"Serpent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself into two legs; ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wife of Halcombe Dike. Double your toil into itself, and triple it by the measure of responsibility, and there you have your married life, young girls,—beautiful, dim Eden that you have made of it! But there was never an Eden without its serpent, I fancy. Besides, Sharley, like the rest of them, had not thought as ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... traitor!—still afraid to bask In the full blaze of power, the rustling serpent Lurks in the thicket of the tyrant's greatness, Ever prepar'd to sting who shelters him. Each thought, each action in himself converges; And love and friendship on his coward heart Shine like the powerless sun on polar ice: To all attach'd, by turns deserting all, Cunning ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... of the fifth day they had their first dispute. They were sitting on the boat deck, aft, watching the wake of the ship as it twisted like an uncertain white serpent. Stefan was sketching her, as he had done already several times when he could get her apart from hovering children—he could not endure being overlooked as he worked. "They chew gum in my ear, and breathe down my ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... first view. As is usually the case with the Sclaves, it was difficult to read the recesses of his mind. With them, loyalty and candor, familiarity and the most captivating ease of manner, by no means imply confidence, or impulsive frankness. Like the twisted folds of a serpent rolled upon itself, their feelings are half hidden, half revealed. It requires a most attentive examination to follow the coiled linking of the glittering rings. It would be naive to interpret literally their courtesy full of compliment, their assumed humility. The forms of this politeness, this ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... devoted to thee! Your vehicles, the huka, the pipe, let them ever remain before us. At the mere sight of them we shall obtain heavenly delight. Oh, huka! thou that sendest forth volumes of curling smoke, that hast a winding tube shaming the serpent! oh, bowl that beautifies thy top! how graceful are the chains of thy turban; how great is the beauty of thy curved mouthpiece; how sonorous the murmur of the ice-cool water in thy depths! Oh, world enchantress! oh, soother of the fatigues of man, employer of the idle, comforter of the henpecked ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... yellow streak perhaps half a mile in length, and with the bits of wood and branches sticking up in its midst at intervals, it would not have required a very lively imagination to fashion it at a little distance into a sea serpent. Where does all this debris come from? was the question asked by everybody. Out of the Bay of Bengal probably, judging from the direction of the current. We wondered if it could possibly be the remains of some of the trees uprooted ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... theory, redoubled his agility. Jussac, with the design of finishing him at once, delivered a terrible thrust, which D'Artagnan parried adroitly, and, before his opponent could raise himself, he glided like a serpent under his guard, and passed his sword through his body. Jussac ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... and felt curiously weak and shaken; though I suspected that this wriggling thing now swimming back to shore was the poison snake of the Ksaurora, and no Antouhonoran witchcraft at all, as I had seen skins of the brilliant and oddly marked little serpent at Guy Park, whither some wandering Southern Tuscaroras ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... figures of the last judgment were unworthy of a house of prayer. The artist introduced his censor in his painting as Minos judge of the infernal regions, with long ears like those of the other devils, and a serpent's tail. Paul III when appealed to is said to have answered, that if his Ceremoniere had been in Purgatory, he might have helped him out, but out of hell there was no redemption. This Papal witticism Platner could not find in any writer earlier than Richardson (See Beschreibung ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... irregular and stiff handwriting in a moment; and concluded that Daisy had some request to make on her own account which she was too timid to speak out in words. That was what he expected when he opened the paper; but Eve could not have been much more surprised when the serpent spoke to her in the garden of Eden, than was Mr. Randolph at finding that his little lamb of a child had dared to open her mouth to him ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... have done at once and forever paltry considerations, with talk of despondency and darkness. Let compromise, submission, and every form of dishonorable peace be not so much as named among us. Tolerate no coward's voice or pen or eye. Wherever the serpent's head is raised, strike it down. Measure every man by the standard of manhood. Measure country's price by country's worth, and country's worth by country's integrity. Let a cold, clear breeze sweep down from the mountains ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... upright, clad in a garment that reaches to her feet; on her breast is the head of Medusa wrought in ivory. She holds a Victory about four cubits high in one hand, and in the other hand a spear. At her feet lies a shield, and near the spear is a serpent." ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... hell, Its fearful jaws were open wide, As if to seize the prey it tried; And in its black mouth, ranged about, Its teeth in prickly rows stood out; Its tongue was like a sharp-edged sword, And lightning from its small eyes poured; A serpent's tail of many a fold Ended its body's monstrous span, And round itself with fierceness rolled, So as to clasp both ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and days Lady Torrington was more obdurate than the winter wind and the serpent's tooth. She said those two things often and often, and the one about the winter wind shows that she has read 'As You Like It.' I don't know the one about the serpent's tooth. It may be in Shakespeare, but is not in Wordsworth's ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... species which were extinct before man was created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." The Hindoos dreamed that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an unimportant coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state, that a fossil tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough to support an elephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild fancies, which transcend the order of time and development. They ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... savage bound, the lion sprang upon the serpent, and tried to tear him in pieces, while the boa, hissing like a thousand geese, twisted himself, fold after fold, round the body of his enemy, crushing him, squeezing him, and rolling over till his bones cracked. The angry roar changed into a cry of despair and frenzy. ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... vineyards at Mailly, Verzy, and Verzenay, as well as at Sillery, and concentrated their produce in the capacious cellars of her chteau, afterwards sending it forth with her own guarantee, under the general name of Sillery, which, like Aaron's serpent, thus swallowed up the others. The Marchale's social position enabled her to secure for her wines the recognition they really merited, added to which she was a keen woman of business. She also possessed much taste, and whenever ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly so as to resemble a vast column, and when high, were seen wheeling and twisting within their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... married woman also. The passage in its connection runs as follows: Ver. 18. "There be three things which are too wonderful for me, and four which I know not. Ver. 19. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon the rock, the way of a ship in the heart of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid. Ver. 20. This is the way of an adulterous woman; she [Pg 46] eateth, and wipeth her mouth and saith: I have done no wickedness." According to De Wette, Bertheau, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... me that she forgave my childish ingratitude. But I cannot call her back; and when I stand by her grave, and whenever I think of her manifold kindness, the memory of that reproachful look she gave me will bite like a serpent ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... our study to account for this sad and unwarrantable change on the part of the Boers we will be following the trail of the serpent and track it right up to its Hollander lair and to its at first unsuspected product, ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... statue on a pedestal, where, properly speaking, it never could be; and suggested a rock, on which the hero was to have the appearance of galloping, but suddenly be arrested at the sight of an enormous serpent, which, with other obstacles, he overcomes for the happiness of the Muscovites. None but a Catherine II., who so gloriously accomplished all the great ideas of that hero, could have brought to perfection this extraordinary ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... whose years are many.(54) I die and I am born again each day. I am the serpent Sata which dwelleth in the uttermost parts of the earth. I die, and I am born again, and I renew myself, and ...
— Egyptian Literature
... conventionalism also are to be found in many of the animal carvings, and the method of indicating the wings and feathers of birds, the scales of the serpent, &c., are almost precisely what is to be observed in modern Indian productions of ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... about to dart forward, was the largest serpent they had ever seen; the sunlight checkered its bright colored folds. Its red tongue darted wickedly in and out as ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Inferno before one. But I shall speak no more at present of the degraded ones; I wish to gain a thought of pity for those who are blameless; and I want to stir up the blameless ones, who are generally ignorant creatures, so that they may exercise a little of the wisdom of the serpent in time. Be it remembered that, although the ruined and blameless man is not subjected to such moral scorn as falls to the lot of the wastrel, the practical consequences of being down are much the same for him as for the victim of sloth or sin. ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the right kind of a man," said the Idiot. "He isn't built that way. He wears men's clothes and he has sweet manners, and a dulcet voice, and the learning of the serpent; but when it comes to manhood he has the initiative of the turtle, lacking the cash value of the terrapin, or the turtle's mock brother; he wears a beard, but it is the beard of the bearded lady who up-to-date appears to be ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... in part restrained. But the instincts of the populace were suppressed rather than eradicated. They hung a sack from his statue by night in allusion to the old punishment of parricides, who were sentenced to be flung into the sea, tied up in a sack with a serpent, a monkey, and a cock. They exposed an infant in the Forum with a tablet on which was written, "I refuse to rear thee, lest thou shouldst slay thy mother." They scrawled upon the blank walls of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... to deny or ignore this conflict has been the stock in trade of every false doctrine that has befogged and bewildered the world since the days of Eden. The fairy tale that the old serpent told to Eve is a poetic symbol of the lie fundamental,—the theory that sin does not mean death, because it has no real existence and makes no real difference. This ancient falsehood has an infinite wardrobe ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. So Caesar may: Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel Will bear no colour for the thing he is, Fashion it thus: that, what he is, augmented, Would run to these and these extremities: And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous; And kill him in ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... some caves—dry at low water—on the opposite side. Some of these are wide, lofty, and well-lighted from without. We walk in and out and around them, as if in great, irregular, Gothic halls. Some are narrow and dark. Now, we crawl into them on hands and knees; now, we wriggle onward a few feet, serpent-like, flat on our bellies; now, we are suddenly able to stand upright in pitch darkness, hearing faint moaning sounds of pent-up winds, when we are silent, and long reverberations of our own voices, when we speak. Then, as we turn and crawl out again, we soon see ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... and then came the great spiritual battle between the Centaurs and Lapithae; and the living creatures became "Children of Men." Taught, yet, by the Centaur—sown, as they knew, in the fang—from the dappled skin of the brute, from the leprous scale of the serpent, their flesh came again as the flesh of a little child, and ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... found every inch of the road made easy for me. Peter came into conflict with the socialistic party. There was a certain James Hibbault, who was a great power, and Peter, who was not so heavy a power in those days, employed the wisdom of the serpent to crush him. He came up to London and offered me a chance of new amusement in abetting his plans. The Hibbaults were middle class people without middle class virtues. They lived a scrambling, noisy life propagating their crude ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... excitement prevailed among our ship's company, viz., the sight of a twenty-five feet bottle-nosed whale, which every one rushed to see, and which for some time played around the ship, accompanied by a couple of porpoise. The animal caused as much excitement as if it had been the mythical sea serpent itself. We saw them in dozens afterwards, but never with the same enthusiasm. Of course, the first whale had to be immortalised, and two of our party sketched and painted it; not without difficulty, however, for the rolling of the ship sent the water-colours ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... their effects as those which are recorded in Scripture. The fire interrupting the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, and the death of Arius, are instances, in Ecclesiastical history, of such solemn events. On the other hand, difficult instances in the Scripture history are such as these: the serpent in Eden, the Ark, Jacob's vision for the multiplication of his cattle, the speaking of Balaam's ass, the axe swimming at Elisha's word, the miracle on the swine, and various instances of prayers or prophecies, in which, as in that of Noah's blessing ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... of scorn in his utterance of the word that was tragic; and as I lay back there on my cushion I read in it the fierce turning at last of the trampled worm—the worm as represented by the venomous serpent of the conquered land, and I knew from my own experience what endless cases there were of patient, humbled, and crushed-down men, no higher in position than slaves, ill-used, and treated with contempt by my insolent, overbearing countrymen of that self-assertive class who cannot hold power without ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... said Nicanor. "Nay then, I do not care, which is nearer truth. If I do not fear a fangless serpent in the grass, why should I ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Recorder take the hand of the condemned, and raise him, whilst drawing forth the parchment from his pocket,—when he heard the pardon of the Stadtholder publicly read out,—then Boxtel was no more like a human being; the rage and malice of the tiger, of the hyena, and of the serpent glistened in his eyes, and vented itself in his yell and his movements. Had he been able to get at Van Baerle, he would have pounced upon ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... tell of the jest that the serpent of earth has past on his way. The garrulous brewer of Odin's mead will come to ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... comforted. I had a perfectly beastly time ahead of me, but now it was all glorified and coloured with the thought of the girl who had sung 'Cherry Ripe' in the garden. I commended the wisdom of that old serpent Bullivant in the choice of his intermediary, for I'm hanged if I would have taken such ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... further says that this pious and orthodox creed of the divine grace would be sufficient for the full knowledge and confirmation of the orthodox faith. But as the author of evil, who in the beginning availed himself of the aid of the serpent, and by it brought the poison of death upon the human race, has not desisted, but in like manner now, having found suitable instruments for the accomplishment of his will—that is to say, Theodorus, who was bishop of ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... of three craniote embryos in vertical section. A of a shark (Heptarchus), B of a serpent (Coluber), C of a goat (Capra). a fore brain, b intermediate brain, c middle brain, d hind brain, e after brain, s primitive cleft. ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... the serpent all gone from her voice, and a warm, dulcet, caressing accent in it, while her eyes were melting with discreetly veiled love. "And I plotted so much to ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... and its very simplicity made it seem then, and seem now, well-nigh incredible. For it is the simple things of this world which are always most unbelievable, perhaps for this reason: that men after Eden and the Serpent, expect some subtlety of reasoning to account for all happenings, and always comes the suspicion that somewhat beside two and ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... even if I don't waken all at once, I dream of him in some stormy sea, with great, clear, glass-green walls of waves on either side his ship, but far higher than her very masts, curling over her with that cruel, terrible white foam, like some gigantic crested serpent. It is an old dream, but it always comes back on windy nights, till I am thankful to waken, sitting straight and stiff up in bed with my terror. Poor Frederick! He is on land now, so wind can do him no harm. Though I did ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of the wind and water, when a strange appearance on the face of the cliff made him pause. About six feet from him—glowing like molten gold in the gusty glow of the burning tree—a round sleek stream of water slipped from the rock into the darkness, like a serpent from its hole. Above this stream a dark spot defied the torchlight, and John Rex felt his heart leap with one last desperate hope as he comprehended that close to him was one of those tortuous drives which the worm-like action of the sea bores in such caverns as that in which he ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... all these arrows of love, you are reduced to the most common of love fashions, of that primitive and innocent wedding gait, the calm homage which the innocent Adam rendered to our common Mother and which doubtless suggested to the Serpent the idea of taking them in. But a symptom so complete is not frequent. Most married couples are too good Christians to follow the usages of pagan Greece, so we have ranged, among the last symptoms, the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... to mend the heart design'd, Quenching the fiery passions of mankind; When lurking hate and deadly rage combine, To charm the serpent of revenge is mine; By heavenly verse the furious deed restrain, And bid the ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... do but little as yet in the way of real instruction. Some ideas, I trust, they are beginning to acquire concerning our Blessed Lord. Is it not a significant fact that the god worshiped in Gfera, and in one village of Bauro, is the Serpent, the very type of evil? I need not say that these dear boys have won their way to my heart, they are most docile and affectionate. I think some will really, if they live, leave their own island and live with me at Norfolk Island, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in a minute," drawled the Haddock, who did not relish a stiff ride along dusty roads in his choicest confection. "He's playing the fool, I believe—or a bit scared at the ferocious serpent." ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... snake, and the reason for its appearance in the religion of primitive peoples. He ascribes to savages a psychical acuteness that I am by no means willing to allow them, inasmuch as he makes them give a psychical causation for their adoption of the serpent as a deity, such as no ignorant and uncultivated savage could have possibly evolved. I am inclined to believe that, like all great students and thinkers, Mr. Spencer has a hobby, and that this hobby is ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... of parricides was curious; the criminal having been beaten with rods, was sown up in a sack together with a serpent, an ape and a cock, and thrown either into the sea or a river, as if even the inanimate carcase of such a wretch would ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... exception of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who, when the waters have abated, renew the human race, by throwing stones behind them. Other animated beings are produced by heat and moisture: and, among them, the serpent Python. Phoebus slays him, and institutes the Pythian games as a memorial of the event, in which the conquerors are crowned with beech; for as yet the laurel does not exist, into which Daphne is changed soon after, while flying ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... throttled each other and swayed back and forth and yelled imprecations and fell in struggling masses and got upon their feet again and twisted and squirmed and panted, like so many monsters, half serpent and half beast, seeking to bury their fangs in some vital part or tear each other ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... coals, and from the marble walls And gilded spires and columns, strangely wrought, Glared the red light, until my eyes were pained With the fierce splendor. Till the night grew thick, I lay within the bushes, next the door, Still as a serpent, as invisible. The guard hung round the portal. Man by man They dropped away, save one lone sentinel, And on his eyes God's finger lightly fell; He slept half standing. Like a summer wind That threads the grove, yet never turns a leaf, I stole from shadow unto shadow forth; Crossed all the marble ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... in his palace, thinking of this demand, he perceived a serpent creep out of a hole in the wall and return into it again. He called the officers of his harem, and said to them, 'Break open that hole, and take out the serpent that I saw ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... know whether it was the effect of Coburg hospitality, or whether Satan was at fault. Dietrich thought his illness must be caused by Satan, since Luther had been particularly careful about his diet. He told also of a fiery, serpent-like apparition, which he and Luther had seen one evening in June at the foot of the Castle Hill. The same night Luther fainted away, and the next day was very ill; and this fact ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... lips! flatter, tongue! Be a siren among the sirens, Sybil! Be a serpent among the serpents!" she hissed, as she glided down the stairs and entered ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of—lives! Assassins of Capital? Aye! And their weakening force will ye mee With assassins of Labour? Shall Brotherhood redden the field and the street? Beware of the bad black old lesson! Behold, and look close, and beware! There are flowers at your newly-built shrine, is the evil old serpent not there? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... station by young Mr. Warren. His father, with the wisdom of a Nonconformist serpent, had sent him alone to make my acquaintance and be fascinated. My things were put on a four-wheeler. I was all young enthusiasm in the manner of The Young Girl. He was a good-looking boy enough, though in a bowler hat, with turn-down collar. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... long, it was, and six feet through, a blunt-ended, untapered serpent that glistened a moist crimson color in the rays of the sun. The trees quaked and rocked as it brushed against them in its deliberate advance. Dead leaves many feet across and too heavy for the combined efforts of both men to have budged, were pushed lightly this way and that as the monster ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... visions and experiences—he looked round. Mrs. Graves sate beside him smiling, but the horror suddenly darted back into his mind with a spasm of fear, as if he had been bitten by a poisonous serpent. ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... prefatory essay upon 'The Use of the Chorus in Tragedy' Schiller defended his innovation and incidentally set his heel upon the head of the serpent of naturalism. True art, he insisted, must have a higher aim than to produce an illusion of the actual. Its object is not to divert men with a momentary dream of freedom, but to make them truly free by awakening and developing ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... his writings, was extensively acquainted with profane literature. But he formed quite too high an estimate of the value of the heathen philosophy, whilst he allegorized Scripture in a way as dangerous as it was absurd. By the serpent which deceived Eve, according to Clement, "pleasure, an earthly vice which creeps upon the belly, is allegorically represented." [374:1] Moses, speaking allegorically, if we may believe this writer, called the Divine ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Since I hoped I dared; Everywhere alone As a church remain; Spectre cannot harm, Serpent cannot charm; He deposes doom, Who ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... Sir Palomides, the good knight, following the Questing Beast that had in shape a head like a serpent's head, and a body like a leopard, buttocks like a lion, and footed like an hart; and in his body there was such a noise as it had been the noise of thirty couple of hounds questing, and such a noise that beast made wheresomever he went; and this beast ever more Sir Palomides ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... passionate affection which he grudgingly withheld from human beings, stubbornly tenacious of a set of political dogmas to which he was ready to sacrifice his dearest friends, morbidly sensitive to the faintest suggestion of a personal slight, and prompter than the serpent to vent against the aggressor the bitterness of his poison, he plays the role of Ishmael among the men of letters in his day. The violence of his retorts when he felt himself injured and his capacity for giving offence even when he was not directly provoked, begot a resentment in his adversaries ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... knowing that one end of the horn reached the sea, which was appreciably lowered by the god's huge draughts. He sought to lift from the ground a large, gray cat, but struggle as he might, could raise only one of the animal's feet. What Thor took for a cat, however, was really the Midgard serpent, which, with its tail in its mouth, encircled the earth. In the last trial of strength Thor wrestled with an old woman, and after a violent contest was thrown down upon one knee. But the hag was in truth relentless old age, who sooner or later lays ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... perfume-seller was immersed in the Koran, his back to the buying world. Batouch was about to call upon him, when Domini checked the exclamation with a quick gesture. For the first time the mystery that coils like a great black serpent in the shining heart of the East startled and fascinated her, a mystery in which indifference and devotion mingle. The white figure swayed slowly to and fro, carrying the dull, humming voice with it, and now she seemed ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... tell you he loves. Yes, he loves, as the hawk loves the harmless dove, as the tyger loves the trembling kid. And is this the man in whose favour I should ever have been weak enough to entertain a partiality? I would tear him from my bosom like an adder. I would crush him like a serpent. ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... philosophy brought against bad observation. The Amphisbaena serpent was supposed to have two heads, one at each end; partly from its shape, partly because it runs backwards as well as forwards. On this Sir Thomas ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... alone in the Garden of Eden is all right, but after you've been there three or four years there's a mild excitement in hearing a strange voice, even if it is that of a Serpent!" ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... frozen look on the wretch's face now, and he kept his eyes on those two figures as if he had no power to turn them away, as if, like a serpent, they fascinated him. Then of a sudden he gave vent to a loud scream and dashed from the hall, upsetting his comrades as ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... was ambitious; and his ambition was vast, all-absorbing. Like the unhappy wretch from whose shoulders sprang the foul serpent, he loathed it, perhaps feared it; but he could not escape it—it was himself—nor rend it—it was his own flesh. He fought it with prayer, constant and earnest—Apollyon and Christian in ceaseless combat. What limit to set to his ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... in the great wide universe—somewhere, for as wide as it is—a heart that feels for us both, as my heart feels for you, Poldie! Oh! oh! wouldn't it be grand? Wouldn't it be lovely to be at peace again, Poldie? If there should be somebody somewhere who could take this gnawing serpent from my heart!"—She pulled wildly at her dress.—"'Come unto me,' he said, 'all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' That's what he said:—oh! if it could ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... base ingratitude, Soul's mortal poison, deadly killing-wound, Deceitful serpent seeking to delude, Black loathsome ditch, where all desert is drown'd; Vile pestilence, which all things dost confound. At first created to no other end, But to grieve those, whom ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... and my feet, that I may not rebel against Thee," but how of His own will He extends His hands and feet, and gladly allows them to be pierced with nails. Look down, I pray Thee, not on the brazen serpent hanging on a pole for the salvation of Israel, but on Thine only Son hanging on the Cross for the salvation of all men. It is not Moses who now stretches out his hand to heaven, that the thunder and lightning and the other plagues may cease, but it is Thy beloved Son, who lovingly stretches ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... the Inca were kept at court, both for grandeur and also to please the Indians who presented them. When I came to Cuzco, I remember there were some remains of places where they kept these creatures. One was the serpent conservatory, and another where they kept the pumas, jaguars, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... since the first Eden the inevitable trail of the serpent has been over all, and too often it comes in its halcyon hours. Insidiously and surely came the stealthy trail of our serpent in the declining health of my husband, and the impending danger to the dear ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... made out of a single ruby lined inside with precious stones, also a skin of the serpent that swallows elephants, which had spots upon its back like pieces of gold, and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... the last word, she saw a stir about the stern which lay furthest in up the creek, and while she quaked with failing heart, lo! a big serpent, mouldy and hairy, grey and brown-flecked, came forth from under the stern and went into the water and up the bank and so into the dusk of the alder-wood. Birdalone stood awhile pale and heartsick for fear, and when her feet felt life in them, she turned ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... half-mile the road ascended a slight elevation, and the character of the soil changed abruptly into clay of vivid red, which, extending a dozen yards up the rain-washed hillside, appeared, in a general view of the landscape, like the scarlet tongue protruding from the silvery body of a serpent. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... are combined, and which are easily formed and become widely current when the sea is concerned. Of such are 'sea-coast,' 'sea-forces' (the 'land- and sea-forces' used to be a common designation of what we now call the 'Army and Navy'), 'sea-service,' 'sea-serpent,' and 'sea-officer' (now superseded by 'naval officer'). The term in one form is as old as the fifteenth century. Edward III, in commemoration of the naval victory of Sluys, coined gold 'nobles' which bore on one side his effigy 'crowned, standing in a ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... and sausage, and polony, and plenty more besides of a like sort. And therewithal privilege no less should be allowed to my pen than to the pencil of the painter, who without incurring any, or at least any just, censure, not only will depict St. Michael smiting the serpent, or St. George the dragon, with sword or lance at his discretion; but male he paints us Christ, and female Eve, and His feet that for the salvation of our race willed to die upon the cross he fastens thereto, now with ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... that which is necessary. Beneath the trunk and the upper jaw is what is meant to represent the distended jaws of a serpent; on it is inscribed the family name, | | | |, Can, the mouth (chi) of the serpent giving the second part of the name. Canchi means "serpent's mouth," and was the name of the royal family that ruled over the Mayas when their civilization was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... strength, and his force dreadful—broad were his paws, and his head immense. Just at that moment Shedad and his brothers came up. They saw Antar address the lion, and heard the verses that he repeated; he sprang forward like a hailstorm, and hissed at him like a black serpent—he met the lion as he sprang and outroared his bellow; then, giving a dreadful shriek, he seized hold of his mouth with his hand, and wrenched it open to his shoulders, and he shouted aloud—the valley and the country round echoed ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... broom" and plumes from the eagle's wing. But sadder far is the spectacle of millions of men made for fellowship with God, building their hopes on the divinity dwelling in an amulet of tiger's teeth or serpent's fangs or curious shells. And it ought to enlarge our natures with a Christ-like sympathy when we contemplate those dark and desperate faiths which are but nightmares of the soul, which see in all the universe only malevolent spirits to be appeased, which, looking heavenward ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... insect of iron was endowed with the will of a demon. Now and then this colossal grass-hopper would strike the low ceiling of the gun-deck, then falling back on its four wheels, like a tiger on all fours, rush upon the man. He—supple, agile, adroit—writhed like a serpent before these lightning movements. He avoided encounters; but the blows from which he escaped fell with destructive force upon the vessel. A piece of broken chain remained attached to the carronade. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... aside your idle boasts, No Pleasure thus you'll find; The flowing bowl a serpent is To poison Soul ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... and blot out the beautiful picture he had painted. I saw him stab love dead at his feet. I saw him blot out the stars and the sun, and leave humanity and the universe in eternal darkness, and eternal death. I saw him like the Serpent of old, worm himself into the paradise of human hearts, and by his seductive eloquence and the subtle devices of his sophistry, inject his fatal venom, under whose blight its flowers faded, its music was hushed, its sunshine was darkened, and the soul was left ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... would have dared to betray himself thus far, had not I presently perceived his drift and wormed him of these dismal cogitations of the spirit. He beat about, and hovered, and fluttered, and chirped mournfully, like the poor infatuated bird that beholds the serpent's mouth open, into which it is immediately to drop and be devoured. However, having begun, I was determined to make him unburden his whole heart. If hereafter he can possibly find courage to face me, in order to reproach, I have my lesson ready. 'Out of thy ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... spring-time, nor night-old ice; The serpent when he sleepeth, nor girl's advice; The mind of changeful woman not long abideth, And fickleness of ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... "It's that—that good-for-nothin' serpent, Jake Fairthorn!" cried Miss Lavender. "I see it all now. Much Gilbert could tell you, howsever, or you him, o' my business, and haven't I a right to it, as well as other folks; but never mind, fine as it's spun it'll come to the sun, as they say o' flax and sinful doin's; not that ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... she whispered with well-concealed ill-humour, a smile compelled upon her face but a serpent in her voice. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... doors lookin' at the posters, an' payin' out good money that ought to go into the missionary boxes for the heathen in the Sandwich Islands, to go an' see filums of wimmen without half enough clothes on. We read in the Wallacetown Bugle that there was goin' to be a picture called 'The Serpent of the Nile' an' Joe an' I thought we could risk that, it sounded kinder geographical an' instructive. Of course we went mostly to see the new buildin' an' who else would be there, anyway. But land! the serpent was a girl dressed ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... her captives thrall. Hence it is not surprising to one who has seen her a great deal, and has felt the peculiarity of her power, to find in Lehmann's portrait of her—which is, perhaps, the most characteristic of all that have been taken—a subtle resemblance to a serpent, which is at once fascinating and startling. Mrs. Jameson mentions that when she first saw her in Hermione, she was reminded of a Lamia, or serpent nature in woman's form. As you look at Lehmann's portrait ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... year and begin the new with a clean record. It is a measure absolutely necessary. The snake does not put on his new skin over the old one. He sloughs off the first, before he dons the second. He would be a very clumsy serpent, if he did not. One cannot have successive layers of friendships any more than the snake has successive layers of skins. One must adopt some system to guard against a congestion of the heart from plethora of loves. I go in for the much-abused fair-weather, skin-deep, April-shower ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... felt the endless years in Amsterdam slip off him like the coils of some icy serpent, as he recognized the genial voice of the Porto physician, and though he was back again in the dungeon of the Holy Office, it was not the gloom of the vault that he felt, but sunshine and blue skies and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the Lord sent fiery serpents among them. "And they bit the people; and much people of Israel died." Then Moses sought the Lord for them and He heard and gave them a remedy against the bite of the serpents. He commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole in sight of all the people, "and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." Moses obeyed, "and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... away like a hawk, he clucks like a goose, he is safe from destruction as the serpent Nehebkau. Avaunt, ye lions that obstruct my path. O Ra, thou ascending one, let me rise with thee, and have a triumphant arrival to my old ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the chamber. She smiled, and the odours of sandal, coreopsis, and aloes encircled his soul like the plaited strands of her glorious hair. She was that other Lilith, the only offspring of the old Serpent. On what storied fresco, limned by what worshipper of Satan, had these accursed lineaments, this lithe, seductive figure, been shown! Names of Satanic painters, from Hell-fire Breughel to Arnold Boecklin, from Felicien Rops to Franz ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... met and conquered his enemy. The mere personal expression of his anger had relieved him. He felt strong, alert, almost happy. He descended to the street and turned his steps homeward. At last something was accomplished. The serpent's fangs were drawn. He experienced a cynical amusement in the thought that the path of true love had been smoothed by such equivocal means. Neither of the children would ever know of the shadows that had gathered so closely ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... could not help remembering their family name and connections; we thought of those disagreeable gentlemen the anacondas, the rattlesnakes, and the copper-heads, and all of that bad line, immediate family friends of the old serpent to whom we are indebted for all the mischief that is done in this world. So we were quite apprehensive when we saw how our new neighbourhood was infested by them, until a neighbour calmed our fears by telling us that snakes always crawled out of their holes to sun themselves in ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... half-minute passed. Then, fully dressed, Forrester went with the High Priestess to a golden door half-hidden in the hangings at the side of the room. She made a series of mystical signs: the circle, the serpent and others ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was brushed from his garments and he had warmed himself by the cheerful fire blazing on the hearth. Then, sitting in his easy-chair, and moving the lamp nearer to him, he took Mrs. Meredith's letter and broke the seal, starting as if a serpent had stung him when, in the note inclosed, he recognized his own handwriting, the same he had sent to Anna when his heart was so full of hope as the brown stalks now beating against his windows with a dismal sound were full of fragrant blossoms. Both had died since then—the roses and his hopes—And ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... the arm. When the trap was thus set it lay flat on the ground, and Skookie motioned the boys to keep away from it—something which all were willing to do, for the barbed arm of the klipsie resembled nothing so much as a fanged serpent with its head back ready to ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... like to see that!" he cried. "What is it like down there? Do sharks come by,—swish! with their great tails? And why don't they eat you, like the man in the geography book? And is there really a sea-serpent? And do the oysters open and shut their mouths, so that you can see the pearls, or how do you know ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... considering what would be the best 195course to pursue, and was just coming out to consult you, when the door was flung open, and Wilford and Wentworth entered hastily. The moment Wilford's eyes fell upon me he started as if a serpent had stung him, and his brow ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... betwixt the departure of Manlius and the taking of Tunis, we are to place the memorable combat of Regulus and his whole army, with a serpent of so prodigious a size, that the fabulous one of Cadmus is hardly comparable to it. The story of this serpent was elegantly written by Livy, but it is now lost. Valerius Maximus, however, partly repairs that loss; and in the last chapter of his ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... the lofty towers on the walls rose the great sanctuary of the Magi,[1] the immense Temple of Bel, visible in all quarters of the city, and seen for miles from every part of the flat plain on which Babylon stood. The huge staircase wound like a serpent round and round the outside of the building to the highest story, which contained the sanctuary itself and also the observatory whence ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... true I knew, that his expenses, and his confidence in deceitful friends, had embarrassed his means, and clouded his spirits; yet I thought he denied me pleasures and amusements still within our reach. My vanity was mortified! My confidence not courted. The serpent tongue of my seducer promised every thing. But never could such arguments avail, till, assisted by forged letters, and the treachery of a servant, whom I most confided in, he fixed my belief that ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... of the soul, till Adam, with his loss of Paradise, debauched it with jealousies, fears and curiosities, and mixed it with all that was afflicting; but you'll say he had reason to be jealous, whose woman, for want of other seducers, listened to the serpent, and for the love of change, would give way even to a devil; this little love of novelty and knowledge has been entailed upon her daughters ever since, and I have known more women rendered unhappy and miserable from this torment of curiosity, which ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Lake Leman, Walled in by Mt. Blanc. One sees the whole world round you, And beyond you, Lake Michigan. And when the melodious winds of March Wrinkle you and drive on the shore The serpent rifts of sand and snow, And sway the giant limbs of oaks, Longing to bud, The boats put forth for the ports that began to stir, With the creak of reels unwinding the nets, And the ring of the caulking wedge. But in the June days— The Alabama ploughs through liquid tons Of sapphire waves. She sinks ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... an instant later, we were both outside in the passage. Coincident with our arrival there, arose a sudden outcry from some place at the westward end. A high-pitched, grating voice, in which guttural notes alternated with a serpent-like ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... springs, and promised to furnish an abundant supply of water. To furnish water for the numerous mills about Mountain City and in Nevada gulch a large ditch had been dug, which started up in the mountains near the Snowy range, and wound like a huge serpent around promontories and the sides and heads of numerous gulches, with a slight incline, for some fifteen miles. It passed around the hills which bordered Leavenworth gulch, a few hundred yards above our mill site. About the ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... his name, and be persecuted for the sake of his gospel, we patiently submit, and are joyful upon the occasion; though the flesh may rebel against the spirit, and hearken to the council of the old serpent, yet the truths of the gospel shall prevent such advice from being taken, and Christ shall bruise the serpent's head. We are not comfortless to confinement, for we have faith; we fear not affliction, for we have hope; and we forgive our enemies, for we have charity. Be not under apprehensions ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... the issue of punishment, as likewise of vengeance, in the case of wild beasts such as thou art, behoveth to be death, whereas for human beings that should suffice whereof thou speakest. Wherefore, albeit I am no eagle, knowing thee to be no dove, but a venomous serpent, I mean to pursue thee, as an immemorial enemy, with every hate and all my might, albeit this that I do to thee can scarce properly be styled vengeance, but rather chastisement, inasmuch as vengeance should overpass the offence and this will not attain thereto; for that, an I sought to avenge ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... nothing but volunteers, and all of good family. It is pleasant when on service not to be forced to be on intimate terms with unpleasant fellows. This Marchas was as sharp as possible, as cunning as a fox and as supple as a serpent. He could scent the Prussians as well as a dog can scent a hare, could find victuals where we should have died of hunger without him, and he obtained information from everybody, and information which was always reliable, with ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Babylonia either to India[153] or to the country where Indians and Iranians dwelt together. There is a Semitic flavour too in the Indian legend of the Churning of the Ocean[154]. The Gods and Asuras effect this by using a huge serpent as a rope to whirl round a mountain and from the turmoil there arise various marvellous personages and substances including the moon. This resembles in tone if not in detail the Babylonian creation myths, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... be just underneath them; and there they place themselves with their mouth uppermost, and there, as is conceived, they do eject poyson upon the bird; for the bird do suddenly come down again in its course of a circle, and falls directly into the mouth of the serpent; which is very strange. He is a great traveller; and, speaking of the tarantula, he says that all the harvest long (about which times they are most busy) there are fidlers go up and down the fields every where, in expectation of being hired by those that are ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... have been uttered on any other theme. The identification of Nebuchadnezzar with the bull Apis is not precisely an effort of genius; but the assembling, and putting through their paces, of Balaam's ass and Jonah's whale, the serpent of Eden, and the raven of the Ark, with the three prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and with an historical King Amasis and an unhistorical Princess Amaside thrown in, is less a conte a dormir debout, as Voltaire's countrymen ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... conditions quite so much as I could have hoped. Ezra, however, rejected them for her with manly scorn, until he was reminded that the high wages would speed the end of his own ambitions—namely, to replace his barn with a conventicle of brick. So he let his wife loose into Eden with the Serpent. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... Deacon's Orders She Combeth Not Her Head She Cometh Not, She Said Trial of a Servant Trail of the Serpent Essays of a Liar Essays of Elia Soap and Tables AEsop's Fables Pocketbook's Hill Puck of Pook's Hill Dentist's Infirmary Dante's Inferno ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... it is all hypocrisy, if I find you a serpent that I have warmed in my bosom, you will be a wicked girl, an ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... knew was nothing more than legendary lore, and in their memories there dimly floated a story of a land which grew darker and darker as one travelled towards the end of the earth and drew nearer to the place where a great serpent lay supine and coiled round the whole world. Ah! then the ancients must have referred to this, where the light is so ghastly, and the woods are endless, and are so still and solemn and grey; to this oppressive loneliness, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... of the Second Coming was made in Eden. It was made in the promise given to the woman that her seed should bruise the serpent's head. On the cross the serpent bruised the heel of the woman's seed, but her seed did not bruise the serpent's head. Never was his head more uplifted and unbruised than now. The promise of the bruising is of God and must be fulfilled. The ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... people firmly believed that he had made a compact with the devil, that the term had expired, and that Satan had met him in the woods and broken his neck. He was a tall, finely formed man, as black as ebony, and his movements always reminded me of a serpent. ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... shady vale can stay him, Nor can flowers, Round his knees all-softly twining With their loving eyes detain him; To the plain his course he taketh, Serpent-winding, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... a surgeon by our instrument makers. The fangs are like needles with obliquely cut points and slit-like outlets. The poison glands correspond to the bulb of a syringe. They are, in reality, highly modified salivary glands. From them, when the serpent strikes, is ejected a pale straw-colored half-oleaginous fluid. You might swallow it with impunity. But once in the blood, through a cut ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... the Genesis account is told of what goes on in the mysterious realm within us. It is told as though it were an external happening, it is in reality an internal affair. The Paradise and the Fall, the Voice of God and the tempting voice of the serpent, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, are all in our own hearts as they were in the heart of Adam. Heaven and Hell are there. The one stands fully revealed in the triumphant Adam, who ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... should believe, after all the growth of the ages, that the soul was made to be imprisoned in a fleshly prison. It was intended that it should burst its barriers and press toward the light. There is an eternal enmity between the serpent and the soul, and the serpent's head must be bruised, but the soul resisting all the forces and fascinations of the flesh, rising on that which has been cast down to higher things, slowly but surely, painfully but with ever added strength moves toward the ideal humanity which has ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... an alligator which was crossing the stream a few yards ahead of them, with a live boa in his jaws. The huge serpent was about twelve feet long, and wriggled horribly to escape, but the monster had it fast by the middle. Evidently its doom ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... the humble air affected by her, is a deal too haughty for me. It is as much as her foot does, swathed in its white coverings, if it just touches the earth, now purpling where the old serpent writhes. Her eyes are the loveliest eyes in the world; but they are always turned heavenwards, or else they are cast down. They never look you straight in the face. They have never served as the mirror of a human form.... ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... xvii: 2. Accordingly, the Lord Jesus, immediately on the fall of our first parents, entered upon his work of mediation. To them first he announced his commission, declaring his purpose to "bruise the serpent's head—to destroy the works of the devil." Gen. iii: 15; 1 John iii: 8. Christ is given "for a witness to the people; a leader and commander to the people; to have power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... extended his hand with the simple words "Good-bye." Miss Carmichael did not offer hers in return; she said: "It is hardly worth while being so formal over an absence of a few hours." Coristine turned as if a serpent had bitten him, slipped some money into Maguffin's hand, as that worthy held open the gate for him, and vaulted on his horse, nor did he turn to look round so long as the eyes of Bridesdale ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... they fought so close in shore). This threw the men at the guns into confusion, and brought the ship up in the wind. The cable was at last separated, and flew out of the hawse-hole after the anchor, which plunged to the bottom but this was not effected, until, like an enormous serpent, it had enfolded in its embraces three or four hapless men, who were carried with dreadful velocity to the hawse-hole, where their crushed bodies for a time stopped it from running out, and gave their shipmates an opportunity of ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... thoughtful; her hand slipped from Zoroaster's grasp, and her eyes looked dreamily out at the river, on which the beams of the now fully-risen moon glanced, as on the scales of a silver serpent. ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Christ obtained that unlimited freedom of intercourse with the populace, which, as a religious proselytizer, he never could have obtained. Here, therefore, and perhaps by the very earliest exemplification of the serpent's wisdom and foresight engrafting itself upon the holy purposes of dovelike benignity, Christ kept open for himself (and for his disciples in times to come) the freedom of public communication, and the license of public meetings. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... saw thee, I drew into mine eyes mine own destruction, I pull'd into my heart that sudden poyson, That now consumes my dear content to cinders: I am not now Demetrius, thou hast chang'd me; Thou, woman, with thy thousand wiles hast chang'd me; Thou Serpent with thy angel-eyes hast slain me; And where, before I touch'd on this fair ruine, I was a man, and reason made, and mov'd me, Now one great lump of ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (2 of 10) - The Humourous Lieutenant • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... wild, irregular walk runs, serpent like, all round the garden, which, situated at the head of the valley, is shut in by the hills—itself a wilderness of luxuriance and beauty. It was a glorious evening, and every thing in agreement with our quiet ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... with your blandishing ways, have not been put out of sight, and reduced to positive declarations!—Hindered from playing your little declarations!—Hindered from playing your little whining tricks! curling, like a serpent about your mamma; and making her cry to deny you any thing your little obstinate heart was ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... artem, he opened all the batteries of his fascination upon her. He rolled his eyes at her with a violence approaching to agony; he bowed; he displayed in every possible and captivating attitude his one living leg—but his surpassing strength was in the adulation of his serpent tongue—and she bore it all so stoically; she would smile upon him when he made a good hit, as upon an actor on the boards—she would, at times, even condescend to improve some of his compliments upon herself; and when her easy manners had perchance overset ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... associations, for there was something in the incident which made food distasteful and his sleep uneasy for many days afterwards. The memory of it however had almost passed away, when at the corner of a street in Pisa, he came upon an African showman exhibiting a great serpent: once more, as the reptile writhed, the former painful impression revived: it was like a peep into the lower side of the real world, and again for many days took all sweetness from food and sleep. He wondered ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... so far as heaven through music Its most magic cures effecteth, Since no witchcraft is so potent But sweet music may dispel it. It doth tame the raging wild beast, Lulls to sleep the poisonous serpent, And makes evil genii, who Are revolted spirits—rebels— Fly in fear, and in this art I have always been most perfect: Wrongly would I act to-day, In not striving for the splendid Prize which will be mine, when I See myself the loved and wedded Wife of the ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... spoken in an undertone. He stood like a man transfixed as he uttered it. There came to Avery a quick hot impulse to intervene, to protect him from some hidden danger, she knew not what, that had risen like a serpent in his path. But before she could take any action, the critical moment was passed. Piers ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the dross of the nations?" However, the rulers of the Church grew more and more alarmed at the circulation of the book. At length Archbishop Arundel, a zealous but not very learned prelate, complained to the Pope of "that pestilent wretch, John Wycliffe, the son of the old Serpent, the forerunner of Antichrist, who had completed his iniquity by inventing a new translation of the Scriptures"; and, shortly after, the Convocation of Canterbury forbade such translations, under penalty of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... herd Troop at her bidding, roused from lazy sleep; Raven-fish, salmon, salpouth, at her word, And mullet hurry through the briny deep, With monstrous backs above the water, sail Ork, physeter, sea-serpent, shark, and whale. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... the whiteness on their heads; But in their visages the dazzled eye Was lost, as faculty that by too much Is overpower'd. "From Mary's bosom both Are come," exclaim'd Sordello, "as a guard Over the vale, ganst him, who hither tends, The serpent." Whence, not knowing by which path He came, I turn'd me round, and closely press'd, All frozen, to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... cautiously till he could see over the bow, he discovered the serpent, which was nearly six feet long, working slowly down a dead log towards the water. Springing to his feet on the bow, he struck down with his weapon, directing the fork at the neck of the reptile. The outside of the log was nothing but punk, or the operation would have been a failure. As it ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... sights the Cape of Good Hope of Schouten, and the island named after that navigator. On the 24th the crew witnessed a curious spectacle: "Two fish, which had accompanied the vessel for five or six days, perceived a great sea serpent, and began to pursue it. They were about the shape and size of mackerel, but yellow and green in colour. The serpent, who fled from them with great swiftness, carried his head out of the water, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... worthless. Hey! Prince Witold is my prince! In craftiness he is unsurpassable. He is more crafty than all of them together. Those dog-brothers had him cornered once, the sword was over his head and he was about to perish, but, like a serpent, he slipped from their hands and bit them.... Be on your guard when he strikes, but be exceedingly careful when ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz |
