"Basilisk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... next cut away and smoothed down, so as to bring out the forms. Gradually the features become disengaged from the block, the eye looks out, the nose gains refinement, the mouth is developed. When the last cube is reached, there remains nothing to finish save the details of the head-dress and the basilisk on the brow. No scholar's model in basalt has yet been found;[39] but the Egyptians, like our monumental masons, always kept a stock of half-finished statues in hard stone, which could be turned out complete ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... Hymmng his victory, or the milder snake Crushing the bones of some frail antelope Within his brazen folds—the dewy lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles 380 To see a babe before his mother's door, Share with the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... girl appears to have forgotten her purpose, or else she executes it in a manner sufficiently maladroit. In passing the strap over the high coon-skin cap, her fingers become entangled in the brown curls beneath. Her eyes are not directed that way: they are gazing with a basilisk glance into ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... shepherdess, had shed no tear. When Chrysostom was lying on his bier in the valley, and Marcella looked down from the high rock, Ambrosio, the dead man's comrade, cried out on her, upbraiding her with bitter words—"Oh basilisk of our mountains!" Nor do I think Ambrosio spoke too strongly. Marcella cared nothing for men's admiration, and yet, instead of retiring to one of those nunneries which are founded for her kind, she chose to rove ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Thirsting and hungering, Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace He spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering. He heard the bitterns call From ruined palace-wall, Answered them brotherly. He held communion With the she-pelican Of lonely piety. Basilisk, cockatrice, Flocked to his homilies, With mail of dread device, With monstrous barbed slings, With eager dragon-eyes; Great rats on leather wings And poor blind broken things, Foul in their miseries. And ever with Him went, Of all His wanderings Comrade, ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... it: turn away my face? I never yet saw enemy that lookt So dreadful, but that I thought my self As great a Basilisk as he; or spake So horribly, but that I thought my tongue Bore Thunder underneath, as much as his: Nor beast that I could turn from: shall I then Begin to fear sweet sounds? a Ladies voice, Whom I do love? Say you ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... country, And asylum found and shelter In a convent of religious, Which was founded in that desert, Where I lived retired and hidden, Well taken care of and attended. For a lady there, a nun, Was my cousin, which connection Gave to her the special burden Of this care. My heart already Being a basilisk which turned All the honey into venom, Passing swiftly from mere liking To desire — that monster ever Feeding on the impossible — Living fire that with intensest Fury burns when most opposed — Flame the wind revives ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... the parishes of St. Andeol de Clerguemont and St. Frazal de Vantalon, but she addressed herself principally to recent converts, to whom she preached concerning the Eucharist that in swallowing the consecrated wafer they had swallowed a poison as venomous as the head of the basilisk, that they had bent the knee to Baal, and that no penitence on their part could be great enough to save them. These doctrines inspired such profound terror that the Rev. Father Louvreloeil himself tells us that Satan by his efforts succeeded ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more; Friendly traitress, loving foe, Not that she is truly so, But no other may they know, A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess, That they do not rightly ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... us, living and loving mortals, that stony stare of death,—lest we too, as smit with the basilisk, be turned into monumental stone, and all the dear grace and movement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... shoulders; his face was round, tanned, and pitted by the small-pox; his chin was straight, his lips had no curves, his teeth were white; his eyes had that calm, devouring expression which people attribute to the basilisk; his forehead, full of transverse wrinkles, was not without certain significant protuberances; his yellow-grayish hair was said to be silver and gold by certain young people who did not realize the impropriety of making a jest about Monsieur Grandet. His nose, thick at the end, bore ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... hypocrite's breast. O, the art of hell has deceived me! The Abyss sent up to me the most spotted of the spirits, the most skilful in lies, and placed him as a friend by my side. Who may withstand the power of hell? I took the basilisk to my bosom, with my heart's blood I nourished him; he sucked himself glutfull at the breasts of my love. I never harboured evil towards him; wide open did I leave the door of my thoughts; I threw away the key of wise foresight. In the starry heaven, &c.—We find a difficulty in believing this to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... order to talk over a few matters. First: I must request that for the future, at balls and similar affairs, dancing spurs be worn, so as to avoid such unpleasant accidents as we had night before last. One gentleman, who shall be nameless,"—and as he said it he fixed a basilisk eye on Lieutenant von Meckelburg—"tore off with his spurs the whole edge on the robe of Frau Captain Stark. This must not occur again, gentlemen, and from now on I shall officially punish similar behavior. Furthermore, it is customary among persons of education not to be first in stretching ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... looked, you might see in his face, and even the slight shiver of his frame, the repugnance and aversion which the Christian felt for one whom he knew to be so dangerous and so criminal. It was indeed the gaze of the bird upon the basilisk—so silent was it and so prolonged. But shaking off the sudden chill that had crept over him, Olinthus extended his right arm towards Arbaces, and said, in ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... clutched it hard and drew it into thick burnished ropes of fine gold. Anon, as the whim caught him, he would pile it up and hedge it with great silver pins, fan-shape, such as country girls use, till it took the semblance, now of a tower, now of a wheel, now of some winged beast—sphinx or basilisk—couching on the girl's head. Then, stepping back a little, he would clasp his hands over his eyes, and with head in air sing some snatch of triumph, or laugh aloud for the very wildness of his power; and so the game went on, that seemed a feast of delight to the man—a feast? ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... Murillo, whose St. John I should like to own. As far as my own pleasure is concerned, I could not say as much for any other picture; for I have always found an infinite weariness and disgust resulting from a picture being too frequently before my eyes. I had rather see a basilisk, for instance, than the very best of those old, familiar pictures in the Boston Athenaeum; and most of those in the National Gallery might soon affect ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... well! As if I had any such longing! Its stupidity attracts me. No! no! I will not!" He looks fixedly on the ground. But the grass lights up, and, in the twistings of the flames, stands erect the Basilisk, a huge, violet serpent, with a trilobate crest and two ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... the terror! Lo! the wonder! Basilisk, the fabled viper! Superstition names it so. Look at it, I pray, with calmness, 'Twas thy mind that was at fault. God's great goodness is displayed here; He, I trow, rewards thy eloquence In the monster which thou seest: All this ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... either in shade or in sunshine; so I sought Henry Winter Davis. Like the fallen angel, Davis preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven or on earth. With the head of Medusa and the eye of the Basilisk, he might have represented Siva in a Hindoo temple, and was even more inaccessible to sentiment than Thaddeus Stevens. Others, too numerous and too insignificant to particularize, were seen. These were the cuttle-fish of the party, whose appointed duty it was to obscure popular vision ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... are they to be feared, shunned, hated, because helpless? Must they perish—die with me alone—struggling against our woes, poverty, wretchedness? No! I know there is a God, he is good, powerful, merciful; he will turn the hearts of some towards the widow and the orphan; and though basilisk-like words warn me to hope not, I will apply—I will attempt to win attention, work, slave, toil, toil, toil, until my poor hands shall wear to the bone, and my eyes no longer do their office—if he will only have mercy, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... Nature by ingenious use of scriptural texts, by research among the lives of the saints, and by the plentiful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the unicorn and dragons mentioned in the Scriptures and of the phoenix and basilisk in profane writings. Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the pelican nourishes her young ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... science. Strange beings moved through the pages of natural history, which were equally at home in the 'Arabian Nights' or in poetical apologues. The griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon were not yet extinct; the salamander still sported in flames; and the basilisk slew men at a distance with his deadly glance. More commonplace animals indulged in the habits which they had learnt in fables, and of which only some feeble vestiges now remain in the eloquence of strolling showmen. The elephant had no joints, and was caught by felling the tree against which ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Swift Jaculus there, and Seps (25) whose poisonous juice Makes putrid flesh and frame: and there upreared His regal head, and frighted from his track With sibilant terror all the subject swam, Baneful ere darts his poison, Basilisk (26) In sands deserted king. Ye serpents too Who in all other regions harmless glide Adored as gods, and bright with golden scales, In those hot wastes are deadly; poised in air Whole herds of kine ye follow, and with coils Encircling ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... p.182, where it is glossed low (loghe) i.e. vile. "Now ys Pers bycome bryche That er was bothe stoute and ryche." In the Romance of Alexander, ed. Stevenson, we find the form bicchid briched (?). Cf. shille and shrille, etc. "And on the a[gh]tent day, eftire the prime A basilisk in a browe, breis (annoys) thaim unfaire, A stra[gh]till and a stithe worme stinkande of elde, And es so bitter, and so breme, and bicchid (foul) in himselfe, That with the stinke and the strenth he stroyes no[gh]t allane, Bot quat he settes on his si[gh]t, ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... John! It is his mind that is more crooked than his back. He is a perilous man with women, for the Devil hath given him such a tongue and such an eye that he charms them even as the basilisk. Marriage may be in their mind, but never in his, so that I could count a dozen and more whom he has led to their undoing. It is his pride and his boast over ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most of the incense came by post. Living a quiet and retired life in the country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk, but she began to look like a basilisk who has had a ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sire, thanks to his fear of death, and to the five thousand francs which I offered him, and which had the same effect upon him as a basilisk's eye on the bird. These German journalists, it seems, are even more needy than ours, for they can be ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... her defences against the basilisk fascinating Philippa; and with a vow to keep them apart and deprive him of his chance, she relapsed upon the stiff frigidity which was not natural to her. It lasted long enough to put him on his guard under the seductions of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and his worship was universal in Ethiopia. The sheep are sacred to him, of which there were large flocks in the Thebaid, kept for their wool. And the serpent or asp, a sign of kingly dominion,—hence called basilisk,—is sacred to Kneph. As Creator, he appears under the figure of a potter with a wheel. In Philae he is so represented, forming on his wheel a figure of Osiris, with the inscription, "Num, who forms on his wheel the Divine Limbs ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... 'tis there our splendid churches is in all their pride and glory, Saint Peter's famous Basilisk and Saint Mary's Maggiory; And them benighted Prodestants, on Sunday they must go Outside the town to the preaching-shop by ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fastening his dark basilisk-like eyes on the soldier, gazed a moment, as if to read his soul; then he jerked a thumb backward, over his own shoulder, and said, with a ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... were in the Museum, Cairn," Ferrara continued, still having his basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the drooping lids, "and I called to you ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... as the properties which were assigned to it. It was called the one thing, the essence, the philosopher's stone, the stone of wisdom, the heavenly balm, the divine water, the virgin water, the carbuncle of the sun, the old dragon, the lion, the basilisk, the phoenix; and many other names ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... an egg! And do you know what's in that egg? A basilisk. No one can stand the sight of such a thing; people know that, and now you know it too—you know what is in me, and what a champion of all ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... and this the very next moment turned up on the losing side, one of the other players cried with a laugh, 'Good-luck, Signor Vertua, good-luck! Don't lose heart. Go on staking; you look to me as if you would finish with breaking the bank through your immense winnings.' The old man shot a basilisk-like look upon the mocker and hurried away, but only to return at the end of half an hour with his pockets full of gold. In the last taille he was, however, obliged to cease playing, since he had again lost all the money he had brought ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... lets her periodical rest in her lap, and without any abating or concealment, fixes PIKE with a basilisk glare which continues. He is unconscious of all this, his back being three-quarters to ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... the dauntless hounds advance, Whirringly skirrs my stalwart lance— Whirringly skirrs; and from the scale Bounds, as a reed aslant the mail. Onward—but no!—the craven steed Shrinks from his lord in that dread need— Smitten and scared before that eye Of basilisk horror, and that blast Of death, it only seeks to fly— And half the mighty hope ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... smiled kindly at him. The ex-policeman was looking at him with the gaze of a baffled, but malignant basilisk. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... brilliants, and set in such a manner that they appeared to lift themselves erect from out the dusky hair as though in darting readiness to sting. Full of a vague, wild longing, he instinctively stretched out his arms, . . then on a sudden impulse turned swiftly away, in a dizzy effort to escape from the basilisk fire-gleam of those sombre, haunting eyes that plunged into his inmost soul, and there aroused such dark desires, such retrospective evil, such wild weakness as shamed the betterness of his nature! Sah-luma's clear, mocking ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... the names of some animals which never existed at all. The writers of the Middle Ages told many tales or fables of animals and monsters which were purely imaginary, but in which the people of those days firmly believed. We sometimes hear people use the expression a "basilisk glare," which other people would describe as a "look that kills," meaning a look of great severity or displeasure. There is a little American lizard which zoologists call the "basilisk," but this is not ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... Blennerhasset's Island, which recalled for a moment the name of Aaron Burr, and the eloquent language of Mr. Wirt on the treasonable schemes of that bold, talented, but unchastened politician. All was now ruin and devastation on the site of forsaken gardens, into the shaded recesses of which a basilisk had once entered. Some stacks of chimneys were all that was left to tell the tale. It seemed remarkable that twelve short years should have worked so complete a desolation. It would appear as if half a century ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... to shine in palaces, Forked into ills, and split into deceits; Two in their very frame. 'Twas well, 'twas well, I saw thee not at court, thou basilisk; For if I had, those eyes, without his guards, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... church, etc. This was courteous, to say the least. But the true cause soon revealed itself; the fair hand was poked right under their eyes every time an object was indicated; and Gerard eyed it like a basilisk, and longed for a bunch of nettles. The sun set, and the travellers, few in number, drew round the great roaring fire, and omitting to go on the spit, were frozen behind though roasted in front. For if the German stoves ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... "Nothing lies nearer my heart than that your majesty hear me. For my life, my happiness, and my misery, all lie wrapped up in the heart of your majesty. No, I answer—no; the aunts of the king, the old princesses, look with the basilisk eye of envy from a false point. They have lived at the court of their father; they have seen Vice put on the trappings of Virtue; they have seen Shamelessness array itself in the garments of Innocence, and they ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... This was the badge of the house: Jehane wore heron's feathers. He had a blue surcoat and blue housings for his horse. Behind him, esquire of honour, rode the young Amadeus of Savoy, carrying his banner, a white basilisk on a blue field. Saint-Pol was a burly man, bearing his honours squarely on breast ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... relate. Even the old travelers, who saw the phoenix expire in her odoriferous nest, whence the chick soon flew forth regenerated, or who found dead lions slain by the quills of some "fretful porcupine," or who knew that the stare of the basilisk was death—even those who saw unicorns graze and who heard mermaids sing—were veracious when compared with the explorers of railroad routes across the continent. Senator Jefferson Davis did much to encourage ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... monsters fast The hissing basilisk; The hippopotamus so vast, And the boa with waking ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... The Lambs with Wolves shall graze the verdant Mead [9] And Boys in flow'ry Bands the Tyger lead; The Steer and Lion at one Crib shall meet, And harmless Serpents Lick the Pilgrim's Feet. The smiling Infant in his Hand shall take The crested Basilisk and speckled Snake; Pleas'd, the green Lustre of the Scales survey, And with their forky Tongue and pointless Sting shall play. Rise, crown'd with Light, imperial Salem rise! [10] Exalt thy tow'ry Head, and lift thy Eyes! See, a long Race thy spacious Courts adorn; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... a sinister one, and when I saw him speak to the constable at the station, I had no doubt in my own mind that my liberty was not worth five minutes' purchase. But even so, anything seemed better than his basilisk eye in ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... waiting outside there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from the window until the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... Grandmother appear than the General stopped dead in the middle of a word, and, with jaw dropping, stared hard at the old lady—his eyes almost starting out of his head, and his expression as spellbound as though he had just seen a basilisk. In return, the Grandmother stared at him silently and without moving—though with a look of mingled challenge, triumph, and ridicule in her eyes. For ten seconds did the pair remain thus eyeing one ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to remark that the Professor's Wanderings, so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to clear insight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered-up what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend, flying from spectres, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... for our departure from table was given by Madame de Staemer. She whisked her chair back with extraordinary rapidity, the contrast between her swift, nervous movements and those still, basilisk eyes ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... could destroy, if Lady Auriol had been a Gorgon or a basilisk or a cockatrice, then had I been ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... one that looketh upon her eyes but he dieth presently. The like property has the basilisk. A white spot or star she carrieth on her head and setteth it out like a diadem. If she but hiss no other serpent dare ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... feet away on a rocky ledge was a thing of horror. Basilisk eyes in a hairy head; gray, stringy hairs; and the fearful head ended in narrow, outthrust jaws, where more of the gray hairs hung like moss from lips that writhed and curled and sucked at the air with a whistling shrillness. Those jaws ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... passageways and haunted the cabins. Marsha's snake was back. There was Lazar's dragon, which seemed to grow larger every day. There was also a basilisk, a pterodactyl, a vampire bat with a five-foot wingspread, an old-fashioned red spade-tailed demon ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... make void, What is confirm'd in Court: no, no, Don Henrique, You shall know that I find my self abus'd, And adde to that, I have a womans anger, And while I look upon this Basilisk, Whose envious eyes have blasted all my comforts Rest confident I'le study my dark ends, ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... wish, out walked Sophy, the English nurse, a scraggy woman, with a very cocked nose and thin, pinched lips, and an air of respectability and pertness mingled. She dropped a short courtesy, shot the glance of a basilisk at Ucatella, and said stiffly, "You are welcome home, ma'am." Then she took the little boy as one having authority. Not that Phoebe would have surrendered him; but just then Mr. Falcon strolled ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... that in doing so she would incur a great risk, but it seemed easier to lose her greatest treasure entirely than only to half possess it; and when she had once looked this thought in the face it attracted her, as with the gaze of a basilisk, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the appearance of the lizard, and the star-like shape of the spots which are sown over its back. Well, in Latin it is called 'stellio,' from stella, a star; just as the basilisk had in Greek this name of 'little king' because of the shape as of a kingly crown which the spots on its head might be made by the fancy to assume. Follow up the etymology of 'squirrel,' and you will find that the graceful creature which bears this name has obtained it as being ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. He meditates, his head upon his hand. What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull? 'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, It fascinates, and is intolerable. His mien is noble, most majestical! Then most so, when the distant choir is heard At morn or eve—nor fail thou to attend On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there; When all, propitiating with solemn songs, Visit the Dead. Then wilt ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... keep the deposit, avoid profane novelties of words.' Avoid (quoth he) as a viper, as a scorpion, as a basilisk, lest they infect thee not only by touching, but also with their very eyes and breath. What is meant by avoid?[370] that is, not so much as to eat with any such. What importeth this avoid? 'If any man ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... the platform in the great hall where Sykes and McGuire had stood, and their basilisk eyes glared unwinkingly down at the three who were thrown ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... not righted here. There must be some place where they will be righted. God can not afford to omit the judgment day or the reconstruction of conditions. For you can not make me believe that that man stuffed with all abomination, having devoured widows' houses and digested them, looking with basilisk or tigerish eyes upon his fellows, no music so sweet to him as the sound of breaking hearts, is, at death, to get out of the landau at the front door of the sepulcher and pass right on through to the back door of the sepulcher, and find a celestial turnout waiting for him, so ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... Table-Talk of Christians. The Nature of Things is not dumb, but very loquacious, affording Matter of Contemplation. The Description of a neat Garden, where there is a Variety of Discourse concerning Herbs. Of Marjoram, Celandine, Wolfs-Bane, Hellebore. Of Beasts, Scorpions, the Chamaeleon, the Basilisk; of Sows, Indian Ants, Dolphins, and of the Gardens of Alcinous. Tables were esteemed sacred by the very Heathens themselves. Of washing Hands before Meat. A Grace before Meat out of Chrysostom. Age is to be honoured, ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... wretch, that I did not possess the eyes of a basilisk, for I should certainly have blasted him on the spot. Pausing, however, one salutary moment, to confirm myself in the love of virtue, by noting how abominable a villain looks, I hasted to the general ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... paddle steamer Alecto, each vessel of the same model, size, and power,—each vessel being of about 800 tons burden and 200 horses power. Subsequently another set of experiments with the same object was made with the Niger screw steamer and the Basilisk paddle steamer, both vessels being of about 1000 tons burden and 400 horses power. The general results which were obtained in the course of these experiments are those ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... and of an obliging disposition, and would willingly have done what was asked of him, but there were obstacles, first and foremost of which ranked the fact that, taking advantage of his position on the back desk (whither he thought the basilisk eye of Authority could not reach), he had substituted Bab Ballads for the words of Virgil, and was engrossed in the contents of that modern classic. The subsequent explanations lasted several hours. In fact, it is probable that ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... instant, but I had time to trace effect to cause. The warning came this time from the eyes of a man, a lithe, keen-faced man who flashed a look of triumphant malice on us as he disappeared in the waiting-room of the ferry-shed. But the keen face, and the basilisk glance were burned into my mind in that moment as deeply as though I had known then what ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... by a glance are ophthalmia and jaundice, say the ancients; and in these cases, the fascinator loses the disease as his victim takes it A similar peculiarity is to be remarked in the superstition of the basilisk, who kills, if he sees first, but when he is seen first, dies. No animals, it is said, can bear the steady gaze of man, and there are some persons who by this means seem to exercise a wonderful power over them. Animals, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... lion, and the fatling shall come together, and a little child shall lead them. And the heifer, and the she bear shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling shall play upon the hole of the asp; and upon the den of the basilisk shall the new weaned child lay his hand. They shall not hurt, nor destroy in my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And it shall come to pass in ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... Wyszoniek did not wish to use it, especially as the sick man had slept well the preceding night and had awakened without any fever, although still very weak. After the prince's departure, the sister immediately sent a servant for a new medicine apparently—for the "egg of a basilisk"—which she affirmed had the power to restore strength even to people in agony; as for herself, she wandered about the mansion; she was humble and was dressed in a lay dress, but similar to that worn by members of the Order; she carried a rosary and a small pilgrim's gourd at her belt. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... was indeed very sorry that we were not dining "at home." At least they might have left me alone there. That he did not turn to stone as he uttered these words was not my fault; at least I fixed upon him such basilisk eyes as I was capable of. What an idea! To refuse a dinner with my P. C. uncle for his sake! Grandmother, too, discovered that I also must be ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... effects of the basilisk, the serpent, and the evil eye, have probably all some facts for their foundation. The effect of the human eye in arresting the attacks of savage animals is better authenticated, and its influence upon domestic animals may be more easily made the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... was observing him with the eyes of a basilisk, but Castro swore a great oath that, as to himself, he showed no signs of fear. He looked at the water gushing from the rock, bubbling up, sparkling, running away in a succession of tiny leaps and falls. Why should he fear? Was he not old, and tired, and without any ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... you had the face of a basilisk," said Tirola; "now you are quite another thing; I rejoice at it, if, indeed, it be a sign, forgive me the expression, that you are not a scoundrel. Your scoundrels (for I am an old hand at the trade, and my observations are worth something) ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... there Port, which is not known in Room. The Tiber is a nice river, it looks yellow, but it does the same there as the Thames does here. We hired a carry-lettz and a cocky-olly, to take us to the Church of Salt Peter, which is prodigious big; in the centre of the pizarro there is a basilisk very high, on the right and left two handsome foundlings; and the farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, is ornamented with collateral statutes ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... the latter, is an extensive submerged shoal, on the charts called the Grand Cocal Reef, but by the people of the two islands known as Tia Kau (The Reef). On the shallowest part there are from four to ten fathoms of water, and here in heavy weather the sea breaks. The British cruiser BASILISK, about 1870, sought for the reef, but reported it as non-existent. Yet the Tia Kati is well known to many a Yankee whaler and trading schooner, and is a favourite fishing-ground of the people of Nanomaga—when the sharks give them ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... himself much and seriously indisposed by indolence and intemperance, he requested to know what he was to do, and the doctor ordered him to eat a basilisk, stewed in rose water, which he asserted would effect a complete cure. His slaves searched in vain for a basilisk; at last they met with Zadig, who was introduced to this mighty lord, and spoke to him in the ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... If she had not stared hard at Miss Carroll's trunk, and tried anxiously to make out the name on a very small label, she would have done what she had boasted of never doing, whatever the world did to her: she would have cried. As it was, she wore the expression of a budding basilisk. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... stairs to open the door, and shortly afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Dona Perfecta's room. Her face, flushed with ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... That seemed a giant human skeleton, But yet in motion terrible and quick As lightning, killing ere the thunders roll; His fleshless skull had on a seeming crown, While from his sunken sockets glared his eyes Like coals of fire or eyes of basilisk, And from his bony hand each instant flew Unerring darts that flew to pierce and kill, Piercing the infant in its mother's arms, The mother when she feels her first-born's breath, Piercing the father ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... with basilisk eyes. "I think I'd rather not dance any more. I'm an old married woman now. If you don't mind, I'll be one of the customers at your shop. I'll come in in the rippingest gown Jim can buy. I'll feel more comfortable, too, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... himself to take much note of the deep examination of which he was himself the object, Auguste did not see the half-magnetic glance with which this strange being seemed to pierce him; had he encountered that basilisk eye he might have felt the danger that encompassed him. Too passionately excited to think of himself, Auguste bowed, went down the stairs, and returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,—Ida, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... towards them, they experienced feelings of alarm that had never yet affected their manly bosoms in danger or in war. Their faces paled a little, but their courage stood the test, for they sat still till she came close enough to let her piercing dark eyes be seen peering at them like those of a basilisk from out the folds of the shawl that ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... welcome as those features and that voice once were, now would I rather have encountered the eyes of a basilisk and the notes ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Avenging Spirit of this great man's life, relaxed nothing of his severity. He looked on at these dinners when the bosom was not there, as he looked on at other dinners when the bosom was there; and his eye was a basilisk to Mr Merdle. He was a hard man, and would never bate an ounce of plate or a bottle of wine. He would not allow a dinner to be given, unless it was up to his mark. He set forth the table for his own ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Leo arrived, and was received as his successor, and Maximin was summoned to the emperor's court and promoted to the office of prefect of the praetorium, where he was as cruel as ever, having indeed greater power of inflicting injury, like a basilisk serpent. ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... done to that eye, with which he was wont to look erect on heaven, and see in his mirror the image of his God? What Egyptian drug have you poured into his veins, and turned the ambling fountains of the heart into black and burning pitch? Give me back my husband! Undo your basilisk spells, and give me back the man that stood ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... undiscerned birth, The almighty wand a serpent grew, And his long half in painted folds behind him drew: Upwards his threatening tail he threw, Upwards he cast his threatening head, He gaped and hissed aloud, With flaming eyes surveyed the trembling crowd, And, like a basilisk, almost looked the assembly dead: Swift fled the amazed king, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of hard work ere their preparations were complete, for many were the needs of a small force sailing to a strange country. Three ships had been left to them, the cog Thomas of Romney, the Grace Dieu of Hythe, and the Basilisk of Southampton, into each of which one hundred men were stowed, besides the thirty seamen who formed the crew. In the hold were forty horses, amongst them Pommers, much wearied by his long idleness, and homesick for the slopes of Surrey where his great limbs might find ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... clip gold BARBEL, fresh-water fish BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford) BARLEY-GREAK, game somewhat similar to base BASE, game of prisoner's base BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted" BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce BATOON, baton, stick BATTEN, feed, grow fat BAWSON, badger BEADSMAN, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... the fatal pledge to the eyes of the astonished youth, upon whom it operated like the poisonous sight of the basilisk, for in an instant, the whole passions of his soul were in the most violent agitation. "What!" cried he, in an ecstasy of rage, "is she so abandoned to perfidy, so lost to shame, so damned to constancy, to gratitude, and virtuous love, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... might escape me. I drew back as far as I could, and even reconnoitred the door and passage, to consider whether absolute escape might not be practicable. But there paraded Cristal Nixon, whose little black eyes, sharp as those of a basilisk, seemed, the instant when they encountered mine, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... She had tried not to let Roger see how much she dreaded the prospect of the witness-box. In her present state of nerves she felt she might be guilty of a hundred contradictions and indiscretions, if faced with the basilisk eyes and over-powering personality of the man she feared. At the very thought of him she began to tremble all over as though with ague. It was perfectly absurd, of course, but there it was. Still now, if she chose, she could face the trying experience as a married woman, as Roger Clifford's ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... have looked at his father-in-law at this juncture if he had had a free and untrammelled choice; but Mr. Brewster's eye drew his with something of the fascination which a snake's has for a rabbit. Mr. Brewster's eye was fiery and intimidating. A basilisk might have gone to him with advantage for a course of lessons. His gaze went right through Archie till the latter seemed to feel his back-hair curling ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... 'Twas cowardice alone withheld his hands, For they would grasp and grapple at the air, When his grey eye had fixed on heaps of gold, While his clench'd teeth, and grinning, yearning face, Were dreadful to behold. The merchants oft Would mark his eye, then start and look again, As at the eye of basilisk or snake. His eye of greyish green ne'er shed one ray Of kind benignity or holy light On aught beneath the sun. Childhood, youth, beauty, To it had all one hue. Its rays reverted Right inward, back upon the greedy heart On which the gnawing worm of avarice Preyed without ceasing, straining every ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... an expression was that?" inquired Mrs. Winslow Teed. "I saw a stuffed basilisk in a London museum when I was abroad, but I can't seem to recollect ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... sea-eagle, with its sharp incurved beak, terrible talons, and armour-plated legs, is a friend to all the little birds. He has the "stately face and magnanimous minde" that old writers were wont to ascribe to the Basilisk, the King of Serpents. They know and respect, almost venerate him. A horde of them never seeks to scare him away with angry scolding and feeble assaults, as it does the cruel falcon and the daring goshawk. Domestic fowls learn of his ways, and are wise in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... the surgeon, 'that basilisk stare has chilled me through, my friends. I can hear bells ringing in my ears! I may take leave of you; you ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... word agreement, as if to praise the young emperor's good feeling in following the advice of his mother Agrippina. On another the emperor is styled the young good genius, and he is represented by the sacred basilisk crowned with the double crown of Egypt. The new prefect, Balbillus, was an Asiatic Greek, and no doubt received his Roman names of Tiberius Claudius on being made a freedman of the late emperor. He governed the country mildly and justly; and the grateful inhabitants declared ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... pains to entertain the numerous guests, and being still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all the dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other melancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir Leicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be wanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... padded shutters. A few minutes later, Esther, in her dressing-gown, came to breathe the air, leaning on Lucien; any one who saw them might have taken them for the originals of some pretty English vignette. Esther was the first to recognize the basilisk eyes of the Spanish priest; and the poor creature, stricken as if she had been shot, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... distempers of the affections.' And we shall find, under the head of the medicining of the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which could be better said there than here, because the wrath of professional dignitaries,—the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others. For though 'the Doctors' in that department, did manage, in the dark ages, to possess themselves of certain weapons ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... A certain Count of Savoy owned the beautiful Castle of Chillon, which you have perhaps seen, on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. But he could not be happy, because he and the people about him thought that in a hole in the rock under one of the cellars a basilisk lived—a very terrible dragon—and they all went in fear of it. So the Count paid a brave mason a large sum of money (and the payment is solemnly set down in his account book) to break a way into this hole and turn the basilisk out; ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... the sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that makes my blood run cold whenever I think ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... his lawsuit, the alto had a charming smile for the sympathetic house, the soprano was as peaceful as a mine immediately after an explosion. Not one of the chorus stayed too long in the cafe; and since Wurzelmann directed, and the orchestra did not have to feel the burning, basilisk eye of Kapellmeister Nothafft resting on it and floating over it, it played with more precision and produced a more pleasing feast for the ears ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... sight, clear glance, sharp glance, quick glance, eagle glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis[obs3]. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus[obs3]. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Mythical]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken; get a sight of, have a sight of, catch a sight of, get a glimpse of, have a glimpse of, catch a glimpse of; command a view of; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the sucking child playeth on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child putteth his hand into the den of the basilisk." ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... basilisk was hatched in this place, Where every thing consumed is to nought? What fearful Fury haunts these cursed groves, Where not a root is left for Humber's meat? Hath fell Alecto, with invenomed blasts, Breathed forth poison in ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... and appalling crimes. No one knew what they exactly were, for the old woman had outlived her contemporaries, and the tradition was imperfect; but she had been handed down to the next generation as one to be avoided as a basilisk. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... human soul, than I can explain. Any one who has ever seen an old fortune-teller of "the people" keeping some simple-minded maiden by the hand, while she holds her by her glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner, with a basilisk stare, will agree with me. As Scheele de Vere writes, "It must not be forgotten that the human eye has, beyond question, often a power which far transcends the ordinary purposes of sight, and approaches ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... but felt that his sole object had been to cover his change of position. For, when he sat down again, it was where he could see my face. I therefore felt justified in plying the fan he had offered me, in such a way as to shut off his somewhat basilisk gaze. And so a ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... me; forbear, I say! Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting. Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight! Upon thy eye-balls murtherous tyranny Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world. Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding. Yet do not go away; come, basilisk, And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight, For in the shade of death I shall find joy, In life but double ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... that the bank of the river, from whence we should find a clear passage across, was about two miles distant. I never remember seeing or feeling anything to be compared with the darkness of that pine wood, but our guide seemed to have the eyes of a basilisk. We formed Indian file, our guide leading, and crept along as best we could. At last, after stealthily progressing for half an hour, a glimmer of starlight through the trees showed us that we were getting to the ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... a rascal. He that dares be false To a master, though unjust, will ne'er be true To any other. Look not for reward, Or favour from me; I will shun thy sight, As I would do a basilisk's. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... near the south-east entrance to Rocky Pass, between Basilisk and Hayter Islands, and formed, in all probability, during their sojourn in these parts, the centre of their various excursions to the islands and ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... he sat, watching me like a basilisk, with his dark, glittering, mesmeric eyes, out of a remote corner of the room—not in contempt or anger, but there was a quiet, assured, sardonic smile about his lips, which ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... but she proves her self still to be the Devil of a Lady, for she bears Malice, and will never forgive me, that I would not let her be an Angel; but like a very Devil as she is, she endeavours to kill me at a Distance; and indeed the Poison of her Eyes, (Basilisk-like) is very strong, and she has a strange Influence upon me; but I that know her to be a Devil, strive very hard with my self to drive the Memory of her out ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... reflects. Nay, it seems to leave an impress even upon the countenance. The feature, from having a dark, sinister aspect, becomes open, serene, and sunny. A countenance so impressed, has neither the vacant stare of the idiot, nor the crafty, penetrating look of the basilisk, but the clear, placid aspect of truth and goodness. The woman {94} who has such a face is beautiful. She has a beauty which changes not with the features, which fades not with years. It is beauty of expression. It is the only kind of beauty which can be relied upon for a ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... talent strives to display itself on a scale too great for it and cannot do so. A horrible envy took possession of him—an envy which bordered on madness. The gall flew to his heart when he beheld a work which bore the stamp of talent. He gnashed his teeth, and devoured it with the glare of a basilisk. He conceived the most devilish plan which ever entered into the mind of man, and he hastened with the strength of madness to carry it into execution. He began to purchase the best that art produced of every kind. Having bought a picture at a great ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a stranger's due." Self-love like this is knavish and absurd, And well deserves a damnatory word. You glance at your own faults; your eyes are blear: You eye your neighbour's; straightway you see clear, Like hawk or basilisk: your neighbours pry Into your frailties with as keen an eye. A man is passionate, perhaps misplaced In social circles of fastidious taste; His ill-trimmed beard, his dress of uncouth style, His shoes ill-fitting, may provoke ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... panther's treacherous seeming, That looks so lovely to beguile its prey; Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming, That charms the fancy only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... that if thou dost but see her, she will stupefy thee, kill thee straight, and, Medusa like, turn thee to a stone; thou canst not pull thine eyes from her, but, as an adamant doth iron, she will carry thee bound headlong whither she will herself, infect thee like a basilisk. It holds both in men and women. Dido was amazed at Aeneas' presence; Obstupuit primo aspectu Sidonia Dido; and as he feelingly verified ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... have we view'd the city, seen the sack, And caus'd the ruins to be new-repair'd, Which with our bombards' shot and basilisk[s] [196] We rent in sunder at our entry: And, now I see the situation, And how secure this conquer'd island stands, Environ'd with the Mediterranean sea, Strong-countermin'd with other petty isles, And, toward Calabria, [197] back'd by ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... other. But some days after my establishment had begun to run smoothly, one of the military ladies asked me to dinner. The punkah string was pulled by a murderous-looking ex-insurrecto, who fixed me with a basilisk glance, half entreaty, half reproach. It became so painful that toward the end of dinner I asked my hostess if his expression was due to his general frame of mind or to a special aversion toward pedagogues. She replied that ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief. And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were long and perfect, and the long, steady, unabashed gaze with which she would look into the face of her admirer fascinated while it frightened him. She was a basilisk from whom an ardent lover of beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth and teeth and chin and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than they had been at eighteen. What wonder ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Aurelian himself entered, accompanied by Fronto. Livia, at the same time, arose and withdrew, not caring, I thought, to meet the eyes of that basilisk, who, with the cunning of a priest, she saw to be usurping a power over Aurelian which belonged of right to her. I was about also to withdraw, but the Emperor constraining me, as he often does, I remained, although holding the priest ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... For now I take a road whose harsh alarms Forbid so sweet a burden to my arms." Then his clean limbs his weeping squires bedight In all the mail Hephaistos served his might Withal, of breastplate shining like the sun Upon flood-water, three-topped helm whereon Gleamed the gold basilisk, and goodly greaves. These bore he without word; but when from sheaves Of spears they picked the great ash Pelian Poseidon gave to Peleus, God to a man, For no man's manege else—than all men's fear: "Dry and cold fighting for thee this day, my spear," Quoth he. And so when one the golden shield ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... however, had not become known to Castleton, solely because of the Englishman's obtuseness. And there was another thing much stranger than this and quite as amusing. Dorothy Coombs knew Monty was a liar; but she was so fascinated by the glittering, basilisk eyes he riveted upon her, so taken in by his horrible tales of blood, that despite her knowledge she ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... Aramis seemed to feel a basilisk glance, like a white-hot iron, escape from his friend's eyes, and plunge into ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dropped his wine-glass from his hand, and levelled at Thaddeus the glance of a basilisk. The Assessor was less noisy and less given to gestures than the Notary, thinner and shorter; but he was terrible at masquerade, ball, or village diet, for they said of him that he had a sting in his tongue. He could make ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... dreamt of seeing you in my present close lodgings?" And at the same time, with the frankness of old kindness, he walked up to Christie and offered his hand; but John started back as from the look of a basilisk. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... of the Cross, who should shun the glance of a woman as the eye of a basilisk, live in open sin, not with the females of their own race only, but with the daughters of the accursed heathen, and more accursed Jew. Beaumanoir, thou sleepest; up, and avenge our cause!—Slay the sinners, male and female!—Take to thee the brand of Phineas!—The ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... when her helpful qualities were taken into consideration, but, as I said, she was feared as well as loved, for Deborah made her enemies tremble. Not only did she possess the power to heal, but also the power to curse. Her eye was like that of the fabled serpent, called the basilisk, and in her anger she ever struck terror. She could stop horses from drawing, and keep cows from yielding their milk. For her to "ill wish" anyone was a sure sign that ruin would befall them. Nor was this all. Everyone throughout the ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... and disgust escaped at the same moment from the lips of the two officers, and the men started back from their charge as if a basilisk had suddenly appeared before them. Captain Erskine pursued:—"What the devil is the meaning of all ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the eyes of Hunt and his companions were eagerly turned upon him, those of M'Lellan glaring like a basilisk's. He began by the usual expressions of friendship, and then proceeded to explain the object of his own party. Those persons, however, said he, pointing to Mr. Hunt and his companions, are of a different party, and are quite distinct in their views; but, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... from Rope and Gun; Nay, some have out liv'd the Doctor's Pill; Who takes a Woman must be undone, That Basilisk is sure to kill. The Fly that sips Treacle is lost in the Sweets, So he that tastes Woman, Woman, Woman, He ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... directly, the manager allowed his gaze to wander from the ceiling. He eyed Psmith for a moment like an elderly basilisk, then looked back ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... the natives make a portage. Here, then, we took our station close to a cascade: our opponents commenced building a hut on one side of the path, we on the other. While this operation was in progress, basilisk looks denoted the strength of feeling that pervaded the breasts of either party, but not a word was exchanged between us. Our hut was first completed, when our champion clambered aloft, and crowed defiance; three times he crowed (aloud), but no responding voice was heard from the opposite ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... patch-work of life and death, with a wig, one glass eye, and a set of false teeth, while his voice was husky and thick; but his mind seemed undebilitated as in youth; it shone out of his remaining eye with basilisk brilliancy. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the dragon is not a fabulous animal;" but I thought there was more of art than nature about the beast. He then shewed us a basilisk, but instead of slaying us with a glance it only made us laugh. The greatest wonder of all, however, was nothing else than a Freemason's apron, which, as the curator very sagely declared, proved the existence of such an order, whatever some ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... emperor; and Justinian, planting a foot on each of their necks, contemplated above an hour the chariot-race, while the inconstant people shouted, in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk, and on the lion and dragon shalt thou set thy foot!" The universal defection which he had once experienced might provoke him to repeat the wish of Caligula, that the Roman people had but one head. Yet I shall presume to observe, that such a wish is unworthy of an ingenious tyrant, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... knocked, I have knocked at the hall doors of Earth to summon the Jann, and the Jann have knocked for the Jann against the Shaytan." Hereat appeared to me the son of Al bin Imran[FN247] with a snake and baldrick'd with a basilisk and cried, "Who be this trader and son of a slave-girl who hath knocked at the ground for us this evening?" "Then do thou, O youth, reply, 'I am a lover and of age youthful and my love is to a young lady; and unto your gramarye ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... support can we not boldly tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and trample under foot the lion and the dragon?[2] As it is in temptation that we learn to know the greatness of our courage and of our fidelity to God, so it is by suffering temptation that we make progress in strength of heart, and that we learn ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... Iconographie) we have several references to ancient representations of our blessed Lord treading the dragon under foot; and sometimes the lion, the asp, and the basilisk are ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... seem basilisk-eyed, riveting a gaze that would gladly seek more agreeable subjects, and it chanced that Dr. Grey found a painful fascination in this piece of canvas that hung immediately in front of him. Wherein consisted the magnetism that so ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Turn away my face! I never yet saw enemy that looked So dreadfully, but that I thought myself As great a basilisk as he; or spake So horribly, but that I thought my tongue Bore thunder underneath, as much as his; Nor beast that I could turn from: shall I then Begin to fear sweet sounds? a lady's voice, Whom I do love? Say, you would have my ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... father, soft-winged, foul-eyed, hungry-taloned, flitting noiselessly in circles, that grew ever and ever narrower, sure, and unfaltering to the final triumphant swoop! Or no—Rather a coiled and quiescent father, horrible-eyed, lying in slimy rings at the foot of the tree, basilisk gaze fixed upward, while the enthralled bird fluttered hopelessly down, twig by twig, ever nearer ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... By some fatality I had drawn the body directly to the spot where the last fading shafts of light would hover about its face. Not for a paradise of peace would I touch the loathsome thing again to hide it in the shadows. I could neither take my eyes from it nor put my hands upon it. Like the basilisk of fable it held my gaze charmed, fixed it, bound it fast. Crouch as I might in the remotest corner, cover my face in my mantle, still that searching, penetrating thing pierced all obstacles, glared grisly ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... towards the balcony, in which the group of ladies were seated, and begged to drink their healths; he then turned to Kneebone and the others, who extended their hands towards him, and raised it to his lips. Just as he was about to drain it, he encountered the basilisk glance of Jonathan ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rises; where the mighty crags, throne-like, o'ershadow the lesser woods; where the royal beast, lording it over an inferior world, stealthily prowls and lashes its angry tail at the impudence of such a disturbance in its vast domain. Its basilisk stare looks out from its furtive, drooping head, and its commands ring out in a roar ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... Father, our great Julius II, he is a valiant champion of the Lord, and now the world has seen what this basilisk-egg, France, has hatched. Fancy! they want to come now and divide our Italy among them! As if we did not have ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... at least, which can boast of not being poetry. Ay, in this MS. which Shakib is packing along with Al-Mutanabbi in the bottom of his trunk to evade the Basilisk touch of the Port officials of Beirut, is packed all the hopes of the Modern School. Pack on, Shakib; for whether at the Mena House, or in the hasheesh-dens of Cairo, the Future is drinking to thee, and dreaming of thee and thy School its opium dreams. And Khalid, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... go study mischief, And put a look on, arm'd with all my cunnings. Shall meet him like a basilisk, and strike him. Love! put destroying flame into mine eyes, Into my smiles deceits, that I may torture him— That I may make him love to ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... "any way you can! Only let me know which is best for him. You get all the disagreeable things to do, good old unready one," he added kindly. "I believe you are the one who would be shoved in front, if we were obliged to face a basilisk." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge |
