"Basilisk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heads, and their look caused an instant horror, which was immediately followed by death. In Shakespeare's play of Richard the Third, Lady Anne, in answer to Richard's compliment on her eyes, says, "Would they were basilisk's, to strike ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... herself that in doing so she would incur a great risk, but it seemed easier to lose her greatest treasure entirely than only to half possess it; and when she had once looked this thought in the face it attracted her, as with the gaze of a basilisk, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wish to use it, especially as the sick man had slept well the preceding night and had awakened without any fever, although still very weak. After the prince's departure, the sister immediately sent a servant for a new medicine apparently—for the "egg of a basilisk"—which she affirmed had the power to restore strength even to people in agony; as for herself, she wandered about the mansion; she was humble and was dressed in a lay dress, but similar to that worn by members of the Order; ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the Maabed, having a length of eight feet, a breadth of five, and a height of about ten feet, and ornamented externally with a very peculiar cornice. This consisted of a series of carvings, representing the fore part of an uraeus or basilisk serpent, uprearing itself against the wall of the shrine, which were continued along the entire front of the chamber. There was also an internal ornamentation of the roof, consisting of a winged circle of an Egyptian character—a ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... from table was given by Madame de Staemer. She whisked her chair back with extraordinary rapidity, the contrast between her swift, nervous movements and those still, basilisk eyes being almost uncanny. ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... important to remark that the Professor's Wanderings, so far as his stoical and cynical envelopment admits us to clear insight, here first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems to have withered-up what little remnant of a purpose may have still lurked in him: Life has become wholly a dark labyrinth; wherein, through long years, our Friend, flying from spectres, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... each other. But some days after my establishment had begun to run smoothly, one of the military ladies asked me to dinner. The punkah string was pulled by a murderous-looking ex-insurrecto, who fixed me with a basilisk glance, half entreaty, half reproach. It became so painful that toward the end of dinner I asked my hostess if his expression was due to his general frame of mind or to a special aversion toward pedagogues. She replied that he was probably bracing himself to approach ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... a Nycteribius, I believe, who goes by the name of jumby-bird among the English Negroes: and no wonder; for most ghostly and horrible is his cry. But worse: he has but one eye, and a glance from that glaring eye, as from the basilisk of old, is certain death: and worse still, he can turn off its light as a policeman does his lantern, and become instantly invisible: opinions which, if verified by experiment, are not always found to ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... are sitting on their sepulchres. That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. He meditates, his head upon his hand. What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull? 'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, It fascinates, and is intolerable. His mien is noble, most majestical! Then most so, when the distant choir is heard At morn or eve—nor fail thou to attend On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there; When all, propitiating with solemn songs, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... but felt that his sole object had been to cover his change of position. For, when he sat down again, it was where he could see my face. I therefore felt justified in plying the fan he had offered me, in such a way as to shut off his somewhat basilisk gaze. And so a ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... reaching Antrim my fellow-traveller quitted the carriage. No doubt his object was a sinister one, and when I saw him speak to the constable at the station, I had no doubt in my own mind that my liberty was not worth five minutes' purchase. But even so, anything seemed better than his basilisk eye in ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... men gathered before her. One or two cursed Kieff in a growling undertone. But Kieff himself remained absolutely unmoved. He was smoking a cigarette and he inhaled several deep breaths before he replied to her challenge. Then, with his basilisk eyes fixed immovably upon her, as it were clinging to her, he made his deadly answer: "I will certainly tell you what I said, madam, since you desire it. But the explanation is one which surely only you can give. I said to my friend, 'There goes ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... head erect Furrows with tail alone his sandy path; Swift Jaculus there, and Seps (25) whose poisonous juice Makes putrid flesh and frame: and there upreared His regal head, and frighted from his track With sibilant terror all the subject swam, Baneful ere darts his poison, Basilisk (26) In sands deserted king. Ye serpents too Who in all other regions harmless glide Adored as gods, and bright with golden scales, In those hot wastes are deadly; poised in air Whole herds of kine ye follow, and with coils Encircling close, crush in the ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... great or small, sweet or bitter, honor, wealth, life, or any other object, what can shake its peace? It is true, our nature is so crafty that it worms itself through everything; a selfish sight is like the basilisk's, it destroys. ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... look it? Good heavens, girl, you needn't basilisk me so, to see if I do! You glare as if I were some kind of abnormal beast eating with its eyes, or winking ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... exclaimed Gertrude, veiling her eyes, in terror, from the insidious smile with which he approached her, as she would have avoided the attractive glance of a basilisk. "Oh! if you have pity in your heart, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... the passageways and haunted the cabins. Marsha's snake was back. There was Lazar's dragon, which seemed to grow larger every day. There was also a basilisk, a pterodactyl, a vampire bat with a five-foot wingspread, an old-fashioned red spade-tailed demon ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... full, glossy, raven hair, and his eyes like some mad animal's flashing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife—walks along not much back from the footlights—turns fully toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps insanity—launches out in a firm and steady voice the words Sic semper tyrannis—and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... describest, even so is it shaped in his entrails, in this black hypocrite's breast. O, the art of hell has deceived me! The Abyss sent up to me the most spotted of the spirits, the most skilful in lies, and placed him as a friend by my side. Who may withstand the power of hell? I took the basilisk to my bosom, with my heart's blood I nourished him; he sucked himself glutfull at the breasts of my love. I never harboured evil towards him; wide open did I leave the door of my thoughts; I threw away the key of wise foresight. In the starry ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... against the Scots,' Katharine said. 'But the beasts of the field strike as well against the foes of their kind—the bull of the herd against lions; the Hyrcanian tiger against the troglodytes; the basilisk against many beasts. It is the province of a man to smite not only against the foes of his kind but—and how much the more?—against ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... and loving mortals, that stony stare of death,—lest we too, as smit with the basilisk, be turned into monumental stone, and all the dear grace and movement of life be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... deal of incense from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most of the incense came by post. Living a quiet and retired life in the country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk, but she began to look like a basilisk who has ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... cried the surgeon, 'that basilisk stare has chilled me through, my friends. I can hear bells ringing in my ears! I may take leave of you; you ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... trembled, dropped his wine-glass from his hand, and levelled at Thaddeus the glance of a basilisk. The Assessor was less noisy and less given to gestures than the Notary, thinner and shorter; but he was terrible at masquerade, ball, or village diet, for they said of him that he had a sting in ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... the panther's treacherous seeming, That looks so lovely to beguile its prey; Seek not to match the basilisk's false gleaming, That charms the fancy only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... was indeed very sorry that we were not dining "at home." At least they might have left me alone there. That he did not turn to stone as he uttered these words was not my fault; at least I fixed upon him such basilisk eyes as I was capable of. What an idea! To refuse a dinner with my P. C. uncle for his sake! Grandmother, too, discovered that I ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... we not boldly tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and trample under foot the lion and the dragon?[2] As it is in temptation that we learn to know the greatness of our courage and of our fidelity to God, so it is by suffering temptation that we make progress in strength ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... appalling crimes. No one knew what they exactly were, for the old woman had outlived her contemporaries, and the tradition was imperfect; but she had been handed down to the next generation as one to be avoided as a basilisk. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... church is very dark, but the details of the mosaics may be studied in the careful copies in the museum. Above the altar of S. Giusto, to the right, in the semi-dome, SS. Giusto and Servolo stand on each side of our Saviour, beneath whose feet are two monsters, asp and basilisk. The central apse was reconstructed in the seventeenth century. The main reconstruction took place in the fourteenth century. The aisle walls of the two churches were demolished, and a nave built reaching from the pillars of one church to those of the other, thus uniting them under one roof, the ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... are no other than the perturbations and distempers of the affections.' And we shall find, under the head of the medicining of the body, some things on the subject of medicine in general, which could be better said there than here, because the wrath of professional dignitaries,—the eye of the 'basilisk,' was not perhaps quite so terrible in that quarter then, as it was in some others. For though 'the Doctors' in that department, did manage, in the dark ages, to possess themselves of certain weapons of their own, which are said to have proved, on the whole, sufficiently formidable, they ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... on the general subject of the character of poisonous matters, illustrated by some gruesome and Munchausen-like tales, borrowed mainly from Avicenna and Ruffus, on the wonders of acquired immunity to poisons, the horrors of the basilisk, the armaria (?), the deaf adder (aspis surda) and the red-hot regulus of Nubia, leads naturally to the consideration of some special poisons derived from the three kingdoms of nature. Very characteristically Gilbert ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... them. The scene witnessed by the priests obeisant to the cruel judge was horrifying in the extreme. Four lions whose thirst for vengeance was extreme in all, threw themselves, blind with fury, without a word and with the look of a basilisk, upon poor Senor Soto giving him such innumerable and furious blows on head and face that weary as he was from his past journey, the ill-treatment received at Angadanan and weighted down by years, he was soon thrown down by his executioners ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... us that the bank of the river, from whence we should find a clear passage across, was about two miles distant. I never remember seeing or feeling anything to be compared with the darkness of that pine wood, but our guide seemed to have the eyes of a basilisk. We formed Indian file, our guide leading, and crept along as best we could. At last, after stealthily progressing for half an hour, a glimmer of starlight through the trees showed us that we were getting to the borders ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... from Rope and Gun; Nay, some have out liv'd the Doctor's Pill; Who takes a Woman must be undone, That Basilisk is sure to kill. The Fly that sips Treacle is lost in the Sweets, So he that tastes Woman, Woman, Woman, He that tastes Woman, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... at every one present with great earnestness, but more particularly fixed his basilisk eyes upon the akhon, who evidently could not stand the scrutiny, but exclaimed 'Allah il Allah!'—there is but one God—stroked down his face and beard, and blew first over one shoulder and then over the other, by ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... steer and lion at one crib shall meet, And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. The smiling infant in his hand shall take, The crested basilisk and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Greeks attributed to Ammon), and his worship was universal in Ethiopia. The sheep are sacred to him, of which there were large flocks in the Thebaid, kept for their wool. And the serpent or asp, a sign of kingly dominion,—hence called basilisk,—is sacred to Kneph. As Creator, he appears under the figure of a potter with a wheel. In Philae he is so represented, forming on his wheel a figure of Osiris, with the inscription, "Num, who forms on ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... to the nearest restaurant. Surrounded by a silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a ravenous meal. When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance. There was something huge, disconcerting, about the man. Not once had he appealed for mercy, not once had he complained, not once had he asked about his brother; he showed neither curiosity nor concern over Jim's fate, and now he betrayed ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... spite of his love for Isabel, and his natural terror of such a rival, he felt himself irresistibly drawn towards the very man he had most cause to suspect and dread. It was like the fascination of the basilisk. He held out his hand to Zicci, saying, "Well, then, if we are to be rivals, our swords must settle our rights; till then ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the days while Friedrich was first trying Horse Artillery], Rear-Admiral Rodney sails from Portsmouth with a few Frigates, and Six Bomb-ketches [FIREDRAKE, BASILISK, BLAST, and such nomenclatures [List of him, in Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs (London, 1804), ii. 241; his Despatch excellently brief, ib. ii. 323]]; and in the afternoon of Tuesday, 3d, arrives in the frith or bay of Havre. Steers himself properly into 'the Channel of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Soft words of grace he spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering. He heard the bitterns call From ruined palace-wall, Answered them brotherly. He held communion With the she-pelican Of lonely piety. Basilisk, cockatrice, Flocked to his homilies, With mail of dread device, With monstrous barbed stings, With eager dragon-eyes; Great rats on leather wings And poor blind broken things, Foul in their miseries. And ever with him went, Of all his wanderings Comrade, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... seem basilisk-eyed, riveting a gaze that would gladly seek more agreeable subjects, and it chanced that Dr. Grey found a painful fascination in this piece of canvas that hung immediately in front of him. Wherein consisted the magnetism that so powerfully attracted ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... bryche That er was bothe stoute and ryche." In the Romance of Alexander, ed. Stevenson, we find the form bicchid briched (?). Cf. shille and shrille, etc. "And on the a[gh]tent day, eftire the prime A basilisk in a browe, breis (annoys) thaim unfaire, A stra[gh]till and a stithe worme stinkande of elde, And es so bitter, and so breme, and bicchid (foul) in himselfe, That with the stinke and the strenth he stroyes no[gh]t allane, Bot quat he settes on his si[gh]t, he slaes in a stonde." —(p. ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... herself, listening absorbed, here became conscious, by some sort of prescience, of the basilisk gaze her guardian's wife ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... to look erect on heaven, and see in his mirror the image of his God? What Egyptian drug have you poured into his veins, and turned the ambling fountains of the heart into black and burning pitch? Give me back my husband! Undo your basilisk spells, and give me back the man that stood with me by ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... Table-Talk of Christians. The Nature of Things is not dumb, but very loquacious, affording Matter of Contemplation. The Description of a neat Garden, where there is a Variety of Discourse concerning Herbs. Of Marjoram, Celandine, Wolfs-Bane, Hellebore. Of Beasts, Scorpions, the Chamaeleon, the Basilisk; of Sows, Indian Ants, Dolphins, and of the Gardens of Alcinous. Tables were esteemed sacred by the very Heathens themselves. Of washing Hands before Meat. A Grace before Meat out of Chrysostom. Age is to be honoured, and for what ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... stifling curtains were withdrawn; no temptation to invade it came to arouse me from the chair into which I had thrown myself. It was as if I felt myself under the spell of some invisible influence that like the eye of a basilisk, held me enchained. I remember turning my head towards a certain quarter of the wall as if I half expected to encounter there the bewildering glance of a serpent. Yet far from being apprehensive of any danger, I only wondered over the weakness ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... curious animal, not often seen, was the well-named Gila monster or Escorpion (Heloderma suspectum), the only existing animal that fills the description of the Basilisk or Cockatrice of mediaeval times; not the Basilicus Americanus, which is an innocent herbivorous lizard. This Gila monster is a comparatively small, but very hideous creature, in appearance like a lizard, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... properties which were assigned to it. It was called the one thing, the essence, the philosopher's stone, the stone of wisdom, the heavenly balm, the divine water, the virgin water, the carbuncle of the sun, the old dragon, the lion, the basilisk, the phoenix; and many other names were ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... thing! ... Well! well! As if I had any such longing! Its stupidity attracts me. No! no! I will not!" He looks fixedly on the ground. But the grass lights up, and, in the twistings of the flames, stands erect the Basilisk, a huge, violet serpent, with a trilobate crest and two teeth—one above, ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... "And the sucking child playeth on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child putteth his hand into the den of the basilisk." ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... He that dares be false To a master, though unjust, will ne'er be true To any other. Look not for reward, Or favour from me; I will shun thy sight, As I would do a basilisk's. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... obscurity, Aramis seemed to feel a basilisk glance, like a white-hot iron, escape from his friend's eyes, and ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... it is," I said, and nodded toward the Boule cabinet, standing in the full glare of the light, every inlay and incrustation glittering like the eyes of a basilisk. "It isn't too late ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... dinner—table. Someone said that he was superintending some slight alteration on the stage. It was so ordinary an occurrence for him to fail to appear at a meal that no one was surprised. Only Anne covered a deep uneasiness beneath her resolute serenity of manner. She could not forget that basilisk stare. It haunted her almost to the exclusion of everything else. She had no thought to spare for the letter regarding her husband. She could only think of Nap. What had that stare concealed? She felt that if she could have got past those ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... word of doubtful meaning, applied to the basilisk, and to bones used for dice, NED, CM, C3; byched, ...
— A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - From A.D. 1150 To 1580 • A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat
... and master Ogul, whose cattle thou seest on the bank of that river at the end of the meadow. We are his most humble slaves. The lord Ogul is sick. His physician hath ordered him to eat a basilisk, stewed in rose water; and as it is a very rare animal, and can only be taken by women, the lord Ogul hath promised to choose for his well-beloved wife the woman that shall bring him a basilisk; let me go on in my search; for thou seest what I ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... rest in her lap, and without any abating or concealment, fixes PIKE with a basilisk glare which continues. He is unconscious of all this, his back being three-quarters to ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... balcony, but it gradually became more and more slow on the wing, and at last poised itself unusually steadily for an insect of its class. Below it, on the window sill, near the wall, with head erect, and its little basilisk eyes upturned towards the lovely fly, crouched a chameleon lizard, its beautiful body, when I first looked at it, was a bright sea-green. It moved into the sunshine, a little away from the shade of the laurel bush, which grew on the side it first appeared on, and suddenly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... several Times since; but she proves her self still to be the Devil of a Lady, for she bears Malice, and will never forgive me, that I would not let her be an Angel; but like a very Devil as she is, she endeavours to kill me at a Distance; and indeed the Poison of her Eyes, (Basilisk-like) is very strong, and she has a strange Influence upon me; but I that know her to be a Devil, strive very hard with my self to drive the Memory of her out of ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... desire of masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief. And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were long and perfect, and the long, steady, unabashed gaze with which she would look into the face of her admirer fascinated while it frightened him. She was a basilisk from whom an ardent lover of beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth and teeth and chin and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than they had been at eighteen. What wonder that with ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... basilisk eyes. "I think I'd rather not dance any more. I'm an old married woman now. If you don't mind, I'll be one of the customers at your shop. I'll come in in the rippingest gown Jim can buy. I'll feel more comfortable, too, under your protection, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... Ocean, where that be full cruel and full evil women of nature. And they have precious stones in their eyen. And they be of that kind, that if they behold any man with wrath, they slay him anon with the beholding, as doth the basilisk. ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... with a basilisk stare till Renouard had conceded a casual: "I dare say," and only then went on to explain that old Dunster, during his European tour, had been made rather a lion of in London, where he stayed with the Moorsoms—he ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... friends for information on natural history, not for a playwright," said Hall. "I myself should not mind what liberty I took with the cuckoo, the bee, or even the basilisk. I should not trouble you for accurate information on the subject; I should not even mind saying the cuckoo lays eggs in its own nest if it ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... are they to be feared, shunned, hated, because helpless? Must they perish—die with me alone—struggling against our woes, poverty, wretchedness? No! I know there is a God, he is good, powerful, merciful; he will turn the hearts of some towards the widow and the orphan; and though basilisk-like words warn me to hope not, I will apply—I will attempt to win attention, work, slave, toil, toil, toil, until my poor hands shall wear to the bone, and my eyes no longer do their office—if he will only have mercy, pity for my poor, poor orphans—God bless them!" ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... Alexander, our progenitor, Trod on the neck of German Frederick, Adding this golden sentence to our praise, "That Peter's heirs should tread on Emperors, And walk upon the dreadful adder's back, Treading the lion and the dragon down, And fearless spurn the killing basilisk," So will we quell that haughty schismatic, And, by authority apostolical, Depose him ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... pleasure is concerned, I could not say as much for any other picture; for I have always found an infinite weariness and disgust resulting from a picture being too frequently before my eyes. I had rather see a basilisk, for instance, than the very best of those old, familiar pictures in the Boston Athenaeum; and most of those in the National Gallery might soon affect me in the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upon him to preserve at least Prussia from this noxious influence and to push her over to the other side, to the side of the coalition, than to allow her to be devoured, like a poor little bird, by the French basilisk. These endeavors, which kept up a continual conflict between him and the special favorites and confidants of the king, Haugwitz and Kockeritz, had gained him the love and esteem of all Prussian patriots, and secured him an extraordinary popularity. These two favorites ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... had not become known to Castleton, solely because of the Englishman's obtuseness. And there was another thing much stranger than this and quite as amusing. Dorothy Coombs knew Monty was a liar; but she was so fascinated by the glittering, basilisk eyes he riveted upon her, so taken in by his horrible tales of blood, that despite her knowledge she ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... revealed to me—a countenance of such sovereign beauty that, though of the same sex, I was struck with admiration; but, in the next moment, a thrill of terror shot through my heart—for the fascination of the basilisk could scarcely paralyze its victim with more appalling effect than did the eyes of that lady. It might be conscience qualms, excited by some unknown influence—it might even have been imagination; but it nevertheless appeared as if those large, black, burning ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... serpent's that which still resorts, Still lurks in palaces and courts? Take thy unwonted flight, And on the terrace light. See where she lies! See how she rears her head, And rolls about her dreadful eyes, To drive all virtue out, or look it dead! 'Twas sure this basilisk sent Temple thence, And though as 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 ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... result that there has arisen a school of poets who don't mean anything—and say it. In the olden days, a bride was bonny, and was requested to busk herself in consequence; all of which was intelligible. Nowadays, the poet would call a basilisk bonny rather than miss his alliteration. Is it because the new journalism is so imaginative and emotional that it throws off alliterative phrases as naturally and unconsciously as Whittier confesses ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... longer sporting with this radical Amaryllis either in shade or in sunshine; so I sought Henry Winter Davis. Like the fallen angel, Davis preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven or on earth. With the head of Medusa and the eye of the Basilisk, he might have represented Siva in a Hindoo temple, and was even more inaccessible to sentiment than Thaddeus Stevens. Others, too numerous and too insignificant to particularize, were seen. These were the cuttle-fish ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... entered, accompanied by Fronto. Livia, at the same time, arose and withdrew, not caring, I thought, to meet the eyes of that basilisk, who, with the cunning of a priest, she saw to be usurping a power over Aurelian which belonged of right to her. I was about also to withdraw, but the Emperor constraining me, as he often does, I remained, although holding ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... BASILISK (the [Greek: Basiliskos] of the Greeks, and Tsepha (cockatrice) of the Hebrews), a name given by the ancients to a horrid monster of their own imagination, to which they attributed the most malignant powers and an equally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... future, at balls and similar affairs, dancing spurs be worn, so as to avoid such unpleasant accidents as we had night before last. One gentleman, who shall be nameless,"—and as he said it he fixed a basilisk eye on Lieutenant von Meckelburg—"tore off with his spurs the whole edge on the robe of Frau Captain Stark. This must not occur again, gentlemen, and from now on I shall officially punish similar behavior. Furthermore, it is customary among persons of education not to be first in stretching out ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Tartarus!... I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor,... into the infernal kitchen!... Loathsome cobbler,... dingy collier,... filthy sow (scrofa stercorata),... perfidious boar,... envious crocodile,... malodorous drudge,... wounded basilisk,... rust-colored asp,... swollen toad,... entangled spider,... lousy swineherd (porcarie pedicose),... lowest of the ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... smiled kindly at him. The ex-policeman was looking at him with the gaze of a baffled, but malignant basilisk. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... powerful magician must be defeated, but he lives a long way from here, and nothing can touch or wound him except the sharp smiting sword that belongs to his own brother, a monster with the head and eyes of a basilisk. We must ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the basilisk's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... after wave of cold flowing in through her limbs to her heart. She stared, as though at a basilisk, at Lapo's new vest, in which she seemed to find the answer so long denied her. The hall grew dusky; she heard a far-off cry, and when she meant to flee, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... Strange beings moved through the pages of natural history, which were equally at home in the 'Arabian Nights' or in poetical apologues. The griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon were not yet extinct; the salamander still sported in flames; and the basilisk slew men at a distance with his deadly glance. More commonplace animals indulged in the habits which they had learnt in fables, and of which only some feeble vestiges now remain in the eloquence of strolling showmen. The elephant had ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... sensations of that night, none has left a more unpleasant odour in my memory than the manner of that woman in the chamber of death. Her voice was incredibly hard. Her dull, basilisk eyes, seeking in mine the answers to her questions, gave me an eerie sensation that makes my blood run cold ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... Iscariot! Pay that back, That smatch o' the slaver blistering on your lip— By the better trick, the insult he spared Christ— Lure him the lure o' the letters, Aretine! Lick him o'er slimy-smooth with jelly-filth O' the verse-and-prose pollution in love's guise! The cockatrice is with the basilisk! There let him grapple, denizens o' the dark, Foes or friends, but indissolubly bound, In their one spot out of the ken of God Or care of man for ever and ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from the window ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... religion, which offered a very feeble, and also a very limited gamut for giving expression to the human capacities of sublimity or of horror. We read it in the fearful composition of the sphinx. The dragon, again, is the snake inoculated upon the scorpion. The basilisk unites the mysterious malice of the evil eye, unintentional on the part of the unhappy agent, with the intentional venom of some other malignant natures. But these horrid complexities of evil agency are but objectively horrid; ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... too great for it and cannot do so. A horrible envy took possession of him—an envy which bordered on madness. The gall flew to his heart when he beheld a work which bore the stamp of talent. He gnashed his teeth, and devoured it with the glare of a basilisk. He conceived the most devilish plan which ever entered into the mind of man, and he hastened with the strength of madness to carry it into execution. He began to purchase the best that art produced of every ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... eagle glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis[obs3]. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus[obs3]. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Mythical]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken; get a sight of, have a sight of, catch a sight of, get a glimpse of, have a glimpse of, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... his fellow Legionnaires a petition for the pardon and reinstatement of Corporal St. George. Not a man refused to sign, for even those who might have hesitated would not have done so long under the basilisk stare of the ex-champion ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... monsters fast The hissing basilisk; The hippopotamus so vast, And the boa with waking appetite ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... dauntless hounds advance, Whirringly skirrs my stalwart lance— Whirringly skirrs; and from the scale Bounds, as a reed aslant the mail. Onward—but no!—the craven steed Shrinks from his lord in that dread need— Smitten and scared before that eye Of basilisk horror, and that blast Of death, it only seeks to fly— And half the mighty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... will go study mischief, And put a look on, arm'd with all my cunnings. Shall meet him like a basilisk, and strike him. Love! put destroying flame into mine eyes, Into my smiles deceits, that I may torture him— That I may make him love to death, and laugh ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... staring-match on the part of rival servants in Castle Moyna took place between the representative of the Skibbereens and the maid of New York. The former may have thought her eye as good as that of the basilisk, but found the eye ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... research among the lives of the saints, and by the plentiful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the unicorn and dragons mentioned in the Scriptures and of the phoenix and basilisk in profane writings. Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the pelican nourishes her young ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... one of the other players cried with a laugh, 'Good-luck, Signor Vertua, good-luck! Don't lose heart. Go on staking; you look to me as if you would finish with breaking the bank through your immense winnings.' The old man shot a basilisk-like look upon the mocker and hurried away, but only to return at the end of half an hour with his pockets full of gold. In the last taille he was, however, obliged to cease playing, since he had again lost all the money he had brought ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... is Conway Castle in Wales, where abides Earl Osmond, a feudal tyrant of the "Otranto" type, who is planning an incestuous marriage with his own niece, concerning which he thus soliloquizes: "What though she prefer a basilisk's kiss to mine? Because my short-lived joy may cause her eternal sorrow, shall I reject those pleasures sought so long, desired so earnestly? That will I not, by Heaven! Mine she is, and mine she shall be, though Reginald's bleeding ghost flit before me and thunder in my ear 'Hold! ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... with its gaze the person who looked on it. Thus Henry VI. says to Suffolk, "Come, basilisk, and kill the innocent ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... triumph he gave the little wooden bear a drink of ale, as if it had uttered this chunk of solid wisdom, and then treated himself to a good long pull. But the glance of triumph which shot from his black-basilisk eyes, and the joyous smile which followed these feats of philology, were absolutely irresistible. All that remained for me to do was to yield ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... observing him with the eyes of a basilisk, but Castro swore a great oath that, as to himself, he showed no signs of fear. He looked at the water gushing from the rock, bubbling up, sparkling, running away in a succession of tiny leaps and falls. Why should he fear? Was he not old, and tired, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... Copping had been sending furtive glances at his learned friend, which, if they had only possessed the fabled power of the basilisk, would assuredly have made things uncomfortable ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... sally; only the man who had been in California sat moody, his basilisk eye fixed ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... verdant Mead [9] And Boys in flow'ry Bands the Tyger lead; The Steer and Lion at one Crib shall meet, And harmless Serpents Lick the Pilgrim's Feet. The smiling Infant in his Hand shall take The crested Basilisk and speckled Snake; Pleas'd, the green Lustre of the Scales survey, And with their forky Tongue and pointless Sting shall play. Rise, crown'd with Light, imperial Salem rise! [10] Exalt thy tow'ry Head, and lift thy Eyes! See, a long ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... looked, you might see in his face, and even the slight shiver of his frame, the repugnance and aversion which the Christian felt for one whom he knew to be so dangerous and so criminal. It was indeed the gaze of the bird upon the basilisk—so silent was it and so prolonged. But shaking off the sudden chill that had crept over him, Olinthus extended his right arm towards Arbaces, and said, in a ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... mill-stone, the human soul, than I can explain. Any one who has ever seen an old fortune-teller of "the people" keeping some simple-minded maiden by the hand, while she holds her by her glittering eye, like the Ancient Mariner, with a basilisk stare, will agree with me. As Scheele de Vere writes, "It must not be forgotten that the human eye has, beyond question, often a power which far transcends the ordinary purposes of sight, and approaches the ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... blind. I am prevented; all my hopes are crost, Check'd, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn: What should I do? Rome! Rome! O my vext soul, How might I force this to the present state? Are there no players here? no poet apes, That come with basilisk' s eyes, whose forked tongues Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall? Either of these would help me; they could wrest, Pervert, and poison all they hear or see, With senseless glosses, and allusions. Now, if you be good devils, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... terror! Lo! the wonder! Basilisk, the fabled viper! Superstition names it so. Look at it, I pray, with calmness, 'Twas thy mind that was at fault. God's great goodness is displayed here; He, I trow, rewards thy eloquence In the monster which thou seest: All this rounded ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... aware that I was liberated, the shifty spectre, whose basilisk eye had not released ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... himself to take much note of the deep examination of which he was himself the object, Auguste did not see the half-magnetic glance with which this strange being seemed to pierce him; had he encountered that basilisk eye he might have felt the danger that encompassed him. Too passionately excited to think of himself, Auguste bowed, went down the stairs, and returned home, striving to find a meaning in the connection of these three persons,—Ida, Ferragus, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the south-east entrance to Rocky Pass, between Basilisk and Hayter Islands, and formed, in all probability, during their sojourn in these parts, the centre of their various excursions to the islands and ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... tumultuous and very rebellious state. He was half inclined to indulge in hysterical weeping, and more than half disposed to give way to a burst of savage glee. He spoke with the mantling blood blazing in his fat cheeks, and his two eyes glittering like those of a basilisk. Montague could not repress a smile and a look of admiration as he said to our ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... expected to confront the owner of that basilisk eye. There was not a sign of a human being in sight. Beyond was a black little room, at the back of which stood an old cooking stove with a fire going and a kettle singing. He leaped through, prepared to grasp the mysterious watcher, but, to his utter amazement, the kitchen was absolutely ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Cross, who should shun the glance of a woman as the eye of a basilisk, live in open sin, not with the females of their own race only, but with the daughters of the accursed heathen, and more accursed Jew. Beaumanoir, thou sleepest; up, and avenge our cause!—Slay the sinners, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... dark basilisk-like eyes on the soldier, gazed a moment, as if to read his soul; then he jerked a thumb backward, over his own shoulder, and said, with ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... coin the queen sitting on a throne with the word agreement, as if to praise the young emperor's good feeling in following the advice of his mother Agrippina. On another the emperor is styled the young good genius, and he is represented by the sacred basilisk crowned with the double crown of Egypt. The new prefect, Balbillus, was an Asiatic Greek, and no doubt received his Roman names of Tiberius Claudius on being made a freedman of the late emperor. He governed the country mildly and justly; and the grateful inhabitants declared that ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... her defences against the basilisk fascinating Philippa; and with a vow to keep them apart and deprive him of his chance, she relapsed upon the stiff frigidity which was not natural to her. It lasted long enough to put him on his guard under ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his mind that is more crooked than his back. He is a perilous man with women, for the Devil hath given him such a tongue and such an eye that he charms them even as the basilisk. Marriage may be in their mind, but never in his, so that I could count a dozen and more whom he has led to their undoing. It is his pride and his boast ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have we view'd the city, seen the sack, And caus'd the ruins to be new-repair'd, Which with our bombards' shot and basilisk[s] [196] We rent in sunder at our entry: And, now I see the situation, And how secure this conquer'd island stands, Environ'd with the Mediterranean sea, Strong-countermin'd with other petty isles, And, toward Calabria, [197] back'd by Sicily ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... one had wonderful tales of adventure to relate. Even the old travelers, who saw the phoenix expire in her odoriferous nest, whence the chick soon flew forth regenerated, or who found dead lions slain by the quills of some "fretful porcupine," or who knew that the stare of the basilisk was death—even those who saw unicorns graze and who heard mermaids sing—were veracious when compared with the explorers of railroad routes across the continent. Senator Jefferson Davis did much to encourage them by having their reports published in quarto form, with ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "'IMPOSSIBLE TO ALLOW YOU TO CALL any more'!" These and other terms of his dismissal recurred to him during the morning, and ever and anon he looked up from his desk, his lips moving to the tune of those horrid phrases, and stared out at the street. Basilisk glaring this, with no Christian softness in it, not even when it fell upon his own grandfather, sitting among the sages within easy eye-shot from the big window at Norbert's elbow. However, Colonel Flitcroft was not disturbed by the gaze of his ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... the morning of presentation. Very often she was painfully conscious that his searching eyes scrutinized her; but though the blood mounted instantly to her cheeks at such times, she never looked up—dreading his gaze as she would that of a basilisk. One sultry afternoon she went into the park, and threw herself down on the long grass, under a clump of cedars, near which the deer and bison were quietly browsing, while the large white merinoes huddled in the shade ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... general interest was now transferred to Father Philip; every face was turned towards him, but he cared not. A solemn stillness yet prevailed among all present. From the moment she spoke, her eye drew his with the power of a basilisk. His pale face became like marble, not a muscle moved; and when she ceased speaking, his blood-shot eyes were still fixed upon her countenance with a gloomy calmness like that which precedes a tempest. They stood before each other, dreadful counterparts ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... A basilisk in thee we see, Which fascinates our gaze and kills. No empire mild is thine, but one That tyrannises o'er ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... will ever love me! All will hate and flee from me, as from a basilisk or cockatrice, or the Loathly Worm ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an egg; and do you know what there is in that egg? In that egg lies a basilisk. No one can stand the sight of a basilisk. Men know that, and now you know it too—you know what is in me, and what a cock of the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... angel-traitors, fit to shine in palaces, Forked into ills, and split into deceits; Two in their very frame. 'Twas well, 'twas well, I saw thee not at court, thou basilisk; For if I had, those eyes, without his guards, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... the milder snake Crushing the bones of some frail antelope Within his brazen folds—the dewy lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles 380 To see a babe before his mother's door, Share with the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... country were too cabined to satisfy his nostalgia for wide spaces. "I must have room, my son, for the development of my genius. I must dream great things, and immortal visions are blasted under the basilisk eye of ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... was that?" inquired Mrs. Winslow Teed. "I saw a stuffed basilisk in a London museum when I was abroad, but I can't ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... thy fellows?" he asked of a fisherman, whose dark eye glittered in that light, like the organ of a basilisk. ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and the more I gazed the more it disquieted me. I had never before been affected in the same way by any painting. The emotions it caused were strange and indefinite. They were something like what I have heard ascribed to the eyes of the basilisk; or like that mysterious influence in reptiles termed fascination. I passed my hand over my eyes several times, as if seeking instinctively to brush away this allusion—in vain—they instantly reverted ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... proceeded, Count Nobili's face hardened. Was not the basilisk eye of the marchesa upon him? Her lawyer, too, taking notes of every ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... owned the beautiful Castle of Chillon, which you have perhaps seen, on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. But he could not be happy, because he and the people about him thought that in a hole in the rock under one of the cellars a basilisk lived—a very terrible dragon—and they all went in fear of it. So the Count paid a brave mason a large sum of money (and the payment is solemnly set down in his account book) to break a way into this hole and turn the basilisk ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... tall and straight, of a swarthy complexion, black-haired, and intensely black-eyed. She was not uncomely of feature, nay, had been handsome, nor was her look at first sight forbidding, especially if she did not turn upon you those small basilisk eyes of hers, full of fire and glare as the eyes of a rattlesnake. But truly those thin, cruel lips of hers never smiled spontaneously, or affected to smile upon you unless she had an object to gain by assuming a disguise as foreign to her as light ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... warrior. On this occasion he listened with peculiar impatience. He sat with one arm akimbo, the other elbow on the table, the hand holding on to the small pipe he was pettishly puffing, his legs crossed, drumming with one foot on the ground, and casting every now and then the side glance of a basilisk at the prosing captain. At length the latter spoke of Kidd's having ascended the Hudson with some of his crew, to land his plunder ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... is, that thou art an unfortunate philosopher of Laputa, who has lost his flapper in the throng.—Come along—having me once more by your side, you need fear nothing. Why, now I look at you closer, you look as if you had seen a basilisk—not that there is any such thing, otherwise I must have seen it myself, in the course of my travels—but you seem pale and frightened—What the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... steel-clad buffets in fight: On the deck strange accents and shouting; rough furcowl'd men of the north, Genoa's brown-neck'd sons, and whom swarthy Smyrna sends forth: Freights of the south; drugs potent o'er death from the basilisk won, Odorous Phoenix-nest, and spice of a sunnier sun:— Butts of Malvasian nectar, Messene's vintage of old, Cyprian webs, damask of Arabia mazy with gold: Sendal and Samite and Tarsien, and sardstones ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... towards the balcony, in which the group of ladies were seated, and begged to drink their healths; he then turned to Kneebone and the others, who extended their hands towards him, and raised it to his lips. Just as he was about to drain it, he encountered the basilisk glance ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... stood up and shook the white wrappings from her, and came forth shining and splendid like some glittering snake when she has cast her slough; ay, and fixed her wonderful eyes upon me—more deadly than any Basilisk's—and pierced me through and through with their beauty, and sent her light laugh ringing through the air like chimes ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... hair dangling loosely about his shoulders, the broad frightful countenance, which, however, was devoid of paint, the glittering, basilisk-like eyes, the sinewy half-bent finger, with the right fingers closed like a vise around the handle of the knife at his waist, while gently drawing it forth, the catlike advance,—all these made him so terrible an enemy ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... throne-like, o'ershadow the lesser woods; where the royal beast, lording it over an inferior world, stealthily prowls and lashes its angry tail at the impudence of such a disturbance in its vast domain. Its basilisk stare looks out from its furtive, drooping head, and its commands ring out in a roar ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... some firm, wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is the coif, bearing in front the mystic uraeus, or twining basilisk of sovereignty, while from its sides depend the wide Egyptian lappels, or wings, that fall upon her shoulders. The Sibilla Libica has crossed her knees,—an action universally held amongst the ancients as indicative of reticence ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... my way, and I gazed up, and contemplated his features almost as confidently as if they had been turned to stone. His forehead, that I once thought so manly, and that I now think so diabolical, was shaded with a heavy cloud; his basilisk eyes were nearly quenched by sleeplessness, and weeping, perhaps, for the lashes were wet then: his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... remove. Every body's eyes were glanced from him to me. I sat down and fanned myself, and was forced to order a glass of water. Oh! that I had the eye the basilisk is reported to have, thought I, and that his life were within the power of it!—directly would I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... out the forms. Gradually the features become disengaged from the block, the eye looks out, the nose gains refinement, the mouth is developed. When the last cube is reached, there remains nothing to finish save the details of the head-dress and the basilisk on the brow. No scholar's model in basalt has yet been found;[39] but the Egyptians, like our monumental masons, always kept a stock of half-finished statues in hard stone, which could be turned out complete in a few ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of Dearest Miss, Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her Cockatrice and Siren, Basilisk, and all that's evil, Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil, Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor, Monkey, Ape, and twenty more; Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe— Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know A contentment to express, Borders so upon excess, That they do not rightly ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... comes in, with startling abruptness, the end of all this fascination,—a serpent's bite and a basilisk's sting. The kind of poisonous snake meant in the last clause of verse 32 is doubtful, but certainly is one much more formidable than an adder. The serpent's lithe gracefulness and painted skin hide a fatal ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Glenvarloch. "How could I have dreamt of seeing you in my present close lodgings?" And at the same time, with the frankness of old kindness, he walked up to Christie and offered his hand; but John started back as from the look of a basilisk. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... cruel that she was! 'Tis thus that the basilisk charms the poor bird that falls a victim ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope |
