"Eel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a smouldering sort of rage. And take any more active invertebrate. Take a spider. Not a smashing and swearing sort of rage perhaps, but a disciplined, cold-blooded malignity. Crabs fight. A conger eel in ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... proved to be cross and bad-tempered, perhaps because she had only caught one red eel during all the day. When she found that her husband had used her clothesline, and the logs she had wanted for firewood, and the boards she had intended to mend the shed with, and a lot of gold ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... that the reasons for it are older than that event, as suggested by Egypt's experience and by Rome's regret for having persecuted an unknown quantity called a Christian, under the mistaken impression that she was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely a Jew—a skinned eel who was used to it, presumably. I am persuaded that in Russia, Austria, and Germany nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew comes from the average Christian's inability to compete successfully with the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... jump Anders got out of his chair. He darted like an arrow through all the halls, down all the stairs, and across the yard. He twisted himself like an eel between the outstretched arms of the courtiers, and over the soldiers' muskets he jumped like a little rabbit. He ran so fast that the Princess's necklace fell off his neck, and all the cakes jumped out of his pockets. But he had his ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... smoked a pipe of Irish tobacco, and said "Never Again"; that the slipper-limpet, formerly the terror of the oyster-beds had now by the ingenuity of his Department been transformed into a valuable source of poultry-food, and that the roundabout process by which the Germans in bygone days imported eel-fry from the Severn for their own rivers, and then exported the full-grown fish for the delectation of East-end dinner-tables, had been done away with. In the matter of eels this country ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... the constricted passageway that seemed to Ken to raise College Hall from its foundation. It terrified him. Like an eel he slipped through reaching arms and darted forward. Ken was heavy and fast on his feet, and with fear lending him wings he made a run through College Hall that would have been a delight to the football coach. For Ken was not dodging any sophomores now. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... was in the back room yonder, which she got in somehow. The man followed her in, sneaking and sneaking like an eel or a cop, and she ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... absolutely engaged to Lady Charlotte (she had taken care of that), and being free, and feeling his heart beat in more lively fashion, he turned almost delightedly to the girl he could not escape from. As when the wriggling eel that has been prodded by the countryman's fork, finds that no amount of wriggling will release it, to it twists in a knot around the imprisoning prong. This simile says more than I mean it to say, but those who understand similes will know the measure ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... refuge on the gunboat, he asked what it was. "It's nuffin' but willows, sah," he replied. "When de water's out of de bayou, den we cuts de willows to make baskets with. You kin go troo dat like a eel." ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that came pouring out of chapel afterward, Bea, who had an eel-like rapidity in gliding through crowds, found herself at the doors some yards in advance of Lila. Halting to wait in the vestibule, she overheard a junior instructing a new freshman officer ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... the public rooms of the Cosmopolis were decorated with taste, and his own private suite was a shrine of all that was best and most artistic. His tastes were quiet and restrained, and it is not too much to say that the Wigmore Venus hit him behind the ear like a stuffed eel-skin. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... in Water, and thus store it: Put Carp, Bream and Tench by themselves: Pike, Pearch, Eel, and Tench (the Fishes Physician) by themselves; for Food of the greater Fishes, put store of Roach, Dace, Loach and Menow; and Lastly to one Melter, put three Spawners, and in three Years the increase will be great, and in five Years ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... himself was concerned, the episode of Rob's unexpected appearance put an effectual stop to those tete-a-tetes which he had anticipated. Peggy was as slippery as an eel, and as his ankle kept him confined to one room, he was obliged to put up with her caprices, and resign himself to solitude during those hours when host and hostess were engaged. She would talk to him, read to him, play games with him, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... attempt to describe all these wigs, how they swelled at the sides, and turned under in rolls, and rose in puffs, and then shrank to a small close wig that vanished at Revolutionary times in powdered natural hair and a queue of ribbon, a bag, or an eel-skin, and finally gave way to cropped hair "a-la-Brutus or a-la-Titus," as a Boston hair-dresser ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... sorr," said Murphy, jerking his thumb towards the sombre column passing, "thim laads is the laads f'r to twisht th' Dootch pigtails on thim Hissians at Half-moon. They do be pigtails on th' Dootch a fut long in the eel-skin. Faith, I saw McCraw's scalp—'twas wan o' Harrod's men tuk it, not I, sorr!—an' 'twas red an' ratty, wid nary a lock to lift it, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... visiting Camp Fire girl to figure out any reason why she should be fearful of anything this slip of a child might do, and yet the first act of the latter after they were inside sent through her a chill of terror. Slipping around her like an eel, the little emissary of trouble pushed the door to and turned the key in the lock. Helen was certain also that she heard the key withdrawn ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... privileged to kill him. I ripped the knife from his fingers, and we closed with bare hands; our muscles cracking to the strain, his voice uttering one croaking cry for help as I bore in on his windpipe. He was a snake, a cat, slipping out of my grip as by some magic, turning and twisting like an eel, yet unable to wholly escape, or overcome, my strength and skill. At last I had him prone against the rail, the weight of us both so hard upon it, the stout wood cracked, and we both went over, grappling together until we splashed into the water below. The ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... at once, and so eagerly, that no one noticed the dog come up behind them. He gave one spring and seized the fox by the throat. The attack was quite unexpected, but the fox fought, writhed, and wriggled like an eel, and just as he was being borne down, he made one desperate snap, and bit off the dog's ear ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Biger prices I have gathered 80 bales and 15 or 16 more in the field yet to pick so you see when I make my estimate in this county they are a power of cotton on the fields yet to pick and a grate eel in houses not gined up yet, gust act as if those deals were your own shood you close them out gust credit my account with the profitts but dont close them out until you think it has tuch bottom then I want you to by me the same amount but don't ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... hen's nest, a needle in a bottle of hay, which is as seldom seen as a black swan: he is gone to seek my young mistress; and I think she is better lost than found, for whosoever hath her, hath but a wet eel by the tail. But they may do, as they list; the law is in their own hands; but, and they would be rul'd by me, they should set her on the lee-land, and bid the devil split her; beshrew her fingers, she hath made ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... another of the horsemen, "and the young brat is as slippery as an eel. He and this Coyote Pete, as they call him, escaped me once before in the Grizzly Pass. I have a debt to even ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... strips of skin from all kinds of animals, inflated gall bladders, bones, and pieces of wood. In his hand he carried a bag made by cutting the skin of a wild cat around the neck, and then tearing it off the body as one skins an eel. Out of this he drew a long, living, green snake (inusbwa, the boom-slang), which he hung over his shoulder, where it began to coil about, darting ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn up nose was fresh, and even piquant, his scanty hair was black as soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole. . . . However my taste has nothing to do with it. Groholsky who was spoilt by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times in his life, saw her as a beauty. He loved her, and blind love ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and about she went like an eel, and ran upon the opposite tack right under the Spaniard's stern. The Spaniard, astounded at the quickness of the manoeuvre, hesitated a moment, and then tried to get about also, as his only chance; but it was too late, and while his lumbering length ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... my lord; but while I was managing this young robustious fellow, that old spark, who was nothing but skin and bone, and by consequence very nimble, slipt through my fingers like an eel, for there was no hold-fast of him, and ran away to ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Jules. To him, I says, wishing to try him. "Allez a votre bateau. Je say mon Lootenong. Eel voo donneray porkwor." To me, says he, "Vous ong ate hurroo! Jamay de la vee!" and I saw by his eye he'd taken on for the full term of the war. Jules was a blue-eyed, brindle-haired beggar of a useful make and inquirin' habits. Your ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... simple marksmen of Bunker Hill to the discipline of the armies of Europe and tested their efficiency in the din of battle. He has leisure now, and scarcely knows how to find employment for his active mind. He is telling his hostess, in broken German-English, of the whale (it proved to be an eel) he had caught in the river. Hear his hostess laugh! And that is the voice of Lafayette, relating perhaps his adventures in escaping from France, or his mishap in attempting to attend Mrs. Knox's last party. Wayne, of Stony Point; Gates, of ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... Theodora, pretending to be vastly scandalized. "Just see how bold he behaves! I never would have thought it of him!" Thus they tormented me, winking confidentially to each other; and an eel being skinned alive for the frying-pan would not have suffered more than I did ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... All this train of thought was broken By the stork from the old tower, Who, full of a father's pride, had Taken his young brood to ramble On the Rhine-shore for the first time. 'Twas amusing to young Werner How just then the old stork gravely, On the sand with stealthy cunning, Closely a poor eel was watching, Who of various worms was making There a comfortable meal. He, however, who was wielding O'er the little worms the strand-law, Soon himself will serve as breakfast. For the greater eats the lesser, And the greatest eats the great ones. In this simple manner nature Solves ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... it that time, did you?" said Sam, with a satisfied chuckle. "You generally play the wriggling eel, but I was too ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... fattest eel I ever saw," he declared exultantly. "Guess it must have been the first one Chris ever saw. They certainly ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... his hand, and with a quick movement of the other hand draws it through the nose, and throws the snake, still living, away. [42] This completes the nose-piercing; but there still rests upon the patient the duty of going to the river, and there catching an eel, which he gives to the people who have been feeding ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... each of them hath been rendered more weak and puny by its place of concealment in thy closet. What thou hast written on the immortality of the soul goes rather to prove the immortality of the body; and applies as well to the body of a weasel or an eel as to the fairer one of Agathon or of Aster. Why not at once introduce a new religion, since religions keep and are relished in proportion as they are salted with absurdity, inside and out? and all of them must have one great crystal of it for the centre; ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... breath, As to the ear of death. That beast of many heads and light,[7] The crowd, accustom'd to the sound Was all intent upon a sight— A brace of lads in mimic fight. A new resource the speaker found. 'Ceres,' in lower tone said he, 'Went forth her harvest fields to see: An eel, as such a fish might he, And swallow, were her company. A river check'd the travellers three. Two cross'd it soon without ado; The smooth eel swam, the swallow flew.—' Outcried the crowd With voices loud— 'And Ceres—what did she?' 'Why, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... closed eyes as if in self-abandonment to her fate, Cecily thought with more repugnance of home the nearer she drew to it. It was not likely that Reuben had returned; there would be again an endless evening of misery in solitude. When the cab was at the end of Eel size Park, she called the driver's attention, and bade him drive on to a certain other address, that of the Denyers. Zillah's letter of appeal, all but forgotten, had suddenly come to mind and revived her sympathies. Was there not some resemblance between her affliction and that of poor ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... a youth. He lived on cinnabar and wore no clothing. Even in winter he went about without garments. He sat on a tortoise three feet long. Once he was asked: "About how old might this tortoise be?" He answered: "When Fu Hi first invented fish-nets and eel-pots he caught this tortoise and gave it to me. And since then I have worn its shield quite flat sitting on it. The creature dreads the radiance of the sun and moon, so it only sticks its head out of its shell once in two thousand years. Since I have had the beast, it has already stuck its head ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... them, only to ebb away and lay bare a desolation of rocks and stones buried in a shock of brown drenched seaweed, broad tracts of glistening mud, sandbanks black with mussel-beds, and half-submerged meadows of eel-grass, with myriads of minute shellfish clinging to its long lank tresses. Beyond all these lies the main, or northern channel, more than deep enough, even when the tide is out, to float a line-of-battle-ship. ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... alone; and taking advantage of the quietness of the occasion, had crept under the seat of his mistress, where he was helping himself to a dinner. His head had glided easily through the narrow portion of the pitcher; but, when quite in, it was as securely fixed as an eel in a pot. Unable to extricate himself, he had no alternative but to be smothered or back out. The old lady bore the catastrophe in no wise quietly. A thousand terrible thoughts rushed into her mind; the ludicrous appearance of the dog ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Fenton heard him mutter to himself. "He's more like an eel than a man." And indeed the way Sweetwater wound himself out and in through that room, seeing everything that came under his eye, was a sight well worth any professional's attention. Pausing before the dead ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... the particular thing in which his god was in the habit of appearing was, to the Samoan, an object of veneration. It was in fact his idol, and he was careful never to injure it or treat it with contempt. One, for instance, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard; and so on, throughout all the fish of the sea and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... replied Joseph; "it slips from betwixt the thumb and finger like a eel. What I said yesterday was, 'Why doesn't thee set thy watch by the parish church?' Thee'st got Barfield time, I reckon, and Barfield's allays a wick and ten minutes afore ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... was laying eel-lines across the Lot consented to take me to the other side in his boat, and there I struck the road to Cahors, which closely borders the river all along this valley. In several places it is tunnelled ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... temporarily metamorphose the character. The eel stews of Mohammed II. kept the whole empire in a state of nervous excitement, and one of the meat-pies which King Philip failed to digest caused ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... de Saint-Esteve, the chief of the detective police. Aware of the antecedents of that man, Monsieur de Sallenauve expressed himself as much surprised to find a functionary with extremely good manners and bearing; but he held out faint hope of success. "A woman hiding in Paris," he said, "is an eel in its safest hole." He (Sallenauve) should continue the search the next day with the help of Jacques Bricheteau; but if nothing came of it, he should go in the evening to Ville d'Avray, for he did not, he said, share Madame ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... as above in bishop, fish, so in scapha, skiff, skip, and refrigesco, refresh; but viresco, fresh; phlebotamus, fleam; bovina, beef; vitulina, veal; scutifer, squire; poenitentia, penance; sanctuarium, sanctuary, sentry; quaesitio, chase; perquisitio, purchase; anguilla, eel; insula, isle, ile, island, iland; insuletta, islet, ilet, eyght, and more contractedly ey, whence Owsney, Ruley, Ely; examinare, to scan; namely, by rejecting from the beginning and end e and o, according ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... are as slippery as eels," said Molly, who had never touched an eel. "I'll lend my 'son' to anybody wants him, for awhile. I'd—I'd as lief as not!" she finished, quoting an expression familiar ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... Cornelius Gemma, lib. 2. de nat. mirac. c. 4. relates of a young maid, called Katherine Gualter, a cooper's daughter, an. 1571. that had such strange passions and convulsions, three men could not sometimes hold her; she purged a live eel, which he saw, a foot and a half long, and touched it himself; but the eel afterwards vanished; she vomited some twenty-four pounds of fulsome stuff of all colours, twice a day for fourteen days; and after that she voided great balls of hair, pieces of wood, pigeon's dung, parchment, goose ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... as they were caught, Dick dressed them and prepared them for the chowder pot or the frying pan. There were some queer fish caught, including quite a number of sculpins, "a wolfer eel,"—so Captain Briskett called him,—and a large catfish. The latter was an ugly monster, having dangerous-looking teeth, with which he laid hold of everything that came in his way. There was also in the collection a large skate, or ray, which called forth some rather large fish stories from ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... size of the black-fish militated against his chances for, while it took him more than his own length to turn in the water, the thresher darted, here, there and everywhere, like an eel—just getting out of his reach when the other thought he had got him and had opened his ponderous jaws to crush him. It was at this moment that his agile tormentor, seizing his opportunity, would leap out ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... an account there is of the Emperor Nicholas in Kemble's last Review, {80a} the last sentence of it (which can be by no other man in Europe but Jack himself) has been meat and drink to me for a fortnight. The electric eel at the Adelaide Gallery is nothing to it. Then Edgeworth fires away about the Odes of Pindar, {80b} and Donne is very aesthetic about Mr. Hallam's Book. {80c} What is the meaning of 'exegetical'? Till I know that, how can ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... much luck at first. He caught one muskallonge, after a period of patient waiting which he feels he also must call long, and once, when he thought he was hauling in a fine bass, he turned very red when the boatmen laughed at seeing him "cotch an eel." But after a while he got a royal bite. He hauled in manfully, and although, owing to the intricacies of the channel, he could not see what he had caught, he knew it was a fine fellow from its weight. At last, after tremendous tugging, he got it in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... loneliness of the prairies. "Look at marriage! Who is to say which shall be the one judicious selection out of nine hundred and ninety-nine mistakes! Who shall decide from the first aspect of the slimy creature, which is to be the one eel out of the colossal bag of snakes? That girl on the curbstone yonder, waiting to cross the street when my chariot shall have passed, may be the one woman out of every female creature in this vast universe who could make ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... duck-yard. There was a horrid noise; two families were quarreling about the head of an eel, which in the end was carried ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... into the water, and he had us all laughing. As soon as he found out how much fun it was, he kept climbing up and splashing into the water again; oh, boy, it was as good as a circus to see him. Then he'd go swimming to the skiff and climb in just like a little eel, and sit there shivering. ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... would bring along a fishing-pole and try his luck at catching an eel; for even this, too, had to do with the making of the book. For Brother Stephen in putting on the gold of his borders, while he generally used white of egg, yet for certain parts preferred a glue made from the skin of an eel; and this ...
— Gabriel and the Hour Book • Evaleen Stein
... that of the Pioneer Boy, and was, indeed, in some respects its counterpart. As the latter learned to write on the tops of stools, so the former learned to read on bits of birch-bark. At an early period of his existence he broke a capful of eggs. He owned a calf. He caught an eel. He put salt on a bird's tail and learned his first lesson of the deceitfulness of the human heart. He walked to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He got lost in the woods. He went to live with his uncle in Ohio, where he displayed spirit and killed a pig. Here also occurred a "prophecy" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... lie, George," said the engineer, gently. "Wot made me shout out like that just now," he explained, "was treading on something queer, down by the near side wheels. Somethink brittle that cracked like rotten sticks under my 'eel, an' then I slid on something round an' squashy. An' the smell like roast apples, what I noticed before, is stronger ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... ours, swans, geese of three sorts, ducks, teals, cranes, herons, bitterns, two sorts of partridges, four sorts of heath fowls, grouse or pheasants. The river fish is like that of Europe, viz., carp, sturgeon, salmon, pike, perch, roach, eel, etc. In the salt waters are found codfish, haddock, herring and so forth, also ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... eel say in trap where he go after lob-worm, but he only get out into frying pan after cook skin him alive-o. Ah! here come cook—I mean Asika. She only stop shut up those stiff 'uns, who all love lob-worm one day. Very pretty woman, Asika, but thank God she not set cap at me, who like to be ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... the balusters, I see 'im lookin' at a photograft. That's a funny place, I thinks, to look at pictures—it's so dark there, ye 'ave to use yer eyesight. So I giv' a scrape with me 'eel [She illustrates] an' he pops it in his pocket, and puts up 'is 'and to knock at number three. I goes down an' I says: "You know there's no one lives there, don't yer?" "Ah!" 'e says with an air of innercence, "I wants the name of Smithers." "Oh!" I says, "try round the corner, number ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... January.—If a young maiden drink, on going to bed, a pint of cold spring water, in which is beat up an amulet, composed of the yolk of a pullet's egg, the legs of a spider, and the skin of an eel pounded, her future destiny will be revealed to her in a dream. This charm fails of its effect if tried any other day of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... dared to touch him. During the cold months of the year we placed bottles of stout in the summer-house for him, the corks of which he drew with his claws, which were remarkably long. In the summer-time he used to forage for himself, subsisting mainly on roach, with an occasional conger-eel which he caught in the Dodder. One day early in April, 1902, the cat—whom we called Beethoven, because of his indulgence in moonlight fantasias—came to the back door mewing, and on opening the door my father found that it had lost an eye—probably in a fight—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... Bill," remarked one of the couple who held Jem Hogg's lines, "Jem seems to be doin' somethin' uncommon queer—he's either got hold of a conger-eel by the tail, or he's amoosin ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... let out, and as the fish follow their native element, the inhabitants with proper nets catch as many as they want, in their way out, without any other trouble. Those which are most common, are the streaked bass, the blue fish, the tom-cod, the mackerel, the tew- tag, the herring, the flounder, eel, etc. Fishing is one of the greatest diversions the island affords. At the west end lies the harbour of Mardiket, formed by Smith Point on the south-west, by Eel Point on the north, and Tuckanut Island on the north-west; but it is neither so safe nor has it ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... shape me in your arms, Janet, A toad, snake, and an eel But hold me fast, nor let me gang, As you ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... paralysed, and he let it fall, calling out that someone had struck him. The man near him laid hold of the fish again as it was making for the shore, and the shock he received threw him on his knees. I ran up to him, for he appeared in great pain. However, he soon recovered, and before the ill-fated eel could reach its element, he caught up a large stone and made it dearly atone for the pain it had inflicted. We made another haul, but were not so successful, as we only caught some ray, crabs, and an alligator three feet long, which ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... reader, a glorious Latitudinarian, that can, as to religion, turn and twist like an eel on the angle; or rather like the weather-cock that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... father, quite triumphant, 'w'en yeh cut through hankles, shins, an' heverythin', all them nerves begin to shout, don't they?' 'Yes,' sez the doctor, not seein' w'ere father was at. 'Then,' sez 'e quick-like, 'w'at makes 'em all shout "Toes?" W'y don't the brain 'ear "Hankle" or "'Eel"?' Then the old doctor 'e did git mad an' 'e did swear at father most orful. But father, 'e knows 'ow to conduct 'isself, an' sez 'e quite dignified, 'I 'ope as 'ow I know 'ow to treat a gentleman.' This pulls the old doctor ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... until the day of his death—and that was soon after; for the poor goose thought he was catching a trout one Friday; but, my jewel, it was a mistake he made—and instead of a trout, it was a thieving horse-eel; and instead of the goose killing a trout for the King's supper—by dad, the eel killed the King's goose—and small blame to him; but he didn't ate her, because he darn't ate what Saint Kavin had laid ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... dark blue to palest turquoise, reminding one of Lord's Cricket Ground at an Eton and Harrow match; besides pink fish, scarlet fish, and orange fish, which when captured make the bottom-boards of the boat look like a Futurist landscape, not to speak of horrible, spotted, eel-like creatures whose bite is venomous. Reef-fishing is full of exciting incidents, but its chief attraction is the amazing beauty of the sea-gardens as seen through the water-glass, with sponges and sea-fans of every hue, gently ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... moment. "Well, in a manner o' speakin', I haven't got what you might call no reg'lar perfession, sir. I just picks up what I can outer the river like. I rows folks out to their boats round Tilbury way, and at times I does a bit of eel fishing—or maybe in summer there's a job lookin' arter the yachts at Leigh and Southend. It all comes the ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... whom we called and beckoned him to come to us. On Bill saying a few words to him which I did not understand, the boy advanced to the edge of the pond and gave a low, peculiar whistle. Immediately the water became agitated, and an enormous eel thrust its head above the surface and allowed the youth to touch it. It was about twelve feet long, and as thick round the body as a ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... "and so's the rest too. 'Twarn't through no blabbin', take my word for that: 'twas a reg'lar right-down set scheme from beginnin' to end, and that's why I should ha' liked to ha' give 'em a payin'-out that they wouldn't ha' forgot in a hurry. I'd ha' scored their reckonin' for 'em, I can tell *'eel" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... A variety of eel that lurks in holes; it is wont to keep its head lifted. The o-i' (same verse) is an eel that snakes about in the shallow water or on the sand at ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... without scales, and barbed—called by the natives "mosala"—attains an enormous size and fatness. They are caught so large that when a man carries one over his shoulder the tail reaches the ground. It is a vegetable feeder, and in many of its habits resembles the eel. Like most lophoid fishes, it has the power of retaining a large quantity of water in a part of its great head, so that it can leave the river, and even be buried in the mud of dried-up pools, without being destroyed. Another fish closely resembling this, and named 'Clarias capensis' ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... its feeder about, and displayed a most inoffensive disposition. With other birds it was on terms, of peace, and goodwill, never threatening them with its big, strong bill. An excellent angler, its skill in capture was seen to greatest advantage when it had to encounter an unusually slippery eel. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of terrified madness she grasped his wounded arm, and in the second in which he made a sudden wince, she gave an eel-like twist and slipped from his grasp, and as she did so she seized the pistol in his belt and stood erect while she placed the muzzle ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... he said, and made me visit the bathroom which he has just fixed up. I think I never saw a man more miserable and happy at the same time. Had some hock and a seltzer, went down town, met Fanny and Belle, and so home in time for a magnificent dinner of prawns and an eel cooked in oil, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was like a nightmare. You know when you have a dream that you are trying to kill something which won't die; some beast of the eel persuasion. We went through them, cutting all we knew; re-formed; came back, doing ditto; through them a third time; and then there was no satisfaction worth calling such. The fellows were broken up indeed, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... over the ancient timbers Is built a magic deck; Children run out with laughter and shout And dance around the wreck; The fisherman near his long eel-spear Thrusts in through the ice, or stands With fingers on lips, and now and then whips His sides with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... meetings an eel stood up on end, and wriggled and squirmed lithely in every direction, and declared that, for his part, he went in for rainbows and hot water—how could I help seeing that he was still black ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, when she put them i' the paste alive] Hinting that the eel and Lear are in the ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... Unknown The City Mouse and the Garden Mouse Christina Rossetti Robin Redbreast Unknown Solomon Grundy Unknown "Merry Are the Bells" Unknown "When Good King Arthur Ruled This Land" Unknown The Bells of London Unknown "The Owl and the Eel and the Warming Pan" Laura E. Richards The Cow Ann Taylor The Lamb William Blake Little Raindrops Unknown "Moon, So Round and Yellow" Matthias Barr The House That Jack Built Unknown Old Mother Hubbard Unknown The Death and Burial of Cock Robin Unknown Baby-Land George Cooper The First Tooth ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... should ever become established, a stimulus must be called an eductor of vital ether; which stimulus may consist of sensation or volition, as in the electric eel, as well as in the appulses of external bodies; and by drawing off the charges of vital fluid may occasion the contraction or motions of the muscular ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... to plant alewives or herring as fertilizer for the Indian corn. He taught the boys and girls how to gather clams and mussels on the shore and to "tread eels" in the water that is still called Eel River. He gathered wild strawberries and sassafras for the women and they prepared a "brew" which almost equalled their ale of old England. The friendly Indians assisted the men, as the seasons opened, in hunting wild turkeys, ducks and an occasional ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... Swaying tufts of vegetation marked the rapid passage of eel-like bodies. The Indians had decided on an advance, being encouraged probably by the latter inaccuracy of the plainsmen's fire. Besides, the day was waning. It was no cat-and-mouse game now; but a rush, like the other except that all but the last twenty ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... down Harry M'Murt, of Drinnska. Harry's an unsettled kind of fellow, or as they call him a Rake. It would be an active charity to convert him—and that could convert him for he has as many twists in him as an eel—if it was only for the sake of gettin' him ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Titus; "he's as slippery as an eel—and, like a cat, turn him which way you will, he is always sure to alight upon his legs. I wouldn't wonder but we lose him now, after all, though he has such a small start. That mare flies like ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... over him and he sank, his hand, reaching blindly out to grip in imagination the foe, touched something round—like a serpent, or an eel. His fingers closed about it—it proved to be a line; he drew himself along, and to his surprise found himself again on the surface, and near a great fragment of wreckage. This he might have discovered earlier, but for the anger and hatred that had blinded him to all save ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... the boat at a moment's notice." Besides, he said, it would be "better to put off the appointment awhile," as he'd just heard that the "boss" of the very identical shipping firm where he thought he could have got Fritz a berth had started "right away" for Boston, and he was such a "durned electric eel of a cuss, here, there, and everywhere," that it would be "just dubersome to kalkerlate" when he would "reel ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... often repeats, Russia was not ready for big adventures—was, in fact, still suffering from lassitude after the war of 1878, 'like an electric eel which, having in one great shock given off all its electricity, burrows in the mud to refill its battery, desiring nothing less than to come again too soon into contact ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... animal is disabled or killed instanter. Strike therefore his tail, and not his head; for at his tail the spinal cord is but thinly covered with bone, and suffers readily from injury. This practice is applicable to eels. If you want to kill an eel, it is not much use belaboring his head: strike, however, his tail two or three times against any hard substance, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... allow that," said the old lady, and went to pull Jocko out. But he slipped away like an eel, and crept chattering and burrowing down to the bottom of the bed, holding on to Neddy's toes, till he waked up, howling that ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... trees sprang up, growing to a rank prosperity and dying suddenly beneath the sun. Along the river's edge little shreds of watercress took root and threw out sprouts and blossoms; the clean water brought forth snaky eel-grass and scum which fed a multitude of fishes; in the shadows of deep rocks the great bony-tails and Colorado River salmon lay in contented shoals, like hogs in wallows, but all the time the water grew less and less. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... of water," thought Gwen; "I feel like an eel in a frying pan. I believe these girls are going to be detestable. I shall have to ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... run, de patteroller git you, Slip over de fence slick as a eel, White man ketch you by de ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... in these caverns, of which the most celebrated is the 'Proteus,' a creature which has greatly perplexed naturalists. At first sight it looks like a lizard, but its movements are those of a fish. The head, lower part of the body, and tail resemble an eel, but it has no fins, and its breathing organs are quite unlike those of fishes. Round its neck is a ruffle, which seems to help it to breathe, although it has perfect lungs and can breathe, as well ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... kinds, and make herself a scarf, or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. She inherited her mother's gift for devising drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid's garb, Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's. A letter,—the letter A,—but freshly green, instead of scarlet! The child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... me that she was of no very elevated birth and station,—nothing more; and she herself, with her quiet, say-nothing manner, slips through all my careless questionings like an eel. She is still a beautiful creature, more regularly handsome than even Evelyn; and old Templeton had a very sweet tooth at the back of his head, though he never opened his mouth ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... eel!" pleaded Jerkline Jo. "He doesn't know any better. So you want to see me dolled up, do you, Squint? By George, you're on, old-timer! I've got some glad rags here in this burg. Go on now! I'll be the ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... followed it and saw it vanish into a wall, as easily as an eel into sand. Why, Roddy, ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "believed to live in a large stone house in the sky with a wife whom he created for himself; she is green in appearance, and has two names, chan.a.au.lola (Mother Freshwater Shrimp) and chan.a.pa.lak-—(Mother Eel); by her he has a large family, all except the eldest being girls; these last, known as mo.ro-win— (sky-spirits or angels), are said to be black in appearance, and, with their mother, amuse themselves from time to time by throwing fish and prawns into the streams and ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not: my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd, did ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... dinners down to roots, Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick to fruits,— Delusive error, as at trifling charge Professor Gripes will certify at large; Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal, Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel; And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs invite To wandering knaves that discount fools at sight: Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid bills, And candy puffs and homoeopathic pills, And ancient bell-crowns with contracted rim, And bonnets ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Kutchin phratries call for special notice. The kins of the former are arranged in three groups: wolf, turtle, and turkey; and the first phratry includes quadrupeds, the second turtles of various kinds and the yellow eel, and the third birds. We find a parallel to these phratries in the groups of the Kutchin, but in the latter case our lack of knowledge of the tribe precludes us from saying whether totem kins exist among them, and, if so, how far the grouping ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... of Tasmania are not so well supplied with fish as those of many other countries. The largest, except an eel, is one called the black-fish, which, in some of the rivers which discharge themselves into the sea on the north coast, attains a weight of six to eight pounds. This fish, it is said, does not exist in the river ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West |
