"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pocket-handkerchief, notwithstanding his uncommon forwardness to hold forth the banner of sedition, was thought to be a character of so mixed a complexion, as rendered it more decent for him to reserve his interference till my Snuff-box could be ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... observed, as he helped himself out of TAMMAS'S snuff-mull, "ye're ower kyow-owy. Ye ken humour's a thing 'at spouts out o' its ain accord, an' there's no nae spouter in Thrums 'at can ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... equal on both sides, namely, thirteen ships of war. The engagement lasted upwards of fifteen hours. All the crews performed prodigies of valour. The brave Captain Du Petit-Thouars had two of his limbs shot off. He ordered snuff to be brought him, and remained on his quarter-deck, and, like Brueys, waited till a cannon-ball despatched him. The entire French squadron, excepting the two ships and two frigates carried off by Villeneuve, was destroyed. Nelson had suffered so severely that he could not pursue the fugitives. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... misunderstanding in sending it, do not make any inquiries; let the matter rest, it is not worth a quarrel. You did the best you could. A little ill-humour and a few days lost in expectation are not worth a pinch of snuff. Forget, therefore, my commissions and your transaction; next time, if God permits us to live, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... person, glad to sit next a warmer neighbour; or the timid, glad to have a courageous fellow-traveller. It cheers him to observe the store of small comforts that his fellow-creatures may find in their self-complacency, just as one is pleased to see poor old souls soothed by the tobacco and snuff for which one has neither ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... presently. He became known in London society as well as in agricultural circles. He was a handsome and attractive man, a charming companion, and widely recognised as an agricultural authority. The empress of Russia sent him a snuff-box; 'Farmer George' presented a merino ram; he was elected member of learned societies; he visited Burke at Beaconsfield, Pitt at Holmwood, and was a friend of ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... destruction of your countrymen. Noble noble fellow!—here's a hundred guineas for you." Which sum he placed in my hand. "Nay," says the Marshal "the man has done his duty:" and, pulling out a magnificent gold diamond-hilted snuff-box, he gave me— ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Enquiry it be discoverable that the Government has lost by the Customs, when the Amount even of the Debentures has by much exceeded the Income of the Duties; without any Allowance for the vast Quantity that is consumed in the Country in smoaking, chewing, Snuff, &c. ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... sir," the man acknowledged. "The doctor told me I might snuff out at any moment. I can't live, anyway, for more than a year. ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wish to get out of the reach of her persecutors. The old worn-out clock in the narrow dining hall had struck one; a cold rain was patting upon the roof, and the women watchers, one after another, had fallen asleep; and even the snuff-dippers, whose dirty practice creates a nervousness that keeps them awake longer than any other class, had yielded to the demands of Morpheus, when Aggy, the colored servant, stealthily entered the room, beckoned to Clotelle, and ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... slavish his labour an' little his wage, His path tuv his grave were bud rough, Poor livin' an' hardships, a deal more nor age, Hed swealed(1) daan his can'le to t' snuff. ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... money for could have been attended to in ten minutes by one person. Still, the whole family remained in town for most of the day, spending the greater part of the time in standing on the streets, the women, too often, sitting about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff. Sunday was usually spent in going to some big meeting. With few exceptions, I found that the crops were mortgaged in the counties where I went, and that the most of the coloured farmers were in debt. The state had not been able to build schoolhouses in the country districts, ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... ill-clad, with a homeliness of manner that was unique in itself, I confess that my heart sank within me as I remembered that this was the man chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the gravest period of its history. I remember his dress as if it were but yesterday—snuff-colored and slouchy pantaloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; straight or evening dress coat, with tightly fitting sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, all supplemented by an awkwardness ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... sipped a few drops of Rhenish from a Venetian glass. Teniers would have lit a clay pipe. Duerer would perhaps have swallowed a pint of Nueremberg beer, and Greuse or Mignard would have resorted to their snuff-boxes. We do not know what Michelangelo or Perugino did under the circumstances, but it is tolerably evident that the man of the nineteenth century cannot think without talking and cannot talk without cigarettes. Therefore Anastase ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... in and captured the Bourbon. Meantime Admiral Hopson was in extreme danger, for the French fire-ship having fallen on board him, whereby his rigging was set on fire, he expected every moment to be burnt; but it happened that the fire-ship was a merchantman, and laden with snuff, and being fitted up in haste, the snuff in some measure extinguished the fire. The gallant Hopson, however, received considerable damage, for, besides having his fore-topmast shot away, he had 115 men killed and ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... through Albert, or possibly through the village of Bucquoy, the other through Montdidier. Such a formation would mean positive disaster. It would be worth a quarter of a million men to the Allies to strike both north and south across the base of this angle and snuff it out. It would mean to Germany the loss of a mass of artillery and tens of thousands of men. And the Allies would not be slow to see this opportunity and strike. The German High Command, therefore, did not dare to take the chance with matters ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... of making the famous Barcelona Snuff, as it was perform'd at the Lyon at Barcelona; from the same. This is also call'd ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... damned as fast as now they're made, No, no—let Duigenan search the papal chair For fragrant treasures long forgotten there; And, as the witch of sunless Lapland thinks That little swarthy gnomes delight in stinks, Let sallow Perceval snuff up the gale Which wizard Duigenan's gathered sweets exhale. Enough for me whose heart has learned to scorn Bigots alike in Rome or England born, Who loathe the venom whence-soe'er it springs, From popes or lawyers,[2] pastrycooks or kings,— Enough for ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sunrise they reached a large inn, where Little Claus stopped and went to get something to eat. The landlord was a rich man, and a good man too; but as passionate as if he had been made of pepper and snuff. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... door which Sunny had locked. He cautiously tried the handle, and the sound brought a whimper from the yellow pup within. He cursed the animal softly under his breath and waited, hoping the wretched creature would settle down again. He heard it snuff at the foot of the door, and then the soft patter of its feet died away, and he knew that the poor thing had satisfied itself ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... my head when I chose you, Babet, and the soft place was in my heart!" replied Jean, heartily. The compliment was taken with a smile, as it deserved to be. "Look you, Babet, I would not give this pinch of snuff," said Jean, raising his thumb and two fingers holding a good dose of the pungent dust,—"I would not give this pinch of snuff for any young fellow who could be indifferent to the charms of such a pretty lass as Angelique ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... that they seemed to be poetic equivalents for wine and tobacco. There was no doubt that things were going too far; the Reverend Mother frowned, and shifted her position in her chair uneasily; the Bishop crossed his legs and took snuff methodically. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... but it seems there is some hope dawned for him. All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King's street to catch him; and now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else. And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my fourpenny-piece that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will think ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his journey in a loose white suit, which, though designed for the East, was almost aggressively British. A Cheapside tailor had cut it, and, had it been black or gray or snuff-coloured instead of white, its wearer might have passed all the way from the Docks to Temple Bar for a solid merchant on 'Change—a self-respecting man, too, careless of dress for appearance' sake, but careful of it for his ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... every other bad habit. Though, at first, the violence we do to nature makes her revolt; in a little time she submits, and is not only reconciled, but grows fond of the habit; and we think it necessary to our existence: neither the flavour of wine, of opium, of snuff, or of tobacco, are naturally agreeable to us: on the contrary, they are highly unpleasant at first; but by the force of habit ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... the adroitness of his well-turned compliments. Whenever the Autocrat of All the Russias appeared in public, at a military review, or the Opera, or at Ascot, he received an ovation, and Baron Stockmar, with dry cynicism, has not failed to record the lavish gifts of 'endless snuff-boxes and large presents' which made his departure memorable to the Court officials. Out of this visit grew, though the world knew nothing of it then, the Secret Memorandum, drawn up by Peel, Wellington, and Aberdeen, and signed by them as well as by the Emperor himself. ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... Just now he was at the last gasp for a breath, or so you would have said to look at him. But not so; his exertions were really his stimulant. Presently he would eat and drink consumedly, drench himself with snuff, and then spend half the night with his books, preparing for to-morrow's lecture. Of this sort was Dr. Porfirio Lanfranchi, who had more authority over the wild students of Padua than the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... grandmother, and scoured away, jostling each other as they ran, into some remote corner of the tenement, where the young hero of the evening was deposited. When Caleb saw the coast fairly clear, he took an invigorating pinch of snuff, to ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... me, and so I suppose I had better go on. And now I shall have that horrid man from the little town pawing me and covering everything with snuff, and bidding me take Scotch physic,—which seems to increase in quantity and nastiness as doses in England decrease. And he will stand over me to see that ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... His name wasn't Sulimani, but some one gave him that name because his own Kikuyu name was too hard to pronounce and impossible to remember. Sulimani was quite a study. He had the savage's love of snuff, and when not eating or sleeping he was taking pinches of that narcotic from an old kodak tin. In consequence he had the chronic appearance of being full of dope. He walked along as though in a trance. He never seemed to be looking anywhere except at the ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... there's only one chance in a thousand that they will ... but you may bring one up from being a cub ... and, one morning, because of something you can't read in its animal mind—it not liking its breakfast or something—it may jump you, give one crunch, and snuff you out like a candle ... it's that chance that you take ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... said, 'I have never given you anything. You are not one of those who fill one hand and then hold out the other. Here is the snuff-box that I have used though this last campaign. And stay on in France; after all, brave men are wanted there! Remain in the service, and keep me in remembrance. Of all my army in Egypt, you are the last that I ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... house of country, ancient with the trees cut like some peacocks, and I demand—"What you call these trees?" "Box, Sir," he tell me. "Devil is in the box," I say at myself. "But, never mind; we shall see." So I myself refreshed with a pinch of snuff and offer him, and he take very polite, and remark upon an instant—"That is a very handsome ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... with tea and Chinese confections and cakes. We smoked our pipes, though the Prince as a Lama did not indulge, fulfilling, however, his duty as a host by raising to his lips the pipes we offered him and handing us in return the green nephrite bottle of snuff. Thus with the etiquette accomplished we awaited the words of the Prince. He inquired whether our travels had been felicitous and what were our further plans. I talked with him quite frankly and ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... himself on the stove-couch, occupied by Madame Wang, and, directing a servant to light the candles, he started copying in an ostentatious and dashing manner. Now he called Ts'ai Hsia to pour a cup of tea for him. Now he asked Yu Ch'uan to take the scissors and cut the snuff of the wick. "Chin Ch'uan!" he next cried, "you're in the way of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... keeping. The mixture of "canny" counsel and pious invocation has frequently a droll effect: as when the advice to "give the custom-house officers what I told you, and at Calais more, if you have much Scotch snuff;" and "to drink small Rhenish to keep you cool, that is, if you like it," is rounded off by the ejaculation, "So God in Heaven prosper and go along with you!" Letter after letter did he send them, full of such reminders as that "they have ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Having made a pile, he proposed to make a bigger pile. Meanwhile he slapped his soul on the back and smacked his lips in anticipation. To Jesus the fat farmer was a tragic comedy. In the first place, an unseen hand was waiting to snuff out his candle. To plan life as if it consisted in an abundance of material wealth is something of a miscalculation in a world where death is part of the scheme of things. In the second place, Jesus saw no higher purpose in the man's aim and outlook to redeem his acquisitiveness. The man was a ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... placed on the stones. The father was sent for;—a scene was naturally to be expected;—and a scene to be remembered there was. The old gentleman came out, looked calmly upon the dead body of his son, deliberately took a pinch of snuff, tapped down the lid of the box, and, saying nothing in the world more than—Enfin!—walked ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... To dream of snuff, signifies your enemies are seducing the confidence of your friends. For a woman to use it in her dreams, foretells complications which will involve her separation ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... from trouble," grumbled the one who had been at fault; "but something just seemed to snuff it out. Did anybody hear a sound like a dog growling ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... one of Father Thames' cast-up wrecks. 'Fluviorum rex Eridanus,' [Chuck, cluck.] To thy studies; be thyself—that is, be Faithful. Mr Knapps, let the Cadmean art proceed forthwith." So saying, Dominie Dobiensis thrust his large hand into his right coat pocket, in which he kept his snuff loose, and taking a large pinch (the major part of which, the stock being low, was composed of hair and cotton abrasions which had collected in the corners of his pocket), he called up the first class, while Mr Knapps called me to my ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... smooth-bore musket arranged as breech-loader, and called a snuff-box, from the manner of opening the breech to ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... all my life. I used to make a little money along during the year washing and ironing. I don't get no help. I live with the girls. My girl in Memphis sends me a little change to buy my snuff and little things I have to have. She cooks for a lawyer now. She did take care of an lady. She died since I been here and she moved. I rather work in the field than do what she done when that old lady ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... many to be quite too pointed and out of place; and for a young man, like him, very bold and immodest. One member took out his box and struck the lid a smart, emphatic rap before taking a pinch of snuff,—another coughed—and three or four of the older ones gave several loud "a-h-h-hems!" Throughout the church there was an uneasy movement. But soon all was still again, for the minister had commenced the narrative of something which he said had occurred ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... not merely as though I had been in court, and were now recalling the inflections of that deep, intimidating voice, the steadfast gaze of those dark, intimidating eyes, and were remembering just at what points the snuff-box was produced, and just how long the pause was before the pinch was taken and the bandana came into play. It was almost as though these effects were proceeding before my very eyes—these sublime effects of the finest actor I have ever seen. Expressed through a perfect technique, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... have been living on mouldy corrupt meats sweetened by sugar-of-lead; or perhaps, like Voltaire, a few individuals prefer hunger, as the cleaner alternative; and in contemptuous, barren, mocking humor, not yet got the length of geniality or indignation, snuff the east-wind by way of spiritual diet. Pilgriming along on such nourishment, the best human soul fails to become very ruddy!—Tidings about Heaven are fallen so uncertain, but the Earth and her joys are still Interesting: 'Take to the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... beloved composer was a Frenchman, born in Nancy, Lorraine, in 1770, the same year Beethoven saw the light in Bonn. He was carefully brought up, well-bred and well-educated. When a friend of his in Warsaw, Poland, in the tobacco and snuff trade, then in high repute with the nobility, needed help with his book-keeping, he sent for the seventeen-year-old lad. Thus it happened that Nicholas Chopin came to Warsaw in 1787. It was a time of unrest, when the nation was struggling for liberty and independence. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... "you are now acquainted with the composition of Thomas Roch's explosive. Does it really possess the destructive power that the inventor attributes to it? Has it ever been tried? May you not have purchased a composition as inert as a pinch of snuff?" ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... himself back into his chair with the smile of the collector who has a good thing to show. He knew he had a good listener, at any rate. I don't think much of Ringham's snuff-boxes, but his anecdotes are usually worth while. He's a psychologist astray among bibelots, and the best bits he brings back from his raids on Christie's and the Hotel Drouot are the fragments of human nature he picks up on those historic battle-fields. If his flair in enamel ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... successor of "Warren," in the Strand, and a silvered shaving-pot, upon a principle of his own, redolent of Rigges' "patent violet-scented soap." His net-silk purse is ringed with gold at one end, and with silver at the other; and although not much of a snuff-taker, he always carries a box, on the lid of which smiles the portrait of the once celebrated and beautiful, though now somewhat forgotten, Duchess of D——, or the equally resplendent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... very atmosphere was vibrant with his personality. There hung about the place an air of repressed expectancy. The room was electrically charged with the high-voltage of the man in the inner office. His secretary was a spare, middle-aged, anxious-looking woman in snuff-brown and spectacles; his stenographer a blond young man, also spectacled and anxious; his office boy a stern youth in knickers, who bore no relation to the slangy, gum-chewing, redheaded office ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... of the clan spirit, he told me a story of the late Duke of Argyll, as follows: At a banquet of the great clan of which the duke was chief, a splendid snuff-box belonging to one of the clansmen, having attracted attention, was passed round the long table for inspection. By and by it was missing. All attempts to trace it were in vain, and the party broke up in disgust and distress at the thought that one of their number must be a thief. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... precisely and perseveringly she "seams," "narrows," and "widens." At the old lady's right hand stands a cherry table, on which burns a yellow tallow candle that occasionally the dame proceeds to snuff. There is no carpet on the floor, and the furniture is poor and plain. A kitchen chair sits at the other side of the table, and in, or on it, sits a half-grown boy, a ruddy, freckled, country boy who wants ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... man pulled out a large snuff-box, and took a long pinch, which he crammed with his thumb first into one nostril, then into the other, bending his head at the same! time to each side, in order to enjoy it with greater relish, after which he gave a ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... That is distinctly better." The Marquis took snuff delicately, dusting the fragments from the fine lace at his throat. "You realize that with an imperfect understanding of these matters, not being yourself a landowner, you may have rushed to unjustifiable ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... a picture is neither undesirable nor out of place—provided it is necessary to the proper and inevitable development of the plot. But the mistaken idea that to snuff out a human life in a thrilling or a heart-rending manner, when there is really no logical necessity for it, makes a picture either strong or dramatic is responsible for scores of unaccepted scripts. Yet it would not be well to try ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... charioteers and steeds, were seen, O king, to be crushed by single elephants endued with great strength.[399] And in that battle, in the midst of large forces, many elephants, scenting the odour of the temporal juice of their compeers, began to snuff the breeze repeatedly. And the whole field was strewn with slain elephants, deprived of life by means of broad-headed shafts and falling down with the wooden edifices and the guides on their backs. And many elephants, in the midst of large forces crushed, with the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... he struck his snuff-box sharply with the ends of his fingers, while he looked at the book, the doctor correctly interpreted the pantomime, which was a shock to his nerves, and ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... her with eyes almost as great as her own, as he had stared at the player woman who acted the wicked tragedy-queen, when the players came down to Ealing Fair. She sat in a great chair by the fire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on a little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box. She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-coloured brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury Cross; and pretty, small feet which ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... work. The contractor had no work to give him. The labourer pleaded that his wife and children were starving. The contractor didn't care a pinch of snuff for his wife or children, and bade him be off. The labourer urged that the times were very hard, and he would be thankful for any sort of job, no matter how small. He endeavoured to work on the contractor's feelings by referring to the premature death, by starvation, of his pet parrot, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... he nayther ramps nor roars, Ha, ha, the viewin' o't! Soft gans hame and writes in "Fors"— Ha, ha, the viewin' o't! Writes, and wi' ae critic-puff Blaws James oot, like can'le snuff: Sweers in Art he's just a muff! Ha, ha, the ...
— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman
... your grandmother's cap isn't all of her that's come down to you," said he, tapping his snuff-box, and looking at her with a curious twinkle in his eyes. "What do you call yourself? Haven't you some variations of this tongue-twisting appellative to serve for every ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... his greatest conquest for the sake of a pretty woman. Whether this admonition was given or not, the Emperor was respectful and polite, but non-committal. After dinner he conversed long with his fair guest. To her lady in waiting, the Countess Voss, he offered snuff—a singular mark of condescension. Next day, in a note to Josephine, he said that he had been compelled continually to stand on his guard; and the day following, July eighth, he again wrote to his Empress: ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... out how she accomplished her evil purpose. She had a little gold snuff box full of a magic powder, which when thrown into people's eyes made them see everything just as ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... sound, and should belong to un homme Men ne?" He turned inquiringly towards his brother, a mild, elderly man with a scholar's stoop and a face which assorted oddly with his uniform of captain of militia, being shrivelled as parchment and snuff-dried and abstracted in expression as though he had just lifted his eyes from a book. "A Clive, Etienne. From what province should ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dipped into a snuff box of black enamel and brilliants, and he lifted his hand languidly. The man's vitality, his sheer determination, were extraordinary. Even now he was far from impotence. He had, Howat had learned, completely dominated the Provincial Councils, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... inattentive mind, even in the holidays, could "tackle" a catalogue like this, or another in which the snuff-box of Xerxes and the boot-jack of Themistocles should be offered for sale. These antiquities seem scarcely less desirable, or less likely to come into the market, than the scissors, pistols, and field-glass of Fernando Cortes. An original portion of ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... just made a very wise reflection, which was that it is never agreeable to have it said that a man, whoever he may be, threw himself into the water on leaving your house. He therefore coughed once more, took his snuff-box, cast a careless glance upon ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... were demanding freedom from bolts and nails. With the tip of his long, slender finger Ling Foo moved the buttons. He counted what his profits would be in Manchurian sables; in the two Ming vases that had come in mysteriously from Kiao-chau—German loot from Peking; counted his former profits in snuff ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... it consists at most in dress-making; perhaps she does not even possess the little accompanying talent of playing the flute. How many people do not copy, like Maren, out of other people's memorandum-books, and do not excel musical-boxes! still one hears a deal of musical snuff-box music, and is waited upon by voices which are equally as insignificant ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... Capuchin listened to me with watery eyes that twinkled suspiciously. He had a battered tin snuff-box in his hand, and his finger and thumb slowly chased a few scattered grains of snuff round and round the inside of the box all the time I was speaking. When I had done, he shook his head and said: "That was certainly an ugly sight in their outhouse; one ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... have gone away with my baby, but the princess was from home, and I thought I might wait until I was a little stronger. But she must have taken the beast with her, and been on her way home when I left, and come across my track. I heard the SNIFF-SNUFF of the leopardess behind me, and ran;—oh, how I ran!—But my darling will not die! There is ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... and seven or eight were already dead. I returned to Madame de Pompadour, to whom I had written every day by Guimard. The next day, the King sent for me into the room; he did not say a word as to the business I had been employed upon; but he gave me a large gold snuff-box, containing two rouleaux of twenty-five louis each. I curtsied to him, and retired. Madame asked me a great many questions of the young lady, and laughed heartily at her simplicity, and at all she had said about the Polish nobleman. "He is disgusted with the Princess, and, I ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Mr. Carlyle in the first chapter of this history. The earl was the one who might be supposed to know best. Whatever may have been Lady Mount Severn's malady, she—to give you the phrase that was in people's mouth's at the time—"went out like the snuff of a candle." It was now the turn of Lady Isabel. She had no more decided disorder than the countess had had, yet death had marked her. She felt that it had, and in its approach she dreaded not, as she once had done, the consequences that must ensue, did discovery come. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... not know what answer to make. At last, while the Finance Minister, in expectation of his reply, took a pinch out of his snuff-box set with jewels, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... table, an' gang back to the door, till I get a sklent at it," said Malcolm. "Ye're an honest man, Wull—but I wadna lippen a snuff mull 'at had mair nor ae pinch intill 't wi' yon cooard cratur ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... There at the end of the room was Hood. Some publishers, I think, were our companions. I quite remember his pale face; he was thin and deaf, and very silent; he scarcely opened his lips during the dinner, and he made one pun. Some gentleman missed his snuff-box, and Hood said,—(the Freemasons' Tavern was kept, you must remember, by Mr. CUFF in those days, not by its present proprietors). Well, the box being lost, and asked for, and CUFF (remember that name) being the name of the landlord, Hood opened his silent jaws and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... we've heard snuff Came in the days of frill and ruff; And here's a noble ill at ease Giving ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... uncle, that the Colonel is ridiculous?" Lady Anne said to her daughter that night. "Your uncle is adorable. I have never seen a more perfect grand Seigneur. He puts me in mind of my grandfather, though grandpapa's grand manner was more artificial, and his voice spoiled by snuff. See the Colonel. He smokes round the garden, but with what perfect grace! This is the man Uncle Hobson, and your poor dear papa, have represented to us as a species of bear! Mr. Newcome, who has himself the ton of a waiter! The Colonel is perfect. What can Barnes mean by ridiculing him? I wish ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a proverb, we regard The midnight chieftain of the farmer's yard, Beneath whose guardianship all hearts rejoice, Woke by the echo of his hollow voice; Yet as the Hound may fault'ring quit the pack, Snuff the foul scent, and hasten yelping back; And e'en the docile Pointer know disgrace, Thwarting the gen'ral instinct of his race; E'en so the MASTIFF, or the meaner Cur, At times will from the path of duty err, (A pattern of fidelity by day; By night a murderer, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... the gaseous effusions of chloride of lime, And salts, which your chemist delights to explain As the base of the smell of the rose and the drain. Think of this, O ye lovers of sweetness! and know What you smell when you snuff up Lubin or Pinaud. ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... the labour they perform, will be paid in money, which will be left at their own disposal.—They will be furnished with food, medicine, and clothing, gratis; and to those who are not able to earn any thing by labour, a small sum of money will be given weekly, to enable them to purchase tobacco, snuff, or any other article of humble luxury to which they may have ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects with care: when did we see any injected Preparation of the Dandy in our Museums; any specimen of him preserved in spirits! Lord Herringbone may dress himself in a snuff-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt and shoes: it skills not; the undiscerning public, occupied with grosser wants, passes by regardless on ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... have intimated that he was fond of a jest. "The Sacred College," I heard him remark one day, "has fifty centres of gravity. I sometimes fear that I am its centre of levity." He was also fond of music. He was also fond of snuff: ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... the hatch coaming in the early night Mr. Ogaloff Skooglund, the proprietor of the fish wheel, massaged his front teeth with Copenhagen snuff ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... an affable tone, and asked for a pinch of snuff. The old man drew forth a horn snuff-box. "Hoot, man," said Scott, "not that old mull: where's the bonnie French one that I brought you from Paris?" "Troth, your honor," replied the old fellow, "sic a mull as that ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... large plantations. Some of them had influence with King James, and obtained grants of immense estates, containing thousands of acres. All the while the common people of England were learning to smoke, snuff, and chew tobacco, and across the English Channel the Dutch burghers, housewives, and farmers were learning to puff their pipes. A pound of tobacco was worth three shillings. The planters grew richer, purchased ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... him with round fixed eyes. He was thinking of the nights when he had watched Talbot teaching Dick to shoot straight—teaching the very man he had sent off now to get his pistol to shoot himself with! He remembered how Talbot had stood with Marley at this very tunnel's mouth and showed him how to snuff a candle at thirty yards! And Denbigh stared and glowed with admiration. Marley drew nearer down the path, his heavy crunching steps echoing through the serene and frosty air. A few minutes more and he was close upon the eager, expectant, silent circle; the ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... men's tastes even for what they want at home are getting louder and louder all the time. They hate anything that looks slow. And in our business it's harder and harder to please them—except the yaps from the little towns and the college boys. A woman has to be up to snuff if she gets on. If she looks what she is, men won't have her—nor if she is ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... valet who had been assigned to him by de Bailleul—because he had been foster father to the Chevalier's son—tied his hair, put on his morning coat and sword, buckled the sparkling buckles on his shoes, and handed him his jewelled snuff-box, each process seemed to Germain a preparation for some unknown accident that might happen, and in which he must be ready to conquer. When he stepped down to meet his companions, it was distinctly and consciously to henceforth play ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... father adopted a son, His father the same had done; Some thousands of years ago, it appears, the custom was thus begun." He stopped for a pinch of snuff; His logic was sound, though tough; You may rightfully follow what plan you please, if it's ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... curiosity well aroused to a queer old person half demon and half man who has an idol-shop in a byway of the City and who keeps me informed of affairs at the Edge of the World. And briefly over a pinch of heather incense that he takes by way of snuff he gave me this tremendous information: that Mr. Neepy Thang the son of Thangobrind had returned from the Edge of the World and was even now ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... sire, "this airy throng, As, offer'd to thy view, they pass along. These are th' Italian names, which fate will join With ours, and graff upon the Trojan line. Observe the youth who first appears in sight, And holds the nearest station to the light, Already seems to snuff the vital air, And leans just forward, on a shining spear: Silvius is he, thy last-begotten race, But first in order sent, to fill thy place; An Alban name, but mix'd with Dardan blood, Born in the covert of a shady wood: Him ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... pone of cornbread and a piece of fat meat, discuss the comparative merits of peaches and milk and fresh tomatoes, lobster and roast beef, and, forgetting the briar-root pipe, faithful companion of the vicissitudes of the soldier's life, snuff the aroma ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... not say that," said Cleveland, taking a pinch of snuff; "but you should avoid great disparity of age,—not for the sake of that disparity itself, but because with it is involved discord of temper, pursuits. A very young woman, new to the world, will not be contented with home alone; you are at once too gentle ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... (George Eliot) writes: "Mrs. Follen showed me a delightful letter which she has just had from Mrs. Stowe, telling all about herself. She begins by saying, 'I am a little bit of a woman, rather more than forty, as withered and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very well worth looking at in my best days, and now a decidedly used-up article.' The whole letter is most fascinating, and makes one love her." [Footnote: George Eliot's Life, edited by J. W. Cross, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... him? (1 John 3:1). Besides, the worst of men, so far as they pretend religion, set up your idol in their hearts, viz. their own good meanings, their own good nature, the notions and dictates of their nature, living that little which they do live upon the snuff of their own light, the sparks of their own fire, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... pulled out his roll of tobacco, lighted his pipe, and gave the old dame a whiff, and a pinch of snuff. Then she was so happy she began to dance for joy, and the end was, she gave the man leave to ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... in the snuff, But it is a matter of doubt, Whether he or St. Thomas could be said, Soonest ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... From pot to pot, some on't he spills Upon the Songster. Oh cries he. Pox, what dost do? thou'st burnt my knee; No says the boy, (to make a bald And blind excuse.) Sir 'twill not scald. With that the man lends him a cuff O' th' ear, and whips away in snuff. The other two, their pipes being out, Says Monsieur Mopus I much doubt My friend I wait for will not come, But if he do, say I'm gone home. Then says the Aguish man I must come According to my wonted custome, To give ye' a visit, although now ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... would be the product of such an immersion," observed the doctor; "there wouldn't be so much solid matter of you left in five seconds as I could put into my snuff-box—so look ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... David Ritchie's benefit; and those who were carrying home a melder of meal, seldom failed to add a GOWPEN [Handful] to the alms-bag of the deformed cripple. In short, David had no occasion for money, save to purchase snuff, his only luxury, in which he indulged himself liberally. When he died, in the beginning of the present century, he was found to have hoarded about twenty pounds, a habit very consistent with his disposition; for wealth is power, and power was what David Ritchie desired to possess, as a compensation ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... mounted, their Numidian steeds Snuff up the winds, and long to scour the desert. Let but Sempronius lead us in our flight, We'll force the gate, where Marcus keeps his guard, And hew down all that would oppose our passage; A day will ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... well enough what old Rehu was. A touchy, selfish man all but a hundred years old, who would have seen them all die rather than deprive himself of a pinch of snuff or a single one of the pins that were always stuck on the lapels of his coat. Ah, poor child! He must be hard up indeed before he could think of ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Spagna, and the so-called English quarter. The present edifice was only built at the end of the sixteenth century, and, strange to say, with the proceeds of the sale of Cardinal Gonsalvi's valuable collection of snuff-boxes; but its name, derived from the Italian word Fratta, "thorn-bush," would seem to imply that the church is of much greater antiquity, going back to a far-off time when the ground on which it stands was an uncultivated ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... work is done, the future stands respectfully aloof. Out of ever-shifting time he has made fixed and permanent certain years, and in these Johnson talks and argues, while Burke listens, and Reynolds takes snuff, and Goldsmith, with hollowed hand, whispers a sly remark to his neighbour. There have they sat, these ghosts, for seventy years now, looked at and listened to by the passing generations; and there they still ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... cottage near the church, with a bow-window in which were displayed bottles of 'suckers,' and of Day & Martin's blacking, cotton stuffs, a bag of nuts and some mugs, cups and saucers. Inside were salt butter, washing-blue, drapery, treacle, starch, tea, tobacco and snuff, cheese, matches, bacon, and a few drugs, such as black draught, magnesia, pills, sulphur, dill- water, Dalby's Carminative, and steel-drops. There was also a small stock of writing-paper, string and tin ware. A boy was behind the counter. When Mrs Caffyn was out he always asked ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... one now. The squaw can go. Crabtree would snuff her out, but I ain't reached the p'int where I can do ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... of it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauper pagans are found dead in the streets like so many nipped peas in a bin of peas. To be an immortal being in China is no more distinction than to be a snow-flake in a snow-squall. What are a score or two of missionaries to such a people? A pinch of snuff to the kraken. I am for sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese en masse within six months of the debarkation. The thing is then done, and turn to ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... because she never comes here? True enough—fine ladies let their brats live in cow-dung, but they must have Indian carpets under their own feet. Well, ask the abate, then—he has lace ruffles to his coat and a naked woman painted on his snuff box—What? He only holds his hands up when you ask? Well, then, go ask your friends on the chapel-walls—maybe they'll give you a pair of shoes—though Saint Francis, for that matter, was the father of the discalced, and would doubtless tell you to go without!" And ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... John Todd was my Claverhouse, and his dogs my questing dragoons. Little by little we dropped into civilities: his hail at sight of me began to have less of the ring of a war-slogan; soon, we never met but he produced his snuff-box, which was with him, like the calumet with the Red Indian, a part of the heraldry of peace; and at length, in the ripeness of time, we grew to be a pair of friends, and when I lived alone in these parts in the winter, it was a settled thing for John to "give me a cry" over the garden wall ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sniff of snuff too. Kashtanka sneezes, wriggles her head, and walks away offended. Eel does not sneeze, from politeness, but wags his tail. And the weather is glorious. The air is still, fresh, and transparent. The night is dark, but one can ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... yon!" cried MacCailein, beating his hand on a book-board, and Master Gordon took a snuff like a man whose doctrine is laid out plain for the world and who dare dispute it. In came the beadle with the MacNicolls, very much cowed, different men truly from the brave gentlemen who cried blood for blood on ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... common use; 'Nay, more,' added he, 'a century afterward, Isabel of Bavaria was reproached with extravagance for having too much of linen in her trousseau." He was once hissed at Orleans, when performing the part of a starving and destitute man, for taking snuff out of a bit of paper. He had thought it improbable that the needy wretch he represented would carry a snuff-box. Guessing the cause of the public disapprobation, he produced a gold one, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... cried the sea-nymphs; "we dare not go with you upon the dry land. We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. And don't you see how careful we are to let the surf wave break over us every moment or two, so as to keep ourselves comfortably moist? If it were not for that, we should soon look like bunches of uprooted sea-weed ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... spent a lot of time down on the crick flat looking for a mu, which is the same as a sneeze-duck, except for the parallel stripes. It has but one foot webbed; so it swims in a circle and can be easy shot by the sportsman, who first baits it with snuff that it will go miles to get. Another wild beast they had him hunting was the filo, which is like the ruffle snake, except that it has a thing like a table leg in its ear. It gets up on a hill and peeks over at you, but will ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... but it brought him a pension of 300 pounds in the end. In the meantime it brought him presents, and among them an annual gift of 50 pounds from an anonymous hand, the first instalment being accompanied by a pretty snuff-box ornamented with a picture of the three hares. From the gracefulness of the gift, Southey infers that it came from a woman, and he conjectures that ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... have prevented him from taking this snuff-box, which, I see, is studded with diamonds, or this necklace of old opals. It would require but two movements more. His only reason for not making those movements was that he was not here to ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... Litchfield and Ashby de la Zouch, toward Sherwood, until he came to a place called Stanton. And now Robin's heart began to laugh aloud, for he thought that his danger had gone by, and that his nostrils would soon snuff the spicy air of the woodlands once again. But there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and this Robin was to find. For thus ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... to swallow a roebuck at one morsel, whence it has its name; and he told me that one of these enormous serpents had been killed near the town, a short time before our arrival. The principal products of Brazil are red wood, bearing the name of the country; sugar, gold, tobacco, snuff, whale oil, and various kinds of drugs; and the Portuguese build their best ships in this country. Brazil has now become very populous, and the people take great delight in arms, especially about the gold mines, to which people of all kinds resort in great numbers, especially negroes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... though not less ancient crony, Mrs. Mooney. Both fairly bristled with spite and vindictiveness toward everything in general, and us new-comers in particular, and each sustained her flagging energies with frequent pinches of snuff and chunks of coffee-cake which they drew from inexhaustible pockets. My attempts at conversation with these two having been met with chilling silence, and as Mrs. Mooney had given me several painful thrusts with her sharp elbow when I happened to ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... ignored it; but I can refuse nothing to those who are kind to me, so I refrained from lighting up, and contented myself with looking round to see if there was a rear seat vacant. There wasn't. A cluster of happy, smoking faces confronted me. I turned round again, and wished I had learnt to take snuff. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various |
