"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perplexity—sate an old gentleman who was evidently a stranger to every lawyer present. Who was he? Who brought him? Was there any one in the room who knew him? Such were the whispers that floated about, concerning the portly old man, arrayed in blue coat and drab breeches and gaiters, who took his snuff in silence, and watched the proceedings with evident surprise and dissatisfaction. After listening to three speeches this antique, jolly stranger rose, and with much embarrassment addressed the chair. "Mr. President," he ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... timid phlegm Till some illustrious pedant hum or hem. 179 The lords who starv'd old Ben were learn'dly fond Of Chaucer, whom with bungling toil they conn'd, Their sons, whose ears bold Milton could not seize, } Would laugh o'er Ben like mad, and snuff and sneeze, } And swear, and seem as tickled as you please. } Their spawn, the pride of this sublimer age, 185 Feel to the toes and horns grave Milton's rage. Tho' liv'd he now he might appeal with scorn To Lords, ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... priest, with a pinch of snuff poised before his long nose, 'an Englishman—see his ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... steeds snuff the evening air, Our pulses with their purpose tingle; The foeman's fires are twinkling there; He leaps to hear our sabres jingle! HALT! Each carbine send its whizzing ball: Now, cling! clang! forward all, Into ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... says he, "I smell the blood of an Irishman. I see you where you are, up in the tree," he said; "you are too big for one mouthful, and too small for two mouthfuls, and I don't know what I'll do with you if I don't grind you up and make snuff for my nose." "As you are strong, be merciful," says Jack up in the tree. "Come down out of that, you little dwarf," said the giant, "or I'll tear you and the tree asunder." So Jack came down. "Would you sooner be driving red-hot ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... than myself, have I dashed into confusion by the steadiness of my countenance, silenced by my readiness of repartee, and tortured with envy by the address with which I picked up a fan, presented a snuff-box, or received ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... brought him money in a direct way, but it brought him a pension of 300 pounds in the end. In the meantime it brought him presents, and among them an annual gift of 50 pounds from an anonymous hand, the first instalment being accompanied by a pretty snuff-box ornamented with a picture of the three hares. From the gracefulness of the gift, Southey infers that it came from a woman, and he conjectures that ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... expect to be welcomed with snuff," said Alice, as she sneezed again. This time Ruth joined her. There was an irritating ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... that little paper volume. It was not merely as though I had been in court, and were now recalling the inflections of that deep, intimidating voice, the steadfast gaze of those dark, intimidating eyes, and were remembering just at what points the snuff-box was produced, and just how long the pause was before the pinch was taken and the bandana came into play. It was almost as though these effects were proceeding before my very eyes—these sublime effects of the finest actor I have ever seen. Expressed through a perfect technique, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... of Fraser, and if he said his name was Simon to give him half-a-crown, at that time no small gift in Stratheric; but the old women, of all others, were those he was at most pains to win, even in the lowest ranks. He never was unprovided with snuff and flattery, both which he dealt liberally among them, listened patiently to their old stories, and told them others of the King of France, and King James, by which they were quite captivated, and concluded by ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... mustard that stings. There must have been some in the book. The victim of these remarks looked severely at the culprit, but all in vain; she was not to be suppressed with a frown. She remarked that Saul had a hymn-book that made you sneeze, and she asked him why, and he said it was the snuff. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the gravest period of its history. I remember his dress as if it were but yesterday—snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; straight or evening dress coat, with tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, all supplemented by an awkwardness ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... We go to prison for no man who is our enemy. Pouf! When the hour comes I snuff out your life like that." And ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... went about, straightening a chair, or pulling an antimacassar to one side or the other, or putting an ornament in a better light, and then stopping to snuff the candles in the brass sconces on either side of the old piano. This and her anxiety about the venison fretted Miss Deborah so much, it was a great relief to hear the first carriage, and catch a glimpse of Mrs. Dale hurrying across the hall and up the stairs, her well-known ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... my former master used to beat me while raging and foaming with passion; Mr. D—— was usually quite calm. He would stand by and give orders for a slave to be cruelly whipped, and assist in the punishment, without moving a muscle of his face; walking about and taking snuff with the greatest composure. Nothing could touch his hard heart—neither sighs, nor tears, nor prayers, nor streaming blood; he was deaf to our cries, and careless of our sufferings. Mr. D—— has often stripped me naked, hung me up by the wrists, ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... guest had something very forbidding in his aspect, which was contracted by an habitual frown. His eyes were small and red, and so deep set in the sockets, that each appeared like the unextinguished snuff of a farthing candle, gleaming through the horn of a dark lanthorn. His nostrils were elevated in scorn, as if his sense of smelling had been perpetually offended by some unsavoury odour; and he looked ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... when I want it and I don't care who knows it," said Y.D. "I al'us did, and I reckon I'll keep on to the finish. It didn't snuff me out in my youth and innocence, anyway. Just the same, I'm admittin' it's bad medicine in onskilful hands. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... a negligence which reached to uncleanliness, or, rather, it was naturally rusty and mean. His face, shaved but once in two or three days, his dirty bald head, his black nails, old snuff-colored-coats, greasy hats, threadbare cravats, black woolen hose, and coarse shoes, recommended him singularly to his clients, by giving him an air of detachment from the world, and a perfume of practical philosophy, which charmed them. "To what pleasures—what passions— ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... goggle eyes, with huge circular spectacles standing up like fortifications in front of them; a shaggy beard and mustache of mixed black, white, and grey; a prodigious cameo ring on the forefinger of one hairy hand; the other hand always in and out of a deep silver snuff-box like a small tea-caddy; a rough rasping voice; a diabolically humourous smile; a curtly confident way of speaking; resolution, independence, power, expressed all over him from head to foot—there is the portrait of the man who held in his hands (if Nugent was to be ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... NOSTRILS.—An animal may be caused to inhale medicine in the form of gas or vapor or to snuff up a fine powder. Sometimes, for the purpose of local treatment, fluids are injected into ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... far corner of the room her husband gazed upon her, and bathed his senses in contemplation of her beauty while his soul soared with her song. Mother Clemm noiselessly passing near him to snuff a candle on the table upon which his elbow, propping his head, rested, paused for a moment and laid a caressing hand upon his hair. He impulsively drew her down to a ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... read the last word my spirits always rose instantly, and my craving for sleep left me. With keen anticipatory pleasure I would fold up the newspaper ready for the morning, take one look out from the doorway to note the weather, shed my clothes, snuff the candle, and climb luxuriously into bed with the current book, whatever it might be. No newspaper for me. This was real reading, and while I read in bed (travel, biography, and fiction) I lived exclusively ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... let loose of nothing. It is the feller that is eternally on the lookout for opportunities that will sell the shirt off his back to raise money when he thinks he sees an opening. Then there ain't no fun nor Christianity in making money out of a fool. I want to know that a feller is up to snuff and fairly in the game, and then I'll swat 'im if it is in my power. It's been the ambition of my life to get the best of old Welborne across the street there. He's made his pile off of widows and orphans, and if I ever get him under my thumb ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... gentlemen gave M. Soyer a dinner and a snuff box before he left, and so his Irish mission was brought to a close; but his name was not forgotten, for Sawyer's soup was long a standing joke with a certain class of the Dublin people. Had the word come into popular use at the time, there is little doubt that M. Soyer's undertaking ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... government; while I laughed him to scorn by swearing that he was the rector of Tyrrell's Pass, that I knew him well, and, moreover, that he was the worst preacher in Ireland. Singular enough it was that all this while the disputed identity was himself standing coolly at the inn window, with his snuff-box in his hand, leisurely surveying us as we sat, appearing, at least, to take a very lively interest in ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... snuff rubbed thoroughly against his teeth had rendered them sufficiently discolored, and altogether he so thoroughly looked his part that Handsome, when he stripped him, had not the ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... up a number of English slang words with which he interlarded his conversation. He meant to be kind, and indeed liked Miles greatly. In proof of his recovered temper, he offered the young man a pinch of snuff. Jennings hated snuff, but to keep Papa Le Beau in a good temper he accepted the offer ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... on the subject, and endeavor to prevent the formation of so vile and tyranical a habit, by those under their influence; for it is a fact that lads in many of our public schools try to hasten their claims to manliness, by learning to chew, smoke or snuff. This being the case, we may expect, of course, to find these practices prevalent in our academies and colleges, our medical and our law schools and ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... bush and thicket; and here burned a fire that crackled cheerily beneath a bubbling pot, a fire whose dancing light showed me the three-legged stool, the dingy tent and Diogenes the pony tethered near by, who, having lifted shaggy head to snuff towards us enquiringly, fell to cropping the grass again. And beholding all this, the Tinker's shrewd and kindly face and Diana smiling at me across the fire, I felt a sense of rest and companionship ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the same," said the old hunter; and, taking a pinch of snuff, he began to tell the deeds of the old ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... with the children. With a farewell nod and smile to Elizabeth, they quitted the car. From the window she saw them try to make their way through the crowd of loafers which had gathered about the platform. Suddenly a young colored boy in snuff-colored suit and high hat appeared. He immediately took charge of the children, and with them in his arms pushed his way to where a carriage stood at the curb, the women following close ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... said Davy, looking cautiously about him. There was no one in sight, and he carefully raised the cover a little way and tried to look in. The scuffling sound and the sobs ceased, and the next instant the cover flew off the basket, and out poured a swarm of little brown creatures, like snuff-boxes with legs. As they scampered off in all directions Davy made a frantic grab at one of them, when it instantly turned over on its back and blew a puff of smoke into his face, and he rolled over in the road, almost ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... blew and he blew, and she thinned to a thread, "One puff More's enough To blow her to snuff! One good puff more where the last was bred, And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... apertures of her gown through which she reached her pockets. The strangest jingling of keys and money then echoed among her garments. She always wore, dangling from one side, the bunch of keys of a good housekeeper, and from the other her silver snuff-box, thimble, knitting-needles, and other implements that were also resonant. Instead of Mademoiselle Zephirine's wadded hood, she wore a green bonnet, in which she may have visited her melons, for it had passed, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... pour, the noise of the battering-ram and the trampling of the foe and the shouts of "Surrender!" and "De Talbot for ever!" all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle; the little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy-turvy, and when the children came to themselves there they were, safe and sound, in the big front bedroom of their own house—the house with the ornamental nightmare iron-top ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... difference between these and the modern utensils of the same nature and use is, that these are in shape like a heart fluted, and consequently terminate in a point. They consist of two equal lateral cavities, by the edges of which the snuff is cut off, and received into the cavities, from which it is not got out without ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... both sound and young was to Stephen an everyday necessity. He was essentially a Cambridge man, springy and undemonstrative, with just that air of taking a continual pinch of really perfect snuff. Underneath this manner he was a good worker, a good husband, a good father, and nothing could be urged against him except his regularity and the fact that he was never in the wrong. Where he worked, and indeed in other places, many men were like him. In one ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... excellent dentifrice, which cleans and preserves the teeth, is made by mixing together two ounces of brown rappee snuff, one of powder of bark, and one ounce and a half of powder of myrrh. When the gums are inclined to shrink from the teeth, cold water should be used frequently to rinse the mouth; a little alum, dissolved in a pint ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... time that, if the request were not granted by four o'clock in the afternoon, fire would be opened on the palace. In the mean while all Athens was gathered in the open space around the palace, chatting, cracking jokes, taking snuff, and smoking, as if they had assembled to witness a show or hear the reading of a will. Not a shot was fired; no violence was offered or received; and precisely as the limiting hour arrived, the obstinate king ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... and pushing forward a chair for Katy and another for Clover, "swear that you won't tell, for this is a real secret,—the greatest secret that ever was, and Mrs. Florence would flay me alive if she knew that I knew!" She paused to enjoy the effect of her words, and suddenly began to snuff the air in ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... that's the thing. How it makes me gay! Now I want to sing, Leap, laugh, play. Ha! I've had my fling! Mistress of a king In my day. Just another snuff . . . Oh, the blessed stuff! How the wretched room Rushes from my sight; Misery and gloom Melt into delight; Fear and death and doom Vanish in the night. No more cold and pain, I am young ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... something of a robust make, with a countenance in which bluffness was singularly blended with vivacity and grimace; and with a complexion which would have been ruddy, but for a yellow hue which rather predominated. His dress consisted of a snuff- coloured coat and drab pantaloons, the former evidently seldom subjected to the annoyance of a brush, and the latter exhibiting here and there spots of something which, if not grease, bore a strong resemblance to it; add to these articles ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... a lot of time down on the crick flat looking for a mu, which is the same as a sneeze-duck, except for the parallel stripes. It has but one foot webbed; so it swims in a circle and can be easy shot by the sportsman, who first baits it with snuff that it will go miles to get. Another wild beast they had him hunting was the filo, which is like the ruffle snake, except that it has a thing like a table leg in its ear. It gets up on a hill and peeks over at you, but will never come in to lunch. The boys said they ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Parnassus, thick perplex'd with horrid shades, With deep-mouth'd hounds the hunter-troop invades; What time the sun, from ocean's peaceful stream, Darts o'er the lawn his horizontal beam. The pack impatient snuff the tainted gale; The thorny wilds the woodmen fierce assail: And, foremost of the train, his cornel spear Ulysses waved, to rouse the savage war. Deep in the rough recesses of the wood, A lofty copse, the growth of ages, stood; Nor winter's boreal blast, nor ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... into the panniers of donkeys which were gay with magenta tassels. At one time there was trouble getting the horse up the icy trail, yet a little later it was treading down the irises and jonquils and bending its head to snuff the rosemary. So on, beauty all the way, and infinitely variable, all the many days' journey to the coast, where the mountain drops suddenly to the surf and reflects the Mediterranean sky as a purple glamour on its snowy ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... their boats, they live almost entirely on dried fishes' heads. {30} The fishes themselves have been salted down and sold, partly to pay the fishermen's taxes, and partly to liquidate debts for the necessaries of the past season, among which brandy and snuff unfortunately play far ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... Geneva, this trade was calculated to afford employment to five or six thousand persons, but at present it is much reduced. There are a considerable number of goldsmiths, and the ingenuity of the Genevese, produces very curious musical-watches, snuff-boxes, and seals, many of which are sent to Paris and London, where they find a ready sale; they are sent likewise to Persia and to America, there are considerable manufactures also of calico, muslin, &c. and a good deal of banking ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... story of how she was trained in manners end behaviorism, that the visitor had come, and to hear something of her recollections of slave days, her belligerent mood vanished. The satisfied manner in which she drew up chairs before the fire, took a pinch of snuff and settled her skirts, indicated that was going to be quite a session. She leaned her elbows on her knees, held her head between the palms of her hands and fumbled in her cloudy memory to gather ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... his daughter cast on him now and then a look that had in it more of annoyance than affection. He was not now a very pleasant lord to look on, whatever he might once have been. He was red-faced and blear-eyed, and his nose, partly from the snuff which he took in large quantity, was much injured in shape and colour: a closer description the historical muse declines. His eyes had once been blue, but tobacco, potations, revellings day and night—everything but tears, had washed from them almost all the colour. It added much ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... The mountain woman is cheated of her youth almost before she has learned to enjoy it. But 'Lindy was still under eighteen. Her warm vitality still denied the coming of a day when she would be a sallow, angular snuff-chewer. ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... Cross. "Might make small charges up with a snuff of powder wrapped up in paper; and then I could prick ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... in the visitor's refectory—soup, good bread and country wine, ham, a roast chicken with potatoes, a nice white cheese made of sheep's milk, and grapes for dessert. The kind Abbate sat by, and watched his four guests eat, tapping his tortoise-shell snuff-box, and telling us many interesting things about the past and present state of the convent. Our company was completed with Lupo, the pet cat, and Pirro, a woolly Corsican dog, very good friends, and both enormously voracious. Lupo in particular engraved himself ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... their work, or they should taste of my thong, and proceeded, as well as I could, to comfort Mrs. Fitzsimons under her misfortunes. 'Had she lost much?' 'Everything: her purse, containing upwards of a hundred guineas; her jewels, snuff-boxes, watches, and a pair of diamond shoe-buckles of the Captain's.' These mishaps I sincerely commiserated; and knowing her by her accent to be an Englishwoman, deplored the difference that existed between the two countries, and said that in OUR country ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... incense was not quite unknown in the English Church. We are told that on the principal holy days it used to be the 'constant practice at Ely to burn incense on the altar at the Cathedral, till Thomas Green, one of the prebendaries, and now (1779) Dean of Salisbury, a finical man, who is always taking snuff, objected to it, under pretence that it made his head ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... them, only he is as yet too obscure a person to say so. That is Will; and Nash detains him for a moment just to listen to his last words on the Marprelate controversy. Marprelate now appears "with a wit worn into the socket, twingling and pinking like the snuff of a candle; quantum mutatus ab illo! how unlike the knave he was before, not for malice but for sharpness. The hogshead was even come to the hauncing, and nothing could be drawne from him but the dregs." Will says it is very good; and Nash smiles to ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... walks backwards; Thy prospect, all be backwards; and no pleasure, That thou shalt know but backwards: nay, since you force My honest nature, know, it is your own, Being too open, makes me use you thus: Since you will not contain your subtle nostrils In a sweet room, but they must snuff the air Of rank and sweaty passengers. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] —One knocks. Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life; Nor look toward the window: if thou dost— Nay, stay, hear this—let me not prosper, whore, But I will make thee an anatomy, Dissect thee mine own self, and read a lecture Upon ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... cigarette and yawned. The immediate prospect was dull. Savages continued to drift in, to squat and stare, then to move on to the porters' camps. There a lively bartering was going on. From some unsuspected store each porter had drawn forth a few beads, some snuff, a length of wire, or similar treasure; and with them was making the best bargain he could for the delicacies of the country. The process was noisy. Four askaris, with their guns, stood on guard. The shadows were lengthening ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... sitting still, except at the piano, or at table for his meals; receiving visitors standing, pacing back and forth in his salon, his hands twitching in nervous uncertainty; changing the position of the armchairs, rearranging the furniture, suddenly stopping to hunt about his person for a snuff-box or a pair of glasses that he never found; turning his pockets inside out, pulling his velvet house-cap now down over one eye, now back over the crown of his head, or again, throwing it into the air with a shout of joy or crumpling it in his hand, as ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the Captains' own words) it returned and brought seven devils worse than itself; and presently they saw the candle and candlestick in the passage of the door, dasht up to the roof of the room, by a kick of the hinder parts of a horse, and after with the hoof trode out the snuff, and so dasht out the fire in the chimnies. As this was done, there fell, as from the ceiling, upon them in the truckle-beds such quantities of water, as if it had been poured out of buckets, which stunk worse than any earthly stink could make; and ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Dawn broke. Sometimes when his Breath fail'd him, he would cast himself flat on his Face, and hope that his Pursuers might over-run him in the Darkness, but at such a Time they would regularly make a Pause, and he could hear them pant and snuff as it had been a Hound at Fault: which wrought in him so extream an Horrour of mind, that he would be forc'd to betake himself again to turning and doubling, if by any Means he might throw them off the Scent. And, as if this Exertion was in itself not ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... to make our liberty last as long as possible, we rode up and down among the hide-houses, amusing ourselves with seeing the men as they arrived (it was now dusk), some on horseback and others on foot. The Sandwich-Islanders rode down, and were in "high snuff.'' We inquired for our shipmates, and were told that two of them had started on horseback, and been thrown, or had fallen off, and were seen heading for the beach, but steering pretty wild, and, by the looks of things, would not be ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... for him to come to Waterbury every Saturday; and in the enjoyment of the two days he passed with me. In March Aunt Eliza wrote me that Lemorne was beaten! Van Horn had taken up the whole contents of his snuff-box in her house the evening before in amazement at the turn ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
... would present him a snuff-box, studded with pearls, diamonds, and rubies,—monarchs have a habit of presenting snuffboxes to men who do not take snuff,—in token of his princely appreciation of the learning of the distinguished American professor. Or, perhaps, "Le Roi de ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... word of Science, unless there be some further, unguessed word which Science will some day find and utter. In the meantime it sees no farther than the starry void, where the "fleeting systems lapse like foam." Of what ledger-account is the tiny life of man in a vastness where stars snuff out like candles and great suns blaze for a time-tick of eternity ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... made such a difference Daddy came into the house toward evening without knowing what Janice had arranged with Mrs. Carringford, and began to "snuff" at once. ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... "Murphy's up to snuff; but since the affair of the bill he forged Dan Connolly's name to, he's queerly thought of. It wouldn't do at all, governor, to send anyone that Webb's ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... back on the stove and faced the spacious room. He withdrew a snuffbox from his semi-clerical vest pocket, and thoughtfully tapped it with a forefinger. Then he helped himself to a large pinch of snuff. As far as the folks on Snake River knew this was the little ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... of powdered alum to a cup of water, and snuff it up from the hand. If necessary, soak in alum water a piece of absorbent cotton, which has been wound around the pointed end of a pencil or penholder; plug the nostril by pushing it up with a twisting ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... and Captain James reigned in his stead. Good, steady, severe, silent Mr. Horner! with his clock-like regularity, and his snuff-coloured clothes, and silver buckles! I have often wondered which one misses most when they are dead and gone,—the bright creatures full of life, who are hither and thither and everywhere, so that no one can reckon upon their coming and going, with whom ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... black woman her wish to get out of the reach of her persecutors. The old worn-out clock in the narrow dining hall had struck one; a cold rain was patting upon the roof, and the women watchers, one after another, had fallen asleep; and even the snuff-dippers, whose dirty practice creates a nervousness that keeps them awake longer than any other class, had yielded to the demands of Morpheus, when Aggy, the colored servant, stealthily entered the room, beckoned to Clotelle, ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... model and the amateur artist; it may serve to reconcile some of our readers to the rather monotonous form in which royal munificence is usually displayed in European courts. When compared to a lame horse, a gold snuff-box appears—if not an ingenious—at least ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... uplifteth his hair, And his eyes shine bright with its image, and his mail gleams white and fair, And his war-helm pictures the heavens and the waning stars behind: But his neck is Greyfell stretching to snuff at the flame-wall blind. And his cloudy flank upheaveth, and tinkleth the knitted mail, And the gold of the uttermost waters is waxen ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... know that tobacco is obtained from a plant which has long, broad leaves. These leaves are dried and then rolled up into cigars, ground into snuff, or prepared ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... violence, but I have a vague impression of some "pet names" flying wildly about in the air in that vicinity. Then we trundled safely down the lane. We were to go in the direction leading away from home,—the horse's. I don't think he perceived it at first, but as soon as he did snuff the fact, which happened when he had gone perhaps three rods, he quietly turned around and headed the other way, paying no more attention to my reins or my terrific "whoas" than if I were a sleeping babe. A horse is none of your woman's-rights men. He is Pauline. He suffers not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Austrian army.—Every village, every cottage, hailed us with the cry of Vive la nation! The cabaret invites you to drink beer a la nation, and offers you lodging a la nation—the chandler's shop sells you snuff and hair powder a la nation—and there are even patriotic barbers whose signs inform you, that you may be shaved and have your teeth drawn a la nation! These are acts of patriotism one cannot reasonably object to; but the frequent and tedious examination of one's passports by people ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... which had come to pass, that the Boers were beating the great white people, who came out of the sea and shook the earth with their tread. Whereon the neighbour would take the opportunity to relax from toil, squat down, have a pinch of snuff, and relate in what particular collection of rocks on the hillside he and his wives slept the last night—for when the Boers are out on commando the Kafirs will not sleep in their huts for fear of being surprised and shot down. Then the pair would spend ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... finest pieces of acting we ever witnessed. Indeed, let the subject be what it may, it never fails to become highly amusing in the hands of Grimaldi; whether it is to rob a pieman, or open an oyster, imitate a chimney-sweep, or a dandy, grasp a red-hot poker, or devour a pudding, take snuff, sneeze, make love, mimic a tragedian, cheat his master, pick a pocket, beat a watchman, or nurse a child, it is all performed in so admirably humorous and extravagantly natural a manner, that spectators of the most saturnine ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... too, was a weapon of attack and defense for this master fabulist. Sometimes it was a readier mode of argument than any syllogism; sometimes it gave him, like the traditional diplomatist's pinch of snuff, an excuse for pausing while he studied his adversary or made up his own mind; sometimes, with the instinct of a poetic soul, he invented a parable and gravely gave it a historic setting "over in Sangamon County." ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... Tricks, and hath a Mind to give her as good as she brings. I remember a handsome young Baggage that treated a hopeful Greek of my Acquaintance, just come from Oxford, as if he had been a Barbarian. The first Week, after she had fixed him, she took a Pinch of Snuff out of his Rival's Box, and apparently touched the Enemy's little Finger. She became a profest Enemy to the Arts and Sciences, and scarce ever wrote a Letter to him without wilfully mis-spelling his Name. The young Scholar, to be even with her, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... reduce himself by drinking salt water. And in order that he might behave in his lofty station with becoming grace and dignity he was carefully trained to comport himself like a gentleman of the first quality, to speak correctly and elegantly, to play the flute, to smoke cigars and to snuff at flowers with a dandified air. He was honourably lodged in the temple, where the nobles waited on him and paid him homage, bringing him meat and serving him like a prince. The king himself saw to it that he was apparelled ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... has received money in advance from the royal farm, loses irrevocably the fruits of his long labour. We saw heaps, amounting to five hundred arobas, burnt in the great square, which in Europe might have served for making snuff. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... in telling Mrs. Allen of Mr. Salsify's prosperity, and how he was "rising in his profession," and how he meditated adding another story to his house and putting a piazza round it next spring, dropped all, even her snuff-box, and rushed to the window as a large covered wagon, drawn by a span of elegant black horses, drove rapidly into the adjoining yard. First alighted a tall man in a black overcoat,—the master no doubt, the gazers decided,—then a tall man in ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... I was of the rabbits, and who was quite as ready to make game of me, as I was of them; so he told me, one day to put an apple on a stick over their paths, high enough to be just above their reach, and a handful of Scotch snuff on a dry leaf on the ground under it, and the rabbits, while smelling for the apple, would inhale the snuff, and sneeze themselves to death in no tune. Well, I was a child then and simple enough to be gammoned by this rigmarole. ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... face, his squinting glances, the twitches of his nose when he is speaking, while his long teeth stare out as if he were grinning, his shrugging up his shoulders at every word, whereby his odious snuff-coloured coat is every moment dragged upward and lays bare the skinny bones of his wrists, all this, his way of drawing in his breath, his hissing voice, is so revolting to my bodily senses, and always excites ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... distinguished of his audience for the occasion, and had outdone them all. The fact is, he had been assisted a little by a great connoisseur, a celebrated French nobleman, Count D'O——y, who had been one of the guests. The thing was perfect; and Lord Monmouth took a pinch of snuff, and tapped approbation on the top ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Macumazahn?" said Umslopogaas, taking snuff from a spoon and looking at me keenly over the spoon. "You seem to know a great deal, Macumazahn; too much as ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... being deputed to visit the Temple, as one of the committee of public safety, as he held out his snuff-box before the Princesse Elizabeth, she, conceiving he meant to offer it, took a pinch. The monster, observing what she had done, darting a look of contempt at her, instantly threw away the snuff, and dashed the box to pieces ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... like a show of a defence, and contented himself with watching the case, and lying in wait for any legal objections that might offer themselves. He lay back on the seat, occasionally taking a pinch of snuff in a manner intended to be contemptuous; now and then elevating his eyebrows, and sometimes exchanging a little note with Mr. Bridgnorth behind him. The attorney had far more interest in the case than the barrister, to which he was perhaps excited by his poor ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... highly-polished furniture, upholstered in black and yellow Utrecht velvet, the priceless Chinese porcelain brought home by old Dutch merchants, and handed down from mother to daughter for generations; the antimacassars of crochet work, the snuff-coloured wall-paper, the wonderful painted tiles framed in ebony that hung upon it. It was all just as she had said; the very light and smell seemed familiar, she must somehow have given him an idea of ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the Comte de Guiche, being in love with a daughter of Charles I., wore her portrait, mounted on a snuff box, over his heart, and owed his life to this circumstance, for the box turned aside a bullet which struck him in battle—a hint which all soldiers should take. This box is now in the possession of the ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... not worth the snuff of a candle, then," answered the leader of the party, one of Mr ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... musical box with drums and bells. This was one of the best instruments of its kind, and it played a remarkably good selection of airs, which quite charmed the audience. Among the presents I had given to Kabba Rega was a small musical snuff box. This was now wound up and exhibited, but the greedy young fellow at once asked "Why I did not ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... of the door at the further end of the place, bearing a brass tray upon which were a little brass lamp of Oriental manufacture wherein burned a blue spirituous flame, a Japanese, lacquered box not much larger than a snuff-box, and a long and most curiously carved pipe of wood inlaid with metal and having a metal bowl. Bearing this, he crossed the room, passed Ho-Pin, and ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... give 'em a spoonful of castor-oil, all 'round," she piped up; then she took a pinch of snuff, and wouldn't say ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... two people in the world that love and fear me—and those are, Lord Drum[lanrig][7] and Lord Charles [Douglas].[8] If they were awake, I would make them love those that I love, and say something civil to you. The Duchess hath left off taking snuff ever since you have; but she takes a little every day. I have not left it off, and yet take none; my resolution not being so strong. Though you are a water-drinker yourself, I daresay you will be sorry to hear that your friends have strictly adhered ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... Temple Grace owed him as many hundreds. Lord Castlefort also was his debtor to the tune of seven hundred and fifty, and the Baron was in his books, but slightly. Every half-hour they had a new pack of cards, and threw the used one on the floor. All this time Tom Cogit did nothing but snuff the candles, stir the fire, bring them a new pack, and occasionally make a tumbler for them. At eight o'clock the Duke's situation was worsened. The run was greatly against him, and perhaps his losses were doubled. He pulled up again the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... as her husband, had sunk exhausted into a chair near her. He took out his gold snuff-box, and refreshed himself with a leisurely pinch of snuff, looking about him curiously all the while, with a senile grin. That flash of passion which for a few minutes had restored him to the full possession of his ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... speeched to Sovereign's ears,—and when All Sovereigns else were dozed, at last Speeched down the Sovereign of Belfast. Oh! mid the praises and the trophies Thou gain'st from Morosophs and Sophis; Mid all the tributes to thy fame, There's one thou shouldst be chiefly pleased at— That Ireland gives her snuff thy name, And CASTLEREAGH'S the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... for talk, but this hasn't even that poor excuse. I might just as well say, "He takes the conceivable for the supposable and by his logic enlightens himself. One statement would be as valuable as the other and neither would be worth a pinch of snuff. Come, let us argue with dignity and composure, like honest men sincerely searching after truth, and eager to lend a hand in abolishing this social Inferno of legalized robbery which fairly ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... made by an ingenious individual, at Pollockshaws, an exact model of the castle, and some table and other utensils, which are still in preservation at Pollock. Before its removal, many are the snuff-boxes, toddy ladles, &c. that have been made of it, and are still in preservation by the curious. The following couplet, composed by the late Mr. W. Craig, surgeon, is inscribed on one of these ladles, which has seen ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... can get nothing 'till he is hang'd. A Register of the Gang, [Reading.] Crook-finger'd Jack. A Year and a half in the Service; Let me see how much the Stock owes to his industry; one, two, three, four, five Gold Watches, and seven Silver ones. A mighty clean-handed Fellow! Sixteen Snuff-boxes, five of them of true Gold. Six Dozen of Handkerchiefs, four silver-hilted Swords, half a Dozen of Shirts, three Tye-Periwigs, and a Piece of Broad-Cloth. Considering these are only the Fruits of his leisure Hours, I don't know a prettier Fellow, for ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay |
