"Snap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his fleeting visit. Something inside them had broken with a snap; they gripped their tools more freely, more courageously; and they had seen their handicraft pass before their eyes like a species of technical pageant. For a long time the wind of the passage of the great bird hung about the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... straight neck and ragged hips; and gray "Lady Suffolk," "extending" herself till she measured a rod, more or less, skimming along within a yard of the ground, her legs opening and shutting under her with a snap, like the four blades ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... as I could make my fingers fly in setting up the camera, and getting a focus, the second moth's head was out, its front feet struggling to pull up the body; and its antennae beginning to lift, when I was ready for the first snap at ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the production of your work. You may rely on my practical talents for that purpose and have implicit confidence in me. If Weymar should prove too mean and poor, we shall try somewhere else; and even if all our strings snap (which is not to be expected), we may still go on playing if you give me full power to organize an unheard of music or drama festival, or whatever the thing may be called in any given place, and to ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... to both these generous outbursts, was comprised in a snap of his fingers in the direction supposed to have been taken by ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... You say you have something you want to say to her, and then you snap into it. I don't see how it can fail. If I were you, I should do it in this rose garden. It is well established that there is no sounder move than to steer the adored object into rose gardens in the gloaming. And you had better have a couple ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... the foot of the hill. What it was, he could not tell, but it did not belong to a single one of the infinite similar noises of the place with which he was so familiar. It was neither the rustle of a leaf, the snap of a parted twig, the drone of an insect, the dropping of a magnolia blossom. It was a vibration merely, faint, elusive, impossible of definition; a minute notch in the fine, keen ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... and the Prince were driving home from the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in passing along the Mall, near Stafford House, amidst a crowd of bowing, cheering spectators, the Prince saw a man step out and present a pistol at him. He heard the trigger snap, but the pistol missed fire. The Queen, who had been bowing to the people on the opposite side, neither saw nor heard anything. On reaching the Palace the Prince questioned the footmen in attendance, but neither had they noticed anything, and he could judge for himself that no ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Masai leaders to be brought before him, administered to them a very severe reprimand. Did they think that we should continue to be friends with thieves and robbers? Had he not told them that the swords which we had given to their leitunus would snap asunder like glass if drawn in an unrighteous cause? And in the war with the Kavirondo and Nangi were not the Masai in the wrong? 'We have saved you from the just punishment with which you were threatened, for the ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... saw the Battalion back in the trenches again at Lincoln Reserve and Midland Reserve, "D" Company being in Snap Trench. There was a heavy gas-shell bombardment by the enemy on the nights of the 12th, 13th, and 14th, the Battalion suffering heavy casualties, also intermittent shelling during the day and night, while there was, ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... silent, it was not very easy to talk: but sledging is always a silent business. I remember a long discussion which began just now about cold snaps—was this the normal condition of the Barrier, or was it a cold snap?—what constituted a cold snap? The discussion lasted about a week. Do things slowly, always slowly, that was the burden of Wilson's leadership: and every now and then the question, Shall we go on? and the answer Yes. "I think we are all right as long as our ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... all so d—-d peart on mathematics, and such things, that you want to snap me up on every opportunity, but I guess I've got something this time that'll settle you. Its something that a fellow gave out yesterday, and Colonel Iverson, and all the officers out there have been figuring on it ever ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... do. Again we drew blank. "Never heard of you." All we could get out of him was, "You had better bed down in the station and await events." Poor devil! so worn with work and worry that he looked as if a simple little De Aar dust-devil would snap his backbone if it touched him. So we were turned adrift again in the old iron heap to swell the army of vagrants who live by ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... fate should thus break at a stroke the meshes of habit, should stoop to play the advocate of his secret inclinations, seemed to promise him the complicity of the gods. Once in a lifetime, chance will thus snap the toils of a man's making; and it is instructive to see the poor puppet adore the power that connives ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... hand against a heart I love? Were it for you to mourn your wilful death, With such a bitterness as would be ours, The wish would ne'er have crossed you. While we're bound Life into life, a chain of loving hearts, Were it not base in you, the middle link, To snap, and scatter all? Shame, brother, shame! ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... thread is absurd. What he would have gained would have been a feeling of physical inconvenience during the quiet passages, and terror during the tremendous scenes of passion at the thought that the string might snap. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 't is only her plan to catch, if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production on a new construction; she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum.' His opinion in this will not be amiss; 't is what I intend my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said, and all ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... ruin and the forest together. But first promise not to interrupt me. If you snap the golden threads of thought, they will float away on the air like the film of the gossamer, and I shall never be able to ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... like a percussion-cap. The shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column. Now he descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all to discharge a salvo de joie. The slight languor left from the bath is gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... cane at a sharper angle until it bent in upon itself, threatening to snap, and flung one gray-spatted ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... clearing where the shade of the trees has little effect, stands an old water power mill. It is simply an "average view," and you can safely snap it ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... A snap of the whip, horses prancing, and with the notes of the horn waking the echoes in the hills, we drove out from "Redstone" just after luncheon and commenced the first stage of our sixty-mile drive to Normandie-by-the-Sea, ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... might happen here now, with the same certainty of impunity," continued Duchesne, lighting his pipe, the snap of the match making us all start. "D'Ardeche, your lamented relative was certainly well fixed; she had full scope here for her traditional ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... Stripping to shirt and drawers, I stowed everything in the knapsack and tied that safely in the fore peak. Then I swung out. Before I was a half mile out, I fervently wished myself back. But it was too late. How that little, corky, light canoe did bound and snap, with a constant tendency to come up in the wind'e eye, that kept me on the qui vive every instant. She shipped no mater; she was too buoyant for that. But she was all the time in danger of pitching her crew ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... undo yer plaits," she said, opening and shutting the bright scissors with a snap, as ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... then, is the remedy? Will Mr. BLACKBURN fix it? Must all our fiction travel from the cultured Continent? Or dares we snap our fingers at this haughty ipse dixit, And read our inartistic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... and closed the box with a snap, a strange pallor coming over her white, set face. The general looked gravely at her, and then, raising his hat, with a "Till we meet again," walked ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... this manoeuvre, and at the third onslaught I saw to my horror that the roots were loosening. I heard some of them snap, and a crack appeared in the ground not far from the bole. Fortunately Jana never noted these symptoms, for abandoning a plan which he considered unavailing, he stood for a while swaying his trunk ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... acclivity. Below her, far below, Confederate shells were constantly striking the base of the hill. A mile away black squares checkered a slope; beyond the squares a wood was suddenly belted with smoke, and behind her she heard the swinging signal flags begin to whistle and snap in the hill wind. She had sat there a long while before Captain West spoke to her, standing tall and thin beside her; some half-serious, half-humorous pleasantry—nothing for her to answer. But she looked up into his ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... get ready for the next caller, when I came at him and made him wire the General Manager of the line. The operator was sitting right outside the door, and when the answer came I just took it in—it gave the whole snap away, clear as ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... much at least, that a boat could be turned by means of the rudder; so he began to experiment upon this part of the vessel. He palled the rudder towards him. The boat turned, and as it turned the sail began to flap, and toss, and snap, in such a way that he grew exceedingly nervous. Suddenly a puff of wind came, and the sheets where whipped out of his nerveless hand, while the sail thus ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... think you're that smart? Jest becuz you stuck up a tourist you think you're cock o' the North Woods—with them two foxes lyin' out for to snap you up? Hey? Why, you poor dumb thing, Jake runs Canadian hootch for a livin' and Leverett's a trap thief! What could you do with a pair ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... any patience to lose. What the hell does he expect me to do?" Dave asked hotly. "Snap my fingers thus, yell abracadabra and give him ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... would not be drawn into an argument this time, and Eleanor decided that it must be something important, indeed, when Bob would not snap back at her. There had been times at home when Barbara had secrets that she feared others to share, then she would keep ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... overhearing us, understood him as well as I, and called out to me that William was right, and it was our best way to change our course, and stand away for the bay, where it was ten to one but we should snap her ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... when we—M. Rochez and I—came face to face with them. My friend raised his hat, and I did likewise. Mademoiselle Leah blushed and the ogre frowned. Sir, she was an ogre!—bony and angular and hook-nosed, with thin lips that closed with a snap, and cold grey eyes that sent a shiver down your spine! Rochez introduced me to her, and I made myself exceedingly agreeable to her, while my friend succeeded in exchanging two or three whispered words with ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of interest, must have suggested to one overhearing him from an adjoining room, for instance, the operation of a telegraphic instrument. He gave to every syllable the value of a rap and certain words he terminated with an audible snap of his teeth. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... touch-holes. Mine was delivered to me in this innocent state. Oh! that was a great mortification on field-days, when we were allowed to incorporate with the —- and —- Volunteers, whilst all the big lads actually fired off real powder, in line with real men, to be obliged to snap a wooden flint against a sparkless hammer. A mortification I could ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs. Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs. Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap, and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should have drunk ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... days must reach evening at last, The hills all climbed, the creeks all past; The tired herd droops in the yellowing light; Let them loaf if they will, for the railroad's in sight So flap up your holster and snap up your belt, And strap up your saddle whose lap you have felt; Good-bye to the steers from the long chaparral, For there's a town that's a trunk by ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... would have stood still—he seemed about to do so—but from the distance, somewhere on the road he had just traversed, came a howl, long-drawn and terrifyingly familiar. Joshua heard it, jumped sidewise, jerked at the halter and, as if playing "snap the whip," sent his would-be captor heels over head over the edge of the bank and rolling down the sandy slope. The halter flew from Brown's hands, he rolled and bumped and clutched at clumps of grass and bushes. Then he struck the beach ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of him. This will be a lesson to him. He will be more careful in future how he leaves Ogden at the mercy of anybody who cares to come along and snap him up.' ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Daily Press, Chained to their party posts, or fetter-free And running amuck against old party creeds, On-howl their packs and glory in the fight. See mangy curs, whose editorial ears Prick to all winds to catch the popular breeze, Slang-whanging yelp, and froth and snap and snarl, And sniff the gutters for their daily food. And these—are they our prophets and our priests? Hurra!—Hurra!—Hurra!—for "Liberty!" Flaunt the red flag and flutter the petticoat; Ran-tan the drums and let the bugles ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... it. Opposition thus overborne by superior strength, Wilhelm heard the clatter of von Brent's footsteps down the dark passage, and next instant the door was closed with a bang, and it seemed to the young man that the house had collapsed upon him. He heard his sword snap and felt it break beneath him, and he was gagged and bound before he could raise a hand to help himself. Then when it was too late, he realised that he had allowed the heat and fervour of pursuit to overwhelm his judgment, and had jumped straight into the trap prepared for him. ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the designer is satisfied with one surprise, but I never saw a good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of any kind is ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome, with the large balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series: the single baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street below through the gap, simply makes ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... our charge; but, you see, we do not understand these fellows. One knows what regular infantry can do against cavalry, and it may be we shall find that these Arabs are not to be ridden over as easily as we think. When you have got to reckon with men who don't care the snap of a finger whether they are killed or not, you never can count upon an easy victory however badly they may be armed, and however undisciplined they ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... wet and rough day. According to an article which appeared in the "Westminster Gazette," and was reprinted in our local "War Office Telegram," there is always a cold rough snap from October 20 to October 25. The first date was correct, and I trust the latter, which is to-morrow, will be as accurate, for we are miserable. Geese are crossing in ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... desperation, while the confederates pressed them with that old-time Southern vigor and valor that no amount of courage could withstand. Both armies stood at extreme tension, and the cord must soon snap one way or the other, or it seemed as all would be annihilated, Longstreet seeing the desperate struggle in which Kershaw and Humphreys, on the right, and Hood's old Texans, on the left, were now engaged, sought to relieve the pressure by a flank movement with such troops as he had at his disposal. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Toad gave up and went home, where he sat under a big mullein leaf the rest of the day, feeling very miserable and lonely. He didn't have appetite enough to snap at a single fly. Late that afternoon he heard a little noise and looked up to find all his old friends and neighbors forming a circle around him. Suddenly they began to dance ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... which look like cork and smell like cheese. It has to be cleaned, passed through a machine that tears it into bits, then between rollers before it is ready to be manufactured. It is not elastic like rubber; it may be stretched; but it will not snap back again as rubber does. It is a remarkably good nonconductor of electricity, and therefore it has been generally used to protect ocean cables, though recently rubber has been taking its place. It makes particularly excellent ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... are to fight Frenchmen, like ourselves; poor chaps who have done no harm, except that they stick to their clergy, and object to be dragged away from their homes. I am no politician, and I don't care a snap for the doings of the Assembly in Paris—I am a soldier, and have learned to obey orders, whatever they are—but I don't like this job we have in hand; which, mind you, is bound to be a good deal harder than most of you expect. It is true that they say there ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... discouraged and laid hold of the bell-handle again, pulling it out as far as it would come and letting it fly back again with a snap. The same results followed as when Schmidt had made the same attempt. There was a distant tinkling followed by total ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... think about those things yet. But she is wonderful, and I love her. It is all very well for you two," he continued earnestly. "You are both over thirty, and confirmed bachelors. I'm only just twenty-four, and I've never cared for a girl a snap of the fingers yet. I don't care any more about knocking about. Of course, I've done a bit at it like everyone else, but Isobel has knocked all that out of me. I should be quite content to ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the company, curling down with a silky swish, and unfurling again with a snap, like a broad-lashed whip. The greatest one was rosy red, and on it was a gallant ship upon a flowing sea, bearing upon its mainsail the arms of my Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of England. Upon its mate was a giant-bearded man ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... folly," she answered, laughing. "Whether you be rich or poor, prince or peasant, she cares not a snap of her finger. Ciel! is she not a republican, has she ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... feelings while thus entangled by a bond of enduring material, a bait for a fierce brute which eagerly pressed forward to snap at me. Believe me, boys, this was not the happiest moment of my life. I knew no reason why I should resignedly submit to so undistinguished a fate. My knife, however, was in the boat, so that my release could only be attained ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... snap and snarl, friend," said Phineas, as Tom winced and pushed his hand away. "Thee has no chance, unless I stop the bleeding." And Phineas busied himself with making some off-hand surgical arrangements with his own pocket-handkerchief, and such as ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... could only see your hidden face!' roared Juon, throwing himself with all his might on Black Mask. 'You devil, you, I'll tear your mummery off for you!'—and he gnashed at his opponent's face with his teeth, trying to snap his ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... day he alone, of the prisoners, was led to a wood and lashed by arms and legs to a couple of hickory trees that had been bent by a prodigious effort and tied together by their tops. The lashing was cut by a rifle-ball, the trees regained their straight position with a snap like whips, and that was the way Gilbert Gates came ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... been funny if it hadn't been so dramatic. The two men sprawled on their bellies like snakes, neither of them daring to take time to stand, each, in the snap of a finger, striving with every tendon and muscle to reach something that lay just beyond his finger-tips. I found myself actually laughing—they looked so like two fish just out ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... to see Father Payne one morning about some work. He was reading a book with knitted brows: he looked up, gave a nod, but no smile, pointed to a chair, and I sate down: a minute or two later he shut the book—a neat enough little volume—with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. This, by the way, was a curious little accomplishment of his,—throwing things with unerring aim. He could skim more cards across a room into a hat than anyone I ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the forenoon began, when a lad of sixteen placed a marble between his thumb and finger, and, with a snap, sent it rolling across the floor. As the tall and handsome teacher saw this act, he arose from his seat, and, without a word, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... When the teamster did snap into action his manner indicated that he knew how to handle balky oxen. First he cracked Mr. Kyle smartly over the bridge of the nose. "Wo haw up!" was a command which Kyle tried to obey in a flame of ire, but a swifter and more violent blow across the nose sent him back on his heels, his eyes shut ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... their way into the beams and rafters of some old building. How close the air was in the stifling passage through which he was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him waiting for his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, how desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, it may be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he remembered ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... snap, the door came loose, And Birdie flew out—the little goose! He flew right down to the very ground Where Pussie and Kittie played around. And now there began a lively race, Which ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... common Bite with him to lay Suspicions that he was favoured by a Lady's Enemy, that is some rival Beauty, to be well with herself. A little Spite is natural to a great Beauty: and it is ordinary to snap up a disagreeable Fellow lest another should have him. That impudent Toad Bareface fares well among all the Ladies he converses with, for no other Reason in the World but that he has the Skill to keep them from Explanation one with another. Did ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Roy slept, and swooping down on the poor little yawl, then wrapt in calm repose, she heeled us over on our beam-ends, and after fastening her clumsy, rusty anchor in my mizen shrouds (which were of iron, and declined to snap), she bore me and my boat away far off, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... only made of wood and it won't hurt a bit. We shall just snap and crackle and go off almost like fireworks and then we shall be ashes and fly away into the air and see all sorts of things. Perhaps it may be more fun than ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... may be broken, yet abide they friends at heart; Snap the stem of Luxmee's lotus, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... door to. It shut with a rasping snap; and at the same moment a great body from without thundered against it with terrific violence, and a deep voice roared like the sea when thwarted of ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... had sunk into the soft banks of a small, ditch-like spring branch. Mr. Stewart had to stay on our wagon to hold the bronco, but all the rest, even Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, gathered around and tried to help. They hitched on a snap team, but not a trace tightened. They didn't want to unload the game in the snow. The men lifted and pried on the wheels. Still ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... trick of the old woman's, wasn't it, giving you the shake that way? Everybody thought you were her pet weakness. We used to envy your soft snap. Did you get the ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the meanest of his own dependents as a self-deposed officer, liable to any man's arrest, and, ipso facto, a suppliant for his own mercy. The stern and haughty Cassius, who had so often tightened the cords of discipline until they threatened to snap asunder, now found, experimentally, the bitterness of these obvious truths. The trembling sentinel now looked insolently in his face; the cowering legionary, with whom "to hear was to obey," now mused or even bandied ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... and keep the couple separated long enough to secure a divorce and compromise Sir William with Sadie Farnum, and then she would be ready to snap her fingers at all danger ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... nor of mace, which tastes of soap. I have known of cases where parents claimed that their children were not fond of such things. Believe them not. I liked pie, but not pudding; the rich, heavy fruit-cake of weddings, good, honest gingerbread, the brisk, crispy heat of the brittle ginger-snap, but not "plain cake,"—absurd viand! It is of the essence of cake not to be plain. As well say, acid sweetness. Nor did I like the hereditary election-cake of my ancient State and city. Fat pork I could not swallow; nor onions nor cabbage,—gross, indelicate vegetables! And even now, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... the goddess to whom they prayed their heathen prayers. And as Bill Smiles was watching them, the lips of the figureheads moved; they all began to pray. But all at once their lips were closed with a snap when they saw that there were men on the Sea-Fancy. They all came crowding up and nodded and nodded and nodded to see if all were drunk, and that's when they made their mistake about old Bill Smiles, although he couldn't move. They would have given up the ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... a snap as he realized that on no account must he reveal the real motive for this ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... especially in whaling operations, cutting in, flensing, &c., a hole is cut in the blubber, the eye of the purchase strop passed through and toggled. In cold weather especially it is preferred to the hook, which at low temperatures is apt to snap suddenly, and is, moreover, heavier to handle. The term is also used for putting the bights of the sheets in the beckets. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... have been safe enough if the limb had been a good one, but it wasn't, and when Mr. Possum ran along it, before he could even get ready to swing, "crackle, snap," went the limb and down went Mr. Possum into a barrel of whitewash Mrs. Rabbit had ready to use on her ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... first man; "they're all gone. It's kind of lonely, but we're doing some chopping for the road, and we'll be right here with money saved when work begins in spring. Bought a piece of fruit land, part on mortgage, at a snap, and with good luck we'll have it ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... Bess, but with rather a vicious snap. "We couldn't get along, of course, without having a parcel of boys around. 'Morning, ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... old hulk and—twenty years, did you say? Why, the damned old scoundrel! After all he has seen and—" His jaws closed suddenly with a snap, and his eyes narrowed into ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... foliage below the waist, like plump nymphs escaping the rude pursuit of gods. Their bareness and boldness startled the convent-bred girl, even horrified her. She was the last to leave the omnibus, and then, instead of pushing in with her fellow-passengers to secure a room before others could snap up everything, she lingered a moment on ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hed come off, the feet w'u'd ha' come with 'em! An' now away we go,—Laura an' me. Around the bend—near the medder where Si Barker's dog killed a woodchuck last summer—we meet the rest. We forget all about the cold. We run races an' play snap the whip, an' cut all sorts o' didoes, an' we never mind the pick'rel weed that is froze in on the ice an' trips us up every time we cut the outside edge; an' then we boys jump over the airholes, an' the girls stan' by an' scream an' tell us they know we're agoin' ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... wears off the burr and makes the stamping come out cleaner and finer. When patterns are so large that they have to be folded, iron out the creases before using them. After using the patterns for powder stamping, snap the pattern to shake the powder from the perforations. After using the patterns for paint stamping they should be washed thoroughly with naphtha until the perforations are all perfectly clear. Keep the naphtha away from the fire. After the pattern has been washed, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... and looked forward to a ranch in a mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and contemplative age in the green shade of forests. "Just let me get down on my back in a hayfield," said he, "and you'll find there's no more snap to ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and bent the dizzy, tapering masts till they threatened to snap. But the bark bore bravely through it, while the huge waves seemed bearing her down to those ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and independent little person she was, nor did he know that each day during the week she had expected him to ride over, and had finally told herself point-blank that it did not matter the least snap of her fingers whether he ever came or not. Naturally, she did not know what had kept him away or that he had even wanted to come. Now that she had heard his remark about a lost horse and a long walk she was burning ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Jupiter shrunk to three quarters of its present diameter, or 64,800 miles, then its surface gravity would exceed the earth's nearly five times. With one half its present diameter the surface gravity would become more than ten times that of the earth. On such a planet a man's bones would snap beneath his weight, even granting that he could remain upright at all! It would seem, then, that, unless we are to abandon terrestrial analogies altogether and "go it blind," we must set an upper limit to the magnitude of a habitable ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... to be either one thing or the other. She doesn't care that"—a snap of the fingers—"for this man Otway, and she knows he doesn't care for her. But she's playing him against you, and you must expect more of it. You ought to make up your mind. It ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... fact that your majesty will soon call upon the city for a loan to make up the Lady Mary's dower, it would be wise not to antagonize them in this matter, but to allow Master Brandon to remain quietly in confinement until the loan is completed and then we can snap ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... aggravatingly. 'Do you think you'll cure the neighbourhood with that marriage?' he exclaimed. 'Before another two years Catherine will be following her sister's example. They all go the same way, and as they end by marrying, they snap their fingers at every one. These Artauds flourish in it all, as on a congenial dungheap. There is only one possible remedy, as I have told you before: wring all the girls' necks if you don't want the country to be ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... madness, and now her brain was dumb and dark as though it had been shut into a blank-walled cell. She stood with her hands hanging. She had no will nor wish to pray. The knowledge had come to her that if she went out and looked this winter Pan in the face, her brain would snap, either to life or death. It would burst its prison ... She stared, wide-eyed, dry-eyed, through the immense cold height of air up ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... have received the name tucano from the noise they make, which resembles "tok-kan" very sharply pronounced and with a snap at the ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to say that he will marry her and snap his fingers at the old squire, who, for some reason best known to himself, is no admirer of the ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... ingeniously but very simply guarded against it by causing two little folds of the lining of the blood pipes to stick up both where the vena cava enters the heart and where the aorta leaves it, so as to form little flaps which act as valves. These valves allow the blood to flow forward, but snap together and close the opening as soon as it tries to flow backward. While largest and best developed in the heart, these valves are found at intervals of an inch or two all through the veins in most parts of the body, allowing the blood ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... Tsar himself on this side of the world, but when his inspections and reforms are concluded, and he is one of the wealthiest men in Russia, he will return to St. Petersburg and become so high and mighty that a princess would snap at him. And you aspire! I never ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... shall not make haste to blame it. There are few places, few occasions among us, in which a novelist can get a large number of polite people together, or at least keep them together. Unless he carries a snap-camera his picture of them has no probability; they affect one like the figures perfunctorily associated in such deadly old engravings as that of "Washington Irving and his Friends." Perhaps it is for this reason that we excel in small pieces with three or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... data} are called 'trampolines'. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the true trampoline. See also {snap}. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... prove it to be other than that of his wife was quickly dispelled. His worst fears were true, His Frances—his wife of more than a score of years, his pretty sweetheart through all those days, was false to him! As he fell back against the wall something seemed to snap in his breast; a groan of misery arose to ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... great information from such an assemblage, but 'twas but a snip-snap of talk—remarks passed from one to another, but served as it were on massy plate—long words, and too many of 'em. Dull, my dear, dull! And so 'twill always be when people aim to be clever. They do these things better in France, where they ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... God. There are plenty of other bonds that draw us to one another; but these, if they are not strengthened by this deepest of all bonds, the affinity of souls, that are moving together in the realm of light and purity, are precarious, and apt to snap. Sin separates men quite as much as it separates each man from God. It is the wedge driven into the tree that rends it apart. Human society with its various bonds is like the iron hoop that may be put around the barrel staves, giving them a quasi-unity. The ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father or my grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now occupies my time and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap to his eyes which I took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of honor, or to subject myself to terrible consequences. "With that understanding, Jenkins, I'll tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby Seal, in which some crime, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... the caddy with a snap, "that Providence had willed to send the dear old fellow into the world twenty years later than it did. In that case I should not at all have minded trying to be a comfort ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... understand, friend Pancho, that I make no row. The other themself make the row, the shindig. They make the dance, the howl, the snap of the finger, the oath, the 'Helen blazes,' the 'Wot the devil,' the 'That be d—d,' the bad language; they themselves finger the revolver, advance the bowie-knife, throw off the coat, square off, and say 'Come on.' ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... Snap-dragon was a favourite Christmas sport at this time. Several raisins were put into a large shallow bowl and thoroughly saturated with brandy. All other lights were extinguished and the brandy ignited. By turns each one of the company tried to snatch ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... weight of metal. Sturdee reached Port Stanley on 7 December. Von Spee, who had been refitting at Juan Fernandez, left it on 15 November, possibly fearing the Japanese approach, and made for Cape Horn and the Atlantic. His plan was to snap up the Canopus and the Glasgow, get what he could out of the Falklands, and then proceed to support the rebellion in South Africa. Early on 8 December he unsuspectingly approached Port Stanley, not discovering the presence of Sturdee's squadron until it was too late. He then made off north-eastwards ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... of estimating Stover simply by his lack of weight, without taking account of the nervous, dynamic energy which was his strength. Consequently, at the snap of the ball, he was taken by surprise by the wild spring that Stover made directly at his throat and, thrown off his balance momentarily by the frenzy of the impact, tripped and went down under the triumphant Dink, who, unmindful ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... was at this game, and did not know that the master was in the next field, watching what was going on; over the hedge he jumped in a snap, and catching Dick by the arm, he gave him such a box on the ear as made him roar with the pain and surprise. As soon as we saw the master we trotted up nearer to see what ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell |
