"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carrying an iron instrument on which is the molten mass of red-hot glass, and it gleams with an extraordinary warm brilliancy. It twists hither and thither in obedience to the artisan's deft movements; it coils and writhes into odd shapes, like a fire-snake curling in the torture of its own unearthly ardour. The men pass so regularly, with such a silent and exact precision, that it seems a weird and mystic measure they perform—a rhythmic dance of unimaginable intricacy, whose meaning ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... of assuming control of the subject when he is in the passive state, and making him believe anything he is told, as, for example, that a handkerchief is a snake, that a piece of money is burning hot, or that he is a king, a hero, an orator, an auctioneer, or anything else suggested by the fancy of the operator, which is at once carried into personation by the subject. This is ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... Zarathustra sees a young shepherd struggling on the ground with a snake holding fast to the back of his throat. The sage, assuming that the snake must have crawled into the young man's mouth while he lay sleeping, runs to his help and pulls at the loathsome reptile with all his might, but in vain. At last, ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... speaking Buster Beggs had come up behind Horsehair and placed something attached to a dark string on the box, between the driver's feet. It was an imitation snake, made of rubber and colored up to look ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... snakes, raised in some of the compartments over half-spheres resembling apples. In one of the Ross-shire obelisks—that of Shadwick, in the parish of Nigg—the cross is entirely composed of these apple-like, snake-covered protuberances; and it was the belief of my friend, that the original idea of the whole, and, indeed, the fundamental idea of this school of sculpture, was exactly that so emphatically laid down by Milton in the opening argument of his poem—man's ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... so elected by the Mexicans bore the somewhat singular title of "Snake-woman." He was properly the head-chief of the Mexicans. He was chairman of the council and announced its decrees. He was responsible to the council for the tribute received, as far as it was applied to tribal requirements, and for a ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... lady-in-waiting—and now I'm nothing at all. I'm in disgrace, like you. My name is Daphne Heritage. Now, tell me yours ... Girofle?... Well, I am going back to the Pavilion now. I don't feel safe anywhere else.... Yes, you can see me out of this dreadful place—just in case there should be another snake about," she conceded, for her nerves were beginning to feel a reaction, and she was glad of ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... ever seen such sheets of water-lilies as starred the swampy thickets, in which elder and hazels and every conceivable bush and shrub and giant grass and cane make wildernesses pathless indeed save to the mink and the water-snake, and the imagination that would fain explore ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... weakness followed. My brain reel'd: my fingers dug into the rock behind till they bled. I bent forward—forward over the heaving mist through which the sea crawl'd like a snake. It beckon'd me down, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... difficulty, to the foot of the tree. It was a very large one, with a trunk fully 15 feet in diameter, rising some forty feet without a branch. Then a number of great arms grew out, at right angles. These were covered thickly with parasitic vegetation. Round the trunk, like a snake embracing its victim, a great climber had wound itself. Its main stem was as thick as a man's arm, and there were dozens of smaller, cord-like climbers. Thus, the lads had no difficulty in climbing to the point where the branches grew out. Above these was a mass ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... man to proceed along the quays as far as he could, and then through the Champs Elysees to the Bois de Boulogne. The Seine slept by its deserted parapets like a silver snake, and only the low rumble of the steam-car from Versailles disturbed its slumber. The million lights of the gas-lamps, stretching away now and then into the endless vistas of the boulevards, spoke to me of the delicious companionship of humanity, from ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... we go or move," he said, "there will always be the snake in the grass. He will be filled forever with a poisonous hatred for you. He will never dare to raise his hand against you to your face—he isn't that sort of man—but he'll have his stab before he's finished. He ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... embedded deep in his shoulder. Just before the coming of dawn, Hampton, without uttering a word, calmly turned up the collar of his tightly buttoned coat, so as better to conceal the white collar he wore, gripped his revolver between his teeth, and crept like some wriggling snake among the black rocks and through the dense underbrush in search after water. By some miracle of divine mercy he was permitted to pass unscathed, and came crawling back, a dozen hastily filled canteens dangling ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... the girl who had seen three suns at once upon the morn of Holy Trinity from a neighbouring hill-top, or of the luck of their compere Jehan, whose boy, born on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, was safe for all his life from danger of poison or of snake-bite. All these customs and superstitions are reflected in Hercule Grisel's Latin verses, which he ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... a small creature in appearance between the weasel and the mangoose, is of infinite use to the natives from its inveterate enmity to snakes, which would otherwise render every footstep of the traveller dangerous. This diminutive creature, on seeing a snake ever so large, will instantly dart on it, and seize it by the throat, provided he finds himself in an open place, where he has an opportunity of running to a certain herb, which he knows instinctively to be an antidote against the poison of the bite, if he should happen ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... travelers could see to the right the whole winding course of the Cise meandering like a silver snake among the meadows, where the grass had taken the deep, bright green of early spring. To the left lay the Loire in all its glory. A chill morning breeze, ruffling the surface of the stately river, had fretted the broad sheets of water far and wide into a network ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... spring of the year, while hunting eggs in the second story of the old log house, she discovered a large snake on one of the rafters over her head. Hastening quietly to her own room for a gun, she brought the snake to the floor with the first shot. It measured over four feet in length, was dark in color and was of the kind, that eats eggs and chicks, commonly called a chicken snake. She also, at ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... to do any speeding by the time you get to the dock," and Frank glanced over his shoulder to where the public dock stretched out into the bay like some long water-snake. "It's nearly two miles there, and the swell ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... there was always a serpent in every Paradise, and that Experience was a horrid hag, with a bony finger pointing to the snake.... This is my recantation, Ban. I know now that you were the true Prophet; that Experience has shining wings and eyes that can lock to the future as well as the past, and immortal Hope for a lover. And that only they two ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... her trances became habitual, assumed, and always retained, the most singular expression I ever saw on any face. They were oblong and narrow, and set back in her head like the eyes of a snake. They were not—smile if you will, O practical and incredulous reader! but they were not—eyes. The eyes of Elsie Venner are the only eyes I can think of as at all like them. The most horrible circumstance about them—a circumstance ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... our position, marking the boundaries of the wedge that the Germans drove into the French lines, with its point at St. Mihiel, in trying to isolate the forts of Verdun and Toul. Doubtless you have noticed that wedge on the snake maps and have wondered about it, as I have. It looks so narrow that the French ought to be able to shoot across it from both sides. If so, why don't the Germans ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... know about the money all right! It's been jus' burnin' into me, that it has! It was like a snake under my ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... a shout, darted down the stair, and with a sharp stick, pinned the body of the snake to the wall below. The creature became terribly violent, but Koa Kau held on valiantly and Mackay seized an old Chinese spear that happened to be in the room above and pierced the serpent through the head. They pulled its dead body down into the ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... intensity of expression, a subdued, fierce urgence of manner. Chrystie looked at him and looked away, almost afraid of him. He was staring at her with an avid waiting as if ready to drag the answer out of her lips. She fluttered like a bird under the snake's hypnotic eye. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... now steered directly for the little bay. Before another shot was fired at her, she was close up to the bank, and a black stream of human beings was seen issuing forth from her decks, and winding, like a long black snake, up among the grass and bushes, while the Arabs could be distinguished by their dress urging on the fugitives ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... in snake medicine—permanganate of potash crystals," quavered the girl. "That'll kill the poison and not hurt you a bit. You're all right now—only we'll have to ease off a little on your arm. Take some ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... later when the "tumult and the shouting" had died away—when the "sound of revelry by night" had ceased—when the "lid" for a moment open was again "on"—when the snake dances and the bonfires and the toasts were over—Bert, more than ever the idol of his college, together with Tom and Dick, were bidding good-by to Mr. ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... eager, his teeth are keen, As he slips at night through the bush like a snake, Crouching and cringing, straight into the wind, To leap with a grin on the fawn in ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... he growled. "I wonder if she knows the kind of snake he is? I believe I'll tell her, for her own sake. No, that won't do, either. Well, I guess ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... he, 'there's hell a-poppin' an' you've got to watch that ground like you'd watch a rattle-snake. Don't never leave 'em get a grip on it or ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... as she laughed a little, almost contentedly; "we're like the glass snake. We seem to break off at the point where we're caught, and escape, and go on again as before. I was only wondering how many times a glass snake can leave its tail in its enemy's teeth, and ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... already have," Kanus said, beaming. "Already the Acquatainians are thrashing about like a snake whose head has been cut off. Without Dulaq, they have no head, no brain to direct them. For your part in this triumph"—Kanus snapped his fingers, and one of his advisors quickly stepped to his side ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... disappointed. In Japan, on the other hand, I succumbed completely to the odd, hypnotic mechanism of the Geisha, the accompaniments to which are more varied, or more acceptable to my ear, than the Indian music. But I shall always remember the sounds of the distant, approaching or receding, snake- charmers' piping, heard through the heat, as it so often is on Sundays in Calcutta. To my inward ear that is India's typical melody; and it has relationship to the Punch and Judy allurement of ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... livery announced Counsellor Daly and dinner, for both came fortunately together. Taking the post of honour, Miss Riley's arm, I followed Tom, who I soon perceived ruled the whole concern, as he led the way with another ancient vestal in black stain and bugles. The long procession wound its snake-like length down the narrow stair, and into the dining-room, where at last we all got seated; and here let me briefly vindicate the motives of my friend—should any unkind person be found to impute to his selection of a residence, any base and grovelling ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... you said, Mr. Stewart," he remarked, as he joined me. "Fully a hundred of the niggers stole off to the woods to-night so soon as it was dark. They went down toward the old Black Snake swamp." ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... snake had wriggled in, he would have drawn after him the whole herd of vipers; his brother Demogorcon and all. 'Tis a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... conversed intimately on the virtues of pleurisy-root, Indian physic and columbo. Byle discoursed on the high price of ginseng, and the new method of preparing that specific for the Chinese market; recommended the prompt use of succory to cure a snake bite, and the liberal application of green stramonium leaves to heal sores on the back of a horse. He advised Blennerhassett to acquire an appetite for custard apples, which, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... master them one by one, unless they would combine for mutual defence. The necessity of some form of union had at length begun to force itself upon the colonial mind. A rough woodcut had lately appeared in the Pennsylvania Gazette, figuring the provinces under the not very flattering image of a snake cut to pieces, with the motto, "Join, or die." A writer of the day held up the Five Nations for emulation, observing that if ignorant savages could confederate, British colonists might do as much.[178] Franklin, the leading spirit of the congress, now laid before it his famous project ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... with shrill psalms as in your claws you seized their snake And crept away with it to slake your passion ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... was silent, Gone to their final rest, Dead in their last encampment Lay the ones I loved the best. And then, when my heart was lightest, It came with a snake-like tread, And darkened the day that was brightest, Then left ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... Kazan seldom refused to take guidance from her. They trotted away side by side and by the time Sandy was creeping up snake-like with the wind in his face, Kazan was peering from the fringe of river brush down upon the canoe on the white strip of sand. When Sandy returned, after an hour of futile stalking, two fresh tracks led straight down to the canoe. He ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... years ago it was reported that the late M. Pasteur 'cultivated' the poison of human saliva to such a point that he was able to produce with it many of the effects of the most virulent snake poisons."[19] Had they not been inflamed by the terror of the struggle for existence, "tigers and hyaenas, vultures and sharks, ferrets and polecats, wasps and spiders, puff-adders and skunks" might have turned their undoubted abilities in other more desirable directions.[20] ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... passage we had seen, and which we surmounted with much difficulty. We met a trading raft from the Pawnee nation on the river Platte, and attempted unsuccessfully to engage one of their party to return with us. At the distance of eight miles, we came to some high cliffs, called the Snake bluffs, from the number of that animal in the neighbourhood, and immediately above these bluffs, Snake creek, about eighteen yards wide, on which we encamped. One of our hunters, a half Indian, brought us an account of his having to day passed a small ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... rushing Contoocook! and in thy valleys, Agiochook! the jackals of the negro- holder.... What boots thy zeal, O glowing friend, that would indignant rend the northland from the South? Wherefore? To what good end? Boston Bay and Bunker Hill would serve things still—things are of the snake. The horseman serves the horse, the neat-herd serves the neat, the merchant serves the purse, the eater serves his meat; 'tis the day of the chattel, web to weave, and corn to grind; things are in the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... which glittered on the bank. Amused at this evident return of his larcenious friend of the previous day, he lay perfectly still. The movement and rustle continued, and it now seemed long and undulating. Lance's eyes suddenly became set; he was intensely, keenly awake. It was not a snake, but the hand of a human arm, half hidden in the moss, groping for the weapon. In that flash of perception he saw that it was small, bare, and deeply freckled. In an instant he grasped it firmly, and rose to his feet, dragging ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... origins of gods is to be observed in some of the most recent speculations. I well know that I myself am apt to press a theory of totems too far, and in the following pages I suggest reserves, limitations, and alternative hypotheses. Il y a serpent et serpent; a snake tribe may be a local tribe named from the Snake River, not a totem kindred. The history of mythology is the history of rash, premature, and exclusive theories. We are only beginning to learn caution. Even the prevalent anthropological theory of the ghost-origin of religion might, I think, be ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... Intervales- all at work, in the evening 2 Canoe of Indians Came from the 2 villages of Clotsop below, & brought Wapitoo roots a black root they call Si-ni-tor and a Small Sea orter Skin all of which we purchased for a fiew fishing hooks & Some Snake Indian Tobacco. Those Indians appeare well disposed, I made a Chief of one & gave him a Small medel, his name is Conyear we treated those people well- they are tite Deelers, value Blu & white beeds verry highly, and Sell ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... has been translated and is being largely sold, and it is awful to watch the faces of the people reading it—how they blanch and quiver. It is curious, you might think, that they read it at all; but you know the dread fascination of the snake for the humming-bird. The bird sees its doom, but cannot escape, and in fact ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... circumstances we are in, we think it right so to do. We have resolved to give an account of this matter to the King, which is but reasonable; some imagine that we propose to send the original decree, but here lies the snake in the grass. I protest, monsieur," added he, turning to the First President, "that the members did not understand it so, but that the copy only should be carried to Court, and the original be kept in the register. I ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... is engaged in tranquil conversation with Dharini, and the parivrajaka, the vidushaka rushes in, exclaiming he has been beaten by a venomous snake, whilst gathering flowers to bring with him as a present on his visit to the queen, and he exhibits his thumb bound with his cord, and marked with the impressions made by the teeth of the reptile. The parivrajaka, with some humour as well as good ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... when suddenly I felt as if something awful was about to happen. I started up, and saw Bowker just rising from a table at the far end of the room. I shan't ever forget his look,—like a bird charmed by a snake. His lips were ajar and wrinkled as if his blood had fled away inside of him, and his ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... Liberalism. Mackenzie King knows it. He knows that the Liberals will suffer more than the Government from the plough movement. Yet he is invited by The Globe to try the trick of the bird swallowing the snake! ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... came running round the back of the wagon, quick and eager as a gnome. He snatched up the whip and let the lash curl outward with a hissing rush. It flashed like the flickering dart of a snake's tongue, struck, and the horses sprang forward. It curled again, hung suspended for the fraction of a moment, then licked along the sweating flanks, and horses and mules, bowed in a supreme effort, wrenched ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... cautiously, he crouched on all fours in the grass, slipping and sliding forward so hiddenly that the keen ear and eagle eye of the approaching soldier took note of no least ripple in the quiet grass by the roadside. It was the sinuous, silent motion of a snake; and suddenly his eyes narrowed, his lips drew back from his teeth, his ears pricked forward, along the ridge of his bare back the hair bristled, and the locks about his face waved and writhed as though they were the locks of Medusa ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... logs in search of snakes. They whooped, they sang, they whistled. They rolled over and over each other, giggling as they wrestled, in the sheer delight of being alive on such a day. When they finally killed a harmless little chicken-snake, no prince of the royal blood, hunting tigers in Indian jungles, could have been prouder of his striped trophies than they ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... 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, ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... of "Snake!" were sent up, and each time this proved to be a false alarm, or the snake must have made good its escape, for no horrible crawling reptile came to view, in spite of the most desperate thrashing of bushes, and beating ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... himself thus made game of, Thor grew wroth, but had to go his ways, as the city of Utgard had vanished into thin air, with its cloud-capped towers and enormous citizens. Thor afterwards undertook to catch the Midgard Serpent, using a bull's head for bait. The World-Snake took the delicious morsel greedily, and, finding itself hooked, writhed and struggled so that Thor thrust his feet through the bottom of his boat, in his endeavors to land ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... that poor Chet Brooks, sure! I heard that he was killed at Snake River. It was just like him to rush in and get killed the first pop! And all ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to a sneaking respect for Satan, for he is pre- eminently a success in his chosen profession. He's playing a desperate game against omnipotent power and is more than holding his own. He sat into the game with a cash capital of one snake; now he's got half the globe grabbed and an option ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... least to show that our ancestors after all were not wholly ignorant of the virtues of cold water. Amongst other remedies, also, was a medicine composed of cinnabar and musk, an East Indian specific, and one of powdered Virginian snake-root, gum asafoetida, and gum camphire, mixed and taken as a bolus. So far, at least, if the various treatments did little good, they did no great harm. Brutality began where a person had been bitten by a dog that really was mad, and when undoubted symptoms of hydrophobia ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... disappears: it is called, from this quality, the Annihilator. Why am I forced to seek, in all the most prodigious and portentous facts of Natural History, for creatures typical of myself? I am that snake, that Annihilator: "wherever I fasten, in ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... the head off a rattlesnake when I see one," he said softly. "One day, yeahs ago, a rattlah killed a favorite dawg of mine. I blew that snake apart, bit by bit. Modoc, that snake was a gentleman alongside of yo'. I'm givin' yo' an even chance to kill me. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... in the nest was twigs found under a nearby plum tree. Then it was lined with grass, horse hair, a blue jay's feather, some hen's feathers, and some cottony material like lint. Jenny finally completed her boudoir by festooning a snake skin about it. When the nestlings began to walk about over the nest, this skin broke up into bits; so does not show ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... subsistence in the forest. The "mast" of the beech-tree, the nut of the hickory, the fruit of the Chinquapin oak, the acorn, and many other seeds and berries, furnish them with food. Many roots besides, and grasses, contribute to sustain them, and they make an occasional meal off a snake whenever they can get hold of one. Indeed it may be safely asserted, that no other cause has contributed so much to the destruction of these reptiles, as the introduction of the domestic hog into the forests of America. Wherever a tract of woods has been used as the "run" of a drove of hogs, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... rise and go to work again. The women who had children laid them down by the hedge-row, and gave them straws and other trifles to play with; here they were in danger from snakes; I have seen a large snake found coiled round the neck and face of a child, when its mother went to suckle it at dinner-time. The hands work in a line by the side of each other; the overseer puts the swiftest hands in the fore row, and all must keep up with them. One black man is kept on purpose to whip the ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... the title under which was deified a certain mythical personage, called Uga, to whom tradition attributes the honour of having first discovered and cultivated the rice-plant. He is represented carrying a few ears of rice, and is symbolized by a snake guarding a bale of rice grain. The foxes wait upon him, and do his bidding. Inasmuch as rice is the most important and necessary product of Japan, the honours which Inari Sama receives are extraordinary. Almost every house in the country contains somewhere about the grounds a pretty ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... up was indeed the reverse of military. So much so that probably far the most important part of his education lay in acquiring those arts which conduce to the deception of others, such deceptions as jugglers have always practised in snake-charming and the like, or in gaining control of another's senses by processes akin to hypnotism;— processes which have been used by the priestly class and their familiars from the dawn of time. In especial there was one miracle performed ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... comes to the surface belly upwards, but sometimes keeps down or sinks, and floats a considerable distance away from the spot; so that in the muddy water disturbed by the shot it is difficult to find him. If a snake be shot at while swimming he will sometimes sink like a stone, and can be seen lying motionless at the bottom. After we got hold of a small deer rifle we used to practise at the snakes in the mere—aiming at the head, which is about the size ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... it tarried always; And yet its whole career Is shorter than a snake's delay, And ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... mandrake's dreadful groans, By the lubrican's[12] sad moans, By the noise of dead men's bones In charnel-houses rattling; By the hissing of the snake, The rustling of the fire-drake[13], I charge thee thou this place forsake, Nor of Queen ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... have said nothing about snakes. Now it is really a very rare thing to see a snake in the woods. You have to look very carefully to find them, for they seem to be about the most timid of all creatures. So far as danger from poisonous snakes is concerned you are in much more danger from ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... cloud no bigger than a man's hand. In 1843 the evil had "travelled on from birth to birth." Already it had failed in what may be called one conspiracy; already it had entered upon a second, viz. to rear up an Anti-Kirk, or spurious establishment, which should twist itself with snake-like folds about the legal establishment; surmount it as a Roman vinea surmounted the fortifications which it beleaguered; and which, under whatsoever practical issue for the contest, should at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... know all about ships' charms. But I sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't half like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake's head, Stubb? Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look down there, Flask —pointing into the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... of the lubbers went under. Two o' fever and one o' snake-bite. It licks me what sailors are comin' to in these days. When I was afore the mast we'd ha' been ashamed to die o' a trifle like that. Look at me. I've been down wi' coast fever sixteen times, and I've had yellow jack an' dysentery, an' I've been bit by the black cobra in the Andamans. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... marvelous beauty, along the edges of deep defiles that opened below our feet like valleys of Paradise. The candlenut, the ama, with its lilac bloom, the hibiscus and pandanus, green and glossy, the petavii, a kind of banana the curving fronds of which spread high in air, the snake-plant, makomako, a yellow-flowered shrub, and many others none of us could name, carpeted the farther mountain-sides with brilliant colors. Everywhere were cocoanuts, guavas, and mangos. In the tree-tops over our heads the bindweed shook its feathery ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... 'What? snake-heads? Oh, boxes full of them. They're lovely flowers, but not lovelier than our own Devonshire daffodils. You should see a Devonshire water-meadow in April! Why don't you come down some time to Calcombe Pomeroy? ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... horses there, mister!" was Okie's sharp reply. "You ain't the only snake in this desert. There's four ...
— Jubilation, U.S.A. • G. L. Vandenburg
... corner where lay the remains of the nest in which he had been born. Winter, weary and monotonous to most of the wildlings of the field, passed quickly over his head. Scarce-broken sleep and forgetfulness, when skies are grey and tempests rage—such are Nature's gifts to the snake, the bee, and the flower, as well as to the squirrel in the wood and the vole in the burrow beneath the moss. Occasionally, it is true, when at noon the sun was bright and spring seemed to have come ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... Woman laughed. "Now, if that terrible child will kindly consent to sleep for fifteen minutes, I'll tell you what I meant," she said. "It had slipped my mind altogether, and it was only to-day, when Babe was scratching out a snake's track—so the snake couldn't find the way back home, she said—that I chanced to remember. Just a small thing, you know, that may or may not mean something very large and important—like a ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... poorly clad, as one who leads an austere life. A wild shock of hair overshadows his face, which is of a deathly pallor; his eyes are usually downcast, owing to a weakness of sight. He has a curious way of writhing when he speaks, which his enemies compare to the wriggling of a snake. He is given to fits of frenzy and wild excitement, but has withal, when he chooses, a most winning and earnest manner, fascinating to men and women ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... on the part of a certain Company Commander, who went with his horse into a dyke at the starting point, and instead of coming out with the animal, stayed in by himself, and for the fact that an unfortunate mistake in map reading, caused the Battalion to perform a most startling and snake-like turning feat in a lane only a few feet wide, the mistake being discovered just as the last transport vehicle had entered the lane. However, as it was a bright day and we were going away, great good humour prevailed, and each Company played "Here we go round ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... Two of our party agreed to proceed to the mouth of the branch I have mentioned, to determine which could return with the greatest speed. They had commenced their swimming race, when we, who stood ashore as umpires, observed an enormous water snake, with head erect, making for the two swimmers. We cried out to them to hasten on shore, which they did; while we kept up a rapid discharge of stones at the head of the brute, who was at last driven off in another direction. This ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... of timidity in the repulsive faces of the waiting creatures, this newcomer was of a different type. He opened flabby thin lips to give one sharp note of command. It was as sibilant as the hissing of a snake. The man with the weapon returned it to a holder at his side; the whole group cringed before the power and authority ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... heat of stinking dung, that of thy heat will be healed with the coolth of odoriferous rose-water; and whereas I was like to lose both limbs and life, thou, flayed by this heat, wilt abide fair none otherwise than doth the snake, casting its old skin.' 'Alack, wretch that I am,' cried the lady, 'God give beauties on such wise acquired to those who wish me ill! But thou, that are more cruel than any wild beast, how couldst thou have the heart to torture me after this fashion? What ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the word, no answer had wherein at all to trow, He felt him fallen amid the foe, and taken in the snare; Then foot and voice aback he drew, and stood amazed there, As one who through the thicket thrusts, and unawares doth tread Upon a snake, and starts aback with sudden rush of dread 380 From gathering anger of the thing and swelling neck of blue: So, quaking at the sight of us, Androgeus backward drew. But we fall on with serried arms and round their ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... lantern or two, while a few boys carried flaring torches. The light from these killed the moonbeams within a narrow radius, shot black tongues of smoke into the clear air, and set the meadows glimmering redly where contending radiance of moon and fire powdered the virgin snow with diamond and ruby. Snake-like the party wound along beside the river. Dogs barked; voices rang clear on the crystal night; now and again, with laughter and shout, the lads raced hither and thither from their stolid elders, and here and there jackets carried the mark of a ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... about in a cloud of dust, each puncher selected another mount. He moved forward, his loop trailing, eye fixed on the one pony, out of one hundred and fifty, that he wanted for the day's work. Suddenly a rope would snake forward past half a dozen broncos and drop about the neck of an animal near the heart of the herd. The twisting, dodging cowpony would surrender instantly and submit to being cut out from the band. Saddles were slapped on in a hurry ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... give any present to her or her husband. No Hindu man or woman would set out to visit a newly married couple if he or she hears sneezing while starting, or proceed on the journey if he or she hears the wailing of a beggar, or happens to see a Brahmin widow, a snake, a full oil pot, ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... reasonably hope to find all 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 ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... texts now available were not written then. They are drawn from others that were. But there is a vignette that probably is of that age. It represents a man and a woman stretching their hands to a tree. Behind the woman writhes a snake. The tree, known as the holy cedar of Eridu, the fruit of which stimulated desire, is described in an epic that recites the adventures ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... only cloaths my ashes, not my faults) Shall far out shine it: And for after issues Think not so madly of the heavenly wisdoms, That they will give you more, for your mad rage To cut off, unless it be some Snake, or something Like your self, that in his birth shall strangle you. Remember, my Father King; there was a fault, But I forgive it: let that sin perswade you To love this Lady. If you have a soul, Think, save her, and be saved, for ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... as he'd have looked at a snake," thought Hetty. "I guess he's an honest fellow after all. He's got a handsome beard of ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... 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
... traversed it, and was familiar with its general character. On the route they came to the hut of a man who was a comrade of Crockett in the Florida campaign. They spent a day with the retired soldier, and all went out in the woods together to hunt. Frazier unfortunately stepped upon a venomous snake, partially covered with leaves. The reptile struck its deadly fangs into his leg. The effect was instantaneous and awful. They carried the wounded man, with his bloated and throbbing limb, back to the hut. Here such remedies were ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... been fastened head down on the wall beside his door. Yet this was not all. Hanging at the end of a string—in fact, now resting inertly against his cheek—was the scarlet, black and yellow ringed body of a coral snake, the deadly elaps. Its head had been severed and lay upon the floor ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... me look," cried the doctor, who had now climbed up to where they stood, closely followed by Sir John. "Snake, was it?" ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?"' Macaulay's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... was while eating pears that I met my Matilda Jane. Oh, she was the most lovely young turtle that you can imagine! Her beautifully rounded shell, with its delicate markings in black and "old gold," which was just then coming into fashion, her snake-like head and neck, and her beautiful bright yellow eyes, gave her the well-deserved name of "The Belle of the Village." We loved each other at the first, and for some time we were inseparable, until one morning, when my master's father was coming to the city, I was picked up, wrapped ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... The black snake is the deadly foe of the Red Head, frequently entering his nest, feeding upon the young, and remaining for ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... ye little snake, or I'll flatten you!" cried the big drover, and shuffled his feet threateningly. Whereat the puppy, gurgling like hot water in a kettle, made a feint as though to advance and wipe them out, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Naepor, "Hedulio can pick up and handle a puff-adder and it will never strike at him and he can similarly handle any kind of snake." ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... ride! have a ride! Oh, mammy! they're gunter snake th' ole house through the village to-morrer, an' we're all gunter have a ride! free gratis for nothin'! 'thout payin' for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various |
