"Viper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that rebel was!" exclaimed Tom, who seemed to breathe freer now that retribution had overtaken the viper. ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... sin is destroyed by its own fruit, and is slain by the death which it brought forth;[51] as a viper is slain by its own offering. This is a brave spectacle, to see how death is destroyed, not by another's work, but by its own; is stabbed with its own weapon, and, like Goliath, is beheaded with its own sword. [1 Sam. 17:51] For Goliath also was a type ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... to me for an explanation. I looked for awhile at the hypocritical clergyman very steadily, until he cringed like a viper, and turned pale as a ghost. I then narrated the statements made to me scarcely an hour before, called upon him for some proof of his accusations, and closed by saying that I would not accept a reelection unless it came to me unanimously. The craven reverend left the room without ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... glances she expected, the beautiful Imperia, puffing like a dolphin, denounced all the cowardice of the priest. She was not then a sufficiently good Catholic to pardon her lover deceiving her, by not knowing how to die for her pleasure. Thus the death of Philippe was foreshadowed in the viper's glance she cast at him to insult him, which glance pleased the cardinal much, for the wily Italian saw he would soon get his abbey back again. The Touranian, heeding not the brewing storm avoided it by walking out silently with his ears down, like a wet dog being kicked out of a Church. Madame ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... give a lie unless you can prove it a lie. I made her realise this, and she bit her lip in vexation. Dame! What a pretty viper I thought her ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... friends may be indulgent, And loved ones even forget, Yourself can never banish The memories that beset. You will wish you had never traveled The way that leads to death; You will wish you had never reveled In the viper's venomed breath. ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... tremble with mingled indignation and terror at the sight of me. I cannot hope a patient audience. And can I, in such circumstances, rely on my own equanimity? How can I endure the looks of one to whom I am a viper, a demon; who, not content with hating me for that which really merits hatred, imputes to me a ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... so foolish as to deny the force of the language. But I cannot separate thought and form: and if I do occasionally admire this Hebrew God, it is with the same sort of admiration that I feel for a viper, or a ...—(I'm trying in vain to find a Shakespearean monster as an example: I can't find one: even Shakespeare never begat such a hero of Hatred—saintly and virtuous Hatred). Such a book is a terrible thing. Madness is always contagious. And that particular madness is all the more dangerous ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... tell thee, that my heart bleeds for the wrong this angelic lady has received: and if thou dost not marry her, if she will have thee, and, when married, make her the best and tenderest of husbands, I would rather be a dog, a monkey, a bear, a viper, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Stow left a sum of money to an eminent King's counsel, "Wherewith to purchase a picture of a viper stinging his benefactor," as a perpetual warning against the sin ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... foot will not avail to cure her," he murmured. "Ben Ali Tidjani's blessing could never rest on an Ouled Nail, who, like a little viper of the sand, has stolen into the Agha's bosom, and filled his veins with subtle poison. She deems she has a treasure; but let her beware: that which would protect a woman who wears the veil will do naught for ...
— Halima And The Scorpions - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... infected the simplicity of the republic, and the chaste virtues of the Roman matrons.[35] The parricide, who violated the duties of nature and gratitude, was cast into the river or the sea, enclosed in a sack; and a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey were successively added as the most suitable companions. Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be felt till the middle of the sixth century first revealed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... 'what a viper have I been fostering in my bosom! And so fond of public justice too as he seemed to be. But he shall have it; secure him, Mr Gaoler—yet hold, I fear there is not ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... accurately quoted and put in such a light as to seem to be robberies. It was a dangerous letter for her—half truth, half falsehood, difficult to unravel, impossible to deny entirely. 'Honour binds you, you say,' the epistle continued. 'Ah! my Prince! you have a toy which has turned to a viper in your hand! Throw it from you! Other princes have done so, and the world has applauded. Take a fair and noble mistress, one younger, less rapacious. Consider this woman: already she grows gross; in a few years' time she will be a mountain of flesh; ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... "you write your promises in water, or better in oil, black-scaled viper. We know what time of day it is with ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... himself, denies his family, and gives her cash to buy rags, and now she and a stranger are cursing us for the shelter we gave her. It makes me sick! Why don't I die! I'm shedding tears of blood. We've warmed a viper in our bosom. [Leans against the fence] I'll wait, I'll wait. I'll tell her everything, everything ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... "a furious martial plant," and brank ursine "an excellent plant under the dominion of the moon." Of rosemary he says, "the sun claims privilege in it, and it is under the celestial ram," and of viper's bugloss, "it is a most gallant herb of the sun." The bay-tree rouses him to real eloquence, though not for Apollo's sake. "It is a tree of the sun and under the celestial sign of Leo, and resists witchcraft very potently, as also all the evils that old Saturn can do to the ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... holding the sketch close to his eyes, holding it away from him, patting it, clapping his son delightedly on the shoulder. "Capital! capital! We'll have the picture printed, by Jove, sir; show vice it's own image; and shame the viper in his own nest, sir. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Pump, as he again filled the glass; "we cannot be too much so. We must avoid rum and gin as we would a viper! How I abhor the very name of rum! O, Mr. Dayton, think of the misery it has brought upon man! I had a sister once, a beautiful, kind-hearted creature. She was married to an industrious man; all was fair, prospects bright. By degrees he got into ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... come to a Home," answered Sir David, "while the tyrant Albany rides rough-shod over the nobility of Scotland, and, like a viper, stings the bosom that nursed him? Away to thy chamber, Alison; leave me, it is no ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... desert man. I don't know his tribe, but before he settled here he was a nomad, one of the wanderers who dwell in tents, a man of the sand; as much of the sand as a viper or a scorpion. One would suppose such beings were bred by the marriage of the sand-grains. The sand ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... wolf, disguised in wool; He was a viper in the breast; He was a villain, or the tool Of greater villains; at the best, A ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... "You know, mule-viper," he continued, "that no one else would keep you for five minutes. You are a liar, a thief, and a traitor. Yet I endure you. I agree that I must be either heartless or an idiot to put up with such ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... links, which bind At times the loftiest to the meanest mind—[sd] Have given her power too deeply to instil The angry essence of her deadly will;[se] If like a snake she steal within your walls, Till the black slime betray her as she crawls; If like a viper to the heart she wind, And leave the venom there she did not find; 50 What marvel that this hag of hatred works[sf] Eternal evil latent as she lurks, To make a Pandemonium where she dwells, And reign the Hecate of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... to the axles." It ended in gullies and swamps. Trade, which was still in the hands of the British merchants, involved for the most part transactions in skins, furs, ginseng, snakeroot, and "dried rattlesnakes—used to make a viper broth for consumptive patients." "There was but one church building and attendance was scanty and infrequent." Not so, however, of Farmicola's tavern, whither card playing, drinking, and ribaldry drew crowds, especially when the legislature was in ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... with tragic intensity, "that I have nourished a viper in my bosom! I have learned that we have a ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... Such "viper thoughts" did at this time coil around his mind, and were for him "Reality's dark Dream." In this state of mind he suddenly left Cambridge for London, and strolled about the streets till night came on, and then rested himself on the steps of a house in Chancery Lane, in a reverie of tumultuous ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... reasons. In the first place, you know that being, from necessity, in the habit of wearing a dirk, I handle with a firm hand this venomous plaything, sharper than the tooth of a viper; you know also, that on the day I complain of you, I shall leave forever this house, leaving you a thousand time more charmed, since you have been so gracious toward your unworthy servant as to be charmed ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... highly developed in them, for they can find their way back to their dens from great distances. I have had under observation for the past three years a garden snake, locally known as a "spreading viper"; this snake was brought to me by a friend[105] when it was only a foot long, so I have known her (for it is a female) ever since her infancy. Owing to some antenatal accident, this reptile has a malformed head, so that I can readily ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... thousand times heard me call the young man to whom you are so faithful a friend, my son. Little did I then think he was indeed related to me at all.—Your friend, madam, is my nephew; he is the brother of that wicked viper which I have so long nourished in my bosom.—She will herself tell you the whole story, and how the youth came to pass for her son. Indeed, Mrs Miller, I am convinced that he hath been wronged, and that I have been abused; abused by one whom you too justly suspected of being a villain. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... looked at him with quiet scorn. "It is the nature of the viper to use his venom," he said calmly. "Such ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... an idea what I have on. If this goes on, we may both as well turn scarecrows. If ever a woman was desperate, frantic, heart-broken, I am that woman. I can't begin to tell you. To have nourished a serpent, sir, all these years! to have lavished one's self upon a viper that turns and stings her own poor mother! To have toiled and prayed, to have pushed and struggled, to have eaten the bread of bitterness, and all the rest of it, sir—and at the end of all things to find myself at this pass. It can't be, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... the patient; and he sat down on another stone, after making sure that it did not cover an insect's nest, and had not been made the roof of a viper's home. ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... all this they would not only be careful how they marry immoral men, but they would shrink from personal contact with them as from a viper. Not one, but many girls who have held somewhat lax ideas concerning the propriety of allowing young men to be familiar have reaped the result in a contamination merely through the touch of the lips. To-day a young ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... listener across the line of tragical tension and made him hysterical with the grimness of a deadly humour. His swift defiance to Lord Lovell, as Sir Giles, and indeed the whole mighty and terrible action with which he carried that scene—from "What, are you pale?" down to the grisly and horrid viper pretence and reptile spasm of death—were simply tremendous. This was in the days when his acting yet retained the exuberance of a youthful spirit, before "the philosophic mind" had checked the headlong currents of the blood or curbed imagination in its lawless flight. And those parts not only admitted ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... old viper's name again in this house. She's the serpent in this town tempting the last one of ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... very glad to be safe once more; but a strange thing happened after a little: Paul gathered up an armful of sticks to put upon the fire, and as he placed them upon the flames, a viper, which is a kind of poisonous snake, came out of the bundle and clung to his hand; he shook it off into the fire, however, without the slightest sign ...
— Wee Ones' Bible Stories • Anonymous
... they were stolen. There was no one among the girls to suspect. The Mercer girls had stunning pearls, and could secure all they wanted legitimately; and Bella disliked them. Oh, there was no question about it, I decided; Dallas and Anne had taken a wolf to their bosom—or is it a viper?—and the Harbison man was the creature. Although I must say that, looking over the table, at Jimmy's breadth and not very imposing personality, at Max's lean length, sallow skin, and bold dark eyes, at Dallas, blond, growing bald ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Mr. Bates, which startled him by its close resemblance to a small snake. The first three segments behind the head were dilatable at the will of the insect, and had on each side a large black pupillated spot, which resembled the eye of the reptile. Moreover, it resembled a poisonous viper, not a harmless species of snake, as was proved by the imitation of keeled scales on the crown produced by the recumbent feet, as the caterpillar threw ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... upon your course, and let him crawl on upon his. Take no more heed of him than if he were a viper. Archibald, you must ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... writes of an instance in which a live spider was ejected from the bowel; and Colini reports the passage of a live lizard which had been swallowed two days before, and there is another similar case on record. Marcellus Donatus records an instance in which a viper, which had previously crawled into the mouth, had been passed by the anus. There are also recorded instances in French literature in which persons affected with pediculosis, have, during sleep, unconsciously swallowed lice which were afterward ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the letter and was struggling for speech. I could appreciate his emotion. If he had not actually been nurturing a viper in his bosom, he had come, from his point of view, very near it. Of all men, a schoolmaster necessarily looks with the heartiest dislike on ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... give no expression to this suspicion by look, or words, or by the slightest indication. Lull this viper into the belief that you are harmless; lull her to sleep, queen. She is a venomous and dangerous serpent, which must not be roused, lest, before you suspect it, it bite you on the heel. Be always gracious, always confidential, ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... around it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in describing this species in the Botanical Magazine, t. 6, 152, says that the aspect of the curved scape as it bears aloft its buds and hairy flowers is very suggestive of the head and body of a viper about to strike. Dr. Haughton, F.R.S., told me long ago that Darlingtonia californica always reminds him of a cobra when raised and puffed out in a rage, and certainly the likeness is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... novations in a church, even in the smallest things, are dangerous. Who can then blame us to shun a danger, and, fearing the worst, to resist evil beginnings,—to give no place to the devil,—to crush the viper while it is in the shell,—to abstain from all appearance of evil, 1 Thes. v. 22,—and to take the little ones of Babylon whilst they are young, and dash ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... casement o'er their skin, So wore he his within, Made up of virtue and transparent innocence; And though he oft renew'd the fight, And almost got priority of sight, He ne'er could overcome her quite, In pieces cut, the viper still did reunite; Till, at last, tired with loss of time and ease, Resolved to give himself, as well as ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... sworn to requite man's evil wrathfully, Powers Gracious, on whose grim brows, with viper tresses inorbed, Looks red-breathing forth your ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... delivered by so many, of the young vipers killing their mother in raving[l69] her belly to win furth, and that wt the horrid peine she suffers in the bringing furth her young she dies, which also I have heard Mr. Douglas—preaching out of the last of the Acts about that Viper that in the Ile of Malta (wheir they are a great more dangerous then any wheir else) cleave to Pauls hand—affirme at least as a thing reported by naturalists, the etymon of the Greek word [Greek: hechidnae] seiming to make for this opinion, since it comes [Greek: apo ton echein ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... But martial law shall punish thy offence. And you, [To the Christian Priest. Who saucily teach monarchs to obey, And the wide world in narrow cloisters sway; Set up by kings as humble aids of power, You that which bred you, viper-like, devour, You enemies ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... said Deborah, flinging Tray in a heap at the detective's feet, "if me an' Bart 'ave sich a brat, I 'ope he dies in his cradle, instead of growing to a galler's thief in th' use of words which make me shudder, let alone my pretty. Ugh!" she shook her fist at Tray. "You Old Bailey viper, though young ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... to touch me, to take me that way! If I had only known what sort of a thing you were, you, you viper! Oh, to be ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... aloe-tree, what I thought was a green twig; and when I grasped it, it was a cold, clammy snake, which, in a moment, twined itself around my arm. I could not scream for terror; but Sarah, my mother's faithful slave, saw it. She tore the viper from my arm, and flung it far away, among the bushes. Sister Agatha, when Brother Jonathan comes near me, I feel the same shiver go through, and the same feeling of horror almost paralyzes my limbs. I could not endure to have him near ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... trifling scratch: the scratch was mortal. He knew, too, that Caesar wore a ring made like two lions' heads, and that he would turn the stone on the inside when he was shaking hands with a friend. Then the lions' teeth became the teeth of a viper, and the friend died cursing Borgia. So he yielded, partly through fear, partly blinded by the thought of the reward; and Caesar returned to the Vatican armed with a precious paper, in which the Archbishop of Cosenza admitted ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is perhaps the principal of all the materials of mediaeval picturesque sculpture. By the best sculptors it is always used with this symbolic meaning, by the cinque cento sculptors as an ornament merely. The best and most natural representations of mere viper or snake are to be found interlaced among their confused groups of meaningless objects. The real power and horror of the snake-head has, however, been rarely reached. I shall give one example from ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... for a snake," said Drew, as he painfully dragged himself along. "Ugh, you little wretch!" he cried, and thrusting forward his gun, he passed the muzzle under a little short thick viper, which lay basking just in his way, sent it ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... down and saw a large viper crawling across their path, its hideous head upraised in defiance, hissing venomously at ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... the proud Marrubians led, By King Archippus sent to Turnus' aid, And peaceful olives crown'd his hoary head. His wand and holy words, the viper's rage, And venom'd wounds of serpents could assuage. He, when he pleas'd with powerful juice to steep Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep. But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art, To cure the wound giv'n by ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... [wounded at Kunersdorf], and to all our wounded Generals: I hope Seidlitz is now out of danger: that bleeding fit (EBULLITION DE SANG) will cure him of the cramp in his jaw, and of his colics; and as he is in bed, he won't take cold. I hope the viper-broth will do you infinite good; be assiduous in patching your constitution, while there is yet some fine weather left: I dread the winter for you; take a great deal of care against cold. I have still a couple of cruel months ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... deed.[263] But this time too Elizabeth was made acquainted with the design before it came to maturity. She ascribed her new danger to the silence, if not to the instigation, of the ambassador, the friend of the Guises: in its discovery she saw the hand of God. 'I nourish,' she exclaims, 'the viper that poisons me;—to save her they would have taken my life: am I to offer myself as a prey to every villain?'[264] At a moment when she was especially struck with the danger which threatened her from the very existence of her rival, after a conversation with the Lord Admiral, she had the long-prepared ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... by the shoulders, and was now shaking her with all his might. "Viper, viper!" he said. "Go out the room, viper! Go out, or I shall kill you! Go out! ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... evidently, having some attractive power for this, too curious daughter of Eve. He at once, by a blow on the head with his walking stick, despatched it, and then explained to her that it was lucky for her that it had not bitten her on the ankle. The adder or viper (Vipera Berus) is, fortunately, not common about Woodhall, but it exists there, and may be seen at times, basking on a sunny bank, or lying among the dead and dry foliage near a path, or on the open heath, where the unwary ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... his room, and place the letter ready for his eyes. After that she spent the whole day in thinking of it, and read the odious words over and over again till they were fixed in her memory. "Say that you love me!" Wretched viper; ill-conditioned traitor! Could it be that he, her husband, loved this woman better than her? Did not all the world know that the woman was plain and affected, and vulgar, and odious? "Dearest George!" The woman could ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... with one child. They were to depart on the morrow. At about eleven or twelve o'clock that night, Laura came to where my bed was fixed, and asked me to take her to see Tommy, this being her last opportunity. "You little viper," I was going to say, but I jumped up and led her quietly across the camp to where Tommy was fast asleep. I woke him up and said, "Here, Tommy, here's Laura come to say 'good-bye' to you, and she wants to give you a kiss." To this the uncultivated young cub replied, rubbing his eyes, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... policies. "What did you expect me to do with him?" he said hotly. "This isn't some common snake we picked up out in the country. We snagged this viper right here in Washington, Gyp! I suppose I should have spirited him out of town on ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... Cornelia smote him so fairly in the face that he shrank back, and pressed his hand to a swelling cheek. "I said I hated and despised you. What I despise, though, is beneath my hate. I would tread on you as on a viper or a desert asp, as a noxious creature that is not fit to live. I have played my game; and though it was not I who won, but Agias who won for me, I am well content. Drusus lives! Lives to see you miserably dead! Lives to grow to glory and honour, to happiness and a noble old age, when the worms ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... I sadly trace— That love's a fluttering thing of air; And yonder lurks the viper base, Who would my gentle bird ensnare! 'Twas in the shades of Eden's bower This fascination had its birth, And even there possessed the power To lure the paragon ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... 501. This word properly means, 'a female viper;' but it here refers to the Hydra, or dragon of the marsh of Lerna, which Hercules slew. It was fabled to be partly a woman, and partly a serpent, and to have been begotten by Typhon. According to some accounts, this monster had ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... so bold, and Teeth so sharp, Of Viper's venom, why dost carp? Why are my Verses by thee weigh'd In a false Scale? May Truth be said; Whilst thou to get the more esteem, A Learned Poet fain wouldst seem, Skelton, thou art, let all men know it, Neither Learned, ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... was fully launched, he could not stop. "It's like that little viper, Aristide," he would say, "a false brother, a traitor. Are you taken in by his articles in the 'Independant,' Silvere? You would be a fine fool if you were. They're not even written in good French; I've always maintained that this contraband Republican is ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the Miss Minetts fail to put in an appearance. This of necessity, since had not they, figuratively speaking, warmed the viper in their bosoms, cradled the assassin upon their hearth? They were further handicapped, in respect of any demonstration, by the fact of Theresa Bilson's presence in their midst. Owing to the general combustion, Miss Felicia and the Peace Angel's joint mission had ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... serene, if saddened, sunlight, where she could breathe again and be safe from scourgings. Thank heaven for Sir Basil, was Jack's thought, over that sharpened ache. And it was with this thought that, for Jack, came the first sinister whisper, the whisper that, as suddenly as the hiss of a viper trodden upon in the grass, warned him of the fulfilment, clear, startling, unimaginable, of ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... insects, an ebb and flow of infinitesimal living things between the trees. Nor are insects the only evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see a crooked viper ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Calendar or Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type which Stryker graced so conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to learn that if Stryker's nature was like a snake's for low cunning and deviousness, Hobbs' soul was the soul of a viper. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... comes into my house, and goes upstairs without being seen by anybody! I will look into this. And the idea of you, Mme. Alexandre, you, a sensible woman, being idiotic enough to persuade that little viper not to ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... by the Girondins, does the terrible Commune of Paris come into being, that of August 10th, September 2nd 1792 and May 31st. 1793. The viper has hardly left its nest before it begins to hiss. A fortnight before the 10th of August[2644] it begins to uncoil, and the wise statesmen who have so diligently sheltered and fed it, stand aghast at its hideous, flattened head. Accordingly, they back away from ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Take care! She has noticed, envious creature, that you are very much moved as you take leave of your companion, and that you let your hand remain for a second in his! This old maid 'a l'anglaise' has a viper's tongue. To-morrow you will be the talk of the Louvre, and the gossip will spread to the 'Ecole des Beaux-Arts', even to Signol's studio, where the two daubers, your respectful admirers, who think of cutting their throats in your honor, will accost each other with a "Well, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... thy sake it is, O thou of the splendour of the filaments of the lotus, that Kama is incessantly piercing me with his keen shafts without stopping for a moment! O amiable and cheerful girl, I have been bitten by Kama who is even like a venomous viper. O thou of swelling and large hips, have mercy on me! O thou of handsome and faultless features, O thou of face like unto the lotus-petal or the moon, O thou of voice sweet as that of singing Kinnaras, my life now depends on thee! Without thee, O timid one, I am unable to live! O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... her nature, Sir, and she will and must do it, or I don't believe she'd have her health. But never mind,' said Brass, 'never mind. I've carried my point. I've shown my confidence in the lad. He has minded the office again. Ha ha! Ugh, you viper!' ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... an envelope with another letter, and written on a piece of note-paper, was something that made her start as if at the sting of a viper. No! it could not be a will! She knew what wills were like. They were sheets of foolscap, written by lawyers, while this was only an old man's cramped and crooked writing. Perhaps, when he was in a rage, he had so far carried out his threat, that Allen should remember ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Abercrombie was prevailed upon to read one of his own outpourings of genius, a poem called "The Tigress," in which someone, presumably the author, described the torments involved in his adoration of a feminine person with "jetty brows and lambent eyes," whose kiss was like "a viper's sting" and who had, so to speak, raised the very dickens with his feelings. He read it with passionate fervor, and Captain Dan, listening, decided that the Tigress must be a most ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... turbulent mother. He was sent to a reformatory at ten years of age, and there showed himself, as he has always done when his organization had given him a chance, quiet, well-behaved, and obedient. Then at fourteen years old he had a great fright from a viper—a fright which threw him off his balance, and started the series of psychical oscillations on which he has been tossed ever since. At first the symptoms were only physical, epilepsy and hysterical paralysis of the legs; and ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... which is sold in nickel and dime novels, and which constitutes the principal part of the contents of such papers as the "Police Gazette," the "Police News," and a large proportion of the sensational story books which flood the land. You might better place a coal of fire or a live viper in your bosom, than allow yourself to read such a book. The thoughts that are implanted in the mind in youth will often stick there through life, in spite of ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... out. Liza, I saw, suddenly jumped up from her chair for some reason as they were going out, and she followed them with intent eyes till they reached the door. Then she sat down again in silence, but there was a nervous twitching in her face, as though she had touched a viper. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had assembled, Mr. Moseley rose with dignity. "My dear brethren," he began impressively, "the occasion is one which permits of no trifling. The dancing evil is one which has menaced our community for generations—a viper to be seized and throttled with a firm hand. The waltz, the—the Highland ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! 95 I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without, Bare crag, or ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... E. echidne (viper; probably in allusion to the fang-like spines).—This species is remarkable in having a stout cylindrical stem, 12 in. high by 8 in. wide, with about a dozen deep ridges; these are disposed spirally, and ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... Evangelists[115] that, when St. Paul, after he had been shipwrecked, and escaped to the island of Malta, a viper fastened on his hand as he was laying a bundle of sticks, he had gathered, on the fire; and that, by a miracle, and to the great astonishment of the spectators, inhabitants of the island, he not only suffered no harm, but also cured, by the divine power, the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... a good one. It's more viperous than any other snake of the viper bunch, an' its disposition is mean and yellow right ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... reason by analogy, but make instinctively a deductive extension of an induction, merely omitting the explicit generalisation, 'All missiles of a certain weight, size and solidity break windows.' But if, knowing nothing of snakes except that the viper is venomous, a child runs away from a grass-snake, he argues by analogy; and, though his conduct is prudentially justifiable, his inference is wrong: for there is no law that 'All snakes are venomous,' ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... my name is Pied Piper. My business is to play upon my pipe. I can charm with the magic of my notes all things to do my will. But I use my charm on creatures that do people harm, the toad, the mole, and the viper, and rats—rats! ...
— Dramatic Reader for Lower Grades • Florence Holbrook
... nation which oppresses. But in simple point of fact, the oppressed nation generally deserves (if the word can be fairly used) to share the blame. The trodden worm would not have been trodden upon if it had been a bit of a viper. Whatever the duty of turning the second cheek, it is clearly not a national duty. If we admire a Tell or Robert Bruce for resisting oppressors, we implicitly condemn those who submitted to oppressors. If a nation is divided or wanting in courage, public spirit, and independence, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... only to exhibit another new and unexpected network of wrinkles. The upper lip was long and drawn down, while the thin mouth curved upwards at the corners in a disagreeable smile, something like that which seems to play about the long, slit lips of a dead viper. This unpleasant combination of features was terminated by a short but prominent chin, indicating a determined and undeviating will. The ghastly yellow color of her face made the unnatural brightness of her beady eyes ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... be enforced. Tell me, now, what is it that you wish. I am only here as your captain, and to take the sense of the whole crew. I have no animosity against that lad; I have loved him—I have cherished him; but like a viper, he has stung me in return. Instead of being in arms against each other, ought we not to be united? I have, therefore, one proposal to make to you, which is this: let the sentence go by vote, or ballot, if you please; and whatever the sentence ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... through me; and if there had been one mean thought in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. Then she said, sadly,— ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... But withal, he gave no fair grounds for any such retort as is falsely attributed to Emmet, the very style of which proves its falsity. It is now well known that the apostrophe in the death-speech, commencing "you viper," alleged to have been addressed to Plunkett, was the interpolation many years afterwards of that literary Ishmaelite—Walter Cox of the Hibernian Magazine,—who through such base means endeavoured to aim a blow at Plunkett's ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... up its vitality, serves as a remedy for boils. The sting of a hornet is healed by the house-fly crushed and applied to the wound. The gnat, feeble creature, taking in food but never secreting it, is a specific against the poison of a viper, and this venomous reptile itself cures eruptions, while the lizard is the antidote to the scorpion.[191] Not only do all creatures serve man, and contribute to his comfort, but also God "teacheth us through the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wise through ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... is willing to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely to understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or doings which have been wrung from his agony. For I have been bitten by a more than viper's tooth; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or in some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth than any serpent's tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make a man say or do anything. And you whom I see around me, Phaedrus and Agathon and Eryximachus ...
— Symposium • Plato
... to whom nothing is sacred. "He's used to it by this time. You know what happened to the viper who bit the Cappadocian's hide? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... I wished! Ha, tongue of dragon, heart of viper! I care not that, infatuated with you, I scorned the Assessor, the Count, and the Notary, that you seduced me and have now abandoned me in my orphanhood; for that I care not! You are a man, I know your falsity; I know that, like others, you too would be capable of ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... me before all my servants, and that is why you take his part. He would send me to hell if he had the upper hand. I've got the upper hand, and so he shall taste it instead of me, till he goes down on his marrowbones to me with my foot on his viper's ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... upon the island of Melita, where Paul was mistaken for a murderer because a viper springing out of a bundle of sticks fastened on his hand. But he shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm, and the barbarians waited for him to swell and fall down suddenly, but when he showed no sign of sickness they mistook him for a god, and ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... poor Tom is up-stairs? worse and worse!" said Mrs. Morton, lifting up her hands and eyes. "What a viper!" ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... back as if a viper had stung her; for the moment she had become oblivious of Chauvelin's presence. However, she would not take notices of his taunt, and, after a slight pause, he asked her if she could hear the town crier over in ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of his secretly cherished hopes was terrible. As he saw her rise on one elbow and meet his gaze with one which revealed the astonishment and resentment of a wild creature suddenly entrapped, he felt, or so he afterwards declared, as if the viper which had hitherto clung cold and deathlike about his heart had suddenly sprung to life and stung him. It was the most uncanny moment of ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... School examination, which, indeed, she did with embellishments and in their own poetic and metaphorical fashion. The particular tale upon which she was engaged, by a strange coincidence, was that from the Acts which narrates how St. Paul was bitten by a viper upon the Island of Melita, and how he shook it off into the fire and took ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... fortune will he hear this day. Evil shall be the best I'll promise him." Thus spake the sorceress, and out she went to keep her word. Truly it was a splendid picture this of "The Enraged Witch," as painted by Hexenmeister von Teufel, of Hollenstadt,—her viper eyes flashing infernal light and most unchristian fire, shaking les noirs serpents de ses cheveux, as she went forth. I know how, in an instant, her face was beautiful with welcome, smiling like a Neapolitan at a cent; but the poor believer caught it hot, all the same, and had ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... former masters, that nothing is bad in itself—bad because it has within it a corrupting principle. On the contrary, all things are good, though in varying degrees. The apparent defects of creation, perceived by our senses, blend into the harmony of the whole. The toad and the viper have their place in the operation of a perfectly arranged world. But physical ill is not the only ill; there is also the evil that we do and the evil that others do us. Crime and pain are terrible arguments against God. Now the Christians ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... of the naval operations of 1813, it is clear that the Americans were the chief sufferers. They had the victories over the "Peacock," "Boxer," and "Highflyer" to boast of; but they had lost the "Chesapeake," "Argus," and "Viper." But, more than this, they had suffered their coast to be so sealed up by British blockaders that many of their best vessels were left to lie idle at their docks. The blockade, too, was growing stricter daily, and the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... thus necessary we should not shrink from this kind of correction. "It is pusillanimity, as well as folly, to shrink from the crushing of the egg, but to wait composedly for the hatching of the viper." Yet, on the other hand, in the language of Dr. Bell, "a maximum of attainment can be made only by a minimum ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from 243:6 the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death. It crowned the demon- 243:9 strations ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... eternity. Anxious friends may attribute the unhappy change to overwork, overstudy, or some similar cause; but from a somewhat extended observation we are thoroughly convinced that the very vice which we are considering is the viper which blights the prospects and poisons the existence of many ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... but now he was hounded in the house of his friends. He had looked through the whole Congressional Library and failed to find a precedent for the course of the carping CARPENTER, except in the case of the classic chap who had warmed a viper which had turned again and rent him. He did not mean to say that Mr. CARPENTER was a viper, but he thought nobody but an Adder would put this and that together as Mr. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... calumnies? It came upon me in a kind of vision how hugely I had overrated the man's subtlety. He had his malice still; he was false as ever; and, the occasion being gone that made his strength, he sat there impotent; he was still the viper, but now spent his venom on a file. Two more thoughts occurred to me while yet we sat at breakfast: the first, that he was abashed—I had almost said, distressed—to find his wickedness quite unavailing; the second, that perhaps my lord was in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stomach as well as theirs. I could digest a salad gathered in a church-yard as well as in a garden. I cannot start at the presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or salamander; at the sight of a toad or viper, I find in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy them. I feel not in myself those common antipathies that I can dis- cover in others: those national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch; but, where ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... cried. "Where could I leave him?" he asked, with a drop in his voice; and I had my first glimpse of genuine despair. "He steals, you know, alas! Par ta Madonne! I believe he would put poison in your food and mine—the viper!" ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... with some sign to indicate the special use for which each was intended, they regarded the spotted stem of the bugloss, and its seeds shaped like a serpent's head, as certain indications that the herb would cure snake bites. Indeed, the genus takes its name from Echis, the Greek viper. ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... well rewarded That beggar themselves to make such rascals rich. Thou viper, thankless viper! But since you are grown forgetful, I will help Your memory, and beat thee into remembrance; Not leave one ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Rebecca, stung out of her equanimity by this sudden dart of the viper, but Cesarine said no more, and she proceeded steadily toward ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... red light districts are worse than Paris. In Paris, if Dr. Sanger is right in his standard work, "A History of Prostitution," men are not permitted to manage the resorts. The unspeakable divekeeper—why do the American people tolerate such a viper as this? ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... incredible and unlikely story. Others on this occasion talked very much of antipathies, and produced a thousand instances of such strange effects; for example, the sight of a ram quiets an enraged elephant; a viper lies stock-still, if touched with a beechen leaf; a wild bull grows tame, if bound with the twigs of a fig-tree; and amber draws all light things to it, except basil and such as are dipped in oil; and a loadstone will not draw a piece of ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... of a secret charm, to draw All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep, or swim, or fly, or run, After me so as you never saw! And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole, the toad, the newt, the viper; And people call me the Pied Piper. Yet,' said he, 'poor piper as I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarm of gnats; I eased in Asia the Nizam Of a monstrous brood of vampyre bats: And as ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... Bithynia and Pontus, first of all, naturally, to Abonutichus. The people of that place at once resolved to raise a temple, and lost no time in digging the foundations. Cocconas was now left at Chalcedon, engaged in composing certain ambiguous crabbed oracles. He shortly afterwards died, I believe, of a viper's bite. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... many nights to come, there was wailing in the Zaouia. The marabout had gone out to meet his son, who had been away from school on a pilgrimage, and returning at dark, to avoid the great heat of the day, had been bitten by a viper. Thus, at least, pronounced the learned Arab physician. It was of the viper bite he died, so it was said, and no one outside the Zaouia knew of the great man's death until days afterwards, when he was already buried. Even in the Zaouia it was not ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that thou tookest from him." Then he went back to Obayd and said to him, "O master, verily, the commerce of women requireth patience and magnanimity and whoso loveth them hath need of fortitude, for that they order themselves viper wise towards men and evilly entreat them, by reason of their superiority over them in beauty and loveliness: wherefore they magnify themselves and belittle men. This is notably the case when their husbands show them affection; for then they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... man. Most of these spirits are in the hells behind the back, and are called genii; and there they delight to make themselves invisible, and to flutter about others like phantoms secretly infusing evil into them, which they spread around like the poison of a viper. These are more direfully tormented than others. But those who are not deceitful, and who have not been so filled with malignant craftiness, and yet are in the evils derived from the love of self, are also in the hells behind, ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... ruffian, as malignant as a moccasin snake, and as dangerous as one. He was filthy in speech and vile in habit, being in his person most unpicturesque and most unwholesome, and altogether seemed a creature more viper than he was man. The sheriffs of two border States and the officials of a contiguous reservation sought for him many times, long and diligently, before a posse overcame him in the hills by over-powering odds and took him alive ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... the common viper ( Vipera cevus), ranging from Wales to Saghalien island, and from Caithness to the north of Spain. The puff-adder (Bitis s. Echidna arietans) of nearly the whole of Africa, and the death-adder (Acanthophis antarcticus) ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... all, and, besides, as I soon found that all the projects of my committee were known to the enemy, and was, of course, quite sure that we had a spy in our camp, I took good care to keep my order of battle to myself till it was about to be put in force. I must, however, own that this viper did completely deceive me; as I had not the slightest suspicion of him till after the election, when he was detected, in fact, not till I had it from one of the White Lion Club, that Webb came every night to them, and frequently supped with them after he left my committee; and even then I was ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... King Archippus, the priest of the Marruvian people, dressed with prosperous olive leaves over his helmet, Umbro excellent in valour, who was wont with charm and touch to sprinkle slumberous dew on the viper's brood and water-snakes of noisome breath. Yet he availed not to heal the stroke of the Dardanian spear-point, nor was the wound of him helped by his sleepy charms and herbs culled on the Massic hills. Thee the woodland of Angitia, thee Fucinus' ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... had come to de Sigognac's rescue, and now suddenly roared out in his stentorian voice, "What the deuce is nipping me? Is it a viper? I felt two sharp fangs meet in the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... a viper!" he said. "In my house she has enjoyed every comfort and every consideration, and in return she has dealt me this foul blow. She will have cause ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... the Bishop had been reading the Rev. F. Robertson's sermon about St. Paul and the viper. It was late, and being rather sleepy he carried the book in one hand and a candle in the other into his dressing-room, and was just going to set the candle down, when his eye fell on a cobra, coiled up on the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... what care! What prudence can prevent madness, the worst Of maladies? Terrific pest! that blasts 190 The huntsman's hopes, and desolation spreads Through all the unpeopled kennel unrestrained. More fatal than the envenomed viper's bite; Or that Apulian[10] spider's poisonous sting, Healed by the pleasing antidote of sounds. When Sirius reigns, and the sun's parching beams Bake the dry gaping surface, visit thou Each even and morn, with quick observant eye, Thy panting pack. If in dark ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... saw a lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and ...
— English Satires • Various
... furious). I hear they're steel rods, you viper, but what of it? Granted they're steel rods! Well, ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... canine appetite for natural history,' he told his brother in 1828. He describes with all the zeal of a clever youth of nineteen how busily he is employed in macerating skulls, dissecting unsavoury creatures before breakfast, watching the ants reduce a viper to a skeleton for him, and striving with all his might to get a perfect collection of animal and human skulls. All this, however, was rather an accidental outbreak of exuberant intellectual activity than serious and well-directed study. He was full of the vague and morbid ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... worse when a whole great nation is set free as well as a family? By this warning to Sweden we shall probably prevent war and not precipitate it, and save many thousand lives rather more valuable than the life of that viper. Oh, I'm not talking sophistry or seriously justifying the thing, but the slavery that held him and his country was a thousand times less justifiable. If I'd really been sharp I should have guessed it from his smooth, deadly smiling at dinner that night. Do you remember that silly talk about ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton |
