"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cottagers snoring there in their beds, of the safe people in the next compartment to mine—to his. Not moving a muscle, we sat there, we two, watching each other, like two hostile cats. Or rather, I thought, he watched me as a snake watches a rabbit, and I, like a rabbit, could not look away. I seemed to hear my heart beating time to the train. Suddenly my heart was at a standstill, and the double beat of the train receded faintly. The man was pointing upwards...I shook my head. He had asked me in a low voice, whether ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... unable to judge wisely, called Reynard to his aid. The fox declared that he could only settle so difficult a matter when plaintiff and defendant had assumed the relative positions which they occupied at the time of dispute. Then when the snake was safely in the noose once more, Reynard decided that, knowing the serpent's treachery, the peasant might again set him loose, but need not do ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... owls, invoke, with frantic cries and factitious convulsions, the dead to deceive the living. There, the black tribes of Africa exhibit the same opinions in the worship of their fetiches. See the inhabitant of Juida worship god in a great snake, which, unluckily, the swine delight to eat.* The Teleutean attires his god in a coat of several colors, like a Russian soldier.** The Kamchadale, observing that everything goes wrong in his frozen country, considers god ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... ounces of gentian root, an ounce of Virginia snake root, an ounce of the yellow paring of orange peel, and half a drachm of cochineal. Steep these ingredients, for a week or more, in a quart of Madeira or sherry wine, or brandy. When they are thoroughly infused, strain and filter the liquor, and bottle it for ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... the speakers were evidently talking in low tones. While the experience was altogether new to Bob, he enjoyed it immensely. Why, after all, it was not so very hard to place his hands and knees in such fashion that he felt able to move along almost as silently as a snake might ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... Adam's sin, and unless Adam's age be thrust back to a distance which no ingenuity can torture the letter of Scripture into recognising, men and women lived and died upon the earth whole millenniums before the Eve of Sacred History listened to the temptation of the snake. Neither has any such deluge as that from which, according to the received interpretation, the ark saved Noah, swept over the globe within the human period. We are told that it was not God's purpose to anticipate the natural course of discovery: as the story of the ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... series of gradations in structure leading to forms which have the external aspect of serpents. One such form is the perfectly harmless slow-worm, or blind-worm, of our own country, which in spite of its scientific name, Anguis fragilis[14], is a legless lizard, and no snake. ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... THE COLUMBIA AND SNAKE RIVER LAVAS. Still more important is the plateau of lava, more than two hundred thousand square miles in area, extending from the Yellowstone Park to the Cascade Mountains, which has been built from Miocene times ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... "You—you snake!" I cried, in uncontrollable anger. "You well knew Dorothy's spirit, which she has not got from you, and you lied to her. Yes, lied, I say. To force her to marry Chartersea you made her believe that your precious honour was in danger. And you lied to me last night, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... considerable discomfort. Even the Mrs. Romaine of whom her father spoke as if she would be a friend, was not very congenial to her. Rosalind's eyes remained cold, despite their softness, and Lesley was vaguely conscious of a repulsion—such as we sometimes feel on touching a toad or a snake—when Mrs. Romaine put her hand on the girl's listless fingers. No, what it was Lesley could not tell, but she was sure of this, that she could ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... all fours in the grass, slipping and sliding forward so hiddenly that the keen ear and eagle eye of the approaching soldier took note of no least ripple in the quiet grass by the roadside. It was the sinuous, silent motion of a snake; and suddenly his eyes narrowed, his lips drew back from his teeth, his ears pricked forward, along the ridge of his bare back the hair bristled, and the locks about his face waved and writhed as though they were the locks of Medusa herself. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... saw her stretched along the side of the turf, with her head resting on the lip of the badger's hole and her right arm inside, up to the arm-pit. Without speaking again, she began to work her body back, like a snake, the muscles swelling and sinking from shoulder to flank in small waves. She had the strength of a horse. Inch by inch she pulled back, while we dug around the mouth of the hole, filling her mouth and eyes with dirt, until her arm came to ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... circumstance alluded to. May not the mistake of the serpent be attributed to the marvellous acuteness of his taste? Take this reason: All vegetable substances contain starch, all animal substances contain ammonia; now it is most probable that the snake detected the animal quality—the ammonia—in the wool of the blanket, and he therefore naturally enough inferred that his bed was something suitable to his digestive organs. It is certain that he committed an error of judgment, but that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... he had no idea. He kept his legs and his sword-arm moving, and his eyes ever alert for new foes as man after man dropped beneath that snake-tonguing blade. Inside his armor, perspiration poured in rivulets down his skin, and his arms and legs began to ache, but not for one second did he let up. He could not see what was going on, could not tell the direction of the battle nor even allow his mind to wonder what was going ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... indeed, she was very clever, though there was some who said that when she chose she could "throw the bones" and tell the future better than most, and this without dressing herself up in bladders and snake skins, or falling into fits, or trances, and such mummery. Lastly, amongst the natives about, and some of the Boers too, I am sorry to say, she had the reputation of being the best of rainmakers, and many were the head of cattle ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... are committed by the Almighty to the superintendence and direction of subordinate spirits, over whom they suppose that certain magical ceremonies have great influence. A white fowl suspended to the branch of a particular tree, a snake's head, or a few handfuls of fruit, are offerings which ignorance and superstition frequently present, to deprecate the wrath, or to conciliate the favour of these tutelary agents. But it is not ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... brawl. Then as Francois hurled back his sword to slash at the priest's shaven head—Frenchmen had not yet learned to thrust with the point in the Italian manner—Jehan le Merdi leapt from behind, nimble as a snake, and wrested away the boy's weapon. Sermaise closed ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... man, and then a man. He's an awfully common nature, and hasn't the first literary instinct. If I had any mystery, or mere privacy that I wanted to guard; and I thought Pinney was on the scent of it, I shouldn't have any more scruple in setting my foot on him than I would on that snake." ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... industrie,' tobacco, pine-apples, wines, governmental shortcomings, commerce. Madeiran archipelago, the, geographical distribution of, i. climate, cedar-tree (Jumperus Oxeycedrus), the. Mahogany (Oldfieldia africana), ii. Mandenga (snake), the, i. Mandengas (tribe), ii. McCarthy, Mr. E. L., his visit to Essua-ti, ii. Messina, i. Money, African, i. Monrovia, ii. Moslem Krambos (talisman and charm writers), ii. Mount Atlas, height of, i. routine ascent of, flora, geology, zones of vegetation, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... rocks are for. Just to sit on when you're tired, I reckon." The sibilant burring of a rattler in the brush set his neck and back tingling. "And what snakes was made for, gets me! They ain't good to eat, nohow. And they ain't friendly like some of the bugs and things. I'm thinkin' that that there snake what clumb the tree and got Mrs. Eve interested in the apple business would 'a' been a whole lot better for folks, if he'd 'a' stayed up that tree and died, instead o' runnin' around and raisin' young ones. Accordin' to my ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... the beans. I'll say he'd better take along about five huskies to move boulders outa the road, if he tries to make it through the pass. Them big boys just naturally roll down behind us the minute we've passed. And comin' back, we hook on and snake 'em outa the way. And then, by golly, they spring right back again! Funny rocks ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... of taxation; and the insecurity of life and property. Now and then when the evils of the system weighed with the most depressing effect upon the business part of the community, some spasmodic effort for a time produced a change. But a temporary check only was applied. The snake was scotched, not killed. The ballot box upon whose sanctity, in a Republican government must the liberties of the people depend, was in the hands of the pliant tools of designing politicians, or of desperate knaves ready to bargain and sell the result of the ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... at Villanow; at Dallas; at Roswell; at Atlanta; at Ezra Church; at Bentonville; on march to Raleigh. 16th, same as last. 17th moves from Decatur, Alabama, via Rome to Allatoona; and Ackworth; in North Carolina 20th, at Bridgeport and Wauhatchie, Tennessee; at Dug Gap; through Snake Creek Gap; at Resaca; off its beat; again, at crossing of the Etowah; assaults confederate lines at New Hope Church and is repulsed; in reserve; flanking movement near Ackworth; at Kolb's farm; at Peachtree Creek; holds Atlanta; ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... was dropping off from him, as its old skin drops from a snake. Much of the feeling and something of the knowledge of manhood was coming on him, and he was beginning to recognise to himself that the future manner of his life must be to him a matter of very serious concern. No such thought had ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... him bad?" the woman cried. "Ah, no wonder the gods hate you! No doubt you were very wicked ages and ages ago, and so now you are made a widow. By and by you will be born a snake or a toad." And, gathering up her ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... and sinuous in the child's hands, and stiffened in every limb. Paul had a skaapstikker in his grip, the green-and-yellow death-snake that abounds in the veldt. Its head lay on his arm, its pin-point eyes maliciously agleam, and the child gripped it by the middle. Christina stood petrified, but the boy laughed and dandled the reptile ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... They are so large that they can swallow a large wild boar, or a large deer, horns and all. A father and some Indians killed one which was eating a hog; they ran up on hearing the grunts of the hog, and speared and killed the snake. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... is extremely rugged in its northern parts, and chiefly useful for cattle-raising; there is a plateau in the centre, some arid prairie land in the S., and lake districts in the N. and in the SE.; grain farming is restricted to fringes along the river banks; the Snake River flows through the whole S.; silver, lead, gold, and copper mines are wrought successfully, and coal is found; the State was admitted to the Union in 1890; a fifth of the population are Mormons; there are still 4000 Indians. Boise ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... stated to be a valuable antidote to some vegetable poisons, and also serviceable in cases of bites or stings of venomous insects or reptiles. One of the most popular remedies for the bites of snakes is a decoction of the leaves of the Guaco, or snake plant, of South America, a species of willow which flourishes along the banks of the streams in the sultry regions shaded by other trees. It is said to be ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... neither six-shooter nor rifle. He drew out a short knife which might be used to skin a beef or carve meat, though certainly no human being had ever used such a weapon against a five-foot rattler. He stooped and rested both hands on his thighs. His feet were not two paces from the poised head of the snake. As if marvelling at this temerity, the big rattler tucked back his head and sounded the alarm again. In response the cowboy flashed his knife in the sun. Instantly the snake struck but the deadly fangs fell a ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... the Manitou who had stolen her wanted a drink. In the dark he did not see the hair snake in the water, so drank it. In a few minutes he was dead. Then Bokwewa returned to his former shape. He went again to his brother and tried to make him come home. But the brother refused. Bokwewa told him that these pleasures would not last forever, and his tears fell as he saw that his ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... and more mills, for five miles or so, until at last they emerged into an open, flat country, divided by the old-fashioned snake fences; dotted with blackened stumps of the long-vanished forest; eaten by sloughs and bayous from the river. The sawdust ceased. Bobby leaned out to watch with fascinated interest the sand, divided by the tire, flowing back in a beautiful curved V ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... the baroness stammering the ready-made phrase he had heard repeated so often the night of his ball, "His wife, very unwell—most grieved not to have been able to come—" She did not give him time to finish, rose slowly, unwound herself like a long and slender snake from the pleated folds of her tight dress, and said, without looking at him, "Oh, I knew—I knew!" then changed her place and took no more notice of him. He attempted to approach Hemerlingue, but the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... blue, blue glance. In the meantime he would not rob that marsh hen's nest which he had found. He would never steal another egg. He wished that he didn't have that drawerful at home. He would give them to Sairy Jane if she wanted them—all except the snake's egg, which he might keep, because serpents were an accursed race. Yes, Sairy Jane might have them all, and he wouldn't pull her hair again when he caught her looking ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... real snake for her work, Miss Hosmer sent a man into the suburbs to bring her one alive. When it was obtained, she chloroformed it till she had made a cast, keeping it in plaster for three hours and a half. Then, instead of killing it, like a true-hearted woman, as she is, she sent ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... hear my best opinion once again. Proceed we not in our attempt against The Grecian fleet. For if in truth the sign Respect the host of Troy ardent to pass, 270 Then, as the eagle soar'd both hosts between, With Ilium's on his left, and clutch'd a snake Enormous, dripping blood, but still alive, Which yet he dropp'd suddenly, ere he reach'd His eyry, or could give it to his young, 275 So we, although with mighty force we burst Both gates and barrier, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... considerable time after. I remember a story, which is, I believe, well-authenticated, of a man who had been bitten through his boot by a rattle-snake in America. The man died, and shortly afterwards his two sons died one after the other, with just the same symptoms as their father, although they had not been bitten by snakes. It was afterwards discovered, that upon the father's death, the sons had one after the ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and magnolias Gloom the earth with densest shades, Where the snake and alligator Lurk in endless everglades, Where the cloud-lace-fretted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... privacy of his heart, had felt distinctly relieved. Not that he lacked the courage of his race; but, having seen the man for years, as it were, through a magnifying lens, he could not, all in a moment, see him for the thing he was:—dangerous as a snake, yet swift as a snake to ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... at Poole's Woods?" The fire was dying down a little, but one persistent flame moved like a snake in the dry stubble, and he savagely stamped it out. "Why ain't you? I ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... truth's out. I'll grasp it like a snake,— It will not slay me. My heart shall not break Awhile, if only for the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... though!" remarked the Honorable Bertie with unlooked-for vivacity. For so far Aunt Jane's trembling anticipations had been unfulfilled by the sight of a single snake, a fact laid by me to the credit of St. Patrick and by Cookie to that of ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... but I'll make it a short story. About my wager I'm by no means sorry. And if I gain my end with glory Allow me to exult from a full breast. Dust shall he eat and that with zest, Like my old aunt, the snake, whose fame ...
— Faust • Goethe
... and, much in the manner of Doctor Johnson, closely looks along the line—very closely, being somewhat near-sighted. 'I don't particularly want to do it; but if it must be done—!' Monster takes another near-sighted look, takes aim, and the tortured piece writhes off, and falls, a hot, tight-twisted snake, among the ashes. The making of the rivets is merely a pretty round game, played by a man and a boy, who put red-hot barley sugar in a Pope Joan board, and immediately rivets fall out of window; but the tone of the great machines is the tone of the great ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Above it rose another terrace weathered and disrupted until in the moonlight it looked like an impregnable castle wall, embattled and embuttressed. But clinging to the seemingly invulnerable fortress was the trail, a snake-like shadow in ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... something overhead which I had not noticed before. Looking more carefully I could see yellow and black marks, and thought it must be a tortoise-shell put up there out of the way between the ridge-pole and the roof Continuing to gaze, it suddenly resolved itself into a large snake, compactly coiled up in a kind of knot; and I could detect his head and his bright eyes in the very centre of the folds. The noise of the evening before was now explained. A python had climbed up one of the posts of the house, and had made his way under the thatch within a yard of ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... came from a little "black fellow," who had been a sort of retainer of mine in the bush, and on the plains a bright active lad, as supple as a snake, and, as he used to say, the son of a chief. He was called Jacky Fishook, and was a very useful fellow out there, for he could follow a trail like a hound, could climb trees, kill game, and in fact had a good many of the savage ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... for his life, declaring that he was a skilful doctor and a good man and had worked hard to save their brother's life. They answered that he deserved to die as a sorcerer as well as a physician, for they had found the skeleton of a toad and the skin of a snake in his cabinet. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... she hated Darnley as one would hate a snake. She tolerated him only that he might acknowledge her child as his son. This child was the future James VI. of Scotland and James I. of England. It is recorded of him that never throughout his life could he bear to ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... of the knee-cap is occupied by a very similar anthropomorph, known however as NANG KLINGE, the important design, and extending in a semicircle round the upper part of it is a design made up of intersecting zigzags and known as KALANG NGIPA, the snake design; below the knee-cap is a transverse band of hour-glass shaped figures termed PEDJAKO. Nieuwenhuis also figures [9, Pl. 841 the thigh pattern of a chiefs daughter from the same river; this only differs ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... shuts up house at all. That season I heard a little piping frog on the 7th of December, and on the 18th of January, in a spring run, I saw the common bullfrog out of his hibernaculum, evidently thinking it was spring. A copperhead snake was killed here about the same date; caterpillars did not seem to retire, as they usually do, but came forth every warm day. The note of the bluebird was heard nearly every week all winter, and occasionally that of the robin. Such ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... time. But I tell you what: you come in the evening to Sokolniki. I've a tent pitched there. The gypsies sing, ... such goings-on.... And there's a streamer on the tent, and on the streamer, written in large letters: "The Troupe of Poltyev's Gypsies." The streamer coils like a snake, the letters are of gold, attractive for every one to read. A free entertainment—whoever likes to come! ... No refusal! I'm making the dust fly in Moscow ... to my glory! ... Eh? will you come? Ah, I've one girl there ... a serpent! Black as your boot, spiteful as a dog, and eyes ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... of them," said the Doctor, noticing that I started somewhat when a large black snake wiggled across the path right in front of us. "These fellows are not poisonous. They do a great deal of good in keeping down many kinds of garden-pests. I play the flute to them sometimes in the evening. They love it. Stand right ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... and he pointed in the distance to a moving object in the sand, crawling along on its stomach for all the world like a snake. "I will go," he said, "and if you see the Chief of the Goumiers, tell him I sent you." With a handshake we parted. I again turned to look at the Goumier scout, his movements fascinated me. Keeping low under the top of the dune, I made for a small hill, from which I decided to film him. Reaching ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... a strange assortment, arrived at eight, and a telegram came soon after. Mrs. Drabdump rattled his door, shouted, and at last put the wire under it. Her heart was beating fast enough now, though there seemed to be a cold, clammy snake curling round it. She went downstairs again and turned the handle of Mortlake's room, and went in without knowing why. The coverlet of the bed showed that the occupant had only lain down in his clothes, as if fearing to miss ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... out of a wound, you see," said Rob, "and mud is good for that. We had a pointer dog once, and he came home with his face all swelled up, and my father said he had been bitten by a snake. We didn't know what to do, but the dog did; he wouldn't let any one touch him, but went off to a slough back of the house and lay down in the mud, and he kept his head in the mud for two or three days. ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... NAG is a snake in Hindustani. The English Gipsies still retain this primaeval word, but apply it only to the blind-worm. It is, however, remarkable that the Nag, or blind-worm, is, in the opinion of the Rommany, the most mysterious ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... brought to his knees? On finding himself thus made game of, Thor grew wroth, but had to go his ways, as the city of Utgard had vanished into thin air, with its cloud-capped towers and enormous citizens. Thor afterwards undertook to catch the Midgard Serpent, using a bull's head for bait. The World-Snake took the delicious morsel greedily, and, finding itself hooked, writhed and struggled so that Thor thrust his feet through the bottom of his boat, in his endeavors to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... literal rendering of a ladder-waggon hardly conveys the proper notion of the thing itself. This long cart, it is needless to say, is without springs; but it has the faculty of accommodating itself to the inequalities of the road in a marvellous manner. It has, moreover, a snake-like vertebrae, and even ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... a handsome prince," explained Mary Louise, "but by the magic of a wicked magician has been changed into a snake. Help him to regain his ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... this turning-out maneuver by another which was less ostentatious, but more purposeful. Timing his steps, so as to pass by the rear of the car just as the Master was busy helping his wife to descend, the youth thrust an arm over the side of the tonneau, with the speed of a striking snake. His hand closed on the handle of a traveling bag, among the heap of luggage. Never slackening his pace, the negro gave a fierce yank at his plunder, to hoist it over the ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... from Virginia and from smugglers, two thousand a year for many years more. So the thirty thousand Negroes of Georgia in 1790 doubled in a decade,—were over a hundred thousand in 1810, had reached two hundred thousand in 1820, and half a million at the time of the war. Thus like a snake ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... "I saw a huge snake, at least 18 feet long," and I have no doubt he believes he is simply stating a matter of fact. Yet his assertion involves a hypothesis of the truth of which I venture to be exceedingly doubtful. How does he know that what he saw was ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... all the Field. Him after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose Fit Vessel, fittest Imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide 90 From sharpest sight: for in the wilie Snake, Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark, As from his wit and native suttletie Proceeding, which in other Beasts observ'd Doubt might beget of Diabolic pow'r Active within beyond the sense of brute. Thus he resolv'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... The daisy and the marigold; White-plumed lilies, and the first Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; Shaded hyacinth, alway Sapphire queen of the mid-May; And every leaf, and every flower Pearled with the self-same shower. Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep Meagre from its celled sleep; And the snake all winter-thin Cast on sunny bank its skin; Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, When the hen-bird's wing doth rest Quiet on her mossy nest; Then the hurry and alarm When the bee-hive casts ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... a huge black snake, about ten feet long, showed itself in the grass. Glynn took aim at once, but the piece, being an old flint-lock, missed fire. Before he could again take aim the loathsome-looking reptile had glided into the underwood, which in most places ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... her, would not to her last breath yield up the death-spancel which she had knotted round her waist, and which held Robert Molyneux's love to her. When the wicked breath was out of her body they cut it away, and it lay twisted on the ground like a dead snake. Then on Robert Molyneux, dying in a distant chamber, came a strange peace. All the years of sin seemed blotted out, and he was full of a simple repentance such as he had felt long ago when kneeling by the ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... edge of the table-land to find the ground plentifully sprinkled with barbed wire entanglements. Although this form of defence had been badly knocked about by shell-fire there was still sufficient wire, either in tension or else in snake-like coils, to offer serious ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... heap from you, for you're my own flesh and blood. I hain't never laid a hand on you, though I've threatened it often. But now! by Gawd, I'm goin' to take you apart so's nobody kin put you together ag'in ... you mis'able, cheatin', low-down, crawlin' snake." With that he stepped back a pace and with his open palm ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... there that peaked woody mountain which stands by itself behind La Napoule in front of the summits of the Esterel; it is called in the district Snake Mountain. There is where my solitary lived within the walls of a little antique temple about a dozen ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Territories Telegram to General Fremont, That the Federal Union must Be Preserved. The Fight must Go on Their Thinking it Right and Our Thinking it Wrong Travel to Washington D.c. Treason Two Sons Who Want to Work Unauthorized Biography Union of These States Is Perpetual Venomous Snake Wanting to Work Is So Rare a Want What Is a State When I Came of Age I Did Not Know Much Wisely Given Their Public Servants but Little Power for Mischief Wish No Explanation Made to Our Enemies Wrangle by the Mouth You must Stop Thinking ...
— Widger's Quotations from Abraham Lincoln's Writings • David Widger
... history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?"' Macaulay's Essays, ed. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... his gun. "Enuf for me. An' now, ye cowardly snake, ye may go wi' yur beauties yander. They'll not like ye a bit the wuss for all this. Ye may go—an' carry yur conscience along wi' ye—ef that 'll be any comfort to ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the superstitions of the people. An Indian familiar with the lore of his tribe believes himself to be continually surrounded by spirits, of whose power he is in constant dread. He sees them dimly in visions and recognizes them in many signs and omens—in gliding snake, flying bird, the lightning, the wind, the rustling of leaves, the noise of the tempest, the roaring cataract, the sound of thunder. To the hunter roaming through the forest the trees take on weird shapes, ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... see clear into the dark, and there stood Doc Lyon quiet like, his hands holding the bars, awful white hands, and his eyes bright like a snake's when it raises up to strike. Then Doc Lyon began to talk. First he was talking about Mitch's dog. He said it wasn't decent to have that dog around where children could see her, and that he had killed ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... and as the question shot like a javelin, she tried ineffectually to disengage her fingers; her delusion waned; she took fright, but it was too late; he had struck the truth out of her before she could speak. Her spirit writhed like a snake in his hold. Innumerable things she was ready to say, and strove to; the words would not form on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... compels the chief of a colony of mice to steal the talisman from the Jew while he is asleep.—A popular Greek version in Hahn's collection combines incidents found in Aladdin and in the versions in which grateful animals play prominent parts: The hero rescues a snake which some boys are about to kill and gets in reward from the snake's father a seal-ring, which he has only to lick and a black man will present himself, ready to obey his orders. As in Aladdin, the first use he makes of the talisman is to have his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... another image, clear and bright as God's sunshine? How, through those almost divine features, dare those others force themselves upon him? And not only that; those other features smiled insolently at him. Those grey, rapacious eyes, those dimples, those snake-like tresses, how was it all that seemed to cleave to him, and to shake it all off, and fling it away, he was unable, had ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... arrive. Ancient Geography. Tabora. Description of the country. The Banyamwezi. A Baganda bargain. The population of Unyamyembe. The Mirambo war. Thoughts on Sir Samuel Baker's policy. The cat and the snake. Firm faith. Feathered neighbours. Mistaken notion concerning mothers. Prospects for missionaries. Halima. News of ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... the root with a stick, expecting her to fly out, but nothing appeared. I then examined the holes one by one, and whilst doing so heard her hissing and puffing from within, in such a way that if I had not known she was there I should have thought it was a snake rather than a bird. However, as she would not come out, and the hole was so small that I could not get my hand in, I was obliged to raise the siege until next morning, when I returned armed with a hammer and chisel with which to storm her citadel. As the wood was sound, the ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... American, 3-112, a correspondent writes, from South Granville, N.Y., that, during a heavy shower, July 3, 1860, he heard a peculiar sound at his feet, and looking down, saw a snake lying as if stunned by a fall. It then came to life. Gray snake, ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... out there. I knew by his look he had some treacherous business in hand, and, matching my stealth with his, I found means to overhear him, creeping from thicket to thicket, as noiseless as a snake, to where they stood; for, be assured, I should not otherwise have ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... snake which entangles itself round the legs of the cow so that it cannot move and then sucks it, in such wise that it almost dries it up. In the time of Claudius the Emperor, there was killed, on the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve), That, ere the snake's her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly by herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave, Till heart and body and life ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... disappeared. Some ducks were shot in the afternoon, which proved a great treat, as we had been living for some time on salt provisions. Our animals fared worse than ourselves, as the bed of the creek was occupied by coarse rushes, and but little vegetation was elsewhere to be seen. I here killed a beautiful snake, of about four feet in length, and of a bright yellow colour: I had not, however, the means of preserving it. Fraser collected numerous botanical specimens, and among them two kinds of caparis. Indeed a great alteration had taken place in the minor shrubs, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... upon the topmost log of the snake fence and looked down the slope. His insight into her own trials caused her to sympathise with him in spite of his absurdity. She made an honest effort to assist him to self-analysis. She said, "A great many things come ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... said, "if you two had been in the Garden of Eden when Eve took the apple, you wouldn't have had time to give her a look for counting the scales on the snake!" ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... must die? What comfort for us who have seen others die, if death be but a new birth into some higher life; if all that it changes in us is our body—the mere shell and husk of us— such a change as comes over the snake, when he casts his old skin, and comes out fresh and gay, or even the crawling caterpillar, which breaks its prison, and spreads its wings to the sun as a fair butterfly. Where is the sting of death, then, if death can sting, and poison, and corrupt nothing of us for which our friends ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... ministress and guide, who should ever and anon transfer the vain goods from race to race, and from one blood to another, beyond the resistance of human wit. Wherefore one race rules, and the other languishes, pursuant to her judgment, which is occult as the snake in the grass. Your wisdom hath no withstanding of her: she provides, judges and maintains her realm, as theirs the other gods. Her permutations have no truce; necessity compels her to be swift, so often cometh he who obtains a turn. This is she who is so set upon ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... walk down to the Juniper. The shore of the coves strewn with bunches of sea-weed, driven in by recent winds. Eel-grass, rolled and bundled up, and entangled with it,—large marine vegetables, of an olive-color, with round, slender, snake-like stalks, four or five feet long, and nearly two feet broad: these are the herbage of the deep sea. Shoals of fishes, at a little distance from the shore, discernible by their fins out of water. Among the heaps of sea-weed there were ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... some standing corn, which was rather agonizing to our British ideas, but he thought nothing of it. The straw was four and a half feet high, and he hopes to get forty-two bushels to the acre. His farm being on the Snake River, and having many creeks running through as drainage, is a great advantage. His vats were pronounced no better, if so good, ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... to get tired of them, and, tiring, break them off, so to speak, in mid-air, leaving them suspended, like snapped ends of string). But however uncertain their goal may be, their form is not uncertain at all; it can be relied on to be that of a snake in agony leaping down a hill or up; or, if one prefers it, that of a corkscrew plunging ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... the new dances to the new tunes, given off like intoxicating gas from the latest of gramophones. He knew how to hold the arm of a woman above her head, while coiling his own around it in the manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very body a vast syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as singular as himself. Captain Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck about the wheel which convention had always roped off ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... partook, in a similar way, of the nature of the gymnastic dance. The war dances of the plains Indians of America are celebrated for their grotesqueness. The green-corn dance and the cachina of the Pueblos and the snake dance of the Moqui all have an economic foundation. In all, however, the play element in man and the desire for dramatic expression and the art of mimicry are evident. The chief feature of the dance of the primitive people is the regular ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... colander, and who seemed to have been made on purpose to wait on Valerie, smiled meaningly in reply, and brought the dressing-gown. Valerie took off her combing-wrapper; she was in her shift, and she wriggled into the dressing-gown like a snake into a clump ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... a snake now. The other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... less than a ri an hour, as it was a mere flounder either among rocks or in deep mud, the woman in her girt-up dress and straw sandals trudging bravely along, till she suddenly flung away the rope, cried out, and ran backwards, perfectly scared by a big grey snake, with red spots, much embarrassed by a large frog which he would not let go, though, like most of his kind, he was alarmed by human approach, and made desperate efforts to swallow his victim and wriggle into the bushes. After crawling for three hours we dismounted at the mountain ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... arrangement of metre and rhyme may have been gradually invented to correspond with and satisfy that natural expectation of the recurrence of certain tones and measures which always delights primitive men, and of which one may possibly trace some symptoms even in animals, as when the snake sways slowly to the simple sounds of a snake-charmer's pipe. The order of all modern versification (except in blank verse, which is never popular) depends on the echoing rhyme, which marks time like the stroke of a bell, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... a shallow dish or patera, and, filling it from a vase which she carried with her set it upon the floor for the snake to feed. ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... embers of inveterate malice. It was as if the serpent, that voluble, insinuating reptile, which had power to fascinate poor Eve, turned to rend her when she had fallen, erect, with flashing eyes, and bristling crest, with venomed fangs, and hissing. Behold, snake-worshippers of Mexico, the prototype of your grim idol, in Mammon's model slave and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... value your life, put on your boots again, and keep them on as long as you are in the mines. You are liable at any moment to step upon a poisonous snake; and if bitten, no power on earth can save you. The natives pretend to cure bites, but I have ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... new duties with all the zeal and force that had characterized her "snake-killings" on the desert. Habit alone made her do that, and pride added another motive. She was determined to justify Madam Chartley's opinion of her. Not being able to write shorthand she worked overtime to gain extra speed on the typewriter, so that she might take dictation directly on the ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... qualified to realize them. This development would be without convulsion,—as the parent gives place, while the children are passing from the lower to their higher life. It would be the exemplification of Carlyle's illustration of the snake. He says, A people should change their government only as a snake sheds his skin: the new skin is gradually formed under the old one,—and then the snake wriggles out, with just a drop of blood here and there, where the old ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... represented a man of about the age of forty, and strikingly handsome. He was clean shaven, and extraordinary power was expressed upon his prominent lower jaw and firm, straight mouth. His eyes were somewhat deeply set in his head, however, and there was a snake-like flattening at the upper part of his forehead, which detracted from his appearance. I almost involuntarily, when I saw the head, pointed to ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... compensate the dumb animals for their physical anguish? It is certainly difficult to see their reward, unless they have immortal souls. That this is no slight obstacle in the way of those who earnestly desire to believe in an ethical universe, may be seen from the fact that it was the sight of a snake swallowing a toad that destroyed once for all the religious beliefs of Turgenev; and I know a man of science in America who became an agnostic simply from observation of a particular Texas fly that bites the cattle. The Founder of Christianity recognized this problem, as He did every ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... intended to kill her. Not even in nightmares had she ever seen such horrible creatures as her much-coveted box contained. A demon with one huge eye right in the middle of its forehead came and glared at her, monsters with gaping mouths looked as if they would devour her, a huge snake coiled and hissed about her, and a big frog hopped and ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... the shield there appeared a face, and as Perseus looked on it his blood ran cold. It was the face of a beautiful woman; but her cheeks were pale as death, and her brows were knit with everlasting pain, and her lips were thin and bitter like a snake's; and instead of hair, vipers wreathed about her temples, and shot out their forked tongues; while round her head were folded wings like an eagle's, and upon ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... look steadfastly down into a little rock-pool at their feet,—full of the pink and green and purple cut-work of delicate weeds and coralline, and starred with great sea-dahlias, crimson and brown and grey, and with the waving snake-locks of the Cercus, pale blue, and rose-tipped like the fingers of the dawn. One delicate Medusa is sliding across the pool, by slow pantings of its crystal bell; and on it the eyes of the whole group are fixed,—for it seems to be the subject of some story which the village ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... a horsehair become a snake? The Hedge hog—What it is, how it lives, and where it is found. Illustrated. The Sponge—Its origin, growth, and uses. Educational Matters-Cornell, Harvard, Yale, Michigan. Cathedral of Rheims-The Coronation place of the old French ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... to display their discipline to equal advantage to be considered first-class soldiers. The Natal Carabineers are excellent volunteer cavalry: the police an alert and reliable troop. After the horse the foot: the Dublin Fusiliers wound up the hill like a long brown snake. This is a fine regiment, which distinguished itself at Glencoe, and have since impressed all who have been brought in contact with it. The cheery faces of the Irishmen wore a proud and confident expression. They had seen war. The other battalion—the Border Regiment—had ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... up our old gang got together and went up to Snake River. here we began tramp trapping. Part of us advanced and the other party followed and took up our traps. this tramp trapping lasted nearly all winter we trapped the Snake river, Green river San Juan river the little Colorado and the Big Colorado up to Grand Canon. Then we followed ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... noble nature: for they will not begin; and you may stand by them, if you do not tread upon them nor disturb them. [How these Coddia's come to sting so terribly.] The reason their bite is thus terribly painful is this; Formerly these Ants went to ask a Wife of the Noya, a venomous and noble kind of Snake; and because they had such an high spirit to dare to offer to be related to such a generous creature, they had this vertue bestowed upon them, that they should sting after this manner. And if they had obtained a Wife of the Noya, they should have had the priviledg to have stung full as ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... unstable, evasive fellow you are, Plutus! there is no getting a firm hold of you; you wriggle through one's fingers somehow, like an eel or a snake. Poverty is so different—sticky, clinging, all over hooks; any one who comes near her is caught directly, and finds it no simple matter to get clear. But all this gossip has put business ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... ever see a lot of boys going home from school, when a garter-snake, or any other harmless serpent, crosses their path? They know well enough that the poor things do no harm, and are as afraid as death of them; but see the great stones they heave upon the miserable reptile; the shouts they send up, as it writhes, and coils, and fills the air with feeble hisses, ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... I was sitting in the dining-room wondering whether I should take some fruit from the table without my parents' permission, a long, black thing, very much like a snake suddenly came through the window and disappeared with all the bananas. I was very much frightened because I had never seen snakes eat bananas and I thought it must be a terrible snake that would sneak in and take fruit. I ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... Heritage. Now, tell me yours ... Girofle?... Well, I am going back to the Pavilion now. I don't feel safe anywhere else.... Yes, you can see me out of this dreadful place—just in case there should be another snake about," she conceded, for her nerves were beginning to feel a reaction, and she was ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... or rope were lowered to me. The roof of the place was rounded and arched above me, and the hole was in its centre so that I could not reach it. Maybe the place was ten feet across and ten feet high under the hole, and it minded me of the snake pit into which Gunnar the hero was thrown, as Ottar the scald sang. Only here were no snakes, and the air was thick and musty, but dry enough. I could see the beams of the house roof above ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... Indra. For the oft-mentioned act of cleaving the cave, where the dragon Val or Vritra (the restrainer or envelopper) had coralled the kine(i.e. without metaphor, for the act of freeing the clouds and letting loose the rain), compare I.32.2, where of Indra it is said: "He slew the snake that lay upon the mountains ... like bellowing kine the waters, swiftly flowing, descended to the sea"; and verse 11: "Watched by the snake the waters stood ... the waters' covered cave he opened wide, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... God! who rulest Heaven and earth, The terraced atmospheres, the bounded seas; Who knowest equally both death and birth, Frail human men, strong divine mysteries, Whose unencumbered thought sways all the spheres, In all their turning, snake-like, perfect ways; Now that the season of my labour nears, Grant me an ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... a tenth part of the booty—from which was presented to the shrine of Delphi a golden tripod, resting on a three-headed snake of brass; to the Corinthian Neptune a brazen state of the deity, seven cubits high; and to the Jupiter of Olympia a statue of ten cubits. Pausanias obtained also a tenth of the produce in each article of plunder—horses and camels, women and gold—a prize which ruined ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 15th-a night so dark that from the ship's deck one could not see the water—schools of porpoises surrounded the ship, setting the water alive with phosphorescent splendors: "Like glorified serpents thirty to fifty feet long. Every curve of the tapering long body perfect. The whole snake dazzlingly illumined. It was a weird sight to see this sparkling ghost come suddenly flashing along out of the solid gloom and stream ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... worst!" cried the furious man, absolutely foaming at the mouth as he drew back, looking almost like a venomous snake couched for a spring. "Is that, then, thy answer — thy unchangeable answer to the only loophole I offer thee of escaping the full vengeance awaiting thee from thy two most relentless foes? Bethink thee well how thou repeatest such words. Yet ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Charles Sumner expressing my wonder at the undecided conduct of the administration; at its want of foresight; its eternal parleying with Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no step to tread down the head of the young snake. No one among them seems to have the seer's eye. The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day and in large numbers, who transform Washington into a camp, and who crave for fighting,—the people alone have the prophetic inspiration, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... of my mood, Men called me gentle, mild, and good; But yon fierce dame's sharp tongue might wake In wintry den the frozen snake." ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... had seen her before, he had been utterly out of sympathy. He had scorned her charms, had felt an almost angry contempt for young Baron's raptures. To him she had been a snake-woman, possessed of a fascination which, to him, was monstrous and wholly incomprehensible. She had worn a strange striped dress of green—tight-fitting, hideous he had deemed it. Her face had been painted. He had been too near the stage, and she had revolted him. Her dance had certainly ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... fountain. "Why not? But the baroness—may the diavolo fly away with her! What should I do—I indeed! with a pack of baronesses? I will go to bed and dream—not of a baroness! Macche, never a baroness in my dreams, with eyes like a snake, and who cannot speak three words properly in the only language under the sun worth speaking! Not I—I will dream of Edvigia di Lira—she is the spirit of my dreams. Spirto gentil—" and away he went, humming the air from ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... guide us both to liberty, to happiness. Speak this one word, and I will sever every tie that binds me to the world; my future and my life will belong to you alone. We will strip off all the luxury that surrounds us as the glittering snake-skin with which we have concealed our real natures, and escape into the solitude as free, happy children of God. If such a life of peace and rest does not satisfy you; if you wish to labor and create, be useful to mankind, we can find the opportunity. ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... though stung by a snake; but, recollecting himself, imprinted a kiss upon the proffered fingers. Again Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys laughed with unaffected mirth, and again the hidden witness saw that curious gleam of scorn—only now, as the young man bent his ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
