"Snap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wet and rough day. According to an article which appeared in the "Westminster Gazette," and was reprinted in our local "War Office Telegram," there is always a cold rough snap from October 20 to October 25. The first date was correct, and I trust the latter, which is to-morrow, will be as accurate, for we are miserable. Geese are crossing in very large ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... to hear it—I was afraid you had given me the slip altogether. I want some of your sketches enlarged to double-page drawings, and I am thinking of issuing a photographic album of the snap-shots you took ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... but also because the idea pleases me. Sniatynski says that if a man gets accustomed to put down his thoughts and impressions it becomes gradually one of the most delightful occupations of his life. If it should prove the contrary, then the Lord have mercy on my diary; it would snap asunder like a string too tightly drawn. I am ready to do much for my community; but to bore myself for its sake, oh, no! I could ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... do. Really, I don't wish to take advantage of my cloth, but, really, you know, Charity, you have been taught better than to snap ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... of astonishment and contempt in face and voice. "Of course we don't want you to get sick, for your own sake; but if you do we'll do everything in this world to make you comfortable and cure you. And the house won't be upset at all; and we don't care a snap what the servants think. You must put that perfectly ridiculous idea right out of your head, and turn over and try to go ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... our boatmen lost his hat, his only garment, into the river, and overboard he went, like a dog, and soon had it and climbed on board again. I wondered why some of the big alligators did not make a snap at him. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... first to introduce rifles into Ceylon, which were then regarded by the highest authorities in the island as impractical innovations, too difficult to sight, whereas an ordinary gun could be used with ball more quickly in taking a snap-shot. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... So great was the fear of him, indeed, that the people in the neighbourhood he frequented scarcely dared stir out of doors, except in parties of five or six. We had had several hunts after him, but, like all man-eaters, he was old and awfully crafty; and although we got several snap shots at him, he had always managed to save ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... above your head,' said the Gnat, 'and there you'll find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... mind-reader, ma'am," said he, "that I know you don't care a snap of your finger for Dan Anderson. That's everdent. I ain't in on that side of the play. I'm just here to say that, so far as he's concerned hisself, he'd 'a' laid down and died cheerful any minute of his life ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... see his way clear to try again." Short's lips thinned. "He may snap out of it yet.... We could use a ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... to look over its shoulder, and at once Guph ran to the bridge and leaped over the sentinel's back before it could turn back again. The scarlet monster made a snap at the Nome's left foot, but missed it by ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... blossoms. As she walked between the rows the tall lilies laid their heads against her breast and kissed traces of their gold hearts on her hands and bare arms, while on the other side a very riot of blush peonies crowded against her skirts. Long trails of pod-laden snap beans tangled around her feet and a couple of round young squashes rolled from their stems at the touch of her fingers. She was the very incarnation of young Plenty in the garden of the gods, and she reveled ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... question to him about his relations with his men. He tried to make it tactful and sensible-sounding, but as he said the words, he knew just how flat and parlor-reformerish they sounded; and it didn't surprise him a bit to have the business-man bristle up and snap his head off. It had sounded as though he didn't know a thing about business—he, the very marrow of whose bones was soaked in a bitter knowledge that the only thing that could keep it going was the fear of death in every ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... from nothing for the delectation of his companions. Until he was thirty-four years old he spoke no word and was employed in tending his father's cattle. At this time a Brahman was sent for to get him to speak, and on confessing his failure, Jhambaji showed his power by lighting a lamp with a snap of his fingers and spoke his first word. He adopted the life of a teacher and went to reside on a sandhill some thirty miles south of Bikaner. In 1485 a fearful famine desolated the country, and Jhambaji gained an enormous number of disciples by providing food for all who would declare ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... to both these generous outbursts, was comprised in a snap of his fingers in the direction supposed to have been taken by the Colonel, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... but do not pause, perhaps because the rest would force them to move forward. They step down upon the stones and continue their march round the pit, planting their feet squarely and firmly on each stone. The cameras snap, the crowd surges forward, the bystanders fling in great bundles of green leaves. But the bundles strike the last man of the procession and cut him off from his fellows; so he stays where he is, trampling down the leaves as they are thrown to line the pit, in a dense cloud of steam from the ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... Bohemian songs I used to play with you and Johanna. But here's one that will make Clara pout. You remember how her eyes used to snap when we called her the Bohemian Girl?" Nils lifted his flute and began "When Other Lips and Other Hearts," and Joe hummed the air in a husky baritone, waving his carpet-slipper. "Oh-h-h, das-a fine music," he cried, clapping his hands as Nils finished. "Now 'Marble ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... forwards along the outer side of the foot, somewhat in front of the calcaneo-cuboid joint, which lies midway between the outer malleolus and the end of the fifth metatarsal bone. This incision should go down at once upon the bone, so that the tendon should be felt to snap as the incision is commenced. It should be as nearly as possible on a level with the upper border of the os calcis, a point which the surgeon can determine, if the dorsum of the foot is in a natural state, by feeling ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... and "Hrumph," snapped Foxy-woxy, and Ducky- daddles' head was off and Ducky-daddles was thrown alongside Turkey- lurkey and Goosey-poosey. Then Cocky-locky strutted down into the cave and he hadn't gone far when "Snap, Hrumph!" went Foxy-woxy and Cocky- locky was thrown alongside of ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... goddess, calm and inscrutably imposing as the Venus of Milo; but she could also play Perdita, and dance with her enslaved ones like a veritable little witch. Robert Cassall was captured—there could not be much error about that. He asked, with a sudden snap of teeth and lips which made his niece start: "And how much do you want to coax out of me, Miss Molly. Give me an idea. Of course I'm to be the uncle in the play, and 'Bless you, me chee-ill-dren,' and the rest. ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... the future, to take much notice of Jim. Mary used to speak to me about it sometimes. 'You never take notice of the child,' she'd say. 'You could surely find a few minutes of an evening. What's the use of always worrying and brooding? Your brain will go with a snap some day, and, if you get over it, it will teach you a lesson. You'll be an old man, and Jim a young one, before you realise that you had a child once. Then it will be ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... cried, laughing. "I am a pig! A nice big elder sister I am, to set you such an example! I'm cross, dear. Everything has gone wrong the whole day long. You had better run off and leave me alone, or I'll snap again. I feel all churned up inside! This ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... straight towards me. At first I could make out only a great cloud of steam, a whirl of flying snow, and here and there the angry shake of wide antlers or the gleam of a black muzzle. The loud clacking of their hoofs, sweeping nearer and nearer, gave a snap, a tingle, a wild exhilaration to their rush which made one want to shout and swing his hat. Presently I could make out the individual animals through the cloud of vapor that drove down the wind before them. They were going at a splendid trot, rocking easily from side to side like pacing ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... people have heard the story of the little girl who wanted to know what made her hair snap. After she had been informed that there was probably electricity in her hair, she sat quiet for a few minutes and then exclaimed: "Our family has all the modern improvements! I have electricity in my hair and Grandma has gas on her stomach!" Judged by this standard many American ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... people to invest money and make new products, new industries, and new jobs. We must clear away obstacles to new growth: high taxes, high regulation, red tape, and yes, wasteful government spending. None of this will happen with a snap of the fingers, but it will happen. And the test of a plan isn't whether it's called new or dazzling. The American people aren't impressed by gimmicks. They're smarter on this score than all of us in this room. The only test of a plan is, It is sound ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Nothing of love beside the face was seen; But every inch of her you now uncase, And clap a vizard-mask upon the face. For sins like these, the zealous of the land, With little hair, and little or no band, Declare how circulating pestilences Watch, every twenty years, to snap offences. Saturn, even now, takes doctoral degrees; 30 He'll do your work this summer without fees. Let all the boxes, Phoebus, find thy grace, And, ah! preserve the eighteen-penny place! But for the pit confounders, let 'em go, And find as little mercy as ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... so stiff around the gills about it," said the lady, with a snap of her luminous eyes and a startling gyration of her umbrella. "Business is what I've come for. I want your opinion in the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but which is really only the readjustment of the false ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... "Crack-snap!" went Mr. Tisbett's whip. Off pranced the two black horses, and round went the wheels. He never made such a fine start in his life, Mr. Tisbett decided, when suddenly, "Stop! oh, stop!" screamed Joel, and the stage-driver, looking around at him, saw his face ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... brewing kettle, and it sighed so deeply! Each sigh was like a little shot. So the children ran to where it lay and sat down before the fire, and peeped in at the blaze, and shouted "Piff! paff!" But at every snap there was a deep sigh. The Tree was thinking of summer days in the wood, and of winter nights when the stars shone; it was thinking of Christmas Eve and Klumpy-Dumpy, the only fairy tale it had heard and knew how to tell,—and so ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... whether he obeyed or not, as just then I made my last double, and felt Jill's teeth cut through the fur of my scut and heard them snap. I had dodged Jill, but Jack was right on to me and the wood ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... the fore part of the vessel. The revolver shooting had ceased, for the convincing reason there were no more cartridges. Courtenay's double barrelled gun was being fired as quickly as he could reload it, and the sharp snap of one of the rifles in the Indians' possession was recognizable as coming from the poop, the remaining marksmen having preferred to fire wildly from their canoes. But Christobal knew that a deadly struggle was in progress ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... extreme levity. Messieurs are of confessed promptitude to fight; and their talent for it, in some kinds, is very great indeed. But this treating of battle and slaughter, of death, judgment and eternity, as light play-house matters; this of rising into such transcendency of valor, as to snap your fingers in the face of the Almighty Maker; this, Messieurs, give me leave to say so, is a thing that will conduct you and your PREMIERE NATION to the Devil, if you do not alter it. Inevitable, I tell you! Your road lies that way, then? Good morning, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... acid meets the alkali, How they sputter, snap, and fly! Such a crackling, such a pattering! Such a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... to array the fundamental law of the land against the multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise inflicted upon the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever entered into American politics. If the present Congress is not ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and then march on again. He had youth in his heart, and love and curiosity; also he had some change in his trousers' pocket, and a ten dollar bill, for extreme emergencies, sewed up in his belt. If a photographer for Peter Harrigan's General Fuel Company could have got a snap-shot of him that morning, it might have served as a "portrait of a coal-miner" ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... man dances he should laugh and crow and snap his fingers and make faces; otherwise, he is not dancing at all, he is taking exercise. No person should be allowed to dance without first swearing that he feels only six years of age. People who admit to feeling more than ten years old should be sent to hospital, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... have liked to sit perched up there and watching all that went on, but I had to move to let Ike drag back the baskets; then I had to help handing out bunches, till at last the crowd melted away, and the busy man closed his book with a snap. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... lay down the book in disgust when I confess to a weakness for frogging. I admit that it is not high-toned sport; and yet I have got a good deal of amusement out of it. The persistence with which a large batrachian will snap at a bit of red flannel after being several times hooked on the same lure and the comical way in which he will scuttle off with a quick succession of short jumps after each release; the cheerful manner in which, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... With nothing between it and me but some chicken wire and an old gentleman in a dressing gown! It would have seemed a snap to some people, but I never made a dishonest dollar in my life—except in the way of trade, and then it was to natives (who water copra on you and square the difference); and he was in no more danger of harm than if it had been ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... traveler. The light of Mon's lamp showed this holy man to be large and heavy of face, with the narrow forehead of the fanatic. With such a face and head, this could not be a clever man. But he is a wise worker who has tools of different temper in his bag. Too fine a steel may snap. Too delicately fashioned an instrument may turn in the hand when suddenly ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... morning when he came again she did try, holding out as inducements why he should be married the night before starting for Boston, the "white hen, turkey, the 'lection cake, and the gay old times the young folks would have playing snap-and-catchem; or if they had a mind, they could dance a bit in the kitchen. She didn't believe in it, to be sure—none of the orthodox did; but as Wilford was a 'Piscopal, and that was a 'Piscopal quirk, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... and closed the box with a snap, a strange pallor coming over her white, set face. The general looked gravely at her, and then, raising his hat, with a "Till we ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... is as unwarranted as it is unprecedented. It reads cruel enough on paper, but we wish that the reader had accompanied us on one journey, say, during the cold snap in the first week in August, when we travelled from Potchefstroom to Vereeniging, and seen the flocks of those evicted Natives that we met. We frequently met those roving pariahs, with their hungry cattle, and wondered if the animals were not ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... undo, unbind, unchain, unlock &c (fix) 43, unpack, unravel; disentangle; set free &c (liberate) 750. sunder, divide, subdivide, sever, dissever, abscind^; circumcise; cut; incide^, incise; saw, snip, nib, nip, cleave, rive, rend, slit, split, splinter, chip, crack, snap, break, tear, burst; rend &c, rend asunder, rend in twain; wrench, rupture, shatter, shiver, cranch^, crunch, craunch^, chop; cut up, rip up; hack, hew, slash; whittle; haggle, hackle, discind^, lacerate, scamble^, mangle, gash, hash, slice. cut up, carve, dissect, anatomize; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... shure, ey'm nah afeerd," returned Jennet. "Boh whot mays ye so inqueesitive? Ye want to get summat out'n me, ey con see that plain enough, an os ye stand there glenting at me wi' your sly little een, ye look loike an owd fox ready to snap up a ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... win them. Colonel House is an interesting but not unfamiliar type in politics. Extremely courteous, mild mannered, able, quickly sympathetic, he listens with undistracted attention to your request. His round bright eyes snap as he comes at you with a counter-proposal. It seems so reasonable. And while you know he is putting back upon you the very task you are trying to persuade him to undertake, he does it so graciously that you can scarcely resist liking it. He has the manner ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... quite to realize," he writes in the letter before me, "that uniformity of pace leads inevitably to languor. You should deliver a pistol-shot or two. Remember Philippa is a fiery girl; she can snap. If only for variety, she should snap James' head off when she says, 'Do I speak as if ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... have received the name tucano from the noise they make, which resembles "tok-kan" very sharply pronounced and with a snap at ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... old lady. Perhaps not so easy to deal with as he had hoped. But how wealthy. Only the consciousness of great wealth would make her snap her fingers in this manner at the Droitwiches. Lotty, on being questioned, had been vague about her circumstances, and had described her house as a mausoleum with gold-fish swimming about in it; but now he was sure she was more than very well off. Still, he ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... best. There should be no shirking. Yet I need hardly say that here, because shirking people, lazy people do not worry. They haven't enough snap about them to worry. But it steadies one to put the thing just as Dr. Deems put it. "Do your best, and, then leave all the rest to God." And when ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... you are wrong, Mr. Brasher. There is a great deal to it. One thing, seems certain. If Mr. Miller killed himself, it is reasonably certain that it was an accident; that he did not intend to do so. And, off hand, although I am not prone to giving snap judgment, I should say that the chances are enormously against his either having shot himself by ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... Gallia's devices, found to answer well In wary onset and in finish slow, Old Attic swiftness, seen in hold and throw. Supplement or supplant. When AJAX stood Before ULYSSES, neither seemed in mood For long manoeuvring. To the clutch they came With sinews of snap-steel and souls of flame. "Close lock'd above, their heads and arm are mix'd; Below their planted feet at distance fix'd: Like two strong rafters, which the builder forms Proof to the wintry winds and howling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... and then my forcing her to go through the ceremony at the point of a cold steel weapon will not have the effect of endearing me to her ladyship. She is sure to hate me, but that won't bother me a snap ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... felt to be getting ludicrous, and was given up. P——, now a popular preacher, was in the habit of entertaining the boys that way. He was a regular wag; and would snatch his jokes out of the very flame and fury of the master, like snap-dragon. Whenever the other struck him, P. would get up; and, half to avoid the blows, and half render them ridiculous, begin moving about the school-room, making all sorts of antics. When he was struck in the face, he would clap his hand with affected vehemence ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... father, chuckling maliciously the while, led the way across the trees. Now it was that my ambitions ebbed away, and I became timid, holding tightly to my mother as she climbed and swung through space. I remember when the branch broke with her weight. She had made a wide leap, and with the snap of the wood I was overwhelmed with the sickening consciousness of falling through space, the pair of us. The forest and the sunshine on the rustling leaves vanished from my eyes. I had a fading glimpse of my father abruptly ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... in a little game the other day," said he, "and it fell into my possession." He dropped the ring into his purse, which he then closed with a snap. "I have been trying for several days to see your father and give him a chance at the ring before I turned it in to the pawnbroker's. If your mother has any feeling in the matter, tell her she can get the ring for ten dollars," he added as ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... he was somewhat encouraged. After the first shock Cartwright had been inclined to make light of the difficulty, and by the time Allen Parker reached Pine Hills his stride had the usual swing and snap. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... myself than I saw, from the lay of the ground, that if the tiger should happen to break at a point in a line with my bush he would probably gallop on to the top of me before it would be possible to make more than a snap shot. I at once left the spot and climbed a small tree on the opposite side of the depression, and this enabled me to have my feet some five feet from the ground. Presently the beat began, and with a roar, and an evident determination to charge ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... with a new and peculiar interest. He even recalled a curious evidence of exalted sensibility and irritability, in the twitching of the minute muscles of the internal ear at every unexpected sound, producing an odd little snap in the middle of the head, which proved to him that he ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... half an hour later that Flatray heard a twig snap under an approaching foot. He had been scanning the valley with his glasses, having given West instructions to keep a lookout in the rear. He swung his head round sharply, and ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Parliament (18 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve three-year terms) elections: last held 26 April 2008 (next to be held in 2011) election results: percent of vote - NA; seats - independents 18; note - President Marcus STEPHEN called a snap election to break a parliamentary stalemate blocking ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and requiring to stop every few yards, though their riders, except myself, were afoot. The gloom of the dense, ancient, silent forest is to me awe inspiring. On such an evening it is soundless, except for the branches creaking in the soft wind, the frequent snap of decayed timber, and a murmur in the pine tops as of a not distant waterfall, all tending to produce EERINESS and a sadness "hardly akin to pain." There no lumberer's axe has ever rung. The trees die when they have attained their prime, and stand ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... breaks down, there are all sorts of chances of escape open to the traveller. The engine may not quit the rails, or it may bound off alone, snap the coupling chains and leave the carriages to run until they come to a gradual standstill; or, the concussion may be so modified that no serious injury may result; or, should it come to the worst, the traveller may be among ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... attention to the chaste beauty of this line, and the imperative necessity of the chord of the diminished seventh for the word "rose." Also "school-house" in the last line must be very loud and staccato. Snap ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... nothing know on earth—am misinformed On every circumstance. The very terms, Scope, rate, and merits of my own transactions Are all to me unknown, or falsified, Of which most potent proof can be adduced. Then the important thump upon the board, Snap with the thumb, and the disdainful 'whew!' Sets me and all I say at less than naught. What can a person do?—To knock him down Suggests itself, but then it breeds a row In a friend's house, or haply in your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... And that in fashion most unmoral O'er cakes and puddings they would quarrel. I don't believe that either chapkin E'er thought at lunch to fold his napkin, And if one biscuit graced the platter 'Twas ever less than fighting matter, Or if they'd beans—no doubt they had 'em— They failed to snap a few at Adam. I fear me as they ate their salade They hummed some raw primeval ballad, And when the Serpent came to dinner, They made remarks about the sinner. No doubt they criticised the cooking And hooked the fruit when none was looking, And when ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... this last time in an awful state. Before he left some one sent him a load of money, and he did nothing but drink and gamble whilst it lasted. I used to tell him that he ought to take care of his money, and he'd snap his fingers and laugh. He used to say that he owned the goose that laid the golden eggs, and could have money whenever he wanted it. Well, as I was a saying, he went; and when he came back he had an awful attack of delirium tremens, and then he took the typers. Oh, laws mercy!" continued ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... him. The animal slunk back. The Captain advanced among the pack, still calling the hound in the most threatening voice. But the hound slunk further, growling and showing his teeth. The Captain sprang forward and brought down his whip. The dog, mutinous, made a snap at the Captain. The latter, now deeply enraged, threw aside the whip, caught the animal by the neck, lifted it high, and, with a swift contraction of his fingers, caused its eyes and tongue to protrude and its body to writhe and hang powerless. He then flung the dead creature to a ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... country be to-day without the corporations, the railroads? Without the Atlantic and Pacific, right here in St. Louis? And all the work of those men they are prosecuting and fining and trying to put into jail? Why, if the President had his way, he'd lock up every man that had enough sense and snap in him to do things, and he'd make this country like a Methodist camp meeting after the shouting is over! There's no sense ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... clever, quick-moving plot is unusual. ANNABEL is that kind. The heroine is a lovable girl, but one with plenty of snap—her red hair testifies to that. Her friend, Will Carden, too, is a boy of unusual qualities, as is apparent in everything he does. He and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... snap beneath him, a drooping branch struck him hard; and then he gasped with horror. In front there opened up a deep black rift in which appeared the tops of trees. Seeing it was too late to pull up, he shook his feet ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... with an inoffensive snap, and Rex frowned. But he had not the slightest intention of relinquishing his purpose. With incredible coolness, he went to a corner of the room and took a box of perfectly fresh cartridges from the drawer where he kept his ammunition; after carefully removing the charges from the revolver, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... bear, singing as he went, and calling upon the forest-god Tapio and his wife to grant him success in his hunt. He had not gone far before he heard his dog bark, and hurrying up to the spot he found Otso standing facing the dog and trying to snap him up, and before the bear perceived him, Wainamoinen was able to end Otso's life with a single thrust of his ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... seized the flimsy rings with both her hands To snap it, but they held with odd persistence. Her eyes were blinded by two wind-blown strands Of hair which had been loosened. Her resistance Melted within her, from remotest distance, Misty, unreal, his face grew warm and near, And giving way she knew ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... hid her face among Smiler's rags. And three times, with all the force of a young blacksmith's arm behind it, that whip rose and fell across the shoulders of Vernock's Mayor, ere it was broken with a snap and tossed by Phil among ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Have to their subject nations said, "Stand still;" So, from the Polar Bear, Comes down the freezing air, And stiffens all things with its deadly chill. He who doth God resist— God's old antagonist— Would snap the chain that binds all things to him; And in his godless pride, All peoples would divide, And scatter ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a moment. I raised my voice to its highest pitch, and called the animal by name. I knew that he would come at my call. I had tied him but slightly. The cactus limb would snap off. I called again, repeating words that were well known to him. I listened with a bounding heart. For a moment there was silence. Then I heard the quick sounds of his hoofs, as though the animal were rearing and struggling to free himself. ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... stars above me danced in swarms like yellow bees, The shaken moonlight writhed upon the rocks;— But at the last I felt his breathing weaker grow, The tense limbs grow less tense, And with a bursting cry I bent his head right back, Back, back, until I heard his neck bones snap; His spine crunched in my grip; I flung him to the earth ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... room and dressed there. But he had never slept in the bed. At night he put on his shabby dressing-gown and worn slippers and lay on a haircloth sofa at the foot of Jimmy's bed—lay but hardly slept, so afraid was he that the slender thread of life might snap when it was drawn out to its slenderest during the darkest hours before the dawn. More than once in every night Peter rose and stood, hardly breathing, with the tiny lamp in his hand, watching for the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was heard upon the other side of the hut, and a moment later a metallic scraping and clinking. The man was trying to force the lock! This time his skill was greater or his tool was better, for there was a sudden snap and the creak of the hinges. Then a match was struck, and next instant the steady light from a candle filled the interior of the hut. Through the gauze curtain our eyes were all riveted upon ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Christian feeling, and damn yours and your impudence too, you half-drowned church rat! Why don't you call her Jezebel at once, and have done with it? One of the things I like about her is that she has the pluck to snap her fingers at such as you and all your ignorant superstitions. What are you getting at? That is what ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... combat your resolution, Jack," returned Thames, after a pause. "But I dread the effect your departure may have upon your poor mother. Her life hangs upon a thread, and this may snap it." ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... on the rough side with a smooth piece of pumice stone; this wears off the burr and makes the stamping come out cleaner and finer. When patterns are so large that they have to be folded, iron out the creases before using them. After using the patterns for powder stamping, snap the pattern to shake the powder from the perforations. After using the patterns for paint stamping they should be washed thoroughly with naphtha until the perforations are all perfectly clear. Keep the naphtha away from the fire. After the ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... formed in three or four years. It is as well to allow this fine pea a good broad space, in the midst of which several iron standards, 6ft. high, should be firmly fixed; to these, fresh twiggy branches might be secured every spring; if the old ones are left in, their rottenness will allow them to snap off during strong winds when the tendrils have laid hold of them; but fresh branches, used as suggested, will bend but not break, and will withstand the strongest winds. This is very important, as, if the mass of foliage heads over, it is spoilt ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... it's going to be different. That's all I say. I've got it all planned out. The idea popped into my head when I came away last night. Not that they had a word of blame—not they. They understood all about the children, and the cold snap, and Ed's being under the weather, and Oliver's wife's neuralgia, and Ralph's girl in the West, and all that. But that didn't make the thing any easier for them. As I say, next year—But you'll all hear from me then. Meanwhile—run ...
— On Christmas Day in the Morning • Grace S. Richmond
... the chance has come to snap our fingers in the faces of that ugly crowd!" observed Jimmy, who could hardly keep his ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... owl, he is so ugly. When we find an owl we get in a circle around him and snap our great beaks, and jerk our tails up and down and scream. He is very much ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... caper in connection with taking snap shots these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household from pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly beloved friend that ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... ceased to follow with his gun that red-ruffed cock; many a long snap-shot he tried, but somehow always found a tree, a bank, or some safe shield between, and Redruff lived and ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... on a piece of bread very carefully, laid it open beside him, and threw the crust to a lean dog that appeared suddenly from beneath the table, as though it had come up through a trap-door; the half-famished creature bolted the bread with a snap and a gulp and disappeared again as suddenly and silently, just in time to avoid the fat man's slow, ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... whose lives depend on their efforts. They succeeded in getting afloat for a moment, but again struck and remained fast. Meanwhile the brig was lifted by each wave and let fall with a thundering crash; her timbers began to snap like pipe-stems, and as she worked nearer and nearer, it became evident that destruction was not far off. The heavy seas caused by the increasing storm flew over the lifeboat, so that those in her could only hold on to the thwarts for their lives. At last the brig came so near that ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the German craft was caught off his guard. He dashed upon the hydroplane. But as he neared it he swerved to the left to avoid a collision. It was what Jack had expected. Standing up in his precarious position, Jack took a snap shot at the pilot as the German ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... official status for you. But just mark, how many inmates of the principal branch and main offspring have to endure privation, and suffer the pangs of hunger! So beware you, who are the offshoot of a bond-servant, lest you snap your happiness! After enjoying so many good things for a decade, by the help of what spirits, and the agency of what devils have you, I wonder, managed to so successfully entreat your master as to induce him to bring you to the fore again and select you for office? Magistrates may be ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... these preparations were completed, the sharp-starred winter night had settled down upon the solitude. In all the vast there was no sound but the occasional snap, hollow and startling, of some great tree overstrung by the frost, and the intimate little whisper and hiss of Pete's fire down in the trench. Disposing a good bunch of boughs under his head, Pete lighted his pipe, rolled himself in his ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... nodded, picked his men, and rode away. Brian led his seventy closer to the rise of ground, and as they waited they could hear the creaking of wagons and the snap of whips. It was a Royalist convoy, and since there was no love between the Scots and the Irish of any party, Brian's men ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... Dane, and I am English; There is a pleasant fable in old books, Ye take a stick, and break it; bind a score All in one faggot, snap it over knee, ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... "Snap goes our third thread, and we end where we began," said he. "The cunning rascal! He knew our number, knew that Sir Henry Baskerville had consulted me, spotted who I was in Regent Street, conjectured that I had got the number of the cab and would ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... sharp snap of the conversation's thread, and at the same time our three friends realized that they had been careless in not keeping a better look-out. They let fall the meat they had not yet finished eating and seized ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... recollections of summer flies. Amy sat on the outskirts of the company, where Sunbeam could eat from her hand; a privilege he was accustomed to on such occasions. One of the men had brought a camera, and he took a snap-shot at the entire company, just as they had grouped themselves on the sunny slope. Amy and Sunbeam were conspicuous in the group, but when, some days later, the plate was developed, it was found that Mr. Stephen Burns ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... only a Chamberlain at court, a Privy Councillor, and the Tsar himself on this side of the world, but when his inspections and reforms are concluded, and he is one of the wealthiest men in Russia, he will return to St. Petersburg and become so high and mighty that a princess would snap at him. And you aspire! I never ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... had a snap shot. The creature bolted into the forest when it saw the lantern. We didn't get here any ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... color which stamps the property as Uncle Sam's. For reasons that can soon be explained only small-sized flags are ever hoisted near Cheyenne. By noon of three hundred days a year, straight from the wild pass to the west, there comes sweeping down a gale that would snap the stoutest flag-staff into flinders, and that whips even a storm-flag threadbare in ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... one to the other, darkly. In a kind of dull fierce passion he had made up his mind to clear himself before the world, to rend to tatters his garments of romance, to snap his fingers at the stars and destiny and such-like deluding toys, to stand a young Ajax defying the thunderbolts. Here ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... give a snap whether he pays his debts or not. You simply don't want me to associate with him. No, it has not occurred to me that I am not showing you proper respect and neither is it true. Margaret, do you know what is the most absurd and ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... when he did, leaned on the pusher of her go-cart, studying him calmly. Chewing something with a slow, rotary movement of the lips and chin, she broke the action with a snap before quite completing the circle, to begin all over again. "Oh, you do, do you?" ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the midnight find him in his solitary hangar in the moonlit woods, a deeply desponding figure again. Beside him, swung the huge machine which represented a life of power and luxury; but he no longer saw it. It called to him with many a creak and quiet snap,—sounds to start his blood and fire his eye a week—nay, a day ago. But he was deaf to this music now; the call went unheeded; the future had no further meaning, for him, nor did he know or think whether he sat in light or in darkness; ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... ghost-swish above, and his brother had vanished skywards from within an inch of his side. He had turned to stone before two ice-cold eyes, and realized the honest yard of snake behind them. A stoat had passed him with its mouth too full to snap—and ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... efforts to keep from speaking about it yesterday and the day before! You would open your lips to say something every five minutes, and then suddenly recollecting yourself, you would close them again with a determined snap, but it was hard work to keep them closed, I could ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... over there. They are good friends with us, and Gibraltar gets most of its supplies from there. But once through the Straits we give that coast a wide berth; for the Algerine pirates are nearly as bad as ever, and would snap up any ship becalmed on their coast, or that had the bad luck to be blown ashore. I hope, some day, we shall send a fleet down, and blow the place about their ears. It makes one's blood boil, to think that there are hundreds and hundreds of Englishmen working, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... firemen were only too glad of the offered aid. To have a score of husky boys appear so readily on the scene, ready for business, was in the line of a "snap." ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... brutally, scratching away savagely on each other's hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, however. But one of them had lost one eye in the fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving the other to snap his tongs together in anger because he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing to want to hurt somebody and ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... guess—never effective. Yet he was moving toward that tumult; as inexorably as death, he approached it. With eyes feeding upon this new world and ears startled by fierce rumblings, he felt as though he were living in a nightmare; and when the next minute threatened to snap his reason or strangle his frantically pounding heart, he turned to the driver, asking—but fearful ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... the place of the Victory Bond salesman," Abe exclaimed, "which if you want to give me any hypocritical cases for the sake of argument, Mawruss, I have seen the way you practically snap the head off a collector for a charitable fund enough times to appreciate how you would behave towards a Victory Bond salesman, so go ahead on the basis that you are the ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... saplings along the bank of the stream bend and snap under the force of the water. Some were uprooted. Chicken houses and other small structures were snatched from their places and flung wildly along with the ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... the idea that he would have gained anything by flattening it with a bit of silk thread is absurd. What he would have gained would have been a feeling of physical inconvenience during the quiet passages, and terror during the tremendous scenes of passion at the thought that the string might snap. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... other—unless—unless my grandfather consents to acknowledge those checks, and declares that the alterations were made with his knowledge. But that he will not do—because he knows who did it—and he is merciless. I don't care a snap of my finger for the world. You are my world, Dora. If you approve, then I am game. I shall be all right in a few days, and then—then I'll go and do my bit of time, and see the inside of Sing-Sing. It'll be amusing. There's a cab. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... back, prepared himself for cutting the Indian in two, when I saw Captain Nemo rise suddenly, and then, dagger in hand, walk straight to the monster, ready to fight face to face with him. The very moment the shark was going to snap the unhappy fisherman in two, he perceived his new adversary, and, turning over, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... and Stevenson to be the absolute test of capacity for earnest novel-reading. Neither cares a snap of his fingers for anybody's prejudices, but goes the way of stern truth by the light of ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... thought: they suffered, but they are no more! a reflection I frequently summon to calm my mind when sympathy rises to anguish. I therefore desired the driver to hasten to the hotel recommended to me, that I might avert my eyes and snap the train of thinking which had sent me into all the corners of the city in ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... their own against a foreign power as in the days of Waterloo, but whether all these British commonwealths can be made to work together in some sort of federal union, or whether the present ties are to dissolve or snap asunder and girdle the globe with independent states like the American republic, where each may be free to develop under its peculiar conditions the genius ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... support is given we are likely to get up some morning after a heavy rain, or a sudden wind, and find our plants broken down, and in attempting to save them we are pretty sure to complete the wreck, as a slight twist or turn in the wrong direction will snap the stalk off at its ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... told that one saucer had fallen into a mountain lake. This came to me secondhand. The lone witness was said to have rushed over to his car to get his camera as the disk approached. When it plunged toward the lake, he was so startled that he failed to snap the picture until the moment it struck. This story sounded so flimsy that I didn't ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... instinctive response to the vacancy of our social life, and I shall not make haste to blame it. There are few places, few occasions among us, in which a novelist can get a large number of polite people together, or at least keep them together. Unless he carries a snap-camera his picture of them has no probability; they affect one like the figures perfunctorily associated in such deadly old engravings as that of "Washington Irving and his Friends." Perhaps it is for this reason that we excel in small ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the doors leading to the yard, and almost pushing me over he rushed to the black dog with great leaps and the most blood-curdling growls, jumping straight over him, then around him, then over him again and again, and so like a whirlwind, the poor black beast was soon crazy, for snap as fast as he might, it was ever at the clear, beautiful air. Hal was always just ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... Africans in whose possession they may be found after importation."[14] Then, too, when foreigners smuggled in Negroes, "who then ... could be operated on, but the purchasers? There was the rub—it was their interest alone which, by being operated on, would produce a check. Snap their purse-strings, break open their strong box, deprive them of their slaves, and by destroying the temptation to buy, you put an end to the trade, ... nothing short of a forfeiture of the slave would afford ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... such. But relief the King refused. "Why want you Fox? What—Grenville and his friends?" He harped. "You are sufficient without these— Rather than Fox, why, give me civil war!" And fibre that would rather snap than shrink Held out no ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... was his conclusion, "but I never heard anything like it, and she looks as if she'd snap in two, she's ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... concerned," answered Vickers, with a snap of the jaw which showed Copplestone that he was a man of determination. "Warn them, if necessary, that the man they have known as Marston Greyle is an impostor, and that everything they are handling belongs to Miss ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... wincing in response to them. Whenever Jimmy jerked his thumb over his shoulder you saw her blink; and whenever he cracked his knuckles she shrank back. The blink followed the jerk, and the shrinking followed the cracking as the flash follows the snap of the trigger. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... Smith. 'Tis snip snap, Sir, as you say, but methinks not pleasant nor to the purpose, for the play does not go on. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... snap," returned Horace Williams, on the brink of tears—"as soft a snap as anybody ever had in this town. And he's monkeyed it ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... I don't mean now, but when my hair is really up. If I should ever have a—a Margaret of my own, come in and see me, Daddy, in my white bed, and say 'snap'—and I'll have the ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... commit the most extraordinary acts when under its influence. I have observed it, and, all things considered, it has no advantages over the Chinese method of attaining the marriage state. The wisdom of some older person is certainly better than what the American would call the "snap judgment" of two young people carried away by passion. One might find the chief cause of divorce in America to lie in ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... uncomfortable season for spending one's nights in an ill-made hut, and one's days on the brink of a cliff, without companionship, gazing seaward through a heavy telescope for some vessel in distress. But the skipper had made his plans and did not care a snap of his finger for discomforts for himself or his friends. He knew that out of every ten wrecks that took place on the coast within twenty miles of Chance Along, not more than one profited the people of his harbor. They never went afield in search of the gifts of the treacherous sea. They took ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... tiny baby in her arms, while the tears ran down her cheeks. He was such a beautiful baby, so strong and fair and healthy; but the king's order was that he was to be thrown into the river, where the cruel, hungry crocodiles were waiting to snap up everything they could find for a meal. Jochebed, the poor mother, held her baby closer in her arms. No, she could not obey the king's order. She would try and hide the baby for a little ...
— The Babe in the Bulrushes • Amy Steedman
... moralising, merely taking the mean advantage the author is apt to imagine he has established over his reader when he ends off a chapter with a snap, and hopes the said reader will not dare to skip? No, we are not. We really mean something, and shall get to it in time. Let us only be clear ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan |
