"Eel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vigorous turn, having from her earliest youth devoted herself with uncommon ardour to the study of law; not wasting her speculations upon its eagle flights, which are rare, but tracing it attentively through all the slippery and eel-like crawlings in which it commonly pursues its way. Nor had she, like many persons of great intellect, confined herself to theory, or stopped short where practical usefulness begins; inasmuch as she could ingross, fair-copy, fill up printed forms with perfect accuracy, and, in short, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... entirely flat but was pressed up into mountains by a mythical woman, Agusanan. It has always rested on the back of a great eel whose movements cause earthquakes. Sometimes crabs or other small animals annoy him until, in his rage, he attempts to reach them, then the earth is shaken so violently that whole mountains are thrown ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... care not to be last for long. By way of covering their confusion the runaways yelled at the soldiers following them and screamed: "Assassins!" long before a single blow had been struck. Berthe wriggled through the crowd like an eel, shrieking at the top of her voice. She rejoined her friends; and taking shelter behind Coquard's broad back, she recovered her breath, pressed close up against Christophe, gripped his arm, in fear or for some other reason, ogled Olivier, and shook her fist ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... mantis-shrimp—tender, delicate and affectionate—which dies quickly when removed from its asylum, as well as a singular creature which has no charm of character, and must be the dullest sort of lodger possible to imagine. It is a miniature eel, which looks as if it had been drawn out of rock crystal or perfectly clear glass. There is no apparent difference between the head and the tail, save that one end tapers more gradually than the other. Very limited power of motion has been bestowed upon it. It cannot wriggle. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... be idle to attempt to describe all these wigs, how they swelled at the sides, and turned under in rolls, and rose in puffs, and then shrank to a small close wig that vanished at Revolutionary times in powdered natural hair and a queue of ribbon, a bag, or an eel-skin, and finally gave way to cropped hair "a-la-Brutus or a-la-Titus," as a Boston hair-dresser ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... northwest for its entire length. East of the Coast Range the Sacramento River flows due south, while to the west of the broken mountains all the streams flow northwesterly—more northerly than westerly. Eel River flows about 130 miles northerly and, say, forty miles westerly. The same course is taken by the Mattole, the Mad, and the Trinity rivers. The watershed of this corner to the northwest is extensive, including a good part of ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... they came into the duck-yard. There was a terrible row going on in there, for two families were fighting about an eel's head, and so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Owl, the Eel and the Warming Pan" and "The Difference," from Sundown Songs, by Laura ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... commotion at the door. Somebody was trying to force a passage in. The president rose from his chair, and looked over the crowd. McGaw started from his chair, looked anxiously at the clock, then at his partner. The body of a boy struggling like an eel worked its way through the mass, dodged under the wooden bar, and threw an ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and trusting the remainder to the transformation which might be produced by the dress, or rather undress, of a Neapolitan waterman. The greatest obstacle to this arrangement had been a certain queue, which Ithuel habitually wore in a cured eel-skin that he had brought with him from America, eight years before, and both of which, "queue and eel-skin," he cherished as relics of better days. Once a week this queue was unbound and combed, but all the remainder of the time it continued in a solid mass quite a foot in length, being ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... cheaper to let the chevalier go free than to feed him in the Vier Prison," dryly explained Ranulph, helping himself to roasted conger eel and eyeing hungrily the freshly-made black butter Guida was taking from a wooden trencher. "The Royal Court is stingy," he added. "'It's nearer than Jean Noe, who got married in his red queminzolle,' as we ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... three others, who had an equal aversion to solitary feeding, had established a breakfast-club, in which, thanks to Drysdale's genius, real scientific gastronomy was cultivated. Every morning the boy from the Weirs arrived with freshly caught gudgeon, and now and then an eel or trout, which the scouts on the staircase had learnt to fry delicately in oil. Fresh watercresses came in the same basket, and the college kitchen furnished a spitchedcocked chicken, or grilled turkey's leg. In the season there were plover's ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... summer, red with the touch of October. The flood tide pours strong and full around them, only to ebb away and lay bare a desolation of rocks and stones buried in a shock of brown drenched seaweed, broad tracts of glistening mud, sandbanks black with mussel-beds, and half-submerged meadows of eel-grass, with myriads of minute shellfish clinging to its long lank tresses. Beyond all these lies the main, or northern channel, more than deep enough, even when the tide is out, to float a line-of-battle-ship. ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... year 1719 entered into an especial partnership, for the purpose of printing some expensive works, and styled themselves "the Printing Conger." The term "Conger" was supposed to have been at first applied to them invidiously, alluding to the conger eel, which is said to swallow the smaller fry; or it may possibly have been taken from congeries. The "Conger" met ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... cock, a wren, a mouse, a weasel, a fox, a badger, a raven—-all the birds and beasts that the King's Son had ever known. He went on, but he saw no living creature before him. And then, at the end of the waste he came upon two living creatures struggling. One was an eagle and the other was an eel. And the eel had twisted itself round the eagle, and the eagle had covered her eyes with the black films of death. The King's Son jumped off his horse and cut the eel in two with a ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... hardly recognizable for the same man," said the Portuguese laughingly to the Vicomtesse, when Eugene had taken leave of them. "He will break the bank. He is as supple as an eel; he will go a long way, of that I am sure. Who else could have picked out a woman for him, as you did, just ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... arose then in the constricted passageway that seemed to Ken to raise College Hall from its foundation. It terrified him. Like an eel he slipped through reaching arms and darted forward. Ken was heavy and fast on his feet, and with fear lending him wings he made a run through College Hall that would have been a delight to the football coach. For Ken was not ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... the opening door Coppertop wriggled out of her grasp like an eel, twisting his lithe young body round to see who the new arrival might be. His face fell woefully as he caught sight ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... extending southward from Smith River along the California coast to the mouth of Klamath River;[15] the Hup villages or "clans" formerly on Lower Trinity River, California;[16] the Kenesti or Wailakki (2), located as follows: "They live along the western slope of the Shasta Mountains, from North Eel River, above Round Valley, to Hay Fork; along Eel and Mad Rivers, extending down the latter about to Low Gap; also on Dobbins and Larrabie Creeks;"[17] and Saiaz, who "formerly occupied the tongue of land jutting down between Eel River and Van ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... in heaven, their roots and water kept them for a century from their wishes. I have lived all my life like an anchoret in London, and within ten miles, shed my skin after the gout, and am as lively as an eel in a week after. Mr. Chute, who has drunk no more wine than a fish, grows better every year. He has escaped this winter with only a little pain in one hand. Consider that the physicians recommended wine, and then can you doubt of its being poison? Medicines may ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... apparel, than the chal either tore himself away, or contrived to slip out of it; so that in a little time the chal was three parts naked; and as for holding him by the body, it was out of the question, for he was as slippery as an eel. At last the engro seized the chal by the Belcher's handkerchief, which he wore in a knot round his neck, and do whatever the chal could, he could not free himself; and when the engro saw that, it gave him fresh heart, no doubt; 'It's of no use,' said he; 'you had better give in; hold ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... depth of some fathoms. The mode in which they were captured was the following. A long rope was let down into the sea, with baskets of reeds or rushes attached to it at intervals, constructed like our lobster-traps or eel-baskets, with an opening that yielded easily to pressure from the outside, but resisted pressure from the inside, and made escape, when once the trap was entered, impossible. The baskets were baited with mussels or ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... comfortably in thought on Sunday mornings.) And if Withers is about I'll go out in the boat—the big one, the little one leaks—and set a trimmer or two for to-morrow. I'm not sure I'll set one under the south bank, for there was the devil to pay last time, when that beast of an eel got among the roots. I'll ask Withers what he thinks. I wish Gresley would not call the Dissenters blind leaders of the blind. It's such bad form, and I don't suppose the text meant that to start ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... "she is an eel that wriggles through your hands; but the prettiest eel, as white and sweet as sugar, as amusing as ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... everywhere; Chummed with him and fished with him in every Sportsman's lair. Helped him with the white Sea-bass and Barracuda haul, Shared the Tuna's sprayful sport and heard his Hunter-call, Me an' Grey are fishin' friends.... Pals of rod and reel, Whether it's the sort that fights ... or th' humble eel, On and on, through Wonderland ... winds a-blowin' free, Catching all th' fins that grow ... ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... difficulty by the united manhood of us three elder boys. Then it was I noted first the blazing blueness of her eyes. She was light and very plucky, so that none of us cared to climb against her, and she was as difficult to hold as an eel. But all these traits and characteristics vanished when ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... she's a day, and she's got a hare-lip and a cock-eye. She's uglier than sin, and snugger than eel-skin; one o' them kind that when you prick 'em they bleed sour milk; and what she wants is for her brother-in-law to send her his wife's clo'es, 'cause he's goin' to marry again. All Shellback's ben talkin' about it ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... passing silently, leaves no story behind, Sahib," he said, simply. "We have not caught our eels yet. But they are both coming back into our eel pot." And as the days dragged on Alan Hawke beguiled the time with the most energetic inroads ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Mystery," the Mock Turtle replied, counting out the subjects on his flappers—"Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography; then Drawling—the Drawing-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week; he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils. The Classical master taught Laughing and Grief, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... over the ancient timbers Is built a magic deck; Children run out with laughter and shout And dance around the wreck; The fisherman near his long eel-spear Thrusts in through the ice, or stands With fingers on lips, and now and then whips His sides ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... eel and fry it in two ounces of butter, and when it is a good colour add a tablespoonful of flour, about half a pint of stock, a glass of Chablis, a bay leaf, pepper, and salt, and boil till it is well cooked. In the meantime boil separately all sorts of vegetables, such as carrots, cauliflower, celery, ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... gladly on the crest of the surf waves. He delighted to drive his canoe alone out into the storm. He fought with the monsters of the deep, as well as with men. He captured the great shark that abounds in the bay, and he would clutch in the fearful grip of his hands the deadly eel or snake of these seas, the terror of ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... with the water. We soon collected a sufficient supply of sticks, and had our fire blazing and our fish cooking. The cat-fish, in spite of its ugly name and uglier looks, proved excellent, though somewhat rich—tasting very like an eel. ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... bolted headlong, fairly into Captain Church himself, among the baggage and the horses. This was a surprise for the captain, too. He grabbed him but could not keep him, because he was a naked Indian and as slippery as an eel. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... how to plant alewives or herring as fertilizer for the Indian corn. He taught the boys and girls how to gather clams and mussels on the shore and to "tread eels" in the water that is still called Eel River. He gathered wild strawberries and sassafras for the women and they prepared a "brew" which almost equalled their ale of old England. The friendly Indians assisted the men, as the seasons opened, in hunting wild turkeys, ducks ...
— The Women Who Came in the Mayflower • Annie Russell Marble
... Zenas Henry. "What a question! What would any fool do? There ain't no choice left you but to hang head downwards over the stern of the boat an' claw the eel-grass off the ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... shores on a narrow strip of beach, where the driftwood of many years and many storms had stranded, seemingly forever. All three had rolled into blankets, with sleep hovering above and about them, when, noiselessly as the dawn, Fox-Foot slipped from his bed like an eel, dipped under the tent, and ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... treaties had been signed, and several others, and then walked through the street of "Everlasting Prosperity," as the Chinese gentlemen explained it. The prosperity seemed to consist mainly in the sale of eel-pies with baked potatoes, the former kept hot at a small charcoal fire. Live fish in shallow bowls with a little water in them were common, and cook-shops for more elaborate Chinese ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... Greenwich, Windsor? WHERE?????? while the day is bright, not when it has dwindled away to nothing! For who can be of any use whatsomdever such a day as this, excepting out of doors?" Or it might be interrogatory summons to "A hard trot of three hours?" or intimation as laconic "To be heard of at Eel-pie House, Twickenham!" When first I knew him, I may add, his carriage for his wife's use was a small chaise with a smaller pair of ponies, which, having a habit of making sudden rushes up by-streets in the day and peremptory standstills in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... knife, and as a great eel about three feet long was drawn over the side they did not trouble to extract the hook which was swallowed right down; but Josh cut the string of the snooding close to the living creature's jaws, and let it drop in the boat, about which ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... America and the Axolotl of Mexico. Other forms of the order are the American eft-genera Spelerpes and Amblystoma, the Menopoma, and the gigantic Salamander (Cryptobranchus) of Japan and China, the eel-like Amphiuma—with its very long body and minute legs—and the two-legged Siren of the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... a tree-top to tear and eat; then a timid wood duck casting suspicious glances as it glided across a cove, secreting her little ones in the swamp; then a crane standing on one long leg motionless as a statue, watching with half-closed eyes for a mud-eel for its dinner. ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... compliments to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent—a beef-eater tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... I made man for ever: I'll not leave my horse for forty:[141] if he had but the quality of hey-ding-ding, hey-ding-ding, I'd make a brave living on him: he has a buttock as slick as an eel [Aside].—Well, God b'wi'ye, sir: your boy will deliver him me: but, hark you, sir; if my horse be sick or ill at ease, if I bring his water to you, you'll tell me what ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... it dashed and fretted against the rocks made iridescent spray. There were so many beautiful places. And though she had seen the falls more than once, she went again to please him, after making several excuses. Pani was her bodyguard. He was still small, and lithe as an eel, and the mixture of races showed in him. Wanamee was sometimes peremptorily ordered ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... did not long content themselves with such primitive methods. They sent to England for cod hooks and lines; mackerel hooks and lines; herring nets and seines; shark hooks, bass nets, squid lines, and eel pots; and in a short time they had established a trade which meant more money than the gold mines of Guiana or Potosi. The modern financier who makes a fortune from the invention of a collar button or ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... He seated himself on it. "'Tis the fine liquor of Tamiya. All the house possesses. Iemon is hungry." Opening his basket he took out an eel. He began to skin it. A cry from O'Iwa arrested him. His wife sank down before him in attitude of prayer. "Importunate jade! What would you now? Further advice to a husband who wants but to get rid of the sight of an ugly face? Bah! This lump of a wench is neither ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Pioneer Boy, and was, indeed, in some respects its counterpart. As the latter learned to write on the tops of stools, so the former learned to read on bits of birch-bark. At an early period of his existence he broke a capful of eggs. He owned a calf. He caught an eel. He put salt on a bird's tail and learned his first lesson of the deceitfulness of the human heart. He walked to Niagara Falls from Buffalo. He got lost in the woods. He went to live with his uncle in Ohio, where he displayed spirit and killed a pig. Here also occurred a "prophecy" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... unregal aspect) was allowed to make his burrow in the sand. On the eighth day, four Hermit and Soldier Crabs and two Sand-Crabs were invited to choose their several retreats. On the ninth, three fine Sticklebacks and three Minnows were made free of the mimic ocean; and on the tenth, an Eel and two Prawns. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... given so many bills of fare in these letters, that I will content myself with mentioning the novelty of a Cuban country-dish, a sort of stew, composed of ham, beef, mutton, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yuca, and yams. This is called Ayacco, and is a characteristic dish, like eel-soup in Hamburg, or salt codfish in Boston;—as is usual in such cases, it is more relished by the inhabitants than by their visitors. On the present occasion, however, it was only one among many good things, which were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... as they were caught, Dick dressed them and prepared them for the chowder pot or the frying pan. There were some queer fish caught, including quite a number of sculpins, "a wolfer eel,"—so Captain Briskett called him,—and a large catfish. The latter was an ugly monster, having dangerous-looking teeth, with which he laid hold of everything that came in his way. There was also in the collection a large skate, or ray, which called forth ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams
... of several things, and, at last, actually got a frock, belonging to one of our people that was towing, overboard. At the same time they immediately shewed a knowledge of bartering, and sold some fish they had (amongst which was an extraordinary flounder, spotted like porphyry, and a cream-coloured eel, spotted with black) for small nails, of which they were immoderately fond, and called them goore. But, indeed, they caught with the greatest avidity bits of paper, or any thing else that was thrown to them; and if what was thrown fell into the sea, they made no ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... that she was of no very elevated birth and station,—nothing more; and she herself, with her quiet, say-nothing manner, slips through all my careless questionings like an eel. She is still a beautiful creature, more regularly handsome than even Evelyn; and old Templeton had a very sweet tooth at the back of his head, though he never opened his mouth wide ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... it swept under the bridge and fought its way between the rocky cliffs beyond, sweeping swirling, eddying, in its narrow channel, pulsing restlessly into the ragged fissures of its shores, and leaping with a tempestuous roar into the Witches' Eel-pot, a deep wooded gorge cleft in the very heart of the ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... gather sea-weed, of various kinds, and make herself a scarf, or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. She inherited her mother's gift for devising drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid's garb, Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's. A letter,—the letter A,—but freshly green, instead of scarlet! The child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest; even as if the one ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I was at table-d'hote in France when I saw a very fine melon on the table. Said I, in my heart of hearts, "I'll have some of you by-and-by!" But, to my consternation, the melon was taken round with stewed conger eel, and eaten with salt and pepper. I could not summon up courage to try the mixture, and the whole melon was consumed before ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... uttered a yell and almost plunged out of her canoe. She had whipped in her line and there was a small eel on the hook. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... to the boy, who instantly disappeared in the forest like an eel in the mud, Michu turned ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... nights, and saw no country or island. But at the end of that time a man of them went up into the head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough grey cliff. They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an eel's back. And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to the foot of ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... valley of Sheor-Kt there at our feet, and I know the tale that grew up therefrom. But how can the ghosts of unbelievers prevail against us who are of the Faith? Strap that dog's hands a little tighter, Sahib. An Afghan is like an eel." ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... you, that had the opportunity presented itself of dropping a wet sponge on Tuppy from some high spot or of putting an eel in his bed or finding some other form of self-expression of a like nature, I would not have embraced it eagerly; but that let me out. I mean to say, grievously injured though I had been, it gave me no pleasure to feel that the fellow's bally life was being ruined by the loss of ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... onion and parsley, put it on the fire with oil, salt, and pepper, and when the onion is browned, add the pieces of eel. Wait until it has absorbed the taste of the onion sauce and then complete the cooking with ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile
... talks of Puluga's only-begotten son, 'a sort of archangel,' medium between Puluga and the angels, I 'hesitate a doubt.' Did not this idea reach the Mincopie mind from the same quarter as the stone house, especially as Puluga's wife is 'a green shrimp or an eel'? At all events, it is right to bear in mind that, as the stone house of the Mincopie heaven is almost undeniably of European origin, the only-begotten mediating son of Puluga and the green shrimp may bear traces of Christian teaching. ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... indecency of promiscuous bathing"! This excessive over-prudishness, which has always, since early Victorian days, distinguished England, possesses as much vitality (even when, happily, dying) as that of the conger eel, whom no ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... tested their efficiency in the din of battle. He has leisure now, and scarcely knows how to find employment for his active mind. He is telling his hostess, in broken German-English, of the whale (it proved to be an eel) he had caught in the river. Hear his hostess laugh! And that is the voice of Lafayette, relating perhaps his adventures in escaping from France, or his mishap in attempting to attend Mrs. Knox's last party. Wayne, of Stony Point; ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... Made some rappee snuff. Read the magazines. Received a present of pickles from Miss Pilcocks. Mem. To send in return some collared eel, which I know both the old lady and miss ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... present situation was admirably suited. The sun shone occasionally into Matilda's face as they drove on, its rays picking out all her features to a great nicety. Her eyes would have been called brown, but they were really eel-colour, like many other nice brown eyes; they were well-shaped and rather bright, though they had more of a broad shine than a sparkle. She had a firm, sufficient nose, which seemed to say of itself that it was ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... a large wolfish fish that had built a nest and was watching it and him—watching him with no agreeable or timid expression in its angry eyes. He was just expecting Victor Hugo's devil fish to complete his horror when a sudden, sharp, bone-breaking shock struck him from an electrical eel or marine torpedo. This was a real and sensible danger, and as he struggled to ascend the hulk to the rotten half-deck, the spongy substance gave way, the treacherous quicksand, with its smooth, tenacious throat-clutch, slid down and caught him. The danger was real and imminent, when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... did the speaker do? He tried another plan. "Ceres," he began, "made a voyage one day with an eel and a swallow. After a time the three travellers were stopped by a river. This the eel got over by swimming and the ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... call any fish a "game fish" that is taken for sport with hook and line. I can no more explain the common prejudice against the catfish and eel than I can tell why an experienced angler should drag a gang of thirteen hooks through the water—ten of them being wane than superfluous. Frank Forester gives five hooks as the number for a trolling gang. We mostly use hooks too small and do not look ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... connected with the emperor's table. He was especially fond of fish and all the progeny of the water,—eels, frogs, oysters, and the like. The trout of the neighborhood were too small for his liking, so he had larger ones sent from a distance. Potted fish—anchovies in particular—were favorite viands. Eel pasty appealed strongly to his taste. Soles, lampreys, flounders reached his kitchen from Seville and Portugal. The country around supplied pork, mutton, and game. Sausages were sent him from a distance; olives were brought from afar, as those ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... each person indiscriminately. The Recollets refused any assistance, and they passed the whole winter subsisting on corn and vegetables of their own cultivation. Champlain succeeded in building a mill for grinding pease. The eel fisheries were productive, and the Indians bought from the French six eels for a beaver skin. In the midst of these perplexities Champlain realized that unless assistance was forthcoming in the spring, it would be advisable for ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... 950. trim, shuffle, play fast and loose, blow hot and cold, coquet, be on the fence, straddle, bold with the hare but run with the hounds; nager entre deux eaux[Fr]; wait to see how the cat jumps, wait to see how the wind blows. Adj. changeful &c. 149; irresolute &c. 605; ductile, slippery as an eel, trimming, ambidextrous, timeserving[obs3]; coquetting &c. v. revocatory[obs3], reactionary. Phr. "a change came o'er the spirit of my ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... to-day, I caught an eel two thirds as long as myself. Mr. Watkins tried to make me believe that he thought it a water moccasin snake. Old Mr. Shane said that it was a 'young sea-sarpint sure.' Mr. Ficket, the blacksmith, begged it to take home for ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Peter Mink that made the younger forest people admire him. He was a famous fisherman. He could dive for a trout and catch him too, just as likely as not. And there was nothing more exciting than to see Peter Mink pull an eel out of ...
— The Tale of Peter Mink - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... as patient about fishing as he had been about cobbling. From dawn to dark he stood on the banks of the little stream, without hooking anything better than an eel, or a few old shoes, that even he, clever though he was, felt were not worth mending. At length his patience began to give way, and as he undressed one night he said to himself: 'Well, I will give it one more chance; and if I don't ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... with deep admiration, familiarly laying my hand on Sir Roger's coat-sleeve, to make sure of engaging his attention, "that is always her way! Did you ever see any thing so cruelly shy as that poor little man is? See! he is wriggling all over like an eel! He came to call the other day, and while he was talking to mother I watched him. He tore a pair of quite new tea-green gloves into thin strips, like little thongs! He must find it rather expensive work, if he makes many ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... which are to be found in divers sorts of Vinegar, I have little to add besides their Picture, which you may find drawn in the third Figure of the 25. Scheme: That is, they were shaped much like an Eel, save only that their nose A, (which was a little more opacous then the rest of their body) was a little sharper, and longer, in proportion to their body, and the wrigling motion of their body seem'd to be onely upwards and ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... confessions of ignorance. When he meets facts which flatly contradict his theory of the imperceptible beneficial acquirement of organs, or of properties by inheritance—such as the sterility of hybrids, the instincts of neuter bees, the battery of the electric eel, the human eye, and the eye of the cuttle-fish, he owns that "it is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous organs have been produced." When asked for the missing links between existing species, he refers us to the undiscovered fossiliferous strata ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... way. They're no pleasure to me; and if they think they're an honour, it's an opinion I don't share. Gertrude Masters ain't no better than a balloon; full of gas; she hain't weight enough to keep her on her feet; and Mrs.—what's her name?—Genevy—she's as smooth as an eel. ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... a person, in the habit and appearance of a substantial and well-bred English gentleman, appeared at his door and addressed me. 'Sir, I perceive that your attention is fixed on my fish. That is a conger eel—a species that abounds in these seas; we see them repeatedly, at the depth of twelve feet water, lying exactly in that position. That stone, as it now appears, was dug up from the bowels of this mountain, at the depth of twenty feet below the surface, in the midst of the rocks. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... I should think they are; and if you could but taste them yourself, senorito, you'd say so. A lightning eel's about the daintiest morsel I ever stuck teeth into; though they do have their dwelling-place in mud, and as some say, feed upon it. Before cooking them, however, something needs being done. You must cut away a portion ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... determined not to be caught again, and, taking to the water, swam away at a great rate. The odour produced by the birds was anything but pleasant. We saw a number of cormorants diving in search of prey, and they came up with eels in their mouths. One had caught a big eel, which it battered against the rock until it had killed it; but others gobbled down small eels without the slightest hesitation. The young birds were the oddest-looking creatures imaginable. Their covering was a hard black skin, with here and there black woolly down upon it. The old birds' heads ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, I says, wishing to try him. "Allez a votre bateau. Je say mon Lootenong. Eel voo donneray porkwor." To me, says he, "Vous ong ate hurroo! Jamay de la vee!" and I saw by his eye he'd taken on for the full term of the war. Jules was a blue-eyed, brindle-haired beggar of a useful make and inquirin' habits. Your Mr. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... swiftly. It was a sturdy, broad-headed, thick-furred form, a little more than a foot in length, with a naked, flattened tail almost as long as the body. It held its small, handlike forepaws tucked up under its chin, and swam with quick strokes of its strong hind legs and eel-like wrigglings of the muscular tail. It would have seemed like no more than a darker, swiftly-moving shadow in the dark water, save for a curious burden of air-bubbles which went with it. Its close under-fur, which the water could not penetrate, was thickly sprinkled with longer hairs, which ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... "the old Duke [Wellington] will at last give salt eel to that cowardly, bawling vagabond O'Connell." Borrow detested O'Connell as a "Dublin bully . . . a humbug, without courage or one particle of manly feeling." Again (17th June) he had written: "Horrible news from Ireland. I wish sincerely the blackguards would break ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the for'ard lookout says all's well and he ought to know; he's had more experience aboard gift-shop ships, I presume likely, than I have. What's those bristly things stickin' up along shore there—eel grass or ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... best, but he was like an eel. I had far rather have kept him. I have wanted the scoundrel these ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... whose rooms were just below mine, suffered a good deal from practical jokers. One day I was chatting with Reggie Wragge when we heard loud cries for help just below us. We rushed down and found Jimmy in the bath, struggling with a large conger-eel which had been introduced by some of his friends. I held on to the monster's tail, while Wragge severed its head with a carving-knife. Poor Jimmy, who was always nervous and not very 'strong in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... Pulcinella hesitated a bit. Then, frightened by a look from their master, they left the kitchen to obey him. A few minutes later they returned, carrying poor Pinocchio, who was wriggling and squirming like an eel and crying pitifully: ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... was set; Martine had an eel from the Viorne, a sauted rabbit, and a leg of mutton. Seven o'clock was striking, and they had plenty ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... the arrow-headed pronged fork, used by the fishermen of the Mediterranean Sea in the eel-fishery. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... those wily landlords with their blase habitues and their underlings, the greasy cooks, the roguish "good mixers" at the bar and the winsome if resolute copae—waitresses—all ready to go, to do business. So slippery are the cooks that Plautus calls one Congrio—sea eel—so black that ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... this season are holding looking forward to Biger prices I have gathered 80 bales and 15 or 16 more in the field yet to pick so you see when I make my estimate in this county they are a power of cotton on the fields yet to pick and a grate eel in houses not gined up yet, gust act as if those deals were your own shood you close them out gust credit my account with the profitts but dont close them out until you think it has tuch bottom then I want you to by me the same amount but don't ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... I sprang aboard and looked over into the water, we could see him going down out of reach of a harpoon; and his body seemed to be silver-plated, flashing and glittering like a burnished eel, so completely did the skin of air envelope him, held there by ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... Who, full of a father's pride, had Taken his young brood to ramble On the Rhine-shore for the first time. 'Twas amusing to young Werner How just then the old stork gravely, On the sand with stealthy cunning, Closely a poor eel was watching, Who of various worms was making There a comfortable meal. He, however, who was wielding O'er the little worms the strand-law, Soon himself will serve as breakfast. For the greater eats the lesser, And the greatest eats the great ones. ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... animal is disabled or killed instanter. Strike therefore his tail, and not his head; for at his tail the spinal cord is but thinly covered with bone, and suffers readily from injury. This practice is applicable to eels. If you want to kill an eel, it is not much use belaboring his head: strike, however, his tail two or three times against any hard substance, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... James Graham proposes to wait upon us after breakfast. A trouble occurs about my taking an oath before a master-extraordinary in Chancery; but such cannot easily be found, as they reside in chambers in town, and rusticate after business, so they are difficult to catch as an eel. At ten my children set off to the dockyard, which is a most prodigious effort of machinery, and they are promised the sight of an anchor in the act of being forged, a most cyclopean sight. Walter is ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... he often repeats, Russia was not ready for big adventures—was, in fact, still suffering from lassitude after the war of 1878, 'like an electric eel which, having in one great shock given off all its electricity, burrows in the mud to refill its battery, desiring nothing less than to come again too soon ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... candle and jumped for a hammer that I'd left on the mantel. At the same moment he sprang at me. I saw the glint of a knife, and I lashed at him with the hammer. I got him somewhere; for the knife tinkled down on the floor. He dodged round the table as quick as an eel, and a moment later he'd got his gun from under his coat. I heard him cock it; but I had got hold of it before he could fire. I had it by the barrel, and we wrestled for it all ends up for a minute or more. It was death to the man that lost ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... an eel in the embrace of the boy he would save, he dived down, dragging the stranger ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... horse; to put ginger up a horse's fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer's servant, who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him. Feague is used, figuratively, for encouraging ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, when she put them i' the paste alive] Hinting that the eel and Lear ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... of steering do you call that? Look at your damned wake. Like an eel's wriggle. Keep her full, and less of your ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... I had become great friends for he had liked the way I had conducted myself on this expedition. He was always ar-guying with me to cut off my eel-skin que which I wore after the fashion of the Dutch folks, saying that the Canada indians would parade me for a Dutchman after that token was gone with my scalp. He ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... offending youth up the walk, saluted Miss Mayton, and told Toddie to give the bouquet to the lady. This he succeeded in doing, but as Miss Mayton thanked him and stooped to kiss him he wriggled off the piazza like a little eel, shouted, "Tum on!" to his brother, and a moment later my nephews were following the "cutter-grass" at a respectful ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... 178. Taking Carlisle, catching an eel by the tail. Address of a Bishop, Dean and Clergy. Swearing to the P——r, &c., Anathema denounced against those Parents, Masters, and Magistrates, that do not punish the Sin at Stokesley. A Speech, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... lot of fellers wot hav brown-stone manshuns up town, and French cooks wot dish em up everything good, from frogs' lim—er—leg to the posterier xten-shun of a eel's spinal collum, frickerseed, with mushrum catchup sauce. B'sides that, they've got lots of munney in the bank, and wuldn't think no more of givin sum Anglo Saxton perfesshunal beggar a thousand-dollar keepsake than they wuld of let-tin there ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... who was laying eel-lines across the Lot consented to take me to the other side in his boat, and there I struck the road to Cahors, which closely borders the river all along this valley. In several places it is tunnelled through the rock, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... had all his back teeth pulled. The little Dutchman would yell out whenever he would see him—'What for you come? Eh? You tam shneak. Rheumatism, eh? In hip?' And the Doctor would punch his shoulder and hip, and pinch his arms and legs until Bill would squirm like an eel under a gig. 'Here, Shteward,' said the Doctor the last time, as he scribbled a few words on a small piece of paper, 'Take this; make application under left ear, and see if dis tam rheumatism come not out.' Bill followed the Steward, and in a few minutes ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... his breath, As to the ear of death. That beast of many heads and light,[7] The crowd, accustom'd to the sound Was all intent upon a sight— A brace of lads in mimic fight. A new resource the speaker found. 'Ceres,' in lower tone said he, 'Went forth her harvest fields to see: An eel, as such a fish might he, And swallow, were her company. A river check'd the travellers three. Two cross'd it soon without ado; The smooth eel swam, the swallow flew.—' Outcried the crowd With voices loud— 'And Ceres—what did she?' 'Why, what she pleased; but first Yourselves she ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... writes in 821 to his sister, "that anyone who was not cock-ide drunk would have known better than to of tried to walk bear-foot through that eel-grass from the beech up to the bath-house without sneekers on, which is what that ninn Aethelbald tryed to do this AM. Well say laffter is no name for what you would of done if you had seen him. He looked like he was trying ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... walled town, 30 m. SE. of Ferrara; famous for fish, specially eel-culture in a large lagoon adjoining, 90 ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the lowlands clear, a fuzz of baby trees sprang up, growing to a rank prosperity and dying suddenly beneath the sun. Along the river's edge little shreds of watercress took root and threw out sprouts and blossoms; the clean water brought forth snaky eel-grass and scum which fed a multitude of fishes; in the shadows of deep rocks the great bony-tails and Colorado River salmon lay in contented shoals, like hogs in wallows, but all the time the water grew less and less. At every shower ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... tell of the viands, or how she Apologized much for their plain water-souchy, Want of Harvey's, and Cross's, And Burgess's sauces? Or how Rupert, on his side, protested, by Jove, he Preferr'd his fish plain, without soy or anchovy. Suffice it the meal Boasted trout, perch, and eel, Besides some remarkably fine salmon peel, The Knight, sooth to say, thought much less of the fishes Than what they were served on, the massive gold dishes; While his eye, as it glanced now and then on the girls, Was caught by their persons much less than their pearls, And a thought ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... very much as if it were a dipper, in which she expected to catch the words which dropped from the lips of her mistress. "Betsey, have you attended to your sister—to my little child, I mean? Then go out and make some sassafras cakes, and some eel-pie, and some squirrel-soup; and set the table in ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... that he does not escape like that slippery eel of a Saint-Charles, that madman, who came for the purpose of breaking up our establishment—for ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... of my name," said Robin, whose eyes began to kindle, but keeping the command of his temper. "It was no coward's legs or hands, Harry Waakfelt, that drew you out of the fords of Fried, when you was drifting ower the place rock, and every eel in the river ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... excellent common-sense tactics of the lesser sand-eel, which as you doubtless know buries itself tail upwards in the mud on hearing the baying of the eel-hounds and remains in that position till the danger is past, I shall be able to postpone an interview. Should you be questioned as to my whereabouts, inflate your chest and reply in ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... eel-broiler, on finding this out, thought he would charge his stingy neighbor for the smell of his eels. So, making out his bill he presented it to Kisaburo, who seemed to be much pleased. He called to his wife to bring his iron-bound money box, which was ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... known that the gymnotus is a kind of eel, with a blackish, slimy skin, furnished along the back and tail with an apparatus composed of plates joined by vertical lamellae, and acted on by nerves of considerable power. This apparatus is endowed with singular ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... on the other side was slowly hauling up his line; but he had not got it half-way up when he felt a heavy strain, and he thought that a large conger eel had followed the bait up, as they do sometimes, and he hauled and hauled with all his might. At last, who should he bring to the surface of the water but Old Duty, who had been sucked under the ship's bottom by the tide, and had been hooked by Jack, as he was pulling ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... however, from the red man's point of view was the insatiable demand of the newcomers for land. In the years 1803, 1804, and 1805 Harrison made treaties with the remnants of the Miami, Eel River, Piankeshaw, and Delaware tribes—characterized by him as "a body of the most depraved wretches on earth"—which gained for the settlers a strip of territory fifty miles wide south of White River; and in 1809 he similarly acquired, by the Treaty of Fort Wayne, ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... momentous questions whether I should lay in tea-cakes or penny buns, whether I need have brown bread as well as white, whether Mrs Nash's tea would be good enough, whether I should help my great dish—the eel- pie—myself, or trust it to one of ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... exercise of the marvellous properties ascribed impartially to the worm, the eel, and the snake, Bobby and Johnny succeeded in gaining a place in the court-room for the afternoon session. It was not a very good place. Breast-high in front of them was a rail. Behind them pressed a suffocating crowd. On the other side of the rail were ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... England, who, after he was married, wished his mignon to procure him some pretty girls, as he did before; which the mignon would not do, saying that one wife sufficed; but the said knight brought him back to obedience by causing eel pasties to be always served to him, both ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... Lark, wriggling like an eel in Conniston's grip, "is your five hundred new guys, or I'm a liar! An' fergit you're the strong man in a sideshow doin' stunts ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... him amongst the drowned was received with widespread regret throughout that circle in which he was a familiar figure. Then at a later hour came its contradiction, and his friends smiled and remarked that he had the facility of an eel for getting out of tight corners, and that they would never believe him dead till they ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... indulgent compassion. "How excellent is the saying of one of old: 'He that adventureth upon matrimony is like unto one who thrusteth his hand into a sack containing many thousands of serpents and one eel. Yet, if Fate so decree, he may draw forth the eel.' And thou art comely, and of an age when it is natural to desire the love of a maiden. Therefore be of good heart and a cheerful eye, and it may be that, when I am more at leisure, I shall ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... one of the secretaries of State, glided like an eel through the door and along the wall until he reached the queen-mother, in whose ear he said a few words, to which she replied by an affirmative sign. The king did not ask his mother the meaning of this conference, but he returned to his seat and kept silence, darting ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... animals live parasitic lives. The nearest approach to a true parasite among the vertebrates is the lamprey-eel (Fig. 1) which attaches itself to the body of a fish and sucks the blood or eats the flesh. Among the Crustaceans, the group that includes the lobsters and crabs, we find many examples of parasites, the most extraordinary ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane |
