"Viper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hopeful bawd at eighteen——go, I hate ye——' At this she wept, and he pursued his railing to out-noise her, 'You thought, because your deed were done in darkness, they were concealed from a lover's eye; no, thou young viper, I saw, I heard, and felt, and satisfied every sense of this thy falsehood, when Octavio was conducted to Sylvia's bed by thee.' 'But what,' said she, 'if instead of Octavio I conducted the perfidious traitor to love, Brilliard? Who then was false and perjured?' At ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... curls almost to her feet; but her face, from forehead to chin, was completely hidden by a black velvet mask. In one hand, exquisitely small and white, she held a gold casket, blazing (like her dress) with rubies, and with the other she toyed with a tame viper, that had twined itself round her wrist. This was doubtless La Masque, and becoming conscious of that fact Sir Norman made her a low and courtly bow. She returned it by a slight bend of the head, and turning ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... hates he, as the viper's gore, The Wrestler's oil, that supples every vein? Why do we see his arms no more With livid bruises spotted o'er, Of ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... to enter a Ball-Room and while on her way to attack Europe for the third time, the Viper ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... CURZON, to whom nothing is sacred. "He's used to it by this time. You know what happened to the viper who bit the Cappadocian's hide? HALSBURY's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... divided into seven or eight lengths by clumsy joints where the mangled leafage is knotted on it; but broken a little out of the way at each joint, like a rheumatic elbow that won't come straight, or bend farther; and—which is the most curious point of all in it—it is thickest in the middle, like a viper, and gets quite thin to the root and thin towards the flower; also the lengths between the joints are longest in the middle: here I give them in inches, from the root upwards, in ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... With a voice like a viper hissing. (Though I had crossed her palm with gold), That from the ranks a spirit bold ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... left a sum of money to an eminent King's counsel, "Wherewith to purchase a picture of a viper stinging his benefactor," as a perpetual warning ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... vitality, serves as a remedy for boils. The sting of a hornet is healed by the house-fly crushed and applied to the wound. The gnat, feeble creature, taking in food but never secreting it, is a specific against the poison of a viper, and this venomous reptile itself cures eruptions, while the lizard is the antidote to the scorpion.[191] Not only do all creatures serve man, and contribute to his comfort, but also God "teacheth us through the beasts of ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... fox-gloves, wild-vine, bayle. Here is wonderfull plenty of wild saffron, carthamus, and many vulnerary plants, now by me forgott. There growes also adder's-tongue, plenty - q. if it is not the same with viper's-tongue? (We have no true black mayden-hair growing in England. That which passeth under that name in our apothecaries' shops, and is used as its succeedaneum, is trichomores. Calver-keys, hare's-parseley, mayden's-honesty, are countrey names unknown to me. Carthamus growes no where wild ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... Lucas like yokels at a conjurer. He made us no answer but looked from one to the other of us with the alertness of an angry viper. We were two, but without swords. I knew he was thinking how ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... blood, As griev'd he, Itys calling loud, and flung, With savage fury Itys' gory head Full in his father's face; nor ever mourn'd Lost speech so much; her well-earn'd joy to show, More griev'd lost power. With outcry loud the king O'er-turn'd the table; from the Stygian vale, Invok'd the viper'd sisters: hard he strove To tear his bosom, and from thence disgorge The dire repast, the half-digested mass Of Itys' limbs. Now weeping, wild he mourns, Himself his offspring's tomb. Now fierce pursues Pandion's daughters with his unsheath'd ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... links, which bind At times the loftiest to the meanest mind—[sd] Have given her power too deeply to instil The angry essence of her deadly will;[se] If like a snake she steal within your walls, Till the black slime betray her as she crawls; If like a viper to the heart she wind, And leave the venom there she did not find; 50 What marvel that this hag of hatred works[sf] Eternal evil latent as she lurks, To make a Pandemonium where she dwells, And reign the Hecate of domestic hells? Skilled by a touch to deepen Scandal's ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... intruded upon by John; who has recounted enough of a certain story to put Jemima in hysterics, and Angelina in a fainting fit—bringing down a hurricane of abuse upon him—John, the impertinent menial—John, the venomous viper, that has recoiled upon its benefactor—John, the dark villain, that has plotted with the unworthy man, Spohf, who, of course, out of mere envy, mere spite, mere jealousy, would try to overturn that harmony that is not to ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... who had come to de Sigognac's rescue, and now suddenly roared out in his stentorian voice, "What the deuce is nipping me? Is it a viper? I felt two sharp fangs meet in ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... her wrists. His pale face flushed a dark, flaming red when she shrank from his touch as if he were a viper. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... happiness and crippling her own usefulness. He pitied her because she was not what she might so easily have been; because she was storing up vinegar where she might have gathered honey; and was one of those of whom Dr South says that "they tell the truth, but tell it with the tongue of a viper." He pitied Mary Stansfield, but with a pity mingled with profound respect and admiration. He pitied her that she should have to bear those daily raspings of the spirit which her aunt, half unconsciously, perpetually ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... no sound. Alone and undisturbed the bleached viper warmed to its dance with the pulsing flame, turning and twisting, weaving and writhing in its ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from 243:6 the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death. It crowned the demon- 243:9 strations of Jesus with unsurpassed power and love. But the same "Mind . . . which was also ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... she was a married young lady with one child. They were to depart on the morrow. At about eleven or twelve o'clock that night, Laura came to where my bed was fixed, and asked me to take her to see Tommy, this being her last opportunity. "You little viper," I was going to say, but I jumped up and led her quietly across the camp to where Tommy was fast asleep. I woke him up and said, "Here, Tommy, here's Laura come to say 'good-bye' to you, and she wants to give you a kiss." To this the uncultivated young cub replied, rubbing his eyes, "I ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... earth, to which all we mortals must one day come, grant me to tell a simple tale and declare unto you the truth. Not to look upon the blackness of Tartarus have I come hither, nor yet to bind in chains the snaky heads on Cerberus. It is my wife I seek. A viper's sting has robbed her of the years that were her due. I should have borne my loss, indeed I tried to bear it, but I was overcome by Love, a god well known in the world above, and I think not without honor in your kingdom, unless the story of Proserpina's theft be a lying tale. I ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... with a smile that crept over her young lips like a viper. "The old General is more pliable than the son. Oh, yes, when he began questioning me of the whereabouts of our kind friends who think so much of us, you know, I put forth all the accomplishments you have taught me, and wiled him from the subject in no time. You have just questioned ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... knew my policies. "What did you expect me to do with him?" he said hotly. "This isn't some common snake we picked up out in the country. We snagged this viper right here in Washington, Gyp! I suppose I should have spirited him out of town on ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... Cripps—did the Miss Minetts fail to put in an appearance. This of necessity, since had not they, figuratively speaking, warmed the viper in their bosoms, cradled the assassin upon their hearth? They were further handicapped, in respect of any demonstration, by the fact of Theresa Bilson's presence in their midst. Owing to the general ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... from Holtenau to Brunsbttel. Magnificent condescension! I blush when I look at this yellow document and remember the stately courtesy of the great lock gates; for the sleepy officials of the Knigliches Zollamt little knew what an insidious little viper they were admitting into the imperial bosom at the ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... from the stove, 'and that's the way I would serve the viper who produces it, if I were not, fortunately for him, restrained by the laws of ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... have it. That woman Chevassat has talked to you about me, no doubt. Ah, the viper! I'll crush her one of these days! Come, let us be frank; ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... The sound of his voice now produced an instantaneous effect. Mr. Bertram started up without assistance and turned round towards him; the ghastliness of his features forming a strange contrast with the violence of his exclamations.—'Out of my sight, ye viper! ye frozen viper, that I warmed, till ye stung me! Art thou not afraid that the walls of my father's dwelling should fall and crush thee limb and bone? Are ye not afraid the very lintels of the door of Ellangowan Castle should break open and swallow you up? ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... at fencing as well as you, Mr. REDMOND BARRY. Ah! you change colour, do you—your secret is known, is it? You come like a viper into the bosom of innocent families; you represent yourself as the heir of my friends the Redmonds of Castle Redmond; I inthrojuice you to the nobility and genthry of this methropolis' (the Captain's brogue was large, and his words, by preference, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her belly to win furth, and that wt the horrid peine she suffers in the bringing furth her young she dies, which also I have heard Mr. Douglas—preaching out of the last of the Acts about that Viper that in the Ile of Malta (wheir they are a great more dangerous then any wheir else) cleave to Pauls hand—affirme at least as a thing reported by naturalists, the etymon of the Greek word [Greek: hechidnae] seiming ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... uttered her last words—words poured forth like the wild dirges, the fierce death-songs of the old Goths when they died deserted on the bloody battle-field, or were cast bound into deep dungeons, a prey to the viper and the asp. Thus she spoke:— 'I swore to be avenged! while I went forth from Aquileia with the child that was killed and the child that was wounded; while I climbed the high wall in the night-time, and heard the tumult of the beating waves ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... spurted from his safety-valve. "You mongrel viper! Low-bred ooze, disowned and outcast, I'll spoil a grave with your carcass for this! You jelly of cowardice, meet me to-morrow for satisfaction, or I'll swing you about by the tongue, and hurl you to pulp against the ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... right through me; and if there had been one mean thought in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... march, and that peace should reign throughout the camp; but Bombay was suspicious of him, and malignantly abused him, for what reason Baraka could not tell. When I spoke of this to Bombay, like a bird fascinated by the eye of a viper, he shrank before the slippery tongue of his opponent, and could only say, "No, Sahib—oh no, that is not it; you had better turn me off, for his tongue is so long, and mine so short, you never will believe me." I tried to make ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... as a port of refuge, and speak of the grave as of some soft arms in which they may slumber as on a pillow. Some have wooed death—but 'Out upon thee,' I say, 'thou foul, ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate thee, as in no instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper, to be branded, proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation. Those antidotes prescribed against the fear of thee are altogether frigid ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... egregious dog? O Viper vile; The solus in thy most meruailous face, the solus in thy teeth, and in thy throate, and in thy hatefull Lungs, yea in thy Maw perdy; and which is worse, within thy nastie mouth. I do retort the solus in thy bowels, for I can take, and Pistols cocke is ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... very glad to be safe once more; but a strange thing happened after a little: Paul gathered up an armful of sticks to put upon the fire, and as he placed them upon the flames, a viper, which is a kind of poisonous snake, came out of the bundle and clung to his hand; he shook it off into the fire, however, without the ...
— Wee Ones' Bible Stories • Anonymous
... took place in less time than it requires to picture it to one's self. After having scrutinized the man for several moments, as one scrutinizes a viper, the master of the house returned to the door ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... liquid and made the unfortunate prisoner drink every drop of it. When he had finished, we waited for a few minutes (like the people who watched St. Paul on the Island of Melita after he had shaken off the viper into the (p. 313) fire) to see if he would swell up or die, but as nothing of that kind happened we all began to fill our water-bottles. Just as the last man was about to fill his, a big shell landed in the garden next to us, and he, catching up his empty bottle, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... pair of long ears and a tail upon me, that I might be a real ass, and champ thistles on some common, independent of my fellow-creatures? Would I were a worm, that I might creep into the earth, and thatch my habitation with a single straw; or rather a wasp or a viper, that I might make the rascally world feel my resentment. But why do I talk of rascality? folly, folly, is the scourge of life! Give me a scoundrel, so he be a sensible one, and I will put him in my heart of hearts! but a fool is more mischievous than ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... said the usher. Dubois stretched out his viper's head, darted a look at the opening which was left between the usher and the door, and, behind the official introducer, perceived a little fat man, pale, and whose legs shook under him, and who coughed to give himself assurance. A glance sufficed ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... the wrongs of an oppressed nation, for example, upon the nation which oppresses. But in simple point of fact, the oppressed nation generally deserves (if the word can be fairly used) to share the blame. The trodden worm would not have been trodden upon if it had been a bit of a viper. Whatever the duty of turning the second cheek, it is clearly not a national duty. If we admire a Tell or Robert Bruce for resisting oppressors, we implicitly condemn those who submitted to oppressors. If a nation is divided or wanting in courage, public spirit, and independence, it will be ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... able, By means of a secret charm, to draw All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep or swim or fly or run, After me so as you never saw! 75 And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole and toad and newt and viper; And people call me the Pied Piper." (And here they noticed round his neck 80 A scarf of red and yellow stripe, To match with his coat of the self-same check; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; And ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... he stops, becoming perfectly motionless. His hands still retain their hold of the smaller stick, which is pressed convulsively against the further end of the channel among the fine powder there accumulated, as if he had just pierced through and through some little viper that was wriggling and struggling to escape from his clutches. The next moment a delicate wreath of smoke curls spirally into the air, the heap of dusty particles glows with fire, and Kory-Kory, almost breathless, dismounts ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Mr. Pump, as he again filled the glass; "we cannot be too much so. We must avoid rum and gin as we would a viper! How I abhor the very name of rum! O, Mr. Dayton, think of the misery it has brought upon man! I had a sister once, a beautiful, kind-hearted creature. She was married to an industrious man; all was fair, prospects bright. By degrees he got into bad company; he forgot his ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... the spotted stem of the bugloss, and its seeds shaped like a serpent's head, as certain indications that the herb would cure snake bites. Indeed, the genus takes its name from Echis, the Greek viper. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... folded arms, looked at him with quiet scorn. "It is the nature of the viper to use his venom," he said calmly. "Such a thing ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... demands no such distinction. And proper names of persons are so marked, not with any reference to personality, but because they are proper nouns—or names of individuals, and not names of sorts. Thus, AEsop's viper and file are both personified, where it is recorded, "'What ails thee, fool?' says the file to the viper;" but the fable gives to these names no capitals, except in the title of the story. It may here be added, that, according to their definitions of personification, our grammarians ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Such "viper thoughts" did at this time coil around his mind, and were for him "Reality's dark Dream." In this state of mind he suddenly left Cambridge for London, and strolled about the streets till night came on, and then rested himself ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... people as their great Mediterranean stronghold and Naval Arsenal; to Christendom, for the glorious deeds of the brave and self-sacrificing Knights of St. John, and as the place where the great apostle to the Gentiles was cast ashore and bitten by the viper, and where he preached so fervently and effectually. These are probably the best-remembered events touching the history of Malta. That it was originally colonized by the Phoenicians, and taken from them by the Greeks some eight hundred years B.C.; then captured by the Carthaginians, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... easy to give a lie unless you can prove it a lie. I made her realise this, and she bit her lip in vexation. Dame! What a pretty viper I thought ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... ground of peace while it is so, that I see no pardon or remission granted to me? Ans. This may yield thee peace, that, following this course which hath been explained, thou art about thy duty. Thou art not at peace with sin, nor harbouring that viper in thy soul; thou art mourning and sorrowing over it, and running to Christ the prince of pardons, through his blood and intercession, conform to the covenant of redemption, and after the encouragement given in the ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... putting my letter between the bars, politely proffered it to Mr. Banker. Mr. Banker received me with a sad and dejected look, and not “with open arms,” or with any arms at all, but with—a pair of tongs! I placed my letter between the iron fingers, which picked it up as if it were a viper, and conveyed it away to be scorched and purified by fire and smoke. I was disgusted at this reception, and at the idea that anything of mine could carry infection to the poor wretch who stood on the other side of the grille, pale and trembling, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... observing the Figure diligently, is easie enough to be perceiv'd; and from several particulars, I suppose the Animal has a power of displaying them, and shutting them in again as it pleases, as a Cat does its claws, or as an Adder or Viper can its teeth ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... thing, as fair as may be, Without a dad conceived a baby, And brought him forth without the pother In labour made by teeming mother. Yet the cursed brat feared not to gripe her, But gnawed, for haste, her sides like viper. Then the black upstart boldly sallies, And walks and flies o'er hills and valleys. Many fantastic sons of wisdom, Amazed, foresaw their own in his doom; And thought like an old Grecian noddy, A human ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... that I believe thee, when thou hast lain ever as a viper on my path, to bite my heel ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... away. O thou of large eyes, for thy sake it is, O thou of the splendour of the filaments of the lotus, that Kama is incessantly piercing me with his keen shafts without stopping for a moment! O amiable and cheerful girl, I have been bitten by Kama who is even like a venomous viper. O thou of swelling and large hips, have mercy on me! O thou of handsome and faultless features, O thou of face like unto the lotus-petal or the moon, O thou of voice sweet as that of singing Kinnaras, my life now depends on thee! Without thee, O timid one, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of all this they would not only be careful how they marry immoral men, but they would shrink from personal contact with them as from a viper. Not one, but many girls who have held somewhat lax ideas concerning the propriety of allowing young men to be familiar have reaped the result in a contamination merely through the touch of the lips. To-day a young woman in good social standing ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... to. This the smuggler paid no sort of regard to: and we all began to suspect some mistake: as the light increased, and we could use our glasses with effect, we found too certainly that there was. The smuggler was painted so as to resemble the Viper; and Sir Morgan had taken her for that vessel on the night before: but we now suspected (and the event proved) that she was her partner, the Rattlesnake—a ship of much greater force with a piratical crew from the South Seas, and strengthened by some of the picked ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... with which she must deal. In the dining room she had felt recklessly intrepid and the utter mystification of Buck Crowley had amused her. But she had had plenty of opportunity in her Vose-Mern work to know the nature of Crowley—he had the shell of an alligator and the scruples of a viper and would double-cross a twin brother if the project could help the fortunes of ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... deadly humour. His swift defiance to Lord Lovell, as Sir Giles, and indeed the whole mighty and terrible action with which he carried that scene—from "What, are you pale?" down to the grisly and horrid viper pretence and reptile spasm of death—were simply tremendous. This was in the days when his acting yet retained the exuberance of a youthful spirit, before "the philosophic mind" had checked the headlong currents of the blood or curbed imagination ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... cases yet known are those of certain harmless snakes which mimic poisonous species. The genus Elaps, in tropical America, consists of poisonous snakes which do not belong to the viper family (in which are included the rattlesnakes and most of those which are poisonous), and which do not possess the broad triangular head which characterises the latter. They have a peculiar style of coloration, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... was yet gloating over the apparent discomfort his words had caused, Joe suddenly threw himself upon the vagabond, and while he bore him to the pavement and while his hands throttled the viper's throat, he shrieked into the beggar's ears. "I am Joseph McDonald, and you die on this spot unless you tell me what you have done with my brother James." They struggled desperately, one to free himself from the strangle hold, while Joe wished to force ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... instinctively a deductive extension of an induction, merely omitting the explicit generalisation, 'All missiles of a certain weight, size and solidity break windows.' But if, knowing nothing of snakes except that the viper is venomous, a child runs away from a grass-snake, he argues by analogy; and, though his conduct is prudentially justifiable, his inference is wrong: for there is no law that 'All snakes are venomous,' but only that those are venomous that have a certain ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... that this cruel feeling still exists in Barbadoes. Prejudice is the last viper of the slavery-gendered brood that dies. But it is evidently growing weaker. This the reader will infer from several facts already stated. The colored people themselves are indulging sanguine hopes that prejudice will ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Nature for the infant that depends on her is required of her; for otherwise there would be no surplus of nourishment for the child, but no more than the mother requires, and the infant would weaken the mother, and like as in the viper, the birth of the infant would be the death of ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... the young Scotchman how he lost his eye. Sanquhar, not willing to lose the credit of a wound, answered cannily, "It was done, your majesty, with a sword." The king replied, thoughtlessly, "Doth the man live?" and no more was said. This remark, however, awoke the viper of revenge in the young man's soul. He brooded over those words, and never ceased to dwell on the hope of some requital on his old opponent. Two years he remained in France, hoping that his wound might be cured, and at ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... discovered twenty-seven species of poisonous serpents and one poisonous lizard; eighteen species of these are true rattlesnakes; the remaining nine are divided between varieties of the moccasin, copperhead or the viper. The poisonous lizard is the Texan reptile known as the "Gila Monster." In all these serpents the poison fluid is secreted in a gland which lies against the side of the skull below and behind the eye, from which a duct leads ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the glory of a triumph; the greatest and most dishonorable punishment was that of parricide. He that was guilty of parricide was beaten with rods upon his naked body till the blood gushed out of all the veins of his body; then he was sewed up in a leathern sack, called a culeus with a cock, a viper, and an ape, and thrown headlong into ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... made me ugly, as it has made me beautiful, could I with justice complain of you for not loving me? Moreover, you must remember that the beauty I possess was no choice of mine, for, be it what it may, Heaven of its bounty gave it me without my asking or choosing it; and as the viper, though it kills with it, does not deserve to be blamed for the poison it carries, as it is a gift of nature, neither do I deserve reproach for being beautiful; for beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... if a viper had stung her; for the moment she had become oblivious of Chauvelin's presence. However, she would not take notices of his taunt, and, after a slight pause, he asked her if she could hear the town crier over in the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... are many different species of poisonous snakes in the United States. The more common are the rattlesnake, the moccasin, the copperhead, and the common viper. ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... some ('tis said) for their defence Have worn a casement o'er their skin, So wore he his within, Made up of virtue and transparent innocence; And though he oft renew'd the fight, And almost got priority of sight, He ne'er could overcome her quite, In pieces cut, the viper still did reunite; Till, at last, tired with loss of time and ease, Resolved to give himself, as ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... touch the hand of a woman that is white. You have claimed to be without the hatred of the African so ingrained among Americans; you have talked about the Almighty making of one blood all the nations of the earth; and yet you are like the rest! A viper's bite could not have aroused deeper disgust in you than my lips. And all because the sun shone more vertically on my ancestors than ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... no better that she should be. You know, I've got an eye for such things, I have! And now I know your countess as well as if I had been at the making of her! I'll bet you that she's the mistress of that viper Fauchery! I tell you, she's his mistress! Between women you guess that sort ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... came upon me in a kind of vision how hugely I had overrated the man's subtlety. He had his malice still; he was false as ever; and, the occasion being gone that made his strength, he sat there impotent; he was still the viper, but now spent his venom on a file. Two more thoughts occurred to me while yet we sat at breakfast: the first, that he was abashed—I had almost said, distressed—to find his wickedness quite unavailing; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Macquart was fully launched, he could not stop. "It's like that little viper, Aristide," he would say, "a false brother, a traitor. Are you taken in by his articles in the 'Independant,' Silvere? You would be a fine fool if you were. They're not even written in good French; I've always maintained that this ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came out a viper from the heat, and fastened on his hand. (4)And when the barbarians saw the animal hanging from his hand, they said among themselves: No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though escaped from the sea, justice suffered not to live. (5)He, however, shaking off the ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... stealing. He stole right enough—stole the money from an old woman, and what was I to do when it came to the trial but say what I knew. And him like a viper a-looking at me—more like a viper than a human boy. He leans on the bar and looks at me. 'All right, Aunt Flo,' he says, just that and nothing more. Time after time, I've dreamt of it, and now he's come. 'They've ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... with benefits for their inefficacious prayers: they swept off the fat of the land for their expiations, so destructive to morals, so calculated to give permanency to crime. Thus, by a strange fatuity, the viper that could, and frequently did, inflict the most deadly sting on the bosom of confiding credulity, was pampered and nourished by the unsuspecting ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... frightened me so much that I screamed. Martine came running up, and she began screaming too, and everybody came. I explained what had happened the day before, and the farmer said that the sheep must have been bitten by a viper. He would have to be cared for, and must be left in the stable until the swelling had gone down. I asked nothing better than to look after the poor brute, but when I was alone with it I felt frightened to death. That enormous head, which ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... myself? Venture into her presence by whom I am so much detested? She will tremble with mingled indignation and terror at the sight of me. I cannot hope a patient audience. And can I, in such circumstances, rely on my own equanimity? How can I endure the looks of one to whom I am a viper, a demon; who, not content with hating me for that which really merits hatred, imputes to me a ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... envelope with another letter, and written on a piece of note-paper, was something that made her start as if at the sting of a viper. No! it could not be a will! She knew what wills were like. They were sheets of foolscap, written by lawyers, while this was only an old man's cramped and crooked writing. Perhaps, when he was in a rage, he had ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... muttered Harley, when the door had closed upon the parson. "The viper and the viper's brood! So it was this man's son that I led from the dire Slough of Despond; and the son unconsciously imitates the father's gratitude and honour—Ha, ha!" Suddenly the bitter laugh was arrested; a flash ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gave her away—she was no mystic. She swung her eyes back to me: "TK!" she gasped. She recoiled from me. She'd had a viper to her bosom. ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... wings of the fragile butterfly. She had traced the symmetrical and marvellous network which the fern extends as a canopy over the wood strawberry; she had listened to the murmuring of streams through the long reeds and stems of the water-grass, where the hissing of the "amorous viper" may be heard; she had followed the wild leaps of the Will-with-a-wisp as it bounds over the surface of the meadows and marshes; she had pictured to herself the chimerical dwelling-places toward which it perfidiously ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... of the world, but they are not mine. So far from deserving censure, Holden is entitled to all honor and praise, for he spoke from the inspiration of conviction. Nor, whatever may be the attempts to injure him, will they succeed. As St. Paul shook the deadly viper from his hand, so will this man rid himself of his enemies. There are more with him than against him, and the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... waiting, for of all torments disappointed expectation is the most painful. I expected thee all yesterday afternoon until six o'clock, but thou didst not come, thou witch, and I grew almost mad. Impatience encircled me like the folds of a viper, and I bounded on my couch at every ring, but oh! mortal anguish, it did not bring thee. "Thou didst fail to come; I fret, I fume, and Satanas whispered mockingly in my ear—'The charming lotus-flower makes fun ...
— Old Love Stories Retold • Richard Le Gallienne
... Romans, viper-like, Seek to bewray their fellow-citizens. O wretched world, from whence with speedy flight True love, true zeal, true honour late ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... "How come you think I'd soil my shadow letting that viper trail it, boss? I never disobeyed you before, Mr. Secretary, but that trash can show hisself out!" and Jonas withdrew to his own office, while Brown, shrugging his shoulders, opened and ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... their baying, and drive, And o'er the mountains urge into the toils Some antlered monster to their chiming cry. Learn also scented cedar-wood to burn Within the stalls, and snakes of noxious smell With fumes of galbanum to drive away. Oft under long-neglected cribs, or lurks A viper ill to handle, that hath fled The light in terror, or some snake, that wont 'Neath shade and sheltering roof to creep, and shower Its bane among the cattle, hugs the ground, Fell scourge of kine. Shepherd, seize stakes, seize stones! And as he rears defiance, and puffs out A hissing throat, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep, or swim, or fly, or run, After me so as you never saw! And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole, the toad, the newt, the viper; And people call me the Pied Piper. Yet,' said he, 'poor piper as I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarm of gnats; I eased in Asia the Nizam Of a monstrous brood of vampyre ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... the little "Young England Party," and was to be seen in Punch's cartoon as a viper gnawing at the "old file," Sir Robert Peel. Then came the triumph of Free Trade, duly celebrated by John Leech in one of his ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... night they were stolen. There was no one among the girls to suspect. The Mercer girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they wanted legitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no question about it, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to their bosom—or is it a viper?—and the Harbison man was the creature. Although I must say that, looking over the table, at Jimmy's breadth and not very imposing personality, at Max's lean length, sallow skin, and bold dark eyes, at Dallas, blond, growing bald and florid, and then at the Harbison boy, tall, muscular, ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "I'll kill that viper yet!" he muttered between his teeth, and, reaching out for the first thing to hand, his long smooth fingers locked around the neck of the Great Dane—so tight that the dog, half strangled and snarling, lunged at his tormenter. Nina cried ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... say to the Englishman just fresh from his island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which ere long thawed Hunsden's reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head, before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon forehead, showed unshaded the gleam ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... viper like Casorans satisfied me in every way. Evidently the place was not taken; ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Merrifield,' said Constance, who, after her first fright, was working herself into a passion. 'You don't know what a little viper you have been warming, nor what things she has been continually saying of ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so foolish as to deny the force of the language. But I cannot separate thought and form: and if I do occasionally admire this Hebrew God, it is with the same sort of admiration that I feel for a viper, or a ...—(I'm trying in vain to find a Shakespearean monster as an example: I can't find one: even Shakespeare never begat such a hero of Hatred—saintly and virtuous Hatred). Such a book is a terrible ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the man which almost made me afraid. He reminded me of a viper which I once killed in Beechcot Woods. And though we entered into conversation with him that night, and found him a mightily agreeable companion, I still preserved the notion that he was a man not to be trusted, and like to prove ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of ...
— English Satires • Various
... Linn., Zamuro, or Galinazo: the Brazilian vulture of Buffon. I cannot reconcile myself to the adoption of names, which designate, as belonging to a single country, animals common to a whole continent.) the crocodile, the viper, and the rattlesnake. The gaseous emanations, which are the vehicles of this aroma, seem to be evolved in proportion only as the mould, containing the spoils of an innumerable quantity of reptiles, worms, and insects, begins to be impregnated with water. I have seen Indian children, of the tribe ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... me, lady, we believed that we were performing a truly Christian and virtuous act, and yet it was the cause of all the subsequent misery! and those I loved far better than myself endured. We were hastening to preserve from destruction the accursed viper who was to sting us to death. Thus, Heaven ordained it should be, and its ways are dark and intricate, beyond my comprehension, for surely it is against all the rules one can conceive of justice that ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... absorbed the letter and was struggling for speech. I could appreciate his emotion. If he had not actually been nurturing a viper in his bosom, he had come, from his point of view, very near it. Of all men, a schoolmaster necessarily looks with the heartiest ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... such as are radically vicious; to give education to the worthless is like throwing walnuts upon a dome:—it were wiser to eradicate the tree of their wickedness, and annihilate their tribe; for to put out a fire and leave the embers, and to kill a viper and foster its young, would not be the acts of rational beings. Though the clouds pour down the water of vegetation, thou canst never gather fruit from a willow twig. Exalt not the fortune of the abject, for thou canst never extract sugar ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... old German law infanticide was treated as the murder of a relative. The guilty mother was buried alive in a sack, the law prescribing, with the ingenious fiendishness of the age, that a dog, a cat, a rooster, and a viper should also be placed in the sack.[981] In ancient Arabia the father might kill newborn daughters by burying them alive. The motive of the old custom was anxiety about provision for the child and shame at the disgrace of having become the father of a daughter.[982] ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner |
