one is freed from the sin of even slaying a Brahmana, through the Yakshini's grace. Proceeding next to Maninaga, one obtains the merit of giving away a thousand kine. O Bharata, he that eateth anything relating to the tirtha of Maninaga, if bitten by a venomous snake, doth not succumb to its poison. Residing there for one night, one is cleansed of one's sins. Then should one proceed to the favourite wood of the Brahmarshi Gautama. There bathing in the lake of Ahalya, one attaineth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... FRIENDS The Story of the Lion, the Jackals, and the Bull The Story of the Monkey and the Wedge The Story of the Washerman's Jackass The Story of the Cat who Served the Lion The Story of the Terrible Bell The Story of the Prince and the Procuress The Story of the Black Snake and the Golden Chain The Story of the Lion and the Old Hare The Story of ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... the sea at Plas Edwards and stayed there three weeks, which now appears to me like three months. (Chapter I./6. Plas Edwards, at Towyn, on the Welsh coast.) I remember a certain shady green road (where I saw a snake) and a waterfall, with a degree of pleasure, which must be connected with the pleasure from scenery, though not directly recognised as such. The sandy plain before the house has left a strong impression, which is obscurely ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... were visited by a prominent naturalist who appears to have been delightfully liberal in the diffusion of scientific knowledge and the explanations of methods of pursuing investigations. His practical instruction in snake catching is particularly interesting as it was never before introduced into this state, where the copperhead and rattler are known to have survived among the fittest. Seeing a snake hole and desiring information as to the family record of the proprietor, he inserted ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... colony of monkeys. One day one of the monkeys came down from the tree and ran full of excitement across the plain, now scrambling along like a man on all fours, then erect like a dog running on its hind legs, while its tail, with nothing to catch hold of, wriggled about like a snake when its head is under foot. He came to a place where a number of oxen were grazing, and some horses, ostriches, deer, goats, and pigs. 'Friends all,' cried the monkey, grinning like a skull, and with staring eyes round as dollars, 'great news! great news! I come to tell you ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... a tenth part of the booty—from which was presented to the shrine of Delphi a golden tripod, resting on a three-headed snake of brass; to the Corinthian Neptune a brazen state of the deity, seven cubits high; and to the Jupiter of Olympia a statue of ten cubits. Pausanias obtained also a tenth of the produce in each article of plunder—horses and camels, women and gold—a prize which ruined in rewarding ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Il Biscione, or the Great Serpent, was the name commonly given to the tyranny of the Visconti (see M. Villani, vi. 8), in allusion to their ensign of a naked child issuing from a snake's mouth. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... you have given up your snake-hunting; many's the strange talk I have had with our people about your snake and yourself, and how you frightened my father and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... herbs which a cook had prepared. The exasperated cook thrashed the well-intentioned but unfortunate Wali within an inch of his life, and when he returned, exhausted with his efforts at belabouring the man, to examine the broken pot, he discovered amongst the herbs a poisonous snake." [4] Now this story of the Wali is as manifestly identical with the legend of Gellert as the English word FATHER is with the Latin pater; but as no one would maintain that the word father is in any sense derived from pater, so it would be impossible ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... another chilling smile. "You do well to cringe, for I'm death itself. Even in death I could kill you, like a snake." And with that his voice took on the tones of a circus barker. "Yes, I'm a freak, as the gentleman so wisely said. That's what one doctor who dared talk with me for a minute told me before he kicked me out. He couldn't tell me why, but somehow the dust doesn't ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... up, yawned ostentatiously, and sauntered away in the wake of Pink. "What's the matter, Cadwolloper?" he asked, when he was close enough. "Seen a garter snake?" Pink was notoriously ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... girl marked before her birth as one apart from her kind. Her mother, treading upon a rattle-snake near her door, leaves the imprint of the loathsome thing upon the child. She is a "splendid scowling beauty" with glittering black eyes. When angry, they are narrowed and gleam like diamonds, and "charm" after ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... with quivering hands, unwound the black and snake-like object that always guarded her breast. Without a word, he took it, and again his hands flew heavenward. With a low and fearful moan the old woman lurched sideways, then crashed, like a fallen pine, upon the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... have been explained by supposing a dragon to devour the sun or moon; solitary boulders, as the missiles of a giant; and so on. Such explanations, plainly, are attempts to regard rare phenomena as similar to others that are better known; a snake having been seen to swallow a rabbit, a bigger one may swallow the sun: a giant is supposed to bear much the same relation to a boulder as a boy does to half a brick. When any very common thing seems to need no explanation, it is because the several instances of its occurrence ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... with the day and as his arm stole, almost snake-like, about her waist, she raised a nerveless hand, plucked feebly to remove the fingers pressing into her side, and then let her hand fall ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... him, glanced down at his pocket saw the "snake" had gone, but thumping it once or twice to make sure turned upon Faith, his face red and puckered, yet with a gleam of fun in his eye that detracted from the fierceness ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Tallente," he added. "I want to warn you that so far as your further progress is concerned, there is a snake in the grass somewhere. The manuscript of which Williams spoke to you, and which would of course damn you forever with any party which depended for its existence even indirectly upon the trades unions, was ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the blindness of his earthly eye, that he should be more perfectly enabled to contemplate the Deity within—has given way to this superstition when he subjects universal nature to an earthquake because Adam's wife followed the counsels of the snake. ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... or telegram read to him, he stands "facing full" and working his features up and down to indicate emotion sweeping over them. If he is being "exposed" (which is done by pointing fingers at him), he hunches up like a snake in an angle of the room with both eyes half shut and his mouth set as if he had just eaten a lemon. But if he has none of these things to express and is only in the scene as a background for the others, then he goes over and leans in an easy attitude ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... in the West was warned to look out for rattlesnakes. He was assured, however, that a snake would never strike until after sounding the rattles. One day, while seated on a log, eating his lunch, the Italian saw a rattlesnake coiled ready to strike. He lifted his legs carefully, with the intention of darting away on the other side of the log the moment the rattles should sound their warning. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... order to hunt as they had been directed the last evening. we once more live in clover; Anchovies fresh Sturgeon and Wappetoe. the latter Sergt. Pryor had also procured and brought with him. The reptiles of this country are the rattlesnake garter snake and the common brown Lizzard. The season was so far advanced when we arrived on this side of the rocky mountains that but few rattlesnakes were seen I did not remark one particularly myself, nor do I know whether they are of either of the four speceis found ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... snake, ho, ho. Won't Captain Josh laugh when I tell him that? I didn't mean any harm, though. I just wanted to do a good turn. Guess that was something that a scout ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... blossom as before, Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core, Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found? Who says 'How save it?'—nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?' Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf, Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf! Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marle Satan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof! And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof, Lover and friend ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... things done in honesty and sincerity. Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends, there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other. We have all heard of the Moon Hoax. Do none of you remember the Hydrarchos Sillimannii, that awful Alabama snake? It was only a little while ago that a grave account appeared in a newspaper of a whole new business of compressing ice. Perpetual motion has been the dream of scientific visionaries, and a pretended but cheating realization of it has been exhibited ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... who is riding on the pale horse. Below we see Loki, the murderer of the holy Baldur, the blasphemer of the gods, bound by strong chains to the sharp edges of a rock, while as a punishment for his crimes a snake drops poison upon his face, making him yell with pain, and the earth quakes with his convulsive tremblings. His faithful wife Sigyn catches the poison in a cup, but when the vessel is full she is obliged to empty it, and then a drop falls on the forehead of Loki, the destroyer, and the ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... look for any stuck-up literature in my piece, such as Bearoo, the bear, and Snakoo, the snake, and Tammanoo, the tiger, talk in the jungle books. A yellow dog that's spent most of his life in a cheap New York flat, sleeping in a corner on an old sateen underskirt (the one she spilled port wine on at the Lady Longshoremen's banquet), mustn't be expected to ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... public ain't pashnutly fond of seein' a snake smell it," said Mr. Dorgan. "The Pet is goin' into ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... snake, when he casts his skin, leaves the slough behind him, and winds on his way in new and ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... while violence is that of the strong. And those which are in the middle of the scale practise both. There are still other animals which are invested with attributes of all that is meanest and most contemptible in character. The sly and insinuating snake gliding noiselessly toward the victim of its envenomed sting—the spider which spreads forth its beautiful and alluring net, sparkling with morning dew, while it lurks in a secret corner, ready to fall upon its luckless prey—the ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... "It's a snake—a great boa!" gasped Tom. "It has him in its coils. But it is wound around the trees, too. That alone prevents it from ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... spot, without a farthing of capital, no stock, no anything. I came upon the clearing one day in the course of my surveying, and never did I see Gone to the Dogs more clearly written on any spot; the half-burnt or overthrown trees lying about overgrown with wild vines and raspberries, the snake fence broken down, the log-house looking as if a touch would upset it, and nothing hopeful but a couple of patches of maize and potatoes, and a great pumpkin climbing up a stump. My horse and myself were done up, so I halted, and was amazed at the greeting ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... avowed intention being to terrorise and drive every white person off the island and make it their own. Although most of them had been brought up in the Catholic religion, it was said that they had all reverted to heathenism, and were addicted to the practice of voodooism, snake worship, and other ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... bottom; into which caverns one used to peep with some caution. For though one might have found inside only a pair of toucans, or parrots, or a whole party of jolly little monkeys, one was quite as likely to find a poisonous snake four or five feet long, whose bite would have very certainly prevented me having the pleasure of ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... stewpan and bring to a boil. Set the pan where the liquid will just simmer for six hours, or after boiling for five or ten minutes, put all into the fireless cooker for eight or nine hours. With the butter, flour, and one-half cupful of the clear soup from which the fat has been removed, snake a brown sauce (see p. 39); to this add the meat and the marrow removed from the bone. Heat and serve. The remainder of the liquid in which the meat has been cooked may be used ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... left his wheel on guard and crept around to his usual approach at the back before he came out in the open. And then he crept cautiously to the cellar window where he had first entered the house. He gripped Pat's old gun with one hand in his pocket, and slid along like a young snake, taking precaution not to appear before the cellar window lest his shadow should fall inside. He flattened himself at last upon the grass a noticeless heap of gray khaki trousers and brown flannel shirt close against the house. One would have to lean far out of a window to see him, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... shock, I pleaded that I'd do anything else, make any other sacrifice for Ellaline's sake, except this one, she flashed out (with the odd shrewdness which lurks in her childishness like a bright little garter-snake darting its head from a bed of violets), saying that was always the way with people. They were invariably ready to do for their best friends, to whom they were grateful, anything on earth except ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the farmer was reluctantly compelled to borrow a rail from the nearest fence, and place it so as to support the axle; he then put the denuded wheel and its tire on the wagon, and drove slowly to the nearest blacksmith's shop, his vehicle "trailing like a wounded duck," the rail leaving a snake's track behind it ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... where it is. I know its value, and I have put it where, the moment you take your first step against me, you will find it lying like a big snake ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... marriage proved of primary social importance. All Calthorpe speeded them upon their life's journey, and the east-bound mail bore them away with the echo of cheery farewells, and every other form of speeding, dying pleasantly away behind them. So, too, the snake-like string of coaches bore the burden of Destiny in the great uninteresting, padlocked baskets and bags which contained ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... forest. He no longer marched. At once he became a thing of the wild, stealing along softly, cat-footed, a passing shadow that appeared and disappeared among the shadows. He knew how to take advantage of every cover, to crawl on his belly like a snake, and like a snake to leap and strike. He could take a ptarmigan from its nest, kill a rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing a second too late for the trees. Fish, ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... returned hesitatingly. "I had such a lightning-like glimpse of it. Still, in a general way, it was very swarthy and wrinkled—quite ape-like. The lower part was covered with a short, curling, sparse black beard; the eyes were like"—she searched for a simile—"like a snake's." ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... we shall find plenty of material for fetich-worship. In perusing the "Kojiki" one scarcely knows, when he begins a story, whether the character which to all appearance is a man or woman is to end as a snake, or whether the mother after delivering her child will or will not glide into the marsh or slide away into the sea, leaving behind a trail of slime. A dragon is three-fourths serpent, and both the dragon and the serpent are prominent figures, perhaps the most prominent ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... unscrupulous savagery of which we coarse brutes of men should be more than half ashamed. God Almighty made a little more than He bargained for when He made woman. She must have surprised Him pretty shrewdly, one would think, now and then since the days of the apple and the snake." ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... spoken, for tears choked our words; but our arms were still entwined, and my head rested on his bosom, in all the abandonment of nature's holiest feelings. All at once I heard a rustling in the grass, soft and stealthy like a gliding snake. I raised my head, looked ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... follows:— "The thicket down the narrows, at the mouth of the canon, was so dense that we could not penetrate through it. I crawled for some distance on my hands and knees through this thicket, until I was compelled to return, admonished to by the rattle of a snake which lay coiled up under my nose, having almost put my hand on him; but as he gave me the friendly warning, I thanked him and retreated. We raised on to a high point south of the narrows, where we got ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... transforms himself at times into an angel of light. If so, then he is certainly far more dangerous than if he came as an angel of darkness and horror. If you met some venomous snake, with loathsome spots upon his scales, his eyes full of rage and cunning, his head raised to strike at you, hissing and showing his fangs, there would be no temptation to have to do with him. You would know that you had to deal with an evil beast, and must either kill him or escape from him ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... handsome is that handsome does, he hasn't any more looks to boast of than a striped snake. It was a letter from a girl, a regular love-letter from start to finish. It opened up ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... an Opossum who had gone to sleep hanging from the highest branch of a tree by the tail, awoke and saw a large Snake wound about the limb, between him and the ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... an' we sat down at the next table to th' gurrls. Well, sir, from that time my mind's a blank. I was like the feller in the story-books. I knew no more. I dunno what happened at all, at all, with dancin' gurrls an' snake cha-armers an' Boolgarian club swingers an' foreign men goin' around with their legs in mattesses. All I know is this, that I was carried to a ca-ar in a seedin' chair by two men with room enough ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... made in Himalayan forests wrack, deg. deg.414 And strewn the channels with torn boughs—so huge 415 The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, Lithe as the glancing deg. snake, and the club came deg.418 Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell 420 To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand; And now might Sohrab have unsheathed ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... intimation which nature, that good and indulgent mother, always gives to the creatures who are exposed to any danger. Nature has put a bell on the neck of the Minotaur, as on the tail of that frightful snake which is the terror of travelers. And then appear in your wife what we will call the first symptoms, and woe to him who does not know how to contend with them. Those who in reading our book will remember that they saw those symptoms in their own domestic life can pass to the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... doors opened, and Fred Radwin, catching sight of the submarine boys as he entered, hastened over to where they sat, a look of pretended sympathy on his handsome but snake-like face. ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... large snake which entangles itself round the legs of the cow so that it cannot move and then sucks it, in such wise that it almost dries it up. In the time of Claudius the Emperor, there was killed, on the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... of Barye's powerful water-colors of animals and a fine oil, of unusual size for this artist, of a tiger. One of the most striking of the water-colors shows a great snake swallowing an antelope, whose head is partly engulfed, and it is almost exactly the same as one of the bronzes from the Walters collection. Other gentlemen have contributed water-colors and oil-paintings by Barye, among ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; 350 Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around; Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake; Where crouching tigers[26] wait their hapless prey, 355 And savage men more murderous still than they; While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. Far different these from every former scene, The cooling brook, the grassy vested green, 360 The breezy ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... a tremendous report but no visible effect. The pirate crept nearer, steering in and out like a snake to avoid the carronades, and firing those two heavy guns alternately into the devoted ship. He hulled the Agra now ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... might have cured me of the typhus, Caught in the jungle of life where many are lost. And only to think that my soul could not react, As Byron's did, in song, in something noble, But turned on itself like a tortured snake — Judge ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... of these peaceable incidents there were occasional threats of Indian treachery, like the theft of tools from two woodsmen and the later bold challenge in the form of a headless arrow wrapped in a snake's skin; the latter was returned promptly and decisively with the skin filled with bullets, and the danger was over for a time. The stockade was strengthened and, soon after, a palisade was built about the houses with gates ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... long way, and jumped quickly on one side as he came up to a great ugly bullfrog, who, charmed by a snake, was too terrified to move. The snake was just about to swallow it whole, when Mark seized a large stone and threw it with all his strength into the reptile's wide-open mouth. Down went the stone into his throat, and ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... to take care of their little sister; but sometimes they put her in some safe place, and all would go out together for the day; nor were they ever molested in their excursions by bear, panther, snake, scorpion, or other noxious creature. One day all the brothers put their little sister safely up in a fine shady tree, and went out together to hunt. After rambling on for some time they came to the hut of a savage Rakshas, who in the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... selection from "Traviata." McTurkle told me what they were afterwards; that's how I know. Around the gridiron we marched once, the band still clinging to "Traviata" and the fellows singing whatever pleased them, generally "Up the Street." Then we had a snake dance, a wonder of a snake dance! The band got lost in the shuffle, but later on we found him standing serene and undismayed under the shadow of the west stand spouting "Auld Lang Syne" till you ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... expeditions, whether of war or hunting; which news was afterwards promulgated throughout the village, by certain old men who acted as heralds or town criers. Among the parties which arrived was one that had been among the Snake nation stealing horses, and returned crowned with success. As they passed in triumph through the village they were cheered by the men, women, and children, collected as usual on the tops of the lodges, and were exhorted by the Nesters of the village to be generous ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... at that fatal word "Religion" the gentleman started as though he had been stung by a snake, felt that this mild-looking man was a dangerous lunatic and tried to move away. It was the lady with him, so far as I can discover, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... the farm-yard, where the maidens were busy; how he did not dare to stop, and sought escape, not from woman's help—he was too modest—but in running so fast that, obedient to the laws of centrifugal motion, the snake waved out behind him like a flag. The village wits are not so shy. The young ladies, like Betsy Ward, say, "If you mean getting hitched, I'm on." The public is not above the most practical jokes, and a good ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... gone far, when Sandy gave a wild whoop of alarm, jumping about six feet backward as he yelled, "A rattlesnake!" Sure enough, an immense snake was sliding out from under a mass of brush that the boy had disturbed as he gathered an armful of dry branches and twigs. Dropping his burden, Sandy shouted, ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... he said, holding out a cup. "Join me, won't you? Of course, you understand—in case a snake should bite us." ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... birds picked by this time. "I tell 'em a snake has got me. I reckon each one thinks the other is in trouble and comes to the rescue. Anyhow, it's a ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... lechuguilla. Rude as my doctors were, in the matter of such a malady, I could not have fallen into better hands. Both, during their lives of accident and exposure, had ample practice in the healing art; and I would have trusted either, in the curing of a rattle-snake's bite, or the tear of a grizzly bear's claw, in preference to the most accomplished surgeon. Old Rube, in particular, thoroughly understood the simple pharmacopoeia of the prairies; and his application ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... and some call them ichneumon," said the man. "Snake-catcher is what I call them, and Teddy is amazing quick on cobras. I have one here without the fangs, and Teddy catches it every night to please the ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... three days, he will recover, yet I am very doubtful of this account, more particularly from the women differing from the men, as well as the whole subject being hidden in superstition. Another ground of doubt rests upon the fact of having lost in Van Diemen's Land, a favourite dog, by the bite of a snake very similar to this; the poor animal expired fourteen minutes after the bite, although the piece was almost ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Paris,—Paris who had shot with an arrow Achilles, and who after that had slain many of our chiefs. That man was Philoctetes. He had come with Agamemnon's host to Troy. But Philoctetes had been bitten by a water-snake, and the wound given him was so terrible that none of our warriors could bear to be near him. He was left on the Island of Lemnos and the host lost memory of him. But Odysseus remembered, and he took ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... though you are an overgrown ox." He darted in behind the man-mountain like a twisting snake. His deft fingers reached in through the shattered crystal, pressed something on the inside. The door slid into its wall pocket with a sound of ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... is it," howled Strozzi, and in his ecstasy he flung his arms around Barbesieur's great body. But suddenly his countenance became expressive of distrust, and his eye had a deadly glitter, like that of a snake. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... earth-formed snake, emerging in the usual manner from the dark blue water, at the base, as it were, of a triple cone—Scotland's Mount Hermon—just as we so frequently meet snakes and ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... fishes so ravenously that many of these die of repletion; the conical heaps of small stones on the river-shallows, one of which heaps will sometimes overfill a cart,—these heaps the huge nests of small fishes; the birds which frequent the stream, heron, duck, sheldrake, loon, osprey; the snake, musk-rat, otter, woodchuck, and fox, on the banks; the turtle, frog, hyla, and cricket, which make the banks vocal,—were all known to him, and, as it were, townsmen and fellow-creatures; so that he felt an absurdity or violence ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... been reading on that first night was the thirteenth verse of the ninety-first Psalm. "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder. The young lion and the dragon thou shalt trample under foot." To her the adder meant the snake, the tempter in the Garden of Eden, and hence sex. What she wanted to choke was her own insistent sex urge of which the child was the symbol and the result. On later occasions she had the same sort of hallucinations in ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... difficulty in doing so, for the whole country was in terror of the snake, and no one wanted to take the risk of ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 1, 1897 Vol. 1. No. 21 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Dead to Life wou'd bring, A Noise might move their Wooden King. I stuffed my Ears with Cotten white, For fear of being deaf out-right, And curst the melancholy Night; But soon my Vows I did recant, And Hearing as a Blessing grant; When a confounded Rattle-Snake, With hissing made my Heart to ake: Not knowing how to fly the Foe, Or whither in the Dark to go; By strange good Luck, I took a Tree, Prepar'd by Fate to set me free; Where riding on a Limb a stride, Night and the Branches did me hide, And I the Devil and Snake defy'd. Not yet ...
— The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland • Ebenezer Cook
... were originally sacred to Persephone and Pluto, and relied largely on necromancy, a snake being the emblem of prophetic power. Hence, when Apollo, the god of light, claimed possession of the oracles as the conqueror of darkness, the snake was twined round his tripod as an emblem, and his priestess was called Pythia. When Alexander set up his famous oracle, as described ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... in Eden, if it is only a garter snake. Ours was a frog in the fountain. He had a volume of sound equal to Edouard de Reske in his prime. I set the chauffeur the task of catching him, but after emptying out all the water one little half-inch frog ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... five o'clock in the morning of the 8th when Levis marched in; and they went on working like ants till the battle began, though all day the heat was terrific. Some of the trees cut down were piled up like the wall of a log-cabin, only not straight but zigzag, like a 'snake' fence, so that the enemy should be caught between two fires at every angle. This zigzag wooden wall was, of course, well loopholed. In front of it was its zigzag ditch; and in front of the ditch were fallen ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... heap on the floor, with his white snarling face looking out like the head of an angry snake. He was not in the least afraid, and yet the expression of his eyes told that he knew everything was over. As he struggled painfully to his feet, Mary ran forward and guided him to a chair. He did not thank ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... at the sound, like a horse at the spur; but Silver had not winked an eye. He stood where he was, resting lightly on his crutch, watching his companion like a snake about to spring. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "you can't eat a snake. 'Sides Lina wouldn't 'a' picked up a snake. Is it a little ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... mainland, and was set in the mouth of a bay. This was the nearest to the peninsula at the end of which the railroad terminates. About southwest of it is the Seahorse Key, on which there is a light in peaceful times. To the south of the point is the Snake Key, and between the last two is the main channel to the port, which twists about like the track of a snake. There is a town, or rather a village, near ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... same Anderson packed for the expedition sent after the Snake Indians. His train consisted of some two hundred and fifty or three hundred mules. They packed from Cordelaine Mission to Walla Walla, in Oregon. The animals were of a very superior kind, selected for the purpose of packing out of a very large lot. ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... his glance left the rider to find George, and that instant was fatal. The hand of Donnegan licked out as the snake's tongue darts—the loaded quirt slipped over in his hand, and holding it by the lash he brought the butt of it thudding on the head ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... of a foreleg had been left between iron jaws where she had gnawed herself out of a trap, and the shrunken stub, depending from a withered shoulder, dragged over the surface of the snow, leaving a curious mark like the trail of a snake. ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... stealing about the fire, before which two unarmed boys reposed. He knew, however, that they were drawn not by the desire to attack, but by a kind of terrified curiosity. The fire was to them the magnet that the snake is to the fascinated bird. He longed then for his gun, the faithful little rifle that was reposing on the hooks over his bed in his father's house. "I'd make you cry for something," he said to himself, looking at the largest ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... snake with poisoned fang defends (And does it really very well). The cuttle fish an inkcloud sends; The tortoise has its fort of shell; The tiger has its teeth and claws; The rhino has its horns and hide; The shark has rows of saw-set ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... later those who were watching saw a small black snake make an ineffectual effort to leap out of the blazing mass, fall back into the flames, and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Sardanapalus chanted to Elagabalus, and his mother and grandmother, all three, as also of the secret sacrifices that he offered to him: at these he slaughtered boys, and used charms, besides shutting up in the god's temple a live lion and monkey and snake, throwing in among them human genitals, and practicing other unholy rites, while he wore invariably innumerable amulets. [Sidenote:—12—] But to run briefly over these matters, he actually (most ridiculous of all) courted ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... Dominicans 'Maculists,' as denying, or at all events refusing to affirm as a matter of faith, that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without stain (sine macula), perfectly knew that this title would do much to put their rivals in an odious light. The copperhead in America is a peculiarly venomous snake. Something effectual was done when this name was fastened, as it lately was, by one party in America on its political opponents. Not otherwise, in some of our northern towns, the workmen who refuse to join a trade ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... swear, had more courage than I, To accost a young maid with a drop in her eye; I'd as soon catch a snake or a viper: She, while wiping her tears, gives Apollo some wipes; And when a young lady has set up her pipes, Her lover will soon pay ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... but he felt compelled to fulfil his promise at once. The men passed by him in silence, save the single remark of Brimstone, "Give my love to your sweet mother," delivered in an insulting tone, and with a laugh more repulsive than the hiss of a snake. ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... flat on the floor—it was Inspector O'Connor. He had succeeded in slipping noiselessly, like a snake, below the curtain into the cabinet. Craig had told him to look out for wires or threads stretched from Mrs. Popper's clothing to the bulging curtain of the cabinet. Imagine his surprise when he saw that she had simply freed her foot from the shoe, which I ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... promptly—"lots of them. Why, I had a man named Considine working for me, and he thought he got bitten by a snake, so his mates ran him twenty miles into Bourke between two horses to keep him from going to sleep, giving him a nip of whisky every twenty minutes; and when he got to Bourke he wasn't bitten at all, but he died of alcoholic poisoning. ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... and the girl and the monkey commenced their fantastic dance. They had taken but a few steps when the door suddenly opened, and the tall figure of the Wondersmith appeared on the threshold. His face was convulsed with rage, and the black snake that quivered on his upper lip seemed to rear itself as if about to spring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... venturing to wander away far, on account of the rattle-snakes, which here abounded. Perhaps there is no portion of America in which the rattle-snakes are so large and so numerous as in Wisconsin. There are two varieties: the black rattle-snake, that frequents marshy spots, and renders it rather dangerous to shoot snipes and ducks; and the yellow, which takes up its abode in the rocks and dry places. Dr F—-told me that he had killed, inside of the fort Winnebago, one of the latter species, between seven and eight feet long. The rattle-snake, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... this snake prefers a file to any other species of nourishment is a vulgar error, and belongs to the same mendacious category as the stories that ostriches are fond of ten-penny nails and soldiers of hard tack. It is true that old ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... "Snake poison, which may be cited as a type of other animal poisons, takes effect through the circulation, and acts by paralyzing the nerve centres, and by altering the condition of the blood. In ordinary cases death seems to take place by arrest of respiration, from ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... events as well authenticated as many other anecdotes," answered the laird. "By-the-by, Mrs Vallery, I should like to witness the performances of the snake-charmers in India. Have you ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... me. She gave the men and wagon an indifferent glance, and then went on searching for specimens. I was so vexed I could have shaken her. She will scream over a worm or spider, and almost faint at the sight of a snake, but those two men, who were apparently real tramps, she did not mind. The situation was critical, and for just one instant I thought hard. If we were to go over the small mountain we would probably be lost, and might encounter all sorts of wild beasts, and if those men were really vicious they ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... devoid of all curiosity, were satisfied with the general knowledge that they were "on the continong," and well on the way to "have a smack at the Germans." There was the rattle and rumble of English guns down country highways. Long lines of khaki-clad men, like a writhing brown snake when seen from afar, moved slowly along winding roads, through cornfields where the harvest was cut and stacked, or down long avenues of poplars, interminably straight, or through quaint old towns and villages ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... Again, a road may wind its way through a narrow gorge, with precipices a thousand feet high on either hand, and down in the depths a wild torrent, crossed every here and there by massive stone bridges; or, over the open mountains a road will zigzag upwards to a pass in long loops, like the famous "Snake Road" ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... that clattered in her shaking hands. Then she sat down and proceeded to oil them all. Before she had finished, out from the tub, the water of which had kept on a slow motion ever since she had ceased stirring it, came the head and half the body of a huge grey snake. But the witch did not look round. It grew out of the tub, waving itself backwards and forwards with a slow horizontal motion, till it reached the princess, when it laid its head upon her shoulder, and gave a low hiss in her ear. She started—but ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... damned!" cried the old man, in a towering rage. And he began to pour out the most extraordinary flood of furious invective upon his granddaughter and upon Richard Hartley, whom he quite unjustly termed a snake-in-the-grass, and finally upon all women, past, contemporary, or ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... you with shrill psalms as in your claws you seized their snake And crept away with it to slake your ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... day officials, including an ex-official who was recently forced to resign after being beaten up, now own the springs and hotel, so the road will continue to be taken care of. On the way we went through the village of the White Snake and also of ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... fellow named Godkin told me an hour ago that he had his eye on a lame chap and a gawk of a schoolmaster who were always skulking around close to the ground. He says the boy lives hereabouts and knows the woods like a snake." ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock |
