"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long and a finger thick, and can be bought at wholesale confectioneries) and rub each piece of wood over with butter; roll the paste out very thin and cut it into strips of about 1 inch wide and 9 inches long; wind a strip of the paste around each piece of wood, snake-like, brush them over with beaten egg, lay them in shallow tins and bake in a quick oven; when done remove the pieces of wood and when cold fill the cannelous with whipped cream flavored with vanilla ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... The snake was coiled some half-dozen yards from us. Upon the top coil was poised his hideous head; above it vibrated the bony, fleshless vertebrae of the tail. The little schoolmarm stared at the beast, fascinated by fear and horror. Ajax cut a switch from ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... this piece of intelligence: the ring dropped front his hand, and shivered into a thousand pieces; his eye glistened like that of a rattle-snake; and some minutes elapsed before he could pronounce, "Avast! overhaul that ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... out upon the street into heaps of brick and red dust. Stumps of building still stood, blackened down their surface, as if lightning had visited them. Wire that had once been telegraph and telephone crawled over the piles of wreckage, like a thin blue snake. The car grazed a large pig, that had lost its pen and trough and was scampering wildly at each fresh ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... wood-pigeon. This is a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole from tree to tree, and muffled his footsteps in the long grass so adroitly that, just as he was going to pull the trigger, he stepped light as a feather on a venomous snake. It ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... the serpent deadly brood appears; First the dull Asp its swelling neck uprears; The huge Hemor'rho[:i]s, vampire of the blood; Chersy'ders, that pollute both field and flood; The Water-serpent, tyrant of the lake; The hooded Cobra; and the Plantain snake; Here with distended jaws the Prester strays; And Seps, whose bite both flesh and bone decays; The Amphisbaena with its double head, One on the neck, and one of tail instead; The horned Cerast[^e]s; and the Hammodyte, Whose sandy hue might balk the keenest ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... is. You can't have seen her, or you would remember her. Nobody could forget her. I never saw such a face except in pictures. And her hair! It made me think of Browning's 'cord of gold' and 'gorgeous snake'!" ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... tree, with long projecting surface roots, and this saved the tiger much trouble, for he got on to one of the roots, and carefully balanced himself on it, and so without noise was able to walk quickly along till he came to the butt which he seemed to wind round like a snake, and he then got on to a corresponding root on the other side, and walked along that. In short, he approached so gradually and noiselessly, and his colour against the brown dry leaves was so invisible, that he got quite close to the bullock before it perceived him. The moment it ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... not civil; he's a beast of a man. There's no sort of low trick that he hasn't done, only it can't be proved against him; for he's the sort of beast that is a snake; he only married madame for the money he'll get with her. It was when she learned that that she wrote to him not to come back; but he never sent an honest word to say whether he'd stay away or not. She ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Lahoma find him. I'm like you, Bill, I hates that lover like a snake this minute, though I ain't no idea who, where, or what he is, or may be. I hates him—but I ain't going to stand in Lahoma's way. No, sir, I 'low to meet civilization ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... his pipe being seldom from his mouth; besides which, he has always his do-little sword by his side, made by themselves of such iron as they get from the Europeans; his bow also, and quiver full of poisoned arrows, pointed with iron like a snake's-tongue, or else a case of javelins or darts, having iron heads of good breadth and made ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... appeared up against the sky, though as yet the masts of the vessels could not be discerned. There was no doubt, however, of their being on the right course. Not a word was spoken. The men scarcely dared to breathe as they pulled on, so anxious were they to avoid discovery. Like a snake coiling its way among the grass, the line of boats advanced steadily up the harbour. The fort was passed. Deane thought he could hear the footsteps of the sentry as he passed up and down; but as yet they were not seen or heard. ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... opposite were large flat walls, red in colour, and roofed like a barn, and before one black doorway some fifty or sixty people had collected. The manager pushed his way through the crowd, and soon after, like a snake into a hole, the line began to disappear. Hender explained that this was the way to the pit, and what Kate took for a cellar was the stage entrance. A young man with a big nose, whom she recognized as Mr. Montgomery, stared at them as he passed; ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... replied. "You've got to remember, Ross, that the Mississippi doesn't run in a straight line; it bends and twists like a snake. In the bends the current strikes on the outwardly curving bank, and, as you know, the water is always deep there. This causes a rapid caving and erosion of the bank. At the foot of each bend, the main flow crosses to the other side, where it strikes the bank ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... you know Scott Parsons has had four young calves by one milch cow, all the same age? Ree-markable man, Scott. Say, I was by there the other day and there sat Scott in the corral on Ginger cracking a black snake at this fool cow to make her let those four slicks eat. He'll die rich, Scott will. He's the calf-gettingest rider ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... deserted, but Gordon found no difficulty in filling their places from his prisoners and the villages round Quinsan. It is worthy of note that his own bodyguard was mainly composed of Taeping prisoners, and some of the most faithful of them had been the bearers of the Snake banners of the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... concerned, as one would expect, with the Genius of the master of the house, the pre-eminent Genius of the family. Its special locality was, for the reason just noticed, the marriage-bed and its symbol, the house-snake, kept as a revered inmate and cherished in the feeling that evil happening to it meant misfortune to the master. The festival of the Genius was naturally the master's birthday, and on that day slaves and freedmen kept holiday with the family and brought offerings ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... distant shore; Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around, Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake, Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, And savage men, more murderous still than they. Far different these from every former ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... fondness for her children to weakness, and her love for Roderigo to sensuality. In the depth of her heart she relied on the influence she had been able to exercise over him for nearly thirty years; and like a snake, she knew haw to envelop him in her coils when the fascination of her glance had lost its power. Rosa knew of old the profound hypocrisy of her lover, and thus she was in no ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the groaning of timbers, the grinding, creaking sound, then came the roaring street. Plastering and wall decorations fell. The sensation was as if the buildings were stretching and writhing like a snake. The darkness was intense. Shrieks of women, higher, shriller than that of the creaking timbers, cut the air. I tumbled from the bed and crawled, scrambling toward the door. The twisting and writhing appeared to increase. The air was oppressive. I seemed to be saying to myself, will it never, ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... Nashola sat beside him, listening with strained ears to every sound—the soft moving of a snake through the grass before the door, the nibbling of a field mouse at the skin of the tent, the sharp scream of a bird in the wood captured by a marauding owl. The blackness grew thinner at last, showing the lodge poles, the shabby ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... approach of a temptation to sin? Why are there not always waters in mine eyes, to testify my spiritual sickness? I stand in the way of temptations, naturally, necessarily; all men do so; for there is a snake in every path, temptations in every vocation; but I go, I run, I fly into the ways of temptation which I might shun; nay, I break into houses where the plague is; I press into places of temptation, and tempt the devil himself, and solicit ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... will gather round, and they'll launch me in the ground, And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil; And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave, Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil. And they'll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire's glow, As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to Kingdom Come, And who went the pace ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... "Paolo! Paolo is a snake, a venomous viper! It is his business, his only aim in life, to destroy my peace, to pervert my daughter from the wholesome views I have tried to teach her, to turn you aside from the narrow path of austere Italian ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... the first strip of wood and was in the succeeding stony sterile space when a gleam of brilliant colour close by on the ground caught my sight. It was a snake lying on the bare earth; had I kept on without noticing it, I should most probably have trodden upon or dangerously near it. Viewing it closely, I found that it was a coral snake, famed as much for its beauty and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... simple articles as a pocket-knife, a water-bag, etc., which are indispensable to a traveller in our country, everyone ought to carry with him a good plaster, a nosebag, and some snake poison; maize (mealies) for his horse, the cheapest and most strengthening food that we know of, can always be carried in the nosebag. Snake poison prepared by a good Kaffir doctor is the only cure for snake-bites ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... face grew happy, and he smiled, and he said: "I put it for thee one autumntide in the snake's hole in the bank above the river, amidst the roots of the old thorn-tree, that the snake might brood it, and make the gold grow greater; but when winter was over and we came to look for it, lo! there was neither ring ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... the feelings which he entertained with respect to her sex, he should be unable to treat her with common affection, and concluded by repeating a proverb which he had learnt from an Arab whom he had met at Venice, to the effect that, 'one who has been stung by a snake, shivers at the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... us some amends, we had no disturbance upon all the shores of this lake from any wild beasts; the only inconveniency of that kind was, that we met an ugly, venomous, deformed kind of a snake or serpent in the wet grounds near the lake, that several times pursued us as if it would attack us; and if we struck or threw anything at it, it would raise itself up and hiss so loud that it might be heard ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... particular nation. Of foreign travel and of history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?"' Macaulay's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... didn't know! I mean the man of d-d-destiny! He is a snake charmer, Pepeeta! He just fairly b-b-bamboozled you! I was laughing in my sleeve and saying to myself, 'He's bamboozled Pepeeta; but he can't b-b-bamboozle me!' When he up and did it! Tee-totally did it! And if he can bamboozle me, he can ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... got nothing for his trifling question. And then it all came out what a heartless jilt Mrs. Molie was. She had known all the time that Mr. Hoey had been on a traveling scholarship in Switzerland, but she had never mentioned it. What a snake in the grass! She had even encouraged the lawyer, but no one ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... If that snake had wriggled in, he would have drawn after him the whole herd of vipers; his brother Demogorcon and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... omit mention of the barbaric chants which Sardanapalus chanted to Elagabalus, and his mother and grandmother, all three, as also of the secret sacrifices that he offered to him: at these he slaughtered boys, and used charms, besides shutting up in the god's temple a live lion and monkey and snake, throwing in among them human genitals, and practicing other unholy rites, while he wore invariably innumerable amulets. [Sidenote:—12—] But to run briefly over these matters, he actually (most ridiculous of all) courted ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... when you get into these brick and mortar tunnels. That's what I call the streets. The air even isn't clean," went on the lumberman. "Give me the woods, with a fresh wind blowing, and the world looks good to me," then his voice and face fell, as he added, "excepting that snake-in-the-grass, Ged Raffer." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... the artist, but invited her to make portraits of some of his wives, for which Mrs. Cookesley had not time. Her pictures of Oriental subjects have been successful. Among these are: "An Arab Cafe in the Slums of Cairo," much noticed in the Academy Exhibition of 1895; "Noon at Ramazan," "The Snake-Charmer," "Umbrellas to Mend—Damascus," and a group of the "Soudanese Friends of Gordon." Her "Priestess of Isis" is ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... again every minute; it is seen to be alive by its responsiveness to the spirit, to the intelligence that created it and that keeps re-creating it. I have known thousands of factories; and every factory I have known that is really strong or efficient has scales like a snake, and casts off its old self. All the people in it, and all the iron and wood in it, month by month are being renewed and shedding themselves. Any live factory can always be seen moulting year after year. A live spirit goes all through the machinery, a kind of nervous ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... whosoever's hands he happened to be at the time, and despite Mr. Mollenhauer and Mr. Simpson and Mr. Butler he proposed to attempt to keep him in his own hands if possible. And so he stood there looking at him as might a snake at a bird determined to galvanize him into selfish self-interest if possible. But Stener was so frightened that at the moment it looked as though there was little to be done with him. His face was a grayish-blue: his eyelids and eye rings puffy and ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... superstitions of the simple folk about them. Their religion, which is so continually before us, furnishing the very mainspring of the fatal denouement, is of the most superficial sort, if it can be called religion at all. Whether you are bitten by a dog, a wolf, or a snake, or lose your eyesight, or are in danger of losing your lover, you run to the shrine of some saint for help. The religious feeling really runs no deeper. In his outburst of grief upon seeing Mireio prone upon the floor of the chapel, the unhappy boy asks what he has done to merit such a blow. ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... 'Tis useless to deny it. The young man would spy upon the Indians and then go and tell the great English general of what he has seen. He is a snake in the grass, close to the trail of ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... soft thud of their own footfalls to relieve the anxious intentness of their ears. Not a bird-note, not the flutter of a wing, not the hum or the darting of a single insect, disturbed the strangely heavy air. No snake or lizard or squeaking mouse scurried among the fallen leaves. They wondered greatly at such stillness. Then they wondered at the absence of small undergrowth, the lack of other shrubs and trees such as were wont to grow together in the warm jungle. Nothing anywhere ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... valleys and canons, is extremely rugged in its northern parts, and chiefly useful for cattle-raising; there is a plateau in the centre, some arid prairie land in the S., and lake districts in the N. and in the SE.; grain farming is restricted to fringes along the river banks; the Snake River flows through the whole S.; silver, lead, gold, and copper mines are wrought successfully, and coal is found; the State was admitted to the Union in 1890; a fifth of the population are Mormons; there are still 4000 Indians. Boise City ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... arrival, we accompanied one of our schoolfellows down to the valley of the Grindelwald, specially to see the head of the snake-glacier, which having crept thither can creep no further. Somebody had even then hollowed out a cave in it. We crossed a little brook which issued from it constantly, and entered. Charley uttered a cry of dismay, but I was too much delighted at the moment to heed him. For the whole ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... places is the turtle head. The flower resembles in shape a turtle's or a snake's head, ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... whispered Watson. Without any more words the two began to wriggle along the ground and kept up this snake-like motion until they reached the edge of the wood. It was slow work and very tiresome, but it was their one chance of escape. Then they stood up, and ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... screams, 210 Dips his dry beak, and sweeps the gushing streams; With foamy jaws, beneath, and sanguine tongue, Laps the lean Wolf, and pants, and runs along; Stern stalks the Lion, on the rustling brinks Hears the dread Snake, and trembles as he drinks; 215 Quick darts the scaly Monster o'er the plain, Fold after fold, his undulating train; And, bending o'er the lake his crested brow, Starts at the ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... though father would not credit me. I knew his halt and his eye—just like the venomous little snake that was the death, of poor Foster. He is the same with the witch woman Tibbott, ay, and with her with the beads and bracelets, who beset ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... don't lose your temper, my boy. It's dangerous work rousing a venomous snake until its poison ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... must have been a black-snake, for it was black, and didn't rattle its tail when it poked out its ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... that they are perfectly awake; they exhaust no spirits, and require no repairs; but lie torpid as a toad in marble, or at least are known to live only by an inert and sluggish locomotive faculty, and may be said, like a wounded snake, to "drag their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... larger number of more or less imaginary varieties which figure in the ancient books we shall find plenty of material for fetich-worship. In perusing the "Kojiki" one scarcely knows, when he begins a story, whether the character which to all appearance is a man or woman is to end as a snake, or whether the mother after delivering her child will or will not glide into the marsh or slide away into the sea, leaving behind a trail of slime. A dragon is three-fourths serpent, and both the dragon and the serpent are prominent figures, perhaps the most prominent of the ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... the recollection of the latter contingency more effectively upon us, the dawn next morning revealed a long, snake- like two-masted craft hovering some five miles to windward, which I by and by made out to be one of those pestilent war-galleys which were apt to prove such formidable antagonists, and to give so much trouble in such moderate weather ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... therefore they take upon them to defend all the writings of George Fox, and others of the first Quakers, and turn and wind them to make them (but it is impossible) agree with what they teach now at this day." (The Snake in the Grass, 3rd ed. 1698. Introduction.) Leslie was always more civil to his brother Jacobite Penn than to any other Quaker. Penn himself says of his master, "As abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sentences would fall from him about divine things; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... soul; They lie on hard, cold wood or stone, Iron, and ache in every bone; They hate the night: they see no eyes Of loved ones in the starlit skies. They see the cold, dark water near; They dare not take long looks for fear They'll fall like those poor birds that see A snake's eyes staring at their tree. Some of them laugh, half-mad; and some All through the chilly night are dumb; Like poor, weak infants some converse, And cough like ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... chile!" was the sympathetic response. "Ah well, honey, de good Lawd watchin' ober you. I year how dat ole snake in-de-grass Perkins git out Miss Whately's keridge en tink he gwine ter tote you off nobody know whar. You passin' troo de Red Sea long o' us, honey. I yeared how you say you doan wanter lebe yo' ole mammy. I ain' cried so sence ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... call, my pretty lamb? The wolf? The snake is scotched in the bower, and I but beseech thy gratitude. How that look of scorn becomes thee! Pout not so, my queen, or thou wilt indeed make an excuse for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... between the precipitation of the low lands and the high. Where the two were nearly the same, that is, a balance of precipitation,* the slopes might be rounded and verdure-clad, though this would depend on the AMOUNT of precipitation. On lower Snake River a change seems to be going on. The former canyon-cliffs are covered by debris and vegetation, but in places the old dry cliff-lines can be discerned beneath like a skeleton. The precipitation there has not been great enough to destroy the old ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... leaders understood this very thoroughly and they had accordingly fortified the place, which was admirably adapted for defense, with great care and skill. In front of it flowed the Mississippi, twisting and turning in such snake-like conditions that it could be navigated only by boats of a certain length and build, and on either side of the city stretched wide swamp lands and bayous completely commanded by batteries well posted on the high ground occupied by the ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... search of men who can look death in the face, and let danger play around then like a tamed snake; who prize liberty above life or honor; whose very names, hailed by the poor and the oppressed, appal the boldest, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... name—notwithstanding that Irish missionaries had nurtured her early educational institutions and reclaimed her from Paganism, she misrepresented their religion and their learning in high places, stole in upon them while they slept, and turning upon them like the frozen snake in the fable, robbed them of their independence, and loaded them with chains. Every year of her accursed dominion upon their shores has been marked with some new and overwhelming oppression. She has ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... leg leave the bed, and go out of his room door. The leg went out to a great plain, and there it saw two snakes quarrelling together. One snake said, "I will bite the king." The other said, "I will bite him." The first said, "No, you won't; I will climb on to his bed and bite him." "That you will never do," said the second. "You cannot climb on to his bed; but I will get into his shoe, ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... walking through the wood, when the Great Spirit whispered, 'Take care; a snake is crawling through the grass; he is called Hay-uta; he will strike his fangs through the moccasin of Deerfoot, unless he crushes him with his heel; Hay-uta was not brave, because he hid behind a tree, and he pointed his gun through ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... know of one small specimen of ancient English art, covering a space of five by seven inches, where the whole Garden of Eden with its weighty tragedy is represented by inch-long figures of Adam and Eve, and a man-headed snake, discussing amicably the advantages of eating or not eating ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... that woman is!" honest old Dobbin mumbled to George, when he came back from Rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her in perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's. "She writhes and twists about like a snake. All the time she was here, didn't you see, George, how she was acting at the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the war; nothing of the rights and blessings we are contending for; nor of the corruptions and cruelties of the British ministry; and are therefore just as ready to fall into their destructive jaws, as young cat-birds are to run into the mouth of a rattle-snake." ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... You see over there that peaked woody mountain which stands by itself behind La Napoule in front of the summits of the Esterel; it is called in the district Snake Mountain. There is where my solitary lived within the walls of a little antique temple about a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... those deserted streets it seemed that this seemingly dead city did but swoon after all, despite its many grievous wounds, for here was life even as the woman had said; evidences of which I saw here and there, in battered stovepipes that had writhed themselves snake-like through rusty cellar gratings and holes in wall or pavement, miserable contrivances at best, whose fumes blackened the walls whereto they clung. Still, nowhere was there sound or sight of folk save ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... two ounces and a half of rhubarb, and half an ounce of lesser cardamon seeds; steep them for a week in a quart of brandy, and strain off the tincture. To make the bitter tincture of rhubarb, add an ounce of gentian root, and a dram of snake root. The tincture is of great use in case of indigestion, pain or weakness of the stomach; and from one to three or four spoonfuls may be taken ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... unplait his long pigtail, which, like his "blind" eye, was camouflage—a false queue attached to his own hair, which he wore but slightly longer than some Europeans and many Americans. With a small pair of scissors he clipped off his long, snake-like moustaches.... ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... of molasses, set about the kitchen, the pantry, &c. in large deep plates, will kill cockroaches in great numbers, and finally rid the house of them. The Indians say that poke-root boiled into a soft poultice is the cure for the bite of a snake. I have heard of a fine horse ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... Virgil's snake, he could not have looked more surprised.—I am surprised too, cried my father, observing it,—and I reckon it as one of the greatest calamities which ever befel the republic of letters, That those who have been ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... game in the valley. In its centre was a solitary lake, black and bottomless, and haunted by a giant white water-snake, sluggish, blind and very old. Stray prospectors swore they had seen it, just at dusk, and its sightless, staring eyes were too terrible ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... NAG is a snake in Hindustani. The English Gipsies still retain this primaeval word, but apply it only to the blind-worm. It is, however, remarkable that the Nag, or blind-worm, is, in the opinion of the Rommany, the most mysterious of creatures. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... have these little medicine cases finished by then. Mother has been helping me with them. She used to belong to the Red Cross Society at one time; and besides, a doctor's wife has need of knowing about stuff that's good for stomach-aches, colds, snake ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... were the tent ropes. As I left the cook-house I decided exactly in my own mind where the bell-tent ropes extended, ditto those of the store tent and the Mess, but invariably, just as I thought I was clear, something caught my ankle as securely as any snake, and down I crashed on top of the tray, the plates, mugs, and knives scattering all around. Luckily it was months since the latter had been sharp, or a steel proof overall would have been my only hope. Distances and the supposititious length of tent ropes are inclined to be deceptive in ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... no occasion to warn the half-caste, in whom the instincts of his mother's people were paramount. Yarra was a child of the Bush; nothing would escape his eye or his ear, and at the same time he would be as swift and as secret as a snake. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and lost in solitudes; green isles 210 Here shone, and scattered huts beneath the shade Of branching palms were seen; whilst in the sun A naked infant playing, stretched his hand To reach a speckled snake, that through the leaves Oft darted, or its shining volumes rolled Erratic. From the woods a sable man Came, as from hunting; in his arms he took The smiling child, that with the feathers played ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... supported by the great ash-tree Yggdrasill, which, with its roots anchored deep in the primordial abyss, rose up through the vast central mountains of the world, and, stretching forth its branches to the furthest heaven, bore the stars as its fruit. Encircling the whole earth like a ring, lay the huge snake Midgard,—always hidden in the sea, save when half drawn forth on one occasion by the god Thor; outside the snake a broader ring of ice-mountains swept round both land and ocean, and formed the outer frame ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... I occasionally saw a snake, but always of the harmless, blindworm variety. Of this species I caught two and admired them, but I did not make pets of them as I did of nearly everything else I ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; And calm as cherished hate, its surface wears[qb] A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... prairie; The splendour of mountain and lake, With their hues that seem ever to vary; The mighty pine-forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on a snake; ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Stricta, Wild Chamomile. August will bring forth a variety of other plants, amongst others the Spirantes, or Ladies' Tresses, a very sweet-scented Orchis, with white flowers placed as a spiral round the flower stalk, the purple Eupatorium, the Snake's head, and crowds of most beautiful wild flowers, too numerous to be named here. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... [Footnote 23: Ahiphena, "snake-foam," said by Udoy Chand Dutt in his Materia Medica Indica to be derived from the Arabic afyoon, as it was apparently unknown in India ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... book has been translated and is being largely sold, and it is awful to watch the faces of the people reading it—how they blanch and quiver. It is curious, you might think, that they read it at all; but you know the dread fascination of the snake for the humming-bird. The bird sees its doom, but cannot escape, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... regiments advancing through the woods in good order; so, thinking I was just in time to see the attack, I remarked to the General that "I wouldn't have missed this for anything." Longstreet was seated at the top of a snake fence at the edge of the wood, and looking perfectly calm and imperturbed. He replied, laughing, "The devil you wouldn't! I would like to have missed it very much; we've attacked ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... the ground. He says in the Osprey that it took considerable time and patience to build up a platform of fence boards and old boxes to enable the photographer to do his work. The half-eaten body of a young garter snake was found about midway between the upper surface of the nest and the limb above, where it had been hung up for ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Canonicus had no wish to meet a foe who was thus prompt for the encounter. He immediately sent to Governor Bradford the assurance, in Narraganset phrase, of his high consideration, and begged him to believe that the arrows and the snake skin were sent purely in a ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... for fourteen miles before we rested. The country was similar to that passed over yesterday. During the mid-day halt we walked about searching for water in the dry swamps, but were unsuccessful. Here we killed a large snake, and made off it a miserable meal, thinking that it would relieve our thirst; it made us, however, a good deal worse than we were before. We had only two quarts of water with us, and we both decided not to ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... plantations around there, as he had lived there a long time, and consequently was acquainted with all these farms. The soil was very good, and indeed of the best that we had seen anywhere. This good ground was for the most part on the declivities of the hills, and so on below. Snake Hill, of which I had heard much, and which I had imagined to myself was a large projecting hill, lies close by and is only a small round hill; and is so named on account of the numerous snakes which infest it. It stands quite alone, and is almost entirely encircled by the North Kil.[169] ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... could prance away again, the other end of that slim, black tip swung out of the branch and whipped itself round and round her body, and a black head, with sharp fangs in it, hit her biff, biff, biff! on the nose. It was the tail of a black snake she ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of individuals of each species are extraordinarily great. There is one small lizard belonging to a South American genus, and two species (and probably more) of the Amblyrhynchus—a genus confined to the Galapagos Islands. There is one snake which is numerous; it is identical, as I am informed by M. Bibron, with the Psammophis Temminckii from Chile. (17/2. This is stated by Dr. Gunther "Zoological Society" January 24, 1859, to be a peculiar species, not known to inhabit any other country.) Of sea-turtle I believe there are more ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... to domestic fowls. During a pleasant trip between San Antonio and Alquizar in a volante with a hospitable planter of that region, this subject happened to be under discussion, when we saw in the roadway a snake six or eight feet long, and as large round as the middle of one's arm. On pointing it out to our friend, he merely told us its species, and declared that a child might sleep with it unharmed. In the mean time it was a relief to see the innocent creature hasten to secrete itself ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the head off a rattlesnake when I see one," he said softly. "One day, yeahs ago, a rattlah killed a favorite dawg of mine. I blew that snake apart, bit by bit. Modoc, that snake was a gentleman alongside of yo'. I'm givin' yo' an even chance to kill me. Fill ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... five feet long, attaining occasionally, though but very rarely indeed, to a length of six feet. The greater number, however, are very much smaller, and are very various in color. Comparatively few instances have occurred wherein the bite of the snake has proved fatal to human life, and this, considering the immense number of snakes throughout the island, may be deemed remarkable. Numerous instances, however, of the death of horses, cattle, sheep, and dogs, have ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... oak and beech trees. A little distance in the wood, they reach a small rock, near which some large stones were lying, as if they had been thrown together. Thomas stopped, and said, "Samuel, this is the place where we killed a big snake last spring. You can see his hole under this rock. John and I tried hard to move these loose stones, but we could not. I dare say there are snake ...
— The Summer Holidays - A Story for Children • Amerel
... first, second, and third course, which ought to satisfy the taste of the most fastidious. For my own part, I do not object to frog's legs and snails; and if I was hungry, and could get nothing else, I would eat a snake without hesitation; but I do not ask ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... Marcia. It could not be himself of course that Marcia was missing, if indeed Aunt Clarinda was right and she was worried about anything. Perhaps something had occurred to trouble her. Could that snake of a Temple have turned up again? No, he felt reasonably sure he would have heard of that, besides he saw him not long ago on the street at a distance. Could it be some boy-lover at home whose memory ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... departing music, "Let us rise And go even now to Bethlehem, and spy This which is come to pass, shewed graciously By the Lord's angels." Therewith hasted they By olive-yards, and old walls mossed and gray Where, in close chinks, the lizard and the snake, Thinking the sunlight come, stirred, half-awake: Across the terraced levels of the vines, Under the pillared palms, along the lines Of lance-leaved oleanders, scented sweet, Through the pomegranate-gardens sped their feet; Over the causeway, up the ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... that the coyote is no fool and is difficult to stalk at best; that while he is apparently tame as long as the wagon keeps moving, he decamps when convinced that his existence is receiving undue attention; that in the present instance the short grass would not conceal a snake; and that, finally, a 16-gauge gun loaded with number-six shot was not an encouraging coyote weapon. He brushed them aside as mere details. So we let ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... replied, "The King and the inhabitants of this city are worshippers of a snake; their idol is a great serpent, to whom they have erected a large and magnificent temple, where he is attended by a great number of priests: the priests mislead the people, and what they wish takes place. Now, the King has one Princess—the daughter of his wife by a former marriage—she ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood and gazed at each other. Robin's flame had died down and her face had settled itself into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know that she herself looked at her as the Duchess might have looked at another girl ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... YOUNG PEOPLE No. 11 there is an article on the Dead-letter Office at Washington which mentions some curious things to go through the mail. There are three more very queer things I would like to mention. The first is two centipedes, which are on the shelf with the snake; the second is an iron hitching post; and the third is a live alligator about a foot and a half long. There is an old record in the office of 1778, which lasted at that time eleven years, but which, a clerk said, would last now about ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... attempt to trace all human errors directly or indirectly to God, or good, as if He were the 533:12 creator of evil. The allegory shows that the snake-talker utters the first voluble lie, which beguiles the woman and demoralizes the man. Adam, 533:15 alias mortal error, charges God and woman with his own dereliction, saying, "The woman, whom Thou gavest ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... say that you are quite right, Stanley, and I own that the dishes your man turns out look tempting; but I cannot bring myself to try, at any rate as long as I can get anything else to eat. If I knew that it was a case of snake, or nothing, I would try it; but till then, I prefer sticking ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... just lost her aunt, and is all alone; she is exposed to the power of I know not what enemy. Can it be Mercanson? He may have spoken of my conversation with him, and, seeing that I was jealous of Dalens, may have guessed the rest. Assuredly he is the snake who has been hissing about my well-beloved flower. I must punish him, and I must repair the wrong I have done Brigitte. Fool that I am! I think of leaving her, when I ought to consecrate my life to her, to the expiation of my sins, to rendering her happy after the tears I have drawn from ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... pushing me aside went round and round with his frantic cry, like a bird flying fascinated about the jaws of a snake, and made a desperate effort to warn himself by repeating: "Stand back! Stand back!! All ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... That Beelzebub gave the Emperor Vespasian the virtue of curing the lame and giving sight to the blind, by his touch, was an act praiseworthy in itself, but of which the motive was culpable. Gentlemen, distrust those false doctors, who sell the root of the bryony and the white snake, and who make washes with honey and the blood of a cock. See clearly through that which is false. It is not quite true that Orion was the result of a natural function of Jupiter. The truth is that it was Mercury who produced this star in that way. It is not ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... and thin abroad, At home, far more than ever yet was Love— Who did not quit me when Oppression trod Upon me; whom no scandal could remove; Who fought, and fight, in absence, too, my battles, Despite the snake Society's loud rattles." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... which appears abominable in its avowed haunts, finds encouragement wherever the libertine receives the smile of beauty, and the guilt 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 ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... done what I think you've done, you're lower than a snake, and more poisonous and more treacherous. And I'll cut you out of my heart and my life. You ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand |
