"Viper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of before!" he continued. "A messenger comes into my house, and goes upstairs without being seen by anybody! I will look into this. And the idea of you, Mme. Alexandre, you, a sensible woman, being idiotic enough to persuade that little viper not to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... 12-year-old girl, and not long after that he assaulted his servant, who was a girl 18 years of age, and continued his raid upon her virtue until one day, while in a drunken spree, he struck her and injured her, and she made public the actions of this human viper, who had been parading in the ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... to being blackguarded by the enemies of his country, but now he was hounded in the house of his friends. He had looked through the whole Congressional Library and failed to find a precedent for the course of the carping CARPENTER, except in the case of the classic chap who had warmed a viper which had turned again and rent him. He did not mean to say that Mr. CARPENTER was a viper, but he thought nobody but an Adder would put this and that together as ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... of her, gave her fine clothes bought with hard-earned money! Brother denies himself, denies his family, and gives her cash to buy rags, and now she and a stranger are cursing us for the shelter we gave her. It makes me sick! Why don't I die! I'm shedding tears of blood. We've warmed a viper in our bosom. [Leans against the fence] I'll wait, I'll wait. I'll tell her everything, everything ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from 243:6 the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death. It crowned the demon- 243:9 strations of Jesus with unsurpassed ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... they make a great fuss over the baby, and Rachel watches them with glittering eyes. I thought once that it was jealousy, and, going up to her, laid my hand on her head, but she shook it off as if it had been a viper, and ran out of ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... indeed, trying to puzzle out the secret of that repugnance, having no particular dread of a snake's bite, like one of his companions, who had put his hand into the mouth of an old garden-god and roused there a sluggish viper. A kind of pity even mingled with his aversion, and he could hardly have killed or injured the animals, which seemed already to suffer by the very circumstance of their life, being what they [24] were. It was something like a fear of the supernatural, or perhaps rather a moral feeling, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... chemistry, the modern science, possessing thousands of powers as great as any used yet, you see no glory:—the only thought is so many Acids and Alkalies. You require a metaphor for treachery, and of course you think of our puny old friend the Viper; but the Alkaline, more searching and more unknown, that may destroy you and your race, you have never heard of,—and yet this possesses more of the very quality required, namely, mystery, than any other that is ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... curse. I will pursue thee as long as I live, day and night. I will recall to you how you have taken my daughter away from me, and have disgraced us. You may cut off my head, but still I'll appear to thee and fill thee with fear. And thou, thou viper," he cried ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... them to those islands in the South Seas, where they might more humanely learn to become cannibals; it would be less disgusting that they were brought up to devour the dead, than persecute the living. Schools do you call them? call them rather dunghills, where the viper of intolerance deposits her young, that when their teeth are cut and their poison is mature, they may issue forth, filthy and venomous, to sting the Catholic. But are these the doctrines of the Church of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of the naval operations of 1813, it is clear that the Americans were the chief sufferers. They had the victories over the "Peacock," "Boxer," and "Highflyer" to boast of; but they had lost the "Chesapeake," "Argus," and "Viper." But, more than this, they had suffered their coast to be so sealed up by British blockaders that many of their best vessels were left to lie idle at their docks. The blockade, too, was growing ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the silent hours, When swains from shearing seek their nightly bowers, When weary reapers quit the sultry field, And crown'd with corn their thanks to Ceres yield; This harmless grove no lurking viper hides, But in my breast the serpent love abides. Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew, But your Alexis knows no sweets but you. 70 Oh, deign to visit our forsaken seats, The mossy fountains, and the green retreats! Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... bear the dust and heat? Why does he neither, in military accouterments, appear mounted among his equals; nor manage the Gallic steed with bitted reins? Why fears he to touch the yellow Tiber? Why shuns he the oil of the ring more cautiously than viper's blood? Why neither does he, who has often acquired reputation by the quoit, often by the javelin having cleared the mark, any longer appear with arms all black-and-blue by martial exercises? Why is he concealed, as they say ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... monarchy nor hereditary aristocracy planted itself on our soil; the only hereditary condition that fastened itself upon us was servitude. Nature works in sincerity, and is ever true to its law. The bee hives honey; the viper distils poison; the vine stores its juices, and so do the poppy and the upas. In like manner every thought and every action ripens its seed, each according to its kind. In the individual man, and still more in a nation, a just idea gives life, ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... E. echidne (viper; probably in allusion to the fang-like spines).—This species is remarkable in having a stout cylindrical stem, 12 in. high by 8 in. wide, with about a dozen deep ridges; these are disposed spirally, ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... remission granted to me? Ans. This may yield thee peace, that, following this course which hath been explained, thou art about thy duty. Thou art not at peace with sin, nor harbouring that viper in thy soul; thou art mourning and sorrowing over it, and running to Christ the prince of pardons, through his blood and intercession, conform to the covenant of redemption, and after the encouragement given in the many and precious promises of the covenant of grace; and having ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... her mother[4] loves me longer, since she changed her white wimples,[5] which she, wretched, needs must desire again. Through her easily enough is comprehended how long the fire of love lasts in woman, if eye or touch does not often rekindle it. The viper[6] which leads afield the Milanese will not make for her so fair a sepulture as the cock of Gallura would have done." Thus he said, marked in his aspect with the stamp of that upright zeal which in due measure ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... but her face, from forehead to chin, was completely hidden by a black velvet mask. In one hand, exquisitely small and white, she held a gold casket, blazing (like her dress) with rubies, and with the other she toyed with a tame viper, that had twined itself round her wrist. This was doubtless La Masque, and becoming conscious of that fact Sir Norman made her a low and courtly bow. She returned it by a slight bend of the head, and ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... felt the sting of the viper, and with a glance which flashed a noble indignation, he replied to his beautiful neighbour, "You are right, Emelie; I know no woman who deserves more love or ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... counteract their wiles! Can I not see them waving hell-fire before his foolish eyes, as one swings a torch before a bull to turn it? Oh, if I could but baulk them to-night! That woman! that cursed woman! The foul viper which I nursed in my bosom! Oh, I had rather see Louis in his grave than married to her! Charles, Charles, it must be stopped; I say it must be stopped! I will give anything, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... while relaxing not one whit of his vigilance. Leslie then asked permission to purchase supplies for his army, that he might evacuate Charleston. The wary Greene refused to allow it, for in so doing he might be nourishing a viper that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that hatches eggs in which a screech-owl, a horned owl, and a viper lie acts as it does when it hatches those in which a dove, a bird of paradise and a swan lie. Put eggs of both sorts under the hen and they will be hatched by her warmth, which in itself is innocent of harm. What has the heat ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... angry flush reddened the face of Lady Helena Powyss, as she finished this cool epistle. She crushed it in her hand as though it were a viper. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... distant land, this frail being, after all, might prove the stronger of the two. Daily she warned them of the temptations and snares that would beset their path, and taught them to zealously shun such, as they would a viper in their way. They listened and promised; and when the expected day of departure arrived, bade her adieu in the midst of her tears, and prayers, and blessings. Thus was the widow left utterly alone; yet in her faith she felt not forsaken, knowing that the Father of the fatherless ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... Wellington is the Cub of Fortune, but she will never lick him into shape. If he lives, he will be beaten; that's certain. Victory was never before wasted upon such an unprofitable soil as this dunghill of Tyranny, whence nothing springs but Viper's eggs." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... had been reading the Rev. F. Robertson's sermon about St. Paul and the viper. It was late, and being rather sleepy he carried the book in one hand and a candle in the other into his dressing-room, and was just going to set the candle down, when his eye fell on a cobra, coiled up on the chair ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... often the commissaries appointed to relieve those on duty would often noisily arouse him from his pleasant dreams by rattling at his wicket, crying, "Capet, Capet, are you asleep? Where are you? Young viper, get up!" And the little startled form would creep from the bed and crawl to the wicket; while the faint gentle voice would answer, "I am here, citizens, what do you want with me?" "To see you," would be the surly reply of the watch for the night. "All right. Get to bed. In!—Down!" And ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... "Yours, little viper?" the Sudanese hissed through set teeth. "Then you mark the road so that your father can ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Take care! She has noticed, envious creature, that you are very much moved as you take leave of your companion, and that you let your hand remain for a second in his! This old maid 'a l'anglaise' has a viper's tongue. To-morrow you will be the talk of the Louvre, and the gossip will spread to the 'Ecole des Beaux-Arts', even to Signol's studio, where the two daubers, your respectful admirers, who think of cutting their throats in your honor, will ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to me, good cousin . . . but I have given up expecting fairness from Protestants. I do not say that the front and the back of my head have different makers, any more than that doves and vipers have . . . and yet I kill the viper when I meet him . . . and so do you. . . . And yet, are we not taught that our animal nature is throughout equally viperous? . . . The Catholic Church, at least, so teaches. . . . She believes in ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... almost as big as his body. It frightened me so much that I screamed. Martine came running up, and she began screaming too, and everybody came. I explained what had happened the day before, and the farmer said that the sheep must have been bitten by a viper. He would have to be cared for, and must be left in the stable until the swelling had gone down. I asked nothing better than to look after the poor brute, but when I was alone with it I felt frightened to death. That enormous head, which wobbled on the little body, made me half crazy with ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... these interesting creatures, according to the names by which they are known in these parts, I can furnish you with one from the best authority. These, however, are generally to be found about outhouses, and only occasionally visit your apartments. There is the chicaclina, a striped viper, of beautiful colours—the coralillo, a viper of a coral colour, with a black head—the vinagrillo, an animal like a large cricket. You can discover it, when in the room, by its strong smell of vinegar. It ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him. When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that girls with spits, and boys with stones, should slay him ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... complain of you for not loving me? Moreover, you must remember that the beauty I possess was no choice of mine, for, be it what it may, Heaven of its bounty gave it me without my asking or choosing it; and as the viper, though it kills with it, does not deserve to be blamed for the poison it carries, as it is a gift of nature, neither do I deserve reproach for being beautiful; for beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance or a sharp sword; the one does not burn, the other does not cut, those who do ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... suffered, as they say, is willing to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely to understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or doings which have been wrung from his agony. For I have been bitten by a more than viper's tooth; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or in some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth than any serpent's tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make a man say or do ...
— Symposium • Plato
... habits—those false links, which bind At times the loftiest to the meanest mind—[sd] Have given her power too deeply to instil The angry essence of her deadly will;[se] If like a snake she steal within your walls, Till the black slime betray her as she crawls; If like a viper to the heart she wind, And leave the venom there she did not find; 50 What marvel that this hag of hatred works[sf] Eternal evil latent as she lurks, To make a Pandemonium where she dwells, And reign the Hecate ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... giraffe!'—Carnot, 'Papa Victory,' of whom Lareveillere says that 'nobody could endure his vanity and self-conceit;' and, lastly, Lareveillere himself, whom Carnot in his Memoirs, published at London in 1799, compares to a 'viper,' and says, 'after he has made a speech he coils himself up again'—these were hardly the men to give their nights and days to reconstructing ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... to eat horseflesh and to practice exposure of infants.[980] In old German law infanticide was treated as the murder of a relative. The guilty mother was buried alive in a sack, the law prescribing, with the ingenious fiendishness of the age, that a dog, a cat, a rooster, and a viper should also be placed in the sack.[981] In ancient Arabia the father might kill newborn daughters by burying them alive. The motive of the old custom was anxiety about provision for the child and shame at the disgrace ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... of the world, old Brown, after axing Ussher a sight of questions, was sthrong for sending 'em back; and then Counsellor Webb axed Ussher how he could prove that the boys knew the stuff was in it; and he, the black-hearted viper, said, that warn't necessary, so long as they war in the same house; and then they jawed it out ever so long, and Ussher said as how the whole counthry through war worse than ever with the stills; and Counsellor Webb said that war the fault of the landlords; and Brown said, he hoped ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... child of a turbulent mother. He was sent to a reformatory at ten years of age, and there showed himself, as he has always done when his organization had given him a chance, quiet, well-behaved, and obedient. Then at fourteen years old he had a great fright from a viper—a fright which threw him off his balance, and started the series of psychical oscillations on which he has been tossed ever since. At first the symptoms were only physical, epilepsy and hysterical paralysis ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... silent as the summer ends. Pink striped bells of convolvulus flower over the flints and gravel, the stones nearly hidden by their runners and leaves; yellow toadflax or eggs and bacon grew here till a weeding took place, since which it has not reappeared, but in its place viper's bugloss sprang up, a plant which was not previously to be found there. Hawkweeds, some wild vetches, white yarrow, thistles, and burdocks conceal the flints yet further, so that the track has the appearance of a ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... informed that a serpent was the mother of his race, and that he must treat serpents with the greatest reverence. To kill one was sacrilege. In spite of this, he stole out unobserved and crushed a viper which had stung his little brother. He noticed that no harm ensued, and this encouraged him to commit a still more daring act. None but the old men and the warriors were allowed to eat oysters. It was universally held that if a woman or a child touched an oyster, the earth would open ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... cloth should properly be red instead of white, but as it is difficult to get red cloth, except in the shape of handkerchiefs, a substitution has been made, the two colors having a close mythologic relation. In former days a piece of buckskin and the small glossy, seeds of the Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare) were used instead of the cloth and beads. The formulistic name for the bead is sn[)i]kta, which the priests are unable to analyze, the ordinary word for beads or ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... my designs and poison me—and I would willingly starve him before I die—I would gladly go out of the world with that satisfaction. That would be some comfort to me, if I could but live so long as to be revenged on that unnatural viper. ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... accurately quoted and put in such a light as to seem to be robberies. It was a dangerous letter for her—half truth, half falsehood, difficult to unravel, impossible to deny entirely. 'Honour binds you, you say,' the epistle continued. 'Ah! my Prince! you have a toy which has turned to a viper in your hand! Throw it from you! Other princes have done so, and the world has applauded. Take a fair and noble mistress, one younger, less rapacious. Consider this woman: already she grows gross; in a few years' time she will be a mountain ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... isn't Jones's doing. And of course Jones must look after himself. I'm not partial to Jones. Everybody knows that. When Sarah Jane disgraced herself, and went off with him, I never said a word in her favour. It wasn't I who brought a viper into the house and warmed it in my bosom." It was at this moment that Jones was behaving with the most barefaced effrontery, as well as the utmost cruelty, towards the old man, and Maryanne's words cut her father to the very ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... cold and stern, as a man who has made up his mind to endure torture without revealing his sufferings; but in his heart he wished that his uncle could only trample on this woman as we trample on a viper—a comparison suggested to him by the Marquise's long dress, by the curve of her attitude, her long neck, small ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... her eyes began to glitter dangerously. She turned herself around and surveyed the place. Like the frozen viper thawed to life, her ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... genius, a poem called "The Tigress," in which someone, presumably the author, described the torments involved in his adoration of a feminine person with "jetty brows and lambent eyes," whose kiss was like "a viper's sting" and who had, so to speak, raised the very dickens with his feelings. He read it with passionate fervor, and Captain Dan, listening, decided that the Tigress must be a ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... model of youthful piety; but the Christianity of which Eusebius was a living example had struck but shallow roots. Later he went to Athens, where St. Basil and St. Gregory, the two great doctors of the Church, were his fellow students. "What a viper the Roman Empire is cherishing in its bosom!" exclaimed Gregory, no mean judge of character, "but God grant that I ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... not a viper; she is only a woman bent on protecting herself. However, I wish you would remember that she is to be your daughter-in-law, and try and meet her on a pleasant basis. Any more scandal about Braelands will compel me to shut ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... along with him, written by some tourist, I reckon. Perhaps this old fellow may have found a chance to do some one a good turn. He may have run across a greenhorn wandering on the desert; saved a fellow who had been stabbed by the fangs of a viper from the Gila; or helped him to camp when he broke a leg in ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... flung, With savage fury Itys' gory head Full in his father's face; nor ever mourn'd Lost speech so much; her well-earn'd joy to show, More griev'd lost power. With outcry loud the king O'er-turn'd the table; from the Stygian vale, Invok'd the viper'd sisters: hard he strove To tear his bosom, and from thence disgorge The dire repast, the half-digested mass Of Itys' limbs. Now weeping, wild he mourns, Himself his offspring's tomb. Now fierce pursues Pandion's ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... "you write your promises in water, or better in oil, black-scaled viper. We know what time of day it is with us, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... a horned viper, cerastes is the name under which you gentlemen of science know it, and it is the most deadly of all Egyptian snakes. It is commonly known as Cleopatra's Asp, for that is the serpent which was brought in a basket ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... by King Archippus, the priest of the Marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet, Umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath. Yet he availed not to heal the stroke of the Dardanian spear-point, nor was the wound of him helped by his sleepy charms and herbs culled on the Massic hills. Thee the woodland of Angitia, thee Fucinus' glassy wave, thee the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... recitals of his experiences. He declared that the vipers had a king, a terrible creature, which he had encountered, and from which he had managed to escape. After telling me that strange story of the king of the vipers, he gave me a viper which he had tamed, and had rendered harmless by extracting its fangs. I fed it with milk, and frequently carried it abroad with me in ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Pott, retreating from the stove, 'and that's the way I would serve the viper who produces it, if I were not, fortunately for him, restrained by ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his ...
— English Satires • Various
... said he, "there is nothing secret that shall not be made manifest. Without more ado, my poor master was seized and hauled away to the White Lion. 'Woe is me,' said he, as he departed, 'an enemy hath done this, Peter—a viper whom I have nourished at my hearth. Look to my poor wife and little ones, my faithful friend'—these were his words—'and Heaven will reward thy faithful service.' It seemed to me, Humphrey, that when he spoke of the viper, he meant thee. Pray Heaven I may be wrong." Fancy if ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... connection with the Aran fisheries, and from him I derived most of my information. Another authority assured me that the Araners were not grateful to England nor to Mr. Balfour, and spoke of the viper that somebody warmed in his bosom with disagreeable results. But, as Father Tom would say, Omnis comparatio claudicat, and all my experience points to a proper appreciation of the great ex-Secretary's desire to do ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... that my daughter was safe, and out of the power of that viper, whom I have warmed in my bosom, death would ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... that old viper's name again in this house. She's the serpent in this town tempting the last one of ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... the matter," he said, as he threw the letter angrily down upon the table. "A malicious young viper! I wish I had ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... species of poisonous serpents and one poisonous lizard; eighteen species of these are true rattlesnakes; the remaining nine are divided between varieties of the moccasin, copperhead or the viper. The poisonous lizard is the Texan reptile known as the "Gila Monster." In all these serpents the poison fluid is secreted in a gland which lies against the side of the skull below and behind the eye, from which a duct leads to the base of a hollow tooth or fang, one on ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Who's a viper? See what they've done for me when I was runned over. Why, if it hadn't been for Miss Rich a-nussing of me when you was allus tipsy, you wouldn't have had no boy at all, only a dead 'un berrid out at Finchley along o' ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... Imperia, puffing like a dolphin, denounced all the cowardice of the priest. She was not then a sufficiently good Catholic to pardon her lover deceiving her, by not knowing how to die for her pleasure. Thus the death of Philippe was foreshadowed in the viper's glance she cast at him to insult him, which glance pleased the cardinal much, for the wily Italian saw he would soon get his abbey back again. The Touranian, heeding not the brewing storm avoided it by walking out silently with his ears down, like a wet dog being kicked ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... with her: the confounded little minx to betray him. She was the only one who could have put his parents on his track. How should they otherwise have ever guessed it? He could have kicked himself for having once given that viper hints about his acquaintance in Puttkammerstrasse. Frida and her friendship, just let her try to talk to him again about friendship. Pooh, women on the whole were ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... thought was a green twig; and when I grasped it, it was a cold, clammy snake, which, in a moment, twined itself around my arm. I could not scream for terror; but Sarah, my mother's faithful slave, saw it. She tore the viper from my arm, and flung it far away, among the bushes. Sister Agatha, when Brother Jonathan comes near me, I feel the same shiver go through, and the same feeling of horror almost paralyzes my limbs. I could not endure to have him near me always. I could not say to ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... been particularly offended with the Roman laws and lawyers. One of the Barbarians, after the effectual precautions of cutting out the tongue of an advocate, and sewing up his mouth, observed, with much satisfaction, that the viper could no longer hiss. Florus, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... sufferings? I can well conceive that she who creates so much affliction in the house that has sheltered her,—she who so treacherously pierces the hearts that have opened to yield her a place,—she who has played the viper warmed upon almost a mother's bosom,—she may well have sufferings ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... them, abandoned to Ambition's sway, 'I sought for glory in the paths of guile; 'And fawned and smiled, to plunder and betray, 'Myself betrayed and plundered all the while; 'So gnawed the viper the corroding file. 'But now, with pangs of keen remorse, I rue 'Those years of trouble and debasement vile. 'Yet why should I this cruel theme pursue? 'Fly, fly, detested thoughts, for ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... remark so far as the Colonel was concerned, for he would have talked to a viper about soldiering, but Maclachlan did not see, and I did, the delicate little mouth ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Miss Sallianna, "you will please to end our interview at once, sir!—this language, sir, is intolerated, sir!—if you wish to insult me, sir, you can remain!—I consider your insinuations, sir, as unworthy of a gentleman. The viper!" cried Miss Sallianna, becoming hysterical, and addressing her observations to the ceiling; "the viper which I warmed in my bosom, and ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... disgrace, they wrote, to the city; he practised secret and wicked arts, and had sold his soul to the enemy. It was of a piece with the gross corruption and superstition of the Babylonish Church that such a viper and blood-sucking Troldmand should be patronized and harboured by the Bishop. The Bishop met these reproaches boldly; he protested his own abhorrence of all such things as secret arts, and required his antagonists ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... Buck Benson himself, that strong, silent man of the open, begged her to beware of the half-breed? Perhaps she had resented the hint of mastery in Benson's cool, quiet tones as he said, "Miss St. Clair, ma'am, I beg you not to endanger your welfare by permitting the advances of this viper. He bodes no good ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... The centuries have beaten the wind, the rain, the storms and flying sand upon them. They remain. They have outworn the centuries. They are silent. No footfall is heard upon the threshold. The houses are empty save for a fox, a swiftly gliding viper, or a belated Bedaween who may stable his horse in a deserted room where once a happy family ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... took up a viper in his hand, quoting the passage, "They shall take up serpents." But the beast stung him, and he was ill for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... with his hands So quick an' so blamed unexpected, you see, Grabbed me by the hair an' out with a knife, An' demanded my gold. I thought fer my life He wuz jokin'; but no, when I seed that fierce look Of murder an' pillage, I knowed what I'd done; I'd thawed out a viper upon my hearth-stun An' now wuz becomin' ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... to keep me reminded. So that is your name—not Eve—but Clodagh, who was a Poisoner, you see? She poisoned a poor man who trusted her: and that is your name now—not Eve, but Clodagh—to remind me, you most dangerous little speckled viper! And in order that I may no more see your foolish little pretty face, I decree that, for the future, you wear a yashmak to cover up your lips, which, I can see, were meant to be seductive, though dirty; and you can leave the blue eyes, and the little ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... with the injuries inflicted by the venomous varieties of snakes, the most important of which are the hooded snakes of India, the rattle-snakes of America, the horned snakes of Africa, the viper of Europe, and the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... counted on that viper that we nourish in our bosom—the American newspaper. At present I will not take time to denounce the press. I am preparing an article on the subject for a respectable weekly of select circulation. Suffice it to record what happened. The next day an evening paper appeared ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... thoughts the whole distance, I could come to no satisfactory conclusion. On the one hand, I yearned to go and say farewell to her; on the other, it was not clear, after that letter of her husband's, that I could do this without unjustly prejudicing her as a wife. For the wife of this viper she still was, and who could tell how soon she might not be ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... thinking to herself, "have I been taken in by that viper, that traitress?—by a child who looked like an innocent flower and is turning out to be the serpent under it? Prochnow!—the hard name that nobody could pronounce! It's easy enough: Prochnow; Prochnow. She could have pronounced it fast enough if she had ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... had also their own Pantheon, in which animals predominated—such as the goose of Amon, and his ram Pa-rahaninofir, the good player on the horn, the hippopotamus, the cat, the chicken, the swallow, and especially reptiles. Death was personified by a great viper, the queen of the West, known by the name Maritsakro, the friend of silence. Three heads, or the single head of a woman, attached to the one body, were assigned to it. It was supposed to dwell in the mountain opposite Karnak, which fact gave ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... some one comes to rescue you. I will not let you starve to death, but I will give you a long fast; and, when I come again, it shall be along with some of the Bannerworth family, to show them what a viper they have fostered ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... And all this time she had not even breathed a word of it, but had hugged the viper to her heart in silence. She dropped the reins on the neck of the horse and took a letter from the pocket of her riding-coat. How many times had she read it? How many times had fury and rage and despair flashed from her ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... not!" exclaimed old Hinkley, who re-entered the room at this moment, and had heard the last words of the speaker. "You shall not leave the house. Had I fifty sons, and they were all to behave in the manner of this viper, they should all leave it before you should stir from ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... fatherly fondness, and still less cousinly, still there is a decency to be exprest in black bombazine and retirement. Besides, a thousand nothings kept me engaged. I passed a part of the time writing satires upon the little crooked viper of Twicknam, Pope—that may appear one day with a decoration from my Lord Hervey's pen; for Pope's last lampoon on me is a disgrace to any nature above that of a baboon. So all was ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... accidentally some occult desiccative property been found out of curing kibed heels, or as if in the radish we eat for food there has been found out some aperitive operation. Galen reports, that a man happened to be cured of a leprosy by drinking wine out of a vessel into which a viper had crept by chance. In this example we find the means and a very likely guide and conduct to this experience, as we also do in those that physicians pretend to have been directed to by the example of some beasts. But in most of their other experiments wherein ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... now that I feel, as my reward, thy burning poison streaming through my heart. Yes, thou art the fairy Esterello, and thou art unmasked at last, cruel creature! In the chill of thy refusal I have known the viper. Thou art Esterello, bitter foe to man, haunting the wild places, crowned with nettles, defending the desert against those who clear the land. Thou art Esterello, the fairy that sends a shudder through the foliage of the woods ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... march, and that peace should reign throughout the camp; but Bombay was suspicious of him, and malignantly abused him, for what reason Baraka could not tell. When I spoke of this to Bombay, like a bird fascinated by the eye of a viper, he shrank before the slippery tongue of his opponent, and could only say, "No, Sahib—oh no, that is not it; you had better turn me off, for his tongue is so long, and mine so short, you never will believe me." I tried to make them ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... you shall see the most horrible practices that ever came out of the bottomless pit of the lowest hell.' In reply to a protest by Ralegh as to his liability for some underhand practices of Cobham, as Warden of the Cinque Ports, Coke foamed out: 'All he did was by thy instigation, thou viper; for I thou thee, thou traitor! I will prove thee the rankest traitor in all England.' 'No, Master Attorney,' was the answer: 'I am no traitor. Whether I live or die, I shall stand as true a subject ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... only to exhibit another new and unexpected network of wrinkles. The upper lip was long and drawn down, while the thin mouth curved upwards at the corners in a disagreeable smile, something like that which seems to play about the long, slit lips of a dead viper. This unpleasant combination of features was terminated by a short but prominent chin, indicating a determined and undeviating will. The ghastly yellow color of her face made the unnatural brightness of her beady eyes more ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Wholesome Earthquake and Italian Sky, With its Unstriking Sun; and last, not least, The Compos Mentis Dog. Now, ingrate, try To bring a better stomach to the feast: When Nature makes a dance and pays the piper, To be unhappy is to be a viper!" ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... through his narrowed lids Cappy Ricks saw not tears, but the light of murder. Terence did not speak, but thoughtfully puffed his pipe, and, with Murphy and Cappy Ricks, watched the booby hatch on the submarine's deck slide back and her long, slim, three-inch gun appear, like the tongue of a huge viper. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... 'It's a thing as ud get a saint to set his back up. I was down i' the bridge leasowe bare an hour ago, and who should I see but that young imp of a Reddy along wi' that old viper of a Bubb. Thee know'st ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... council-table: And "Please your honors," said he, "I'm able, By means of a secret charm, to draw All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep, or swim, or fly, or run After me so as you never saw! And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole and toad and newt and viper; And people call me the Pied Piper." (And here they noticed round his neck A scarf of red and yellow stripe, To match with his coat of the self-same cheque; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying As if impatient ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... manner. Baron Schrader, the Hohenaus and their friends, being aware of the existence of the quarrel between the Kotzes and the Saxe-Meiningens, naturally became more convinced than ever that it was either Baron Kotze, or his "viper-tongued" wife, as they described her, who were the culprits, and insisted that it was the baroness who had taken advantage of her intimacy with the princess to get possession of her royal highness's diary, the contents of which were now being used ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... showed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.' Here it was that from the circumstance of St. Paul experiencing no evil effects from the viper clinging to his hand, that the people concluded him to be a god; here too he was allowed to perform many mighty works, such as healing the sick, &c., which caused him to be 'honored with many honors;' ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... any good, and is a dangerous viper in a family," said the parson, abruptly rising, and taking ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... substituting in their place the most unfavourable he could find. He gave the philosophic circle in Paris exquisite delight by the confirmation which his story furnished of their own foresight, when they had warned him that he was taking a viper to his bosom. Finally, in spite of the advice of Adam Smith, of one of the greatest of men, Turgot, and one of the smallest, Horace Walpole, he published a succinct account of the quarrel, first in French, and then in English. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... concerned to see there. He was Driscoll. He came to watch the shriveled derelict, Murguia. He came to stand guard over a soul, Maximilian's. What peace that soul had found should not be destroyed. And so he screened himself in the crowd, holding ready to crush a viper whose fangs were heavy with poison. When Maximilian paused and spoke to the old man, Driscoll was very near, near enough to hear, and to strike. But the old man had only wheezed and mumbled. Though why that old man did not utter a first word, though why ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... appointment is to the "Viper", a brig which is barely stable. They almost upset on one occasion, and then really do sink when off the coast of Africa. Our friends and a couple of other seamen are lucky enough to have got off on a simple raft, though all the rest of ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... soldiers, no commander, For this King Ferdinand of Hungary Is but a tyro. Gallas? He's no luck, And was of old the ruiner of armies. And then this viper, this Octavio, Is excellent at stabbing in the back, But ne'er meets Friedland ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... heaven, that thy strength in wrong may be secure-yea, we fear thy end is fast coming badly, for thou art the bastard offspring of Republicanism so purely planted in our land. Clamour and the lash are thy sceptres, and, like a viper seeking its prey, thou charmest with one and goadeth men's souls with the other. Having worked thy way through our simple narrative, show us what thou hast done. A father hast thou driven within the humid wall of a prison, because he would ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... black-and-white opossum with eight or nine half-grown young lying together in a nest of dry grass, and, wonderful to tell, a large venomous snake coiled up amongst them. The snake was the dreaded vivora de la cruz, as the gauchos call it, a pit-viper of the same family as the fer-de-lance, the bush-master, and the rattlesnake. It was about three feet long, very thick in proportion, and with broad head and blunt tail. It came forth hissing and striking blindly right and left when the dogs pulled the opossums out, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... better proof than the fact that, entertaining sentiments such as are here avowed, you have visited her at all times, and under nearly all circumstances. You have abused a husband's and a brother's confidence. You have lain like a stinging viper in the ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... train of fire when it had once begun flashing, nor hinder it from running to the very end. He subjected a dog to a second trial in order to ascertain whether he was longer in expiring the first than the second time; and he found there was no sensible difference. A viper bore it nine minutes the first time he put it in, and ten minutes the second; and he attributes the prolonged duration of the second trial to the large provision of air that the viper laid in after his first death, upon ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... our long-buried wives. Then let us depart. But whither? We push ourselves forward then, start back in affright. Essay it again, and flee. Hard to live; hard to die; intolerable suspense! But the grim despot at last interposes; and with a viper in our winding-sheets, we are dropped ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... cell where they placed him, away from the gaping, murmuring, gesticulating knot of villagers that had marked his progress to the police-station—for news flies fast in the country, especially when there is a viper-tongue like Borkins's to wing it on its way—he was thankful for the momentary peace and quiet that the place afforded. At least he could think—think and pace up and down the narrow room with its tiny barred window too high for a man to reach, and its hard ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... uncle Rob had given such a stamp, was not the partner in the ancient firm of Smart, Poole and Smart of the Plainstones. Of these I had seen two, and heard the busy important voice of the third in another room as we descended the stairs. They were all men very different from the viper whom my grandmother had caught as in a bag. Even Mr. Smart was a gentleman. For if he had a flannel dressing-gown on, one could see the sparkle of his paste buckles at knee and instep, and his hose were of ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... herba, that viper, Isobel, who turns the pure milk of the Word to poison and bites the hand that fed her, I will say nothing, nothing," (here Godfrey reflected that Isobel would have been better described as a lion in the ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... caus'd a Difficulty in my Respiration: From whence I concluded, that, by Degrees, the thinnest Air may become Natural; and as I felt no Hunger while on the Mountain, I may suppose the same Air we breathe may also nourish us. And this is no vain Imagination, for the Aker (that is, Viper) we see live by the Spirit included in the Air, which is the Principle of Life in all; but in case I am out in this Conjecture, we may carry Provisions ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... the Hospital, of which we have all heard so much, and into the Chapel. Here is the best picture West ever painted, I think. It is the shipwreck of St. Paul, with the viper and the fire: rocks rather crowded and confused; on the right are two figures, frequently, I had almost said always, to be found in his pictures, and always together. Old man on the right, capital!—Roof of the Hospital highly ornamented, though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... The Mercer girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they wanted legitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no question about it, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to their bosom—or is it a viper?—and the Harbison man was the creature. Although I must say that, looking over the table, at Jimmy's breadth and not very imposing personality, at Max's lean length, sallow skin, and bold dark eyes, at Dallas, blond, growing bald and florid, ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... for no object that can be perceived, except to renew the old party alliance between Slavery South and its Northern supporters, with a view to party triumphs. If General McClellan succeeds, Slavery, so far as it still exists, will be cherished, maintained, and perpetuated. The viper will be warmed into life again, and although it might perhaps recoil for the present, it would only be to strike at some future period with greater force and venom at the life of the Republic. These men tell us they are for the Union ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... tiger nature,—the soldiers, heated like himself to the thirst of blood, saw his eyes sparkle, and his teeth gnash, as he added in a deeper and lower, but not less audible voice, "I say to you, SLAY ALL! [Hall.] What heel spares the viper's brood?" ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it, Beverley? Honest Mr. Jarvis, well met; I hoped to find you here. That viper Williams! Was it not He that troubled you ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... lost places of the universe. To know all to be illusion, cheat—itself the most cheated of races; lured on to a career of sacrifice and contempt. If he could only keep the hope that had hallowed its sufferings. But now it was a viper—not a divine hope—it had nourished in its bosom. He felt so lonely; a great stretch of blackness, a barren mere, a gaunt cliff on a frozen sea, a pine on a mountain. To be done with it all—the sighs and the sobs and the tears, the heart-sinking, the dull dragging days of wretchedness ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... John, stifling the note in his hand and stalking tragically around the room. "Can it be possible that I have nursed a frozen viper? An ingrate? A wolf in sheep's clothing? ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... hand as hastily, as you may believe I should have done, had I, in feeling for one of your parcels under the wood, been bitten by a viper. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... However, it was the cause of my falling in with an old man and a boy who were cutting and piling up turf for fuel, and I had a good deal of talk with them about the manner of preparing the turf, and the price it sells at. They gave me, too, a creature I never saw before,—a young viper, which they had just killed, together with its dam. I have seen several common snakes, but this is thicker in proportion and of a darker color than ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... and hid themselves among the stones. The cobbler had forgotten to include these with the dangers to be encountered. To my mind they were much more to be dreaded than the boars, for these stony solitudes swarm with adders, of which the most venomous kind is the red viper, or aspic. Its bite has ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... sting of conscience, the viper which gnaws the very heart's core of the wretches in hell, so that filled with hellish fury they curse themselves for their folly and curse the evil companions who have brought them to such ruin and curse the devils who tempted them ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... wretch that rebel was!" exclaimed Tom, who seemed to breathe freer now that retribution had overtaken the viper. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... delicate lancets. But in the spider we find a very different piece of machinery for the injection of the poison. It is formed by a pair of peculiarly modified legs which act as jaws, and are armed each with a powerful claw, at the tip of which, as in the poison-fang of the viper, is a small hole. Out of this hole a drop of poison oozes when the prey is seized, and this has the effect of paralysing the victim. The poison is formed in a curious bag, or 'gland' (G.L), which communicates with the claw by means of a ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... this, professor," cried Koosje, setting her arms akimbo and speaking in a high-pitched, shrill voice; "you and I have been warming a viper in our bosoms, and, viper-like, she has turned round ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... to him. "Oh! do not despise me for my feebleness! I have lived in the palace. I can wind like a viper through the walls. Come! in the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot of gold beneath every flagstone; an underground path ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... after His baptism it had been most insidiously pressed upon Him by the devil himself.[1315] That "If" was Satan's last shaft, keenly barbed and doubly envenomed, and it sped as with the fierce hiss of a viper. Was it possible in this the final and most dreadful stage of Christ's mission, to make Him doubt His divine Sonship, or, failing such, to taunt or anger the dying Savior into the use of His superhuman powers for personal relief ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... but you shall not do the same by those I have formed for your sister. I but too well understand the fascination you both labour under; since I had the same struggle with your father, to make him cast off the parent of this youth, who hid his evil propensities with the smoothness and subtlety of a viper. In those days how often did I hear of his attractions, his wide spread conquests, his wit, his refined manners. It is well when flies only are caught by such spiders' webs; but is it for the high-born and powerful to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... on our feast-nights we cut up a goose, an animal typical of the popular voice, to the deities of Candor and Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once proposed that we should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth; but the stomachs of some of the company rising at the proposition, we lost the benefit of that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... felt the viper's smart, Then instant aid was given. Christian, hence learn to do thy part, And ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... It tried to suck him back into the maw of the city. He fought against it with his shoulders and his knees. He tried now to run. It sucked him back. A wandering Aissaoua plucked at his sleeve and held under his nose a desert viper that gave off metallic rose glints in its slow, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... that the death of the poor wretch who did the deed was any atonement for what he had done, any more than a household can feel that the death of the viper is any atonement for the life of a favorite son it has slain. The viper is crushed and forgotten, the child is remembered, honored and cherished—so it was in this case. The execution of the murderer created no excitement; all that men appeared to desire with regard to him was to know ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... subtle wickedness has infected the simplicity of the republic, and the chaste virtues of the Roman matrons.[35] The parricide, who violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey were successively added as the most suitable companions. Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be felt till the middle of the sixth century first revealed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... all other parts of the province which we visited they were exceedingly scarce. In fact, I have never been in a place where there were so few reptiles and batrachians. We obtained only one species of poisonous snake here. It was a small green viper which we sometimes saw coiled on a low bush watching mouse holes in the grass. Several species of nonpoisonous snakes were more common but were nowhere ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... instantaneous effect. Mr. Bertram started up without assistance, and turned round towards him; the ghastliness of his features forming a strange contrast with the violence of his exclamations.—"Out of my sight, ye viper!—ye frozen viper, that I warmed till ye stung me!—Art thou not afraid that the walls of my father's dwelling should fall and crush thee limb and bone?—Are ye not afraid the very lintels of the door of Ellangowan castle should break open and swallow you up?—Were ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... (no longer latent) between slavery and the principles that underlie the Constitution. The time has come to vindicate the wisdom of the Constitution by utterly removing what seeks to disgrace and destroy it—as it were a viper in the bosom ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Scotchman how he lost his eye. Sanquhar, not willing to lose the credit of a wound, answered cannily, "It was done, your majesty, with a sword." The king replied, thoughtlessly, "Doth the man live?" and no more was said. This remark, however, awoke the viper of revenge in the young man's soul. He brooded over those words, and never ceased to dwell on the hope of some requital on his old opponent. Two years he remained in France, hoping that his wound might be cured, and at last, in despair of such ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... you have poor blood, and that you were fifty years old when you were born. There is, however, one passion which no one will deny that you possess. You understand me,—man of the gilded tongue and the viper's heart,—you have a passion common to many others! But, hold, in commencing this letter, I intended to conceal from you that I had discovered everything. I feared it would give you too much pleasure to learn that I know.—Oh! why can't I make you stand before ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... with tragic intensity, "that I have nourished a viper in my bosom! I have learned that we have ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... resort on occasions. The homing sense seems to be rather highly developed in them, for they can find their way back to their dens from great distances. I have had under observation for the past three years a garden snake, locally known as a "spreading viper"; this snake was brought to me by a friend[105] when it was only a foot long, so I have known her (for it is a female) ever since her infancy. Owing to some antenatal accident, this reptile has a malformed head, so that I can readily ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... am," said Zell, sternly. "As the one stung is related to the viper that stung him," and with a ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... my common viands, and I find they agree with my stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard as well as in a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander: at the sight of a toad or viper I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I can discover in others; those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... "That woman is a viper!" he said. "In my house she has enjoyed every comfort and every consideration, and in return she has dealt me this foul blow. She will have cause ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... viper that attacks one's heel! First these "defenseless" creatures goad one to madness, then they appeal to our noblesse oblige. The enmity between the Tisch and I ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... my hands, and, after having drunk, tried to rise to follow me, but its strength failing, its glances followed me as I was walking to and fro; they spoke volumes; I could understand their meaning. I hate to hear of the superiority of man! Man is ungrateful as a viper, while a horse, a dog, and many others of the "soulless brutes," ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... I have been wanting to give you my whole mind! you have given me an opening—so much the worse for you. I love the woman; you know it, and laugh her to scorn in my presence—so much the worse for you. But I will break your viper's fangs, I tell you. I will make ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... mountains urge into the toils Some antlered monster to their chiming cry. Learn also scented cedar-wood to burn Within the stalls, and snakes of noxious smell With fumes of galbanum to drive away. Oft under long-neglected cribs, or lurks A viper ill to handle, that hath fled The light in terror, or some snake, that wont 'Neath shade and sheltering roof to creep, and shower Its bane among the cattle, hugs the ground, Fell scourge of kine. Shepherd, seize stakes, seize stones! And as he rears defiance, and puffs ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... viper came to warm itself on the bishop's hearth no one could say. Mrs Pansey herself did not know in what particular way Mr Cargrim had wriggled himself—so she expressed it—into his present snug position. But, to speak frankly, there was no wriggling ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... the cook until he got mad and hit the skipper. Then there was a fight that lasted till they was all scratched up and tired out. The only thing they could agree on was that Rosy was what the skipper called a 'viper' that ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... seducer; but a great love cannot be torn from the heart like a staff that is thrust into the ground; it is intertwined with a thousand fibres, and to destroy it utterly is to destroy the heart in which it has taken root, and with it life itself. When he secretly cursed her and called her a viper, he doubtless remembered how innocent, dear and joyous she had been, and then the roots of the destroyed affection put forth new shoots, and he saw before his mental vision ensnaring images, of which he felt ashamed as soon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the argument; and listened to this part of it with a comfortable consciousness that we beheld, in each counsel arguing it, as it were, a viper gnawing a file! If this be law, thought we, then have many thousands of injured gentlemen been, in all human probability, unjustly hanged, and transported for life or for years, been fined, imprisoned, sent to the tread-mill, and publicly whipped; for Heaven ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... notwithstanding the maxims of forbearance which I have adopted, the indignation which the character of that caitiff inspires, would probably impel me to some act of violence, and I should crush him like an ungrateful viper, that gnawed the bosom which ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... men to watch me after I had scorned his evil offers to myself. But now, my lord, quickly ye must betake yourself and all your army from this fruitless and wrongful War against Sir Lancelot, and hasten to beat down the poisonous viper whom ye have nourished in ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... childlike eyes, the beautiful, lovable face, the modest glance, the innocent blushes—had nature such masks for her vilest offspring? The mere animal senses should have recognized at the first this deadly thing, as animals recognize their foes; and he had lived with the viper, believing her the peer of his spotless mother. She was his wife! Even at that moment the passionate love of yesterday stirred in his veins and moved ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... little viper," he said, taking her by the arm when he had fastened the reins to a hook in front of the leathern apron which closed the carriole and the horse had started on a trot, "do you think you can keep Bonnebault by giving way to such violence? If you were a wise girl you would promote his marriage ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... come to a Home," answered Sir David, "while the tyrant Albany rides rough-shod over the nobility of Scotland, and, like a viper, stings the bosom that nursed him? Away to thy chamber, Alison; leave me, it is no tale for ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... raise a temple, and lost no time in digging the foundations. Cocconas was now left at Chalcedon, engaged in composing certain ambiguous crabbed oracles. He shortly afterwards died, I believe, of a viper's bite. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... parts, but with a daring eye To tempt the terror of her front and die. By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed, 1010 Those dire artificers of death shall bleed. Against themselves their witnesses will swear, Till, viper-like, their mother-plot they tear; And suck for nutriment that bloody gore, Which was their principle of life before. Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight: Thus on my foes, my foes shall do me right. Nor doubt the event: for factious crowds engage, In their first onset, all their ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the righteous does not influence one of vicious origin; instruction to the worthless is a walnut on a dome, that rolls off. To smother a fire and leave its sparks, to kill a viper and take care of its young, are not actions of the wise. Though the clouds rain the water of life, you cannot eat fruit from the boughs of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... are confined to New Guinea. The species are—Common E., Echidna aculeata, Shaw; Bruijn's E., Proechidna bruijni, Peters and Doria; Black-spined E., Proechidna nigro-aculeata, Rothschild. The name is from Grk. 'echidna, an adder or viper, from the shape of the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... day, too, was hot and pleasant. Several guinea-fowl fell to Dyke's gun, and he shot a dangerous viper which raised its head sluggishly from the sandy track, threatening, with gleaming eyes and vibrating tongue, the barking dog, which kept cautiously beyond striking distance. There were lions heard in the night, making the cattle uneasy, but ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... a kind of vision how hugely I had overrated the man's subtlety. He had his malice still; he was false as ever; and, the occasion being gone that made his strength, he sat there impotent; he was still the viper, but now spent his venom on a file. Two more thoughts occurred to me while yet we sat at breakfast: the first, that he was abashed—I had almost said, distressed—to find his wickedness quite unavailing; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the present publication of Lee's story is to warn American men, and more particularly American women, of the Mormon viper still coiled upon the national hearth. To-day, as in the days of Lee, the Mormon missionary is abroad in the world. He is in your midst; he makes his converts among your neighbors; within the month, on one detected occasion, he stood at the portals of your public schools and gave his insidious ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... foretells that calamities are threatening you. To dream that a many-hued viper, and capable of throwing itself into many pieces, or unjointing itself, attacks you, denotes that your enemies are bent on your ruin and will work unitedly, ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... has he been. The most loathsome reptiles, as we see in the economy of nature, have their uses; "the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head;" the spider, cunning and fierce, is not without his uses; the wily serpent has his office, the viper was not made in vain, and as the mighty plan of the Great Creator of the Universe is above the comprehension of man, we may wonder at, but never understand why beings in the guise of men, were ever formed, who know no patriotism, no gratitude, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer |
