"Reptile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... line of ancestors like other men. If they get sons, they commonly die young. They unite themselves to women of inferior castes for want of daughters in families of their own ranks, and there is hardly a family among these proud Rajpoots unstained by such connections.* Even the reptile Pausies become Rajpoots by giving their daughters to Powars and other Rajpoot families, when by robbery and murder they have acquired wealth and landed property. The sister of Gunga Buksh, of Kasimgunge, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... one of those deadly reptiles in this case? Yes, Sir Henry. I suspected it the very moment I smelt the odour of the coriander and sassafras, but I suspected that an animal or a reptile of some kind was at the bottom of the mystery at a prior period. That is why I wanted the flour. Look! Do you see where I sifted it over this spot near the Patagonian plant? And do you see those serpentine tracks through the middle of it? The Mynga Worm is there in that ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... parts of the cave, where darkness prevailed, and locomotion was only possible on the lowest reptile principles, M. announced that she could see clear through the ice-floor, as if there were nothing between her and the rock below. I ventured to doubt this, for there was an air of immense thickness about the whole ice; and as soon as A. and I had succeeded in grovelling across ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... heraldic sense, I say, as distinguished from the still wider original sense of advancing with a stealthy, creeping, or clinging motion, as a serpent on the ground, and a cat, or a vine, up a tree- stem. And there is one of these reptile, creeping, or rampant things, which is the first whose action was translated into marble, and otherwise is of boundless importance in the arts and ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... favorable, for his steel bar, while very sharp at the point, was not intended for chopping work. He could pierce the body of the reptile, but could not weaken its strength so that ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of degradation, so that they themselves may profit. You have miscalculated this time, my dear sir! I have not fallen so low as that. What hurts me is that you could think even for a moment that I would agree to go to Kotlicki, to Kotlicki, who is more repulsive to me than the basest reptile!" she cried, carried ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... after ranked in infamy next to Benedict Arnold. Thenceforth he became a stranger and a wanderer on the face of the earth. His friends left him and society shunned him. "I have not spoken to the damned reptile for twenty-five years," said former Governor ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... with the cage, on the top of the tower; and when our friends left the hollow mountain through the gap the Giant had made, the poor sorceress was being changed from bird to beast, and from beast to fish or reptile, as fast as the little demon was satisfied with her performance in any one character; and he may be keeping up this amusing pastime ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... crocodile's head was lifted at least partially out of the water, far enough to disclose the brute's merciless eyes. This happened a second or two after my arrival upon the scene, when, quick as light, I tossed my weapon to my shoulder, sighted the reptile's left eye, and pulled ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... cases some myself, you damned reptile," he muttered under his breath. "You won't get me again, if that's what you've got ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... under this name for no other reason than because it was known in the vicinity as such, this designation having been adopted by Squier and Davis, as they frankly say, "for want of a better," adding "although the figure bears as close a resemblance to the lizard as any other reptile." (Ancient Monuments, p. 99.) ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... out the timber blockade in the Gap. I had no thought of my lizard, but one of his orderlies caught sight of it on my shoulder. With the common prejudice among the soldiers that the harmless thing was a deadly poisonous reptile, he stood a moment staring and half transfixed, thinking me in deadly peril. Then, with a jump, he struck it off my shoulder with his open hand, and stamped it dead with his heavy boot heel, sure he had saved my life. But when one of my attendants exclaimed ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... chant some unintelligible words. Suddenly one Antelope and one Snake man rush to the kisi, and the priest who is presiding over the serpents presents them with a snake. The Snake man immediately places the wriggling reptile in his mouth, and holds it by the centre of its body between his teeth, as he marches around the little plaza, taking high steps. Meantime the, Antelope man accompanies him, stroking the snake continually with a wand tipped with feathers. ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... 'beware! I have, from respect to my father's memory, somewhat restrained myself towards you. You have pleaded this man's cause. Say no more. He has threatened me—dared to use reproaches and threats to a peer of the realm—he shall be crushed as a noxious reptile!' ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... said. "I've noticed that he seems almost cold-blooded; his body is at the temperature of the room at all times. In a sense, he is reptilian, but he's vastly more efficient and greatly different than any reptile Earth ever knew. He eats food, all right, but he only needs it to replace his body cells ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... eye. I stooped to pick it up; but, ere my hand had quite reached it, the truth flashed across me—it was a snake! Had I followed my first natural impulse, I should have sprung away, but not being able clearly to see in what position the reptile was lying, or which way his head was pointed, I controlled myself, and remained rooted breathless to the spot. Straining my eyes, but moving not an inch, I at length clearly distinguished a huge puff-adder, the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... just inside the door. Pity, mercy, and tenderness were qualities as inherent in her as perfume in a wild flower, but there was something else in her as well—as there is death in some perfumes. If he had been actually a poisonous reptile instead of a snake soul in the body of a man Bas Rowlett could have been to her, ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... him by the hand. The limb of a bush was fortunately within reach, and he laid hold of it. There was a brief struggle. The crocodile tugged hard, but the man tugged harder; at the same time he uttered a yell which brought Jumbo to his side with an oar, a blow from which drove the hideous reptile away. Poor Zombo was too glad to have escaped with his life to care much about the torn hand, which rendered him hors de combat ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... around the wicker basket that contained the serpents, which were covered by a goatskin. Suddenly he stopped, plunged his naked arm into the basket, and drew out a cobra de capello, or else a haje, a fearful reptile which is able to swell its head by spreading out the scales which cover it, and which is thought to be Cleopatra's asp, the serpent of Egypt. In Morocco it is known as the buska. The charmer folded and unfolded the greenish-black viper, as if ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... the reptile world, both by land and water. Basking upon the bank, or floating along the stream, we may behold the great water lizards—the crocodile and caiman; or the unwieldly forms of the cheloniae—the turtles. Nimbly running along the tree-trunk, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... any longer to the creature's threats, but she had just become aware that help was at hand. The person she believed to be a spy was stealing up, treading noiselessly over the velvet turf, his hands already outstretched with the evident purpose of seizing the reptile from behind. If she could only engage it in conversation for a minute or two, there was still ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... that shee would leave us. We leaned on that side of the boat, so with our owers thrusted her out; we seeing her swime so well, hasted to kill her with our owers, which shee had for her paines. [Footnote: Radisson's description of this reptile has been shown to one of the most eminent herpetologists in America, who writes that "no such reptile has ever been described by scientific writers."] The squirrell tooke the flight, soe we went, longing to be with our comrades to tell ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... possible Agassiz. When he displays an interest in plant life, she sees in him another Burbank. When she finds him drawing pictures at his desk, she smiles approval, for she sees in him another Raphael. She does not disdain the lowliest insect, reptile, or plant when she finds it within the circle of the child's interests. She is willing, nay eager, to ransack the universe if only she may come upon elements of nutrition for her pupils. From every flower that blooms she gathers honey that she may distill it into ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... will need to be proved only by a bare perusal of this hateful bill, by which the meanest, the most worthless reptile, exalted to a petty office by serving a wretch only superiour to him in fortune, is enabled to flush his authority by tyrannising over those who every hour deserve the publick acknowledgments of the community; to intrude ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... contrivance, what he could not obtain by seductive persuasion. I was despatched on a trifling commission to one of his estates, my presence being an obstacle to his designs; for poor and despised as I was, Gomez Arias nevertheless looked upon me with a feeling of dread. He could crush the reptile, but he feared the sting. I was strong in my very weakness, for as I had but one solitary motive to link me to life; that being removed, my oppressor felt aware my life would then only serve as the price by which I ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... faculty of moving backwards or forwards at pleasure, has been thought to have a head at either extremity of its reptile body, but close inspection proves this opinion false. The fascinating power of the Rattlesnake, of which so many stories have in times past been related, and which was asserted to exist in its glittering eyes, has been of late years resolved into that extreme ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to a whale. Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... never daring to look human nature in the face; full of lean excuses for self-imposed starvation, only revelling in the impurity and duskiness of its own shut-up heart. At last the joy-bells ring its knell, while it crawls into eternity like a vile reptile, leaving a slimy ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... certain that I had seen one in the Zoo, in the reptile house, but I have just learnt that it is my lucky month stone. Naturally I want to ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... was over I threw myself on a chair; my heart beat wildly: "Oh, heaven!" I murmured, "how can it be possible? Oh, superb monster! Oh! beautiful reptile! How you writhe, how you coil in and out, sweet adder, with supple and spotted skin! Thy cousin the serpent has taught thee to coil about the tree of life holding between thy lips the apple of temptation. Oh! Melusina! Melusina! ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... the waist by a sash or belt of a darker shade. Her bosom was bare, and bore the same sickly hue of pale green; her face was placid; the eyes were open; but one of the balls had been extracted by some reptile of the deep; her long hair flowed among the weeds; and, hanging from the lobe of the left ear, I saw a clear gem that shone with the brightness of the stone called aqua marina. One of the arms had been taken off a little above the elbow; the flesh at the end of the stump appeared ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... completely pulverizing it. It was not disagreeable work. Things in their right places are very seldom disagreeable. A spider on your dress is a horror, but a spider outdoors is rather interesting. Besides, the loam had a fine, soft feel that was absolutely pleasant; but a hideous black and yellow reptile with horns and hoofs, that winked up at me from it, was decidedly unpleasant and out of place, and I at once concluded that the soil was sufficiently mellow for my purposes, and smoothed it off directly. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... had spoken, the King made a point of his eyebrows, and exclaimed, 'Shiraz? So they hold out against Shagpat yet, aha? Shiraz! that nest of them! that reptile's nest!' Then he turned to his Vizier beside him, and said, 'What shall ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... unparalleled misery. The consolation even of death is denied me. But Melissa! she—ah, where is she! Oh, reflection insupportable! insufferable consideration! Must that heavenly frame putrify, moulder, and crumble into dust? Must the loathsome spider nestle on her lily bosom? the odious reptile riot on her delicate limbs? the worm revel amid the roses of her cheek, fatten on her temples, and bask in the lustre of her eyes? Alas! the lustre has become dimmed in death; the rose and the lily are withered; the harmony of her voice has ceased; the graces, the elegancies ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... ravine, widening as it issued on the prairie. We entered it, and galloping up, in a moment were surrounded by the bleak sand-hills. Half of their steep sides were bare; the rest were scantily clothed with clumps of grass, and various uncouth plants, conspicuous among which appeared the reptile-like prickly pear. They were gashed with numberless ravines; and as the sky had suddenly darkened, and a cold gusty wind arisen, the strange shrubs and the dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate. But Henry's face was all eagerness. He tore ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... through his interference, greatly changed in numerical proportion, sometimes much modified in form and product, and sometimes entirely extirpated. [Footnote: Man has not only subverted the natural numerical relations of wild as well as domestic quadrupeds, fish, birds, reptile, insect, and common plants, and even of still humbler tribes of animal and vegetable life, but he has effected in the forms, habits, nutriment and products of the organisms which minister to his wants and his ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... himself with their dying convulsions. He also frequently took pleasure in roasting them alive. He once received a present of a very large snake from some person who seemed to understand how to please this remarkable young prince. After a time, however, the favorite reptile allowed itself to bite its master's finger, whereupon Don Carlos immediately retaliated ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... been quite smooth only for that d—— fellow. The Devil fixed him precisely there for the express purpose of fleecing and watching, and threatening him—perhaps worse. He hated that sly, double-dealing reptile of prey—the arachnida of social nature—the spiders with which also naturalists place the scorpions. I dare say Mr. Larkin would have had as little difficulty in referring the gallant captain to the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... turned towards the witch, he perceived for the first time, just under her seat, the bright gaze and crested head of a large snake: whether it was that the vivid coloring of the Athenian's cloak, thrown over the shoulders of Ione, attracted the reptile's anger—its crest began to glow and rise, as if menacing and preparing itself to spring upon the Neapolitan—Glaucus caught quickly at one of the half-burned logs upon the hearth—and, as if enraged ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... the lion house, on the other side, is the reptile house, where live snakes, crocodiles, and lizards, and all sorts of curious animals. The most interesting are the enormous snakes, called boa-constrictors, with bodies nearly as thick as a child's, and many yards in length. They are not in cages, but in glass ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... now took a poisonous serpent and fastened it above his head, so that the venom of the reptile falling, drop by drop, upon his face, would cause the most terrible pain. But Sigyn, Loki's loyal wife, the only person in heaven or earth who cared what became of him, took a cup and held it up to catch the burning drops as ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... me!" screamed Eleanor, frantically, but the brave little burro knew how to carry his rider safely out of the way of the reptile. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... what a vicious little reptile he was," Beverly replied. "But Uncle Esmond told me that his father took him away early and had him schooled like a gentleman in the best Saint Louis had to give. I wonder whose company ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... was accordingly ushered into the imperial presence; and the Kaiser spoke to it as he would to one of his own kind, gravely asking what it required. The reptile made a most courteous reverence to Charlemagne, and signed in its dumb way for him to follow. He did so accordingly, accompanied by his court; and the creature led them on to the water's edge, to ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... to me so unexpectedly was not more than three feet long. He was of a greenish-brown color, with some yellow on the sides. I had the strip of board I had taken from the window in my hand when the reptile darted out of the closet. I don't think he had any particular intentions, at first, except to get out of his prison, as I had to get out of mine. I could not blame him for anything he had done so far. Like myself, he was ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... sc. 3. It is a real trial of charity to read this scene with tolerable temper towards Fletcher. So very slavish—so reptile—are the feelings and sentiments represented as duties. And yet remember he was a bishop's son, and the duty to God ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... once shouts of "Snake!" were sent up, and each time this proved to be a false alarm, or the snake must have made good its escape, for no horrible crawling reptile came to view, in spite of the most desperate thrashing of bushes, and beating of ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... attempt to give an idea of the utter desolation they leave, of the waste place they make of the heart, lest you should think I have thus humbugged myself; for self-humbug it certainly is; and this is the most intensely human. Not a fish, or reptile, bird, or beast; not a thing crawling, swimming, flying, or walking, but the human creature, humbugs himself. 'Man was made to mourn,' I would change into, Man was made to be humbugged. It is better to be greatly gullible, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... been a long enumeration of the animal life, in its many branches, which is found in the forest. The mere cataloguing of it is sufficient to show the extent and variety of insect, bird, reptile, and mammal life which the forest contains. But it is with the beauty of this animal life, rather than with its extent and variety, that we are concerned. And if the Artist is to see its full beauty, he must see it with the eyes of the naturalist ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... danger was not over. All through the long winter night, Rauparaha was busy in trying to induce Wiremu Kingi to join him. He proposed to attack Wellington and destroy every man, woman, and child. "Let us destroy the reptile while we have the power to do so," he argued, "or it will destroy us. We have begun: let us make an end of them." Kingi was firm, and declared that it was his intention to live at peace with the pakeha. When daylight ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... banded coral snake (Elaps), whose bite is deadly, is marked as conspicuously as any noxious caterpillar with bright bands of black, yellow, and red. I only met with one other example amongst the vertebrata, and it was also a reptile. In the woods around Santo Domingo there are many frogs. Some are green or brown, and imitate green or dead leaves, and live amongst foliage. Others are dull earth-coloured, and hide in holes and under logs. All these come out only at night to feed, and ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... responsive admiration in the woman's eyes. And perhaps it was as well. She was looking at him with eyes wide open to what he really was, and all the revolting of her nature was uppermost. She loathed him as she might some venomous reptile. She loathed him and feared him. His body might have been the body of an Apollo, his face the most perfect of God's creations. She knew him now for the cold-blooded murderer he was, and so she loathed ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... punishment for all the sins I ever committed; and there we two were, I looking up at the viper, and the viper looking down upon me, flickering at me with its tongue." Happily a sharp gun report close at hand frightened the reptile away. Before leaving the neighbourhood the viper-catcher presented his child friend with a specimen which he had tamed and rendered harmless by removing the fangs. This creature the queer boy fed with milk and often carried with him ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... I do not need this Goliath of a frog. I am merely valuing the reptile for your future guidance. Let me see ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... serpent is not invincible; Cadmus, who loved no one, slew Mars' own reptile. We love, and Love makes everything possible for the heart that follows his standard, for the hand of whose darts he is ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... tales, and of German romance in general. The knight is in complete armour, and is riding through a forest. On a hilltop in the distance are the turrets of a castle; a lean hound follows the knight; on the ground between his horse's hoofs sprawls a lizard-like reptile; a figure on horseback approaches from the right, with the face half obliterated or eaten away to the semblance of a skull, and snakes encircling the temples. Behind comes on a demon or goblin shape, with a tall curving horn, which is "neither man nor woman, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... had been elected, he intended to keep silent regarding the confession. He hated Warden, but it was with something of the passion a man feels who treads upon a poisonous reptile that ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... one of those questionable labyrinths still existing in the most civilized Italian cities, would certainly not run less risk than in facing the dangers of the forest. The dart, the trap, the attack of beast and reptile may be, with courage and calmness, averted or parried, but the evils which menace man, under the hypocritical euphemisms of Society (ever ready to vaunt its impeachableness) injure not only the body but, what ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... promise to wait here till I could come and retain you on wages—you, in pure wantonness, must lift up your heels and prance away into your so-called new liberty. You're a fair sample of what's to come, Cornelius. You've spent your first wages for whiskey. Silence, you perfidious reptile! ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... there was no longer an utter dumbness and death over the scene. Forth from the sands, as from the bowels of the reluctant earth, there crept, one by one, loathly and reptile shapes; obscene sounds rang in her ears—now in a hideous mockery, now in a yet more sickening solicitation. Shapes of terror thickened and crowded round her. She was roused by dread into action; she hurried faster and faster; ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dangerous and difficult to control. To the instincts of a beast was added something of a man's intelligence, but so developed that it was often little more than cunning. If, when throwing away his manhood, man becomes a creature more to be dreaded than a beast or venomous reptile, whichever he happens most to resemble, woman, parting with her womanhood, scarcely finds her counterpart even in the most noxious forms of earthly existence. She becomes, in her perversion, something that is unnatural ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... Spirit shall not always strive with men, since they are flesh; yet will I give them the term of an hundred and twenty years." Besides, "I will destroy from the earth the men whom I have created, from man even to the reptile, (I will destroy them)." These words he preached and enforced daily, and began to build the ark as had been commanded him; and he labors on it a hundred years. But the people laughed at him, and were only so much the ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... reptiles. The earliest known reptile is found in the Carboniferous strata. In the Permian and Triassic groups the numbers gradually increase, till in the Lias, Oolite, and Cretaceous systems, this class attains a very great development ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... abundance and diversity of the game it might have appeared that every known species of bird and beast and reptile had sought here a refuge wherein they might take their last stand against the encroaching multitudes of men that had steadily spread themselves over the surface of the earth, wresting the hunting grounds from the lower orders, from the moment that the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... magazine seemed to think he had some power of kicking left, for it returned to the charge in consequence of his review of Lockhart's "Life of Scott." In this article he was called a "spiteful miscreant," an "insect," a "grub," a "reptile." The "Quarterly Review" was as virulent and violent as the magazines, but the attack was more skillful as well as longer and more elaborate. By garbling extracts it cleverly insinuated a good deal more than it said, and it so contrived to put several things that ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... head-rest of Ume's pillow was fastened a long, slender envelope, such as Japanese women use for letters. Tatsu recoiled from it as from a venomous reptile. Throwing himself face down upon the floor he groaned aloud, praying his mountain gods to sweep away from his soul the black mist of despair that now crawled, cold, toward it. Why should Ume-ko have left ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... character. The Archduchess, who is foolhardy and insolent, does not deserve such a lover, and it is grievous to think that such a termagant should have so much power over such a man. I regard her as I would some poisonous reptile. Piety—which improves most women—only seems to render her the more defiant, and love—which softens most wills—makes hers the more hard. After parting with M. de Hausee she swooned, and I thought what a merciful thing it would be for all of us if she never regained ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... ancient Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name— But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of mortal life! For to this earthly frame Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill the things whereon ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... them is not argument! We have seen many a steam roller go over Truth, and Right, and Justice, by main strength and red-hot power; but Truth and Right refuse to stay flat down. There is on this earth not one wild-animal species—mammal, bird or reptile—that can long withstand exploitation for commercial purposes. Even the whales of the deep sea, the walrus of the arctic regions, the condors of the Andes and alligators of the Everglade morasses are no exception ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... snake, held by its head and tail, is slowly drawn, by some one standing by, nine times across the front part of the neck of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to crawl about for a while. Afterwards the snake is put alive into a bottle, which is corked tightly and then buried in the ground. The tradition is, that as the snake ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... of Illakaree did not form an attractive object in the lovely landscape surrounded by hills, in and out amongst which the Reptile River ran, for a building hastily raised of corrugated iron never was ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... in the habit of going there to drink. The symptoms of its bite are terrible. The eyes of the patient become red and fiery; the tongue swells to an immoderate size and obstructs utterance, and delirium of the most horrid character ensues. The name of this reptile is, 'THE WORM OF THE STILL.'" I suspect it is one of the same family which is infesting the peaceful villages of New England, and whose ravages have alarmed the country, and caused you this day to leave your homes and seek its destruction. ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... attract a short-liv'd admiration, which, when I am truly known, will be succeeded with an adequate derision:—Could I but say I was descended from honest, tho' mean parents, I would not murmur at my fate, but I have none,—none to own me;—I am a nothing,—a kind of reptile in humanity, and have been shewn in a genteel way of life only to make my native ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... gloom in the frog world, every reptile winced and squirmed, when he heard of this new enemy. All crawlers, creepers, and jumpers had so long imagined that the land was theirs and had been made solely for their benefit! Nor did they know how to conquer the storks. The frog daddies could do nothing, ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment—but only just a moment—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails in unison and their faces ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... movements and intent of the venomous creature, but never till a full realization of our position in regard to this organized band of traitors, did we ever experience sensations akin to those of the unfortunate traveler; and when the loathsome reptile had got into a position where it was safe to attempt its destruction, and when this attempt was successful, no greater relief or deeper emotions of gratitude could have been felt by him—a moment before exposed to instant and terrible death—than ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... bitter enemy. All efforts to convince him to the contrary were fruitless, for although remarkably clear-sighted on most other subjects, he obstinately refused on this to listen to the truth. Indeed, the remonstrances of his friends had the effect of strengthening his conviction that the reptile, as he called the supposed enemy, assumed the appearance of friendship, the better to mask his ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... Marat is a different creature altogether. He is simply venomous. He hates the world, and would absolutely rejoice in slaughter. So loathsome is he in appearance that even his colleagues shrink from him. He is a venomous reptile whom it would be a pleasure to slay, as it would be to put one's heel upon a rattlesnake. Whether he is a coward or not I do not know, but I should think so. Men of his type are seldom brave. I think if we had him ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... she goes to where beautiful and snowy blossoms grow in clustering millions. She gathers them in haste; her arms and hands are streaming with blood, but she pays no heed, and as the snake surmounts one barricade, she builds another. But in vain. The reptile leans over them all, and the sour dirty smell of the scaly hide befouls the odorous breath of the roses. The long thin neck is upon her; she feels the horrid strength of the coils as they curl and slip about her, drawing her whole life ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility, the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside and let the reptile live. The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, A visitor unwelcome, into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, The chamber, or refectory, may die; A necessary act incurs no ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... Mr. Blake. I saw that Mr. Blake refrained from crushing him beneath his heel like a reptile. I saw that!' she ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... Conseil thought he spotted a turtle six feet wide and adorned with three protruding ridges that ran lengthwise. I was sorry to miss this reptile, because from Conseil's description, I believe I recognized the leatherback turtle, a pretty rare species. For my part, I noted only some loggerhead turtles ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... so much wet; therefore, to discharge it, I took a shot at the nearest crocodile just behind the eye. The little rifle was in perfect order—thanks to Eley's "double waterproof central firecaps," which will resist all weathers—and the bullet striking the exact spot, the great reptile gave a convulsive lash with his tail, and turning on his back, with his paws above the water, he gradually sunk. The native boatmen were dreadfully frightened at the report of the rifle, to the great ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... the romantic movement progressed, it would be easy to show that distaste for the eighteenth century mannerism resulted in more and more flippant treatment of the goddesses. Beattie refers to a contemporary's "reptile Muse, swollen from the sty." [Footnote: See On a Report of a Monument to a Late Author.] Burns alludes to his own Muse as a "tapitless ramfeezled hizzie," [Footnote: See the Epistle to Lapraik.] and sets the fashion for ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... shaman consulted could explain them, which may be because the words have become altered in the song, as frequently happens. D[^u]nu[']wa appears to be an old verb, meaning "it has penetrated," probably referring to the tooth of the reptile. These medicine songs are always sung in a low plaintive tone, somewhat resembling a lullaby. Usu[']'g[)i] also is without explanation, but is probably the name of some small reptile ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... lost," retorted Noah, "paying rent. When you get a reptile of his size, that reaches thirty feet up into the air when he stands on his hind-legs, the ordinary circus wagon of commerce can't be made to hold him, and your menagerie-room has to have ceilings so high that every penny he brought to the box-office ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... wished to confess, he had gone away, so as not to get any more hard words, wherefore he had heard nothing. Hereupon I, as Dom. Consul afterwards told the pastor of Benz, clenched my fists and answered, "What, thou arch-rogue, didst thou not crawl about the room in the shape of a reptile?" whereupon he would hearken to me no longer, thinking me distraught, nor would he make the constable take an oath, but left me standing in the midst of the room, and got into his ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... beneficent Author of our existence, for the manifold blessings and comforts we enjoy. The BEE-HIVE is an emblem of industry, and recommends the practice of that virtue to all created beings, from the highest seraph in heaven to the lowest reptile of the dust. It teaches us that as we came into the world rational and intelligent beings, so we should ever be industrious ones; never sitting down contented while our fellow-creatures around us are in want, when it is in our power to relieve them, without inconvenience to ourselves. ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... philosopher, Empedocles, who 560 B.C. adumbrated the "survival of the fittest" theory of Darwin, they are the result of ceaseless trials of nature. While the Sequoia was first emerging from the Carboniferous, or Coal Period, the reptile-like ancestors of these mammals, covered with scales and of egg-laying habits, were crawling about and giving not the most remote prophecy of their potential transformation through 10,000,000 of years into the superb fauna ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... sound of the nargileh occasionally assured the spectator that it was animated by human breath. This person was apparently lying on his back, his face hid, his form not to be traced, a wild confusion of shawls and cushions, out of which, like some wily and dangerous reptile, glided the spiral involutions of his pipe. Next to the invisible sat a little wiry man with a red nose, sparkling eyes, and a white beard. His black turban intimated that he was a Hebrew, and indeed he ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... it had been a noxious reptile which had bitten her she flung it from her into the heart of the brightly burning fire of wood and turf. A little flame sprang up and it was gone, just as Sir Shawn came into ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... fortunately a very sluggish variety; the tiger-snake, a most fierce serpent, which, unlike other snakes, will actually turn and pursue a man if it is wounded or angered; the black snake, a handsome creature with a vivid scarlet belly; and the whip-snake, a long, thin reptile, which may be easily mistaken for a bit of stick, and is sometimes picked up by children. But no Australian snake is as deadly as the Indian jungle snakes, and it is said that the bite of no Australian snake can cause death ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... is cutting off the heads of his enemies or his own is being cut off. Science gives us means which make it possible to accomplish the wholesale destruction of these beasts quietly and deliberately." Elsewhere he says, "Those of the reptile brood who are not put to the sword remain as a thorn in the flesh of the new society; hence it would be both foolish and criminal not to annihilate ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... the mother's language from the girl's tears, and turned his eagle glance upon the Marquise. An irresistible power constrained her to look at this terrible seducer; but as her eyes met his bright, glittering gaze, she felt a shiver run through her frame, such a shock as we feel at the sight of a reptile or the contact ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... uninhabitableness. It is deemed a fit type of all-forsaken overthrow, that the jackal should den in the wastes of weedy Babylon; but the Encantadas refuse to harbor even the outcasts of the beasts. Man and wolf alike disown them. Little but reptile life is here found: tortoises, lizards, immense spiders, snakes, and that strangest anomaly of outlandish nature, the aguano. No voice, no low, no howl is heard; the chief sound of ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... then; His wand's a modern author's pen; The serpents round about it twin'd 45 Denote him of the reptile kind; Denote the rage with which he writes, His frothy slaver, venom'd bites; An equal semblance still to keep, Alike too both conduce to sleep. 50 This diff'rence only, as the god Drove souls to Tart'rus ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... in the crevice, facing outward, watching the head darting in the water. He had switched off the torch, and the loss of light appeared to bewilder the reptile for some precious seconds. Ross pulled as far back into the niche as he could, until the point of one shoulder touched a surface which was sleek, smooth, and cold. The shock of that contact almost ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... is but one living representative. Its home is in New Zealand. Zoologists tell us that this reptile is more closely related to its fossil cousins than any other now in existence. Since we are considering only those reptiles which an American boy may find living in their natural haunts in his home land, discussion of the Sphenodon is out of place in this article. We recommend, ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... the cloth, and when he raised his glass to drink, which he did often enough to fill up the time, his hand shook so as almost to spill his wine. Seeing him so nervous, she began to experience a kind of pity for him—some such complex feeling as a very humane person might have for a reptile he has been taught to loathe and fear when seeing it in pain—and at length surprised him by asking if he lived in Kingston. He replied that he usually spent the summer months there for the sake of the boating; and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... are the enemies of man; and he will "hate them right sore, even as though they were his own enemies"—which indeed they were. He knows by painful experience that they deserve no quarter; that there is no use giving them any; to spare them is to make them insolent; to fondle the reptile is to be bitten by it. True poetry, as the messenger of heavenly beauty, is decaying; true refinement, true loftiness of thought, even true morality, are at stake. And so he writes his "Dunciad." ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... was now uncoiled, and writhing over the ground. Another rush from the peccary, another spring, and the sharp hoofs of the animal came down upon the neck of the serpent, crushing it upon the hard turf. The body of the reptile, distended to its full length, quivered for a moment, and then lay motionless along the grass. The victor uttered another sharp cry, that seemed intended as a call to her young ones, who, emerging from the weeds where they had concealed ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... the dark, as it went over a basaltic rocky range. This was a bad camp for us, the grass so parched up that the horses could not get any worth eating, and we had nothing to eat ourselves. I was stung by a reptile, probably a scorpion. The pain it gave was sufficient to make me very uncomfortable during ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... Lilian, far the more accomplished and attractive of the two, the entrance of that disturbing rattler on the scene had destroyed the equilibrium of affairs. Willett had had no experience with the venomous little reptile, Harris had had much, and Harris's utter sang froid, and cool, commanding words had averted what might have been a tragedy. One start, one sudden move of the girl at that critical moment might well have been ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... the case of this roadside tortoise, at our appearance the carapace suddenly came down on the plastron, or, in other words, how the upper bone snapped against the lower bone, they might become as wise as this reptile. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... the tuft of trees, he beheld the head and fiery eyes of an immense serpent or dragon, with the widest jaws that ever a dragon had, and a vast many rows of horribly sharp teeth. Before Cadmus could reach the spot, this pitiless reptile had killed his poor companions, and was busily devouring them, making but a mouthful ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... in war he has been regarded as a ferocious animal whose life or death was a question of mere precaution and convenience. Man is cruelly wasteful of life when his own safety is endangered and he is sheltered by impunity, and little mercy is to be expected from him when he feels the sting of the reptile and is conscious of the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... until he discovered a mode (slightly immoral, perhaps, though some think not) of murdering the old fraudulent jockey, and so circuitously of unhorsing him.] changed the relations between the animals. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be not by running away, but by leaping on its back booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up—viz., to be ridden; and the final cause of man is that ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... who had lived a beautiful purple life, went to sleep under a tree in the forest. Jove sent a huge serpent to destroy him. The man awakened as the reptile drew near. ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... cantankerous lot all through!" grumbled the fat scout, looking carefully where he expected to plant his foot next; for, in spite of Rob's assurance, he was not quite so certain that the undergrowth beneath the bridge might not harbor some poisonous reptile which might strike unexpectedly. ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... the noose ready to throw, while the doctor and Walter held their spears prepared for action. Nub drew nearer and nearer; the reptile opened one of its eyes, and then the other, and moved its tail slightly. In a moment the noose was dexterously thrown over its head, when Nub gave a violent pull before it had time to grasp the branch with its claws, and hauled it to the ground. "Now, ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... gay, smoking, drinking coffee, talking, and laughing, one of the Moors started up suddenly, and in an instant, taking his shoe, lying beside him, struck something down with a great smack on the floor; it turned out to be an immense scorpion! I felt a chill start through all my blood. The smashed reptile looked hideous in the dim light of the Ramadan lamp. This is the third scorpion within a fortnight the Rais has killed in his own house; one of enormous size he killed a few days ago. The Rais called for more coffee, and said coolly and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... I shall save her. If I chance to meet that Talizac, I will crush him as I would a venomous reptile!" ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... use it as a specific against asthma, as they believed that any asthmatic person who lived on the flesh for a certain time would be infallibly cured. Another native wished the fat as an antidote for rheumatic pain. The head of this huge reptile was presented to an American, who in turn presented it to the Boston Museum. Unfortunately La Gironiere's picturesque descriptions must often be taken with a grain of salt. For some information regarding the reptiles of the islands ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... place, And over the rags and the squalor beamed out his beautiful face, And his sweet voice rang through the tumult, and I think the crowd would have hushed And hearkened his manly words; but a well-dressed reptile pushed Right into the ring about us and screeched out infamies That sickened the soul to hearken; till he caught my angry eyes And my voice that cried out at him, and straight on me he turned, A foul word smote my heart ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... recurrence of circumstances favourable to animal life, and we accordingly find in it not only zoophytes, conchifera, and a few tribes of fish, but some faint traces of land plants, and a new and startling appearance—a reptile of saurian (lizard) character, analogous to the now existing family called monitors. Remains of this creature are found in cupriferous (copper-bearing) slate connected with the mountain limestone, at Mansfield ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... as a wind-up; "that is, if you care to hear more about snakes. No matter how you dislike the breed, you really ought to know more than you seem to, about their habits. It might be the means of saving you from trouble some fine day, when, by accident, you happen to run across some reptile in the woods. And now we'll forget all that. I'm not going to say another word, unless ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... the fangs of the rattlesnake, are happily more rare each year, since, as the country is becoming more populated, the crotalus is rapidly being exterminated. Yet, considering the recklessness which characterizes the cow boy in his treatment of this reptile, it is astonishing that this class of injury is not more common. Thus it is the invariable custom among the cattlemen to dismount and destroy these snakes whenever they are seen. This is readily accomplished, since a slight blow will break the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... wove, Insidious, and intent on scenes of spoil And death:—So mounts Ambition, and aloft On his proud summit meditates new scenes Of plunder and dominion, till the breeze Of fortune change, that blows to empty air 250 His feeble, frail support, and once again Leaves him a reptile, struggling in the dust! But what the world itself, what in His view Whose dread Omnipotence is over all! A twinkling air-thread in the vast of space. And what the works of that proud insect, Man! His mausoleums, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... "These sights are the shadows of that fairer Paradise which is our home, where there is no beast of prey, no venomous reptile, no sin. My child, should I not feel this more than you? Those who are shut up in crowded cities see but the work of man, which is evil. It is the compensation of my flight from Carthage that I am brought ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... then explained: "The dinosaur was a prehistoric reptile," adding modestly, "I once had the pleasure of helping to restore an ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... into the hands of a reptile—there! No other word described the creature in the least—a sort of financial agent, who had treated her unspeakably, disgracefully. She had trusted him implicitly, and the result was that she now owed the reptile who, on the strength of her name, her son, and ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... green-and-yellow death-snake that abounds in the veldt. Its head lay on his arm, its pin-point eyes maliciously agleam, and the child gripped it by the middle. Christina stood petrified, but the boy laughed and dandled the reptile in glee. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... overpaying benefits. Full of dignity themselves, they respect dignity in all, but they feel it sacred in the unhappy. But it is then, and basking in the sunshine of unmerited fortune, that low, sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell with their hoarded poisons; it is then that they display their odious splendor, and shine out in the full lustre of their native villany and baseness. It is in that season that no man of sense or honor can be mistaken for one of them. It was in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... was in for it. It was in vain that Norman's last word was still ringing in his ears. 'Excelsior!' What had he to do with 'Excelsior?' What miserable reptile on God's earth was more prone to crawl downwards than he had shown himself to be? And then again a vision floated across his mind's eye of a young sweet angel face with large bright eyes, with soft ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... powers of a deity, and, when he dies, the land is subjected to a flood; from which Hiawatha alone escapes. This play between the zoonic and mortal shapes of heroes must constantly be observed, in high as well as in ordinary characters. To have the name of an animal, or bird, or reptile, is to have his powers. When Pena runs, on a wager of life, with the Great Sorcerer, he changes himself sometimes into a partridge, and sometimes into ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... lifeless body of their comrade, to the vessel; the right wrists of the corpse bore the marks of the serpent's teeth, and the disfigured body showed that the man had been crushed by the constriction of the reptile round the ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... as, for example, the Steward in King Lear, which are thoroughly contemptible, and which we follow with contempt. But it is to be observed that there is nothing laughable in Oswald; nothing that we can either laugh with or laugh at: he is a sort of human reptile, such as life sometimes produces, whom we regard with moral loathing and disgust, but in whose company neither mirth nor pity can find any foothold. On the other hand, the feelings moved by a Bottom, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... inspire one when he approaches with slimy track and fetid breath, with stealthy, coil and sickening glare? Think you would not that fascinate with terror, cause a tremble of disgust, and produce insensibility and delirium that such a loathsome reptile should exist and breathe the same air? Yet having now called forth that emotion in its deepest degree, you rejoice to have moved me! Truly you have, and I can conceive your mind just fitted to appreciate ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... wonder than that he should have worked his way up from the lower non-human forms. That the manward impulse should never have been lost in all the appalling vicissitudes of geologic time, that it should have pushed steadily on, through mollusk and fish and amphibian and reptile, through swimming and creeping and climbing things, and that the forms that conveyed it should have escaped the devouring monsters of the earth, sea, and air till it came to its full estate in a human being, is the wonder ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... firm on his feet, and so exactly like the La Baudraye of 1836, that Dinah despaired of ever burying the dreadful little dwarf. From the garden, where he was smoking a cigar, the journalist could watch Monsieur de la Baudraye for so long as it took the little reptile to cross the forecourt, but that was enough for Lousteau; it was plain to him that the little man had intended to wreck every hope of his dying that his ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... shook the hand from his knee as if it were a coiled reptile. "You insult her even by mentioning such a thing. The man does not live who could tarnish her name. I have watched her since she was a little child. I know her as well as if she were my sister, and ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... she went on. "I have supplanted Eunice in Philip's affection. She was once engaged to marry him; I am engaged to marry him now. She is resolved that he shall never make me his wife. He will die if I delay any longer. He will die if I don't crush her, like the reptile she is. She comes here—and what does she do? Keeps him prisoner under her own superintendence. Who gets his medicine? She gets it. Who cooks his food? She cooks it. The doors are locked. I might be a witness of what goes on; and I am kept out. The servants who ought to wait on him are kept out. ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... parts—an idea which found a famous modern expositor in Goethe, as we shall see when we come to deal with eighteenth-century science. Empedocles expresses the idea in these words: "Hair, and leaves, and thick feathers of birds, are the same thing in origin, and reptile scales too on strong limbs. But on hedgehogs sharp-pointed hair bristles on their backs."(14) That the idea of transmutation of parts, as well as of mere homology, was in mind is evidenced by a very remarkable sentence in which ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... than five digits is a great anomaly, for this number is not normally exceeded by any mammal, bird, or existing reptile.[28] Nevertheless, supernumerary digits are strongly inherited; they have been transmitted through five generations; and in some cases, after disappearing for one, two, or even three generations, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... another; he viewed the crocodile as a thing sometimes to worship, but always to run away from. And this continued until Mr. Waterton changed the relations between the animals. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be, not by running away, but by leaping on its back, booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up—it is to be ridden; and the use of man is, that he may improve the health of the crocodile ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... to circles of flame, and all at once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,—the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and adjusted his loops for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before man with her anaesthetics: the cat's first shake stupefies ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... though in vain, through a long existence of suffering, degradation, and crime, had gratuitously presented itself more tempting and more favourable than even he in his wildest visions of success had ever dared to hope—where was Ulpius? Hidden from men's eyes, like a foul reptile, in his lurking-place in the deserted temple—now raving round his idols in the fury of madness, now prostrate before them in idiot adoration—weaker for the interests of his worship, at the crisis of its ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... kind! A person that can lie like that deserves no one's respect. I ask you all to answer me. Do you believe what this reptile has said?" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to complement it; namely, that those men and women, who do not even approximately fulfil the conditions of their elevated rank, who will not endeavour after the great human-divine idea, striving to ascend, are sent away back down to that stage of development, say of fish or insect or reptile, beyond which their moral nature has refused to advance. Who has not seen or known men who appeared not to have passed, or indeed in some things to have approached the development of the more human ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... which a public school would have brought to him and had gone to college surrounded by sycophants and poseurs as blatant as himself, and never once had the cold breath of criticism been directed at him, except in what he was wont to describe as the "reptile Press." ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... Independence; let us continue to obey the Constitution and the laws; let us keep step to the music of the Union. Let us draw a cordon, so to speak, around the slave States, and the hateful institution, like a reptile poisoning itself, will perish by ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... and I think it likely I can turn it into cash. The blackguard has been doing well at Liverpool. I'm not quite sure that I understand the reptile, but he seems to have given me this because I abused him. I hurt his vanity, and he couldn't resist the temptation to astonish me. He thinks I shall go about proclaiming him a noble fellow. Four hundred and thirty-six pounds; there ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... Dar Makun sitting between the armor fins of his riding lizard. The reptile was one of the heavily armored breed he had considered raising over ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... Storri, and she could not have told you why. The mystery of it, however, put no question to her; she yielded with folded hands, passive to its influence. She did not hate Storri, she shrunk from him; his nearness chilled her like the nearness of a reptile. Kipling, the matchless, tells how a Russian does not become alarming until he tucks in his shirt, and insists upon himself as the most Eastern of Western peoples instead of the most Western of Eastern peoples. There is truth to sit at the bottom of this. Dorothy ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... realized it all, as he tenderly placed her on the rock beside which they were standing. Then, like the man who, knowing he has been fatally struck by the rattlesnake or cobra, turns to stamp the life out of the reptile, before looking after his own wound, he faced about and brought his rifle to his shoulder. The dusky miscreant cowered low, but he could not save himself, for the bullet which left the Winchester, entering at the skull, ranged through the length of his body, and he rolled off ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... a reptile can be, he canted, to remedy the error, but the impetus of his ten-foot bulk was still upon him; it carried him by. You cannot stop ten feet of bulk and five-feet-seven of girth of flesh and bone and muscle and armor-plates, going at Old Nick may know how ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... one by one totter and fall, and directly I perceived that the epaulette or shoulder-strap on the shoulder of each was a great hideous yellow worm, that gnawed away the shoulder and palsied the arm and ate into the vitals. Every second, one fell and died, making frantic efforts to tear away the reptile from its grasp, but in vain. Then the white mists rolled away, and I saw the strange woman standing where she had been when the first vision began. She was silent, the music was hushed, Adolph Von Berg had fallen back asleep ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... had entered the Dismal they had laid eyes on no living creature; neither bird nor beast, insect nor reptile came in view. Doubtless the eternal shade that broods over this mighty bog and hinders the sunbeams from blessing the ground, makes it an uncomfortable habitation for anything that has life. Not so much as a Zealand frog could endure so aguish a situation. It had one beauty, however, that delighted ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... but somehow she felt she wasn't in the least afraid of him. "I suppose one ought to be repelled at once by a snake," she said, taking the opposite seat, and keeping her glance fixed firmly upon the reptile's eye; "but then, this is such a handsome one! I can't say why, but I don't feel afraid of him at all as I ought, to do. Every right-minded person detests snakes, don't they? And yet, how exquisitely flexible ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... to conceal his head. As on the road he moved, a clown he met, Who with his stick an adder tried to get, From out a thicket, where it hissing lay, And hoped to drive the countryman away: Our knight his object asked; the clown replied, To slay the reptile anxiously I tried; Wherever met, an adder I would kill: The race should be ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... unwearied gaiety, for this mean exterior concealed extraordinary powers of will and dissimulation. Guided by instinct, the other children hung about Pierre and willingly accepted his leadership; by instinct also they avoided Antoine, repelled by a feeling of chill, as if from the neighbourhood of a reptile, and shunning him unless to profit in some way by their superior strength. Never would he join their games without compulsion; his thin, colourless lips seldom parted for a laugh, and even at that tender age his smile ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... day, except for the occasional rush of some great iguana or other reptile, and the sound of the wings of the flocks of wildfowl passing over us from time to time, the march was deathly silent. But at night it was different, for then the bull-frogs boomed incessantly, as ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... the hole whence, reptile-like, you emerged!—and feed your starving citizens with the words you have heard ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the North itself there was a serpent, coiled but not sleeping, which only listened for the first word that made it safe to strike, to bury its fangs in the heart of Freedom, and blend its golden scales in close embrace with the deadly reptile of the cotton-fields. Who would not wish that he were wrong in such a suspicion? yet who can forget the mysterious warnings that the allies of the rebels were to be found far north of the fatal boundary line; and that it was in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to be apparent. All tenderness had gone from the higher slopes of the mountains which, jocund in spring and in autumn with growing crops, were now bare and brown, and seamed like the hide of a tropical reptile gleaming with metallic hues. The lower slopes were still panoplied with the green of vines and of trees, but the ground beneath the trees was arid. The sun was coming into his dominion with pride and cruelty, ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... crew joined with Kifri, and all at once pronounced in harsh discordant sounds, "Tremble, vile reptile, for thy ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... excavating the circular cairn, or circle of stones forming the head, a chamber containing burnt bones, charcoal and burnt hazelnuts, and an implement of flint were found. The removal of peat, moss and heather from the back of the reptile showed that the whole length of the spine was carefully constructed, with regularly and symmetrically placed stones at such angles as to throw off rain... The spine is, in fact, a long narrow causeway made of large stones, set like the vertebrae of some huge animal. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... second he was wrapped in the giant reptile's grip without having time to utter even ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... from which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes themselves, were gone. The great unfinished serpent-like flume, crossing the river on gigantic trestles, had advanced as far as the town, stooping over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked its life blood and was gorged with ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... (in a slow voice with a reasoning laugh). Love—love—and then we hate—and what? and wherefore? Hatred and love. Strange things! both strange alike! What if one reptile sting another reptile, Where is the crime? The goodly face of Nature Hath one trail less of slimy filth upon it. 215 Are we not all predestined rottenness And cold dishonor? Grant it that this hand Had given a morsel to the hungry worms Somewhat too early. Where's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... find me out. And now I hear of him. That woman. She is a spy of his. I believe she came here from him with a made-up story. Walter will come, and then I'll have to buy him off. I shall be glad to do so. But to be blackmailed by that reptile. No! I'll go back to Florence first." He replaced his hat and began to dig his stick in the ground. "I wonder if Morley would help me. He is a shrewd man. He might advise me how to deal with this wretched brother of mine. ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... new and corresponding feeling or emotion, our environment at this time was such as to evoke sensations of dread and apprehension hitherto unknown. Moving parallel with us, and extending its folds like some huge reptile, was an army equipped with the best the world could afford—three-fold greater in numbers than our own—which in four years had never succeeded in defeating us in a general battle, but which we had repeatedly routed and driven to cover. Impatient of delay in ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... a dragon of the sea," saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... and Hell, Labour'd to rouse, with rude and murderous yell, Discord the fiend, to toss rebellion's brand, To whelm in rage and woe a guiltless land: To frustrate wisdom's, virtue's noblest plan, And triumph in the miseries of man. Drivelling and dull, when crawls the reptile Muse, Swoln from the sty, and rankling from the stews, With envy, spleen, and pestilence replete, And gorged with dust she lick'd from Treason's feet: 70 Who once, like Satan, raised to Heaven her sight, But turn'd abhorrent from the hated light:— ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... shape at will; 20 But yet I'm told, at Court you see Those who presume to rival me.' Thus said. A snake with hideous trail, Proteus extends his scaly mail. 'Know,' says the man, 'though proud in place, All courtiers are of reptile race. Like you, they take that dreadful form, Bask in the sun, and fly the storm; With malice hiss, with envy gloat, And for convenience change their coat; 30 With new-got lustre rear their head, Though on a dunghill born and bred.' Sudden the god a lion ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... relate : rakonti; rilati al. relation : parenco; rilato. religion : religio. remain : resti. remedy : kuracilo, rimedo. remember : memori. remove : translogx'igxi, -igi. rent : luprezo. repeat : ripeti, rediri. repent : penti. report : raporti; famo; (official) protokolo. represent : reprezenti. reptile : rampajxo. republic : respubliko. repugnance : antipatio. require : bezoni, postuli. resemble : simili. reserve : rezervi. resign : eksigxi. resignation : resignacio; eksigxo. resin : rezino. "-wood," keno. resolve : decid'i, -o; solvi. respect : respekti. responsible : (for), responda pri. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... that she was a woman; and as for Honoria he had done with her. Scandal, what did he care for scandal? If he had his will there should be a scandal indeed, for he would beat this Owen Davies, this reptile, who did not hesitate to use a woman's terrors to prosper the fulfilling of his lust—yes, and then drag him to the Continent and kill him there. Only vengeance ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... their anger a little and the traitor had lost most of his clothes and the thumb of his right hand, they dragged him to the junction where the Danube meets the Sava and held him under the gray waters with long poles, as if he was some poisonous reptile. ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy |
