"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the head; and soon after Mr Clerke returned, having not been able to land, on account of a high surf on the shore. They met with no people on the isle; but saw a large bat, and some birds, and caught a water-snake. At six o'clock p.m. we got in with the land, under the N.W. side of the head, where we anchored in seventeen fathoms water, the bottom a fine dark sand, half a mile from shore; the point of the head ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... more courage than I, To accost a young maid with a drop in her eye; I'd as soon catch a snake or a viper: She, while wiping her tears, gives Apollo some wipes; And when a young lady has set up her pipes, Her lover will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... reply, my companion threw himself on his breast, and began to creep over the plain like a snake in the grass. He did this so well and so patiently that he reached to within forty yards of the bull without being discovered. Then he ceased to advance, and I saw his head and shoulders slowly emerge from among the grass, and presently his rifle appeared, and was ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve), That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... always a strange assortment, arrived at eight, and a telegram came soon after. Mrs. Drabdump rattled his door, shouted, and at last put the wire under it. Her heart was beating fast enough now, though there seemed to be a cold, clammy snake curling round it. She went downstairs again and turned the handle of Mortlake's room, and went in without knowing why. The coverlet of the bed showed that the occupant had only lain down in his clothes, as if fearing to miss the early train. She had not for ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... among them. Bearing in mind the reality of this belief in the minds of these peoples, it is easy to understand why they should shrink from killing any creature so malignant-looking and powerful for harm as a snake, and why they should feel uneasy in the presence of, and to some extent dread, the MAIAS and the longnosed monkey, creatures whose resemblance to man seems even to us somewhat uncanny. Their objection ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... though!" remarked the Honorable Bertie with unlooked-for vivacity. For so far Aunt Jane's trembling anticipations had been unfulfilled by the sight of a single snake, a fact laid by me to the credit of St. Patrick and by Cookie to ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... daybreak was carried off by a tiger from between two companions, who in vain endeavoured to save him. After this we took care not to expose ourselves to the chance of forming a supper for a tiger. The next evening I was nearly stepping on a snake, the bite of which is said to be certain death. I mention these circumstances merely to show that, fertile as is the country and magnificent the scenery, it has its drawbacks. While we were in the high country, it rained generally from two till four o'clock, and ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... papers—on the Fern Owl; Mr. Rennie's interesting Notes on the Cleanliness of Animals; Mechanism of the Voice in Singing; the Vision of Birds of Prey; New species of British Snake; Animalculae in Snow; Habits of the Chameleon; Peculiarity of the Negro Stomach; Growth of Spanish Flies; British Pearl Fishery on the Conway; the cause of Goitre; seat of the sense of touch and taste; stones ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... traversed those deserted streets it seemed that this seemingly dead city did but swoon after all, despite its many grievous wounds, for here was life even as the woman had said; evidences of which I saw here and there, in battered stovepipes that had writhed themselves snake-like through rusty cellar gratings and holes in wall or pavement, miserable contrivances at best, whose fumes blackened the walls whereto they clung. Still, nowhere was there sound or sight of folk save in one small back street, where, in a shop that apparently sold everything, ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... before the birth of Cain, her first-born? That would have made an excuse for Cain's children, as Elsie's ante-natal misfortune made an excuse for her. But what difference does it make in the child's responsibility whether his inherited tendencies come from a snake-bite or some other source which he knew nothing about and could not have prevented from acting? All this is plain enough, and the only use of the story is to bring the dogma of inherited guilt and its consequences into a ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... (Sec. xxxix., vi.) Darwin also speaks of the efficient cause of the various colors of the eggs of birds and of the hair and feathers of animals which are adapted to the purpose of concealment. "Thus the snake, and wild cat, and leopard are so colored as to resemble dark leaves and their light interstices" (p. 248). The eggs of hedge-birds are greenish, with dark spots; those of crows and magpies, which are seen ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... single -s, but a double sign for -k (kappa -"id:k" and koppa -"id:q") and of the -r almost solely the more recent form -"id:R". The oldest Etruscan writing shows no knowledge of lines, and winds like the coiling of a snake; the more recent employs parallel broken-off lines from right to left: the Latin writing, as far as our monuments reach back, exhibits only the latter form of parallel lines, which originally perhaps may have run at pleasure from left to right or from right to left, but ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... conclusion, of the self-assigned task of Levinsohn. The Talmud, we have seen, was at that time the object of assaults of zealous Christians and disloyal Jews, and hostile works against Judaism were the order of the day. Most of them, however, like the fabulous snake, vented their poison and died. It was different with McCaul's poignant diatribe against the cause of Judaism and the honor of the Talmud, which had been translated into many languages. Montefiore, while in Russia, urged Levinsohn ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... woman would have it all on in a jiffy; and when she had several on, she would press a lever, and a stream of sausage meat would be shot out, taking the casing with it as it came. Thus one might stand and see appear, miraculously born from the machine, a wriggling snake of sausage of incredible length. In front was a big pan which caught these creatures, and two more women who seized them as fast as they appeared and twisted them into links. This was for the uninitiated the most perplexing work of all; for all that the woman had to give was a single ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... From the sea, the hills, the sky? Is it the flaming chariot from on high Which demons to some planet seem to bring? Oh, horror! from its wondrous centre, lo! A furious stream of lightning seems to flow Like a long snake uncoiling its ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... a filthy, snake-paved, stinking cavern he sees two horny-nebbed giants, (2) making a fire. One of the giants offers to direct him to Loke if he will say three true things in three phrases, and this done, tells him to row four days and then he would reach a Dark and Grassless Land. For three more true ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... rescuer. It was only when the angry roar of the great rapids floated up-stream to them, increasing in volume till they could see the terror of tumbling waters just below, and the canoe shot forward like a snake through the swift, smooth current which would sweep them into the vast caldron, that he realized the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... part, I desire to sweep off my old friends with the old year, and begin the new with a clean record. It is a measure absolutely necessary. The snake does not put on his new skin over the old one. He sloughs off the first, before he dons the second. He would be a very clumsy serpent, if he did not. One can not have successive layers of friendships any more than ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... has died from snake-bite. I believe him, too. I saw a boy die on the Etheridge from snake-bite, and he looked as she does now; besides that, there is not a scratch or bruise on her body, so she couldn't have received any hurt unless it was an internal one when she was thrown. Here's the ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... rim of the room, examining the wall frescoes foot by foot, seeing on them a strange depiction of semi-human forms, of crab-men and crab-women, of snake-men and snake-women, of men half-goat and half-man, of creatures hardly human with great jaws that looked like rock-cutters, with hands like moles on short powerful arms, fish people with finned legs and arms, their hands ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... slowly along on the lookout for some bird or animal who might be in the mood for story-telling, when she heard an angry hissing, which caused her to start in alarm, thinking a snake was in her path, and, to her surprise, she saw two geese who were scolding violently in ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... the iconoclast upon the back row, "I guess nobody is going to waste much time over this Turkish snake charmer! Ain't there a policeman or somebody we can believe who ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... along the duckboards and in between the tents like a dingy snake in the gathering gloom. It was rapidly growing in length as more and more ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... body. It is, therefore, neither a hygienic nor a sanative agent, but strictly a noxious one; yet, its very distinct antiseptic properties render it valuable for remedial purposes, since these qualities promptly arrest that fatal form of decomposition of the animal fluids which is occasioned by snake-venom, which produces its deadly effects in the same manner as a drop of yeast ferments the largest mash. Alcohol checks this poisonous and deadly process and neutralizes its effects. Thus, alcohol, although a noxious agent, possesses a special ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... held on tight, for we were swinging round. Suddenly the voice of command sang out—(I fancied with a touch of triumph in the tone)—"Let go the warp!" The thick rope sprang into the air, and wriggled like a long snake, and it was all I could do to help joining in the shouts that rang from the deck above and from the dock below. Then the very heart of the ship began to beat with a new sound, and the Scotch lad leaped like a deerhound to the window, and put his arm round my shoulder, and whispered, ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... wound, the other from the mouth Breath'd a thick smoke, whose vap'ry columns join'd. Lucan in mute attention now may hear, Nor thy disastrous fate, Sabellus! tell, Nor shine, Nasidius! Ovid now be mute. What if in warbling fiction he record Cadmus and Arethusa, to a snake Him chang'd, and her into a fountain clear, I envy not; for never face to face Two natures thus transmuted did he sing, Wherein both shapes were ready to assume The other's substance. They in mutual guise So answer'd, that the serpent split his train ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... In the poisoned entrails throw. * * * * * * Fillet of a fenny snake In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog. Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howlet's wing: * * * * * Maw of ravening salt-sea shark, Root of ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... tell how Tarquin the Proud lost his throne, through his own tyranny and the criminal action of his son. Once upon a time, when this king was at the height of his power, he, as was usual, offered sacrifices to the gods on the altar in the palace court-yard. But from the altar there crawled out a snake, which devoured the offerings before the flames ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of green (hoist side), white, and red; the coat of arms (an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake is its beak) is centered ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a dislike to her. As for Ma'aruf, he occupied himself with the love of fair handmaidens and bethought him not of his wife Fatimah the Dung, for that she was grown a grizzled old fright, foul-favoured to the sight, a bald-headed blight, loathlier than the snake speckled black and white; the more that she had beyond measure evil entreated him aforetime; and as saith the adage, "Ill-usage the root of desire disparts and sows hate in the soil of hearts;" and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the ship's deck one could not see the water—schools of porpoises surrounded the ship, setting the water alive with phosphorescent splendors: "Like glorified serpents thirty to fifty feet long. Every curve of the tapering long body perfect. The whole snake dazzlingly illumined. It was a weird sight to see this sparkling ghost come suddenly flashing along out of the solid gloom and stream past like ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... parts of the world and more particularly in India there are people who devote themselves to the pursuit and taming of serpents. Had I been born in those regions I perhaps should have been what is termed a snake charmer. That I had a genius for the profession, as probably all have who follow it, I gave decided proof of the above instance as in others which I shall have ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... range themselves in ranks that took the form of human beings with faces all convulsed. Upon a rotting tree-trunk in the midst of all these horrors sat an enormous owl, torpid in its daytime roost; behind it a frowning cavern, guarded by two monsters direly blent of snake and toad and lizard. These, with all the other seeming life the chasm harbored, lay in deathlike slumber, and any movement visible was that of one plunged in deep dreams; so that the forester had dismal fears of what this odious crew ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... felt fascinated by the glitter of his cold gray eye. A shuddering sensation passed through her frame, just as the poor warbler of the woods quivers at the approach of the rattle-snake. A dark mist gathered before her sight, and she saw no more until she awoke to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... ten or twelve of Sir Samuel Romilly's voters were assembled waiting to poll, and with the assistance of two or three more of his gang, backed on by Captain Gee, he would hustle and drive them all out of the box, and prevent them from giving their votes. At length, Sir Samuel was induced to snake a serious remonstrance to the Sheriff against such an unwarrantable violation of the freedom of election, and he called upon the Sheriff to have Watson taken into custody, who had actually been assaulting several ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... one not familiar with the Styrian-Carinthian highway through the valley of the Drau does not know what one of the good old Austrian imperial highroads in the good old days might undertake. Hop-up-and-down is its behavior, with snake-like humps, like a jumping polecat. Serpentine windings? Don't exist there. Straight as an arrow it heedlessly goes over mountain after mountain, down to the Drau and up again to airy heights, and any motorist ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... I do. I understand perfectly, because at the tender age of twenty-four I proposed marriage to a snake-charmer lady in the old Eden Musee. She was forty years old if she was a day, but she carried her years well and hid the wrinkles with putty, or something. Barring a slight hare-lip, she was a fairly handsome woman—in the dark." He reached ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... could protect me from Italian craft. And, were there nothing worse, it would be intolerable to me to live under the eyes of a relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, 'He sleeps ill for whom the enemy wakes.' Look you, my friend, I have done with my old life,—I wish to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have denied myself all that exiles deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages from sympathizing friendship, no news from a lost and bereaved country follow me to my hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these I have voluntarily cut thyself off. I am as dead to the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Region, which remains under OSCE supervision; the ICJ gave Ukraine until December 2006 to reply, and Romania until June 2007 to rejoin, in their dispute submitted in 2004 over Ukrainian-administered Zmiyinyy/Serpilor (Snake) Island and Black Sea maritime boundary; Romania opposes Ukraine's reopening of a navigation canal from the Danube border through ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... hitherto sate sulky enough in the armchair formerly appropriated to the deceased, and in which she would have been not a little scandalised to have seen this colossal specimen of the masculine gender lolling at length. His employment had been rolling up into the form of a coiled snake the long lash of his horse-whip, and then by a jerk causing it to unroll itself into the middle of the floor. The first words he said when he had digested the shock contained a magnanimous declaration, which he probably was not conscious of having uttered aloud—'Weel, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... call the Nile of Louisiana—with about as much right and propriety as the Massachusetts cobbler who christened his son Alexander Caesar Napoleon—sneaks stealthily along through forest and plain, like some lurking and venomous copper-snake. Cocytus would be a far better name for it. Here we are at the entrance of the first swamp, out of which the infernal scarlet ditch flows. It is any thing but a pleasant sight, that swamp, which is formed by the junction of the Tensaw, the White and Red Rivers, and at the first ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... sun had risen, Siss the Tracker, and the lad Wau-Hau, who now chipped flints, and One Eye, and Bo, and the Snail-eater, the two red-haired men, and Cat's-skin and Snake, all the men that were left alive of the Sons of Uya, taking their ash spears and their smiting-stones, and with throwing-stones in the beast-paw bags, started forth upon the trail of Ugh-lomi through the hawthorn thickets where Yaaa ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... The treatment of snake bites and the bites of other poisonous animals was supposed to follow the principles laid down for the bite of a mad dog, especially as regards the encouragement of free bleeding and the use of ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... trouble. Any musical instrument, a wedding. Bird, suit at law. Cat, deception. Dog, faithful friend. Horse, important news. Snake, an enemy. Turtle, long life. Rabbit, luck. House, offer of marriage, or a removal. Flag, some surprise or a journey to ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... was there, right in the Rigel Royal, when it all began on the night that Cliff Moran blew in, looking lower than an antman's belly and twice as nasty. He'd had a spell of luck foul enough to twist a man into a slug-snake and we all knew that there was an attachment out for his ship. Cliff had fought his way up from the back courts of Venaport. Lose his ship and he'd slip back there—to rot. He was at the snarling stage that night when he picked ...
— All Cats Are Gray • Andre Alice Norton
... Up Lyme lies across deep-grassed meadows. At intervals it passes over a stream by means of foot bridges. The stream curls through the meadows like a snake. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... vermin of the void That hid them from his bended bow, Shall crawl from caverns overjoyed, Jackal and snake and carrion crow. And perched above the vulture's eggs, Reversed upon its hideous head, A blue-faced ape shall wave its legs To tell the world that he ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... a knife in his neck. The poor devil died while I was out skirmishing, but not before he whispered in the chief's ear the name of the man who did for him. The dirty snake! And the chief trusted him as no crook ever was trusted before. He knew him for what he was, but he thought he was loyal. And this is what he gets in return for saving the dog's life in Buda Pesth three years ago. In the name of God, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... said Douglas; but we must get those horses or the rebels will get us to-morrow; they can hardly overtake us before then. If I remember rightly, there's a snake-fence across the trail, about half-a-mile or so up the valley, which may stop them. Now, if you, Jacques, go to the right, and you, Lagrange, to the left, while I take the trail—I'm not quite so young and nimble as you two—I dare say we'll not be long before ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... property back, and old Jim—why, he wasn't going to be worsted by no redskins. So we trailed the Shawnees, us two, and come up with them one night encamped beside a salt-lick. Jim got into their camp while I was lying shivering in the cane, and blessed if he didn't snake back four of our hosses and our three best Deckards. Tha's craft for ye. By sunrise we was riding south on the Warriors' Path but the hosses was plumb tired, and afore midday them pizonous Shawnees had cotched ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... of green (hoist side), white, and red; the coat of arms (an eagle with a snake in its beak perched on a cactus) is centered in ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... art not mad. If any man in Ionia has a well-balanced and healthy mind, it is thou; but, nevertheless, although I alter the picture on my mind of an innocent bird drawn on to destruction by the piercing eye of a snake, yet the conditions are the same within me, and I must say I cannot for my life understand why such a sensible man can be led by the charming of such a ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... something of medicine. One day when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever a little Andaman Islander was picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was sick to death, and had gone to a lonely place to die. I took him in hand, though he was as venomous as a young snake, and after a couple of months I got him all right and able to walk. He took a kind of fancy to me then, and would hardly go back to his woods, but was always hanging about my hut. I learned a little ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the old feeling came back to me. I remembered what its owners had done to me and mine, and what they are still trying to do, and I felt I could not go into the house, and give her my hand. It would be like taking hold of a snake." ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... and more mills, for five miles or so, until at last they emerged into an open, flat country, divided by the old-fashioned snake fences; dotted with blackened stumps of the long-vanished forest; eaten by sloughs and bayous from the river. The sawdust ceased. Bobby leaned out to watch with fascinated interest the sand, divided by the tire, flowing ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... Good Herb Remedy for.—Add enough water to one ounce of snake root to make one-half pint." Give in doses according to the age of the child. This is a good remedy, and has been used by ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... who were watching saw a small black snake make an ineffectual effort to leap out of the blazing mass, fall back into the flames, and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... children drowning a dog or killing a snake. Tenacity of life irritates them, as if it were a rebellion against their despotism, the effect of which is to render them only the more violent ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a beast or bird is there, in that hoary desert bare. Nothing breaks the almighty stillness. Even the jackal's felon cry might seem a soothing melody. A grey wild cat, with snowy whiskers, out of a withered bramble stealing, with a youthful snake in its ivory teeth, in the moonlight gleams with glee. This ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... swim a languorous way down the mahogany slant. At the angle it waved its sizzling molten head to and fro over the closed eyes of the man beneath it. Then, in a moment, with a mystic impulse, it moved again, and the red snake flowed directly down ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... as a slaughter-house. Only the sky of rose and gold reminded him of the world's beauty and the glory of morning, after that dark nightmare which wrapped his spirit like the choking folds of a black snake. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the words were hardly out of his mouth when he found that it was a hare that he was holding by the paw. Then the hare changed into a fish, and the fish into a bird, and the bird into a slimy wriggling snake. This time the prince's hand nearly opened of itself, but with a strong effort he kept his fingers shut, and drawing his sword cut off its head, when the spell was broken, and the girl stood before him as he had seen her first, ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... without stumbling, for the ground was strewed with decayed timber, while creepers and parasitical plants of numerous species formed traps to catch his feet. He saw, too, the grass frequently moving, as a hideous snake or some other reptile crept away among it. Overhead were birds of every variety, and of the richest plumage; parrots, trumpet birds, pigeons, whydahs, green paroquets, and numberless others, which he was in no humour just then to admire, while monkeys of all sorts skipped ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... least there was nothing which compromised him seriously with the king; but every nerve in his great body tingled with rage as he thought of the way in which his young scape-grace had alluded to him. "The viper!" he cried. "Oh, the foul snake in the grass! I will make him curse the day ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... magnetism; from ham and eggs, and from the Weltanschauung of Kansas; from the theory that a dark cigar is always a strong one, and from the theory that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake; from campaigns against profanity, and from the Pentateuch; from anti-vivisection, and from women who do not smoke; from wine-openers, and from Methodists; from Armageddon, and from the belief that a bloodhound never makes a mistake; from sarcerdotal moving-pictures, ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... Sumner expressing my wonder at the undecided conduct of the administration; at its want of foresight; its eternal parleying with Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no step to tread down the head of the young snake. No one among them seems to have the seer's eye. The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day and in large numbers, who transform Washington into a camp, and who crave for fighting,—the people alone have the prophetic inspiration, and are the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... thee; Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee; But on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there is ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... the air like a great snake. The runner saw the shadow of it, and with a cry that they heard, half turned and threw out his arms to ward it off. The loop was too large, the cowman missed it, and as the Indian pulled up in a cloud of dust, he whipped in the slack, and the noose tightened fairly about the renegade's waist. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... the Mississippi, and whoever held it ruled the river. The Confederate leaders understood this very thoroughly and they had accordingly fortified the place, which was admirably adapted for defense, with great care and skill. In front of it flowed the Mississippi, twisting and turning in such snake-like conditions that it could be navigated only by boats of a certain length and build, and on either side of the city stretched wide swamp lands and bayous completely commanded by batteries well posted ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... boys will gather round, and they'll launch me in the ground, And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil; And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave, Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil. And they'll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire's glow, As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to Kingdom Come, And who went the pace in England ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... articulately, and needs some steady observation of ourselves to be detected, so is it with this dread of Him. Carry the task of self-examination a little further, and ask yourselves whether there does not lie coiled in many of your hearts this dread of God, like a sleeping snake which only needs a little warmth to be awakened to sting. There are all the signs of it. There are many of you who have a distinct indisposition to be brought close up to the thought of Him. There ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... he acted were of various kinds, and, rather from policy than inclination, were often stained with falsehood or meanness; therefore it follows that the measures of the Emperor resembled those of the snake, who twines himself through the grass, with the purpose of stinging insidiously those whom he fears to approach with the step of the bold and generous lion. We are not, however, writing the History ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... further protection against them Ra promised to impart to magicians and snake-charmers the particular word of power, hekau, with which he guarded himself against the attacks of serpents, and also to transmit it to his son Osiris. Thus those who are ready to listen to the formulae of the snake-charmers shall always be immune from the ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... descended and with globular extremities thumped, by no visible agency, upon the drum. The cymbals clashed—and a long music record began to unfold in segments like a papier-mache snake. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... was sitting in the dining-room wondering whether I should take some fruit from the table without my parents' permission, a long, black thing, very much like a snake suddenly came through the window and disappeared with all the bananas. I was very much frightened because I had never seen snakes eat bananas and I thought it must be a terrible snake that would sneak in and take fruit. I crept out of the room and with great fear in ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... these two powerful beasts of prey, stealing about the fire, before which two unarmed boys reposed. He knew, however, that they were drawn not by the desire to attack, but by a kind of terrified curiosity. The fire was to them the magnet that the snake is to the fascinated bird. He longed then for his gun, the faithful little rifle that was reposing on the hooks over his bed in his father's house. "I'd make you cry for something," he said to himself, looking at the ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... most appropriate electric sign, a winding, twisting snake. 'There is one thing more I must tell you,' I said to a young, attractive-looking boy, 'What attracts ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... She would then come to him in the form of a toad with a red band round its neck. The shepherd promised; but the next day when he saw the toad he was so horrified that he ran away. A variant records the hour as between twelve and one at night, and the form of the lady as a snake which sought to twine round the shepherd's neck. A great treasure buried in the hill would have been his had he stood the proof; but now the lady will have to wait until a beech tree shall have grown up on the spot and been cut down, and of its timber a cradle made: the child that is rocked in that ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... blue background is divided into four quadrants by a white cross; in the center of each rectangle is a white snake; the flag of France is used ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... skin of the Nemean lion. This monster dwelt on the mountain of Peloponnesus, in the forest between Kleona and Nemea, and could be wounded by no weapons made of man. Some said he was the son of the giant Typhon and the snake Echidna; others that he had dropped down from the moon to ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... ounces of bark, three drachms of Virginia snake root, one ounce of orange peel, and one quart of good spirits; set it in a warm place, and shake it daily for two weeks; then pour it off, and add a pint more spirits to ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... there are some creatures with which we certainly do not wish to meet, and unfortunately these are not uncommon. I mean the alligators and the great serpents. The natives fear the alligators much, for their weapons are of no avail against them, and they would never venture to attack a great snake." ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... myself feel that I know what the reason was, although she pretended to tell me. She seemed to have a feeling, poor soul, that, beautiful as she was, she excited repulsion rather than affection in everybody with whom she came in contact. 'I might as well be a snake as a woman.' Those were just her words, and, God help her, I do believe there was something true about them, although for the life of me I don't know why ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... at him, glanced down at his pocket saw the "snake" had gone, but thumping it once or twice to make sure turned upon Faith, his face red and puckered, yet with a gleam of fun in his eye that detracted from the ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... he was gone, Isaacson returned to his sitting-room upstairs and lit a nargeeleh pipe. He had turned out all the electric burners except one, and as he sat alone there in the small room, so dimly lighted, holding the long, snake-like pipe-stem in his thin, artistic hands, he looked like an Eastern Jew. With a fez upon his head, Europe would have dropped from him. Even his expression seemed to have become wholly Eastern, in its sombre, glittering intelligence, and in the ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... antiquity and wealth, that decent and dignified men now existing boast their descent from these filthy thieves, who showed a far juster conviction of their own merits by assuming for their types the swine, goat, jackal, leopard, wolf, and snake, which they severally resembled." ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... chiefs must detect trouble under a thousand disguises. Perhaps a small boy has thrown a snake across the wires or driven a nail into a cable. Perhaps some self-reliant citizen has moved his own telephone from one room to another. Perhaps a sudden rainstorm has splashed its fatal moisture upon an unwiped joint. Or perhaps a submarine cable has been sat upon by the Lusitania ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... affliction that she heard the porcupines scratching against the canvas, or the squirrels dropping fir-cones in the early morning with a sound of miniature thunder upon the roof of her tent. But on this island there was not even a squirrel or a mouse. I think two toads and a small and harmless snake were the only living creatures that had been discovered during the whole of the first fortnight. And these two toads in all probability were not two ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Marie, with a curl of infinite contempt upon her soft, red-ripe, moist lips, "You are a coward, and a snake." ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... door, with the sensation that you reigned supreme inside it, you would say it was worth the risk of being called odd. Mr. Springrove attends to my gardening, the dog attends to robbers, and whenever there is a snake or toad to kill, Jane ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Job!" he said strongly. "A snake in the grass! An oily scoundrel! I don't know how I know it, but I know it! A square man would have punched me the way I talked ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... forth, jabbing their spears or pikes down among the bales, to probe the darkness. Their search was wild but thorough. Before it, in swift retreat, some one crawled past the compradore's room, brushing the splint partition like a snake. This, as Rudolph guessed, might be the man whose hand he had ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... of the development of any other vertebrate animal, Lizard, Snake, Frog, or Fish, tells the same story. There is always, to begin with, an egg having the same essential structure as that of the Dog:—the yelk of that egg always undergoes division, or 'segmentation' as it is often called: the ultimate products of that segmentation constitute the building ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... opposite his mine a sinister thing happened—a head rose up against the black darkness of the tunnel and a man looked stealthily out. Then he drew back his head like some snake in a hole and Denver stopped and stared. A low wall of rocks had been built across the cut and the man was crouching behind it—Denver jogged down and turned up the trail. A glimpse at Pinal showed the streets full of automobiles and a huddle of men by the store door, and as he rode ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... O rushing Contoocook! and in thy valleys, Agiochook! the jackals of the negro- holder.... What boots thy zeal, O glowing friend, that would indignant rend the northland from the South? Wherefore? To what good end? Boston Bay and Bunker Hill would serve things still—things are of the snake. The horseman serves the horse, the neat-herd serves the neat, the merchant serves the purse, the eater serves his meat; 'tis the day of the chattel, web to weave, and corn to grind; things are in the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... and slowly uncoiled its body; all the while steadily keeping its eye fixed on its intended victim. Mrs. Jameson could only cry, being unable to move, "Oh God! preserve me! save me, heavenly Father!" The child, after the snake's charm was broken, crept to her mother and buried its little ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... First of all I heard something rustle close by me, and I saw the grass move, and there was a snake." ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... woe, undaunted, unsubdued! Through a long life of rugged care, 'Twas thine to steer a steady course! 'Twas thine misfortune's frowns to bear, And stem the wayward torrent's force! And as thy persevering mind The toilsome path of fame pursued, 'Twas thine, amidst its flow'rs to find The wily snake—Ingratitude! Yet vainly did th' insidious reptile strive On thee its poisons dire to fling; Above its reach, thy laurel still shall thrive, Unconscious ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... the second act, Lady Jenkins says to me, "Parker, has an emerald snake bracelet with a ruby head been found in any of the rooms?" and I have to say, "I will inquire, my lady." And then I move about the room, putting things in order. She says, "That will ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... probable—that a serpent or large reptile of some kind may have made its way into the gallery. And, at all events, it will never do for you ladies to run the slightest risk. What do you think, Evelin?" he added, turning to Lance. "Is it likely that there may be a snake or something of the ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... drew up his shoulders in a comical way, and half laughing, went on, 'There, there, may it please the court, I reckon I've scratched up a snake. But, as I'm in for it, I guess ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... was a rat's eye,' Noel said, 'or a snake's,' and we did not put our heads quite so close to the hole till he came back ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... Ah niver see thim aboot here. It must a been a two-striped Spelerpes. A Spelerpes is nigh kin to a Frog—a kind of dry-land tadpole, while a Lizard is only a Snake with legs." ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... do with this snake and, his weak-minded brother?" asked Jeff dryly. "Tie 'em up and ship 'em ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... synod met at Cambridge. Mr. Allen preached. It fell out, about the midst of his sermon, there came a snake into the seat where many elders sate behind the preacher. Divers elders shifted from it, but Mr. Thomson, one of the elders of Braintree, (a man of much faith) trod upon the head of it, until it was killed. This being ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... hind feet, which are armed with long, strong claws. Ernest Thompson-Seton's story of Molly Cottontail and "Raggylug", in Wild Animals I Have Known, contains an interesting account of how Molly rescued Raggy from a snake by this manner of fighting. The rabbit has many enemies, hence it has need of large, movable ears to aid its acute sense of hearing. The thick pads of hair on the soles of its feet enable it to move noiselessly. The thick, soft, inner hair keeps the animal warm, while the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... he was obliged to conceal his fury. He hated these rebellious men even more than he hated the upstart women. He was determined, if the opportunity offered, to be revenged upon them for their insolence. But how? This was the matter he revolved in his snake-licking mind as he stared at the wall, and he was in a hurry to reach a solution of his difficulty. Stark Coleman had called him before he was out of bed that morning to say that there had been a citizens' meeting the night before, and that he, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... is the cosmic struggle between evil and good, or, what for Shelley is the same thing, between the forces of established authority and of man's aspiration for liberty, the eagle standing for the powerful oppressor, and the snake for the oppressed. ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... in Egypt during the last few years; and it is also easy to see that he, in common with many other Coptic writers, misunderstood the purport of them. The outer darkness, i.e., the blackest place of all in the underworld, the river of fire, the pits of fire, the snake and the scorpion, and such like things, all have their counterparts, or rather originals, in the scenes which accompany the texts which describe the passage of the sun through the underworld during the hours of the ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... almost as a coffin. They continued crawling for several yards more, sometime cutting their arms with the broken stones which covered the bottom, and sometimes placing one of their hands upon some cold substance which moved and felt as if it might be a lizard or a sleeping snake. They neither called nor spoke, for they feared someone might have the child, who would run away with her, if warned of their approach, so they determined to come upon them suddenly. They were greatly ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... nightcapped to peer at the brawl. Then as Francois hurled back his sword to slash at the priest's shaven head—Frenchmen had not yet learned to thrust with the point in the Italian manner—Jehan le Merdi leapt from behind, nimble as a snake, and wrested away the boy's weapon. Sermaise closed ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell |
