"Coiling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though I saw several menacing forms passing through the dark aisles of the forest. At last I commenced to worry over Nobs' protracted absence and to fear that something had befallen him. I was coiling my rope to start out in search of him, when I saw the stallion leap into view at almost the same spot behind which he had disappeared, and at his heels ran Nobs. Neither was running so fast or furiously as when last I ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... There are coiling weeds down there, the robber counselled him; there are thin, tough, snaky binders that will trip you and grip you, that will pull you and will not let you go again until you are drowned; until you ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... articles necessary for an ocean voyage, and little else. Most of these were soiled from use, but there was among them a little clean, white apron, and this Mrs. Crawford put upon the child, after having washed her face and hands and brushed her wavy hair, which had a trick of coiling itself into soft, fluffy curls ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... a few moments we saw the covers lifted from the boats and the crews allotted to them standing by and coiling up the ropes which were to lower them by the pulley blocks ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... coiling the thin, braided hide reata, soft as a glove and strong as steel, which always hung ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... it is broad daylight, and the men set to work to coil up preparatory to washing decks—not that this would seem very necessary. Certainly there is no hose wanted this morning, and a general kind of tidying up and coiling down ropes is more ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... pioneers. Here is his own simple record of the way he got to the hearts of the Levy: "How they enjoy the palaver in which I tell them that 'they are the eyes to the body of the snake which is crawling up the bush-path from the coast, and coiling for its spring! The eyes are hungry, but they will soon have meat; and the main body of white men, armed with the best of weapons, will help them win the day, and get their country back again, to enjoy ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... scratching Latin proverbs and texts of Scripture with his knife on the roof and walls of his fortalice, which were of sandstone. As the cave was dry, and filled with clean straw and withered fern, 'it made,' as he said, coiling himself up with an air of snugness and comfort which contrasted strangely with his situation, 'unless when the wind was due north, a very passable gite for an old soldier.' Neither, as he observed, was he without sentries for the purpose of reconnoitring. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... speak and give thee counsel, night shall give thee victory." After this Themistokles dreamed a dream. He thought that a snake was coiling itself upon his belly and crawling up towards his throat. As soon as it reached his throat, it became an eagle and flapped its wings, lifted him up, and carried him a long distance, until he saw a golden herald's staff. The eagle set him down upon this ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... sentence in Italian. The soft tongue sent it like a coiling serpent through Wilfrid's veins. In English or in German it would not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... powerful magnet can be produced by coiling a wire round a bar of soft iron, and attaching its extremities to the poles of a galvanic battery, when it will be found that its strength will be proportioned to the strength of the current and the turns of the coil. This is especially the case when the bar ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... tiny ship. Its landing-rockets spouted white-hot flame and fumes more thick and coiling than even the smoke of the bombs. The little ship surged momentarily toward the racing ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... was the prelude; then, with ever-increasing force, down came the rain in torrents, smearing out the fog from the atmosphere, as a painter, with a sponge, might wipe a color from his canvas. Long tails of yellow vapor, twining—twining—but always coiling downward, floated like snakes about them; and the oily waters of the Thames became pock-marked in the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... exactly what he craved, and he ate it rapidly in a curious mounting excitement. With the coffee he fingered the diminutive glass of golden brandy and a long dark roll of oily tobacco. He lighted this carefully and flooded his head with the coiling bluish smoke. Rosalie was smoking a cigarette—a habit in women which he noisily denounced. She extinguished it in an ash tray, but his anger lingered, an unreasoning exasperation that constricted his throat. Sharply ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... now the Ministry of Justice, where a liberal statesman has just drawn up the bill of civil marriage; and that in the convent of the Trinitarians a Spanish Rationalist, the Minister of Fomento, is laboring to secularize education in the Peninsula. There is much coiling and hissing, but the fangs of the ser-pent are much less prompt and ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... note Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane;—a pillared shade, Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially—beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... flying, And thick the life blood's reek ascends of the downfallen and the dying. Clandonuil, still my darling theme, is the prime of every clan, How oft the heady war in, has it chased where thousands ran. O ready, bold, and venom full, these native warriors brave, Like adders coiling on the hill, they dart with stinging glaive; Nor wants their course the speed, the force, —nor wants their gallant stature, This of the rock, that of the flock that skim along the water, Like whistle ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... senses, his hour having come. And he quickly placed that insect on his neck. And as the king was smiling, Takshaka, who had (in the form of that insect) come out of the fruit that had been offered to the king, coiled himself round the neck of the monarch. And quickly coiling round the king's neck and uttering a tremendous roar, Takshaka, that lord of snakes, bit ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... beaten, not into mere creamy foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast, which hang in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave; and where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a drapery from its edge; these are taken up by the wind, not in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses, which make the air white, and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long each; the surges themselves are full of foam in their very bodies, underneath, making them white all through, as ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... the Barracouta as she jogged smoothly over the starlit sea toward Tarpaulin Island. By the dim light of two lanterns, Jim, Throppy, Budge, and Filippo were busy baiting the trawls with herring and coiling them into the tubs in the standing-room. Percy had withdrawn from his companions and lay across the heel of the ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... coiling up the lash, "I have a little one over the lamp that will make a great many ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... endeavored to pass the yawning gorges, bottomless swamps, and dense dark forests that lay between him and the snow-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. Entangled vines and trees of a luxuriant tropical vegetation, huge boas coiling in the branches, ready to spring upon their prey, screaming parrots, chattering and grimacing monkeys, mosquitoes, alligators, prowling savages,—amid such scenes as these he and his band had once more confronted famine and death in the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... place of stay. But how much better it was to hang in the cold wind upon the pier, to go down with Bob Bain among the roots of the staging, to be all day in a boat coiling a wet rope and shouting orders—not always very wise—than to be warm and dry, and dull, and dead-alive, in the most comfortable office. And Wick itself had in those days a note of originality. It may have still, but I misdoubt it much. The old minister of Keiss ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that ends not till the world's end. Where we stand, Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that gleam, We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath scanned. Nought beyond these coiling clouds that melt like fume of shrines that steam Breaks or stays the strength of waters till they pass our bounds of dream. Where the waste Land's End leans westward, all the seas it watches roll Find their ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... jars glow against the dark, Dark green, dusk red, and, like a coiling snake, Writhing eternally in smoky gyres, Great ropes of gorgeous vapor twist and turn Within them. So the Eastern fisherman Saw the swart genie rise when the lead seal, Scribbled with charms, was lifted from the jar; And — well, how went ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... his shoulders, not thinking the matter worth further argument, and at that moment the Bee woke up shivering, drew the red snake from her head-dress and coiling it about her throat wrapped herself again in the ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... of a 'goaded bull the German attempted to fling forward. But men-at-arms, in steel and leather, who had come up quietly behind him, seized him now. Impotent in their coiling arms, he was borne away to his doom, that thereby he might complete the reparation of his hideous offence, and deliver Sapphira from the bondage of a wedlock which Charles of Burgundy had never intended her ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... from Beaulieu. It was a forest of magnolia, willow, and cypress, and of oaks, from which hung great solemn festoons of moss. A deep still bayou cut across it, and here and there were pools of stagnant water, in which coiling black forms swam. ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mighty cheer went up from the crowd and everybody was talking at once. While over beside the big steer the cowboy mounted his pony and coiling his rope as he rode, joined the group of riders who lounged in their saddles and ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... quiet, innocent, and fresh in the depth of the wood, at the edge of the hollow—and the outer heat penetrated hither only by an infinite coiling as of a scaly serpent impotent at last and deprived ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... Laocoon's torture dignifying pain— A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending:—Vain The struggle: vain against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench, the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... and unappeased famine, and unsatisfied hope. So you have, on the one side, the winds of prosperity and health, on the other, of ruin and sickness. Understand that, once, deeply,—any who have ever known the weariness of vain desires, the pitiful, unconquerable, coiling and recoiling famine and thirst of heart,—and you will know what was in the sound of the Harpy Celaeno's shriek from her rock; and why, in the seventh circle of the "Inferno," the Harpies make their nests in the warped branches of the trees that ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... fastened as it progressed to the one already made by passing the splint wrapping of the wisp each time it was wound around the latter through some strands of the contiguous inner coil, with the aid of a bodkin. (See Fig. 506.) The bottom was rounded upward and the sides were made by coiling the wisp higher and higher, first outward, to produce the bulge of the vessel, then inward, to form the tapering upper part and neck, into which, the two little twigs or splint loop-eyes were firmly woven. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... fighting-tops of battleships in the adjacent dockyard poise above the stone coping of the wall, there was a track laid down in a circle of a quarter of a mile. Switches linked it up with other lengths of track, a straight stretch down to a muddy cape of the Medway estuary, and a string of curves and loops coiling among the stone and iron factory sheds. The strange thing about it was that it was single—just one line of rail on sleepers tamped into the unstable ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... old Bridget there? We have a hundred acres of good land, And sit beside each other at the fire, The wise priest of our parish to our right, And you and our dear son to left of us. To sit beside the board and drink good wine And watch the turf smoke coiling from the fire And feel content and wisdom in your heart, This is the best of life; when we are young We long to tread a way none trod before, But find the excellent old way through love And through the care of children to the hour For bidding Fate ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire (Little Blue Book#335) • W.B. Yeats
... jasmine, pansies, and verbenas, among which the stocks held open their fresh plump purses, of a pink as fragrant and as faded as old Spanish leather, while on the gravel-path a long watering-pipe, painted green, coiling across the ground, poured, where its holes were, over the flowers whose perfume those holes inhaled, a vertical and prismatic fan of infinitesimal, rainbow-coloured drops. Suddenly I stood still, unable to move, as happens when something appears that ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... garden lay in his path, and from a line supported by a single pole depended the homely linen of the cottager. To tear these garments from the line was the work of a moment (although it represented the whole week's washing), and hastily coiling the rope dexterously in his hand, he sped onward. Already panting with exertion and excitement, a few roods farther he was confronted with a spectacle that left ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... lee of the boulder on which the party now stood. A third time was heard the voice of Francois uttering one of his customary "hurrahs." The rope was now dragged up, and made ready for further use. Basil again took hold of it; and, after coiling it as before, succeeded in throwing the noose over the third rock, where it settled and held fast. The other end was tied as before, and all passed safely to the new station. Here, however, their labour ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... bedtime that one child, at least, used to wait for. We have seen in the clematis how its sensitive leafstalks hook themselves over any support they rub against; but the grapevine has gone a step farther, and by discarding an occasional flower cluster and prolonging the flower stalk into a coiling, forking tendril it moors itself to the thicket. We know that all tendrils are either transformed leaves, as in the case of the pea vine, where each branch of its tendril represents a modified leaflet; or they are transformed flower stalks or other organs. Occasionally the tendril of a grapevine ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... man of being washed overboard that he actually fastened one end of a small line to his waistbands, and coiling the rest about him, made use of it as occasion required. When engaged outside, he unwound the cord, and secured one end to a ringbolt in the deck; so that if a chance sea washed him off his feet, it ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... their several relations to it. It never once loses sight of their bearings upon each other—as the volition moves through every part of the body of a snake at the same moment, uncoiling some of its involute rings at the very instant it is coiling others. This faculty is inconceivable, admirable, almost divine; yet no less an operation is necessary for the production of any great work, for by the definition of unity of membership above given, not only certain couples or groups ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... beyond my skill. If I might be allowed to hazard a supposition, I should imagine that those filmy threads, when first shot, might be entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a brisk evaporation into the region where clouds are formed: and if the spiders have a power of coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as Dr. Lister says they have [see his Letters to Mr. Ray], then, when they were become heavier than the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... camp, with such reports as could be obtained. We have read Eastern tales of travelers, when accident had discovered them in closest proximity to the deadly cobra de capello, the breathless horror with which they contemplated its motions, and saw it slowly coiling itself upon their limbs, or upon a table at their bedsides, and knowing that a single motion on the part of the imperilled person would be but to invite certain death, the vigilance and eager solicitude, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... before the glass, while Bennet's dexterous fingers unbraided the silky hair and brushed it before coiling it up for the night. Looking at the face reflected in the glass, she perceived that it was not quite so tranquil as usual, and was irritated at finding that Mrs. Tell's words had disturbed her. Why was she disturbed? Her vanity had taken a chill, ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... those ringlets! Ev'ry dainty clasp That shines like twisted sunlight in my eye Is but the coiling of the jewelled asp That smiles ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... the sun, and would come all right. He resolved to spend the night in a tree near his fire for fear of wild beasts, and selected a fine branching cedar for his dormitory. Laying his gun securely in one of the forks, and coiling himself up as snugly as possible, where four boughs radiated from the trunk, about twenty feet from the ground, he settled himself to sleep as in an arm-chair, with the great hushing silence of the forest around him. Unusual as his circumstances were, he was ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... and scratch As I swallow it down; And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire, Coiling and twisting in my belly. His snortings will rise to my head, And I shall be hot, and laugh, Forgetting that I ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... desires are fixed upon the highest of all objects, upon the god Shiva himself, and how, since Love is dead, she sees no way to win him except by ascetic religion. The youth tries to dissuade Parvati by recounting all the dreadful legends that are current about Shiva: how he wears a coiling snake on his wrist, a bloody elephant-hide upon his back, how he dwells in a graveyard, how he rides upon an undignified bull, how poor he is and of unknown birth. Parvati's anger is awakened by this recital. She frowns and her lip quivers as she ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... ain't the first time," said Mrs. Heeny, coiling the pearls in her big palm. "It's a pity too: they're such beauties. But you'll get others," she added, as the ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the starboard side of the top boat deck; the time about 12.20. We watched the crew at work on the lifeboats, numbers 9, 11, 13, 15, some inside arranging the oars, some coiling ropes on the deck,—the ropes which ran through the pulleys to lower to the sea,—others with cranks fitted to the rocking arms of the davits. As we watched, the cranks were turned, the davits swung outwards until the boats hung clear of the edge of the deck. ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... very little of what followed. There are vague pictures of blue moss and twisted trees, of coiling fog that wrapped itself about me, trying futilely to hold me back. And always there was the sense of a dark and nameless horror just beyond vision, hidden from me—though I was not hidden ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner
... crumbling boundary, 85 Whose loose blocks topple 'neath the ploughboy's foot, Who, with each sense shut fast except the eye, Creeps close and scares the jay he hoped to shoot, The woodbine up the elm's straight stem aspires, Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal fires; 90 In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the pedestal of the statue was seen to become slightly blurred, as though an intervening mist were rising from the ground. This slowly developed into a visible cloud, coiling hither and thither, and constantly changing shape. The professor half rose, and held his glasses with one hand further forward on the ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... in the sleekly pliant buckskins, was lean and supple. As he twisted, stretching an arm to draw out the crumpled folds, the lines of his long back and powerful shoulders showed the sinuous grace of a cat. He relaxed into easeful full length, propped on an elbow, his red hair coiling against his neck. Susan stole a stealthy glance at him. As if she had spoken, he instantly raised his head and looked into ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the harbor and let go anchor. Jonadab crawled into the cabin to get some terbacker, and I was for'ard coiling the throat halyard. All at once I heard oars rattling, and I turned my head; what I see made me let out a ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... himself looking into an empty hall. Half-way down a pair of curtains stirred slightly and parted suddenly, revealing a narrower passage which led to the door of the kitchen. The curtains streamed horizontally, twisting and coiling like snakes. Barrant stepped quickly inside and closed the door. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Hell come from? I will tell you; from that fellow in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the wild beasts. Yes, I tell you he got it from the wild beasts, from the glittering eye of the serpent, from the coiling, twisting snakes with their fangs mouths; and it came from the bark, growl and howl of wild beasts; it was born of a laugh of the hyena and got it from the depraved chatter of malicious apes. And I despise it with every drop of my blood and defy it. If there is any God ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Henry paused a moment at its crest, and looked back again. The aspect of the fire was more frightful than ever. The flames leaped higher than the tops of the tallest trees, and thrust out long red twining arms, like coiling serpents. Beneath was the solid red bank of the conflagration, preceded by showers of ashes and smoke and sparks. The roar increased and was like that of many great guns ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... moodily, and as if in great perplexity, coiling the rope as he spoke. "I don't know. There's some blame thing or other close to us, I'll bet a hat. I don't know the name of it, but there's a big Bird in the air, just out of sight som'eres, and," he suddenly exclaimed, smacking his knee and ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... Behold, it glowed in the dusk of the chamber as a live ember glows among the ashes of the hearth. Red it glowed and green, and white, and livid blue, and its shape, as it lay upon her hand, was the shape of a coiling snake, cut, as it were, in ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... art striving, as fearful as thou, and as strong, Who like thee in his wars is victorious, who all of thy feats can perform, As brave, and as great, and as glorious, as tireless as thou in a storm, Then, in shape of an eel round thee coiling, thy feet at the Ford I will bind, And thou, in such contest when toiling, a battle unequal ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... Along the summit of these furrows are produced numerous, small, pedicelled tubercles, quite similar to those of some species of worms or caterpillars; and these small tufts, in connection with the brownish-green color and peculiar coiling of the pods, make the resemblance nearly perfect, especially if seen from a short distance. The seeds are large, oblong, flattened at the ends, and of a yellowish color. A well-developed fruit will measure about three-eighths of an inch in diameter; and, when uncoiled, ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... tender nestlings, over which the mother bird spread her wings. Pitifully did the little ones cheep as the snake swallowed them all, and pitifully cried the mother as she fluttered over her nestlings. But of her, too, did the snake lay hold, coiling himself round her and crushing her life out. Then did the god who sent this sign show us that a sign from the gods in truth it was, for he turned the snake into stone. And Chalcas, our soothsayer, told us then the meaning of the sign. 'Nine years,' said he—for nine birds did ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... and nearer his quarry he saw the rope coil up, yet it looked to be coiling over nothing but air. One end of the lasso was made fast to a ring in the saddle, and when the rope was almost wound up and the horse began to pull away and snort with fear, Jim dismounted. Holding the reins of the bridle in one hand, he followed the ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... said the soldier, coiling it in his hand and then throwing it towards the barque. But the coil fell short of the mark, and another minute's ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... tape had wound round and round his legs, his arms, his neck. It lay in a curling, coiling mat, like a serpent's head, upon his throat, where his hands clutched the ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... these convincingly. After a little sojourn in that land you will believe them on their own account. It is a question whether it is not better to be bitten by the little horned snake of the desert that goes sidewise and strikes without coiling, than by the tradition ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... will need one another.' But then, suddenly, between my upward eyes and the two forms they had beheld, there rose from the earth, obscuring the skies, a vague, dusky vapour, undulous, and coiling like a vast serpent,—nothing, indeed, of its shape and figure definite, but of its face one abrupt glare; a flash from two dread luminous eyes, and a young head, like the Medusa's, changing, more rapidly than I could have drawn breath, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... kept the river two or three hundred yards on his left. He never failed to search the plains on either side, but chiefly in the south, with the eager, intent gaze that missed nothing. But the lonesome gray land, cut by the coiling yellow river, still rolled before him, and its desolation and chill struck to his heart. It was the depth of the Texan winter, and, at times, icy gusts, born in far mountains, ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the trail, while Fairchild went to his work. And he sang as he dragged at the heavy hose, pulling it out of the shaft and coiling it at the entrance to the tunnel, as he put skids under the engines, and moved them, inch by inch, to the outer air. Work was before him, work which was progressing toward a goal that he had determined to seek, in spite of all obstacles. The mysterious offer which ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... crab-pots, came round the northern headland and entered the little bay. The elderly fisherman who was rowing rested on his oars and sat contemplating the crab-pots in the stem. A younger man, clad in a jersey and sea boots, was busy coiling down something in the bows. "How about this spot," he said presently, looking up over his shoulder, "for the first one?" The rower fumbled about inside his tattered jacket, produced something that glistened in the sunlight, and screwed ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... walking-stick, split it at the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying-pan. Before she had returned Sam came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... blood-red disk, was slipping into the deepening haze, and on either side of the river the city was darkening into dusk. All along the shore lights were pricking out of the twilight and sending wavering shafts down into the water. The coiling smoke from furnace chimneys lay level and almost motionless in the still air; sometimes it was shot with sparks, or showed, on its bellying black curves, red gleams from ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... linear ornamentation of its dress, record of the thoughts intended to be conveyed by the spotted aegis and falling chiton of Athena, eighteen hundred years before. Greek and Venetian alike, in their noble childhood, knew with the same terror the coiling wind and congealed hail in heaven—saw with the same thankfulness the dew shed softly on the earth, and on its flowers; and both recognized, ruling these, and symbolized by them, the great helpful spirit of Wisdom, which leads the children of men to all knowledge, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... black snake lay in coil On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye Watched from a dead bough. All his Indian lore Of evil blending with a convert's faith In the supernal terrors of the Book, He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake And ominous, black-winged bird; and all the while The low rebuking of the distant waves Stole in upon him like the voice of God Among the trees of Eden. Girding up His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust The base thought ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... in the passage. In uttermost terror he opened the book and ran over the lines, and straightway the fiend appeared—not seraph-like as when he appeared formerly, but dark, hideous, and gigantic, with hissing snakes coiling around his brows. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... than eight varieties of it,—the most common being the dark gray, speckled with black—precisely the color that enables the creature to hide itself among the protruding roots of the trees, by simply coiling about them, and concealing its triangular head. Sometimes the snake is a clear bright yellow: then it is difficult to distinguish it from the bunch of bananas among which it conceals itself. Or the creature may be a dark yellow,—or a yellowish brown,—or the color of wine-lees, speckled pink ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... for more assaults on it. The nearest Rogans had leaped for him. Slimy arms were coiling around him, while the loathsome sucker-disks tore at his unprotected ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... namely Nepenthes, which is ranked by Mohl (p. 41) amongst tendril-bearers; and I hear from Dr. Hooker that most of the species climb well at Kew. This is effected by the stalk or midrib between the leaf and the pitcher coiling round any support. The twisted part becomes thicker; but I observed in Mr. Veitch's hothouse that the stalk often takes a turn when not in contact with any object, and that this twisted part is likewise thickened. Two vigorous young plants of N. laevis and N. distillatoria, in ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... to end in a human conflagration. A small fortune went up in gigantic pin-wheels; flower-pots that sent up amazing blossoms in all the hues of the rainbow; rockets that burst in mid-air and let fall a shower of coiling snakes, which, in their turn, exploded into a myriad stars; Roman candles that sometimes went off at the wrong end and caused a wild scattering of the audience in their immediate vicinity; and "set-pieces" that were the epitome of this school ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... horrors. Bowse observed the interest she took in all that was going forward, and, like a true sailor, felt as much gratified as if she was his own daughter, and under his especial protection. Jack, the cabin-boy, was coiling away a rope near him, and beckoning to him, he sent him down for a comfortable chair, which, on its appearance, he ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... social life, with natural impulses, cultivated worldly interests, moral and religious sentiments, all on the side of virtue. Crime here is not social. If it appear at all, it is segregated; and, as the burning taper expires when placed at the centre of the spirit lamp's coiling sheet of flame, so vice and crime cannot thrive in the genial ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... -r only the older form -"id:P"; the Latin has, so far as we know, only a single -s, but a double sign for -k (kappa -"id:k" and koppa -"id:q") and of the -r almost solely the more recent form -"id:R". The oldest Etruscan writing shows no knowledge of lines, and winds like the coiling of a snake; the more recent employs parallel broken-off lines from right to left: the Latin writing, as far as our monuments reach back, exhibits only the latter form of parallel lines, which originally perhaps may have run at pleasure from left ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... seemed to be so numerous that they could afford to leave plenty of them behind, probably having selected only the very best. We were not so particular, but ate many of those that they had rejected, and found them very good. About half a mile further we came close on a blackfellow who was coiling by a camp fire, whilst his gin and piccaninny were yabbering alongside. We stopped for a short time to take out some of the pistols that were on the horse, and that they might see us before we were so near as to frighten them. Just after we stopped, the black got up to stretch ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... his limbs as he swam; he felt himself slowly sinking, as if drawn downward by an invisible hand. He opened his eyes. The waves lapped musically above his head; a tawny glory was all about him, a luminous expanse in which he saw strangely formed creatures moving, darting, rising, falling, coiling, uncoiling. ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... last she said, 'It is your life or his. I will spare him on condition that you sacrifice your own life.' Sister Maddelena accepted the terms joyfully, wrote a last farewell to Michele, fastened the note to the rope, and with her own hands cut the rope and saw it fall coiling down to the valley bed ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... mentions in his 'Autobiography' (volume i.) that he was led to take up the subject of climbing plants by reading Dr. Gray's paper, "Note on the Coiling of the Tendrils of Plants." ('Proc. Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences,' 1858.) This essay seems to have been read in 1862, but I am only able to guess at the date of the letter in which he asks for ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... as it vibrates the iron in it produces undulations (by induction) in the current which is flowing through the wires wound round the soft iron centre of the magnet. The wires of the coil are connected with the lines that go to the receiving telephone, so that this undulating current, coiling round the core of the magnet in the receiver, attracts and repels the iron of the diaphragm in it, and it vibrates just as the transmitter diaphragm did when spoken into; the undulating current is translated by it into ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... glow of warm sunshine fell athwart it and dazzled his eyes for the moment. But anxiety cleared his vision, and he saw that the glowing mass was a serpent drawn from a cleft of the rock by the warm sun. Disturbed by Lina's approach, he was that instant coiling itself up for a spring. His head was erect, his tongue quivered like a thread of flame, and two horrible fangs, crooked and venomous, shot out on each side his open jaws. In the centre of the coil, and just behind the head which vibrated to and fro with horrible eagerness, the rattles ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... out in a vicious stroke. An instant later the Navaho straightened up with his hand gripped about the snake's neck close behind the deadly triangular head. He gave no heed to its five-foot body writhing and coiling ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... in the gathering darkness. The autumn wind stirred the dead sedges at its brim, and though the dying twilight was still gleaming in the sky, the great bog had caught little of its glow, and lay full of coiling blue mists, pale quagmires, and islands of mysterious darkness. A dreadful moaning cry, uttered by some demon of the moor, sounded through the mist, chilling the blood in Florian's veins; and as if in answer to the cry, thousands upon thousands of will-o'-the-wisps appeared, darting and ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... medicines stood, looked at the watch, took up one of the phials and a cup, measured the draught, drop by drop, then he turned and looked round him stealthily, and then he drew from his breast a pale blue, coiling serpent, which he threw into the cup, and held it to the patient's lips, who drank, and instantly felt a numbness creep over his frame which ended in death. Edward fancied that he was dead; he saw the coffin brought, but the terror lest he should be buried alive, made him start up ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... saw that the Snake was getting weak, for, little by little, the Kookooburra was able to rise higher with it, until it reached the high bough. All the time the Snake was held in the bird's beak, writhing and coiling in agony; for he knew that the Kookooburra had won the battle. But, when the noble bird had reached its perch, it did a strange thing; for it dropped the Snake right down to the ground. Then it flew down again, ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... and mad against the regular deep soughing of the swell coiling heavily about the outer face ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... her shoulder something that we had not seen before—a rope lasso. She freed the loop of it, coiling the length in her left hand, and plunged into the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... myself, 'What is this man really like? I know he is not the least bit in the world what he pretends to be. But what is the reality?' I felt just the same as I should if I had one of those great snakes they bring to our veranda coiling round me. The creature might look quiet enough, but I should know that if it were to tighten it would crush ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... sprang up, and going over to where the chain was hanging, took it from its place, and coiling it up into a knot, returned to George's side. The chain was made of large iron links, with several sharp, square swivels in it, and these Abdu so placed that they projected from the rest. Having arranged ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... the opposite bank. Coiling up their line and jumping aboard, all hands poled her across. The bishop, gathering his cassock around his waist, was the first ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... treated to that self-same system to which they used to treat us in our arboreal days when the glassy eye of the serpent, gleaming through the branches, will have caused our fur to stand on end with horror. No beast provokes human hatred like that old coiling serpent. Long and cruel must have been his reign for the memory to have lingered—how many years? Let us say, in order to be on the safe side, a million. Here, then, is another ghost of the past, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... behaved already like a grown-up person), were Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender little brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her movements, by the softness and flexibility ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Buffalo, the young chieftain was bending over an uncovered box, holding in one hand the shaft of an arrow, on the end of which was a piece of freshly killed dog; in the other hand he held a willow wand, sharpened. Beneath him, crawling and coiling and singing, were Lieutenant ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... fear of the woman; and greater than their fear of her was their terror of that long serpent which, no matter how far it might dart through space, remained always in the woman's hand. They well knew its venomous bite, and as they slunk from side to side, their eyes were upon its coiling black tongue. ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... dwells the great Pearl-Feather, Megissogwon, the Magician, Manito of Wealth and Wampum, Guarded by his fiery serpents, Guarded by the black pitch-water. You can see his fiery serpents, The Kenabeek, the great serpents, Coiling, playing in the water; You can see the black pitch-water Stretching far away beyond them, To the purple clouds of sunset! "He it was who slew my father, By his wicked wiles and cunning, When he from the moon descended, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to the Vatican go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain; A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending;—vain The struggle! vain against the coiling strain And gripe and deepening of the dragon's grasp The old man's clinch; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links; the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang and stifles gasp ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... was up to his middle in mud and water. He seized the prickly branches coiling about and above him; he gasped in prayerful pleading, the home teaching still strong in him; but there was no answer, save the crooning night-birds and the croaking frogs. Slimy things touched his torn flesh; whirring birds shot past him, disturbed in their night perches. The deadly odor, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... of rifle fire in the darkness, and the sharp "phit" of bullets hitting the mud all around. Think of that as your portion each night and every night. When you have finished this job, the rest you get consists of coiling yourself up in a damp dug-out. Night after night, week after week, month after month, this job is done by thousands. As one sits in a brilliantly illuminated, comfortable, warm theatre, having just come from a cosy and luxurious restaurant, just think of some poor devil half-way ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... minute or two, till Mrs. Davilow said, while coiling the daughter's hair, "I am sure I have never crossed ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... apportioning the staterooms, getting into deck hats, and the other preliminaries, while the boat was steaming down the harbour. Isabelle stayed on deck and made friends with the captain and the sailors. It was fun to watch them padding about so swiftly, coiling ropes, and doing their tasks ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... rise; smiles lighten up their faces, and snatches of song can be heard as they work coiling down lines, lashing movables, and preparing the vessel for the ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... fallen Illyria, stand I here spell-bound? Did my King love me? Did I earn his love? 85 Have we embraced as brothers would embrace? Was I his arm, his thunder-bolt? And now Must I, hag-ridden, pant as in a dream? Or, like an eagle, whose strong wings press up Against a coiling serpent's folds, can I 90 Strike but for mockery, and with restless beak Gore my own breast?—Ragozzi, thou ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of man's anguish went up unto God: "Lord, take away pain— The shadow that darkens the world thou hast made, The close-coiling chain That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs On the wings that would soar— Lord, take away pain from the world thou hast made, That it love thee ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various |
