"Hissing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said with a yell, rather than a cry, of delight, and in a voice so loud that the words were heard below, and flew through the ship like the hissing of an ascending rocket. To confirm the glorious tidings, the flash and roar of guns on the off-side of the stranger announced the welcome tidings that le Pluton had an enemy of her own to contend ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ink-stain in the corner, where I upset the bottle. Oh, how lovely to see it all again! And the dear old sofa where we used to camp out all together—I have never found such a comfy sofa anywhere else. Tea! How pretty the urn looks! I love that cheerful, hissing sound! And what cream! You never see ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... story should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pines begin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Then runs the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... small canoe, manned by three Indians—father and two sons—and, with provisions for three days, commenced the descent of the river of rapids. How we shot down the hissing waters in that tiny craft! How fast we left the wooded shores behind us, and saw the-lonely isles flit by as the powerful current swept us like a leaf upon ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... trussed up that it was impotent to hurt. How such a beast had ever been caught alive I know not. I could see its green cat's eyes glowing in the dark, and the striving of its muscles, and hear the breath hissing from its muzzled jaws. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... a large room, about fifty by fifty feet in area and nearly twenty feet high. And it was quite obviously empty. On the open side, the sheet of hissing hot air was doing its best to shield the room from the sixty-below-zero blizzard outside. Opposite the air curtain was a huge sliding door, closed at the moment, which probably led to a freight elevator. There were only two other doors leading from the foyer, ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the sea, but there seemed to be no sea, only a hissing splash of green spray where the steamer's forward light fell on the water which her bow was pitching up, and beyond that nothing but a ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... each other, or rolled on the floor; then he fetched the burning coals from the kitchen, and heaped them on till the grate was full. The kettle had been boiling on the hob, so he brought it in now hissing, with brandy to make a drink. But he must have more light. Where are the matches? Nowhere, of course. They never are when they're wanted. However, it didn't matter, a piece of paper would do as well, and he ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Magna, which nestles, in its setting of green fields and orchards, almost in the shadow of the Wrekin. The traveller had tramped many a long league under a burning sun, and was too weary to fare farther. Moreover, night was closing in fast, and a few hissing raindrops and the distant rumble of thunder warned him that a ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... Slave Lake, named after defeated Indians who had taken refuge here; and the question was, which way to go through the fog across the marshy lake! Poking through rushes high as a man, MacKenzie found a current, and, hoisting a sail on his fishing pole, raced out to the river again on a hissing tide. Here lived the Dog Rib Indians, and they frightened MacKenzie's men cold with grewsome tales of horrors ahead, of terrible waterfalls, of a land of famine and hostile tribes. The effect was instant. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... beheld several uncouth-looking beings seated on rocks and skimming it with huge ladles; but particularly he declared with great exultation, that he saw the losel porpoises, which had betrayed them into this peril, some broiling on the Gridiron, and others hissing on the Frying-pan! ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... bullet in his heart might be vouchsafed him. But the man who for many years had defied all Scotland could not be dealt with like a common soldier, so he was put on a small Shetland pony, with his feet tied together underneath, and led through roaring, hissing crowds, which pressed to see him in every town through which they had to pass. The wounds that he had received in the battle were still untouched, and he was feverish from the pain. This was another cause of rejoicing ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... such things annoy us. Anyway, we expected to reach camp just after noon, so a little delay about dinner didn't seem so bad. We had entered the desert by noon; the warm, red sands fell away from the wheels with soft, hissing sounds. Occasionally a little horned toad sped panting along before us, suddenly darting aside to watch with bright, cunning eyes as we passed. Some one had placed a buffalo's skull beside a big bunch of sage and on the sage a splendid ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... among the most Beautiful Things of Riseholme, and hardly less beautiful was Peppino's attitude towards it all. That large hearted man trusted them both, and his trust was perfectly justified. Georgie was in and out of the house all day, chiefly in; and not only did scandal never rear its hissing head, but it positively had not a head to hiss with, or a foot to stand on. On his side again Georgie had never said that he was in love with her (nor would it have been true if he had), but by his complete silence on the subject coupled with his constancy he seemed to admit the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... his mother, scarcely weaned, on a high, cold stone, barefooted, before the anvil; there to harden, sear, and blister his young hands by heating and hammering ragged nailrods, for the sustenance those breasts can no longer supply! Lord John! look at those nails, as they lie hissing on the block. Know you their meaning, use and language? Please your lordship, let me tell you—I have made nails many a day and many a night—they are iron exclamation points, which this unlettered, dwarfed boy ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author
... was not of a kind that was likely to be interesting either to McNeice or me. They were talking about ski-ing and skating in Switzerland. McNeice made no effort to talk at all. He sucked his soup into his mouth with a loud hissing noise, and glared at me when I invited him to admire our scenery. His fish he ate more quietly, and I took the opportunity of reminding him of our correspondence about St. Patrick. The ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... China. I wonder that its doors are open to Christian missions when I remember that Christian nations at the mouth of the cannon have forced upon that people that deadly drug which drags body and soul to death, that their names have been by-words and hissing in Christian lands. The secret is that God sent to China a young Englishman whose life was hid with Christ in God. Chinese Gordon saved the nation of China, and his name will be a household word forever. Surely a people where the poorest laborer can become the first ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... ground the water in the lakes became violently agitated and steam arose from fissures in the mountain side. Flames shot up to a considerable height above the crater and a torrent of black lava began to flow toward the lakes, falling into them with a loud hissing sound that was audible to the boys, even after they had put many miles between ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... enthusiasms. They went together to the stables, where he introduced her to Hollis, the coachman standing in his shirtsleeves in a saddle-room that smelt of harness-polish. He stood in front of a cracked mirror brushing his hair, hissing softly, as though he were grooming a horse, and round his waist was a red-striped belt of the webbing out of which a ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... seen; but nearer the hoarding than the middle of the waste open ground was a spectacle that puzzled the looker-on. Great fans were winnowing the air, a wheel was running at prodigious speed, flaming vapors fled hissing forth, and the figure of a man, attached in some way to the revolving fans, was now lifted several feet from the ground, now dashed to earth again, now caught in and now torn from the teeth ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... speeding, And shocking and rocking, And darting and parting, And threading and spreading, And whizzing and hissing, And dripping and skipping, And hitting and splitting, And shining and twining, And rattling and battling, And shaking and quaking, And pouring and roaring, And waving and raving, And tossing and crossing, And flowing and going, And running ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... wild Mammalia are tamed, and suspend their work of war and carnage; the cold-blooded Amphibia alone rejoice in the overwhelming deluge, and millions of snakes and frogs, which swarm in the flooded meadows, raise a chorus of hissing and croaking. Streams of muddy water flow through the narrow paths of the forests into the river, or pour into the cracks and chasms of the soil. The temperature continues to descend, and the clouds gradually ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... cycles are Dark valleys where my weary feet must go, Though devils of disaster hurl and throw Their awful sorrows from the fortunes far; No hands of pleasure can presume to part The clouded curtains of impending care, And hissing serpents of insane despair Pour poison in ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... in getting to this position; the passage being extremely narrow, and the water shallow: the latter was so beautifully transparent, that each pebble on the yellow sand appeared distinctly visible, and myriads of sportive fish were seen darting in every direction from the clamorous hissing monster ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... up the hill with their Christmas dues, of one fowl out of eight, of barley and wheat. The courtyard had assumed the appearance of a great warehouse. Those that were prosperous came a-riding, hissing geese and chickens and grain in bags across the ...
— The Truce of God • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to look on the shelf for something, the witch puts her dirty shoe on the range, catches hold of Monday (the youngest child) and runs off with him. The child who is the pot now makes a hissing noise and pretends to boil over. The daughter ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... firmly gripped staff he marched stoutly into the tide till it ran hissing below his armpits. "I could dae't alone," he cried, "but no wi' a burden. For, losh, if ye slippit, ye'd be in the Manor Pool afore ye could ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast. The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... my lad. Sound's just like light in that. It strikes against anything and goes off, they say, at the same angle, and then perhaps it's only in one position that you can see it. Same here: there's one part down below where we can catch this rumbling, hissing echo." ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... earliest period z as well as x; afier the symbol for p came Zade (@), which was a strong palatal s, though in name it corresponds to the Greek zera: while lastly Shin (@ follows rhe symbol for r, and was an sh-sound. The Greek name for the sibilant (sigma) may simply mean the hissing letter and be a derivative from sizo; many authorities, however, hold that it is a corruption of the Phoenician Samech. Unfortunately, it is not clear how many sibilants ere distinguished in Greek pronunciation, nor over what areas a particular pronunciation extended. There is, however, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... asked triumphantly, as they stood at the prow, and rose and sank with the vessel's careering plunges. It was no gale, but only a fair wind; the water foamed along the ship's sides, and, as her bows descended, shot forward in hissing jets of spray; away on every hand flocked the white caps. "You had better keep my arm, here." Lydia did so, resting her disengaged hand on the bulwarks, as she bent over a little on that side to watch the rush of the sea. "It really seems as if there were more ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... commander's boat, and clapping his hands like a midshipman. The more dangerous part of the bar, however, had not yet been reached; still Murray continued his course. Now the summit of another roller was gained, the white foam hissing and sparkling over the boat, and almost concealing her ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... at a certain period, to set forth in state, and, placing himself at a spot where he presumed he should be heard, raised his voice, and, in an authoritative tone, commanded the refractory animals to quit his estates. Not one dared to refuse; and great was the rustling, and hissing, and sliding, and coiling as the serpentine nation prepared to demenager, much against their inclination no doubt, but forced, by a power they could not withstand, to obey. None of these creatures interrupted our route, although there has long ceased ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... was witnessed in this world of sin and sorrow since the creation of Adam. I pulled up the window and looked out—and, lo and behold! the very next house to our own was all in a low from cellar to garret; the burning joists hissing and cracking like mad; and the very wind that blew along, as warm as if it had been out of the mouth of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... not yield to these evils, but meet them bravely. The greatest task in this struggle is not to regard these thoughts, not to explore them, not to pursue the matters suggested, but despise them like the hissing of a goose and pass them by. The person that has learned to do this will conquer; whoever has not learned it will be conquered. For to muse upon these thoughts and debate with them means to stimulate them and make them stronger. Take the people of Israel as an example: they overcame ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... danced about, and the old woman gasped and shook more. Lizzie alone was almost equal to the occasion. She flew at the cat who was standing on tiptoe on the tall back of the chair, with huge tail and eyes like green lamps, swearing, hissing, and spitting, and, regardless of scratches, caught him up by the scruff of his neck and disposed of him behind the staircase door; while Dora at the same moment secured Dandy by the collar, and rushing ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she floated in a sheltered pool, a very oasis of modernity, a marvelous creature of another world and another time. There was just light enough for me to see that her lines were those of a giant yacht. Then a curtain of rain beat hissing down on the sea, and the ship and the vague darkening landscape disappeared—disappeared as if they had melted away in the shower. Presently the bulk of the vessel appeared again. At once we drew alongside, and from that moment on, I was the guest of the vessel, recipient ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... followed each other. Sometimes a train would stop in front of the C.C.S., hissing and puffing, and throwing up a great shaft of light. We would curse it, fearing that it would ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... and rather warm. Had a visit from a number of natives, they do not appear so shy as usual; they do not circumcise but have one or two teeth out in front of upper jaw. From what I could see the young men are not allowed to talk, but merely making a hissing and twittering noise to make themselves understood, and pointing and motioning with the hand whilst the old men do the talking business. I could make but little out of them. I made them a few presents with which they seemed ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... the hissing noise of rain. Lord Milford moved aside, and jealous of the eye of another, read a letter from Chifney, and in a few minutes afterwards offered to take the odds against Pocket Hercules. Mr Latour walked to the window, surveyed the heavens, sighed that there was ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Pegasus!" cried Bellerophon. "With another stroke like that we will surely stop either its hissing or ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... too eagerly. The deadly paroxysm shook his frame again, and when it was over his breath came pantingly, as if hissing through a sieve. "My God, not Sunday—or Saturday," he breathed. "Keith, ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... the same with the phonograph. The great defect of that instrument was the rendering of the overtones in music and the hissing consonants in speech. Edison worked over one year, twenty hours a day, Sundays and all, to get the word 'specie' perfectly recorded and reproduced on the phonograph. When this was done, he knew that everything else could ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... the lightnings were regarded as writhing worms or serpents in its beak. These fiery serpents, elikiai gram-moeidws feromenoi, are believed in to this day by the Canadian Indians, who call the thunder their hissing." [41] ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... noticed the gravity in his face, and sat thoughtfully silent for several minutes while with the snow hissing beneath it the sleigh dipped into and swung out ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... pincers he picked up a bit of hot iron and dropped it hissing into the pail, which he pushed beneath the tent. The room was oppressively quiet, walled in by the thick sod from the storm. The blanket muffled the sound of the child's breathing and the girl no longer ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... wished to test the wisdom of the strangers, so he inquired, "What walks along the grass, steps on the edge of the fence, and walks along the sides of the reeds?" "The bee," replied the magician.[91] "What drinks from the brooks and wells, and from the stones on the bank?" "The rainbow." "What comes hissing from the meadow, and rushing from the blue forest?" "The rain." The giant was pleased with the answers to his riddles, and told his daughter to carry the men back to where she had found them, but the wise man asked her to take them ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... and thumb, a gesture of annoyance which was habitual to him. Martin knew the meaning of the sound, which he heard through the shouting and the roar of the wind and the hissing of a cloud of steam. He placed his hand on the deck of the bridge as if to feel it. He had only to stretch out his arm to touch the timbers, for the vessel was lying over farther now. There was no vibration beneath his hand; the engines had ceased ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... too great for the lonely man's seamanship. All the fiends of the sea might do their worst, but until the actual finale came, he would sail the boat—lifting her on the swell, eluding the white hissing bulk of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... announced his sound slumbers. She was already on the bed she had so precipitately quitted, and not a thought more did she give to the Templars, living or dead, even though she heard an extraordinary snapping and hissing, and in the dawn of the morning saw a white weird thing, like a huge moth, flit in through the circular window, take up its station on a beam above the hay, and look down with the brightest, roundest eyes she ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together, and presently we saw an ostrich and gave chase; but it evaded us and spreading its wings, fled before us and drew us on after it, till it brought us to a desert, wherein there was neither grass nor water, nor was aught to be heard there save the hissing of serpents, the wailing of Jinn and the howling of ghouls. Here we lost sight of the ostrich, nor could we tell whether it had flown up into the sky or sunk into the ground. Then we turned our horses' heads and thought to go back; but found that our return would ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... like one bewildered, shook his head and glided past; Huddling whispers hurried after, hissing in the howling blast! Now a sheet of lurid splendour swept athwart the mountain spire, And a midnight squall came trumping down on zigzag paths of fire! Through the tumult dashed a torrent flanking out in foaming ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... now? The driver didn't look at him. Perhaps the lazy clamor of the wagon and the hissing sound of the steadily gushing water made too big a noise for the voice of such a ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... they used the word, fairly hissing it forth as if in bitter hatred, yet I had short enough time in which to listen as I hastily rammed home a second charge with which to greet them as ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... again by some farm-house in the meadow, the vintagers would burn a Roman candle, throwing its powerful white light on the gardens and fields around. We stopped under a garden wall, by which a laughing company were assembled in the smoke and red blaze, and watched several comets go hissing and glancing far above us. The cracking of ammunition still continued, and when we came again upon the bridge, the city opposite was lighted as if illuminated. The full moon had just risen, softening and mellowing the beautiful scene, while beyond, over the tower ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... name is Stateburgh. But so great is the propensity of Americans for introducing the S into the already hissing English language, that it ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... after my husband had locked me in one room and my wreath in another, it somehow found its way back upon my head for the last scene. At the end of the play, which has now been acted ten nights, some people began hissing the pinching incident. It was always considered the dangerous passage of the piece, but a reasonable public should know that a play must be damned on its first night, or not ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... thud and a hissing behind me, and, looking round, sprang to my feet with a cry of horror. Against the warm dawn great tumultuous masses of black smoke were boiling up out of the enclosure, and through their stormy darkness shot flickering threads of blood-red flame. Then the thatched ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... beauties of a night on shipboard!—down in your berth, with the sea hissing and fizzing, gurgling and booming, within an inch of your ear; and then the steward conies along at twelve o'clock and puts out your light, and there you are! Jonah in the whale was not darker or more dismal. There, in profound ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... attracted by a convulsive tugging of the tub which he supported in common with William; it seemed passionately to urge greater speed. A hissing issued from the boiler, and Genesis caught ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... still smiling. Her smile had an odd intensity; she was trembling a little, and Bernard, who was prepared for hissing scorn, perceived with a deep, an almost violent, surprise, a ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... the way off through the straining and hissing trees, and Mitchell followed, growling but obedient. And Henderson, faint upon his log in the raving tumult, knew nothing of ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... evening in question, there it stood, nearly ready. Just behind the great hissing locomotive, with its parabolic headlight and its coal-laden tender, came the baggage, mail, and express cars; then the passenger coaches, in which the social condition of the occupants seemed to be in inverse ratio to their distance from the engine. First came emigrants, "honest ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... audible signs are the stampede of a herd of kangaroo, or the rustle of a wallabi, or a dingo stirring the grass as it creeps to its lair. But there are the whirring of locusts, the demoniac chuckle of the laughing jack-ass, the screeching of cockatoos and parrots, the hissing of the frilled lizard, and the buzzing of innumerable insects hidden under the dense undergrowth. And then at night, the melancholy wailing of the curlews, the dismal howling of dingoes, the discordant croaking of tree-frogs, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time that was! My mind was kept at a tension to catch the names. Mr. Pemb——, Madame Harth——, with the h aspirated. With great difficulty I grasped the first syllable, and the second finished in a confusion of muffled vowels and hissing consonants. By the time the twentieth name was pronounced I had given up listening; I simply kept on with my little risorius de Santorini, half closed my eyes, held out mechanically the arm at the end of which was the hand ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the lecture Coleridge stopped, and said loud enough to be heard by the individual, that before the intruder "kicked up a dust, he would surely down with the dust," and desired the man to admit him. The individual had not long been in the room before he began hissing, this was succeeded by loud claps from Coleridge's party, which continued for a few minutes, but at last they grew so warm that they began to vociferate, "Turn him out!"—"Turn him out!"—"Put him out of the window!" ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... Rene's musings, up in the light watcher's bunk, underneath the lantern, as, smoking a pipe of rest, he listened complacently to the hissing ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... was that close with the sun, and thronged with the coiling folk, And about the feet of Gunnar their hissing mouths awoke: But he heeded them not nor beheld them, and his hands in the harp-strings ran, As he sat him down in the midmost on a sun-scorched rock and wan: And he sighed as one who resteth on a flowery bank by the way When the wind ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... a warning—an instant's rustling hissing in the air above—less than an instant's. But that was all, and for the first time in his life—perhaps because he was tired, fagged—Gulo failed to take it. And you must never fail to take a warning if you are a wild creature, you know! There are ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... into the lap of your city, food sufficient to assuage the hunger of a nation, can form but an imperfect idea of the horrors of famine. In battle, in the fulness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sings his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he who dies of hunger, wrestles alone, day after day with his grim and unrelenting enemy. The blood recedes, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... camera to help Jones and Jim pull the animal from her perch. The branches broke in a shower; then the lioness, hissing, snarling, whirling, plunged down. She nearly jerked the rope out of our hands, but we lowered her to Emett, who noosed her ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... stoutly fashioned to be the unharmed plaything of such rocks and boisterous waters as these. In these rapids the river waked to consciousness of mighty life, tossing our little craft through a riot of dancing waves, whirling it round the base of perpendicular rocks set like adamant in the hissing waters, sweeping it helpless as a petal down some glassy plane stilled, as it were, into a concentrated wrath of movement. The men sprang from side to side, from bow to stern, staving the craft with a miraculous deftness ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... would be impossible, my master," said Naka Machi, hissing again through his teeth as he sucked in his breath. "None could be more abjectly your slave ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... Doomsday thunder. The nearest ships reeled under the terrific shock, which racked their hulls from stem to stern and set some leaking badly. Masts, boats, and twisted rigging flew blazing through the air, fell hissing on the watered decks, and set two British vessels and one French on fire. But the crews worked their very hardest, and they saved ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... down-stream side, where the gleaming line of foam marked the escape of water into the on-rushing current, he whirled his boat, stern ahead. Down he shot with a plunge and then up with a rise. Racing on over the uneven swells he felt the hissing spray, and the malignant tips of the waves that broke their fury on the boat and expended it in a shower of stinging drops. The wind cut his face. He rode a sea of foam, then turgid rolling mounds of water that heaved him up and up, and down long planes that laughed ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... must have applied a match to some of the inflammable matter, for in another instant the growing, hissing roar of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... there was a table, on which were large purses, and by the purses a great quantity of gold coin: so we asked them, "Is that the wealth of all the persons in the world?" they replied, "Not of all in the world, but of all in the kingdom." The sound of their voice was hissing; and they had round faces, which glistened like the shell of a snail, and the pupils of their eyes in a green plane as it were shot forth lightning, which was an effect of the light of phantasy. We stood in the midst of them, and said, "You believe that you possess all the wealth of the kingdom;" ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... moment a flaming branch fell hissing into a little pool at the bottom of the gully. It passed so near them that it singed a lock ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... had undertaken the duties that appertain to the "hissing urn." "You prefer coffee, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... trodden down of the Gentiles. The people should be carried away captive and sold into all lands. They should be scattered from one end of the earth to the other. All nations should despise them. They should become a by-word, a hissing and a scorn. They should be hunted, hounded and persecuted. Their sufferings should be unparalleled, horrible, unspeakable. The sound of a shaken leaf should startle them. They were to become the people of the trembling ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... your own, the bitterest Stung me to sullen anger, and I said: "My son shall be no coward of his line Because his mother choose"; you turned your head And your eyes grew implacable in mine. And like a trodden snake you turned to meet The foe with sudden hissing ... then you smiled, And broke our life in pieces at my feet, "Your child?" you ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... not for the very sin of rejecting their true Messiah, killing Him and imprecating His blood upon them and on their children, that they have been scattered among the nations and have become a hissing and a byword ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... usual civility of lifting the hats as she passed. Indeed, Horace Wilson told me that, when he was crossing the park at the time of her driving through it, there was some—though not much—decided hissing. ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... it out!" cried Sam, clapping his hands and hissing, with the effect of bringing the dog trotting up, after doing a little hunting on ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... owls are more liable to be shot, because they are more conspicuous; but, on the other hand, as they often breed and reside away from covers, they seem to escape. For months past one of these has sailed by my window every evening uttering a hissing 'skir-r-r.' Here, some were nailed with their backs to the wall, that they might not ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... the majestic form, and at the faultless face looking so proudly down upon him, as from an inaccessible height; and she heard him draw his breath, with a labored hissing sound. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... leaned with both elbows on the rail, and looked out at the misty banks, puffing at his cigar. Then he dropped it hissing into the water, and, stifling a yawn, looked up and down the length of the deserted deck. It ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... the steep. These thoughts pass quicker than they can be told. He waves his sabre over his head, and shouting, "Forward! follow me! quick trot! gallop!" he dashes headlong down the stony road. The first company and most of the second follow. From the left a thousand muzzles belch forth a hissing flood of bullets; the poor fellows clutch wildly at the air and fall from their saddles, and maddened horses throw themselves against the fences. Their speed is not for an instant checked; farther down the hill they fly, like wasps driven by the leaden storm. Sharp volleys pour out of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... He traversed the distance between them as a meteor hurling through space. But even so, ere he reached her, the filmy lace that hung down from her elbow had blazed into flame. She had dropped the firework, and it lay hissing on the ground like a glittering snake. He sprang over it and ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... furnace was fed by huge blocks of wood, which the ravening flame seized and in a moment enveloped in its embrace. Forms, grisly and indistinct, flitted past this devouring blaze, by the sputtering and crackling of which, mingled with the hissing delicacies before it, and the shrill scream of the presiding fury, a stranger might be warned of his approach to this pandemonium some time ere its wonders were visible. The pilgrim seated himself in an accessible corner, anxiously awaiting ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... flyer was due at the tank at 11.15 P. M. At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and Ike took the other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned weak all over. I would have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have been out of that affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business have told me that they felt the same way ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... brows and eyes. His manners are coarse and repulsive. Did you ever in a litter yard come suddenly on a lady in the straw that starts up on her fore legs and, dropping fourteen infant pigs from her teats, salutes you with a fierce jumble of barking, grunting, and hissing? In exactly such a sound is this amiable man represented to me to have always replied to every address of Bertrand, Mouthoulon, and the others, who are his fools and followers to St. Helena. Sometimes he neglected all restraint on his nature, and gave the same ferocious and inarticulate ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... have been weak enough to fancy themselves actors, but no one ever persevered in obtruding himself for so long a time on the notice of the public in spite of laughter, hissing, etc." ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... was speaking, amidst the lightning and the thunder, large, slow drops began to beat upon the road, making great spots in the dust, hissing through the air, lashing against the walls. But Benedetto did not seek shelter inside the door, nor did she invite him to do so; and this was the only confession on her part, of the profound sentiment, which covered itself with a cloak ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... wig, and a pair of large dark glass goggles to defend the eyes from the snow, I was not only perfectly impervious to all effects of the weather, but so thoroughly defended from any influence of sight or sound, that a volcano might be hissing and thundering within ten yards of me, without attracting my slightest attention. Now, I thought, instead of remaining here, I'll just step down to the coach, and get snugly in the diligence, and having secured the corner of the coupe, resign myself to sleep with the certainty of not being ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... watched the main engines in their twin compartments, while the subordinate aids and machinists attended to the dynamos, motors, and auxiliary cylinders that worked the turrets, pumps, and ammunition-hoists. All boilers were hot and hissing steam; all fire-pumps were working; all fire-hose connected and spouting streams of water. Perspiring men with strained faces deluged ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... faster," panted Giant. All three advanced and tried to climb the shelving rocks by holding on to the vines. Some of these gave way, and the three boys fell back. Then from under the rocks came a strange, hissing sound, followed by ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... when he felt a movement in the hay under his back. Thinking it was a field mouse or a mole, he paid no attention to it; but when the pressure against his back became stronger, he leaped to his feet and was horrified to see the shining, hissing head of a snake rise out of the hay. The reptile elevated its head two feet or more from the floor, swaying from side to side in an angry fashion as though indignant at the unusual intrusion. As it continued to uncoil its hideous length, Paul seized a piece ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... gigantic marine spider, probing under its cobweb as though feeling its way along. In a few minutes the cloud drove down over us with a loud whistling of wind, and the water close to the boat's side ran in short, small seas, every head of it hissing; but to within the range of a biscuit toss all was flying, glistening obscurity, with occasional bursts of denser thicknesses which almost hid one end of the boat from the other. It was about six o'clock in the afternoon, and there might be ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... that the housekeeper looked at him with silent indignation. When all was prepared he poured the liquid into a crucible, set it among the glowing and sparkling coals and murmured strange words and spells over the seething fluid until it boiled up and the hissing bubbles ran over the rim of the crucible. Then he stood the hot vessel in cold water, pronounced one more incantation over it, held it before a mirror—the symbol of the Spirit of Truth and the emblem which she is always represented as carrying in her right hand—and poured the liquid back ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... see," cried Norman, and they ran to the spot where the fire was burning, to find that Tim was quite correct. Shanter had made a good fire, had skinned his snake, and was roasting it in the embers, from which it sent forth a hissing sound not unlike its natural utterance, but now in company with ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... door. Mr. Sanders was there again; Flanders she meant; and where an inquisitive old woman gets a name wrong, what chance is there that she will faithfully report an argument? As she held the plates under water and then dealt them on the pile beneath the hissing gas, she listened: heard Sanders speaking in a loud rather overbearing tone of voice: "good," he said, and "absolute" and "justice" and "punishment," and "the will of the majority." Then her gentleman piped up; she backed him for argument against Sanders. Yet Sanders was a fine young fellow ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... did not understand that the Land's End was the spot from which the spirits of the dead slid down to the shades below, the old chief laid himself down stiffly on the deck and closed his eyes. But still the goblins did not comprehend; they only looked at each other and spoke in their hard, hissing speech. After this little Taniwha went on shore, bearing with him his precious nail. He kept it for years, using it in turns as a spear-head and an auger, or carrying it slung round his neck as a sacred charm.[1] ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Messenger of Death or from whence a huge wild beast may, unexpectedly, rush furiously forth: here where one's steps may be suddenly arrested by the up-rising of a venomous snake. Who knows what an assistance to your fervid fantasy it would be to hear in the freedom of Nature's own menagerie the sinister hissing of the serpent, the bellowing of the elephant, the lowing of the sladan, the roar of the tiger, the grunt of the wild-boar, the squeal of the monkey, and the peevish notes of the cockatoo all blended ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... sacrifice to the glory of war, the hopes of nations, the comforts of life, and the earthly existence of infuriated millions, unprepared to enter an eternal state. In these mighty tempests and desolating whirlwinds, we may hear the hissing breath of his malice, and the yell of his infernal joy. If he seduced our parent in innocency, is it incredible he should seduce her race in their apostasy? if he were the chief agent in the first of sins, is it improbable that he should instigate ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... moonlight sifting through the tall trees as he had seen it last. Suddenly, with a rustle and a hiss, a huge green serpent glided out, reared itself up, and glared at them with eyes of deadly menace. And somehow, though he had not yet seen the lad's face, he knew the hissing serpent and the preserver of his life were one and the same. With horrible hisses the monster encircled him. Its fetid breath was in his face, its deadly fangs ready to strike his death-blow, and, with a suffocating cry, Sir Everard a-woke from his ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... where I thought I might be in safety. I stopped the mouth of it, which was low and straight, with a great stone, to preserve me from the serpents, but not so exactly fitted as to hinder light from coming in. I supped on part of my provisions, but the serpents, which began to appear, hissing about in the meantime, put me into such extreme fear that you may easily imagine I did not sleep. When day appeared the serpents retired, and I came out of the cave trembling. I can justly say that I walked a long time upon diamonds without feeling ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... that kept every point of consciousness vibrating to a different note, so that while one set of nerves was torn as with pincers by the dominant scream of the looms, others were thrilled with a separate pain by the ceaseless accompaniment of drumming, hissing, grating and crashing that shook the great building. Amherst felt this tumult only as part of the atmosphere of the mills; and to ears trained like his own he could make his voice heard without difficulty. But his attempts at speech were unintelligible to Mrs. ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... reared up with a hissing sound. She quite forgot herself, and a long tail hung down and whisked about from behind ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... and turned about for the next order, he cast his glance out upon the bay, and there, not a hundred and fifty yards away, her spotless sails tense, her cordage humming, her immaculate flanks slipping easily through the waves, the water hissing and churning under her forefoot, clean, gleaming, dainty, and aristocratic, the Ridgeways' yacht "Petrel" passed like a thing of life. Wilbur saw Nat Ridgeway himself at the wheel. Girls in smart gowns and young fellows ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... her task that in a very short time the flames were leaping up the chimney, the shadows dancing cheerfully over the ceiling, the kettle hissing and puffing on the fire. The sight and sound drew Francis once more from his bed to the basket chair, where he sat and lazily watched his wife as she cut bread, made tea, fried bacon and eggs, with the ease and celerity of a woman to whom domestic offices are familiar. When at last the tea-table ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... you!" he said, and he swung the end of the rope up toward the fourth story. But at the same moment a wild shriek rang out. A dark mass flew past his head and struck the flagstones with a dull thud. The flames darted hissing from the window, as though to reach after her, and then ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo |
