"Snake" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an angle of forty-five degrees, each about three inches long, so that the beast looked like a trident from above. It had eight hard needle-like whiskers coming out from different parts of its body; it went along like a snake, bending its body about in spite of the shell it wore, and its motion was very quick and very horrible to look at. I was dreadfully afraid it would sting me; somebody had told me, I thought, that it was venomous; but what tormented me most of all ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... you there, ma'am," said old Andrew. "He's a worthless critter enough, I know, but he ain't as bad as the man that set him on. If the law lets that other snake go, ma'am, jest you get him to come up here for a little hunting, and we'll make him sorry he ever went into such business, I'd like to get my hands on him. I'm an old man, but I reckon I'm strong enough ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... wants you himself, because, with me disposed of, he believes he can get what his unclean and avaricious heart covets as a snake ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... Blake, an American, and his two companions, were sailing up the coast in a small schooner, when, abreast of Cape Nome, a storm struck their tiny craft and cast her up on the beach. The gale lasted for several days, and the men made use of the time prospecting in the vicinity of the Snake River, which now runs through the city. At the mouth of Anvil Creek, good colours were found at a depth of one foot, the dirt averaging from fifty cents to one dollar the pan. Satisfied that they had made an important discovery, the men returned as soon as the weather would ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... Spirit within the higher self. Your symbols urge you to noble deeds, yet you will never be blessed by woman's love, nor aid. Do you see the standing well-poised form of a woman? Rising power—creative force. See she has her feet firm on the back of the monster snake. You will soon become master of your higher destiny. I feel inspired by a mighty impulse. You will stand before many people—see the tall, straight ladder of fame—I should say that you are holding some still-cherished, mighty plans, despite many of ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... and hat, so as to diminish the surface exposed to the thorns and brambles, and, looking around me from a square yard of terra firma, I found myself the spectator of a loathsome yet fascinating scene. Three or four yards from me was the nest, beneath which, in long festoons, rested a huge black snake; a bird two thirds grown was slowly disappearing between his expanded jaws. As he seemed unconscious of my presence, I quietly observed the proceedings. By slow degrees he compassed the bird about with his elastic mouth; his head flattened, his neck writhed ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... savagery of which we coarse brutes of men should be more than half ashamed. God Almighty made a little more than He bargained for when He made woman. She must have surprised Him pretty shrewdly, one would think, now and then since the days of the apple and the snake." ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... of owls, invoke, with frantic cries and factitious convulsions, the dead to deceive the living. There, the black tribes of Africa exhibit the same opinions in the worship of their fetiches. See the inhabitant of Juida worship god in a great snake, which, unluckily, the swine delight to eat.* The Teleutean attires his god in a coat of several colors, like a Russian soldier.** The Kamchadale, observing that everything goes wrong in his frozen country, considers god as an old ill-natured ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... the fire, dragging down the hangings, beating on the cushions, but the corner was ablaze. Overhead the flames seized cracklingly on the dry wood and darted little red tongues over the dry surface and a scarlet snake ran ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... gave the Emperor Vespasian the virtue of curing the lame and giving sight to the blind, by his touch, was an act praiseworthy in itself, but of which the motive was culpable. Gentlemen, distrust those false doctors, who sell the root of the bryony and the white snake, and who make washes with honey and the blood of a cock. See clearly through that which is false. It is not quite true that Orion was the result of a natural function of Jupiter. The truth is that it was Mercury who produced this star ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... kitchen, the pantry, &c. in large deep plates, will kill cockroaches in great numbers, and finally rid the house of them. The Indians say that poke-root boiled into a soft poultice is the cure for the bite of a snake. I have heard of a ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... started, Twist weighed 1470 pounds. After we had crossed two ranges of mountains, had wallowed in the snows of the Blue Mountains, followed the tortuous, rocky canyon of Burnt River, and gone through the deep sands of the Snake, this ox had gained 137 pounds, and weighed 1607 pounds. While laboring under the short end of the yoke that gave him fifty-five per cent of the draft and an increased burden, he would keep his end of the yoke a little ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... thinking: "Poor little kid! She's only a kid of a girl and she's pretty near the breaking-point, from the look of things, and small wonder." But aloud he continued: "Only one thing seems clear. You are tired half to death and worried the other half. I wouldn't let myself think of that snake Gratton or his poison drippings. Things will work out all right." He managed a smile of a sort, the first smile to-night, and added: "They always do, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... are trivial to the modern mind, though instructive as to our forefathers' way of thinking. For instance, of the year 1632: "At Watertown there was (in the view of divers witnesses) a great combat between a mouse and a snake, and after a long fight the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it, gave this interpretation: that the snake was the devil, the mouse was a poor, contemptible people, which God had brought ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... that Stempell was misled into identifying as the eyes of snails. Various heads of snakes usually with fangs exposed and tongue protruding are pictured in Pl. 8, figs. 4, 6; Pl. 9, figs. 2, 4-6: one snake with a spiny back is shown in Pl. 8, fig. 5, but obviously it represents merely the artist's endeavor to present as terrifying a ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... according to Moses of Chorene, meant "a dragon" or "serpent," is almost certainly Ajis-dahaka, the full name whereof Dojoces (or Zohak) is the abbreviation. It means "the biting snake," from aji or azi, "a snake" or ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... am well dressed;" and she dried her eyes. She had not lost her conceit. She had not then perceived how her fine clothes had been soiled in the brewhouse of the Old Woman of the Bogs. Her dress was covered with dabs of nasty matter; a snake had wound itself among her hair, and it dangled over her neck; and from every fold in her garment peeped out a toad, that puffed like an asthmatic lap-dog. It was very disagreeable. "But all the rest ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... as beautiful as a snake-fence, as alluring as a stone wall. Something over six feet in height, he walks with a stoop (one hand always in a trouser-pocket jingling silver) that materially detracts from his stature. His face, like his figure, is gaunt and ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... have been so terrified. I was walking in the meadow, and a great snake—so big, I am sure"—and Lady Mary held out her arms as wide as she could—"came out of a tuft of grass. His tongue was like a scarlet thread, and had two sharp points; and, do you know, he raised his wicked head, ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... of green (hoist side), white, and red; the coat of arms (an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake is its beak) is ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... learnt some lessons from the fowls: To shun solemnity, from owls; Another lesson from the pie,— Pert and pretentious, and as sly; And to detest man's raids and mulctures, From eagles, kites, goshawks, and vultures; But most of all abhorrence take From the base toad or viler snake, With filthy venom in the bite, Of envies, jealousies, and spite. Thus from Dame Nature and Creation Have I deduced my observation; Nor found I ever thing so mean, That gave ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... and silent, stood around, unable to say or do anything that could give him comfort. Miss Marlowe, after walking part way to the group, paused and looked at them and at her father, who was hurrying to the spot. She wondered that Almos had permitted the killing of the cobra, since the snake is looked upon as sacred in India, and few natives can be induced to injure one. The Ghoojurs probably slew it in the flurry of ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... clear conception of the battle one must picture a fifty-foot-high railway embankment, its steeply sloping sides heavily wooded, stretching its length across a fertile, smiling country-side like a monstrous green snake. On this line, in time of peace, the bloc trains made the journey from Antwerp to Brussels in less than an hour. Malines, with its historic buildings and its famous cathedral, lies on one side of this ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... scooped out; or of birth bark sewed or pegged at the corners, and having its seams coated with the gum or resin of the pine-tree. Baskets with oiled cloth inside, make efficient water-vessels; they are in use in France as firemen's buckets. Water-tight pots are made on the Snake river by winding long touch roots in a spiral manner, and lashing the coils to one another, just as is done in making a beehive. Earthenware jars are excellent, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... of timidity in the repulsive faces of the waiting creatures, this newcomer was of a different type. He opened flabby thin lips to give one sharp note of command. It was as sibilant as the hissing of a snake. The man with the weapon returned it to a holder at his side; the whole group cringed before the power and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... the nearest robot came within a dozen feet, matching Mel's own velocity. Suddenly, from a small opening in the machine, a slender metal tentacle whipped out and wrapped about him like the coils of a snake. The second robot approached and added another binding. Mel's arms and legs were pinned. Frantically, he manipulated the jet control in the glove of the suit. This only caused the tentacles to cut deeply and painfully, and threatened to smash the shell of the suit. ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... "If slavery is not wrong," he said, "nothing is wrong." But he wanted to get rid of it without injustice to those to whom it was an inherited, if cherished, institution. If he saw a venomous snake in the road he would take the nearest stick and kill it, but if he found it in bed with his children, "I might hurt the children," he said, "more than the snake and it might bite them." He was as tender and considerate of the south as ever he was of an erring neighbor in Illinois, where it is ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... the deep leaves as it searched for grubs. From time to time a flock of quail arose before them with a whirr and scattered down the fields, reassembling later at the call of their leader, from a rider of the snake fence, which inclosed ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of native bird population by the rapid proliferation of the brown tree snake, an exotic, ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... leading into the loft; the other, or others, forming a sort of skylight to some top-floor room. Suddenly I struck one of these standing very wide open, and trod upon a rope's end curled like a snake on the leads. I stooped down, and at a touch I knew that I had hold of Raffles's favourite Manila, which united a silken flexibility with the strength of any hawser. It was tied to the window-post, and ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... them, realizing that whatever the steer risked, its pursuers were in peril of life and limb. Sometimes one horse rose above fern and thicket, or twisted, apparently with the sinuosity of a snake, in and out amidst the clustered trunks, while once the girl lurched forward. Miss Deringham gasped, but part of the fluttering skirt was rent away, and the little lithe figure swept on again. The pair were, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... continued Solomon, turning the leaves of the Report, "but it's a fact that live snakes have frequently been sent through the post. No later than last year a snake about a yard long managed to get out of his box in one of the night mail sorting carriages on the London and North-Western Railway. After a good deal of confusion and interruption to the work, it was killed. Again, a small box was sent ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do 'most anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on the landscape with lack-lustre eyes, submitted to be led into the shade of a big maple, without evidencing any especial appreciation of Lucy's thoughtfulness. Lucy tied the halter to the snake fence, and returned to the group on the grass, who were already justifying their claims regarding their appetite by ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... and dropping off in the warmth of the fire into a golden dream of being where the nuggets were piled up all around me; and I was just going to pick up one, when a great snake darted at me and coiled itself round my throat. Then I was awake, to find it was a real devil snake in the shape of ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... heart is made small with overwhelming deference or in unshrinking loyalty he would cry: 'Hear and obey! All, all—Flags, Ironcaps, Tigers, Braves—all to the Seng valley, leaving behind them the swallow in their march and moving with the guile and secrecy of the ringed tree-snake.'" With these words Ten-teh's endurance passed its drawn-out limit and again repeating in a clear and decisive voice, "All, all to the north!" he released his joints and would have fallen to the ground had it not been for ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... horses there, mister!" was Okie's sharp reply. "You ain't the only snake in this desert. There's four customers ...
— Jubilation, U.S.A. • G. L. Vandenburg
... my wonder at the undecided conduct of the administration; at its want of foresight; its eternal parleying with Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no step to tread down the head of the young snake. No one among them seems to have the seer's eye. The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day and in large numbers, who transform Washington into a camp, and who crave for fighting,—the people alone have the prophetic inspiration, and are the ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... with his fore hoofs. The lightning enabled Richard to discern the cause of this new distress. Coiled round the poor beast's legs, all whose efforts to disengage himself from the terrible assailant were ineffectual, was a large black snake, seemingly about to plunge its poisonous fangs into the flesh. Again having recourse to the talisman, and bending down, Richard stretched it towards the snake, upon which the reptile instantly darted its arrow-shaped head against him, but instead of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rocks before I could get near enough to tell her of the wagon below, and the men not hear me. She gave the men and wagon an indifferent glance, and then went on searching for specimens. I was so vexed I could have shaken her. She will scream over a worm or spider, and almost faint at the sight of a snake, but those two men, who were apparently real tramps, she did not mind. The situation was critical, and for just one instant I thought hard. If we were to go over the small mountain we would probably be lost, and might encounter all ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... had such solidity! Revelling in her sense of security, she lay quite still, listening to her breathing as it slowed down to normal. What had prompted the dream? Was it because she had been thinking of that snake episode of her childhood? Was it a python after all? Somehow there seemed more to it than that; the suspicion haunted her that the dream held some ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... artificial invention, it is not amiss to deceive them. [3464]"As they hate those," saith Alexander, "that neglect or deride, so they will give ear to such as will soothe them up. If they say they have swallowed frogs or a snake, by all means grant it, and tell them you can easily cure it;" 'tis an ordinary thing. Philodotus, the physician, cured a melancholy king, that thought his head was off, by putting a leaden cap thereon; the weight made him perceive it, and freed him of his fond imagination. A woman, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... listening. I had scarcely got to the angels with the flaming swords and announced that that was all, when she burst out, "Now I'll tell about it. Once upon a time there was Adam and Eva, and they had plenty of clothes, and there was no snake, and lieber Gott wasn't angry with them, and they could eat as many apples as they liked, and was happy ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... indifferently) gave their several opinions. Diabolus at length at Lucifer's suggestion decided to assume the shape of one of the creatures over which Mansoul had dominion; and he selected as the fittest that of a snake, which at that time was in great favour with the people as both harmless ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... energy of a man who saw the poor-house looming ahead for him; the results was that his bad shows grew worse, and the attendance wasn't enough to dust off the seats. The biggest item of expense about the place was 'Mighty Mardo,' the boa-constrictor; his diet was live rabbits, and a twenty-foot snake with a body as thick as a four-inch pipe can dispose of good and plenty of them when he takes the notion. Cap. began to feed him live rats, and the mighty one soon began to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... a fine, subtle smile, like a demon's, but inexpressibly gentle. He made her shiver as if she was mesmerized. And he was reaching forward to her as a snake reaches, nor could ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... "they tell me in this town that Merriwell has some kind of a curve which twists like a snake. They say it curves in and out. Whoever heard ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... grounds and magnificent carriage drives, vineyards, and gardens, many thousand pounds. Then the owner died, bankrupt, and for years it remained untenanted, the recrudescent bush slowly enveloping its once highly cultivated lands, and the deadly black snake, iguana, and 'possum harbouring among the deserted outbuildings. But to us boys (when our father rented the place, and the family settled down in it for a two years' sojourn) the lonely house was a palace of beautiful imagination—and solid, ...
— The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... way together we did fare, We met that villain (God from him me bless) That cursed wight, from whom I 'scaped whylear, A man of hell that calls himself despair; Who first us greets, and after fair areeds Of tidings strange, and of adventures rare: So creeping close, as snake in hidden weeds, Inquireth of our states, and of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... himself impatiently, as the red squirrel is continually doing. On the contrary, all his movements are measured and deliberate, but swift and sure. He never makes a bungling leap, and his course is marked by a number of sinuous curves almost equal to those of a snake. He is here one minute, and the next he has slipped away almost beyond the ability of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... and Seth Ede—to do him justice—pulled a grand race for pluck. He might have spared himself, though. Another hundred yards settled it: the Indefatigable Woman made her overlap and went by like a snake, and the Irishman pulled ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... distinct sockets, they are firmly amalgamated with the jaws, as in modern Lizards. The palate also carried teeth, and the lower jaw was so constructed as to allow of the mouth being opened to an immense width, somewhat as in the living Serpents. The body was long and snake-like, with a very long tail, which is laterally compressed, and must have served as a powerful swimming-apparatus. In addition to this, both pairs of limbs have the bones connecting them with the trunk greatly shortened; ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... fellow is such a snake as Ditson, he must get it from his parents on one side or the other. Perhaps his mother is ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... metre and rhyme may have been gradually invented to correspond with and satisfy that natural expectation of the recurrence of certain tones and measures which always delights primitive men, and of which one may possibly trace some symptoms even in animals, as when the snake sways slowly to the simple sounds of a snake-charmer's pipe. The order of all modern versification (except in blank verse, which is never popular) depends on the echoing rhyme, which marks time like the stroke of a bell, and is waited for with keen anticipation ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... the tropics and only two small species are found in our vicinity, and these occur but rarely. Snakes, however, are more abundant, and, besides the rare poisonous copperhead and rattlesnake, careful search will reveal a dozen harmless species, the commonest, of course, being the garter snake and its near relative the ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... moan, a lowing of cattle in pain, came to his ears. He made directly for the sound, and soon saw the herd huddled together by the snake-fence which zigzagged along the bank of the creek. He went on till he came to the boundary fence which ran at right angles to the water, and then turning tried to drive the animals towards the corral. He met, however, with unexpected difficulties. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... each do his part To look into the heart And get at the good that's in man. Detectives of virtue and spies of the good And sleuth-hounds of righteousness we. Look out there, my brother! we're hot on your trail, We'll find out how good you can be. We would drive from our hearts the snake, tiger, and cub; We're the Lodge of the Lovers. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... amulets or talismans were used by the Breton peasantry to neutralize the power of sorcerers. Thus, if a person carried a snake with him the enchanters would be unable to harm his sight, and all objects would appear to him under their natural forms. Salt placed in various parts of a house guarded it against the entrance of wizards and rendered ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... that there isn't a snake anywhere in that clump of brush," Tom proposed, and forthwith stepped into the thicket, beating about lustily with ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... wonders burst upon the dazzled sight! There giant palms lift high their tufted heads, The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads; Wild in the woods the active monkey springs, The chattering parrot claps her painted wings; 'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake, The tiger crouches in the tangled brake; The spotted axis bounds in fear away; The leopard darts on his defenceless prey, 'Mid reedy pools and ancient forests rude, Cool peaceful ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... fox regarded them from his corner with his keen and fiery eye: and as Glaucus now turned towards the witch, he perceived for the first time, just under her seat, the bright gaze and crested head of a large snake: whether it was that the vivid coloring of the Athenian's cloak, thrown over the shoulders of Ione, attracted the reptile's anger—its crest began to glow and rise, as if menacing and preparing itself to spring upon the Neapolitan—Glaucus caught quickly at one of the half-burned ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... are beauty and proportion in the construction of the snake? They may have uses, some say, of which we are ignorant. At least let us be silent then; let us not admire an animal which we know only by ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... to be promptly ducked in horse-ponds in the unregenerate days; but the scold was an individual who was usually chastised for making a dead-set at her husband alone. The real shrew is like the puff-adder or the whip-snake—she tries to bite impartially all round; and she is often able to bite in comparative silence, but with a most deadly effect. The vulgar shrieker is a deplorable source of mischief, but she cannot match the reticent stabber who is ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... remember it now, and I've often heard my mother and my Aunt Alice tell of it. It was at the first place where we were in New South Wales. I came running out screaming, I believe—I was old enough to know the danger—and when they went in there was Harry sitting on the floor, holding a snake tight by the neck and enjoying its contortions ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tends at least to show that our ancestors after all were not wholly ignorant of the virtues of cold water. Amongst other remedies, also, was a medicine composed of cinnabar and musk, an East Indian specific, and one of powdered Virginian snake-root, gum asafoetida, and gum camphire, mixed and taken as a bolus. So far, at least, if the various treatments did little good, they did no great harm. Brutality began where a person had been bitten by a dog that really was mad, and when undoubted ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... progress, there was another co-laborer, a silent partner, with them in all this triumph, an unsung hero and martyr of science who deserves his meed of praise—the tiny guinea-pig. He well deserves his niche in the temple of fame; and as other races and ages have worshiped the elephant, the snake, and the sacred cow, so this age should erect its temples to the guinea-pig. From one of the most trifling and unimportant,—kept merely as a pet and curiosity by the small boys of all ages,—he has become, after the horse, the cow, the pig, and the sheep, easily ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... large foreign rats nearly as large and fierce as little bull-dogs. The most ferocious and deadly-looking things in the place were these rats, a laughing hyena (which every now and then uttered a hideous peal of laughter such as a score of maniacs might produce) and a cobra di capello snake. I think this snake was the worst of all: it had the eyes and face of a fiend, and darted out its barbed ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... this dream, the young man,—or rather snake, as he still found himself to be,—was filled half with hope and half with fear. But he resolved to follow the goddess' advice. So, gliding up the tall pine-tree, he reached its topmost branch, and, after hesitating a few moments, flung himself ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... any human being. Immersed in vexing thoughts concerning her future, she mechanically stretched out her hand to pluck a bunch of phlox and of lemon-hued primroses that were nodding in the sunshine close to her feet; but, as she touched the stems, a large copper-colored snake slowly uncoiled from the tuft of grass where they nestled and, gliding into the water, disappeared in the midst ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... snake; it's a serpent," Mae explained. "To represent Cleopatra. She was the Serpent of the Nile. We'll ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... lad defiantly, as, tingling with annoyance, he attacked once more, to feel his adversary's blade seem as if endowed with snake-like vitality, and twine round his own, which then twitched and fell with a sharp ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... shoalded our Water from 9 to 7 fathoms, and at one time had but 6 fathoms, which determined me to Anchor for the Night, and accordingly at 8 o'Clock we came too in 8 fathoms, fine gravelly bottom, about 5 miles from the land. This evening we saw a Water Snake, and 2 or 3 evenings ago one lay under the Ship's Stern some time; this was about 1 1/2 Yards in length, and was the first we had seen. At 6 A.M. weighed with a Gentle breeze Southerly, and Steer'd North-West 1/4 West, edging in for the land until we got ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... acetylene candles against the dark background. Mr. Britling in a black velvet cloak and black silk tights was a deeper shade among the shadows; the high lights were Miss Corner and her sister, in glittering garments of peacock green and silver that gave a snake-like quality to their lithe bodies. They were talking to the German tutor, who had become a sort of cotton Cossack, a spectacled Cossack in buff and bright green. Mrs. Britling was dignified and beautiful in a purple djibbah, and her ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... background is divided into four quadrants by a white cross; in the center of each rectangle is a white snake; the flag of France is used for ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... felt by man; it was felt even under pagan forms of 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 ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... still and cold as stone. He said in a low, harsh voice: 'M'sieu' le Baron, you are a common thief, a wolf, a snake. Such men as you come lower than Judas. As God has an eye to see, you shall pay all one day. I do not fear you nor your men nor your gallows. You are a jackal, and the woman has a filthy heart—a ditch ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in return. Like a fascinated bird staring at a snake, he looked at the cold, glittering eyes, the browned face, the sear on the cheek. As he looked, the sear slowly turned white. It gave the effect of its springing ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... sadly, "I do believe you would feel sorry for a snake that bit you, just because it was only ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... were hung with at least five score Of swords and daggers of every size Which nations of militant men could devise. Poisoned spears from tropic seas, That natives, under banana trees, Smear with the juice of some deadly snake. Blood-dipped arrows, which savages make And tip with feathers, orange and green, A quivering death, in harlequin sheen. High up, a fan of glancing steel Was formed of claymores in a wheel. Jewelled swords worn at kings' levees Were suspended next midshipmen's dirks, and ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... speak of the jewellery that bedecked a Roman matron en grande tenue—of the pearl and pendant earrings, the necklaces of pearl and diamonds, the gold snake armlets with their emerald eyes, the bangles and finger-rings, the brooches and buckles on the shoulders and down the sleeves, the gems scattered among the hair, the chains and chatelaines strung with all manner of glittering articles? Says one who lived ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... Insato, but found, in the place of the python, a man, strong and handsome, with the great snake's skin wrapped round him for covering; and on his arms and neck ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... by a businesslike air. They knew that at this moment they were not especially attractive risks for an accident insurance company. The very sawdust on the floor stank of villainy; the brass bar rail might have been a rigid length of poison snake; the spittoons were small sinks of corruption. Moreover, they had been commissioned to take a monarch off his throne before the eyes of his courtiers, and history records that this ever was a proceeding ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... lifeless on the rock, its breast heaving with thirst, its eyes closed, and its lips parched and burning. Hans eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed on. And a dark-gray cloud came over the sun, and long, snake-like shadows crept up along the mountain sides. Hans struggled on. The sun was sinking, but its descent seemed to bring no coolness; the leaden weight of the dead air pressed upon his brow and heart, but the goal was near. He saw ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... room." "But it moves." "So does the moon." "But it is a clenched fist." "Why not?" "But it is going to touch me." "Let it." And, seeming to gather motion, the patch ran up his blanket. Presently a blue snake appeared; then another, parallel to it. "Is there life in the moon?" "Of course." "But I thought it was uninhabited." "Not by Time, Death, Judgment, and the smaller snakes." "Smaller snakes!" said Leonard indignantly and aloud. "What a ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... a written language. The Hindoo therefore in his belief that the earth was actually drawn up at the flood, by the tusks of a boar, and that it rests at this hour on the back of a tortoise: and the North American Indian in his wild supposition that Waesackoochack, whose reputed father was a snake, formed the present beautiful order of creation after the deluge, by the help of a musk-rat, afford no inconsiderable proof that the Bible is of far greater antiquity than any other record extant in the world, and that it is indeed of divine ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... some of the Negro slaves would kill snakes and skin them and wear these snake skins to prevent being voodooed they said. When some of the slaves would take sick and the home remedies would fail to cure them our Mistress would allow one of the Negro men slaves to go to the white doctor and get some medicine for the patient. The doctor would ask questions as to the actions ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... sheep to go over there and lie on your belly like a snake behind a bush to spy on Joan and me, and I guess you've been doing it, all right—you're welcome to all you've found out. There aren't any secrets between Joan and me to keep from anybody's eyes ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... "Come here again to-morrow evening about sunset, and if I meet you in my snake-form, and wind myself round your body like a girdle, and kiss you three times, do not start or shrink back, or I shall again be overwhelmed by the waters of enchantment, and who ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... He repeated the name over and over, crescendo, with growing fervor. "What's a woman with a title doin' d'you suppose? The title's no fake. She's got the blood all right, all right! You ought to ha' heard her shoo me out! Lummy! A nestin' hen giving the office to a snake weren't in it to her an' me! Good looker, too! What's she doin' ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the serpents manufactured by Pharaoh's magicians. They were, need I tell you, speedily devoured by the serpents of Moses and Aaron. Both parties did not play fair in the game. If it was black magic to transform a rod into a snake on the part of Pharaoh's conjurers, was it any less reprehensible for the Hebrew magicians to play the same trick? It was prestidigitation for all concerned—only the side of the children of Israel was espoused in the recital. Therefore, do not talk of black or white magic. There is only ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... carrying flowers in their solemn processions, crowning themselves with garlands, and decorating their houses and temples with them; and, while they worshipped their gods according to the simple rites which tradition says their prophet, Quetzalcoatl, ("Feathered Snake,") appointed, before he left them and embarked in his canoe on the Eastern ocean, no name could have been more appropriate for their temple. This pleasant custom did not disappear after the Conquest; and to this day the churches in the Indian districts are beautiful with their brilliant garlands ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... creature is unjustly slain, Yet, after death at least, he feels no pain; But man in life surcharged with woe before, Not freed when dead, is doomed to suffer more. A serpent shoots his sting at unaware; An ambushed thief forelays a traveller; The man lies murdered, while the thief and snake, One gains the thickets, and one thrids the brake. This let divines decide; but well I know, Just or unjust, I have my share of woe, Through Saturn seated in a luckless place, And Juno's wrath that persecutes my race; Or Mars and Venus in a quartil, move My ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... we have enervated them by opinions and bad customs. Who is there who is unacquainted with the customs of the Egyptians? Their minds being tainted by pernicious opinions, they are ready to bear any torture rather than hurt an ibis, a snake, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile; and should any one inadvertently have hurt any of these animals, he will submit to any punishment. I am speaking of men only. As to the beasts, do they not bear cold and hunger, running about in woods, and on mountains and deserts? Will they not fight for ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... woods, listen to birds sing," said Koku simply, taking a firmer hold on his victim. "I see this fellow come along, and crawl through grass like so a snake wiggle. I to myself think that funny, and I watch. This man he wiggle more. He wiggle more still, and then he watch. I watch too. I see him have knife in hand, but I am no afraid. I begin to go like snake also, but ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... Armenians, followed closely by one of the gipsies of Gregor Jhaere's party, who whispered to Maga through lips that hardly moved, and made signals to Kagig with a secretive hand like a snake's head. I got off Fred's stomach then, and when he had had his revenge by emptying hot pipe ashes down my neck he sat close beside me and translated what followed word for word. It was all in Armenian, spoken in deadly earnest by hairy men on edge with anxiety and yet compelled ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the weird Druid held his mistletoe; There, for the scorched son of the sand, coiled bright, The torrid snake was hissing sharp and low; And there the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... friends had tricked him And how he fell his party's victim. 'Know,' says the god, 'by matchless skill I change to every shape at will; 20 But yet I'm told, at Court you see Those who presume to rival me.' Thus said. A snake with hideous trail, Proteus extends his scaly mail. 'Know,' says the man, 'though proud in place, All courtiers are of reptile race. Like you, they take that dreadful form, Bask in the sun, and fly the storm; With malice hiss, with ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... with her snake display'd, And Danaee with her shower of gold; And many a tale besides the maid, Had fate permitted, would ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... might reasonably hope to find all things done in honesty and sincerity. Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends, there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other. We have all heard of the Moon Hoax. Do none of you remember the Hydrarchos Sillimannii, that awful Alabama snake? It was only a little while ago that a grave account appeared in a newspaper of a whole new business of compressing ice. Perpetual motion has been the dream of scientific visionaries, and a pretended but cheating realization of it has been exhibited by scamp after ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... and, lifting her handkerchief, disclosed for a moment a great wound in her breast, deep in which Gertrude saw darkly the head of a snake writhing. ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... for a boulder which lay between myself and the herd, and creeping most cautiously and slowly (for I was really keen to succeed), I reached it without alarming the timid animals, which were now scarcely four hundred yards away. Very carefully I raised myself from the snake-like attitude in which I had made my advance, in order to risk a peep over the edge of the rock, for I must lay my exact plan of campaign, so that I might make sure of another couple of hundred yards, which distance gained, I was ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... special being between which and the human race irreconcilable enmity was to exist forever? for surely not even the most regenerate mind in Christendom could live on decent terms with the best-disposed snake of such a length ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... altar beside the stream, to which for several years we brought all the snakes we killed during our excursions, no matter how long the toil—some journey which we had to make with a limp snake dangling between two sticks. I remember rather vaguely the ceremonial performed upon this altar one autumn day, when we brought as further tribute one out of every hundred of the black walnuts which we had gathered, and then poured over the whole a pitcher full of ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... night, when they tied up to a tree, the noise was prodigious. The howling and roaring of wild beasts was incessant. Monkeys chattered in terror, and occasionally an almost human scream proclaimed that one of them had been seized by a snake, or some other enemy. The hissing of reptiles could at times be distinctly heard, and Stephen often thought that he could hear their movements in the ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... hour ago. It's a man—a Indian man whut kept a curiosity shop—de same place where yo' an' me was lookin' at dem funny snake candlesticks ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... the devil, is it? Shoot again!" And, pushing back the dice, Smith moved closer to Du Sang. The two men touched arms. Du Sang, threatened in a way wholly new to him, waited like a snake braved by a mysterious enemy. His eyes blinked like a badger's. He caught up the dice and threw. "Is that the best you can do?" asked Smith. "See here!" He took up the dice. "Shoot with me!" Smith threw ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... lowered. All the time that we were working, the heavy bank astern had been rising and spreading itself over the heavens like a dark canopy, the vast mass of vapour of which it was composed writhing and twisting like the contortions of a wounded snake; and by the time that our preparations were complete, the entire sky was overspread, with the exception of a low strip away on the western horizon, which was rapidly lessening, even as we ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... see, he means to desert or get captured. It's a long way round, but about the best one—for him. Think of that snake wearing Uncle ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... design or some odd coincidence, fell into the same dogged attitude that her husband had previously taken, except that she rested her hands on her hips. She was prematurely aged, like many of her class, and her black, snake-like locks, twisting loose from her comb as she lifted her head, showed threads of white against the firelight. Then with slow and implacable ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... in the MacNair blood," said Jabel Blake; "but you are playing a false part and Arthur a true one. He fought his campaign against the corruptions and chicanery of power, and he will trample you out like a snake." ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... the lubbers went under. Two o' fever and one o' snake-bite. It licks me what sailors are comin' to in these days. When I was afore the mast we'd ha' been ashamed to die o' a trifle like that. Look at me. I've been down wi' coast fever sixteen times, and I've had yellow jack an' dysentery, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... burring of a rattler in the brush set his neck and back tingling. "And what snakes was made for, gets me! They ain't good to eat, nohow. And they ain't friendly like some of the bugs and things. I'm thinkin' that that there snake what clumb the tree and got Mrs. Eve interested in the apple business would 'a' been a whole lot better for folks, if he'd 'a' stayed up that tree and died, instead o' runnin' around and raisin' young ones. Accordin' to my way of thinkin' a garden ain't a garden with a snake in it, nohow. Now, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... common sense do their work. A badly brought up American child introduced into a really well-regulated family soon takes his cue from his surroundings, adapts himself to his new conditions, and sheds his faults as a snake its skin. The whole process may tend to increase the individuality of the child; but the cost is often great, the consequences hard for the child itself. American parents are doubtless more familiar than others with the plaintive remonstrance: "Why did you not bring me up more ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... of medicines, if such we must call them, generally consisted of such things as small bags of graveyard soil, rusty nails, needles, pins, goose grease, rabbits' feet, snake skins, and many ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... the time of my teething, Felise, Fragoletta, Yolande! Foam-yeast of a youth in its seething On blasted and blithering sand! Snake-crowned on your tresses and belted With blossoms that coil and decay, Ye are gone; ye are lost; ye are ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... the birds had been circling around the head of Abbot Hans, and they let him take them in his hands. But all the animals were afraid of the lay brother; no bird perched on his shoulder, no snake played at his feet. Then there came a little forest dove. When she marked that the angels were nearing, she plucked up courage and flew down on the lay brother's shoulder and laid her head against ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... on each one Of its broad platforms is a pyramid of stones, And metals, and dried flowers, and pine and hemlock cones, An oriole's nest with the four eggs neatly blown, The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brown Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaled With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly scaled, Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth shell, A blue jay feather, all together piled pell-mell The stand will hold no more. The Boy with humming head Looks once again, blows out the ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... anchored deep in the primordial abyss, rose up through the vast central mountains of the world, and, stretching forth its branches to the furthest heaven, bore the stars as its fruit. Encircling the whole earth like a ring, lay the huge snake Midgard,—always hidden in the sea, save when half drawn forth on one occasion by the god Thor; outside the snake a broader ring of ice-mountains swept round both land and ocean, and formed the outer frame of the world,—for there ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... observed a youngster, of the name of Prose, a cockney, who drawled out his words, which, "like a wounded snake, dragged their slow ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a hundred feet hung over the river—scarce less defined in its margin than the river itself, for it winded wherever the stream winded, and ran straight as an arrow wherever the stream ran straight—occupied the whole length of the valley, like an enormous snake lying uncoiled in its den. The numerous turf cottages on either side were invisible in the darkness, save that ever and anon the brief twinkle of a light indicated their existence and their places. In a recess of the stream the torch of some adventurous ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... music and brought the Guards to a halt. The horses dashed madly forward, barely missing the color and its escort. A ready-witted sergeant grabbed at the loose reins flapping in the air, but they eluded him with a snake-like twist. The next wild leap brought the carriage pole against a lamp-post, and both were broken. Then one of the animals stumbled, half turned, backed, and locked the front wheels. A lady, the sole occupant, was ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... grounds, a way for his iron road to the mountains and the western sea, we were told that they wished merely to pass through our country, not to tarry among us, but to seek for gold in the far west. Our old chiefs thought to show their friendship and good will, when they allowed this dangerous snake in our midst. They promised to ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... since a child she had called a "Snake-lizard," a very frightened snake-lizard at that, which with tail aloft was scampering wildly from near Dart's place at luncheon into the nearby thicket. Her own sudden fright that had been aroused by Dart's headlong dash and piercing yell gave way ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... modernly, he danced the new dances to the new tunes, given off like intoxicating gas from the latest of gramophones. He knew how to hold the arm of a woman above her head, while coiling his own around it in the manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very body a vast syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as singular as himself. Captain Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck about the wheel which convention had always roped off for them ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... a python?" gasped Andy, his horrified eyes glued on the spectacle of the slightly swaying ten feet of snake that hung from the limb of a great tree, in part as thick as ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... the black wall of cloud had returned and now hung above the forest of S——, that lay sullenly, in its shadow, forbidding and thick, itself like a cloud. The world was cold, the Nestor like a snake.... I shivered, seized by some sudden sense of coming disaster and trouble. The evenings there ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... reporter who discovered an earthquake in the eastern districts of the city, a few days since, has been obliged to employ a snake-charmer to extract from his left boot an immense anaconda that ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... consist in the prevention of the spread of the poison. This may be done by tightly applying bandages above the wound and scarifying or sucking the parts. Nitrate of silver may then be used and the ligatures removed. Alcohol, in any form, is an antidote to snake poison. For the stings of insects, apply aqua ammonia, fresh earth, raw onion, plantain, or ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... In this case, the hare never perceived the fox until it was within a few feet of it; whereupon it stopped short, and the two sat up facing each other, evidently mutually fascinated, as the bird is said to be by the snake. They thus remained motionless, or powerless to move, for some minutes, until my nearer approach attracted their attention and broke the spell, whereupon they both bounded off in different directions. This, I am told by an authority, was a case of neurasthenia, or nerve-paralysis. ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... third room, and when the queen saw the basin of jewels and the six golden statues her face turned as blue as lead, and her eyes shone green like a snake's. ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... who Man of baser Earth didst make And who with Eden didst devise the Snake; For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... change, But change can touch her not—so beautiful With her fixed eyes, earnest and still, and hair Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze, And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven, Resting upon her eyes and hair, such hair, As she awaits the snake on the wet beach By the dark rock and the white wave just breaking At her feet; quite naked and alone; a thing I doubt not, nor fear for, secure some god To save will come in ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... Commerce had not protested. And yet it occurred to me more than once during the next few days that strangers attracted to Troy by its reputation as a health resort must have marvelled as they walked our streets, where cases of sunstroke, frost-bite, snake-bite, and incipient croup challenged their pity at every corner. The very babies took their first steps in splints, and when they tumbled were examined by their older playmates, and pronounced to be suffering from apoplexy ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... He opened it in his usual slow deliberate manner, but the moment he began to read his whole manner changed. It was as if one had opened a cage door to take a pet bird in his hand suddenly to find his fingers in contact with a snake. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... the churned ocean on the first day of the first spring, with the cup of life in your right hand and poison in your left. The monster sea, lulled like an enchanted snake, laid down its thousand hoods at ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... The Rain-Makers, Boston, 1929. OP. This thorough treatment of the Indians of Arizona and New Mexico contains an excellent account of the Hopi snake ceremony for bringing rain. During any severe drought numbers of Christians in the Southwest pray without snakes. It always rains eventually—and the prayer-makers naturally take the credit. The Hopis put on a more spectacular show. See Dr. Walter Hough's The Hopi ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... streams trickled fast from her hair. She was like a snow-crusted tree in winter, when it drops to the mid-day sun. O seek not for me, son of Moro, in the light cheerful dwellings of men! For low is my bed in the deep, and cold is the place of my rest. The sea monster sports by my side, and the water-snake twines round my neck. But do not forget me, Lochallen: O think on the days of our love! I sat on the high rocky shore, mine eyes look'd afar o'er the ocean. I saw two dark ships on the waves, and quick beat the joy of my breast. ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... are a blackmailer, a somewhat dangerous one. You tempt me to revise the wisest of La Rochefoucauld's maxims, and say that every woman is at heart a snake. You owe everything to me; yet you are not content. Without my help you would still be carrying a banner in the chorus. Unless I continue my patronage, that is what you must go back to. Don't imagine that I am treating ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy |
