"Snap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glances at a subject that will not bear examining, with which he gently hints at what cannot be directly insisted on, with which he half conceals, and half draws aside the veil from some of the Muses' nicest mysteries. His Muse is, in fact, a giddy wanton flirt, who spends her time in playing at snap-dragon and blind-man's buff, who tells what she should not, and knows more than she tells. She laughs at the tricks she shews us, and blushes, or would be thought to do so, at what she keeps concealed. Prior has translated several of Fontaine's ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... to try her out on a straightaway first, before I take you in," Bland leaned to shout. "Tell the girl she can be ready to snap me when I come back. I've got to test out the controls, and I want you ready to grab 'er if she don't stop right along here somewhere. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... momentous importance. Only five, however, could play at the game; and Sawny Dablerdeen, who always played on two small pipes, and paid sundry small pipers to do a deal of blowing, seemed in the greatest fuddle. And then there was my Lord John Littlejohn, as crusty a little snap as ever declaimed against tyrant in one breath, or turned a political summersault in another;—bricks to the back-bone was he, and all for old England, though he was not bigger than one of Betsy ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... like a man whose very life hangs but on a thread that the next minute may snap asunder. Whither would you lead me? Is it ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lady. Perhaps not so easy to deal with as he had hoped. But how wealthy. Only the consciousness of great wealth would make her snap her fingers in this manner at the Droitwiches. Lotty, on being questioned, had been vague about her circumstances, and had described her house as a mausoleum with gold-fish swimming about in it; but now he ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... sent their syces on ahead with their guns, rode at dawn to the Residency. In front of the building a group of camels lay on the ground, burbling, blowing bubbles, grumbling incessantly and stretching out their long necks to snap viciously at anyone but their drivers that chanced to come near them. At the hall-door Mrs. Norton stood, dressed in a smart and attractive costume of khaki drill, consisting of a well-cut long frock coat and breeches, with the neatest of cloth gaiters and dainty but serviceable boots. To ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... saluted one of them; but the modest maidens said never a word! It was not their way to speak; only the gay calico ponies pranced about and sportively threw back their ears to snap at the horses of the two ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Eb let me look at his tobacco-box—a shiny thing of German silver that always seemed to snap out a quick farewell to me before it dove into his pocket. He was very cheerful and communicative, and joked a good deal as we lay there waiting in the firelight. I got some further acquaintance with the swift, learning among other things that it had ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... be rude to a lady, Miss Fortune and I can't agree; So I flew without wings from green Erin— Is there anything green about me? While blest with this stock of fine spirits, At care, faith, my fingers I'll snap; I'm as rich as a Jew without money, And free as a mouse in a trap. For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... body cut from the gallows the Chinaman plumped into the black hole below, carrying his tail in his teeth. The trapdoor turned over, shutting down with a snap. The swarthy little gentleman from San Francisco sprang nimbly from his perch, caught something in the air with his hat, as a boy catches a butterfly, and vanished into the chimney as if drawn up ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... apprehended what he meant immediately; and Captain Wilmot, who lay very sick in his cabin, 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 in ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... fond imagination, he saw her large, mischievous, dark eyes snap, and heard the merry peals of her laughter as she flitted about the garden in former years. Surely it was better thus—that she should remain blithe and happy like the birds, as God had ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... oldest of the Chelsea pensioners; it distracts one between pity, terror, and disgust, but is altogether absorbing; one watches it as one would watch some feeble ancient piece of mechanism, still working, which may snap at any moment. In such a personation, make-up becomes a serious part of art. It is the picture that magnetises us, and every wrinkle seems to have been studied in movement; the hands act almost by themselves, as if every finger were a separate actor. The passion ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... o'clock." Quite out of breath, at last he discovered it lying on the floor a whole arm's length away from the bed. Only with a really acute stab of pain did he finally succeed in reaching it. Then with fingers fairly trembling with effort, he opened forth and disclosed a tiny snap-shot photograph of a grim-jawed, scrawny-necked, much be-spectacled elderly dame ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... smashing the boats and dragging all loose gear to leeward. Over she heels—over, over, over! The yards are nearly up and down. The men cling desperately, as if to an inverted mast. And well they may, especially on the leeward arm that dips them far under a surge of water which seems likely to snap the whole thing off. But the Victoria's cargo and ballast never shift an inch. Her stability is excellent. And as the heaving shoulder eases down she holds her keel in, just before another lurch would send her turning turtle. A pause . . . a quiver . . . and she begins to right. ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... "you shall have blood to suck. But we'll leave the English be. France first, then our dogs will take a snap at the flag on the citadel yonder." He nodded in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... snapped tightly to the case, and Mac reached for the whole business. The spare light was a maintenance problem in itself. Question: How to retrieve a fountain pen sized object, when it's held by a small snap and the retriever is encumbered by three pairs ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... late. Teddy had jammed into the corral fence, and ground his rider's knee till the torture of the pain had distracted his attention. Once more then swept round the ugly stub nose, and the yellow teeth fastened in the leather chaps with a vicious snap that did not entirely miss the flesh ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... as party politics, except in the distribution of minor offices, when the claims of good and faithful jackals on either side would have to be considered. And my heart grew sick within me, and I longed for a Man to arise who, with a snap of his strong fingers, would snuff out the Little Parish-Pump Folk who have misruled England this many a year with their limited vision and sordid aspirations, and would take the great, unshakable, triumphant command of a mighty Empire passionately ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... built on mutual prejudices, seldom attains to this greatness of mind; so that, becoming the slave of her own feelings, she is easily subjugated by those of others. Thus degraded, her reason, her misty reason! is employed rather to burnish than to snap her chains. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... all ambition. No; I won't just say that. But you appear, Mr. Darrin, either to have lost some of your snap or ambition, or else you have gone ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... from one to the other, darkly. In a kind of dull fierce passion he had made up his mind to clear himself before the world, to rend to tatters his garments of romance, to snap his fingers at the stars and destiny and such-like deluding toys, to stand a young Ajax defying the thunderbolts. Here ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... see,' she said, and she crouched her down, She sunk into my sight like a settling bird; And her bosom couched in the confines of her gown Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred By her measured breaths: 'I like to see,' said she, 'The snap-dragon put out his tongue ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... 3. I tell you it was interesting! The Chicago campaign, I mean. On the way out Mr. Rogers would plan out the campaign while I walked the floor and smoked and assented. Then he would close it up with a snap and drop it and we would totally change the subject and take up the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... all the mice set to work. Snap, snap, snap, went the bowstrings on all sides. Then the sharp little teeth began on the feathers that winged the poisoned arrows. Soon the feathers lay in ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... I heard my own teeth snap together. There was something speaking within me stronger than I had ever known myself to be. Again came a query, trembling, quavering, quivering, as though the issue was of more ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... us like music, Some voices arouse to action and ambition. Some voices fill you with despondency. Some voices irritate like a buzz-saw. Some voices snap like turtles, ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... Glibly were numberless; and not to be escaped. Words are too equivocal and phrases too indefinite, for men like him not to profit by their ambiguity. To them a quirk in the sense is as profitable as a pun or a quibble in the sound. They snap at them, as dogs do at flies. It is no less worthy of observation that, though some of his actions seemed to laugh severity of moral principle out of countenance, he continually repeated others which, had his conduct been regulated by them, would have ranked ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Memory is a bed of thorns, and secret shame will gnaw at the roots of my life. You came like a wayfarer, sat through the sunny hours in the shade of my garden, and to while time away you plucked all its flowers and wove them into a chain. And now, parting, you snap the thread and let the flowers drop on the dust! Accursed be that great knowledge you have earned!—a burden that, though others share equally with you, will never be lightened. For lack of love may it ever remain as foreign to your life as the cold stars ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... monstrous stroke of humor; for, at this crisis, Strepsy is made to exclaim, "Some magic is it, O Socrates, about the moon? Well! since you are up to that sort of thing, what do you say, now, to a spell by which I could snap the old monster out of her course for a generation or so?" Now for the parallel case from De Quincey. It is from his paper on "California," a politico-economical treatise. The author's object is to illustrate the fact that scarcity of gold is not due to its non-existence, but to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... four miles we followed on the track through the broken valley of the Atbara, during which we several times disturbed the tetel, but could not obtain a good shot, on account of the high grass and thick bushes. Several times I tried a snap shot, as for a moment I caught sight of its red hide galloping through the bush, but as it ran down wind I had no chance of getting close to my game. At length, after following rapidly down a grassy ravine, I presently heard it pelting through the bushes; ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... opened as though to protest. Her face had brightened at Terry's suggestion. She closed them again in a tight snap. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... house and your protection, I was not governed by caprice or impulse. For some time I have seen that, sooner or later, it must come to this; that the cord uniting us was too severely strained, and must snap. I did not suppose the time so near at hand—that you would drag upon it now with such a sudden force. But the deed is done, and we are apart forever. I cannot live with you again—your presence would suffocate me. There was a mutual wrong in our marriage; but ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... at the worm, which may be termed runaway bites, and when in fact they neither take it nor let it alone, it is a sign they are full, and the best plan to effect a capture under such circumstance is to strike that moment they touch your bait, for if you do not succeed by a snap, but allow them time, they will only play with it for a few moments, and then finally leave you in the lurch. In concluding my observations on worm fishing, I can with confidence affirm that it is, as a bait for Trout, the most ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... yourself—kill him if you got the chance or get the crowd to lynch him. That if a thief stole from you the shrewdest thing to do was to induce him as a set-off to give you the proceeds of his next thieving. That it was humiliating to live in a town where a self-confessed rascal could snap his fingers at the law ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... world, here, in this dark wood, in this outland presence, it was nothing but curious. Now, as I watched and wondered, the being, following my eyes' direction, looked down at the huddled thing between his thighs, and just as children squeeze a snap-dragon flower to make it open and shut its mouth, so precisely did he, pressing or releasing the windpipe, cause that poor beast to throw back its lips and dart its dry tongue. He did this many times while he watched it; and when he looked up at me again, and ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... some rebel or some demagogue of Athens (for example) to venture upon the criticism of Your Majesty's excursions into philosophy, in order to bring those august theses into contempt, his argument would never find emphasis or value unless he were to terminate its last phrase by a snap of the fingers and the mention of ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... down at night in apathetic sullenness, but when the rancher who slept beside him awoke in the morning he had gone, and by way of ironical farewell somebody had hung a pair of rusty handcuffs whose snap-spring was evidently defective upon a neighbouring tree. One man had kept watch beside the fire, which he had left for a few minutes to bring in more wood, and another by the horses; but while neither of them had seen or heard anything, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... So great was the fear of him, indeed, that the people in the neighbourhood he frequented scarcely dared stir out of doors, except in parties of five or six. We had had several hunts after him, but, like all man-eaters, he was old and awfully crafty; and although we got several snap shots at him, he had always managed to ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at Graham, and instead of going through the archway as he expected, walked straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. And then came a strange thing; a long strip of this apparently solid wall rolled up with a snap, hung over the two retreating men and fell again, and immediately Graham was alone with the new comer and the purple-robed man ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... behind me, and turning saw a splendid stag and three does not twenty feet away. They saw us and turned, and I had scarcely caught my breath after the surprise when they were many more than twenty feet away, and there was barely time to snap my shutter on them before they, disappeared over the brow ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... had received six balls in the head, that he consented to be killed. During the operation he exhibited something of his savoir faire, by opening his mouth, that looked like a gigantic man-trap, and suddenly shutting it with a loud snap, which made us shudder, and forcibly recalled to mind the escape I had had a few days before, from having my body embraced by ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... two finders, one for vertical and one for horizontal exposures; and is also provided with two sockets for tripod screws, one for vertical and one for horizontal exposures. Fitted with improved rotary shutter, for snap-shots or time exposures. Can be loaded in daylight. Handsomely finished ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 34, July 1, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... soil, they bud out apace into new plants like their parents. Certain special types can even be propagated from fragments of the leaf; for example, there is a particularly vivacious begonia off which you may snap a corner of one blade, and hang it up by a string from a peg or the ceiling, when, hi, presto! little begonia plants begin to bud out incontinently on every side from its edges. A certain German professor went even further than that; he chopped up a liverwort very fine into vegetable ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... yourselves," said Ted. "But as soon as you have filled up and warmed up come back. As soon as we get the bunch out of this hole it will be a snap to get them near the ranch house. If we'd only known it, we could have made it in half an hour ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... 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 have ever seen who was ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of running horses, many of them coming up along the slopes, to bring Kenset back to the present with a snap, to make the woman reach swiftly for the bonnet and clap ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... fact the gate at that moment clicked behind the nervously advancing form of Noble Dill. He came with, a bravado that was merely pitiable and he tried to snap his Orduma cigarette away with thumb and forefinger in a careless fashion, only to see it publicly disappear through an open ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to the rick within a yard of me, and smoke concealing me from him. I struck him with a back-handed blow on the elbow, as he bent it; and I heard the bone of his arm break, as clearly as ever I heard a twig snap. With a roar of pain he fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there, and singed him. The other man stood amazed at this, not having yet gained sight of me; till I caught his firebrand from his hand, and struck it into his countenance. With that he leaped at me; but I caught him, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... upon a broken-down carriage of the Z. line. They repair it at their depot, and all at once, bless my soul! see their own mark on the wheels What do you say to that? Eh? If I did it they would send me to Siberia, but the railway companies simply snap ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... about foreign messes, and affirms that anything else than plain British fare ruins the digestion. I must say my own digestion is none the worse for the holiday I am having from the preparations of my own 'treasure.' I think we all look remarkably well; and we don't quarrel or snap at each other, and it would be hard to find a better proof of ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... light Shells' bells—boy's joys that hap to snap! It's just sea's fun, breeze done, to spite God's rods that scourge her surge, I'd urge— ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... hung up the receiver with a snap, and left me pondering. It seemed to me that Mr. Ladley had been very reckless. Did he expect any one to believe that Jennie Brice had gone for a vacation without notifying the theater? Especially when she was to rehearse that week? I ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... shrill, birdy chirps the old otters warned their young. Plump, plump, plump, all shot into the pool, but to reappear, swimming with heads out, for they were but slightly alarmed. This was too much for Quonob; he levelled his flintlock; snap, bang, it went, pointed at the old male, but he dived at the snap and escaped. Down the bank now rushed the hunters, joined by Skookum, to attack the otters in the pool, for it was small and shallow; unless a burrow led from it, ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... those steers and a huge snapping turtle. They found him near the creek when they were feeding. They would come right up to him (they always did everything in concert) then look at him at close range. The turtle would thrust out his head and snap at them; then they would snort wildly and plunge all over the prairie, returning again and again to repeat the performance, which only ended when the ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... to me what he meant by this, which was that in "Hamlet," Hamlet talked to grave diggers and to two men named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, without givin' a snap ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... Tablets and goats propagate within his neglected tomb!" chanted the band in unison. "May the sinews of his hams snap suddenly in moments of achievement! May the principles of his warmth and cold ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... ordinary canvas strips not infrequently employed on a trunk to restrain the cover from falling far backward when opened. But encased in these wings were connections to powerful springs that, upon being set and suddenly released, would snap down the cover like the hammer of a gun and catch, as in the jaws of a trap, any meddling hands that might have been placed inside the case by a thief, at the same time ringing a bell. To set it was a matter of the utmost simplicity, while to spring ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... Arthur falter for an instant, and the hound was at his throat. The powerful jaws closed with a snap upon his shoulder, and you might have heard the sharp fangs grate against the bone. The shock of the spring brought Arthur to the ground, and man and brute rolled over together, and struggled in the mud and gore. Harold ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... secrecy and wisdom on the part of the younger men. They were so heartily and foolishly suspicious. The older men, as a rule, were inscrutable. They pretended indifference, uncertainty. They were like certain fish after a certain kind of bait, however. Snap! and the opportunity was gone. Somebody else had picked up what you wanted. All had their little note-books. All had their peculiar squint of eye or position or motion which meant "Done! I take you!" Sometimes they seemed scarcely ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... jerk she brought her straying fingers away from her hair, and her wandering eyes away from the sunshine, and her runaway thoughts back to the typewritten page. For three minutes the snap of the little disks crackled through the stillness of the tiny apartment. Then, suddenly, as though succumbing to an irresistible force, Mary Louise rose, walked across the room (a matter of six steps), removing hairpins as she went, and shoved aside the screen ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... seventh heaven. I trod on air. It was the first frank admittance of her love. And with such benediction I was made so strong that I knew I could kill a score of Fortinis and snap my fingers at a score of gray old men ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... more. Then, the dog still refusing to rise, the big man leapt over the harness and came down on the animal with both feet. There was a scream of pitiful agony, and the snap of breaking bones. But the big man slipped and fell. Down he came, and like a flash the whole pack ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... her womanly pride; how long would it sustain her? Would it snap presently, and let her down for ever into the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... marriage was discussed in most of the universities of Christendom and at Rome; when the pope presented his toe to be kissed, as customary, the Earl of Wiltshire and his party refused. Indeed, it is affirmed, that a spaniel of the Earl's, attracted by the glitter of the pope's toe, made a snap at it, whence his holiness drew in his sacred foot, and kicked at the offender with the other. Upon the pope demanding the cause of their embassy, the Earl presented Dr. Cranmer's book, declaring that his learned friends had come to defend it. The pope treated the embassy honourably, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... is effected by eclipses, with the result—beautifully confirmatory of theory—of reversing, or turning from dark to bright, the Fraunhofer spectrum. The completeness and precision of the reversal, however, could not be visually attested; and a quarter of a century elapsed before a successful "snap-shot" provided photographic evidence on the subject. It was taken at Novaya Zemlya by Mr. Shackleton, a member of the late Sir George Baden-Powell's expedition to observe the eclipse of August 9, 1896;[529] and similar records ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... drawn repeatedly across a piece of chalk or through powdered starch until well coated, then held near the quilt, and very tightly stretched, while a second person draws it up and lets it fly back with a snap, thus making a straight white line. How closely the lines are drawn depends wholly upon the ambition and diligence of the quilter. The lines may be barely a quarter of an inch apart, or may be placed only close enough together to perform their function of ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... cords that soonest knit A fast and stubborn tie: your true love-knot Is nothing to it. Faugh! the supple touch Of pliant interest, or the dust of time, Or the pin-point of temper, loose, or not, Or snap love's silken band. Fear and old hate, They are sure weavers—they work for the storm, The whirlwind, and the rocking surge; their knot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... two liquid columns were rising to a considerable height above the sea. We stood amazed, thunderstruck, at the presence of such a herd of marine monsters. They were of supernatural dimensions; the smallest of them would have crunched our raft, crew and all, at one snap of its huge jaws. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... circumstances that can occur. That all depends on touch. It's what makes some flyers live longer than others. It's like the drag on a fishing reel. You set it tight or loose according to the weight of the fish you're playing. When you reel in, the line can't become too tight or it will snap, so you have the drag. It's really quite ingenious. It lets the fish pull out line as you reel in. It's the degree of tolerance that makes it work well as an instrument. In flying, the degree of tolerance, the compensating factor is in man's ...
— What Need of Man? • Harold Calin
... out of my pocket. This side. Go over to Gorsech with them. Gorsech, snap those irons on Snell's wrists. Now, Snell, back here ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... was Cleopatra Diamond Brighte who married Colonel Dearman of the Gungapur Volunteer Bines) found she had got a splendid snap-shot when her films were developed at Gungapur. A little later she got another when the look-out saw, and a boat picked up, a man who was lying in a little dug-out or toni. When able to speak, he told the serang[44] of the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... has not, and every fortnight she begins to sew her dress and I go over the mountains to give her peace; for each time she draws nearer to the end, and wears away more and more; and some day the thin blade will snap." ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... 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 ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... Through the gate bounded a ball of reddish, yellow fur. Snap! And the teeth of Kee-wuk the Red Fox had seized one of the young rabbits by the neck. Swinging the limp body over his shoulders, he trotted quietly off through ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... anything so simple as that. It was a case of a romance that got ditched. Seems that Myra'd been engaged once. No idle seashore snap runnin' from Fourth of July to Labor Day, but a long-winded, year-to-year affair. The party of the second part was one Hinckley, a young highbrow who knew so much that it took the college faculty a long time to discover that ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... for our common sovereign, and for our joint spiritual inheritance. These links are growing, and if let alone will continue to grow, and the free fibres will of themselves become a rope of steel. A federation contrived by politicians would snap at the first strain." Australian Federation, which Froude did not live to see, was no contrivance of politicians, but the result of spontaneous opinion generated in Australia, and ratified as a matter of course by Parliament ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... leaned across the table. "Come, now, Peter. What is at the root of all this matter? Can we not compose such differences as you conceive exist? Out with them. 'Tis no matter for Sir John. He's a curmudgeon who signifies not a finger's snap. But you, 'tis different. You are her brother. Out with your plaints, then. Let us be ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... close to the type-writer, and leaning towards her, "let us look at this thing soberly. If ever a man had need of woman I have need of you. I can live alone no longer. We must share one home henceforth together. We can snap our fingers at the world, you and I. If you have anything to say against the proposal, let ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... their hands. Had Mr. SOLOMON, the composer, conducted, he would have taken The Tiger away, and left the howlers to their howling. Since Saturday the piece has, I am informed, "gone" with what the Americans call a "snap." The music is charming. Mr. CHARLES COLNAGHI made his bow as a professional, and played and sang excellently, as did also Mr. J. G. TAYLOR, in spite of the riotous conduct of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... all the well-greav'd Greeks; But when they saw the wall by Trojans scal'd, And heard the cry of Greeks in panic fear, Sprang forth those two, before the gates to fight. As when two boars, upon the mountain side, Await th' approaching din of men and dogs, Then sideways rushing, snap the wood around, Ripp'd from the roots; loud clash their clatt'ring tusks, Till to the huntsman's spear they yield their lives; So clatter'd on those champions' brass-clad breasts The hostile weapons; stubbornly they ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... with which you fell in love, is still unmarried; but they ask a hundred and thirty pounds a-year for it. If they asked one hundred and thirty thousand pounds for it, perhaps my Lord Clive might snap it up; but that not being the case, I don't doubt but it will fall, and I flatter myself, that you and it may meet at last upon reasonable terms. That of General Trapaud is to be had at fifty pounds a-year, but with a fine on entrance of five hundred pounds. As I propose to return by the beginning ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... times and in every species of service, and thus earning the brilliant reputation he acquired. The same qualities rendered him as wise in counsel as he was efficient in working. He was able to look on both sides of a given problem, was not inclined to snap judgments, but preferred to discriminate, to weigh, and, if need be, to wait. Yet, when the time came, the ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... bright red spots, the size of quarters, beneath either cheek-bone. He was half a head shorter than the shipping clerk, and apparently about half as wide; but there was sincerity in his manner and an ominous snap in the unflinching stare of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... last remark was a deliberate question and the questioner was waiting with fixed eyes for an answer, Shorthouse elected to take no notice of it. Without a word he pulled the elastic band from the blue envelope with a snap and plainly showed his desire to conclude the business as soon as possible. The tendency on the other's part to delay did not ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... pressing orders from the house. Also, having grown to a size equal to the brown saddler, he began to reveal his antipathy for this animal. Not only would he shoulder him away from the feed-box, but he would kick and snap at him, and once he tipped over the water-pail for no other reason, seemingly, than to deprive the saddler of water. The result of all this was that, with the passing seasons, both the Mexican and the saddler showed ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... main memory from external storage (also called 'pointer swizzling'); this may be done for speed in chasing references or to simplify code (e.g., by turning lots of name lookups into pointer dereferences). The converse operation is sometimes termed 'unswizzling'. See also {snap}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... never felt before." A desperate conflict begins, and a mighty uproar,—crashing of benches, shoutings of men, the "war-song" of Grendel, who is trying to break the grip of his foe. As the monster struggles toward the door, dragging the hero with him, a wide wound opens on his shoulder; the sinews snap, and with a mighty wrench Beowulf tears off the whole limb. While Grendel rushes howling across the fens, Beowulf hangs the grisly arm with its iron claws, "the whole grapple of Grendel," over the door where all may ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... flung face-downward on to cushions, after which I heard a door snap shut and had leisure to work myself free from the ropes and gag and towels. It took time, for the hussies had drawn the cords until they bit into the muscles, and maybe I was twenty minutes about getting loose. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... hut, whence a faint smoke curled, the back wall of piled logs still wearing dead branches and foliage at the ends. A reddish cur, as lawless-looking as his masters, rushed from the doorway to snap at Arthur's heels. The suspicious glances of the foresters bore hardly more welcome, till they heard that the stranger belonged to the settlers on Cedar Pond, and had simply lost his way. They informed him in return, with exceeding frankness, that they were squatters, taking possession of this strip ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... them almost equal pleasure and made Dawling blush up to his eyes; while this in turn produced, in spite of deepened astonishment, a blessed snap of the strain that I had been under for some moments. I wanted to embrace them both, and while the opening bars of another scene rose from the orchestra I almost did embrace Dawling, whose first emotion on beholding me had visibly and ever so oddly been a consciousness of ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... moving about invisibly among the people on the earth, among the people of this wonderful London, if all this, I say, be so, how long do you suppose you will be allowed, by his Satanic Majesty, to ply your trade of warner of the peoples? Why, man, your life is not worth the snap of a finger?" ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... at heart, Grant went out into the sunshine. He was snap-shotted a dozen times by press photographers. One man, backing impudently in front of him in order to secure a sharp focus, tripped over the raised edge of a cartway into a yard, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... "Crack-snap!" went Mr. Tisbett's whip. Off pranced the two black horses, and round went the wheels. He never made such a fine start in his life, Mr. Tisbett decided, when suddenly, "Stop! oh, stop!" screamed Joel, and the stage-driver, looking around at him, saw his face convulsed with ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... people have heard the story of the little girl who wanted to know what made her hair snap. After she had been informed that there was probably electricity in her hair, she sat quiet for a few minutes and then exclaimed: "Our family has all the modern improvements! I have electricity in my hair and Grandma has gas on her stomach!" Judged by ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... I append are, like myself, simple in form. If I have become notorious it is not my fault; it is the fault of the newspaper paragraphist, the snap-shooter, and the autograph fiend; and in these pages I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to leave the stage to more prominent actors, merely offering myself as guide to the many battlefields on which we ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... lifted by each wave, that came rushing over the shoals like a mountain chain of snow, and let fall with a thundering crash. Her timbers began to snap like pipe-stems, and, as she worked nearer and nearer to the boat, the wildly-swaying yards threatened immediate destruction. The heavy seas flew continually over the lifeboat, so that passengers and crew could ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... I grew desperate. In my struggle I discovered that it was possible to edge up on the log and stick there. I glued myself to that log. By dint of great exertion I brought the tight cord against the blade. It parted with a little snap, my elbows dropped free. Raising my wrists, I sawed quickly through the bonds. I cut myself, the blood flowed, but that was no matter. Jerking the knife from the log, I severed the ropes round ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... devils who yanked her roughly along between them. Carr roared out in blind rage and in awful fear for the girl. He struck out viciously into the first grinning face that pressed near. Something in his brain seemed to snap then, and he became a snarling, fighting animal, battling against overwhelming odds in defence of his mate. A dart buried itself in his arm and a stone hatchet bit into his shoulder, but he scarcely felt the hurts. All that mattered now was Ora; they ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... to snap this man-of-war world's sword in its scabbard. And thinking of all the cruel carnal glory wrought out by naval heroes in scenes like these, I asked myself whether, indeed, that was a glorious coffin in which Lord Nelson was entombed—a coffin presented ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... "Not the snap of a finger, for I have no heart," said the Patchwork Girl. "But I want to help Ojo, who is my friend, to rescue the uncle whom he loves, and I'd kill a dozen useless butterflies to ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... were already on horseback, and it was only a matter of riding him down. He saw this himself, and his futile shot was designed to stop one at least of the horses. However, it went wide. He slipped behind a tree and began snap-shooting at the advancing mounted men. They spread out fanwise, thus coming at him from three sides at once. He moved slightly in order to get a better aim, and in doing so unwittingly exposed himself. One ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... seemed rotten, and proposed to replace them with new. This Donaldson insisted would take too much time, but he was finally induced to allow eight of the sixteen to be renewed. While giving his customary trapeze performance high above the housetops the old cords began to snap, and before he could bring the balloon down every one of them had parted—a startling intimation of how his rashness might ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... him right, not being much of a snap-shot at dialect; and his is an undefined, unclassifiable mixture. Eastern farm-hand and Western ranchman, prospector, who knows what? His real language is in his eye and his rare, pure smile. And just as his countenance expresses ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... splendid?" I said. "At this rate we shall soon be self-supporting, and then we can snap ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... appallingly, and she looked at the clock-hands nearing five with a feeling that she could bear the sounds of building so long and no longer. If they lasted a single minute beyond that time something inside her head would snap. Knock—knock—knock; scrape—scrape; the thud of something thrown down. She felt her breath coming fast as she waited for the moment when her aching senses would be lulled by the cessation of it all—when she would rest on a ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... "I don't know what 'renny-saunce' means, but this room is the style I like"; and added, "It's bully; and to-morrow I'd like to take a snap-shot of it and of all the company to show mother, if [with his charming smile] you will ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... a fool-sort of an injector has Eustis loaded on to this rig this time?" And he put the lever over with an angry snap, crying: "Am I supposed to ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... 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 have no fear of ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... When its poisonous breath has blown this smoke away for an instant, it shows two rows of teeth like knives and a long forked tongue like a snake's, and its jaws are opened wide enough to take the young man into them and bite him into a dozen pieces at one snap. Surely if he is ever to learn what fear is now ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... "Snap out of it, girl!" she reprimanded herself. "Go on wool-gathering like this and your man will go hungry—and he'll break you right off at the ankles!" She became again the huntress, and soon saw an animal browsing steadily along the base ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... wander on, with tentless heed How never-halting moments speed, Till fate shall snap the brittle thread; Then, all unknown, I'll lay me with th' inglorious dead, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... heart thrilled with an unutterably sweet hope. Might he not forget in time? Need she snap in twain the weakened bond between them after all? Perhaps she might win back ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... took the form of a greedy crow, devouring the seeds with extraordinary speed. Juan, who was contained in one of the seeds that had rolled beneath the feet of the princess, suddenly became a cat, and, rushing out, attacked the bird. As soon as you could wink your eyes or snap your fingers, the crow was dead, miserably torn to pieces. In place of the cat stood Juan in an embroidered suit, looking like a ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... its Old-World charms and its ostentatious air of being content to be rather behind the times, of looking down upon the hurrying Americans who dash through its cathedral and take snap-shots at its slums, and at all those busy moderns who cannot afford to take life at its own ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... he decided, must be turned loose outside the village. The Bedouins, as he pointed out, would be likely to snap up readily a horse of such good appearance, and in any case Hassan was plainly of the opinion that a horse's existence was of very little importance when graver ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the eyes of their elders, except when allowed to go out with proper escort. The gate at the back stairs, which gave on the landing and had been placed there years ago for the protection of little children long since able to take care of themselves, was as strong as ever and shut with as clever a snap, so that there was no danger by that way. There were also guards on all the fires, and an ornamental bar across each window to prevent little rash creatures from throwing ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... the boy between his knees, and looked Mr. Scraper squarely in the eyes. Now, Mr. Scraper did not like to be looked at in this manner; he shifted on his chair, and his mouth, which had been opened to pour out a flood of angry speech, closed with a spiteful snap, and then opened, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... shelf she took down the scissors and quickly gave a delicious snip to her father's thick locks. Another snip-snap and more hair fell. The sleeping man roused a little, but finding only his little Mary playing about him, nodded off again. His head this time fell in a more favorable position for Mary to continue the clipping, ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... and water into a saucepan, and boil them until the sugar becomes brittle, which may be ascertained by taking up a small quantity in a spoon, and dipping it in cold water; if the sugar is sufficiently boiled, it will easily snap. Peel the oranges, remove as much of the white pith as possible, and divide them into nice-sized slices, without breaking the thin white skin which surrounds the juicy pulp. Place the pieces of orange on small skewers, dip them into the hot sugar, and arrange ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... a snap 'bout girl scouts!" he answered. "Cis, he called me 'old fellow'—I like it! And he's twenty-one. And you just ought t' see the shirt he wears!—not with little flowers on it, like Mike Callaghan's. And, oh, Cis, he never even s'pected ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... speaking, some old gentleman in the side gallery had either fallen asleep or was very excited by my remarks, for he somehow jerked the cord which fastened the top of the screen to the gallery, and snap went the cord and down came the screen! Behind it there was an expanse of empty platform, with a semi-circular seat, and on it sat my friend, the enthusiast on art, fast asleep! The limelight, no longer checked by the screen, fell full upon him, and the rounds of applause which followed ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... with a little chess, rarely going to bed before midnight; and the steady strain, with my anxiety to lose none of my time and opportunities, finally told on my eyes. One day, while working hard on the view of Neuchatel, I felt something snap behind my eyes, and in a few minutes I could no longer see my drawing; the slightest attempt to fix my vision on anything caused such indistinctness that I could see neither my work nor the landscape, and I was obliged to suspend work altogether. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... goes on day after day, day after day, and nothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might wake screaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of a thin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snap with a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the debris of the great wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know that war was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idle lads ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... ourselves landed in the gutter by an unclean pig, which has darted between our legs at some attractive garbage beyond. This peril over, we encounter at the next turning a mad dog, who makes a passing snap at our toga as he darts into a neighbouring blind alley, whither we do not care to follow his vagaries among a covey of young Roman street Arabs. Before we reach home a mumping beggar drops before us as ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... little to do; the Chancellor of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office. They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge the judgment of the country on the performances ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... ran, he saw her level the pistol and snap the hammer twice, thrice, with no result. The little dead click sounded like a death-warrant ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... at sight of the steam and smoke. A fire was the very thing he had defied the gipsies again and again to make on his land. He cracked his whip with a vicious snap, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... even that has a good many disguises—convention, cowardice, weakness, ennui; they all take their turn at hooting in its feathers? You must, you really must have rest. You don't know; you don't see; I do. Just a little snap, some one last exquisite thread gives way, and then it is all over. You see I have even to try to frighten you, for I can't tell you ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... Bayonet-Fighting.—On guard. Long point. Withdraw. On guard. Rest. Now, when I snap my fingers I want to see you come to the high port and get roun' me like lightning. Some of you men seem to be treatin' this bizness in a light-'earted way. We don't do this work to prevent you gettin' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... which I stood in great need, for I was dying with hunger, but I did not dare to, accept his offer, as a quarter of an hour's delay might, prove fatal. I was afraid of being retaken, and of being ashamed of it for the rest of my life; for a man of sense ought to be able to snap his fingers at four hundred thousand men in the open country, and if he cannot escape capture he ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to the door, and with her last word sharply turned the key. Only just in time, for Mrs. Clover was that moment trying the handle when she heard the excluding snap. Natural feeling so much prevailed with her that she gave the door a ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... better than carrot. So he didn't stop to wonder how it got there. He just reached out for the nearest piece and ate it. Then he reached for the next piece and ate it. Then he did a funny little dance just for joy. When he was quite out of breath, he sat down to rest. Snap! Something had Jerry Muskrat by the tail! Jerry squealed with fright and pain. Oh, how it did hurt! He twisted and turned, but he was held fast and could not see what had him. Then he pulled and pulled, until it seemed as if his tail would pull off. But it didn't. So he kept ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... finishing their lunch the boys again gained the deck, to find the mate actively driving the men in their various duties. The wind still came out of the northwest with a stinging snap. Ned declared that he could feel ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... came on deck with brat and poodle: Fred, a destructive child, clapped his hands with glee at the holes in the canvas: Snap toddled about smelling the blood of the slain, and wagging his tail by halves, perplexed. "Well, gentlemen," said Mrs. Beresford, "I hope you have made noise enough over one's head: and what a time you did take ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... brutes. Look here, is it money we want? You cable to Paris and offer two million, at—oh, at eight cents below the market; and to Liverpool, and let 'em have twopence off on the same amount. They'll snap it up as quick as look at it. That will bring in one lot of money, and as for the rest, I guess I've got some real estate in this town ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris |
