"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went slowly along the well-beaten road that skirts the sand-hills of the Assiniboine, and crawled like a long black snake through the winding valley of Oak Creek, whose banks were hanging with wild roses and columbine, while down in the shady aisles of the creek bed, under the stunted oak that gives it its name, pink and yellow lady's slippers gave ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... lodges, which appeared to have been deserted about twelve or fifteen days, and on the other side of the Missouri a large encampment, apparently made by the same nation. On examining some moccasins which we found there, our Indian woman said that they did not belong to her own nation the Snake Indians, but she thought that they indicated a tribe on this side of the Rocky mountain, and to the north of the Missouri; indeed it is probable that these are the Minnetarees of fort de Prairie. At the distance of six and a half ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Arriving at the snake fences of Armytage's farm, he said he would go down to the post at the 'Corner' for letters, and call in an hour for Linda on his return. She found Edith and Jay working hard as usual. Their employment to-day was the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... still greater things for us. He knew that only one man could wield a bow better than Paris,—Paris who had shot with an arrow Achilles, and who after that had slain many of our chiefs. That man was Philoctetes. He had come with Agamemnon's host to Troy. But Philoctetes had been bitten by a water-snake, and the wound given him was so terrible that none of our warriors could bear to be near him. He was left on the Island of Lemnos and the host lost memory of him. But Odysseus remembered, and he took ship to Lemnos and brought Philoctetes back. With his great bow and with the arrows of Hercules that ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... in bell-bottomed trousers and a pea jacket. He was fond of telling a yarn about a vessel which was carrying a snake in a crate from the West Indies. This snake got into the boiler when they were ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... 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 ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... a place like this, but a little higher up-stream," said the planter, "that the snake story happened which Kingsley described in 'At Last.' Four girls were bathing in this river, because the surf is too heavy for sea-bathing, and one of them, who had gone into the water partly dressed, felt something clutch at ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... longer than six days in the making, and that the Deluge, as described, is a physical impossibility; but there is no proving, especially to those who are perfect in the art of closing their ears to that which they do not wish to hear, that a snake did not speak, or that Eve was not made out of one of ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms. But I sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't half like that chap, Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake's head, Stubb? Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look down there, Flask —pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of both hands — Aye, will I! Flask, I take ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... discovered an earthquake in the eastern districts of the city, a few days since, has been obliged to employ a snake-charmer to extract from his left boot an immense anaconda that had effected a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... the land is often covered with snow, and the little burns of the hills are frozen into snake-like icicles. If the picture is hard, it is nevertheless beautiful, looked out upon from the comfort of good clothes and a full stomach. It invites you to explore it, to follow that far track ending on the snow-line of ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... race-track a steer was loosed, and a cowboy on a small lithe broncho rode after it at top speed. Round the head of this man the lariat whirled like a live snake. In a flash the noose was tight about the steer's horns, the brilliant little horse had overtaken the beast, and in an action when man and horse seemed to combine as one, the tightened rope was swung against the steer's legs. It was thrown heavily. Like lightning the cowboy was off the horse, was ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... McClernand, the Fort Donelson boys; that on its right, at right angles to it, and, as it were, the refused wing of the army, was glorious old Sherman, hanging on with a bulldog grip to the road across Snake Creek from Crump's Landing by which Lew Wallace was coming with 5,000 men. In other words, we still had an unbroken line confronting the enemy, made up of men who were not yet ready, by any manner of means, to give up that they were whipped. Nor did we know then that our ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... district brought it bread, cakes, fruits, and thought that they could call down the blessing of heaven upon their fields by gorging the snake with offerings. Everywhere on the confines of cultivated ground, and even at some distance from the valley, are fine single sycamores, flourishing as though by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... in Janet's arms like frozen ice, then into a huge flame of roaring fire. Then, again, the fire vanished and an adder was skipping through her arms, but still she held on; and then they turned him into a snake that reared up as if to bite her, and yet she held on. Then suddenly a dove was struggling in her arms, and almost flew away. Then they turned him into a swan, but all was in vain, till at last he was turned into a red-hot glaive, and this she cast into a well of water ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... his dream how woman and the snake have been allied in legend, religion and history—how they have ever been identified in the minds of men. His beautiful queen had been at one with the serpent in that suit of metal. Or was it only Elsa?—was it only ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... sure," cried Peter. "I might have guessed that that was uppermost in your mind. Well, how much will you have?" Peter began to unwind the fragrant weed off a coil of most appalling size and thickness, which looked like a snake of endless length. "Will that do?" and he flourished about four feet of the snake before the eyes ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... transforms himself at times into an angel of light. If so, then he is certainly far more dangerous than if he came as an angel of darkness and horror. If you met some venomous snake, with loathsome spots upon his scales, his eyes full of rage and cunning, his head raised to strike at you, hissing and showing his fangs, there would be no temptation to have to do with him. You ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... No. 21, current volume, you referred H. K., of Wis., who had described the horse-hair snake, to page 280, No. 18 current volume, for a reply, which you considered "sufficient." With your kind permission I would like to speak a few words about the "snakes" in question. When I resided in Pennsylvania, I, in ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... from the concessions, and my soul longed rather to be inclosed in the deeps of the sea, or involved once more in utter oblivion. I was like Daniel in the den of lions, without his faith in Divine support, and wholly at their mercy. I felt as one round whose body a deadly snake is twisted, which continues to hold him in its fangs, without injuring him, further than in moving its scaly infernal folds with exulting delight, to let its victim feel to whose power he has subjected himself; and thus did I for a space drag an existence from day to ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... Its body became of a dark blue, then ashy pale; the imitation of the flower, the gaudy fin was withdrawn, it appeared to shrink back as far as it could, but it was nailed or fascinated to the window sill, for its feet did not move. The head of the snake approached, with its long, forked tongue shooting out, and shortening, and with a low hissing noise. By this time about two feet of its body was visible, lying with its white belly on the wooden beam, moving forward with a small horizontal wavy motion, the head and six inches ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... discipline to equal advantage to be considered first-class soldiers. The Natal Carabineers are excellent volunteer cavalry: the police an alert and reliable troop. After the horse the foot: the Dublin Fusiliers wound up the hill like a long brown snake. This is a fine regiment, which distinguished itself at Glencoe, and have since impressed all who have been brought in contact with it. The cheery faces of the Irishmen wore a proud and confident expression. They had seen war. The other battalion—the Border Regiment—had yet ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... of the same kind. Its white tail, laid back on its black body, makes it very conspicuous in the dusk when it roams about, so that it is not likely to be pounced upon by any of the carnivora mistaking it for other night-roaming animals. In reptiles, the beautifully banded coral snake (Elaps), whose bite is deadly, is marked as conspicuously as any noxious caterpillar with bright bands of black, yellow, and red. I only met with one other example amongst the vertebrata, and it was also a reptile. In the woods around Santo Domingo there ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... at him, long and straight and black; his figure seemed to writhe like that of a snake about to strike; then he turned on his heel, went back to the cabin and opened a bottle of champagne. When eight bells were cried, he slept on the floor beside the captain on the locker; and of the whole starboard watch, only Sally Day appeared upon the summons. The mate proposed to stand the watch ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... also employed as a sentinel; and his senses, sharpened by use and the struggle for life, exceeded in delicacy those of the most subtle Redskin. He it was who warned the dogs of the approach of danger. If a snake approached, or a troop of monkeys were disporting themselves in a neighbouring thicket, Rees' terror and his shrieks quickly revealed the presence of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... up; look acrost," Uncle Bill advised. "You're liable to bounce off this hill if you don't take care. Hello," he said to himself, staring at the river which lay like a great, green snake at the base of the mountains, "must be some feller down there placerin'. That's a new cabin, ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... a pale-green sky, looking down on a dozen roads each crawling like a black snake with the close press of retreating troops. As I was making my way back to Gradisca the whole firmament leaped into sudden brilliance and every feature in every face among the throngs around me on the road stood out for several seconds under a ghastly light. ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... and windows, and the street-shrines were dressed with a profusion of flowers; while every square and open space in the city was crowded with booths, with the tents of ambulant comedians and dentists, and with the outspread carpets of snake-charmers, posture-makers and jugglers. Among this mob of quacks and pedlars circulated other fantastic figures, the camp-followers of the army of hucksters: dwarfs and cripples, mendicant friars, gypsy fortune-tellers, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... elder, went to make the solid bosses of verdure that filled the valley, while at one end a grove of furs stood up blackly, winter and summer. Giant laurels, twisted and writhing creations of a nightmare, spread their snake-like branches beneath the rocky wall at one side of the wood, and in spring they shook their pale, sickly tassels in a gloom that was as green, as freckled with shallows of light, as underseas. A stream ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... with the idea of establishing a balance of nature against these animals that I conceived the idea of importing bull snakes. Almost everyone has heard of the bull snake, but its name is a poor one, for it has the wrong connotation. These snakes are actually a fine friend to the farmer since each snake accounts for the death of many rodents each year. Their presence certainly was of definite value in decreasing the number at my farm. Bull snakes have the long ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... with insatiable appetite. In approaching it, its suspicious-looking yellow-spotted hood and watchful attitude will be likely to make you go cautiously through the bog where it stands, as if you were approaching a dangerous snake. It also occurs in a bog near Sothern's Station on the stage road, where I first saw it, and in other similar bogs throughout ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... ash yet standing; groans that ancient tree, and the Jotun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of Hel, until the fire of Surt has consumed the tree. Hrym steers from the east, the waters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in jotun-rage. The worm heats the water, and the eagle screams; the pale of beak tears carcases; the ship Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the south comes with flickering flame; shines from ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... crebrus now is known to inhabit all the major drainages of the Raft River, Goose Creek, and Grouse Creek mountains. In addition to extending the known area of occurrence of this animal in Utah, these specimens prove also that this species is not restricted to the Snake River Drainage as Durrant (1952:113) supposed, but occurs also in ...
— Additional Records and Extensions of Known Ranges of Mammals from Utah • Stephen D. Durrant
... in Eden, if it is only a garter snake. Ours was a frog in the fountain. He had a volume of sound equal to Edouard de Reske in his prime. I set the chauffeur the task of catching him, but after emptying out all the water one little half-inch frog skipped ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... make up his mind and accustomed to command. His eyes were the strangest feature of his dominating personality. They were small and black, and appeared almost lidless, with something in their dark direct gaze like the unwinking glare of a snake. His apparel was unconventional, even for war-time, consisting of a worn brown suit with big pockets in the jacket, and a soft collar, with a carelessly arranged tie. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a ruby ring of noticeable size ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... another, her tears would be shed For him who lays far in an ocean bed; In hours that it pains me to think of now, She has twin'd these locks and kiss'd this brow— In this hair she has wreathed shall the sea-snake hiss? The brow she has press'd shall the cold wave kiss? For the sake of that bright one that wails for me, Bury me not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... continued to occupy himself with music during the time of his journeys?"—In reply Muzio ordered the Malay to bring him his Indian violin. It resembled those of the present day, only, instead of four strings it had three; a bluish snake-skin was stretched across its top, and the slender bow of reed was semi-circular in form, and on its very tip glittered ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Don't look as if a snake had bit you! I think he would make up in intelligence anything he lacks in experience. He is quick ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... attacked her new duties with all the zeal and force that had characterized her "snake-killings" on the desert. Habit alone made her do that, and pride added another motive. She was determined to justify Madam Chartley's opinion of her. Not being able to write shorthand she worked overtime to gain extra speed on the typewriter, so that she might take dictation directly ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the day, nor go to the play at night. The German is heart-broken for the same reason, and shrouds himself and his sorrow in double clouds of smoke. The Italian would worship Diana of Ephesus, or the Great African Snake, if its pageantry, or puppet-show, would enable him to get through the day of closed shops and no opera! Yet, contemptible as this restless hunting after nothings is, it would be fortunate for us if we could qualify the severity and constancy of our national toil by some mixture of the lighter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... carryin' round serpents, and I sez to Josiah, "Who under the sun would want to buy a snake unless they wuz crazy?" ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... meet you again!" he murmured. He didn't like Mrs. Malplaquet's eyes. They assorted strangely with the rest of her gentle and refined appearance. They were hard and cruel, those black eyes. Thy put him in mind of a snake. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... turning up in impossible places, and still the intervening rusty rim of a hat inexplicably clouds one eye. There dawns a sensation as of writhing grim figures of snakes in one's boots, and the intervening rusty rim of the hat that was not in the original prospect takes a snake-like—But stay! Is this the rim of my own hat tumbled all awry? I' mushbe! A few reflective moments, not unrelieved by hiccups, mush be d'voted to co'shider-ERATION of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... said, "there's a snake in there, that black-eyed snake who claimed to be Lieutenant Rae! Do you want him to know that we ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... mechanism of the Geisha, the accompaniments to which are more varied, or more acceptable to my ear, than the Indian music. But I shall always remember the sounds of the distant, approaching or receding, snake- charmers' piping, heard through the heat, as it so often is on Sundays in Calcutta. To my inward ear that is India's typical melody; and it has relationship to the Punch and Judy ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... correspond with and satisfy that natural expectation of the recurrence of certain tones and measures which always delights primitive men, and of which one may possibly trace some symptoms even in animals, as when the snake sways slowly to the simple sounds of a snake-charmer's pipe. The order of all modern versification (except in blank verse, which is never popular) depends on the echoing rhyme, which marks time like the stroke of a bell, and is waited for with keen anticipation by the sensitive listener. It ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... of the woman snake charmer under the black top. He's more afraid of her than he is of the snakes themselves. Why, you couldn't get him to shake hands with her if you were to offer him an extra year's salary. There she ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... off force enough from the enemy to increase largely the probabilities of success in the attack in Johnston's rear. One half of Sherman's infantry was ample for the demonstration in front of Dalton. At least one half should have been sent through Snake Creek Gap to strike the enemy's rear. There was no necessity to attack Resaca at all, and experience has shown what terrible losses a small force in a strongly fortified position may inflict upon a very large attacking force. Two or three brigades ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... fumi. Smoke fumo. Smoke (fish, etc.) fumajxi. Smoker fumamanto. Smooth glata. Smooth (level) ebena. Smother sufoki. Smoulder bruleti. Smuggle kontrabandi. Smut nigrigi, makuli. Snail limako. Snake serpenteto. Snap (noise) kraki. Snap ataketi. Snappish atakema. Snare kaptilo. Snatch ekpreni. Sneak rampi. Sneer ridmoki. Sneeze terni. Sniff enflari. Snip tondeti. Snivel ploreti. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... for he was convinced by gliding sounds that there was a live occupant therein, and his impression was that it was good to eat; but he had never seen inside, and was not aware that it contained an ordinary grass-snake. ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... in tranquil conversation with Dharini, and the parivrajaka, the vidushaka rushes in, exclaiming he has been beaten by a venomous snake, whilst gathering flowers to bring with him as a present on his visit to the queen, and he exhibits his thumb bound with his cord, and marked with the impressions made by the teeth of the reptile. The parivrajaka, with some humour as well as good surgery, recommends the actual cautery, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... though he were enjoying the scenery. The road—-trail—-ran close along the edge of a sloping precipice. Fully nine hundred feet below ran a thin line of silver, or so it appeared. In reality it was what was left of the Snake River now, ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... philosophy must have gripped him hard, for he declares that you have an abnormally clairvoyant mind, and that "no female intelligence" can long withstand the diabolical influence of your heathen suggestions. Really it made my flesh creep! You might have thought he was warning me against a snake charmer. And when I declined to be alarmed, he locked himself up in his closet to fast and pray. This is the worst possible symptom in his case, for he will work himself into a frenzy, and before ever he eats ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... Bethlehem, and spy This which is come to pass, shewed graciously By the Lord's angels." Therewith hasted they By olive-yards, and old walls mossed and gray Where, in close chinks, the lizard and the snake, Thinking the sunlight come, stirred, half-awake: Across the terraced levels of the vines, Under the pillared palms, along the lines Of lance-leaved oleanders, scented sweet, Through the pomegranate-gardens sped their feet; Over the causeway, up the slope, they spring, Breast ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... without noticing his crafty smile and the waivings of his hat; the blind man gained more by his silence—they gave to him. Three had gone by, and now came the fourth, and threw him a small coin. Peppo could no longer contain himself: I saw how he crept down like a snake, and struck the blind man in his face, so that he lost both money and stick. 'Thou thief!' cried my uncle, 'wilt thou steal money from me—thou who art not even a regular cripple—cannot see—that is all! And so he will take my bread from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... the lion's den, the snake pit? One more or less makes no matter. I'll do it for you, but not like the Prodigal Son. No, you shall see that I can go through fire and ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... At any time, might have cured me of the typhus, Caught in the jungle of life where many are lost. And only to think that my soul could not react, As Byron's did, in song, in something noble, But turned on itself like a tortured snake — Judge me ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... snakes are found, are also found a number of perfectly harmless snakes, absolutely unlike the dangerous ones in habit and life, yet coloured precisely the same. The elaps fulvius, for example, a deadly venomous snake of Guatemala, has a body trimmed in simple black bands on a coral-red ground, and in the same country and always with him is found a quite harmless snake, which is coloured and banded in the same identical manner. The terrible and much-feared elaps lemnicatus has the peculiar black bands divided ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... not complete &c. 729; leave unfinished &c. adj., leave undone, drop, put down; neglect &c. 460; let alone, let slip; lose sight of (forget) 506. fall short of &c. 304; do things by halves, parboil, scotch the snake not lull it; hang fire; be slow to; collapse &c. 304. drop out. Adj. not completed &c. v.; incomplete &c. 53; uncompleted, unfinished, unaccomplished, unperformed, unexecuted; sketchy, addle. in progress, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... "I do believe you would feel sorry for a snake that bit you, just because it was ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... strange emotion—a conviction that something was watching her with a fixed gaze. She cast her eyes around, but saw nothing. She looked upward. From the tree immediately above her lap depended a snake, its tail coiled around a dead branch. The reptile hung straight, its eyes fixed like two rubies upon Helen's, as very slowly it let itself down by its uncoiling tail. Now its head was on a level with hers; in another moment it ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... resembling an oven, into which the Baron insinuated, first his head and shoulders, and then, by slow gradation, the rest of his l ong body; his legs and feet finally disappearing, coiled up like a huge snake entering his retreat, or a long pedigree introduced with care and difficulty into the narrow pigeon-hole of an old cabinet. Waverley had the curiosity to clamber up and look in upon him in his den, as the lurking-place might well be termed. Upon the whole, he looked not unlike that ingenious ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Snake. Snake, garter. Socrates. Solomon. Sparrow, social or chipping (Spizella socialis). Sparrow, song (Melospiza cinerea melodia). Sparrow, tree or Canada (Spizella monticola). Sparrow, vesper (Pooecetes gramineus). ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... me," commented Mrs. Merrithew, "is that there has to be a young lady. You'd think a likely young man, if he met one of them things, would just kill it on general principles, the same as a snake ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... of horror and repulsion stole over Paul as he listened. He felt as he might have felt in listening to the rattle of a deadly snake. These men were in the Secret Service of another country—spies, collecting material for the enemy—material which might be used at any time with deadly effect against England, dear old England! And as he looked, a mist seemed to rise before ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... the sun. I found them out, by following the track of some wild hogs which had fed on them; and even the Indians often regale on them. When they find them asleep, they put a small forked stick over their necks, which they keep immovably fixed on the ground; giving the snake a piece of leather to bite: and this they pull back several times with great force, until they observe their two poisonous fangs torn out. Then they cut off the head, skin the body, and cook it ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... by an eminent gypsy scholar how Borrow knew the meaning of the word "sap", or why he addressed the gypsy woman as "my mother". When the Gypsy refers to the "Sap there", the child replies, "what, the snake"? The employment of the other phrase is obviously an inadvertent use ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... that than to have the whole show wrecked," said the snake charmer. "I remember being in a circus wreck once, and I never want to ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... one eye fixed upon her with cold intentness, a strange feeling of superstitious dread suddenly crept over her from head to foot. Like a bird fascinated by a snake she came a little nearer, down the steps, towards him, her eyes, too, riveted on his face, that curious face of his, surrounded by the heavy perruque hiding ears and cheeks, the mouth overshadowed by the dark mustache, one eye concealed beneath ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... the great snake dance is performed. For several days before this festival is held the people with great diligence gather snakes from the rocks and sands of the region round about and bring them to the kiva of one of their clans in great numbers, by scores and hundreds. Most of these snakes are quite ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... received a visit from a ragged and barefooted, but bright-eyed gentleman, who seemed to be the intellectual loafer, the walking Will's coffee-house, of the place. He told us many charming snake-stories; among others, of himself having seen seventeen young ones re-enter the mother snake, on the approach ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and he wanted it. I hadn't time to think. The only idea I had was that if I refused him he might tell some dirty little lie about me. I was all confused—mixed up. I felt just as though it were a snake that I had to humor to get rid of. ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... ahead, bending over every little while and throwing stones ahead of them. Stas, who had not yet alighted from the saddle, beheld a strange sight. From among the dry bushes overgrowing the bed of the "khor," a big snake emerged and, gliding sinuously with the rapidity of lightning among the fragments of rocks, escaped to some hiding-place known to itself. The Bedouins chased it furiously and Gebhr rushed to their aid with a knife. But owing to the unevenness ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the snake, not kill'd it; She'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice Remains in danger of her former tooth. But let the frame of things disjoint, Both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly: ...
— Macbeth • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... running five miles an hour and there is no need of the oars. The steersman is our admiration, as with that clumsy stern-sweep he dodges rocks, runs riffles, and makes bends. The scow is made of green wood, and its resilience stands it in good stead as, like a snake, it writhes through tight channels or over ugly bits of water. Everybody is in good humour; we are dreamers dreaming greatly. Why should we not be happy? Mrs. Harding is homeward-bound, Mr. Brabant on a new rung of the fur ladder of ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... trout fisherman. Early in the morning I would dig worms for bait, and we would go fishing over in West Settlement, or in Montgomery Hollow. I went fishing with him when he was past eighty. He would steal along the streams and "snake" out the trout, walking as briskly as I do now. From him I get ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... he means to desert or get captured. It's a long way round, but about the best one—for him. Think of that snake wearing Uncle Sam's uniform!" ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... get the sand in their eyes almost anything may be expected of them. Here he has given us a new version of the ancient scheme of two men and a woman, complicated in this instance by a cobra; the problem being, whether a doctor should cure his wife's lover of a snake-bite. More original is the longest story in the collection, one called "The Lost Faith," an affair of mental healing and love and crime too complex for compression. It is admirably told. It leads up to a situation as novel as it is dramatic—the confession of a young fanatic, who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... two Hathor-headed pillars in one of the vestibules of the hall, the Prince Seti, who was clad in purple-broidered garments and wore upon his brow a fillet of gold from which rose the uraeus or hooded snake, also of gold, that royal ones alone might wear, leaning against the base of a statue, while the rest of us stood silent behind him. For a time he was silent also, as a man might be whose thoughts were otherwhere. At length he turned ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... investing the special fetish of a given object with superstitious fear, he now adores or fears all objects of the same species, or which, in the imperfect classification of primitive times, he believes to be of the same species. Thus, to give a common example, if some particular viper or other form of snake is the first form of fetish, in the second stage the whole species of vipers, and of the snakes which resemble them, is regarded with the same dread. He next supposes all the snakes which he comes across to emanate from a single power, ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... respect for this woman? You know well you haven't a bit more respect for her than she has for you, and that's none. Do you mean to tell me there's any sympathy between you? No more than there is between a snake and a bird. And you aren't capable of understanding her any more than she is of understanding you. Love! It's ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... upon the figure of a man who sat opposite, his elbows on the back of the chair which he straddled, his chin on his arms. He was staring at her steadily, his black eyes catching her gaze and holding it as a snake holds the bird it ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... taking my watch out of my pocket, and turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his touch as if he had been a snake, "a gold 'un and a beauty: that's a gentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's a gentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at your clothes; better ain't to be got! And your books too," turning his eyes round the room, "mounting up, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... is the turtle head. The flower resembles in shape a turtle's or a snake's head, and so ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... as thieves. In consequence, he was thrown into prison, where he revealed the compact that he had made, and called for a confessor. The two chief forms in which the devil appeared were, according to Luther, those of a snake and a sheep. He further goes into the question of the population of devils in different countries. On the top of the Pilatus at Luzern, he says, is a black pond, which is one of the devil's favourite abodes. In Luther's own country there ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... the nest in which he had been born. Winter, weary and monotonous to most of the wildlings of the field, passed quickly over his head. Scarce-broken sleep and forgetfulness, when skies are grey and tempests rage—such are Nature's gifts to the snake, the bee, and the flower, as well as to the squirrel in the wood and the vole in the burrow beneath the moss. Occasionally, it is true, when at noon the sun was bright and spring seemed to have come to the Valley of Olwen, the snake would stir ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... whether it is my regard to the faculty that inhances the value of the noted Esculapius, who appears with a venerable beard of delicate workmanship. He is larger than the life, cloathed in a magnificent pallium, his left arm resting on a knotted staff, round which the snake ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... to bed one evening, wearied by a long day's hunting, when, close to my feet, and by my bedside, some glittering substance caught my eye. I stooped to pick it up; but, ere my hand had quite reached it, the truth flashed across me—it was a snake! Had I followed my first natural impulse, I should have sprung away, but not being able clearly to see in what position the reptile was lying, or which way his head was pointed, I controlled myself, and remained rooted breathless to the spot. Straining my eyes, but moving not an inch, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... removed, a nice dessert was laid out, consisting of almonds and raisins, oranges, and red and black raspberries. The two latter dishes are easily procured, for they grow more plentifully in the angles of the snake- fences in Canada than blackberries do in England. They are a delicious fruit, and particularly grateful in a hot day to ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... Lawrenceville was overjoyed to learn that Garry Cochran, a sophomore at Princeton, had been elected captain of the Princeton varsity. This recalled former Lawrenceville boys, Pop Warren and Doggie Trenchard, who had played at Lawrenceville, gone to Princeton and had become varsity captains there. Snake ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... one quivered incessantly, as did the smaller facial muscles near the mouth. His eyes were sunken and surrounded by livid circles, but they themselves seemed consuming with the dry and thirsty fire of fever: hot, red, staring, they glided ever to and fro with a snake-like motion, as uncertain, wild, and painful, in their unresting search, as those of a wounded and captive hawk. The same restlessness, approaching in violence the ceaseless spasmodic habit of a confirmed Chorea, betrayed itself ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... of the place was rounded and arched above me, and the hole was in its centre so that I could not reach it. Maybe the place was ten feet across and ten feet high under the hole, and it minded me of the snake pit into which Gunnar the hero was thrown, as Ottar the scald sang. Only here were no snakes, and the air was thick and musty, but dry enough. I could see the beams of the ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... to do, Anderson Crow," shouted Mrs. Bloomer, "is to capture the reptile that's loose in my hotel. That's what you got to do." She turned upon the pretty Mrs. Fox. "Snake charmer! That's a nice business for a woman to be in. Don't ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... in terror and stupefaction. Rising above the center of the lake where the day before they had beheld the agitated waters, was an enormous, scale-covered neck surmounted by a long, snake-like head whose round, red eyes were sheltered beneath black, horny hoods. The horrible creature's head was swaying back and forth as its black tongue darted in and out between wide-open jaws displaying single rows of sharp teeth. Fully fifteen ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than that he should come to harm through ignorance," Baloo answered very earnestly. "I am now teaching him the Master Words of the Jungle that shall protect him with the birds and the Snake People, and all that hunt on four feet, except his own pack. He can now claim protection, if he will only remember the words, from all in the jungle. Is not that worth a ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... face bent nearer to her own, his flaming eyes devoured her, and his arm slipped softly, snake-like round her to draw her to him. But before it had closed its grip she had started away, springing back in horror, an outcry already on ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... spells, and the Deep Woods people leaned back and looked out over the Wide Blue Water, and away out there saw Mr. Eagle swoop down and pick up something which looked at first like a shoe-string; then they saw it wriggle, and knew it was a small water-snake, which was going to be Mr. Eagle's dinner; and they talked about it and wondered how he could enjoy ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... (c) In 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 ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... survivor is left, who, having helped to eat all his brethren, instead of meeting with his deserts, is allowed to live on in peace, till some day, in the course of his walks abroad, he, in his turn, is snapped up as a delicate morsel by some hungry snake or water-fowl. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... and over all the fields Nature's ancient miracle had been wrought. The trees by the snake fences stood in the full pride of their rich leafage, casting deep shadows on the growing grains. As of old, the Mill lane, with its velvet grassy banks, ran between snake fences, sweet-scented, cool, and shaded. Between the rails peeped the clover, red and white. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... wish to meet a foe who was thus prompt for the encounter. He immediately sent to Governor Bradford the assurance, in Narraganset phrase, of his high consideration, and begged him to believe that the arrows and the snake skin were sent purely ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... 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 ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... more than her neck could bear— And it bent to the ground, like a willow tree, And brought down the head of this proud Phoebe, Until whenever she went out a walk to take, The boys would shout, "Here comes a snake!" ...
— Slovenly Betsy • Heinrich Hoffman
... is at a different hour every day. The only safe hour is from 6 to 7.30 each morning. That hour is free from the influence of Rahu, and is therefore auspicious. And what is Rahu? It is not a planet at all, as was thought years ago; nor is it a mighty snake which periodically swallows the sun or moon. It is merely the ascending node in astronomy wherein alone the eclipses can take place. And yet this imaginary monster has a very real place in the life of this great people, and the foolish dread of ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... which he was looking, and yet he was moving that way, and he could not help it. The noise in front was frightful. The head of the column of which he now formed an unwilling part, the head of the snake, must be somewhere near Newtown, the rattling tail just out of Strasburg. The snake was trying to get clear, trying to get out of the middle Valley to Winchester, fifteen miles away. It was trying to drag its painful ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... on eastern Massachusetts, specially on buttercups and dandelions, and providentially on potatoes, looks down on no greener fields in these days than it saw in the spring of 1775, fenced in and fenced off by the zigzag snake-fences of 'Zekiel Parsons's farm. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... surroundings were visited by a prominent naturalist who appears to have been delightfully liberal in the diffusion of scientific knowledge and the explanations of methods of pursuing investigations. His practical instruction in snake catching is particularly interesting as it was never before introduced into this state, where the copperhead and rattler are known to have survived among the fittest. Seeing a snake hole and desiring information as to the family record of the proprietor, ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... pointing. "No, you're too late! I thought it looked like a snake in the water at first, but I see it was only a piece of rope hanging from ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of baser Earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'd—Man's ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... quickening the time and playing with greater power, but suddenly he struck a false chord like the hiss of a snake, like the grating of iron on glass—it sent a shudder through every one, and mingled with the general gaiety an ill-omened foreboding. Disturbed and alarmed, the hearers wondered whether the instrument might not be out of tune, or the musician ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... monster is a tough brute, and he has armor of his own, scales an inch or so thick and tougher than sole leather. A lot of chair seats around Port Sandor are made of single monster scales. A monster strikes with its head, like a snake. They can smash a ship's boat, and they've been known to punch armor-glass windows out of their frames. I didn't want the window in front of me coming in at me with a monster head the size of a couple of oil drums and full of big tusks ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... was cheated by a snake; but you have got such a hash of Scripture and mythology into your head that there is no making any sense of you. You have not yet told me what you saw kneeling on ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the "'Oof Bird" of sporting circles, is, it is said, "a foe to snakes." Excellent omen this for Miss FARREN. Laughter everywhere, and no hissing permitted. If hissing heard anywhere, up starts the Laughing Jackass and down he comes on the snake, and there's an end of the hissing. Theatrical Managers would do well to cultivate the Laughing Jackasses, and keep a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 26, 1891 • Various
... Priam and the Trojans; and we round about a spring were offering on the holy altars unblemished hecatombs to the immortals, beneath a fair plane-tree whence flowed bright water, when there was seen a great portent: a snake blood-red on the back, terrible, whom the god of Olympus himself had sent forth to the light of day, sprang from beneath the altar and darted to the plane-tree. Now there were there the brood of a sparrow, tender little ones, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... potato-field, and by the faint tints of violet light that flowed over the brown soil from a pallid and fading sunset. As the sky was scrawled by the gray-and-black rampikes, so the slope was scrawled by zigzag lines of gray-and-black snake fence, leading down to three log cabins, with their cluster of log barns and sheds, scattered irregularly along a terrace of the slope. A quarter of a mile further down, beyond the little gray dwellings, a sluggish river wound between alder swamps and ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Too late! Around the tubular container wrapped the snake-like trunk, plucking the wheelchair and its occupant from the floor and dangling them high ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... into the third room, and when the queen saw the basin of jewels and the six golden statues her face turned as blue as lead, and her eyes shone green like a snake's. ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... 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 ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... First the dull Asp its swelling neck uprears; The huge Hemor'rho[:i]s, vampire of the blood; Chersy'ders, that pollute both field and flood; The Water-serpent, tyrant of the lake; The hooded Cobra; and the Plantain snake; Here with distended jaws the Prester strays; And Seps, whose bite both flesh and bone decays; The Amphisbaena with its double head, One on the neck, and one of tail instead; The horned Cerast[^e]s; and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... up to the age of fifteen was confined almost exclusively to the genteel histories of pirates, buccaneers and privateersmen, Captain Trigger," announced A. A. Percival, taking the master's hand in a firm grip. "I wonder if you know what a black-snake whip is, or a cattle-adder? Well, they're both painful and convincing. As director of morals in the camp I have just left behind me, it was my official duty on frequent occasions to see to it that ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... eyes, see so well straight in front. In this case, the hare never perceived the fox until it was within a few feet of it; whereupon it stopped short, and the two sat up facing each other, evidently mutually fascinated, as the bird is said to be by the snake. They thus remained motionless, or powerless to move, for some minutes, until my nearer approach attracted their attention and broke the spell, whereupon they both bounded off in different directions. This, I am told by an authority, was a case of neurasthenia, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... might be trout that had trained themselves in the use of wings, but he did not believe that any ordinary fish such as a chub or a pike or a sunny would care to leave its natural element to take up with the birds. Perry Thomas began to cough. That cough is always like a snake's warning rattle. Before he had time to strike, I blocked the discussion by promising that if the company suspended judgment I would in the near future prove the accuracy of my statements on flying fishes by the encyclopaedia. This promise met with general approval, so ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... superstition that if food is offered to a man, and he refuses it, and goes away without at least touching it, some misfortune is sure to befall him. It is said that he is sure to be either attacked by a crocodile, or bitten by a snake, or suffer from the attack of ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... her cheek, she might have been sleeping, but as he watched her the lashes slowly lifted, and he sullenly nerved himself for the encounter. At the aspect of those bead-like eyes, resolute although ill at ease, like a snake striving to charm an adversary, a tremor of half-recollection shone in her gaze and the color flooded her face. Mechanically, sweeping back the straggling lock of hair, she raised herself without removing ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... 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, Coleman, would be up to ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... were afterwards; that's how I know. Around the gridiron we marched once, the band still clinging to "Traviata" and the fellows singing whatever pleased them, generally "Up the Street." Then we had a snake dance, a wonder of a snake dance! The band got lost in the shuffle, but later on we found him standing serene and undismayed under the shadow of the west stand spouting "Auld Lang Syne" ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... into the hole. "I'm not afraid of snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I'll tame it, and it will follow me everywhere, and I'll let it sleep ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... glances both fell suddenly on the same object—it was Petrea! She lay in a thicket at the foot of the hill; drops of blood were visible on her face and dress, and a horrible necklace—a yellow spangled snake!—glittered in the sun around her neck. She lay motionless, and appeared as if sleeping. The mother uttered a faint cry of terror, and would have thrown herself upon her, had not the ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... said, "Everything is infinitely high that we can't see over," and because the boy comes to know that he cannot duplicate the bird's wing it becomes infinitely high or great to him and so wins his respect. To the boy who has been taught to think seriously, the mode of locomotion of a worm or a snake is likewise a marvel, and he observes it with awe. The boy who treads a worm underfoot gives indisputable evidence that he has never given serious thought to its mode of travel. Had he done so, he would never commit so ruthless an act. The worm would have won his respect ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... snore in my sleep," said one of them, "for fear I'll discharge the gun-cotton; and as for kicking in my sleep—why, I'm as quiet as a drugged snake." ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes
... to shivers the shell we walk on, and caught him down among the lower forces, up amid the higher; an infernal and a celestial contest for the extinction of the one or the other of them, if it was not for their union. She wrestled with him where the darknesses roll their snake-eyed torrents over between jagged horns of the netherworld. She stood him in the white ray of the primal vital heat, to bear unwithering beside her the test of light. They flew, they chased, battled, embraced, disjoined, adventured apart, brought back the count ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the European world as that which connects woman with the serpent. It is, indeed, one of the foundation stones of Christian theology.[354] Yet there is no fragment of folk-lore which remains more obscure. How has it happened that in all parts of the world the snake or his congeners, the lizard and the crocodile, have been credited with some design, sinister or erotic, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ponderously unwinding the coils of the boa constrictor from round her neck as we paused in front of her cage, but presently she recognized us and smiled. We asked her whether she wasn't afraid to let the snake coil ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... and glow-worms shine, In bulrush and in brake; Where waving mosses shroud the pine, And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine Is spotted like the snake."—LONGFELLOW. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... sitting in the sun, having read your letter. The valley of the —— is below me, a mile wide, all reed-beds and half submerged willows, with the main stream lying like a blue snake ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... poultices helped folks to breathe when they had grippe or pneumonia. Boneset tea was for colds. Goldenrod was used leaf, stem, blossom, and all in various ways, chiefly for fever and coughs. Black snake root was a good cure for childbed fever, and it saved the life of my second wife after her last child was born. Slippery ellum was used for poultices to heal burns, bruises, and any abrasions, and we gargled ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... under pagan forms of religion, which offered a very feeble, and also a very limited gamut for giving expression to the human capacities of sublimity or of horror. We read it in the fearful composition of the sphinx. The dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon the scorpion. The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of the evil eye, unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the intentional venom of some other malignant natures. But these horrid complexities of evil agency are ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... eyes, and as the question shot like a javelin, she tried ineffectually to disengage her fingers; her delusion waned; she took fright, but it was too late; he had struck the truth out of her before she could speak. Her spirit writhed like a snake in his hold. Innumerable things she was ready to say, and strove to; the words would not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... telegrams lying on the table. Jim pointed exultantly to them and cried: "I've got him, Bupps! There is enough evidence there to send Woods up for twenty years. I wouldn't have used such underhand methods against any one else, against anything but a snake, but I had to win, ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... shrinks from faith: at sight of swans, the raven Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast In fear of poison when a bird flies past. Thersites brands Achilles as a craven; The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast: And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Hylaia; and there he found in a cave a kind of twofold creature formed by the union of a maiden and a serpent, whose upper parts from the buttocks upwards were those of a woman, but her lower parts were those of a snake. Having seen her and marvelled at her, he asked her then whether she had seen any mares straying anywhere; and she said that she had them herself and would not give them up until he lay with her; and Heracles lay with her on condition of receiving them. She then ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... reality I remained intent enough upon my purpose. Although unable to wholly banish all memory of the young girl just left behind, I still realized the gravity of my task, and my eyes were watchful of the shrouded figure I was silently approaching. I drew nearer inch by inch, advancing so slowly, and snake-like, that not even the slightest sound of movement aroused suspicion. Apparently the fellow was engaged in oiling the machinery, for he had placed the lantern on deck, and held a long-spouted can in his fingers. ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish |
