"Hiss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a materialist, God knows what you are imagining! I know you.' When Pandalevsky spoke to Bassistoff or people like him, he grew slightly irritated, and pronounced the letter s quite clearly, even with a slight hiss. ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... sharp hiss of one in pain, and for a moment after all was still. Then a bitter laugh ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... have her so near. She knew her better than she knew the other nurses. Small emergencies were constantly arising and finding her at a loss. Once at least every night, Miss Harrison would hear a soft hiss from the back staircase that connected the two floors, and, going out, would see Sidney's flushed face and slightly crooked cap ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Hindermost lasta. Hindoo Hindo. Hindrance malhelpo. Hindu Hindo. Hinge cxarniro. Hint proponeti. Hip kokso. Hippodrome hipodromo. Hippopotamus hipopotamo. Hire dungi. Hire, cost of salajro. Hireling salajrulo. His lia, sia. Hiss sibli. Historian historiskribanto. History historio. History, natural naturscienco. Hit frapi. Hit against ektusxegi. Hitch malhelpajxo. Hive abelujo. Ho! ho! Hoard amaso. Hoarfrost prujno. Hoarse rauxka. Hoarseness rauxkigxo. [Error in ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... great mountain's heart into the light. They ran a short course under the sun, then back Into a pit they plunged, once more as black As at their birth; and I stood thinking there How white, had the day shone on them, they were, Heaving and coiling. So by the roar and hiss And by the mighty motion of the abyss I was bemused, that I forgot my friend And neither saw nor sought him till the end, When I awoke from waters unto men Saying: "I shall be here ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... said to his comrade, who had come across from his own company to have a chat with him, "that this is more unpleasant than I had expected. This lying here listening to the angry hiss of the bullets is certainly trying; at least I own that I feel ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... ear, a red-hot kiss, Another beggar chipped my shin. They pass you with a vicious hiss That makes you duck; but, hit or miss, It isn't in the Sultan's skin To ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... you are, kneeling." She went over to the fire-place, took the whip from the mantle-piece, and, watching me with a smile, let it hiss through the air; then she slowly rolled up ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... and some as if they were thinking of something else; some in a languishing Manner; others in a Hurry; some sing it through the Teeth, and others with Affectation; some do not pronounce the Words, and others do not express them; some sing as if laughing, and some crying; some speak it, and some hiss it; some hallow, bellow, and sing it out of Tune; and, together with their Offences against Nature, are guilty of the greatest Fault, in thinking ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... challenged him Declaring to each beau and belle That he this grunter would excel. The morrow came—the crowd was greater— But prejudice and rank ill-nature Usurp'd the minds of men and wenches, Who came to hiss and break the benches. The mimic took his usual station, And squeak'd with general approbation; Again "Encore! encore!" they cry— "'Tis quite the thing, 'tis very high." Old Grouse conceal'd, amidst this racket, A real pig beneath his jacket— ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... was answered and smothered by the horrendous roar of the thunder, and the piercing hiss of the rain that fell in sheets. In great volumes of water, it fell, as though the heavens were attempting to wash the sins of man from the universe and into non-existence in ...
— One Martian Afternoon • Tom Leahy
... there till it was very dark, and the longer I sat the colder and stiffer I grew, yet I felt no disposition to walk farther. At length a large owl, flapping down close to my head, gave utterance to a long hiss, followed by a sharp, clicking sound, ending with a sudden loud, laugh-like cry. The nearness of it startled me, and, looking up, I saw a twinkling yellow light gleam for a moment across the wide, ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... latches free, yanked the thing open, reversed it in air—and out fell a coiled rope that curved itself like a snake—a three-headed snake; the triple grappling iron at its end standing up as though to hiss. ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... stretched forth my hand in the direction of the speaker and made a blind clutch. The tips of my fingers seemed to touch a surface as smooth as glass, that glided suddenly from under them. A sharp, angry hiss sounded through the gloom, followed by a whirring noise, as if some projectile passed rapidly by, and the next moment I felt instinctively ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... always," Cyril Waring put in, with an admiring glance at the pretty, fearless brunette and her strange companion. "They know at once whether people like them or not, and they govern themselves accordingly. I suppose it's instinct. When they see you're afraid of them, they spring and hiss; but when they see you take to them by nature, they make themselves perfectly at home in a moment. They don't wait to be asked. They've no false modesty. Well, then, you see," he went on, drawing imaginary lines with his ticket on the sketch he was holding up, "I shall work in Sardanapalus just ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... bearing erect the bushy banner of her magnificent tail, she looked the most ridiculous creature imaginable. She had proceeded half-way on this pilgrimage towards me when suddenly, with the rapidity of lightning, as her ear caught the sound of the hiss and her eyes fell upon the Blue Dryad, her whole civilized "play-acting" demeanour vanished, and her body stiffened and contracted to the form of a watchful wild beast with the ferocious and instinctive antipathy to a natural enemy blazing from its eyes. No change of a shaken kaleidoscope ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... Will said again. He was silent for a moment while a great green rocket rushed upwards with a hiss and burst in a shower of many-coloured stars. Then as they watched them fall he spoke very kindly and earnestly. "But it is worth while all the same—even though one may be turned back from Paradise. Remember—always remember—that it's something to have been ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Don," he said. "I don't think I ever laughed so much before. There, I'm better now. Shan't have any more laugh in me for a twelvemonth. Hiss! Whoss-s-s!" ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... spectres that her madness feared, beckoning to her in the lurid glare, or gliding in and out among the wild fires that whirled in fantastic gambols around and overhead! Nearer and nearer yet the rolling flame advances; it commences to hiss and murmur in its progress; it wreathes itself about the chairs and tables, and laps up the little pool of brandy spilled from the forgotten flask; it plays about her feet, and creeps lazily amid the folds of her gown, ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... would be a good match. But he could not, no he could not advise her to marry him; so he qualified what he had said by asking her not to be in a hurry—to wait awhile. The laugh through the keyhole was changed to a hiss, which Mrs. Carter said must be the wind, although there was not enough stirring to move the rose bushes ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... from her with a hiss. "Ye-es! You are all comrades there. What is it like for me here, do you think, where everybody hates and despises me, and would catch me, and put ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... in the night and her tears are on her cheeks; Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies. All that pass by clap their hands at thee: They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee: They hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, 'We have ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... there are who hiss at this teaching of mine, and will have none of it, but the people of Ahura give heed thereto. O supreme spirit of good, grant me by the sacred fire and the holy ritual some sign that will convince and convert men, so that all ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... mines; the few trees are stunted and blasted; no birds are to be seen, except a few smoky sparrows; and for miles on miles a black waste spreads around, where furnaces continually smoke, steam-engines thud and hiss, and long chains clank, while blind gin-horses walk their doleful round. From time to time you pass a cluster of deserted roofless cottages of dingiest brick, half-swallowed up in sinking pits or inclining to every point of the compass, while the timbers point up like the ribs ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... We found inside him a frog, dead but otherwise in good preservation, which accounted for his distended and sleepy state. One day, just after Evensong, when the people were coming out of church, one of the boys heard a hiss, and saw a cobra in the angle of a buttress. The long bamboo was again equal to ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... is most certainly a French spy, is somewhere about," said Mynheer Jacobus. "Peter haf seen him twice more, but he haf caught only glimpses. But you can trust Peter even as I do. His whole heart iss in the task I have set him. He wass born Dutch but hiss soul iss Iroquois! He iss by ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... so arrogant! Hiss like a snake as you glide! Fig for you! Fig for you! Fig for you! Fig for you! Puff at the whole countryside! Crushing and maiming your toll you extort, Straight in the face of the peasant you snort, Soon all the people of Russia ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange that I should choose you for ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... pronounced this unpopular name, one hardy junior, quite mistaking the gravity of the occasion, began a low hiss. ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... the cavern he felt faint, but the air revived him; he plunged his head into the cold water and seated himself on the sand. He had almost forgotten the serpent. A long hiss caused him to raise his head; he saw the reptile balancing itself a few paces above him, half coiled up on the rooks which formed the roof of ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... has extinguished Feuillantism itself, at least the Feuillant Club. This latter, high as it once carried its head, she, on the 18th of February, has the satisfaction to see shut, extinct; Patriots having gone thither, with tumult, to hiss it out of pain. The Mother Society has enlarged her locality, stretches now over the whole nave of the Church. Let us glance in, with the worthy Toulongeon, our old Ex-Constituent Friend, who happily has eyes to see: 'The nave of the Jacobins Church,' says he, 'is changed into a vast Circus, the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... peculiar smell of the elephant, which no amount of boiling will overcome. The boiling of fat for preservation requires much care, as it should attain so great a heat that a few drops of water thrown upon the surface will hiss and evaporate as though cast upon molten metal; it should then be strained, and, when tolerably cool, be poured into vessels, and secured. No salt is necessary, provided it is thoroughly boiled. When ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... only she doesn't dare cut the lecture when she's just gone into Dramatic Club—and Rachel and Roberta, and I've about half persuaded Mary Brooks. We're going to sit in the bald-headed row and clap all the hero's tenor solos and sob when the heroine breaks his heart, and hiss the villain. How's that for a nice ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... slatting and flying out overhead with a might that shook the ship from stem to stern. The flaps of the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant's fist upon a mighty drum. The sheets were jerking at the belaying pins, the blocks rattling in sharp snappings like castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all over head was black with the flying scud. The English second mate was stamping with vexation, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... asleep from fatigue. One of our men on waking heard the hiss of a bullet over his head at regular intervals, and thought that a khaki had got closer up to him, and was firing at him from the side. When he lifted his head he found that he had rolled away from all cover. One, two, three, back he was again behind his ant-hill, and ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... he was listening intently. He heard Antone's horse stop a little way behind him, and, as the last word left his lips, the hiss of the rope through the air. With a dig of the spurs and a sharp jerk of the bridle the horse reared. The noose fell over Mead's head, but his revolver was already in his hand, and with a turn as quick as a lightning flash he swung the horse ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... beak, the bulging forehead, the thin, cruel lips; and everywhere in the garden of artificial flowers which formed the surface of her nature, hiding its reality even from herself, there appeared the poisonous snakes of hateful thoughts to shoot their fangs and hiss at him. She shrank and shuddered; yet—"It's altogether his own fault that I feel this way toward him as he lies dying," she said to herself, resorting to human nature's unfailing, universally sought ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... de paper, sir. I haf heard dis from de chauffeur of de Biedermanns next door. He wass at de hotel himself wid hiss shentleman lars' night at de dance. Dey won't put dat ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... went closer and closer to the sleeping man, and she heard it hiss its war-cry. The little cat's body quivered with anger and with fear, for she was so little and the serpent was so big. "The magician was very good to me," she thought, and she ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... shrunk appall'd, Despair embraced his shroud, And Terror shriek'd, and Pity sobb'd aloud;— Then, first Thalia with dilated ken And quicken'd footstep pierced the walks of men; Then Folly blush'd, Vice fled the general hiss, Delight met Reason with a loving kiss; At Satire's glance Pride smooth'd his low'ring crest, The Graces weaved the dance.—And last and best Came Momus down in Falstaff's form to earth. To make the world ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... car! Run!" He set off, down the slope, stumbling through the darkness. He could hear soldiers behind him, soldiers running and falling. A body collided against him and he struck out. Someplace behind him there was a hiss, and a section of the slope went up ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick
... lamp that flickered in the wind cast an uncertain gleam upon the slushy whiteness under foot, and the blurred outline of a towering water-tank showed dimly through the sliding snow. He could also just discern the great locomotive waiting on the side-track, and the sibilant hiss of steam that mingled with the moaning of the wind whirling a white haze out of the obscurity. Beyond the track, and showing only now and then, the lights of the wooden town blinked fitfully; on the other hand and behind the depot was an empty waste of snow-sheeted prairie. The ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the difference of style. All three types of colonial woodsmen cut the tree almost breast high, but the Australian seemed to be the only one that took advantage of that understroke, with a hiss through the clenched teeth, which looks so formidable when you watch our timber-getters. It was a Canadian team which started. They cut coolly, and the one whom I watched struck one by his splendid condition. A wiry man, ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... him all her secrets, and enveloped him in her delights. He discovered in the rising and setting of the sun sights unknown to the world. He knew what it was to tremble when he heard over his head the hiss of a bird's wing, so rarely did they pass, or when he saw the clouds, changing and many colored travelers, melt one into another. He studied in the night time the effect of the moon upon the ocean of sand, where the simoom made waves swift of movement and rapid in their change. He lived ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... and get a call out on the emergency band. Someone will hear it." As he started forward the ship lurched again and all the lights went out. In the darkness flames could be seen flickering inside the controls. There was a hiss of foam and they vanished. With a weak flicker the emergency lighting ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... vibratory beating and strumming, in nearly the time of a hearth-cricket's song, but much harsher, and of course louder, and without any sweetness; only in the monotony and unintended aimless construction of it, reminding one of various other insect and reptile cries or warnings: partly of the cicala's hiss; partly of the little melancholy German frog which says "Mu, mu, mu," all summer-day long, with its nose out of the pools by Dresden and Leipsic; and partly of the deadened quivering and intense continuousness of the alarm ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... rolling slowly along one of the lines; it stopped just beyond the station, and then backed into a siding. There followed the thud of carriage against carriage: a train was being made up, he went to watch the operation. The clang of metal, the hiss of steam, the moving about of men with lanterns held his attention for some time, and so completely that he ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... his past kindnesses I trampled on, Ruin'd his fortunes to erect my own: So vipers in the bosom bred begin, To hiss at that hand first which took them in; With eager treach'ry I his fall pursu'd, And ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... took hold again, and, at a word from Dick, each gave the wooden paddles of the propellers a vigorous turn. There came a sudden hiss, followed by a crack and a bang, and then off the engine started with the loudness of ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... first that I ever saw, I remember perfectly well. I had left my companions, and was beginning to clear away a fine clump of trees, when just in the midst of the thicket, not more than eight yards from me, one of these fellows set up his hiss. It is a sharp, continuous sound, and resembles very much the letting off of the steam from the small pipe of a steamboat, except that it is on a smaller scale. I knew, by the sound of an axe, that one of my companions was near, and called out to him, to let him know what I had fallen upon. He took ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... granny coming. She rose from the ground and, going to the door, looked out. No one was there; she heard the roaring of the breakers on the rocky coast, and the fierce wind howling up the wild glen, making the surface of the harbour bubble and hiss and foam, and sending the spray, mingled with the cold night wind, high up, even to ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... "The baby!" and in an instant was gone. It all happened so quickly there was no time for Mrs. Thornton to think. She saw Willis hasten away and enter the front door of the car they had been occupying; at the same instant she became aware of the approaching train. There was a shrill, angry hiss, and the freight swung into the cut with a terrible roar, then came a crashing of glass and breaking of timbers. The engineer had opened the whistle valve with such a jerk that it had stuck fast, and the whistle did its utmost. It was a doleful sound, pulsating its strange, ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... pussy-cats heard this, And they began to hiss, And stretch their claws, And raise their paws; "Me-ow," they said, "me-ow, me-o, You'll burn to ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman
... De Lacy's hand fastened on his throat, he was borne to the ground, and before he could struggle his legs were bound above the knees with Dauvrey's belt. His arms were then quickly secured and a piece of cloth thrust into his mouth as a gag. A low hiss brought the nearest soldier to guard him and De Lacy and the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... heard the woman hiss: "Stop him! Don't let him escape!" And he saw the thing dart from behind the post. In the uncontrollable madness of his fear he hurled, instead of firing, his revolver at ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... exchange of sentiments. He had a great admiration for the gifts of Ned Nestor, and wanted every one to understand what his sentiments were. So he started to open his mouth to say something, when Ned lifted a hand and gave a low sibilant hiss. ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... this? Nay, obvious coil, and hiss most unequivocal, betray the Snake; As fell ophidian as in fierce meridian of Afric ever lurked in swamp or brake; And yet Corinthian LYCIUS never doted on the white-throated charmer of his soul With blinder passion than our fools of Fashion ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various
... put your hand too recklessly into an owl hole, for a hiss and a sudden nip may show that an opossum has taken up his quarters there. If you must, pull him out by his squirming, naked tail, but do not carry him home, as he makes a poor pet, and between hen-house traps and irate farmers, he has good reason, ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... form in that fleet frail bark Is a comely Nemesis, Before whose menace 'tis good to mark The reptile dwellers in dens so dark Driven with growl and hiss. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... and long earrings in their ears, carrying baskets of fruit on their arms. They passed peasant men driving donkeys or oxen, who smiled at them from under hats decorated with pompons of colored paper and tinsel. Geese ran out to hiss at them as they flew by, and hens and chickens fluttered out of their way; but Rafael had ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... The hiss of the torrent on the clapboard roof was deafening, the little window panes were streaming; a dark, glistening shadow crept out from the bottom of the door and began to spread; the howling wind ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... sitting under a red umbrella, and escorted by a score of boats. All the paddles flashed and struck together with a mighty splash that reverberated loudly in the monumental amphitheatre of hills. A broad stream of dazzling foam trailed behind the flotilla. The canoes appeared very black on the white hiss of water; turbaned heads swayed back and forth; a multitude of arms in crimson and yellow rose and fell with one movement; the spearmen upright in the bows of canoes had variegated sarongs and gleaming shoulders like bronze statues; the muttered ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... numberless jets of smoke across the fields marking the first line of Confederate infantry, their musketry rattling precisely like exploding bunches of firecrackers; batteries galloping to position, the thunder of a dozen smiting the ear more rapidly than one could count; the buzz, hiss, whistle, shriek, crash, hurricane of projectiles; the big shot from batteries in front and from Braxton's artillery on our right ripping up the ground and bounding away to the rear and the left; horses and riders disappearing in the smoke of exploding shells; the constant shouting ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... feast, And you alone should be the welcome guest. But, dearest Sal! the flames that you impart, Like chop on gridiron, broil my tender heart! Which if thy kindly helping hand be n't nigh, Must like an up-turned chop, hiss, brown, and fry; And must at least, thou scorcher of my soul, Shrink, and become ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... but it has a fetching way with the herd. I have never known him to be quick, sharp, or loud with the cows. When things go wrong, the crooning ceases. When it is resumed, all is well in the cow world. The other man, French, who is an excellent milker, and who stands well with the cows, has a half hiss, half whistle, such as English stable-boys use, except that it runs up and down five notes and is lost at each end. The cows like it and seem to admire French for his accomplishment even more than Judson, for they follow his movements with evident pleasure expressed ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... of waters!—from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; The fall of waters! rapid as the light The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, in pitiless ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... that sang to them, "Come to me, children of the sea. Neither bell, book, nor cross shall win you from your queen." Entranced by her song and the potency of her glances, they moved forward until they encircled the hill of waters. Then, with hiss and roar, the river fell back to its level, submerging the whole tribe. The music that haunts the bay, rising through the water when the moon is out, is the sound of their revels in the caves below—dusky Tannhausers of a southern Venusberg. An old priest, who was among ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... think useful labor a disgrace. The whites will oppose the negro in every effort to rise; they will debar him of every civil and social right; they will set him the worst possible example, as they have been doing for hundreds of years; and then they will hound and hiss at him for being what they made him. This is the old track of the world,—the good, broad, reputable road on which all aristocracies and privileged classes have been always traveling; and it's not likely that we shall have much of a secession from it. The millennium ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not stir. He sat there as though made of stone, that awful hiss still sounding in his ears. Miss Grey's voice came to him as from some great distance. He did not seem to realize what she was saying to him. She saw his white face, and the vacant look in his eyes, and she pitied him; but she had ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... was one of intense relief. As the thing went off under our hands, and I knew from a faint trembling and a low hiss that the weapon was functioning perfectly, I felt thankful indeed for the instinct which had made me get the gun on deck. It could be only a matter of seconds now until a whole section of the metallic cable was disintegrated completely and until ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... crest-fallen—and not without reason. I had been giving a few lectures among the working men, on various literary and social subjects. I found my audience decrease—and those who remained seemed more inclined to hiss than to applaud me. In vain I ranted and quoted poetry, often more violently than my own opinions justified. My words touched no responsive chord in my hearers' hearts; they had lost ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... sat silent. Suddenly he said, "Hiss!" and rose to his feet. Taking a long rifle from the ground he adjusted its sight. Exactly seven miles away on the slope of the mountain the figure of a man was seen walking. The Boy Chief raised the rifle to his unerring eye and fired. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... insisted Frau Knapf, coming a step nearer, and sinking her, voice one hiss lower. "You shouldn't say I said it, but Frau Nirlanger likes she should look young for her husband. He is much younger as she is—aber much. Anyhow ten years. Frau Nirlanger does not tell me this, but from other people I have found out." Frau Knapf shook her head mysteriously a great many times. ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... would be up within minutes to repair the break, and very little of the city's air would hiss away. But, in the meantime, every activity in Mars City was snarled by the necessity to seek shelter. The Chief had, indeed, created a situation of consternation in which it would be easier for the Phoenix men to ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... steam began to hiss in the boiler. Live steam from the fire-room forced the soapy sirup out of the boiler, through the small iron pipe, into the hollow that led to the geyser far underground. Six thousand gallons in all were forced into the opening in a space ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... ringing now, and he could hear nothing but the shriek of the wind, the hollow roaring of it in the woods, and the hiss and whish of driving snow. The folds of his capote protected him partially from the stinging particles, and his gauntleted hands ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... audience from their posts retired, And Julius in a general hiss expired; Sage Booth to Cibber cried, "Compute our gains! These dogs of Egypt, and their dowdy queans, But ill requite these habits and these scenes, To rob Corneille for such a motley piece: His geese were swans; but zounds! thy swans are geese!" ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... madly ran from cross to square, And with their foolish clamours rent the air; I'm saddled, hooted one; I'm girth'd, said this; The latter some perhaps will doubt, and hiss; Such things however should not be disbelieved For instance, recollect (what's well received), When Roland learned the pleasures and the charms; His rival, in the grot, had in his arms, With fist he gave his horse so hard a blow, It sunk at once to realms of poignant ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... bridge near by he heard the steady tread of feet, the mysterious words of the officer on watch passing the course to his relief. Bells rang with sharp double clang. Through the open port he could hear the alternate boom and hiss of the sea under the bows. With the stately lift and lean of the ship there mingled ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... minutes she had no understanding of anything else. She was consumed by the tortures of that memory. Yes, it was still storming, she could hear the howling of the wind, the roar of thunder, and the hiss and crackling of fire. Where was she? Ah, she knew. She was outside, with the fire before and behind her. And her aunt was at her side. She reached out a hand to reassure herself, and touched something soft and warm. But what was that? Surely ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... had carried her to the centre of the stage an ominous sound broke the silence of expectation. A hiss came from one of the boxes; it was repeated from another, and another. The sibilant sound spread round the house; it swelled into a sinister storm of hisses and boos. The light faded out of the dancer's eyes, the smile from her lips; and as the tumult ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... to the pylon, and Menes put some fuel under a brass kettle. He blew the flame and soon the water was boiling. On the kettle was a perpendicular spout covered with a heavy stone. When the kettle began to hiss, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... of the meanest sort of a man is excused on account of an agreeable manner. Thus the poison of the snake, and the blight of his venom on many a reputation and many a womanly heart, is all forgotten in the drawing-room, because of the fascination of his hiss and the glitter of his skin. Again, the Tempter has an Ally in the world of Traffic, wherever bad things are stamped with respectable names—when, for instance, swindling is called "smartness," and ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... moon had risen full and round, so that the clouds of smoke that rose in the air appeared as white as snow. The air seemed full of the hiss and screaming of shot, each one of which, when it struck the galleon, was magnified by our hero's imagination into ten times its magnitude from the crash which it delivered and from the cloud of splinters it would cast up into the moonlight. At last he suddenly beheld one poor ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... of the ship were now leaping fifty feet into the air. The river manuals played upon it, but made little or no impression. It seemed to hiss back contempt and defiance as the ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... admiration with rouge and henna and all the blazonry of an extravagant expenditure, with slang and bold brusquerie intended to signify her emancipated view of things, and with cynical mockery which she mistakes for penetration, I am sorely tempted to hiss out "Petroleuse!" It is a small matter to have our palaces set aflame compared with the misery of having our sense of a noble womanhood, which is the inspiration of a purifying shame, the promise of life—penetrating ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... their guards dreamed that anything more dangerous than thoughts could or would come. And yet, within two minutes from the time he was spread upon his back and left alone, old Two Knives heard inside the lodge a low, warning hiss. ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... may hide A Stael before whose mannish pride Our frailer sex shall tremble; Perchance this audience anserine May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine!)— May hiss—a ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... A hiss greeted Ripley. It was not loud, nor insistent, and presently died out. But Fred went as white as a sheet, then, with eyes cast downward, he dropped to his seat at the end of the sub bench. His chest heaved, for ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... I should be unable to find the sort of place of which I was in search before I was altogether benighted. I had cut a stick to help me along, or I should not have been able to get over the rough ground so well. I had gone on some way when a loud hiss close to me made me start, and I could just discern a big snake wriggling out from a crevice near which I had passed. I turned aside, when I was saluted in the same way. I was about to go back, when I saw two snakes wriggling along across the only place I could have passed. I felt that I was in for ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... anger, the broken stalks spouted forth, with a hiss and a rush, blinding jets of liquid white fire, which tore at the ceiling angrily and roared and crackled. From the broken stalks it spread to the others, and in a moment jets of liquid white fire were blazing and crackling upward from all the stalks in the room, and the ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... figure, wrapped in countless yards of the soft purple satin habarah, recoiled a step as the words fell with the hiss of icy water upon red hot steel; a little nervous laugh rising like thin ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... open gateway. Violette's shoulder sent one of them reeling, and I stabbed at another but missed him. Pang, pang, went two carbines, but I had flown round the curve of the street, and never so much as heard the hiss of the balls. Ah, we were great, both Violette and I. She lay down to it like a coursed hare, the fire flying from her hoofs. I stood in my stirrups and brandished my sword. Someone sprang for my bridle. I sliced him through the arm, and I heard him howling behind me. Two horsemen closed ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... contumely, affront, dishonor, insult, indignity, outrage, discourtesy &c. 895; practical joking; scurrility, scoffing, sibilance, hissing, sibilation; irrision[obs3]; derision; mockery; irony &c. (ridicule) 856; sarcasm. hiss, hoot, boo, gibe, flout, jeer, scoff, gleek|, taunt, sneer, quip, fling, wipe, slap in the face. V. hold in disrespect &c. (despise) 930; misprize, disregard, slight, trifle with, set at naught, pass by, push aside, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... were to deceive me," she said, in a low voice, almost in a whisper, the sound of a hiss ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... cellars the day after they had been filled, and heard, deep down, 'perhaps eight feet down in the juice, a seething, gushing sound, as if currents and eddies were beginning to flow, in obedience to the influence of the working spirit; and now and then a hiss and a low bubbling throb, as though of a pot about to boil.' In a little while, it would have been impossible to breathe an atmosphere thus saturated with carbonic acid gas; and the superintendents can only watch the process of nature by listening outside the door to 'the inarticulate accents ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... lay down, having first plunged the lantern bodily into his jug to extinguish it. Its indignant hiss had scarcely died away when Mr Seymour appeared at the door. It had occurred to Mr Seymour that he had smelt something very much out of the ordinary in Shoeblossom's study, a smell uncommonly like that of hot tin. ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... been several demonstrations of feeling in court, but at this statement by the lawyer there was a general hiss. The ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... unconsciousness of any offence with which his eyes meet his own. Such a look would blunt the very stiletto of a Corsican. What sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, as he plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear, 'Remember!' As well find satisfaction in torturing an idiot or mutilating a corpse. I am not talking now of brutish fellows, who would kick a stock or stone which they stumbled over, but of men intelligent enough to ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... instrument, greets our ears from a dozen mountain-slopes round about us, as we put our shoulders to the wheel, and gradually approach the summit. Tortoises are occasionally surprised basking in the sunbeams in the middle of the road; when molested they hiss quite audibly in protest, but if passed peacefully by they are seen shuffling off into the bushes, as though thankful to escape. Unhappy oxen are toiling patiently upward, literally inch by inch, dragging heavy, creaking wagons, loaded with miscellaneous importations, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... attendance on every six or eight hundred; and another, who may be looked upon as commander in chief, takes up his station close to the wall which they are repairing, and frequently repeats the beating which I just mentioned, which is instantly answered by a loud hiss from all the labourers within the dome,—those at work labouring with ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... the poison gland, and if this gland is cut out the cobra will not live more than two days. Accordingly, the supposition of some sceptics, that the bunis cut out this gland, is quite unfounded. The term "hissing" is also inaccurate when applied to cobras. They do not hiss. The noise they make is exactly like the death-rattle of a dying man. The whole body of a cobra is shaken by this ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... "Nothing!" declared Errington, though hiss color heightened. "Nothing, I assure you! It's just a matter of curiosity with me. I should like to know who she is—that's all! The ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... rose, and the waves chopped angrily at unseen barriers. Our little boat confronted the gale fearlessly; with sails spread and ropes taut, she seemed to sit upon the wind. Now she swirled in the billows, now she spring upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with angry howl and hiss. Down came the mainsail. Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from side to side with impetuous fury. Our hearts beat fast, and our hands trembled with excitement, not fear, for we had the hearts of vikings, ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... such as it was, was extensive. To the east the open sea, the wide Atlantic, rolling lazily in the morning light, a faint breeze rippling the surfaces of the ground-swell. A few sails in sight, far out. Not a sound except the hiss and splash of the surf, which, because of a week of calms and light winds, was low even for that time ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Shall rush to the abyss, like Vulcan hurl'd Down into Lemnos through the gate of heav'n. Thou also, with precipitated wheels Phoebus! thy own son's fall shalt imitate, With hideous ruin shalt impress the Deep 30 Suddenly, and the flood shall reek and hiss At the extinction of the Lamp of Day. Then too, shall Haemus cloven to his base Be shattered, and the huge Ceraunian hills,2 Once weapons of Tartarean Dis, immersed In Erebus, shall fill Himself with fear. No. ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... to nothing about balloons, but he felt pretty sure that even the escaping of gas could hardly produce such a sound—it might pass through a rent in the silk with a sharp hiss, but he could plainly catch something ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... hear the hard breathing of the man, and I could tell every time that his knife struck home, by a peculiar hiss that escaped the snake. It was like ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... captivity be a lesson to you," I said to him; "the affairs of kings do not concern us. When such actors occupy the scene, it is permissible neither to applaud nor to hiss." ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... kindly-the lady was unknown to them, and who could say anything about her singing-besides, they had excused the favorite vocalist once, and they were not to be put off in this same way again. Accordingly, a tremendous hiss arose, in the midst of which the unfortunate manager rattled off the physician's certificate, letting his voice drop, and flat away towards the end most comically, then hastily ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... one man tried the weapon of insult. Robert W. Bonynge spoke so slightingly of the character of women who upheld equal suffrage that one incensed woman, not a member of the association and presumably ignorant of parliamentary courtesy, gave a low hiss. Immediately he assumed the denunciatory and threatened immediate expulsion of all persons not members from the House. Frank Carney then arose and referred to the fact that the anti-suffrage speakers had received repeated applause from their adherents ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... entreated the boatswain to "shove the blamed Finn overboard." Then, all together, we yelled down at the planks:—"Stand from under! Get forward," and listened. We only heard the deep hum and moan of the wind above us, the mingled roar and hiss of the seas. The ship, as if overcome with despair, wallowed lifelessly, and our heads swam with that unnatural motion. Belfast clamoured:—"For the love of God, Jimmy, where are ye?... Knock! Jimmy darlint!... Knock! You bloody black beast! Knock!" He was ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... encroachment. Evil of every description, and evil beings of every order, are under divine superintendence and control. The lion is chained—the dragon cannot add one cubit to his stature—a point to his tongue—or a drop to his venom. The serpent may hiss, but he cannot devour. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... as large and strong as a young lion was barking vigorously behind a low fence at a cat, who sat serenely on the other side, meeting his Bombastes Furioso plunges at the intervening pickets with a contemptuous hiss and an occasional buffet with her claw upon his muzzle. I have yet to see a dog that dares attack my goat of a year old, except when he is harnessed to his wagon. They are not, however, afraid of sheep. And they are much more clear in their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... outside the cabin. It searched and prodded about the deserted deck to whip upward at the audible hiss of wet carbide. Another appeared; the rifle came slowly to the man's shoulder as a pair of jaws gaped glowingly beyond the windows and an eye stared unblinkingly from its hornlike sheath. It crashed madly against the walls of the wireless ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... he listened. The house was deathly silent and he could almost hear the pulsing of his heart. Then very faintly he became aware of another sound—the gentle hiss of a ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... out now and then at the trees, which tossed like green waves under the roaring August rain. Sometimes a gust drove a shower down the chimney and made the logs hiss. The room was warm and still; in the interval of work it seemed to have paused and be sleeping. The tiger-cat, with his paws folded under him, lay beside the hearth, and Mary on her little bench nursed her doll peacefully. Calista began to sing ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... he wondered whether it would attempt to climb on to the bed. He stood up, and tried to get his revolver from the drawers. It was out of reach, and as the bed creaked beneath his weight, a faint hiss sounded from the floor, and he sat still again, ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... A slight hiss was heard, which enraged him so much that he stopped, and looked among the audience with indignation, trying to discover what jealous rival was endeavouring to discompose him—a silence ensued for a minute; Vaughan ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... at the bottom of the boat I can not tell; but it seemed to me to be a long time, and always there were the hiss of the waters and the steady creaking of the oar. Several times we turned corners, for I heard the long, sad cry which these gondoliers give when they wish to warn their fellows that they are coming. At last, after a considerable ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... In silence and in gloom, The dreary pageant labored, Till it reached the house of doom. Then first a woman's voice was heard In jeer and laughter loud, And an angry cry and a hiss arose From the heart of the tossing crowd: Then, as the Graeme looked upward, He saw the ugly smile Of him who sold his king for gold— ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... half a dozen hands went up in front of the church. Instantly, from almost every part of the house, hands went up in numbers that almost doubled those who had voted in favor of admission. From the gallery on the sides, where several of Philip's work-men friends sat, a hiss arose. It was slight, but heard by the entire congregation. Philip glanced up there ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... to be done with all those who had advanced money in making and repairing turnpike-roads? What was to become of coach-makers and harness-makers, coach-masters and coachmen, inn-keepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? Was the house aware of the smoke and the noise, the hiss and the whirl, which locomotive engines, passing at the rate of 10 or 12 miles an hour, would occasion? Neither the cattle ploughing in the fields or grazing in the meadows could behold them without dismay. Iron would be raised in price 100 per cent., or more probably ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... youths, With blood barbaric dyed, And dealing death on every side, By slow degrees by their own wounds subdued, The one upon the other fall. Farewell, Ye heroes blessed, whose names shall live, While tongue can speak, or pen your story tell! Sooner the stars, torn from their spheres, shall hiss, Extinguished in the bottom of the sea, Than the dear memory, and love of you, Shall suffer loss, or injury. Your tomb an altar is; the mothers here Shall come, unto their little ones to show The lovely traces of your blood. Behold, Ye blessed, myself upon the ground I throw, And kiss these stones, ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... at the "Crown Inn," upon the road, for refreshments, and on handing a ragged little urchin a shilling for his voluntary service of standing at the door of our barouche, on starting off were saluted by a hiss for our generosity. A greater douceur was expected from the drivers of ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... a stern voice hiss at my ear. "Beshrew me, but it shall go hard with him! I'm loading her up with marbles now!" But I had no more than time to persuade my two lieutenants to modify this purpose, and partially to disarm themselves, before ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... forget the name), in the Queen's livery, was stopped by the populace, under a belief that it was Madame de Polignac, whom they would have insulted; the Queen, going to the theatre at Versailles with Madame de Polignac, was received with a general hiss. The King, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges deeper and deeper. The Queen cries, but sins on. The Count d'Artois is detested, and Monsieur, the general favorite. The Archbishop of Toulouse is made minister principal, a virtuous, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... brawny arms, stood out like great ropes; and then Balmung, descending, cleft the air from right to left. The waiting lookers-on in the plain below thought to hear the noise of clashing steel; but they listened in vain, for no sound came to their ears, save a sharp hiss like that which red-hot iron gives when plunged into a tank of cold water. The huge Amilias sat unmoved, with his arms still folded upon his breast; but the smile ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to leave below the stings of the blistering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... its approach by a low, weird, unearthly moaning that with terrifying rapidity swelled to a deafening compound of the shrieking yell of the swooping wind and the hiss of the tempest-lashed sea as it rushed, in the form of a wall of ghastly, heaped-up, phosphorescent foam stretching from horizon to horizon, straight down upon the ship. The spectacle of that unbridled outburst of elemental ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... steam. Then the explosive force of the steam would in turn tear up the rocks, making still larger the hole through which the water came. When the rocks were very hot, a little water upon them would make a terrible commotion like the shock of an earthquake. When much water came down, it would hiss and boil high in the air, as it tried to break the cushion of steam which came between ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... yet with sacred notes the hosts proceed, Though blasphemies they hear and cursed things; So with Apollo's harp Pan tunes his reed, So adders hiss where Philomela sings; Nor flying darts nor stones the Christians dreed, Nor arrows shot, nor quarries cast from slings; But with assured faith, as dreading naught, The holy work begun ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... nearer, and seemed to almost hiss in her ear—unconsciously she felt the antagonism. "That's absurd," she said, with sudden animation; "why, these people are nobody, the mother used to wash for me a few years ago. They are the very commonest sort—the father was ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land. But gropers both through fields of thought confined We stumble and we do not understand. You only saw your future bigly planned, And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each other's dearest ways we stand, And hiss and hate. And the ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... your crown, Mowing both infancy and age In ruthless carnage down. Where flows the tide of life and light, Amid the city's hum, There let the cry, at dead of night, Be heard, 'They come, they come!' Mid scenes of sweet domestic bliss, Pour shells of livid fire, While red-hot balls among them hiss, To make the work entire And when the scream of agony Is heard above the din, Then ply your guns with energy, And throw your columns in Thro' street and lane, thro' house and church, The sword and faggot ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... already stripping the searchlight of its cover. When he had swung open the big lens Tommy struck a match, which blew out. His second was blown out by a hiss of air that preceded the flow of gas, and the professor jumbled matters by trying his hand. But these efforts scarcely took more time than the telling, and when the powerful streak of light finally pierced ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... little laugh, a hiss or two rebuked the disorder; then the baton signalled the orchestra, and the music recommenced, smoothly and in perfect time; the conductor had never turned his head. The curtain went up; the ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... paces from us; and then with hiss and rattle as of the first gust of a storm in dry branches the arrows flew among them, smiting man and horse alike, and down went full half of the foremost line, while over the fallen leapt and plunged those behind them unchecked, and were upon us sword in air; and the tough spear ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... or sound expressing emotion only such as a shout, a groan, a hiss, a sob, or the like, such ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... a committee of select friends, Mr. Huntingdon sat, confident of success; and when the hiss of rockets ceased, he came forward, and addressed the assembly in an hour's speech. As a warm and rather prominent politician, he was habituated to the task, and bursts of applause from his own party frequently attested the effect of his easy, graceful style, and pungent irony. Blinded by ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... though inactive. At first some indistinct mutterings arose among them, which were followed by a hiss or two, and these swelled by degrees into a perfect storm. Then one voice said, 'Down with the Papists!' and there was a pretty general cheer, but nothing more. After a lull of a few moments, one man cried out, 'Stone him;' another, 'Duck him;' another, in a stentorian voice, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... they had ambushed; and, last, the pensive Jacques (so very like Mr. Joseph Pennell in bearing and humour) distilling his meridian melancholy into pentameter paragraphs, like any colyumist. A bonfire is quickly kindled, and the hiss and fume of venison collops whiff to us across the blue air. Against that stump—is it a real stump, or only a painted canvas affair from the property man's warehouse?—surely that is a demijohn of cider? And we can hear, presently, that most piercingly tremulous of all ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... passed. Suddenly there was a frightful racket, rattle, clanking of chain, hiss of water, and millions of sparks flew up into the shivering column of smoke that stood leaning slightly above the ship. The cat-heads had burned away, and the two red-hot anchors had gone to the bottom, tearing out after them two hundred fathom of red-hot chain. The ship trembled, the ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... the crash of the seas on the rocks made speech impossible. He pointed suddenly along the cliff face, and not twenty yards away, with a hiss and a roar, a furious spout of water shot up into the air a rocket of white foam, a hundred feet high, and fell with a crash over the rocks and ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... was ever fool enough to warm a serpent in his bosom. And the serpent never crosses the path of man if he can help it. The most deadly is that which is too sluggish to get out of his way—therefore bites in self-defense. And the serpent generally gives some warning hiss, or a rattle. Indeed, almost every animal gives warning of its foul intent. The shark turns over before seizing its prey. But the false friend (I am obliged to couple these words) takes you in without changing his side.... ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... if it should be writ on satin, With syllables which breathe of the sweet South, And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in, That not a single accent seems uncouth, Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural, Which were obliged to hiss, and spit and ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... — N. resonance; ring &c v.; ringing, tintinabulation &c v.; reflexion [Brit.], reflection, reverberation; echo, reecho; zap, zot [Coll.]; buzz (hiss) 409. low note, base note, bass note, flat note, grave note, deep note; bass; basso, basso profondo [It]; baritone, barytone^; contralto. [device to cause resonance] echo chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... are still a good deal like the honest Scotchman who, on his first visit to a theatre, climbed on the stage and administered the villain of the play a sound thrashing; or, like the Bowery audiences, which applaud the good man in the play, no matter how badly he acts, and hiss the villain, though ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... to himself, and at the next second be knew. A faint hiss sounded in the corporal's very ear. Billy thought of the vipers that swarmed on some parts of the heath, and jumped round in affright, and at that instant a ball was flipped into his eye from ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... cincture, will then be undiscoverable. Amid the untamed forest and untrod precipices that lie beyond, all the beasts most inimical to man reside. There the hills re-echo the tremendous roarings of the boar; the serpents hiss among the thickets; and the gaunt and hungry wolf roams for prey. Oh, Imogen, how fearful is the picture! And can your tender frame, and your timid ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... passing under, for the red nose in the tapestry turned a deeper ruby in scornful anger. But, luckily for the nerves of its descendant, the moths had eaten its mouth away so entirely, that the retort it attempted to make sounded only like a faint hiss, which the Baron mistook for a little gust of wind behind ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... that light. At the least the pile had been gathered and laid, and did but require a touch of the match to burn up merrily enough. And now this was supplied, and at the first glance of Ida's eyes the magic flame began to hiss and crackle, and he knew that nothing short of a convulsion or a ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... Gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor mortal all to pieces. The snakes, that served them instead of hair, seemed likewise to be asleep; although, now and then, one would writhe, and lift its head, and thrust out its forked tongue, emitting a drowsy hiss, and then let itself subside ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... of emotion, their feebleness of delivery. "Ecoutez!" he would cry; and then his voice rang through the premises like a trumpet; and when, mimicking it, came the small pipe of a Ginevra, a Mathilde, or a Blanche, one understood why a hollow groan of scorn, or a fierce hiss of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the door was closed tightly and then Tom Swift turned the valve that admitted the sea water. With a hiss the Atlantic began rushing in, and in a short time the outer ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... savage-looking circular saw, running at a high rate of speed. The operator caught one of the great horns by its tip, gave it a turn through the air before his eyes, seized it in both hands and applied it to the saw. With a sharp hiss the keen teeth severed the solid tip from the body of the horn, and another movement trimmed away the thin, imperfect parts about the base. The latter fell into a pile of refuse at the foot of the frame, the tip was cast into a box with others; ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame. And as when a smith dips an axe or adze in chill water with a great hissing, when he would temper it—for hereby anon comes the strength of iron—even so did his eye hiss round the stake of olive. And he raised a great and terrible cry, that the rock rang around, and we fled away in fear, while he plucked forth from his eye the brand bedabbled in much blood. Then maddened with pain he cast it from him with ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... spirit sank within her. The season had been dry, and she knew the path by instinct; but the storm and the darkness seemed like twin enemies determined to bar her advance. She felt that Nature was her foe, even as man had been, and as Rehoboth would be when it knew of her return. Why did the rain hiss, and dash its cold and stinging showers in her face? Why did it saturate her thin skirts so that they, in chill folds, wrapped her wasted frame and clung cruelly to her weary limbs to stay her ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... in prison. He drove away from the jail in a cab with Doctor Waram, and when the crowd saw that he was wearing the old symbol—a yellow chrysanthemum—a hiss went up that was like a geyser of contempt and ridicule. Grimshaw's pallid face flushed. But he lifted his hat and smiled into the host of faces as ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... shout, but it was a cry of horror, for all in a moment, a streak of flame seemed to leap out of the motor, there was a fearful hiss of escaping gas, a report that fairly shook the tree-tops, and with planes crumpling under the tremendous pressure of the air rushing past as it fell, the aeroplane plunged to earth. Yet, even in his intense excitement, Jerry, as he raced to where the flaming machine had fallen, caught ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... roll the big snowball directly past the top of the broad stairs leading to the hall below. They had the snowball in a position right at the head of the stairs when Spouter, who was leaning over the upper railing on guard, gave a sudden hiss ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer |
