"Viper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to remain here for another ten years, if I am spared so long. Little viper! I suppose this comes from her. After warming her in my ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... utterly stripped of inhabitants by heavy bondage and torments unspeakable. Oh, witless Islanders!" said he, apostrophizing the Irish, "would to Heaven that you were here to listen to me! What other fate awaits you, if this viper, which you are so ready to take into your bosom, should be warmed to life, but to groan like the Indians, slaves to the Spaniard; but to perish like the Indians, by heavy burdens, cruel chains, plunder and ravishment; scourged, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... connotation. —Gutenberg ed. "True enough," said the king, "I prefer the duc de la Vauguyon: he has a good reputation—" "And well deserved," said the old marechal, sneering. "Yes, sire, he is a pious man; at least, he plays his part well. " "Peace, viper; you spare nobody." "Sire, I am only taking my revenge." "Why do you not like the governor of my grandsons?" "In truth, sire, I must confess to you, that except yourself and the ladies, I have not many likings at Versailles." Louis XV smiled, and ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... which were perpetually made at his expense, and yet never ceased, it seemed wilfully, to expose himself to them. He was constantly wounded, and yet his good-nature was such that he could not bear malice: the viper might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and had no sooner recovered from his pain than he tenderly placed it once more in his bosom. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knockabout farce. Because I did not ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... thrust her from him like a viper with so hasty a movement that the poor girl hardly knew what had happened. She did not suspect that she had thrust a dagger into the heart of the man she loved. At balls, young girls now, after a rapid waltz, ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... mountains urge into the toils Some antlered monster to their chiming cry. Learn also scented cedar-wood to burn Within the stalls, and snakes of noxious smell With fumes of galbanum to drive away. Oft under long-neglected cribs, or lurks A viper ill to handle, that hath fled The light in terror, or some snake, that wont 'Neath shade and sheltering roof to creep, and shower Its bane among the cattle, hugs the ground, Fell scourge of kine. ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... being bitten by a viper, Jesus blows on the wound and cures him. 4 Jesus charged with throwing a boy from the roof of a house, 10 miraculously raises the dead boy to acquit him; 12 fetches water for his mother, breaks the pitcher and miraculously gathers the water in his mantle and brings it home; ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... "Ah! viper, I felt your tooth!" cried he, in a voice trembling with rage, and tightly grasping La Chouette, who had thought to escape. "You crawl in the cellar," added he, more and more wandering, "but I am going to crush you, Screech-Owl. You waited, doubtless, the coming of the phantoms; ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... "An element which slumbers like a viper under roses is that which is now so frequently provided as a plaything for children; it is, in a word, the already too complex and ornate, too finished toy. The child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough variety by means ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... spineless jellyfish in this town," he drawled. "They all believe I killed Whitmore. Well, I'm not saying whether I did or not. But suppose I did kill him? Ain't a man got the right to defend his home? What's this country coming to when a viper can sneak into another man's house and steal his wife? The papers say that I went around threatening to kill him. Well, I did. And I meant it, too. Why, that yellow cur was sending letters to my wife urging her to leave me. What do you think ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... it! If her viper tongue Can kill, why kill it must. But send me a man, And I will smite his mouth—ay, slit his tongue— That dares defame ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... hysterical with the grimness of a deadly humour. His swift defiance to Lord Lovell, as Sir Giles, and indeed the whole mighty and terrible action with which he carried that scene—from "What, are you pale?" down to the grisly and horrid viper pretence and reptile spasm of death—were simply tremendous. This was in the days when his acting yet retained the exuberance of a youthful spirit, before "the philosophic mind" had checked the headlong currents of the blood or curbed ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... a haje, a fearful reptile which is able to swell its head by spreading out the scales which cover it, and which is thought to be Cleopatra's asp, the serpent of Egypt. In Morocco it is known as the buska. The charmer folded and unfolded the greenish-black viper, as if it were a piece of muslin; he rolled it like a turban round his head, and continued his dance while the serpent maintained its position, and seemed to follow every movement and ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... coussin vert," has followed you into the Louvre court. Take care! She has noticed, envious creature, that you are very much moved as you take leave of your companion, and that you let your hand remain for a second in his! This old maid 'a l'anglaise' has a viper's tongue. To-morrow you will be the talk of the Louvre, and the gossip will spread to the 'Ecole des Beaux-Arts', even to Signol's studio, where the two daubers, your respectful admirers, who think of cutting their throats in ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... damned nothing but what they have fully deserved is the absorbing tremendous conviction which weighs down each heart. Vice appears in its own grim disgusting colours, being stripped of the mask under which it is hidden in this world, and the infernal viper is seen devouring those who have cherished or fostered it here below. In a word, Hell is the temple of anguish and despair, while the kingdom of God is the temple of peace and happiness. This is easy to ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... free her wrists. His pale face flushed a dark, flaming red when she shrank from his touch as if he were a viper. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... continued Socrates, with tragic intensity, "that I have nourished a viper in my bosom! I have learned that we have ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... house was the ladies'-maid, a thin and wizened spinster, Madeleine Vivet by name. This Madeleine, in spite of, nay, perhaps on the strength of, a pimpled complexion and a viper-like length of spine, had made up her mind that some day she would be Mme. Pons. But in vain she dangled twenty thousand francs of savings before the old bachelor's eyes; Pons had declined happiness accompanied by so many pimples. From ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... officer-prisoners might not walk. The buildings were destroyed in 1814, when all the prisoners were sent home, and the house of the Commandant, now a private residence, alone remains to recall this episode in our history. But Borrow's most vivid memory of Norman Cross was connected with the viper given to him by an old man, who had rendered it harmless by removing the fangs. It was the possession of this tame viper that enabled the child of eight—this was Borrow's age at the time—to impress the gypsies that he met soon afterwards, and particularly the boy Ambrose Smith, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... before, Lois waited for that train—yet how differently! If that injured feeling rose, for an instant, at his not having sent her word, she crushed it back as one would crush the head of a viper that showed itself between the crevices of the hearthstone. She would not pity herself—she would not pity herself! She knew now that madness ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... pitiless pointing—her face growing whiter and whiter still every instant)—"look at that woman, I say—corrupt long before she was your age—hypocrite for years! If ever you, or any child of mine, cared for her, shake her off from you, as St Paul shook off the viper—even into the fire." He stopped for very want of breath. Jemima, all flushed and panting, went up and stood side by side with wan Ruth. She took the cold, dead hand which hung next to her in her warm convulsive grasp, and holding it so tight that it was blue and discoloured for days, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... amongst them, make them my common viands, and I find they agree with my stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander: at the sight of a toad or viper I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I can discover in others; those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... nostrils were assailed by a sickening smell as of crushed cucumbers. And at the odor his fists tightened in new fear. For no serpents give off that peculiar odor. except members of the pit-viper family. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... and I will beg him as a favor to treat you as he did your father; in other words, to spare your life at least, so as to leave me the pleasure, after your recovery, of killing you outright; for you have the heart of a viper, M. de Wardes, and in very truth, too many precautions cannot be taken ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... now you shall see the most horrible practices that ever came out of the bottomless pit of the lowest hell.' In reply to a protest by Ralegh as to his liability for some underhand practices of Cobham, as Warden of the Cinque Ports, Coke foamed out: 'All he did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor! I will prove thee the rankest traitor in all England.' 'No, Master Attorney,' was the answer: 'I am no traitor. Whether I live or die, I shall stand as true a subject as ever the King hath. You may ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... allowed to eat horseflesh and to practice exposure of infants.[980] In old German law infanticide was treated as the murder of a relative. The guilty mother was buried alive in a sack, the law prescribing, with the ingenious fiendishness of the age, that a dog, a cat, a rooster, and a viper should also be placed in the sack.[981] In ancient Arabia the father might kill newborn daughters by burying them alive. The motive of the old custom was anxiety about provision for the child and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... till—till it became, as it always does when left to itself, a fool, a very fool. Its plunderings might have been overlooked, and so might its insolence, had it been common insolence, but it—, and then the roar of indignation which arose from outraged England against the viper, the frozen viper which it had permitted to warm ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... but few words to cast upon a thing so vile as you have become. If I submit to your presence for a moment it is because that agony must be endured in order that I may cast you from me at once, like the viper that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... the viper's smart, Then instant aid was given. Christian, hence learn to do thy part, And ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... arms, looked at him with quiet scorn. "It is the nature of the viper to use his venom," he said calmly. "Such a thing ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... was intended, they regarded the spotted stem of the bugloss, and its seeds shaped like a serpent's head, as certain indications that the herb would cure snake bites. Indeed, the genus takes its name from Echis, the Greek viper. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... and literature abounds with such applications of it. In Plutarch's account of what Thespesius saw when his soul was ravished away into hell for a time, we are told that he saw the soul of Nero dreadfully tortured, transfixed with iron nails. The workmen forged it into the form of a viper; when a voice was heard out of an exceeding light ordering it to be transfigured into a milder being; and they made it one of those creatures that sing and croak in the sides of ponds and marshes.14 When Rosalind finds ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... so pitifully before me." "Pitifully!" exclaimed Heimbert angrily, and his wounded sense of honor giving him back for a moment all his strength, he seized his sword and stood ready for an encounter. "Oho!" laughed the Arab, "does the Christian viper still hiss so strongly? Then it only behooves me to put spurs to my horse and leave thee to perish here, thou lost creeping worm!" "Ride to the devil, thou dog of a heathen!" retorted Heimbert; "rather than entreat a crumb ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... But, alas! no human skill could avert the dark fate which clung to him. The last night he had to pass alone in the turret, a bundle of faggots was conveyed to him as usual, in which lay concealed a viper, which clung to his hand. The bite was fatal; and, instead of being borne in triumph, the dead body of his only son was the sad spectacle which met ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... her eyes and he pretended not to see her. He was angry with her: the confounded little minx to betray him. She was the only one who could have put his parents on his track. How should they otherwise have ever guessed it? He could have kicked himself for having once given that viper hints about his acquaintance in Puttkammerstrasse. Frida and her friendship, just let her try to talk to him again about friendship. Pooh, women on the whole were ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... nor does it draw five per cent, as some other bonds do. She brought Constance up in what is now considered to be the most approved fashion in high society. The chap who had nothing but health and ambition and honour and brains to offer, in addition to that unprofitable thing called love, was a viper in Mrs. Blair's estimation. He was very properly and promptly stamped upon by the fond mother and doubtless was very glad to crawl off into the high ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... you doing? that is our enemy, our bitterest enemy. He has only sold you the estate to spite us, not for the love of you. I had—we had—we mortified his vanity. It was not our fault: he is a viper. Sir, pray, pray, pray be on your guard ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... is at it again about indelicacy. There is no indelicacy. If he wants that, let him read Swift, his great idol; but his imagination must be a dunghill, with a viper's nest in the middle, to engender such a supposition about this poem."—Letter to Murray, May 15, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as they say the son ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... said Zell, sternly. "As the one stung is related to the viper that stung him," and with a withering look she ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... left to itself, a fool, a very fool. Its plunderings might have been overlooked, and so might its insolence, had it been common insolence, but it—, and then the roar of indignation which arose from outraged England against the viper, the frozen viper, which it had permitted to warm itself ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... could not be content to look on grace, Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye To tempt the terror of her front and die. By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed, 1010 Those dire artificers of death shall bleed. Against themselves their witnesses will swear, Till, viper-like, their mother-plot they tear; And suck for nutriment that bloody gore, Which was their principle of life before. Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight: Thus on my foes, my foes shall do me right. Nor doubt the event: ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... when you see a viper, or an asp, or a scorpion, in a casket of ivory or gold, you do not love or congratulate them on the splendour of their material, but because their nature is pernicious you turn from and loathe them, so likewise when you see vice enshrined in wealth and the pomp of circumstance ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... trace— That love's a fluttering thing of air; And yonder lurks the viper base, Who would my gentle bird ensnare! 'Twas in the shades of Eden's bower This fascination had its birth, And even there possessed the power To ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... were aware of all this they would not only be careful how they marry immoral men, but they would shrink from personal contact with them as from a viper. Not one, but many girls who have held somewhat lax ideas concerning the propriety of allowing young men to be familiar have reaped the result in a contamination merely through the touch of the lips. To-day a young woman in good social standing is a sufferer from this ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... him! When I was a girl, I hadn't bread to eat, or a shoe to my foot, and to get away from that wretchedness I was tempted by Alyoshka's money, and got caught like a fish in a net, and I'd rather have a viper for my bedfellow than that scurvy Alyoshka. And what's your life? It makes me sick to look at it. Your Fyodor sent you packing from the factory and he's taken up with another woman. They have robbed you ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... young vipers killing their mother in raving[l69] her belly to win furth, and that wt the horrid peine she suffers in the bringing furth her young she dies, which also I have heard Mr. Douglas—preaching out of the last of the Acts about that Viper that in the Ile of Malta (wheir they are a great more dangerous then any wheir else) cleave to Pauls hand—affirme at least as a thing reported by naturalists, the etymon of the Greek word [Greek: hechidnae] seiming to ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... would appear either as an angel of light, or as a monster in hideous shape. An anonymous writer, discussing the subject, says: "A devil would appear either like an angel seated in a fiery chariot, or riding on an infernal dragon, and carrying in his right hand a viper, or assuming a lion's head, a goose's feet, and a hare's tail, or putting on a raven's head, and mounted on a strong wolf. Other forms made use of by demons were those of fierce warriors, or old ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... patient; and he sat down on another stone, after making sure that it did not cover an insect's nest, and had not been made the roof of a viper's home. ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... of the tender-hearted man, who placed a frozen viper in his bosom, and was stung by it when it became thawed? If we take a cold-blooded creature into our bosom, better that it should sting us and we should die than that its chill should slowly steal into our hearts; warm it we never can! I have seen faces of women that were fair to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... turbulent mother. He was sent to a reformatory at ten years of age, and there showed himself, as he has always done when his organization had given him a chance, quiet, well-behaved, and obedient. Then at fourteen years old he had a great fright from a viper—a fright which threw him off his balance, and started the series of psychical oscillations on which he has been tossed ever since. At first the symptoms were only physical, epilepsy and hysterical paralysis of the legs; and at the asylum of Bonneval, whither ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... does the terrible Commune of Paris come into being, that of August 10th, September 2nd 1792 and May 31st. 1793. The viper has hardly left its nest before it begins to hiss. A fortnight before the 10th of August[2644] it begins to uncoil, and the wise statesmen who have so diligently sheltered and fed it, stand aghast at its hideous, flattened head. Accordingly, they back away from ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... into their heads to rob you (which in all probability they will), the two that you have in your service will be made by their fellows to communicate regular intelligence of your movements; and you will find you have been harbouring a viper in your bosom." ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... took no such responsibility, but referred the whole matter to Congress, while relaxing not one whit of his vigilance. Leslie then asked permission to purchase supplies for his army, that he might evacuate Charleston. The wary Greene refused to allow it, for in so doing he might be nourishing a viper that would ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... secret.' 'What secret thou false one? Thou art all over secret; a very hopeful bawd at eighteen——go, I hate ye——' At this she wept, and he pursued his railing to out-noise her, 'You thought, because your deed were done in darkness, they were concealed from a lover's eye; no, thou young viper, I saw, I heard, and felt, and satisfied every sense of this thy falsehood, when Octavio was conducted to Sylvia's bed by thee.' 'But what,' said she, 'if instead of Octavio I conducted the perfidious traitor to love, Brilliard? ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... 'what a viper have I been fostering in my bosom! And so fond of public justice too as he seemed to be. But he shall have it; secure him, Mr Gaoler—yet hold, I fear there is not ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... slave to him. "Oh! do not despise me for my feebleness! I have lived in the palace. I can wind like a viper through the walls. Come! in the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot of gold beneath every flagstone; an underground path leads ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... again and be safe from scourgings. Thank heaven for Sir Basil, was Jack's thought, over that sharpened ache. And it was with this thought that, for Jack, came the first sinister whisper, the whisper that, as suddenly as the hiss of a viper trodden upon in the grass, warned him of the fulfilment, clear, startling, unimaginable, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... regarded as somewhat disrespectful. At Walter Raleigh's trial, Coke, when argument and evidence failed him, insulted the defendant by applying to him the term thou. 'All that Lord Cobham did,' he cried, 'was at thy instigation, thou viper! for I thou thee, thou traitor!'"—Fowler's E. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... O sworn to requite man's evil wrathfully, Powers Gracious, on whose grim brows, with viper tresses inorbed, Looks red-breathing forth your ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... more'n a hundred pounds, and must be fifty years old, and he's got curvature of the spine, and he's able seaman, if you please, on the Elsinore. And worse than all that, he puts it over on you; he's nasty, he's mean, he's a viper, a wasp. He ain't afraid of anything because he knows you dassent hit him for fear of croaking him. Oh, he's a pearl of purest ray serene, if anybody should slide down a backstay and ask you. If you fail to identify him any other way, his name ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... his Joys secure, Turns Limbetham and keep some Gaudy whore, Thinks her his own—when Satan knows her his mind, Is like her Body not to be confin'd, As constant as the Moon, she plays her part, And like a Viper preys upon his Heart: Draws him so poor, till like her Slaves, Which she bestows on some smart Fop she loves, For this is with 'em a perpetual Rule, They never Love the Person that they fool, This he perceives not till it is too late, Till Ruined in his Person and Estate. And then good Night, when ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... "Well, you little viper," he said, taking her by the arm when he had fastened the reins to a hook in front of the leathern apron which closed the carriole and the horse had started on a trot, "do you think you can keep Bonnebault by giving ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the door she would step into his room, and place the letter ready for his eyes. After that she spent the whole day in thinking of it, and read the odious words over and over again till they were fixed in her memory. "Say that you love me!" Wretched viper; ill-conditioned traitor! Could it be that he, her husband, loved this woman better than her? Did not all the world know that the woman was plain and affected, and vulgar, and odious? "Dearest George!" ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... spoke out one of the Bedouins, "it is necessary to prevent this son of Iblis from twisting our necks. We are taking a viper to the Mahdi. What do you intend to ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... their rattles lying near them, which, as the visitor-will see, are a succession of osseous joints. Here too are the terrible cobra di capello, and other poisonous serpents of India; the South American fer de lance; the vipers of Europe; the North African crested viper; and the Cape of Good Hope and Western African puff adder; the Guinea nosehorn viper, and the common viper found in England—our only dangerous serpent. These serpents all inflict their poisonous wounds by means of two fangs, which they protrude ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... of you, you viper," said he, "because I had placed you in such a position that you could not harm us. And now you will serve me because I will show you that I can take everything from you—name, money, liberty, and life. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... him four animals which were supposed to symbolize all that was most hideous and depraved—the dog, a common object of contempt; the cock, proverbial for its want of all filial affection; the poisonous viper; and the ape, which was the base imitation of man. In this strange company he was thrown into the nearest river ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... denies his family, and gives her cash to buy rags, and now she and a stranger are cursing us for the shelter we gave her. It makes me sick! Why don't I die! I'm shedding tears of blood. We've warmed a viper in our bosom. [Leans against the fence] I'll wait, I'll wait. I'll tell her everything, everything ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... detective's feet, "if me an' Bart 'ave sich a brat, I 'ope he dies in his cradle, instead of growing to a galler's thief in th' use of words which make me shudder, let alone my pretty. Ugh!" she shook her fist at Tray. "You Old Bailey viper, though young ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... not easy to give a lie unless you can prove it a lie. I made her realise this, and she bit her lip in vexation. Dame! What a pretty viper I thought her ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... between the bars, politely proffered it to Mr. Banker. Mr. Banker received me with a sad and dejected look, and not “with open arms,” or with any arms at all, but with—a pair of tongs! I placed my letter between the iron fingers, which picked it up as if it were a viper, and conveyed it away to be scorched and purified by fire and smoke. I was disgusted at this reception, and at the idea that anything of mine could carry infection to the poor wretch who stood on ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... back as if a viper had stung her; for the moment she had become oblivious of Chauvelin's presence. However, she would not take notices of his taunt, and, after a slight pause, he asked her if she could hear the town crier over ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... young idiots, you don't know what you've done,—you do not, Kenneth. As for you, you young viper, are you as cunning as you are high, ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... knotted on it; but broken a little out of the way at each joint, like a rheumatic elbow that won't come straight, or bend farther; and—which is the most curious point of all in it—it is thickest in the middle, like a viper, and gets quite thin to the root and thin towards the flower; also the lengths between the joints are longest in the middle: here I give them in inches, from the root upwards, in a stalk taken ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... plant, but he had long ago been taught the valuable properties of its leaves as an antidote against the bite of the most poisonous snakes. He had known them to cure the bite of the cascabel (rattle-snake), and even of the small spotted viper, the most poisonous of all the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... earl's daughter whom Mrs. Smithers has found. She has a peculiar talent for making good acquaintances," she thought, just as Daisy offered her hand, which she involuntarily took, but dropped as if it had been a viper when ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... the viper's gore, The Wrestler's oil, that supples every vein? Why do we see his arms no more With livid bruises spotted o'er, Of ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... hear that old viper's name again in this house. She's the serpent in this town tempting the last one of ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... strewn with broken glass, and stained or darkening irregularly into red. And then at last the serpent charm changes the ranunculus into monkshood, and makes it poisonous. It enters into the forget-me-not, and the star of heavenly turquoise is corrupted into the viper's bugloss, darkened with the same strange red as the larkspur, and fretted into a fringe of thorn; it enters, together with a strange insect-spirit, into the asphodels, and (though with a greater interval between the groups) they change to spotted orchideae; it touches the ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... near the location of the Viper Shoal, but saw nothing of it. It is, therefore, marked doubtful on the chart. As I had but little time to spare, the look-outs were doubled, and we pursued our course throughout the night, sounding as we went every fifteen minutes; ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... that, when St. Paul, after he had been shipwrecked, and escaped to the island of Malta, a viper fastened on his hand as he was laying a bundle of sticks, he had gathered, on the fire; and that, by a miracle, and to the great astonishment of the spectators, inhabitants of the island, he not only suffered no harm, but also cured, by the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... particular whom I hate, and whom I have cursed," she resumed; "it is a young one, of the age which my daughter would be if her mother had not eaten my daughter. Every time that that young viper passes in front of my cell, she sets my ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... fall ill, the foot will not avail to cure her," he murmured. "Ben Ali Tidjani's blessing could never rest on an Ouled Nail, who, like a little viper of the sand, has stolen into the Agha's bosom, and filled his veins with subtle poison. She deems she has a treasure; but let her beware: that which would protect a woman who wears the veil will do naught for a creature who shows her face to the stranger, ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... hollow cylinder, called a barrel, in which the spring is enclosed, and removed the steel spiral, but instead of relaxing itself, according to the laws of its elasticity, it remained coiled on itself like a sleeping viper. It seemed knotted, like impotent old men whose blood has long been congealed. Master Zacharius vainly essayed to uncoil it with his thin fingers, the outlines of which were exaggerated on the wall; but he tried ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... the judgment of the court against me; but his lordship conducted himself with the greatest moderation and even kindness towards me, and never uttered one single offensive or unkind sentence in the whole of his eloquent harangue. But the little, waspish, black-hearted viper, Gibbs, whose malignant, vicious, and ill-looking countenance was always the index of his little mind, made a most virulent, vindictive, and cowardly attack upon me, which was so morose and unfeeling, and so uncalled for by the circumstances, that, if I had not been held back by any attorney, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... was America's soil, 'Till betrayed by the guile of the Puritan demon, Which lurks under virtue, and springs from its coil To fasten its fangs in the life-blood of freemen. Then boldly appeal to each heart that can feel, And crush the foul viper 'neath Liberty's heel! And the Cross of the South shall in triumph remain, To light us to ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... dogs, and would mind you, master Oscar, most as well as me. I am satisfied of one thing, that there is no beere in the hisland, and you won't be eat up, and certainly there never can be another such viper as that there, as took two dogs, swallowing Daisy. But I write, young gents, to beg you to be careful, and to mind them sharks; I have heard they swallow all things, and are particular fond of bright buttons, and jackets like yours, young masters, and also I have heard ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... the girl, but at that instant she darted out of the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. 'What a girl! She's a regular little viper!' he declared with some vexation, and then ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... came to maturity. She ascribed her new danger to the silence, if not to the instigation, of the ambassador, the friend of the Guises: in its discovery she saw the hand of God. 'I nourish,' she exclaims, 'the viper that poisons me;—to save her they would have taken my life: am I to offer myself as a prey to every villain?'[264] At a moment when she was especially struck with the danger which threatened her from the very existence of her rival, after a conversation with the Lord Admiral, she had the long-prepared ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... Had a viper raised its head in M. Wilkie's path he would not have recoiled more quickly. "Never!" he exclaimed. "Ah, no! What do ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... had come to de Sigognac's rescue, and now suddenly roared out in his stentorian voice, "What the deuce is nipping me? Is it a viper? I felt two sharp fangs meet in the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... hadn't gone off on some deviltry and upset that old viper's temper this wouldn't have ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... Mr. Jones strangely. He had a horrified recoil, chair and all, as if Schomberg had thrust a wriggling viper in his face. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... object that can be perceived, except to renew the old party alliance between Slavery South and its Northern supporters, with a view to party triumphs. If General McClellan succeeds, Slavery, so far as it still exists, will be cherished, maintained, and perpetuated. The viper will be warmed into life again, and although it might perhaps recoil for the present, it would only be to strike at some future period with greater force and venom at the life of the Republic. These men tell us they are for the Union as it was. Are they for the revival of such scenes as ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... shouldst not stir from hence? [To Piz. But martial law shall punish thy offence. And you, [To the Christian Priest. Who saucily teach monarchs to obey, And the wide world in narrow cloisters sway; Set up by kings as humble aids of power, You that which bred you, viper-like, devour, You ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... said the usher. Dubois stretched out his viper's head, darted a look at the opening which was left between the usher and the door, and, behind the official introducer, perceived a little fat man, pale, and whose legs shook under him, and who coughed to give himself assurance. A glance sufficed ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... all my servants, and that is why you take his part. He would send me to hell if he had the upper hand. I've got the upper hand, and so he shall taste it instead of me, till he goes down on his marrowbones to me with my foot on his viper's tongue. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... does not scare away its enemy it will suddenly be seized with a spasm, ending by turning on its back, limp and apparently lifeless. When it thinks danger is past it recovers its normal position and quickly gets away. This snake is known popularly as the "Flat-headed Adder," the "Puff Adder," "Viper" ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... quick eye—you know the proverb, 'If his ear were as quick as his eye, No man should pass him by'—caught sight of us immediately, and he turned back. The hedge was hollow there, and the mound grown over with close-laid, narrow-leaved ivy. The viper did not sink in these leaves, but slid with a rustling sound fully exposed above them. His grey length and the chain of black diamond spots down his back, his flat head with deadly tooth, did not harmonise ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... vibrate : vibri, tremeti. vicar : parohxestro; vikario vice : (prefix), vie-, victim : viktimo, oferajxo. victory : venko, triumfo, sukceso. view : vidajxo; perspektivo. vigilant : vigla. vine : vinberujo. violate : malrespekti, malvirtigi. violence : perforto. violet : violo. violin : violono. viper : vipero, kolubro. virago : megero. virgin : virgulino, virga. virile : vira. virtue : virto. virus : veneno, viruso. viscid : glueca. vision : vizio, vidado. visit : viziti. vocabulary : vortaro. voice : vocxo. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... By means of a secret charm, to draw All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep or swim or fly or run, After me so as you never saw! And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole and toad and newt and viper; And people call me the Pied Piper." (And here they noticed round his neck A scarf of red and yellow stripe, To match with his coat of the selfsame check; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; And his fingers, they noticed, were ever ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... stealing. He stole right enough—stole the money from an old woman, and what was I to do when it came to the trial but say what I knew. And him like a viper a-looking at me—more like a viper than a human boy. He leans on the bar and looks at me. 'All right, Aunt Flo,' he says, just that and nothing more. Time after time, I've dreamt of it, and now he's come. 'They've Reformed me,' he says, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... time she had not even breathed a word of it, but had hugged the viper to her heart in silence. She dropped the reins on the neck of the horse and took a letter from the pocket of her riding-coat. How many times had she read it? How many times had fury and rage and despair ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... farthing the fellow would put his head on the block for Charles now," cut in his Lordship, with his hand on Mr. Fox's shoulder. "Behold, O Prophet," he cried, "one who is become the champion of the People he reviled! Behold the friend of Rebellion and 'Lese Majeste', the viper in Britannia's bosom!" ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the caption, a typical Banneker eye-catcher, "The Rattlesnake Dies Out; But the Pen-Viper is Still With Us." "I don't care to indulge myself with your literary efforts at present, Mr. Banneker," he said languidly. "Is this the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... say to the Englishman just fresh from his island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which ere long thawed Hunsden's reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head, before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... barn of yours, hath burnt six barns, And not a strike of corn reserv'd from dust. No hand could save it, yet ten thousand hands Laboured their best, though none for love of you; For every tongue with bitter cursing bann'd Your lordship, as the viper of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... instead of white, but as it is difficult to get red cloth, except in the shape of handkerchiefs, a substitution has been made, the two colors having a close mythologic relation. In former days a piece of buckskin and the small glossy, seeds of the Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare) were used instead of the cloth and beads. The formulistic name for the bead is s[^u][']n[)i]kta, which the priests are unable to analyze, the ordinary word for beads ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... dangerous letter for her—half truth, half falsehood, difficult to unravel, impossible to deny entirely. 'Honour binds you, you say,' the epistle continued. 'Ah! my Prince! you have a toy which has turned to a viper in your hand! Throw it from you! Other princes have done so, and the world has applauded. Take a fair and noble mistress, one younger, less rapacious. Consider this woman: already she grows gross; in a few years' time she will ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... absolute possession of his heart, it had hollowed out its nest therein, like the viper in the old Norway ballads, and while ever increasing, ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... through me; and if there had been one mean thought in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. Then she said, sadly,— ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... you, Eudora; but while I love you, I cannot and ought not to love the bad feelings you cherish. Believe me, my dear friend, the insults of others can never make us wretched, or resentful, if all is right within our own hearts. The viper that stings us is always nourished within us. Moreover, I believe, dearest Eudora, that half your wrongs are in your own imagination. I too am a foreigner; but I have been very happy ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... never have kicked a man when he was down,' he said. 'He would have tried to do good even to the viper ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... stripling stood beside His father's dying-bed. "Attend, my son," the sick man said, "Unto my dying tones, And swear eternal vengeance to The accursed race of Jones. For why? Just nineteen years ago A girl sat by my side, With cheek of rose and breast of snow, My peerless, promised bride. A viper by the name of Jones Came in between us twain; With honeyed words he stole away My loved Belinda Jane. For he was rich and I was poor, And poets all are stupid Who feign the god of Love is not Cupidity, but Cupid. Perchance 'tis ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... remainder of the year. Looking back over the annals of the naval operations of 1813, it is clear that the Americans were the chief sufferers. They had the victories over the "Peacock," "Boxer," and "Highflyer" to boast of; but they had lost the "Chesapeake," "Argus," and "Viper." But, more than this, they had suffered their coast to be so sealed up by British blockaders that many of their best vessels were left to lie idle at their docks. The blockade, too, was growing stricter daily, and the outlook for the future seemed gloomy; yet, as it turned out, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... reddened the face of Lady Helena Powyss, as she finished this cool epistle. She crushed it in her hand as though it were a viper. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... knowledge, whom we believe to be well wishers of the colored people, who may favor colonization.[1] But the animal itself is the same "hydra-headed monster," let whomsoever may fancy to pet it. A serpent is a serpent, and none the less a viper, because nestled in the bosom of an honest hearted man. This the colored people must bear in mind, and keep clear of the hideous thing, lest its venom may be test upon them. But why deem any argument necessary to show the unrighteousness ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... make. Usquebaugh, the yellow sort. Usquebaugh, the green Sort. Verjuice. Umble-Pye. Venison, to keep. Venison-Pasty. Venison, boiled. Viper-Soup. ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... will tremble with mingled indignation and terror at the sight of me. I cannot hope a patient audience. And can I, in such circumstances, rely on my own equanimity? How can I endure the looks of one to whom I am a viper, a demon; who, not content with hating me for that which really merits hatred, imputes to me a thousand ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... have had, which I never shall have, is vulgarity. That was an injustice and a determination to hurt my feelings. Vitu was no friend of mine, but I understood from this way of attacking me that petty hatreds were lifting up their rattlesnake heads. All the low-down, little viper world was crawling about under my flowers and my laurels. I had known what was going on for a long time, and sometimes I had heard rattling behind the scenes. I wanted to have the enjoyment of hearing them all rattle ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... thou art a plucky little fille, ready for a quarrel by the looks of thy flashing eyes. What have I done to thee, that thou shouldst shake me off as a viper?" ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... O Viper vile; The solus in thy most meruailous face, the solus in thy teeth, and in thy throate, and in thy hatefull Lungs, yea in thy Maw perdy; and which is worse, within thy nastie mouth. I do retort the solus in thy bowels, for I can take, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... his own and his daughter's honour, and will, sir," said the other. "Look at that chest of dthrawers, it contains heaps of letthers that that viper has addressed to that innocent child. There's promises there, sir, enough to fill a bandbox with; and when I have dragged the scoundthrel before the Courts of Law, and shown up his perjury and his dishonour, I have another ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... up a viper in his hand, quoting the passage, "They shall take up serpents." But the beast stung him, and he was ill for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... policies. "What did you expect me to do with him?" he said hotly. "This isn't some common snake we picked up out in the country. We snagged this viper right here in Washington, Gyp! I suppose I should have spirited him out of ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... blamed unexpected, you see, Grabbed me by the hair an' out with a knife, An' demanded my gold. I thought fer my life He wuz jokin'; but no, when I seed that fierce look Of murder an' pillage, I knowed what I'd done; I'd thawed out a viper upon my hearth-stun An' ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... a few poisonous snakes; and the two worst are the cobra and the ticpolonga, the latter a sort of viper; and the former is an old friend of yours, Mr. McGavonty. The people are called Singhalese, but more generally Cingalese, and are believed to be the descendants of immigrants from the region of the Ganges. There are other races here, as the Malabars. The religion of Ceylon is the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... "You young viper!" says Joe, shaking him still. "You'll misuse the little lad before my face, will you? And squeal like a pig to be ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... he was gazing at; Twice he essay'd to speak—but in a cough, The faint, indignant, dying speech went off: "But who is this?" thought he—"a demon vile, With wicked meaning and a vulgar style: Hammond they call him: they can give the name Of man to devils.—Why am I so tame? Why crush I not the viper?"—Fear replied, Watch him awhile, and let his strength be tried: He will be foil'd, if man; but if his aid Be from beneath, 'tis well to be afraid." "We are call'd free!" said Hammond—"doleful times, When rulers add their insult to their ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... has again presumed to cross my path; I have met him, I have seen him, I stumbled against him, as he came with his noiseless step, like a viper; I should have fallen if his arm had not upheld me. How has he dared—how have you dared to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... not counted on that viper that we nourish in our bosom—the American newspaper. At present I will not take time to denounce the press. I am preparing an article on the subject for a respectable weekly of select circulation. Suffice it to record what happened. The next day an evening paper appeared with a huge picture of me ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... the spider we find a very different piece of machinery for the injection of the poison. It is formed by a pair of peculiarly modified legs which act as jaws, and are armed each with a powerful claw, at the tip of which, as in the poison-fang of the viper, is a small hole. Out of this hole a drop of poison oozes when the prey is seized, and this has the effect of paralysing the victim. The poison is formed in a curious bag, or 'gland' (G.L), which communicates with the claw by means of a ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... man a wolf in corner, By the hearth the crone a she-bear, Brother-in-law on step a viper, In the yard like nail the sister, Equal honour must thou give them, Deeper must thou then incline thee, Than thou bowed before thy mother, In the house of thine own father, Than thou bowed before thy father, Or ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... propriety, in our lives, and the outcasts, if there are any here now, the drunkards, the sensualists, all of us stand in this respect in the same class. We are all debtors, for we have 'all sinned and come short of the glory of God,' A viper an inch long and the thickness of whipcord has a sting and poison in it, and is a viper. And if the question is whether a man has got small-pox or not, one pustule is as good evidence as if he was spotted all over. So, remember, he who owes five ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... themselves had not too much virtue to give? It is dangerous for the sovereign power of a State to license immorality; to hold the shield of its protection over any thing that is not "legal in a moral view." Bring into your house a benumbed viper, and lay it down upon your warm hearth, and soon it will not ask you into which room it may crawl. Let Slavery once lean upon the supporting arm, and bask in the fostering smile of the State, and you will soon see, as we now see, both her minions and her victims multiply apace till the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Anglo-Saxons, Alemanni, Hungars! Europe, a viper! And the armies, dragons! Here, Uhlans are destroyers pitiless; And there, the ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... may be indulgent, And loved ones even forget, Yourself can never banish The memories that beset. You will wish you had never traveled The way that leads to death; You will wish you had never reveled In the viper's venomed breath. ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... practise what I daily preach, thy brightest attribute forgiveness, and wrong'd Bellarmin shall convince the world, that though their censure stung him to the heart, he feels their kindness with redoubled warmth! He does! the gnawing viper is, at last, extinct! and this auspicious day is herald ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... Truth! for he that tries Shall find thee all deceit and lies, Thou art not Friendship! for in thee 'Tis but the bait of policy; Which like a viper lodg'd in flow'rs, Its venom through that sweetness pours; And when not so, then always 'tis A fading paint, the short-liv'd bliss Of air and humour; out and in, Like colours in a dolphin's skin; But must not live beyond one day, Or convenience; then away. Thou art not Riches! for that trash, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... "You know, mule-viper," he continued, "that no one else would keep you for five minutes. You are a liar, a thief, and a traitor. Yet I endure you. I agree that I must be either heartless or an idiot to put up with such ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... child, it is but too true. So long as you are out of Christ you are as a viper, and worse than a ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the youthful Joukahainen Answered in the words which follow: 190 "Well I know whence comes the titmouse, That the titmouse is a birdie, And a snake the hissing viper, And the ruffe a fish in water. And I know that hard is iron, And that mud when black is bitter. Painful, too, is boiling water, And the heat of fire is hurtful, Water is the oldest medicine, Cataract's foam a magic potion; 200 The Creator's self a ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... a large viper crawling across their path, its hideous head upraised in defiance, hissing ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... with eyes cast down. In the branches, cicadas trilled their monotone. The viper, which had been startled away, again showed its lithe blackness among the stones behind Veranilda, and Marcian, catching sight of it, again touched ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... viper!" said she, using the sweetest pet-name she could think of, "I will do your bidding. But first say what you will give me if I put Hildegarde out ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... and combed, had carefully removed his gray hairs, but he could not rid himself of his wizened air. The puny little man of law, tightly buttoned into his clothes, reminded you of a torpid viper; for if hope had brought a spark of life into his magpie eyes, his face was icily rigid, and so well did he assume an air of gravity, that an ambitious public prosecutor could ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the province which we visited they were exceedingly scarce. In fact, I have never been in a place where there were so few reptiles and batrachians. We obtained only one species of poisonous snake here. It was a small green viper which we sometimes saw coiled on a low bush watching mouse holes in the grass. Several species of nonpoisonous snakes were more common ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... absorbed the letter and was struggling for speech. I could appreciate his emotion. If he had not actually been nurturing a viper in his bosom, he had come, from his point of view, very near it. Of all men, a schoolmaster necessarily looks with the heartiest dislike ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... (B. C. 234-149), in his treatise "De Re Rustica," chapter 157, recommended a written charm for the cure of fractures; and Ovid (B. C. 43-A. D. 18), in his "Metamorphoses," wrote these lines: "By means of incantations I break in twain the viper's jaws." In very early times physicians were regarded as under the protection of the gods, and the magical charms employed by them were therefore naturally invested with supernatural curative power. Melampus, a noted mythical leech of Argos, before the Trojan War, was said to have made ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... on very badly; he had been waiting two hours for an infantine pose as common as dirt, and the little viper would die first. ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... soil and found an adult black-and-white opossum with eight or nine half-grown young lying together in a nest of dry grass, and, wonderful to tell, a large venomous snake coiled up amongst them. The snake was the dreaded vivora de la cruz, as the gauchos call it, a pit-viper of the same family as the fer-de-lance, the bush-master, and the rattlesnake. It was about three feet long, very thick in proportion, and with broad head and blunt tail. It came forth hissing and striking blindly ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... Samson. 'It's a thing as ud get a saint to set his back up. I was down i' the bridge leasowe bare an hour ago, and who should I see but that young imp of a Reddy along wi' that old viper of a Bubb. Thee know'st ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... muttered, in low and husky tones, as if ashes were in her throat. "But to YOU!" she said, and her voice rose clear and strong as she turned and stretched out her arm towards Rosa, who was leaning in a fainting condition against the wall—"TO YOU, viper, who has stung to death the bosom that warmed you to life—TO YOU, traitress, who has come between the true husband and his wife—TO YOU, thief! who has stolen from your benefactress the sole treasure of her life—TO YOU I have this to say: I will not drive you forth in dishonor from my door ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... not what she might so easily have been; because she was storing up vinegar where she might have gathered honey; and was one of those of whom Dr South says that "they tell the truth, but tell it with the tongue of a viper." He pitied Mary Stansfield, but with a pity mingled with profound respect and admiration. He pitied her that she should have to bear those daily raspings of the spirit which her aunt, half unconsciously, perpetually inflicted on ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... days are as the sands in the hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring a nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is to me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou gatherest ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... duty, as your captain, to propose that our laws should be enforced. Tell me, now, what is it that you wish. I am only here as your captain, and to take the sense of the whole crew. I have no animosity against that lad; I have loved him—I have cherished him; but like a viper, he has stung me in return. Instead of being in arms against each other, ought we not to be united? I have, therefore, one proposal to make to you, which is this: let the sentence go by vote, or ballot, if you please; and whatever the sentence ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... the viper, how dare ye come hither to seek for shelter beneath my roof?" exclaimed the woman in a voice which made the young men start, so shrill and fierce did it sound, high above the roar of the thunder, the howling of the wind, and the pattering ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... are you?" said the doctor; "'tis the husbandman and viper, is it?" Then his smile turned into a heavy sigh, as he saw he had brought colour to Margaret's pale cheek, but she answered calmly, "Dear mamma did not think it would be ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... She would see it staring at her in his shifting eyes, his slack lip, and his weak frown. Her first glance at him would be loyal and frank, just an eager flash of love and confidence, seeming to say, "Be quick, Will, and put your foot on this viper that we've both of us warmed, and that is trying to bite me;" then she would turn pale, avert her head, and drop upon a chair. And for why? Because she had seen the nauseating truth, and her heart was ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... admiral! Once more, how continually are not critical judgments falsified by the very extracts on which they rest! how often the pet passage of one review is the stock butt of another! Here you will say is cure and malady together, like viper's fat and fang: I trow not; mainly because not one man in a thousand takes the trouble to judge for himself. But it is needless to enumerate such instances; every man's conscience or his memory will supply examples wholesale: therefore, maltreated ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... were to depart on the morrow. At about eleven or twelve o'clock that night, Laura came to where my bed was fixed, and asked me to take her to see Tommy, this being her last opportunity. "You little viper," I was going to say, but I jumped up and led her quietly across the camp to where Tommy was fast asleep. I woke him up and said, "Here, Tommy, here's Laura come to say 'good-bye' to you, and she wants to give you a kiss." To this the uncultivated young ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... here at Carpaccio, even in my copy. The colorist says, "First of all, as my delicious paroquet was ruby, so this nasty viper shall be black"; and then is the question, "Can I round him off, even though he is black, and make him slimy, and yet springy, and close down—clotted like a pool of black blood on the earth—all the same?" Look at him beside Michael Angelo's, and then tell me the Venetians can't draw! And also, ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... and indivisible republic; but when he was ordered to sing mocking songs about Madame Veto, he kept a stubborn silence, and nothing was able to overcome what Simon called the "obstinacy of the little viper." ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... opened his key and sounded the call for Viper, a hamlet ten miles away, though in practical effect it was more distant since the road between twisted painfully over ridge and through gorge. It was on an infrequently used freight spur but it boasted communication with the world by wire—and it was important now ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck |
