"Biting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because they made the very common mistake—of which actors get the benefit—of regarding style as evidence of strength, just as in the case of women they are apt to regard paint as evidence of beauty. Now Wilde was so in love with style that he never realized the danger of biting off more than he could chew: in other words, of putting up more style than his matter would carry. Wise kings wear shabby clothes, and leave the gold lace to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... caravan, allowing the hadji to come within arm's length before she kicked up her heels and dashed away again. We had a long chase through the clumps of oak and holly, but all to no purpose. The great green gad-flies swarmed around us, biting myself as well as my horse. Hecatombs, crushed by my whip, dropped dead in the dust, but the ranks were immediately filled from some invisible reserve. The soil was no longer bare, but entirely covered with grass and flowers. In one of the valleys I saw a large patch of the crimson larkspur, so thick ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... breakfast. She wraps her eggs in a soft silken bag, and hides them in some safe chink, where they lie till spring. The eggs are prettily carved and ornamented, and so hard that the baby spiders have to force their way out by biting the shell open and poking their little heads through. The mother dies as soon as her eggs are safely placed, and the spiderlings have to take ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... lay white in alkali. In a few moments the swift horses had carried the best of the riders deep into the dust-cloud which arose. Each man followed some chosen animal, doing his best to keep it in sight as the herd plowed onward in the biting dust. ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... braves winter. The school is a mile away over the hill, yet he lingers not by the fire; but, with his books slung over his shoulder, he sets out to face the storm. When he reaches the topmost ridge, where the snow lies in drifts, and the north wind comes keen and biting, does he shrink and cower down by the fences, or run into the nearest house to warm himself? No; he buttons up his coat, and rejoices to defy the blast, and tosses the snow-wreaths with his foot; and so, erect ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... struck,' said Vida, biting her lip to repress smiles, 'by the hat of the Woman of ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... buzzing round, And on the fences lighting, Are the sons of slander found, Who never cease their biting. O thou happy, courteous king, To ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... later old Digger tottered in shaking like a reed, followed by an officer and three soldiers. Barbara rose to meet them, biting her lips to repress her emotion "What is it?" she ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... ocean, after the waters had unmercifully swallowed so vast a number of men, loving life—how was it that this music had remained untouched and unweakened, that it had here resumed its fantastic devilishness? Frederick felt as if new cords were biting into his flesh and tightening about his throat. Something like the anguish and frenzy of a bull with a lasso about its horns came over him—a bull whom a cruel power will misuse for a senseless, bloody show in the arena. Frederick did not hit about him. He did not run away, and ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... was not an imaginative man by nature, but he would lie awake nights, his clumsy wits galloping and frisking under the lash of the alcohol, and fancy himself thrashing his wife, till a sudden frenzy of rage would overcome him, and he would shake all over, rolling upon the bed and biting ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... from the table, and went to a window, where she stood biting her lips, and paying small attention to her mother's elaborate protests that she, too, had ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... still in the air, Leif's blade leaped from its scabbard, quivered in the light, and flashed down, biting through fur and hair and flesh and bone. Without a sound, Alwin fell forward heavily, and lay upon his face at ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the purpose of addressing implacable glares at the Other Young Man with More Property, whom She says she always loved as a Brother when they were Children Together; and of smiling bitterly and biting off the ends of his new gloves (which is more than he can really afford, at his salary,) when She softly tells him that he is making a perfect fool of himself. My picture further represents him to be continually permeated by a consciousness ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... coming from somewhere to somewheres, and his "train was delayed," or his huge space-devouring motor "had broken down." You imagined him, enveloped in dust and dusk, his face disguised beyond human semblance, tearing up and down the highways of the world; or else in the corridor of a train, biting his nails with poorly concealed impatience. As a matter of fact, when you saw him, he was beyond average correctly attired, and his manner was suppressed, as if to conceal the keenness that glowed behind his dark eyes and kept the color mounting and receding ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... or your great-uncle, Dr. Everett Gayler, been told forty years ago that a time would come when it would be thought no disgrace for an English girl to jump off a boat with an unmarried man in it.... My dear, I am sure the latter would have made one of those acrid and biting remarks for which he was celebrated in his own circle, and which have even, I believe, been repeated by Royalty. That is the only thing I have to say. I say nothing of girls learning to swim and ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... faced, when his master was clad in strange clothes and wore a sack like the hood of a monk over the top of his weather-worn cap, and he himself was glad to get to the shelter of the hut, where the stove was burning: there was the wet, when all alike were mud-smothered: there were the biting winds of March. But there came the glad spring and the long summer days; the one gave a flavour to the other and created a love for both, and deep down in the heart where that love burnt bright was the pride of his calling, ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... little voice. He could tell little Wienerwurst's bark anywhere. Somehow it was different from any doggie's in the world. There he was, frisking and scampering and biting at the other dogs' tails, just ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... suppositions. He was in despair at the idea of having to let them go away without learning anything about them, especially after having exposed himself. If he had only been able to withdraw the more rabid of his biting remarks about the Fathers. Accordingly, when M. de Guersaint rose to wash his chin, he yielded to a ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... used to lecture and sentimentalise over the tender thing. The tender thing has now taken charge of this island, and men fight it, with torn hands, for bread and life. A singular, insidious thing, shrinking and biting like a weasel; clutching by its roots as a limpet clutches to a rock. As I fought him, I bettered some verses in my poem, the WOODMAN; the only thought I gave to letters. Though the kuikui was thick, there was but a small patch of it, and when I was done I attacked the wild ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the speaker, and glad I was to be free of his gaze. He was a furious man that moment; I could see him biting his lips, and clenching and unclenching his hands from excess of anger. Yet he answered Newman in a soft, even voice, and in the same half-bantering vein the big fellow had used. He was a strong man, was Swope; he could control his temper when ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... who was strongly suspected of alliance with the forest-thieves. Herr von S. took them along to examine them, and the guards left the house without Margaret's giving another sign of life than that of incessantly biting her lips and blinking ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... full of latent fire, his stern, set jaw—his glasses suggesting the student and philosopher, who is always the most perilous and fierce of politicians; and to William O'Brien, Tanner made a running and biting commentary on the speeches—a commentary, as can easily be guessed, from the extreme National point of view. This was the music to which the Orange Colonel had to listen through the long hours that stretched between his early morning arrival and midnight. How men will consent ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... his feet, and his glass was lifted half-heartedly. There was no responsive enthusiasm in him now; it had gone utterly. Peter's voice suddenly filled the room with a mocking laugh, and his toast rang out in tones of sarcasm the more biting ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... reply. Esther retreated upward a few steps, then descended with a brisk step and opened the door. She observed Lady Clifford sitting with a submissive mien on the edge of a stiff Francois Premier chair, biting her underlip and pulling a small lace-edged handkerchief between her fingers. The doctor, with an immovable face, was filling a hypodermic ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... lips aspes-poyson, their eies basiliskes, their breath the breath of a grave, their wordes like swordes of Turkes, that strive which shall dive deepest into a Christian lying bound before them. But for these barking and biting dogs, they are as well knowne ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... the Kama Sutra would be a dullard indeed. Some of the remarks are quaint enough. Thus we are told that "nothing tends to increase love so much as the effects of marking with the nails [397] and biting." Some girls when asked in marriage are slow to make up their minds. With that situation there are, it seems, several ways of dealing. The simplest is the following: "When the girl goes to a garden, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... this visit to London that I heard of the fall of Von Landstein's (Dr. Mulhaus') Ministry, which had happened a year or two before. And now, also, I read the speech he made on his resignation, which, for biting sarcasm and bitter truth rudely told, is unequalled by any speech I ever read. A more witty, more insolent, more audacious tirade, was never hurled at a successful opposition by a fallen minister. The K—— party sat furious, as one by one were ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... of the china sufficed to fill the captain's mind until the fish stopped biting, and they decided to ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... a wild laugh they sprang away, most of them towards the cottage. During the latter part of the song-talk, they had formed themselves into a funeral procession, two of them bearing poor Primrose, whose death Pocket had hastened by biting her stalk, upon one of her own great leaves. They bore her solemnly along some distance, and then buried her under a tree. Although I say HER I saw nothing but the withered primrose-flower on its long stalk. Pocket, who had been expelled from the company by common ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... how the flakes came down! O how the fire burned high! Strange thing to see he was, Thro' his dry twigs would fly, Creep there awhile and sleep— Then wake and bark for fight— Biting if I too near Came to his eye so bright. Then with a will you fed Wood to his ...
— General William Booth enters into Heaven and other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... commanded to row to the mound. Meanwhile they had taken the man from the river, let him cough out water, and seized him a second time by the legs, in spite of the unearthly screams of his wife, who fell to biting the men who ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... Shih-tien we climbed a high mountain and wound down a sharp descent for about 4,000 feet into a valley only 2,300 feet above sea level. We had been cold all day on the ridges exposed to a biting wind and had bundled ourselves into sweaters and coats over flannel shirts. After going down about 1,000 feet we tied our coats to the saddle pockets, on the second thousand stripped off the sweaters, and for the remainder of the descent rode with sleeves ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... cold, with a biting wind from the icy north, when after a hasty luncheon I put on my overcoat and strolled along the deserted quay where I lounged at the further end, watching the approach of a great pontoon of pine logs ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... still fought around me, and sometimes within three feet of me; but, at last, the bear got down into one of the cracks that the earthquake had made in the ground, about four feet deep, and I could tell the biting end of him by the hollering of my dogs. So I took my gun and pushed the muzzle of it about, till I thought I had it against the main part of his body, and fired; but it happened to be only the fleshy part of his foreleg. With ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... obvious to the senses, as that of walking across the room, was to the philosopher demonstrating the non-existence of motion. It was in D'Holbach's conventicles that Rousseau imagined all the machinations against him were contrived and he left, in his Confessions, the most biting anecdotes of Grimm. These appeared after I left France; but I have heard that poor Grimm was so much afflicted by them, that he kept his bed several weeks. I have never seen the Memoirs of Grimm. Their volume has kept them out ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... steadily toward the south, and Christmas Day found them "lying in a little tent, isolated high on the roof of the world, far from the ways trodden by man." With forty-eight degrees of frost, drifting snow, and a biting wind, they spent the next few days hauling their sledges up a steep incline. They had now only a month's food left. Pressing on with reduced rations, in the face of freezing winds, they reached a height of ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... omitting his own expulsion by wily Mrs. Aliston. As he repeated, with wonderful accuracy, considering his condition, the wild words uttered by Sybil, his listener sat very erect, with wild staring eyes, and lips held tightly together, his teeth almost biting through them; with burning eyes, and quivering frame, and a ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... out of a month's wages, if she could do so with some slant of legal wind in her favour. She would tell any number of lies to carry a point in what she believed to be social success. It was said of her that she cheated at cards. In back-biting, no venomous old woman between Bond Street and Park Lane could beat her,—or, more wonderful still, no venomous old man at the clubs. But nevertheless she recognised certain duties,—and performed them, though she hated them. She ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... men will assume a debt, voluntarily, then repudiate it, are they sufficiently responsible persons to assume for all time the handling of the irrigation system and water power the government is developing for them?" Jim's voice was slow and biting. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... way, and you ought to know it," said Mollie. "I detest fighting myself, but I know that when it is done right—if ever there is such a time—there is no biting ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... never mentioned them. The child, with her many changes and gentle nature, had developed a certain tact or adaptiveness, and loved pleasantness. She was just a little afraid of Aunt Elizabeth's sharpness. It was like a biting wind. She always made comparisons in her mind, and saw ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... plowing on his fretted garments. Then he choked and spluttered, for the hot fluid scalded him, and a roar of laughter saved the situation. Made as it was over a cup of very smoky tea, that compact was carried out faithfully under parching heat and bitter cold, in the biting dust of alkali and under the silence of the primeval bush. For an hour we lounged smoking and chatting in ox-hide chairs, watching the red glow from the range door flicker upon the guns and axes on the wall, or the moonlight broaden ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... responded, biting his lip and watching the two; "but we poor single men have no such bliss, and must be content to watch the happiness of others. Still, there is left me the sweet sorrow of saying good night." He extended his hand to the girl, who let hers rest for an instant ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... of the head. Half in anger, half in play the anthropoid turned upon him, his fangs bared and glistening. Long, hairy arms reached out to seize him, and, as they had done a thousand times before, the two clinched in mimic battle, rolling upon the sward, striking, growling and biting, though never closing their teeth in more than a rough pinch. It was wondrous practice for them both. The boy brought into play wrestling tricks that he had learned at school, and many of these Akut learned to use and to foil. And from the ape the boy learned the methods ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... watching him as he went down the street, biting her lips to restrain her feelings; but the tears stood in her eyes, and she kept a convulsive hold on the curtains, behind which she was concealing herself. For the conquest she had made, which had also on her side been at first only mere vanity, had ended by becoming a serious matter. She really ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... begging your pardon, Mrs Richards, that don't matter, you know,' returned the black-eyed girl, who was so desperately sharp and biting that she seemed to make one's eyes water. 'I may be very fond of pennywinkles, Mrs Richards, but it don't follow that I'm to have 'em for tea. 'Well, it don't matter,' said Polly. 'Oh, thank'ee, Mrs Richards, don't it!' returned the sharp girl. 'Remembering, however, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... whatever the words might be, and the laugh that came after would have softened any repartee, with its undernote of good humour and harmless gaiety. Biting her lips to preserve the dignity of silence, Polly passed downstairs. Sunshine through a landing window illumined the dust floating thickly about the staircase and heated the familiar blend of lodging-house smells—the ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... it pays. Anything that trains a boy to think and to think quick pays; anything that teaches a boy to get the answer before the other fellow gets through biting the pencil, pays. ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... with the fly, and one pike with a gudgeon,—a noble fellow! Look at him! He was lying under the reeds yonder; I saw his green back, and teased him into biting. A heavenly evening! I wonder you did not follow my example, and escape from a set where neither you nor I can feel very much at home, to this green banquet of Nature, in which at least no man sits below the salt-cellar. The birds are an older family than ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... [1179] A biting of the lips is elsewhere introduced as a figure. See the author's monograph, "A Fragment of the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... a certain petulance and doggedness; taking a namesake out of her breast-pocket, biting its end off, and striking a fusee. A word from this aristocrate was more welcome to him than a bullet that had saved ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... thoroughly before eating, and use the end of a nail file to remove the accumulation still remaining under the nails. Keep the nails properly trimmed. They should not be too long nor too short. If long they are liable to break and if short to be sensitive. Biting the nails is a filthy practice and mutilates the fingers dreadfully and makes them unsightly. It is a very hard habit to overcome ofttimes and will require persistent effort in order to succeed. By keeping ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... however being laid for walls and roofed in with thick wadding tilts, they were sheltered from the snow, whilst stoves and ovens were fixed inside." Hunting was useless, and resulted in nothing but the frost-biting of the limbs of some of the hunters, as Melville Island was deserted at the end of October by all animals except wolves and foxes. To get through the long winter without dying of ennui was no easy matter, but the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... effulgent surges adown the vale. How the owl hoots with surprise at the interrupting light! Bird of wisdom, it is the Fourth! and you may well add your voice to swell the choral honors of the time. How the tall old pines, withered by the biting scathe of Eld, rise to the view, afar and near; white shafts, bottomed in darkness, and standing like the serried spears of an innumerable army! The groups around the beacon are gathered together, but are forced to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... all creatures that the gratification accompanying the fulfilment of needful functions serves as a stimulus to their fulfilment—as, during the self-education of the young child, the delight taken in the biting of corals and the pulling to pieces of toys, becomes the prompter to actions which teach it the properties of matter; it follows that, in choosing the succession of subjects and the modes of instruction which most interest the pupil, we are fulfilling ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... impossible to think of remaining longer in the hotel. Its massive walls could, perhaps, withstand the fire for a time, but the biting volumes of smoke, which had already taken Heideck's breath away when he had opened the window for a moment, would soon render it impossible for human beings to stay longer in the heat. All at once came a heavy knocking at the door, and Morar Gopal, who had been looking for Heideck everywhere in ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... tried to pierce the surrounding darkness. There might be most anything in that hold—creeping, crawling, biting things! She was beginning to lose her confidence in Sammy's ability, pirate or no pirate, to get them out ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... of biting contempt in the tones, as well as the words of the half-intoxicated man, that Slade, who had himself been drinking rather more freely than usual, was angered beyond self-control. Catching up an empty glass from the counter, he hurled it with ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... trying to jump you?" asked L. W. irritably. "What's biting you, anyway? Ain't your claims all legal? Has anybody disputed you? Well, get ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking though by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting the feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was in such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet, which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... gentle name was coin'd too late, And shadow'd in the shrouds of biting hate. Despatch! [Kill him.] why so; good fortune to my friends— As for my foes, even such shall be their ends. Convey them hence. Metellus, gentle Metellus, Fetch me Sertorius from Iberia: In doing so thou standest me in stead, For sore I long ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... so stern, so self-contained, that her self-possession forsook her for a moment, and she stood biting softly at her underlip and looking by turns at the ultramarine sea and the stern face of the lover whom she was discarding. He held out ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... out a case, and then laughing, for the police officer was watching him keenly. "That's right; there are three or four diamonds in every one of these cigars, and as I smoke you'll notice that I don't burn much of the end I light, but that I keep on biting off bits of the leaf till I get to the diamonds, ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... own country, and ye will not help men at the Thing, though they need it. No doubt you will be held up to reproach at the Thing, and very great blame will be laid on you if ye bare not in mind that scorn and those biting words which Skarphedinn hurled at you men ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... be none other than the James B. Potter, was seen to come out of Mulata Bay and head for the passage, steaming thence out to sea and away to the eastward at a rapid pace, though not so fast but that Villacampa, unconsciously biting his finger nails to the quick in the excess of his mortification, felt convinced that the yacht could have caught her, had that vessel only been under way at the moment. She was not, however, and it was not until the American craft had sunk ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... ill humour in the milk itself, yet it may corrupt the child's stomach because of its weakness or some other indisposition; in which, acquiring an acrimony, instead of being well digested, there arise from it thrice biting vapours, which forming a thick viscosity, do ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... Campbell's lines on "The Heritage of Life" are smooth in construction and proper in sentiment, though they are far from showing their author at his best. Mr. Campbell is a supreme master of the philosophical essay and of pointed, satirical prose, being a very "Junius" in bold, biting invective; but is placed at something of a disadvantage in the domain of conventional poetry. Rheinhart Kleiner and ourselves revel in heroic couplets of widely differing nature. Our own masterpiece is in full Queen Anne style with carefully balanced lines and strictly measured quantities. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... him. Only the rough, sturdy Irishman rose superior to that bodily craving. That gleam of river must be somewhere near Halfa, and his wife might be upon the very water at which he looked. He pulled his hat over his eyes, and rode in gloomy silence, biting ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the muzzle of his shotgun for the unseen intruder whose coming had aroused the household. In a brushpile just over the fence to the east Mr. Trimm lay on his face upon the wet earth, with the rain beating down on him, sobbing with choking gulps that wrenched him cruelly, biting at the bonds on his wrists until the sound of breaking teeth gritted in the air. Finally, in the hopeless, helpless frenzy of his agony he beat his arms up and down until the bracelets struck squarely on a flat stone and the force of the blow sent the cuffs home to the last notch so that ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... when Buck dashed into camp and sprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him, scrambling upon him, licking his face, biting his hand—"playing the general tom-fool," as John Thornton characterized it, the while he shook Buck back and forth and cursed ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... Hood who inspired Jerrold with the idea of the biting article headed "Daring Robbery by a Noble Lord-Punch's Police." In this instance Punch was genuinely indignant, and he proceeded to make Lord William's life a burden to him with such announcements ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... touched with fire and eloquence because she spoke with authority, Seth too talked with a bitter brilliance that won the crowd and held it against its will. With biting sarcasm and horrible accuracy Seth drew a picture of Fanny as made Green Valley smile and laugh before it could catch itself and realize the cruelty of ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... of shields and the shock of men, the bitter hand-to-hand struggle and the 115 slaughter of hosts, when once they had passed within an arrow's flight. On the fated folk dire enemies hurled a shower of darts, and with might of arm sent their spears, biting battle-adders, over the yellow shields into the midst of their foes. But with 120 courage undaunted the other host advanced; from time to time they surged forward, broke the rampart of shields, thrust their swords between, and ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf
... and close the door carefully behind me. As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky and a few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm came whirling in, biting my cheeks ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the midst of wild movement. All about me was the same movement. I had been caught up in a monstrous flood that was sweeping me I knew not whither. Fresh air was on my cheek and biting sweetly in my lungs. Faint and dizzy, I was vaguely aware of a strong arm around my body under the arms, and half-lifting me and dragging me along. Feebly my own limbs were helping me. In front of me I could see the moving back of a ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... return. The animal was placed in an inner yard, which, for sometime back, had been in the sole occupation of the house-dog; and the latter, considering the new comer an intruder, did not fail to give the poor stranger many biting taunts accordingly. Deserted, scorned, insulted and ill-treated, the poor animal availed himself of the first opportunity, and escaped. The landlord scoured the country in quest of the fugitive, without effect. After the lapse of a few days, the traveller's dog returned ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... sitting with his back to the window, he was observing his pretty patient very closely. She had reddened angrily and was biting her lips. What a little vixen she was, to be sure! And suddenly she saw what ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... A cold, biting, north wind blew over Abersethin one morning in November, the sea tossed and tumbled its sand-stained waves in the bay, the wind carrying large lumps of yellow foam far up over the beach, and even to the village street, where the "Vicare du" was ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... with some enthusiasm; but my companion did not respond; she remained silent, gazing dreamily into the far distance; and when I looked at her, awaiting some answering remark, I saw that she was quite pale, that she was biting her under-lip in a fruitless endeavour to stay its quivering, and that there were undoubtedly tears in her eyes. She averted her face quickly, but I was confident that I was not mistaken as to those indications of emotion. Presently ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the flesh, that the flame may inflict more exquisite anguish. The warrior, in these cases; goaded to fury, sweeps round the extent of his circle, kicking, biting, and stamping with inconceivable fury. The throng of women and children laugh, and fly from the circle, and fresh tormentors fill it again. At other times the humor takes him to show them, that he can bear all this, without a grimace, a spasm, or indication of suffering. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... it refrains entirely from biting is confirmed by my autopsy of the stricken caterpillars. In the patient's belly, notwithstanding the number of nurselings who hardly leave room for the nurse's entrails, everything is in perfect order; nowhere do ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... helped to shorten the way. What surprised me not a little was, how soundly my companions snoozed, considering how they had supped. The stages passed slowly and wearily. At length there came a long, a very long halt. I roused myself, and stepped out. I was in a spacious street, with the cold biting wind blowing through it. The horses were away; the postilions had disappeared; some of the passengers were perambulating the pavement, and the rest were fast asleep in the diligence, which stood on the causeway, like a stranded vessel on the beach. On consulting my ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... to have lessons from him and his presence gave distinction to any assemblage. But Johann did not wish to waste his time at social functions; when obliged to be present at some of these events he would remain silent the entire evening, or else say sharp or biting things, making the hosts regret they had asked him. His relations with the Court family, however, remained very pleasant. Yet he began to chafe under the constant demands on his time, and the rigid etiquette of the little Court. The next season ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... in heavy pain. A stolid young man who carried the case of instruments freshly steaming from their antiseptic bath made an observation which the surgeon apparently did not hear. He was thinking, now, his thin face set in a frown, the upper teeth biting hard over the under lip and drawing up the pointed beard. While he thought, he watched the man extended on the chair, watched him like an alert cat, to extract from him some hint as to what he should do. This absorption seemed to ignore completely the other occupants of the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... had just left, the sharp biting cold was refreshing, and against the glistening needles of snow she pressed rapidly on, until finally the trees in the square ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and dropped on a chair. The old man remained standing before him, wrapping the skirts of his motley old dressing-gown around him, stooping very much, and biting his lips. ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Vincent so disposed to the biting mood, I immediately directed his rabies towards Mr. Aberton, for whom I had ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the keenest terms, expressed his contemptuous indignation at the Scotch patrons of the poet, in making him an exciseman! so that something biting ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... to stop, she supposed that his better feelings had reasserted themselves; and she had prepared herself to receive with dignity a broken, stammered apology. But the voice that had just spoken with a crisp, biting intensity was not the voice of remorse. It was a very angry man, not a penitent one, who was commanding—not begging—her to stop ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Shabako's veins. Its potency, adequate to the tremendous task of revitalizing a long-dead heart, had given out—hastened, no doubt, by the great physical exertions of the man, and made sudden by the return to the biting air of the ice fields. The liquid was only for emergency use, anyway, and supposed to serve for a period of but hours, after which the heart was ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... a fine gallop, did you!" she said, in a tone of biting irony. "I am glad of it. Mr. William Plummer ought to have his gallop, under ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... east wind blowing from the mouth of the lake, is now exploded, and is considered in the light of a by-gone tale; although, for three-quarters of a century, it was considered baneful even to the healthy. Consumptive patients are, however, soon carried off, the biting blasts from the Canadian shores proving very fatal in pulmonary complaints, and the ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... and plunged into the water of the sea without waiting for the turtles to reach them; but the chief himself was slow in escaping. It may be that he was ashamed to run while the mermaids were watching, but if this was so he made a great mistake. The turtles snapped at his fins and tail and began biting round chunks out of them so that Chief Muffruff screamed with pain and anger and floundered into the water as fast as he could go. The vengeful turtles were certainly the victors, and now held undisputed possession of ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... bear had torn some of the poles in two and was madly tearing and biting at others. Sullivan was short and so were the drills. To get within easier reach, he placed the table almost under the gnawing bear, sprang upon it, and called to Jason for a red-hot drill. Jason was about to hand him one when he noticed a small bear climbing ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... rope was held loosely in his hand, the broad loop lying on the ground a few feet behind him, while the cowboy began milling the biting, kicking ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... Sr., biting his lip to restrain his impatience, "I told you before that I could not interfere even if I would; and I won't, because that man is my enemy. Important business interests, which you cannot possibly know anything about, demand his dismissal from ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... spheres is in danger of being lost in the clouds. It becomes ridiculous as soon as it ceases to conform to actual working tactics. In his classical work on the decisive battle of August 18, 1870, Captain Fritz Hoenig has reached a sound conclusion. After his biting criticism of the many gross errors of Steinmetz and Zastrow, after his description of the triple panic of the German troops opposite the French left in the valley and the ravine of the Mance, he ends by a reflection which serves ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... there was a missionary named the Rev. John T. Arum, who set out to preach to the Indians. He had a good heart but a bitter, biting tongue. He had no respect for the laws of the Indians, so they killed him, and buried him in the woods. But out of his grave came a new and wonderful plant, shaped like a pulpit, and right in ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... that bellowed mightily as they haled him, and the dogs and the young men sped after him. The lions rending the great bull's hide were devouring his vitals and his black blood; while the herdsmen in vain tarred on their fleet dogs to set on, for they shrank from biting the lions but stood hard by and barked ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... showed such little eagerness to be caught by me that I generally preferred to steer and watch my companion pulling them out as he stood in the prow, his face nearly hidden under the thatch of his straw hat. When the fish were in a biting humour, he had one on his hook every time he ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... content themselves with refusing to consume the scum which thickens on the surface of the boiled rice, and the Nun sept will not lick a plate in which salt and water have been mixed. At the weddings of the Vulture clan of the small Bhona caste one member of the clan kills a small chicken by biting off the head and then eats it in imitation of a vulture. Definite instances of the sacrificial eating of the totem animal have not been found, but it is said that the tiger and snake clans of the Bhatra tribe formerly ate their totems at a sacrificial meal. The Gonds also worship ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... torture, he lit his pipe and drew savagely upon it. With a mocking gurgle, about a dram of "slumgullion" passed into his mouth. It was the last touch. He spat out the biting, nauseating stuff, hurled the pipe upon the rocks ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... his first plunge into these struggles England stood sorely in need of a pen as biting, as witty and as fearless, as that of Henry Fielding. For over ten years the country had been ruled by one of those "peace at any price" Ministers who have at times so successfully inflamed the baser commercial instincts of Englishmen. Sir Robert Walpole, the reputed organiser ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... indomitable man of iron whom no fortune could break nor bend, and who imposed his will upon them as it were a yoke of steel—this idea became for them a sort of obsession. Forward, if it were only a yard; if it were only a foot. Forward over the heart-breaking, rubble ice; forward against the biting, shrieking wind; forward in the face of the blinding snow; forward through the brittle crusts and icy water; forward, although every step was an agony, though the haul-rope cut like a dull knife, though their clothes were sheets of ice. Blinded, panting, bruised, bleeding, ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously, and catch him biting at a round of hot buttered teacake, with his eyes on me. Confound him! ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... any poet of the day; we mean that he is far better than Lord Byron, Mr. Wordsworth, or Mr. Coleridge, for instance. The manner is perhaps superior to the matter, that is, in his Essays and Reviews. There is rather a want of originality and even of impetus: but there is no want of playful or biting satire, of ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... in its flight over the snow-piled Sierras, and it had pelted down in a wintry flood, banking up piles of stinging hail between warmer showerings. Fred had decided to forgo his soliciting and stay indoors instead. Hilmer greeted him with biting raillery. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... with a little apologetic glance at the commissioners. Levine's eyes were fastened on Lydia's face with an expression that was as sweet as it was fathomless. Charlie Jackson stood biting his nails and waiting, his affection for Lydia holding in abeyance his frenzied ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... expressions and witticisms. Like good watch-dogs amongst a frightened herd which trample them under foot, or pierce them with their horns, they allow themselves to be pierced and trampled on without biting, and would remain at their post to the end were they not driven away ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... things were the cunners, known along Massachusetts Bay mainly as perch. Names are good only in certain localities. If you ask a Hingham boy how the cunners are biting he will be likely to throw rounded beach stones at you, thinking he is being made game of. Down at Newport, R. I., they catch cunners and if you talk salt-water perch to them it is at your peril. Elsewhere they are chogsett, or peradventure burgall, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... Bruce, as grateful as though he had written special letters of endorsement for him to all his friends. "Say," with his impulsive hospitality, "I wish you could come out and visit me. Couldn't you get away the end of August when the bull-trout and the redsides are biting good?" ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... carried a little bottle of spirits and water to drink. In the night I was to eat a little biscuit. None of the camels had bridles, unless used solely to ride upon. The camel which I rode was a very good one, and very knowing, and, like many knowing animals, very vicious. He was in the habit of biting all the other camels which did not please him on their hind quarters, but took care not to get bitten himself. He seldom stumbled, and I was rarely in fear of falling. A camel will never plunge down a deep descent, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... degrading convict-dress, with chains on his feet, as she had so often found her father when she visited him in jail; there he sat in a little dusky cell on a projecting part of the wall, eating from a wooden bowl filled with a thin broth, repulsive in appearance and smell and biting pieces of earth-colored bread as hard as a brick; the cell was impregnated with horrible odours; the bare stone flags of the floor were icy cold; a ragged, dirty sack of straw, and a thin, tattered coverlet swarming ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... study for several moments, and began biting his lips. The countess sat down at the piano with the most amiable nonchalance as if she gave not another thought to what she had ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... long before the new guard came down the cliff. Gerda stretched and drew a deep breath, savoring the summer morning air. Now, it was pleasant, a happy contrast to the sullen skies and biting winter winds he had faced a few ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... was thought to be a great soul is a fraud. But that conclusion was not Browning's intention. Finally, if this be a tragedy it is clothed with comedy. Browning's humour was never more wise, kindly, worldly and biting than in the second act, and Ogniben may well be set beside Bishop Blougram. It would be a privilege to dine with either ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke |
