"Snatch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the houses had been guarded by a man armed with a campilan at night, the children would be mysteriously missing in the morning. It was evidently, said the priest, the work of devils. A big hand had been seen to snatch one of the children from its parent's arms; and under the houses of those afflicted could be seen a weird fire glowing in the dead ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... there no help—no preventive? Yes, there is. Behold the angelic band; hail, ye virtuous daughters; worthy of your virtuous mothers, come forward and tread in their steps. Snatch these little ones from the whirling vortex; bring them to a place of safety; teach them to know their Father, God: tell them of their Saviour's love; lead them through the history of his life; mark to them the example he set, the precepts he recorded ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... faith of the simple-minded no longer sufficed; if one ran the risk of going astray in wishing to turn back, would it become necessary to close the Grotto, to preach other efforts, other sufferings? However, his compassion revolted at that thought. No, no! it would be a crime to snatch their dream of Heaven from those poor creatures who suffered either in body or in mind, and who only found relief in kneeling yonder amidst the splendour of tapers and the soothing repetition of hymns. He had not taken the murderous course of undeceiving ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... but on the evening of Mrs. Roland's silver wedding Jeanette succeeded in persuading him to take a glass, in honor of the occasion. I watched Belle's face and it was a perfect study, every nerve seemed quivering with intense anxiety. Once I think she reached out her hand unconsciously as if to snatch away the glass, and when at last he yielded I saw the light fade from her eyes, a deadly pallor overspread her cheek, and I thought at one time she was about to faint, but she did not, and only laid her head upon her side as if to allay a ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... of the same nature. It finally became an understood thing that Geoffrey should pass nearly all of the time he could snatch from business, with women of this class. If I questioned him, he would laugh rudely, and ask me how I ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... tent and then at Dion with an air of profound astonishment. The quail dropped from his hands, and he did not even snatch at them as he listened to the remarkable sounds which, he could not doubt, flowed from his Amazon. His brows came down over his fiery eyes, and he seemed to stand at gaze like an animal, half-fascinated and half-suspicious. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... morsel, but it put new life into him, and he gathered fresh armfuls of sticks and sapling boughs until the fire burned Philip's face and his drying clothes sent up clouds of steam. Once, a hundred yards out in the plain, Philip heard the outlaw burst into a snatch of wild forest song as he pulled ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... an unwomanly action if she obey the impulse of her heart, and work diligently by the side of men whose work it is? If she see "another woman's bairnie" in trouble, is she not right to rush into the streets and snatch him from the danger which threatens him, as the horses come tearing by, and the huge and laden vehicles shake the houses? And is she less a woman, if, seeing these children grown up to manhood, she beholds them exposed to greater dangers than their childhood ever knew, and hastens to their rescue ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... an axe!" cried the master; "down with the main-mast!" and seizing a hatchet which lay at hand, Piero Quirini struck the first blow at the tall mast, whose weight was dragging down the vessel. Others with sword, or axe, or any tool which they could snatch at the moment, followed, and they were but just in time, for before another wave could wash over the vessel, the mast was floating free, and the ship had righted once more. The water was baled out with every vessel on which ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... serenade, but lay sleeping by the fire until Dick and his companions rose to take leave of their host, and return to the camp of the fur-traders. The remainder of that night was spent in making preparations for setting forth on the morrow, and when, at grey dawn, Dick and Crusoe lay down to snatch a few hours' repose, the yells and howling in the Snake camp were going on as vigorously ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... way to put up strawberries and spiced currants. But when big drops came suddenly plashing against the windows and a lively peal of thunder rolled overhead, then there was a scattering in the sitting-room. The aunties scampered out through a side door to snatch some clothes from the grass-plot, and to gather up the bright tin pans and pails that had been sunning on the long benches. Grandma, throwing her apron over her head, ran to see that some precious young turkeys were under ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... rock-bound Andromeda, with the devouring monster Society careering up to make a mouthful of her; and himself whirling down on his winged horse—just Pegasus turned Rosinante for the nonce—to cut her bonds, snatch her up, and whirl her back into ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... same way we can snatch a brand from the fire at any stage of its decomposition, or analyze a decaying tree trunk during any month of its existence, and thus manufacture as many chemical formulae as we like, and give them specific names; but it is evident that this is child's ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... sending against you his countless warriors, drowned in steel, and provided with every store and description of arms. What can you oppose to them? You have no other weapons than your swords, no provisions but those that you may snatch from the hands of your enemies; you must therefore attack them immediately, or otherwise your wants will increase; the gales of victory may no longer blow in your favor, and perchance the fear that lurks in the hearts of your enemies may be changed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... cage: Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years, Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres; Like Eastern kings a lazy state they keep, And close confined to their own palace, sleep. From these perhaps (ere Nature bade her die) Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky. As into air the purer spirits flow, And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below, So flew the soul to its congenial place, Nor left one virtue to redeem her race. But thou, false guardian of a charge too ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... In the absence of royal protection, the slayer of a person guilty of the slaughter of a Brahmana would not obtain any reward; on the other hand the person guilty of Brahmanicide would enjoy perfect immunity. In the absence of royal protection, men would snatch other people's wealth from their very hands, and all wholesome barriers would be swept away, and everybody, inspired with fear, would seek safety in flight. In the absence of royal protection, all kinds of injustice would set in; an intermixture of castes would take place; and famine would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Then why should he dispaire that knowes to court it With words, faire lookes, and liberality: What hast not thou full often strucke a Doe, And borne her cleanly by the Keepers nose? Aron. Why then it seemes some certaine snatch or so ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... profligates in London, a man of low birth and lower tastes, a haunter of taverns, the terror of all decent women, and a roystering swashbuckler, with a sword as ready to leap at a word as his lips to snatch a kiss from ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... 'We wanted to snatch a laurel from your wreath,' was his hasty greeting to Hillner, who, after his father's fall, was once more, with his uninjured hand, doing vigorous work ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... scarce could know they live, but that they bite. But, as the rich, when tired with daily feasts, For change, become their next poor tenant's guests; Drink hearty draughts of ale from plain brown bowls, And snatch the homely rasher from the coals: So you, retiring from much better cheer, For once, may venture to do penance here. And since that plenteous autumn now is past, Whose grapes and peaches have indulged your taste, Take in good part, from our poor poet's ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... desperate undertaking in the face of such heavy odds, for in all his divisions he had only some six thousand men, and even these were scattered. The single hope was that by his own skill and courage he could snatch victory from a situation where victory seemed impossible. With the instinct of a great commander he saw that his only chance was to fight the British detachments suddenly, unexpectedly, and separately, and to do this not only required secrecy and perfect ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... rules were made but to promote their end) Some lucky license answer to the full Th' intent proposed, that license is a rule. Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take, May boldly deviate from the common track; From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, Which without passing through the judgment, gains The heart, and all its end at once attains. In prospects thus, some objects please our eyes, Which out of nature's common order rise, The shapeless ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... to snatch the sceptre from a kingly tyrant. The present struggle is to put whips into the hands of Rebel slavemongers with which to compel work without wages, and thus give wicked power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... public emotion—even as the incident itself to-day reminds me of the family-party smallness of the old New York, those happy limits that could make us all care, and care to fond vociferation, for the same thing at once. It was a moment of the golden age—representing too but a snatch of elation, since the wretched Arctic had gone down in mortal woe and her other companion, the Pacific, leaving England a few months later and under the interested eyes of our family group, then temporarily settled in London, was never heard of more. Let ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... struck Roaring Bill for his audacity. She had not realized what an altogether disreputable appearance a normally good-looking young woman could acquire in two weeks on the trail, with no toilet accessories and only the clothes on her back. She tried to snatch the mirror from him, but Bill eluded her reach, and laid the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the sunrise or the scenery always "indescribable," while the appetite of the guides lends itself to such reiterated description? These are questions which suggest themselves to quiet critics, but hardly to the group in the hotel. They have found the hole where the hero is to snatch a few hours of sleep before commencing the ascent. They have followed him in imagination round the edge of the crevasses. All the old awe and terror that disappeared in his presence revive at the eloquent description of the arete. There is a gloom over us ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... Enjoyment.—Whatever advantage we snatch beyond the certain portion allotted us by nature is like money spent before it is due, which at the time of regular payment will be missed ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the tone of a courageous dog, from which you snatch the bone it has legitimately gained; "I disturb myself! Ah! Monsieur d'Artagnan, how ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you asked me was hopeless. Your father would have been against you, for the sake of the Sainfoys; your mother, for opposite reasons. There was one chance, Herve himself. I saw that he was very angry at the Ratoneau proposal; I thought he might snatch at an alternative. I still think he might have done so, if you had not behaved like a maniac. It was the moment, Angelot; such moments do not return. I was striking while the iron was hot—you, you only, made my idea useless. You made me look even more mad and foolish than yourself—not ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... added decisively. "It would be perfectly easy for any dishonest young woman to go through the houses without being questioned. Perhaps she got frightened and didn't notice Babbie's money on that account or didn't have time to snatch up anything ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... was beginning to burn, for it seemed as if it must at the next move, thrust its iron hand into that underground world where the plot was hatching, and clutching the heart of the great enterprise, snatch it, conspiracy and conspirators, into the light of day. But it was at such a tremendous moment of danger, that the leaders, unawed by the imminency of discovery, took a step to throw the city off of their scent, so daring, dextrous ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... Drew caught a snatch of sentence passed between the leader of the newcomers and his own officer. He recognized the voice of John ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... had never seen brightened with the light of a smile. Yet their eyes gleamed when the whistling lash fell upon their shoulders or when a passer-by threw them the chewed and broken stub of a cigar, which the nearest would snatch up and hide in his salakot, while the rest remained gazing at the passers-by ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... hundred feet high, sheer as a wall. Into this shadowy canon, silent as death, crept the boats of the white men, vainly straining their eyes for glimpse of egress from the watery defile. A word, a laugh, the snatch of a voyageur's ditty, came back with elfin echo, as if spirits hung above the dizzy heights spying on the intruders. Springs and tenuous, wind-blown falls like water threads trickled down each side of the lofty rocks. The water was so deep that poles did not touch bottom, and there ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... when the Esquire laid down his pen; though he could not but foresee that several scribblers would soon snatch it up, which he might (one would think) easily have prevented: he scorned to take any further care about it, but left the field fairly open to any worthy successor. Immediately, some of our Wits were for forming themselves into a Club, headed by one ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... on the prudent Ant thy heedless eyes, Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise; No stern command, no monitory voice, Prescribes her duties, or directs her choice; Yet, timely provident, she hastes away To snatch the blessings of a plenteous day; When fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers? While artful shades thy downy ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... he is a born friend of the Muses so called, and never neglects an opportunity. Wonderful to see how, in such an environment, in the depths of mere toil and tribulation, with a whole breaking world lying on his shoulders, as it were,—he always shows such appetite for a snatch of talk with anybody presumably of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... to me? Who is this man you have with you? where does he come from? Are you such a fool as not to know he is a tool of the Adams, and that you are acting with him? I cannot be with you. If I had my liberty I would hurry to your side, snatch you from this villain, and plunge my knife so deep into him that he would never know he had received a blow!!! Why are you so foolish? Do you love me? You have often said you did. You know I have done all in my power to make you ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... streets, and lay along in the open fields. Some, from the loss of their whole substance, even the means of their daily sustenance, others, from affection for their relations, whom they had not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to perish in them, tho they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any man offer to check the fire: so repeated were the menaces of many who forbade to extinguish it; and because others openly threw firebrands, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... through poverty and disease, for finding him when his own mother had given him up for dead, and restoring him to the bosom of his family. It looks as though they feared that this old man, already trembling on the brink of the grave, would snatch some comfort for his remaining days out of the pittance that he might hope to collect from this vast estate for services that ought to be beyond price. It looks as though hatred and jealousy were combined in a desperate effort to crush the counsel for the plaintiff. The counsel for the plaintiff ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... heart of hearts that he could have walked round Josephine, in the old days, now speaks with manly pride of his sister, the Professor. His own bent, however, has always been so painfully strong that he even yet tries to snatch spare moments for his researches; but the strain in so many directions has broken down his health. People always told him that a man's constitution was not fitted for severe brain-work. He supposes it ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... that it was not hers until she had made it her own by choosing and willing to be good-tempered when she was disinclined—holding it fast with the hand of determination when the hand of wrong would snatch it from her. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... who snatch gentlemens swords from their sides. He drew the cull's tayle rumly; he snatched ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... scorn, who, sleek and fat, Shiver at a Norway rat. Rough and hardy, bold and free, Be the cat that's made for me; He whose nervous paw can take My lady's lapdog by the neck, With furious hiss attack the hen, And snatch a chicken ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... below the navel; so that their bodies wore the appearance of blooming health. Nor used he to go to his lover, having made up his voice in an effeminate tone, prostituting himself with his eyes. Nor used it to be allowed when one was dining to take the head of the radish, or to snatch from their seniors dill or parsley, or to eat fish, or to giggle, or to keep ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... but under the control of an old monk, and she always came attired in great splendour like a lady. The two lovers had no other license than to see each other, and to speak to each other, without being able to snatch the smallest atom of pleasure, and always grew their love ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... job" in all his life. And it really was a curious sight. The hedgehog, with the merriest twinkle in his eyes, would take the worms out of my hand; and when I dangled them five or six inches off the ground, he would rear up on his hindlegs and snatch and grab until he secured them. Then he would sit up and scratch himself like a dog. He would allow me to take him up in my hands and stroke him, and yet not retire into his bristly shell. He ate ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... house and make such preparations as were necessary for his dismal ride over the mountains to Fairbanks. She had the supper dishes to wash up in Tennie's absence, and as she was a busy little housewife she found herself singing a snatch of song as she passed back and forth from dining-room to kitchen. He heard it, too, and smiled to himself as he bolted the windows on the ground floor and examined the locks of the three lower doors, and when he finally came into the kitchen with his greatcoat ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... courser, taking on her lap the carcass of a lamb or goat, and setting off at full gallop, followed by the bridegroom and other young men of the party, also on horseback; she is always to strive, by adroit turns, etc., to avoid her pursuers, that no one approach near enough to snatch from her the burden on her lap. This game, called koekbueri (green wolf), is in use among all the nomads of central Asia." (A. Vambery, Travels in Central ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and seek for water, and there was none. And the bronze and marble figures seemed to mock thee and hold out cups of water, and when thou didst grasp them and put them to my father's lips, they turned to parchment. And the bronze and marble figures seemed to turn into demons and snatch my father's body from thee, and the parchments shrivelled up, and blood ran everywhere instead of them, and fire upon the blood, till they all vanished, and the plain was bare and stony again, and thou wast alone in the midst of ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... shrieked Giacobbe, who was bending over him, with ear intent to snatch the weak syllables from his ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various
... to laugh. "And give you a show to snatch that six-shooter and blow a hole through me, as you did to the Sheriff of Calaveras, eh? Not if this court understands itself," ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... all men drank with him, and the hearts of the Earls arose, As of them that snatch forth glory from the deadly wall of foes: With the joy of life were they drunken and no man knew for why, And the voice of their exultation rose up in an awful cry; —It is joy in the mouths that utter, it is hope in the hearts that crave, And think of no gainsaying, and remember nought ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... be found in a thing which is no bigger than a cabbage, and which, on occasion, an executioner might strike off at a blow, and suddenly smother that world in darkness and night. The world, I say, would vanish, did not heads grow like mushrooms, and were there not always plenty of them ready to snatch it up as it is sinking down into nothing, and keep it going like a ball. This world is an idea which they all have in common, and they express the community of their ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Spirit, too, our hearts we pray, That somebody's boy We may watch for, and snatch from the ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... kin walk biggity, en dey kin talk biggity, en mo'n dat, dey kin feel biggity, but yit all de same deyer gwine ter git kotch up wid. Dey go 'long en dey go 'long, en den bimeby yer come trouble en snatch um slonchways, en de mo' bigger w'at dey is, de wusser does dey ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... was pacing up and down his study, seeking a solution of this frightful problem, asking himself what was to be done.... He saw that this miserable Vinson was caught in the wheels of a terrible machine, from which it was almost impossible to snatch him into safety. Nevertheless, his conscience revolted at the idea that he should do nothing to avert this wretched lad's suicide. He must stop Vinson—he must certainly save him from himself at any price, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... days, Or sit in dull dominion over time; But this—to drink fate's utmost at a draught, Nor feel the wine grow stale upon the lip, To scale the summit of some soaring moment, Nor know the dulness of the long descent, To snatch the crown of life and seal it up Secure forever ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... balance of judgement, and practical sagacity. The sole important issue was the encouraging of the peace party at Paris, with a view to the revocation of the aggressive decrees of the Convention. In private, Fox had admitted that they were wholly indefensible; and yet, in order to snatch an oratorical triumph, he fired off a diatribe which could not but stiffen the necks of the French Jacobins. At such a crisis the true statesman merges the partisan in the patriot and says not a word to weaken ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... him in the estimation of Coldriver's first citizen. Nor did he pause to study Scattergood. One might have said that he lit in mid-career, at the top of his speed, and was out of the door before Scattergood could extend a pudgy hand to snatch at him. Scattergood grinned. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... a goldfish, All in a little bowl; I wouldn't worry whether I really had a soul. I'd glide about through sun and shade And snatch up little gnats, My heaven would be summer My hell—well, ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... our flowers lest they are plundered by the passing winds. It quickens our blood and brightens our eyes to snatch kisses that would vanish if we delayed. Our life is eager, our desires are keen, for time tolls the bell of parting. Brother, keep that ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... domineering though I may be, I should probably never care to bring the child's condition to her notice again. There was something about her—something volcanic in her femininity. I knew it would never do. Better let the thing continue to be a monstrosity! I might, unnoticed, of course, snatch a bun from ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... yet to live. No instrument of my deliverance was within reach. I was powerless. To rush from the presence of these women to hide me forever from their scrutiny and their upbraiding, to snatch from their minds all traces of the existence of Clithero, was ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... in one pocket after another, while Cynthia clung to the colt's bridle, and he was uncertain till the last whether he had any letter for her. When it appeared she made a flying snatch at it and ran; and the comedy was over, to be repeated in some form the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which perhaps has already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through many a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and veritable, full of piety yet free of cant; to me joyfully finding much in it, and joyfully missing so much in it, this little snatch of music, by the greatest German man, sounds like a stanza in the grand Road Song and Marching Song of our great Teutonic kindred,—wending, wending, valiant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... a fine breezy day, clear and sunshiny, save where the shadows of a few dense piled-up clouds swept dark athwart the landscape. In the secluded recesses of the valley all was hot, heavy and still; though now and then a fitful snatch of a breeze, the mere fragment of some broken gust that seemed to have lost its way, tossed for a moment the white cannach of the bogs, or raised spirally into the air, for a few yards, the light beards of some seeding thistle, and straightway let them down ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... mentioning. Toni, the small Fijian who had chanted the song of Black Fernando's hell, was caught by a huge wave and pounded hard against the cabin. The mad turmoil of water swept his nearly lifeless form into the scuppers, but before another comber could snatch him overboard, I managed to reach his side and drag ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... instincts,' he continued, 'but our intellectual and our spiritual passions as well. To force our will in the obedience of a higher will, to leave behind all our mundane desires in the pursuit of the one great desire, herein lies the essence of true virtue. St. Anthony would snatch his hours of devotion from the Devil. Even prayer to him was a struggle, an effort not to feel the joy of it. Yes, we must always disobey our impulses, and resist the tyranny of our desires. When I have a strong desire to pray, I go out into the vineyard and work. When ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Their exhibitions of it may seem superb,—such power and such restraint, combined, are noble,—but a quality carried to excess defeats itself. Kings who won't lift their scepters must yield in the end; and, the worst of it is, to upstarts who snatch at their crowns. ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... money. If you held out to him a penny in one hand and a threepenny-bit in the other, he would snatch at the threepence, and then break his heart because he could not get the penny in as well. You might safely have left him in the room with a leg of mutton, but it would not have been wise to leave your ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... elements: the lyric, for it was first chanted to some stringed instrument; the epic, for it tells a tale, often of solemn and ancient report; the dramatic, for its actors are ever ready to start forward into life, snatch the word from the mouth of the narrator, and speak in their own persons. All these forms have been used for the utterance of religious thought and feeling. Of the lyrical poems of England, religion possesses the most; of the epic, the best; of ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... entanglements, the girl's speedy death would prove the most felicitous solution of this devouring riddle, which so unexpectedly crossed his smooth path; then what meant the vehement protest of his throbbing heart, the passionate longing to snatch her from disease, and disgrace, and keep her safe forever in the close cordon of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a wonderful fisherman, who could snatch a fish from the water in his sure claws. But for all that, he was not so wonderful as Uncle Sam, who could catch a ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... lived through each day with tight-shut lips, conscious of one clear thing in her mist of unhappy bewilderment—that Bob must not know: Bob, who would probably leave his job of skimming through the air of her beloved France after the Hun, and snatch an hour to fly to England and annihilate the entire Rainham household, returning with Cecilia tucked away somewhere in his aeroplane. It was a pleasant dream, and served to carry her through more than one hard moment. But it did not always serve; and there were ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... reached Rabbit Island—a small wooded island where the passing dog drivers always stop in winter to make tea and snatch a mouthful of hard biscuit while the dogs have ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... of the surrounding deserts, and the still more menacing silence of Alexander. It was not the faint sound of the footsteps of our soldiers wandering in this vast sepulchre, that could rouse our Emperor from his reverie, and snatch him from his painful recollections ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... such windows as were glazed, and let in the light. I next proceeded to make up the fire, but upon my lifting a log for that purpose, there was one universal outcry of horror, and old Rose, attempting to snatch it from me, exclaimed, 'Let alone, missis—let be—what for you lift wood—you have nigger enough, missis, to do it!' I hereupon had to explain to them my view of the purposes for which hands and arms were appended to our bodies, and forthwith began making Rose tidy up the miserable ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... not the whole of any song," cried Victorine; but broke, as she said it, into a snatch of a carol which seemed to the poor infatuated man at the foot of the stairway like the song of an angel. He hurried out, and threw himself down under the pear-tree where he had lain before. The blossoms had all fallen from the pear-tree ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... to her call, the elevator shot up to the second floor, and Tryon Dunham stepped out in time to see the two men snatch Mary's hands again and attempt to bind ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... degree of its attention and its power of comprehension, it is in my power. The other foe I have to overcome is in myself. It is the infinite variety of forms, phenomena, laws, and the multitude of ideas of my own and other people's conditioned by them. Every moment I must have the skill to snatch out of that vast mass of material what is most important and necessary, and, as rapidly as my words flow, clothe my thought in a form in which it can be grasped by the monster's intelligence, and may arouse its attention, and at the same time one must keep a sharp lookout that one's thoughts are ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... slow Ravish, v., to snatch Reclaim, n., (hawking}, the calling back of a hawk Refudation, n., a process in which vinegar is poured on lead, distilled off, and again suffered to act on it Relief, n., a dessert Rese, v., to rush on anyone Resolve, v., to loosen, weaken, to dissolve Rheum, ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... round his hand he was dragged sideways, and but for Poole's ready help would have been pulled off the chair helplessly on to the deck. Fortunately for him the skipper's son was on the qui vive, and stopping the convalescent's progress with one hand, he made a snatch at the ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... dreams, his withered hopes Thou knowest, The baffled yearnings of his heart to snatch From paths unhallowed childhood's tottering feet, And lay a rosy smile on little lips With homeless hunger pale, to curses trained, Whereon no kiss hath ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... our poor lot is cast, Or this the last, Which on the crumbling rocks has dashed Etruscan seas, Strain clear the wine; this life is short, at best. Take hope with zest, And, trusting not To-morrow, snatch To-day for ease! ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... It drives things past us in a hurrying flock. We snatch at them. And those we miss seem lost for ever because some one calls out, in a foolish voice of terror and regret, 'Too late!' Yet, in reality, we stand still; the rush of the hours is a sham. We see things out of proportion, like trees from the window of a train, their beauty hidden in ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only give you the outlines: My poor, dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from which I fear she must be moved to an hospital.... My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt.... God Almighty have us well in his keeping!" Lamb assumed the tender care of his ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... yet time—time to snatch this poor soul from everlasting darkness. I believe—I believe in thy infinite love. What is my love or my pleading? It is quenched in thine. I can only clasp her in my weak arms and urge her with my weak pity. Thou—thou wilt breathe on the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... was enthroned in her heart. It was sweet to meet her laughing glance, dear fellow-conspirator. It was sweet every morning and night to have the intimate little talk through the telephone. And it was sweetest of all to snatch a precious hour with her alone. Of such vain and foolish things is made all that is ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... after nine and had to be on the road at half past ten I don't need to tell you that the cook had no time to clear up after himself. He had just time—with his mouth full of food—to throw his apron on the floor, snatch up his gun and his knapsack and buckle himself into shape as he sprinted up the hill to ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... some convenient spot overhanging the water, and securing its finny prey with a lightning-like grasp of the claw as it passes beneath the white clad fisher. Sometimes it will sail over the surface of a stream, and snatch the fish as they rise for food. It is also a great lover of lemmings, and in the destruction of these quadruped pests does infinite service ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... to the window and strayed out onto the balcony. Nick followed her with enlacing arm. The canal below them lay in moonless shadow, barred with a few lingering lights. A last snatch of gondola-music came from far off, carried upward on a ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... away, declaring himself a perfect cure. And Forsythe and Barrington agreed, that after such a brilliant finale it was as well to beat a retreat: just as some gentlemen, at the close of an evening visit, relate a witty anecdote, or sparkle out a brilliant repartee, snatch up their hats, make their bows, and leave you in the middle of a laugh. But another adventure was in store for them, which had not entered into their calculations at all. The play-bills show us that after a tragedy there generally comes a farce: the case was reversed with them, for they had ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... north-east, and the thermometer outside stood at thirty-five degrees. Jean Cornbutte was in agony, and his son had searched in vain for some remedy with which to relieve his pain. On this day, however, throwing himself suddenly on Vasling, he managed to snatch a lemon from him which he ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... said—indeed a general complaint— That no one has succeeded in describing The monde, exactly as they ought to paint: Some say, that authors only snatch, by bribing The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint, To furnish matter for their moral gibing; And that their books have but one style in common— My Lady's prattle, filtered ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... was worn out and could not rest; twenty times in the night he would awake with a start from a sleep haunted by nightmares. It was only in the blue chamber, in Elodie's arms, that he could snatch a few hours' slumber. He talked and cried out in his sleep and used often to awake her; but she could make nothing of what ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... doves breasting the wave. Hitherto the young warrior had held aloof in coldness of courtesy from Bhanavar; but now he sat by her, and said, 'The bond between my prince and Rukrooth is accomplished, and it was to snatch thee from the Chief of the Beni-Asser and bring thee even to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... their memory, as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell them that compared to disunion all ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... unafflicted, bear Such manly merit in distress, beset By cruel foes, and faction's savage cry? My good, my gracious mistress, stretch, betimes, Your saving arm, and snatch him from destruction, From deadly malice, treachery, and Cecil. Oh, let him live, to clear his conduct up! My gracious queen, he'll nobly earn your bounty, And with his dearest blood ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... and hove to for the night. The apprehension of danger to himself must then have ceased; but he neither attempted to work up in the smooth water, nor sent any of his boats to see whether some unfortunate individuals were not clinging to the wrecks, whom he might snatch from the sharks or save from a more lingering death; it was safer, in his estimation, to continue on his voyage and publish that we were all lost, as he did not fail to do on his ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... Miss Mitford,—I this moment have your note; and as a packet of ours is going to England, I snatch up a pen to do what I can with it in the brief moments between this and post time. I don't wait till it shall be possible to write at length, because I have something immediate to say to you. Your ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... death of Alexander the Great his empire was broken into fragments ruled by those of his generals who were able to snatch these smaller kingdoms for themselves. One of them named Ptolemy seized Egypt. His descendants, known as the Ptolemies, reigned there for centuries. Another, named Seleucus, gained control of the greater part of the old Persian empire. He built the city of Antioch, in northern ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... ex-guardsman, and he at once suspected that Legard was about to repair to Paris as his rival. He sighed, and looked round the spacious apartment, and gazed on the wide prospects of grove and turf that extended from the window, and said to himself, "Is another to snatch these from my grasp?" His impatience to visit Mrs. Leslie, to gain ascendency over Lady Vargrave, to repair to Paris, to scheme, to manoeuvre, to triumph, accelerated the progress of the disease that was now burning in his veins; and the hand that ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... good ostriches in the desert as ever came out, though they are fowl instead of fish. It's my belief we shall snatch out of that nest a better game-cock bird than ever the goblin was, and without ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... hall? If it was a burglar, he certainly must not come upstairs, or she would die of fright. An idea occurred to her, and acting on a sudden impulse she dashed into Dormitory 2, roused the others, and told them to snatch what missiles they could, and ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... thickets. It was a pathetic figure, this fleeing human creature, whether chased by dogs and men or pursued only by the terrors that hide themselves behind the vast shadows of the night; and the figure grew more pathetic when, as it seemed, it sprang out of the very elements themselves to snatch her son from the floods. The old lady sighed and pressed her thin lips together. She had made up ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... friend," he cried, with a dramatic gesture and a fierce snatch at that side of his mustache which invariably failed him ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... muses, pour the pitying tear For Pollio snatch'd away: For had he liv'd another year! —He had not ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... to be a spy, as the coat and cap which his master used in traveling. Had Mr. Bowmore discovered (since the afternoon) that he was really in danger? Had the necessities of instant flight only allowed him time enough to snatch his coat and cap out of the hall? And had the treacherous manservant seen him as he was making his escape to the post-chaise? The cook's conclusions answered all these questions in the affirmative—and, if Captain Bervie's words of warning had been correctly reported, the cook's conclusion for once ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... villager, In whom his oft-told tale awoke no fears, Such as he filled his gaping listeners with. Nor ever was there break in his discourse, Save when with gray eyes lifted to the moon, He conjured from the past strange instances Of kidnapp'd infants, from their cradles snatch'd, And changed for elvish sprites; of blights, and blains, Sent on the cattle by the vengeful fairies; Of blasted crops, maim'd limbs, and unsound minds, All plagues inflicted by these angered sprites. Then would he pause, and wash his story down With ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... a new pestilence—the Sweating Sickness—which had appeared in Germany and at Wittenberg itself. It was a plague, known already many years before, which used to attack its victims with fever, sweat, thirst, intense pain and exhaustion, and snatch them off with fearful rapidity. Luther knew well the danger of it when once it actually appeared. But he watched without terror the supposed symptoms of its appearance at Wittenberg, and remarked that the sickness there was mainly caused by fright. On the 27th he told another friend how the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... stories fully live up to the promise of its outside (what stories could?), but they have amongst them one, from which both title and picture are taken, of very unusual and haunting quality. So, if you should only be able to snatch so much time from work of National importance as suffices to read a single tale, begin at the start, and be assured of having the best. Not that the others are without their attractions, though one is rather gratuitously revolting. Laid in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... slab of dark-veined marble was to be inscribed with the names of buried ones. They doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very delicate, and growing every day more fragile, so that she looked as if the summer breeze should snatch her up, and waft her heavenward. But still she watched the daily growth of the Temple; and so did old Walter Gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff, and giving ...
— The Lily's Quest (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fair Freedom hither, And lo, the desert smiled, A paradise of pleasure Was opened in the wild. Your harvest, bold Americans, No power shall snatch away. Huzza, ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... wait at least a fortnight more before reaching a final decision. His correspondence with this sister may be found fully spread out in his journal,* and is a model of devout carefulness lest he should snatch at a gift that might be prompted by wrong motives or given with an unprepared heart. When finally given, unexpected hindrances arose affecting her actual possession and transfer, so that more than a third of a year elapsed before ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... serious matter. The emperor, guessing that this was the work of Virgilius, besought him to break the spell. Then Virgilius ordered a scaffold to be erected in the market-place, and Febilla to be brought clothed in a single white garment. And further, he bade every one to snatch fire from the maiden, and to suffer no neighbour to kindle it. And when the maiden appeared, clad in her white smock, flames of fire curled about her, and the Romans brought some torches, and some straw, and some shavings, and fires were kindled ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... better to live a free life on the sea, even if certain at last to be overpowered by a Danish fleet, than to lurk a hunted fugitive in the woods; but I cannot do it. So long as I live I must remain among my people, ready to snatch any chance that may offer of striking a blow against the invader. But for you ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... voracious sharks were not permitted to vanquish their prey, for man, far more powerful with his instruments of death, was about to take a hand and snatch it from them. Gathered around the lagoon were the companions of Ker Karraje, every whit as ferocious as the sharks themselves, and well deserving the same name, for ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... pulled down one of the men, and with a single shake, terrier-like, had broken his neck. Then he was upon another. In their efforts to vanquish the wolf-dog the savages forgot all about me, thus giving me an instant in which to snatch a knife from the loin-string of him who had first fallen and account for another of them. Almost simultaneously the hyaenodon pulled down the remaining enemy, crushing his skull with a single bite of those ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the approach of evening broke off the conflict, and the two sides separated to snatch a brief repose, the emperor, after due reflection, resolved to change his plans. Although many reasons of great urgency pressed him to force on the destruction of Phoenice, as of a fortress which would prove an impregnable barrier to the inroads ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... concessions required of them, was "the right to be represented on this floor, provided they will also consent not to vote for the men who are to represent them! The very price by which we seek to induce their assent to these amendments we snatch away from their hands the moment that assent is secured. Is there any man here who can so far delude himself as to suppose for a moment that the people of the Southern States will accede to any such scheme as this? There is not one chance in ten ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes |
