"Venomous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from Cuba too soon, there would be nothing left for me but to have him shot as soon as he came ashore. Or else he might have me shot not many days afterward. His emissaries and spies are all the while working against me, but I shall catch some of them. Oh, how I would like to get hold of that venomous conspirator, Zuroaga!" ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... this, Daniel and Barzimeres, having been thus balked of their prey, returned to Tarsus, and were loaded with bitter reproaches as inactive and blundering officers. But like venomous serpents whose first spring has failed, they only whetted their deadly fangs, in order at the first opportunity to inflict all the injury in their power on the king ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... the heart of a priest, and that a man constituted like himself, in making himself a priest, made himself a demon. Then he laughed frightfully, and suddenly became pale again, when he considered the most sinister side of his fatal passion, of that corrosive, venomous malignant, implacable love, which had ended only in the gibbet for one of them and in hell for the other; condemnation for ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... killed the lizard, remained out in the open ground; and, stretching himself along the grass, commenced devouring it. Snakes do not masticate their food. Their teeth are not formed for this, but only for seizing and killing. The blood-snake is not venomous, and is, therefore, without fangs such as venomous snakes possess. In lieu of these he possesses a double row of sharp teeth; and, like the "black snake," the "whip," and others of the genus coluber, he is extremely swift, and possesses certain powers of constriction, which are mostly ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Out of admiration immense sums were given to the mendicants, and they became notorious for avarice and worldly self-seeking.[457] As early as 1257 Bonaventura, the head of the order, reproached them with these faults.[458] "Some of the venomous hatred expressed by the Italian satirists for the two great orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic may perhaps be due to an ancient grudge against them as a papal police founded in the interests of orthodoxy, but the chief point aimed at is the mixture of hypocrisy with ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... safest, the most daring, the most venomous of the scouts—those swift-flying spitfires of the clouds—and enjoyed a fame among the German airmen which was at once flattering and ominous. Once they dropped a message into the aerodrome. It was short and humorous, but there was enough truth in the message to give ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... a moment at the body of the repulsive little traitor,—with the after-thought, it is possible, that the flat of Nothung would have been sufficient for anything so small, though so venomous,—he gives it the obsequies which seem to him the most fitting. He throws him in the cave, that he may lie on the heaped gold and have the coveted treasure at last for his own. He drags Fafner to ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... the beginning to the end of an honourable political career which lasted thirty years, he made it his dominant purpose to ensure that Australia should be saved from the evils which cursed Ireland; from government by a favoured class, from land monopoly, and from religious inequality and the venomous bigotries it engenders, and he took a large share in bringing about their exclusion. His Land Act of 1862, for example, where he had another Roman Catholic Irishman, Judge Casey, as an auxiliary, put an end in those districts where it was fairly worked to the grave ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... the embers, just as you put potatoes to roast, and presently they sizzled and spat little venomous jets of steam, then they cracked, and the white inner substance became visible. He cut them open and took the core out—the core is not fit ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... key, and with a slight grin upon his face, he opened the lid, but a cry of dismay escaped us, for next second we saw that he held in his hand a small, black object, sinuous and writhing—a small, thin, but highly venomous ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... having heard how wise it was, and thinking of my mother. But Ruth, to my great amazement, drew away from me in bitter haste, as if I had been inserting instead of extracting poison. For the bite of a horse is most venomous; especially when he sheds his teeth; and far more to be feared than the bite of a dog, or even of a cat. And in my haste I had forgotten that Ruth might not know a word about this, and might doubt about my meaning, and the warmth of my osculation. ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... depths, Beowulf was making his way to them. The magic sword melted in his hand, like snow in sunshine; only the hilt remained, so venomous was the fiend that had been slain therewith. He brought nothing more with him than the hilt and Grendel's head. Up he rose through the waters where the furious sea-beasts before had chased him. Now not one was to be seen; the depths were purified when the witch lost her life. So he came to land, ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco, in the towns and rural districts tributary to the cities, thousands spoke of Blacklock as their trusted adviser in matters of finance. My enemies—and I had them, numerous and venomous enough to prove me a man worth while—my enemies spoke of me as the "biggest ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... felt pretty much the same. And our faces were tired too, and stiff, which was rum, and the author cannot account for it, unless it really was spiders that walked on us. I believe the ancient Greeks considered them to be venomous, and perhaps that's how ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... had willingly followed his master into captivity. Near the village was a wide savannah—an extensive open, level space, destitute of trees, and overgrown in most parts with a rank vegetation, and dotted with pools of water, among which snakes and venomous reptiles of all sorts delighted to roam. Here the poor man was carried by a couple of blacks and cast into a hole they dug ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... three or four, and we were always careful in bathing to do so in very shallow water, where there was a clear sandy bottom. There were three kinds of water-snakes, one of which was of a dull blue colour, and these the blacks said were "bad fellow," i.e., venomous. They seldom grew over two feet and a half in length, and on a bright day one might see several of these reptiles swimming across from one bank to the other. Of the common brown snake—the kind we most dreaded—and the black-necked ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... met with the answer: "You don't go out of this Union unless you are strong enough to fight your way out." I want to have the armed heel of the country crush the serpent head of secession, now and forever, so that it shall never again glare with its baleful eyes, or brandish its venomous tongue. Let not the fate and fortunes of this glorious country be committed to the keeping of a clumsy, misshapen raft, compacted of twenty-four or thirty-four logs, good enough to float down a river, but sure to go to pieces when it gets ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... coughing horribly. Within eight feet of him The Spider's gun roared again. Gary's body jerked stiff at the shock and then slowly collapsed. The fourth man, Longtree, with his hands above his head, begged The Spider not to kill his old pal! The Spider's face, horribly distorted, venomous as a snake's, colorless and glistening with sweat, twisted queerly as he spoke: "Kill you, you damned coyote?" And he shot Longtree down as a man ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the first stages of reclamation into productive soil, or a productive soil in the last steps of deterioration into a desert. It is a vast expanse of arid, yellow sand, broken at intervals by foul swamps, with a jungle-life growth of unwholesome vegetation, and teeming With venomous snakes, and all manner ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... has its fullest expression in the "SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER" ("Dramatic Lyrics." Published in "Bells and Pomegranates." 1842 to 1845): a venomous outbreak of jealous hatred, directed by one monk against another whom he is watching at some innocent occupation. The speaker has no ground of complaint against Brother Lawrence, except that his life is innocent: that he is orderly and clean, that he loves his garden, is free from ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... suddenly, and for a few minutes his great body was racked with violent paroxysms that brought a bright crimson stain to the sleeve he flung across his mouth. But all the while his eyes, full of strange venomous triumph, never once ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... lashing the off horses, the guns jumping and rumbling and swinging; then the yell, "Action front," and round come the teams with a splendid sweep; next instant they are cast off and jingle to the rear, and the little venomous guns are left crouching like toads, looking towards the enemy; the gunners are upon them before they are at a standstill (everything happens simultaneously); there is an instant's pause while the barrel rises, and then comes the naked spurt of fire, no smoke, and the officer ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... says: "So much has been written, and so much still continues to be written, about Poe by persons who are either his avowed or secret enemies, that I joyfully welcome every friendly or impartial word spoken in his behalf. His enemies are uttering their venomous fabrications in every newspaper, and so few voices can obtain a hearing in his defence. My own personal knowledge of Mr. Poe was very brief, although it comprehended memorable incidents, and was doubtless, as he kindly characterized it in one of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... to cut his lips as he uttered it; Sydney Smith's was without sting or edge or venomous point of malice, and his genial humor was really the overflowing of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Bereford as he labored day and night with untiring zeal, utterly regardless of the ravages thus made upon his hitherto robust constitution. In this exciting struggle the young politician was unconscious of the deadly and venomous growth taking root within under the baneful effect of ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... all the theories ever projected by man), Quinet eloquently says, 'The pen which wrote the Provincial Letters would be necessary to lay bare the strange consequences of this theology. According to its conclusion, the tree of good and evil was nothing but a venomous plant, probably a manchineal tree, under which our first parents fell asleep. The shining face of Moses on the heights of Mount Sinai was the natural result of electricity; the vision of Zachariah was effected by the smoke of the chandeliers in the temple; the Magian ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... surprise of seeing Top stop before a snake of great size, measuring from fourteen to fifteen feet in length. Neb killed it by a blow from his stick. Cyrus Harding examined the reptile, and declared it not venomous, for it belonged to that species of diamond serpents which the natives of New South Wales rear. But it was possible that others existed whose bite was mortal such as the deaf vipers with forked tails, which rise up under the feet, or those winged ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... boiled over with rage: but ere the geyser could explode, Tom had continued in that dogged, nasal Yankee twang which he assumed when he was venomous: ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... its sharp point a diminutive parrot head with two ferocious eyes and around its base the twisted skeins of its arms full of projecting disks. With these it pressed the crab against its mouth, injecting under its shell the venomous output of its salivary glands, paralyzing thus every movement of existence. Then it swallowed its prey slowly with the deglutition of a ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the most hazardous enterprises, such as abducting Io, who was guarded by Argus of the hundred eyes; Mercury I say, was the God of concord, or eloquence, and of mystery. Except to inspire them with friendly feeling and kind affections, Mercury never went among mortals. Touched by his wand, venomous serpents closely embraced him. Listening to him, Achilles forgot his pride, extended hospitality to Priam and permitted him to take away the body of Hector. The ferocious Carthaginians were softened through the influence of ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... conduct and appearance justified the presumption. His countenance, of a jaundiced hue, grew haggard and wrinkled; misanthropy and hatred of the world were plainly legible upon it. He resembled that horrid demon whom Pushkin has so ably conceived and portrayed. Save all occasional sarcasm, venomous and bitter, no word ever passed his lips, and at last he became universally avoided. His acquaintances, and even his oldest friends, shunned his presence, and would go a mile round to escape meeting him in the street. The mere sight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... Alvina to feel the deep-bed-rock distrust which all the hill-peasants seemed to have of one another. They were watchful, venomous, dangerous. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... regarded him, as she might have looked at a frog or a hurtless snake. A small, slim, anxious man, she found him; always fidgeting, always placating some one, but never without a covert sneer. The fellow was venomous; his eyes only were honest, for even while his lips were about their wheedling, these eyes flashed malice at you; and their shifting was so unremittent that afterward you recalled them as an absolute shining which had not any color. On Usk and ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... government had a monopoly of the india-rubber trade and, as the most venomous antidote of monopoly is smuggling, the coasts of Cayenne were constantly watched by ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... venomous, ironic phrases, then the dispute ceased and silence was restored. Petra, thus kept awake, sank into her own thoughts; again footfalls were heard in the corridor, this time light and rapid. Then came the rasping of the shutter-bolt of a balcony that ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... back. She had lifted from the floor the stick with its leathern thong with which the man had castigated the tender body of his motherless child. She held it in her hand, looking at it with the angry aversion that she might have turned upon a venomous serpent. Then slowly, with unspeakable rebuke, she swung her gaze upon the wretch in the chair. For a moment she silently accused him. Then he dropped his head in his hands and sobbed. He seemed in his voiceless way to say that he, too, had been ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... intelligence that appears to pervade the organic world, and that reaches its conscious expression in the brain of man, is just as manifest in all the forms of animals and plants that are inimical to him, in all his natural enemies,—venomous snakes and beasts of prey, and insect pests,—as in anything else. Nature is as wise and solicitous for rats and mice as for men. In fact, she has endowed many of the lower creatures with physical powers that she has denied him. Evidently man is only one of the cards in her pack; doubtless ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... treasures; but Beowulf heeds them not, for near him lies Grendel, dead from the wound received the previous night. Again Beowulf swings the great sword and strikes off his enemy's head; and lo, as the venomous blood touches the sword blade, the steel melts like ice before the fire, and only the hilt is left in Beowulf's hand. Taking the hilt and the head, the hero enters the ocean and mounts ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... viper. They have, however, almost entirely disappeared from particular localities. The rattlesnake is now wholly unknown in many large districts where it was extremely common half a century ago, and Palestine has long been, if not absolutely free from venomous serpents, at least very nearly so. [Footnote: Russell denies the existence of poisonous snakes in Northern Syria, and states that the last instance of death known to have occurred from the bite of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... humor, the absurdity of the thing must have forced itself upon him and possibly helped to improve his temper. But he had no humor, and so abandoned himself to the venomous temper that was practically the mainspring of ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... of the dead duck he became "total abstinence," and concentrated all his faculties and found all his excitement in vengeance hot and strong, without a grain of sugar. In which I gladly sympathised and aided, for I detested Johnson as a renegade Copperhead, or rather venomous toad to the South, who wished with all his soul to undo Lincoln's work and bring in the Confederacy. And I believe, on my life and soul, that if John Forney had not defeated him, we should have had such disasters as are now inconceivable, the least of them being a renewal ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... having been so informed by the headsman of his village, that failure to respond to this opportunity meant a voluntary sojourn in the jungle. Ouk hated the jungle. All his life he had lived in terror of it, of the evil forces of the jungle, strangling and venomous, therefore he did not wish to take refuge amongst them, for he knew them well. Of the two alternatives, the risks of civilization seemed preferable. Civilization was an unknown quantity, whereas the jungle was familiar to himself and his ancestors, and the fear transmitted by his ancestors ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... other. On his part, Bellerophon had mortally wounded the lion's head of the monster, insomuch that it now hung downward, with its fire almost extinguished, and sending out gasps of thick black smoke. The snake's head, however (which was the only one now left), was twice as fierce and venomous as ever before. It belched forth shoots of fire five hundred yards long, and emitted hisses so loud, so harsh, and so ear-piercing that King Iobates heard them fifty miles off, and trembled till ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... They hated him for his alien race, his alien faith. Not one of the men but would have killed him had they had courage, because his head was high, his step firm. The women hated him because he had chosen one from among them and given her honor and gifts. And his wife's mother hated him with the venomous, nauseous hatred that old women bear. And yet they'd have loved him if he'd given way to hysterical, unprofound grief, or become ... drunk! They'd have understood him. But all they had for him was hatred now. Even the dead woman on the bed hated him.... Ah, well, only a day or so more, and ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... know who it was that cried; and he saw a man standing there, and inquired what he would have. And the deacon said; "holy Father, I have sought thee from far, and now I have found thee, I should have joy enough if I might come to thee, but I cannot for these venomous beasts that are here so many." When the holy man heard this, he fell down on his knees, and prayed GOD that He would destroy those worms: and all soon a grisly storm arose with a thunder, and slew all the worms. Then said the hermit to our Lord; "Lord, these beasts lie here so ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... nigheth him without tarrying; and yet the weasel overcometh him, for the biting of the weasel is death to the cockatrice. Nevertheless the biting of the cockatrice is death to the weasel if the weasel eat not rue before. And though the cockatrice be venomous without remedy while he is alive, yet he looseth all the malice when he is burnt to ashes. His ashes be accounted profitable in working of alchemy, and namely in turning ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... cried first, his eyes aflame with a generous passion; then fiercely: "Silence, fellow, or I will take you by that brazen throat of yours and strangle the venomous lie once for all." And then, with keen reproach, "That you, of my blood, of hers too, should be the one to cast such a stigma on her memory—that you should be unable even to understand the nature of our intercourse.... Oh, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... during the war—so that the Southern power might be destroyed by a concurrence of misfortunes. And he would do so at once, on the spur of the moment, fearing lest the South should be before him, and themselves emancipate their own bondsmen. I have sometimes thought that there is no being so venomous, so blood-thirsty as a professed philanthropist; and that when the philanthropist's ardor lies negroward, it then assumes the deepest die of venom and blood-thirstiness. There are four millions of slaves in the Southern States, none of ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... were felt, appears by his own confessions. In his "Foure Letters," after some curious observations on invectives and satires, from those of Archilochus, Lucian, and Aretine, to Skelton and Scoggin, and "the whole venomous and viperous brood of old and new raylers," he proceeds to blame even his beloved friend the gentle Spenser, for the severity of his "Mother Hubbard's Tale," a satire on the court. "I must needes say, Mother Hubbard in heat of choller, forgetting the pure ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the effects of this pernicious cause—private property. He says of Rousseau's first Discourse that the writer ought to have seen that the corruption of manners which he set down to literature and art really came from this venomous principle of property, which infects all that it touches.[178] Christianity, it is true, assailed this principle and restored equality or community of possessions, but Christianity had the radical fault of involving such a detachment from earthly affections, in order to ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the homage of the two young men, answering the compliments of both with ease, and so conducting herself that neither could fairly accuse her of undue favour to the other. But unfairly, in his own mind, Augustus did so accuse her. And why should he have been so venomous, seeing that he entertained no regard for the lady himself? His object was still plain enough,—that, namely, of making a match between his needy ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... initiative, discretion, sagacity and self-possession than once would have been true. Doubtless the men who come out of this great war, the common men, will bring home an accentuated and acrimonious patriotism, a venomous hatred of the enemies whom they have missed killing; but it may reasonably be doubted if they come away with a correspondingly heightened admiration and affection for their betters who have failed ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... of something of this; but I could not imagine it all. I thought that we were like spiders, and that we looked like ugly creatures, in what fine room soever we were; but that by this spider, this venomous and ill-favoured creature, we were to learn how to act faith, that came not into my mind. And yet she has taken hold with her hands, as I see, and dwells in the best room in the house. God has ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... pushed his hands under his rags and scratched himself uneasily. That instant, disgust unspeakable took possession of Vinicius, and a wish to trample that former assistant of his, as he would a foul worm or venomous serpent. In an instant he knew what to do. But knowing no measure in anything, and following the impulse of his stern Roman nature, he ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... muttered again and threw his cigarette from him as though it had been something venomous; when he turned his face toward his own tents and took a step forward, she laughed softly, a mere whisper of amusement that might have been a sleepy breeze stirring the bushes somewhere near. Ramon ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... thoughts. Having assumed a chivalrous role in the Peruna incident, he was tasting something of the sweet sensations and experiences that follow a sincerely generous action. Smiles and pleasant greetings from Polly, who had heretofore met him with venomous looks and stinging words, were balm to his soul. He felt well-satisfied with himself and kindly toward the whole world. The fiendish torturer of helpless men and harmless beasts, the cold-blooded murderer, the devilish intriguer to incriminate an innocent man, thought that ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... I do, let me die poisoned with some venomous hiss, and never live to look as high as the ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... returned in time, our fate could not have been told. We would have been capsized in the Lake and drowned, or have drifted ashore to be devoured by bears and other wild animals, or stung to death by the venomous reptiles that hung in clusters on trees around the shores of the Lake. This accident put an end to fishing for that day. My father was wet, and not having a change of clothing with him, proceeded to the camp, so that he could dry. We soon arrived at Jack's Landing, ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... on every side with convenient harbors; the temperature of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, alike adapted for the production of corn or of vines; the valuable minerals with which it abounded; its rich pastures covered with innumerable flocks, and its woods free from wild beasts or venomous serpents. Above all, they regretted the large amount of the revenue of Britain, whilst they confessed, that such a province well deserved to become the seat of an independent monarchy. [27] During the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... was up until one o'clock writing a reply to a peculiarly venomous attack on his integrity which a morning paper had printed. The writer had boldly accused him of being the hired tool of the group of financial cut-throats who were coining millions out of the ruin of others in ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... M.G. Lewis, now describes in a painfully commonplace manner the knight's further adventures. He and his guide wandered round and round and high and low in the maze of chambers within the castle, until at last a door of brass, whose bolt was a venomous snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall, draped in black, which the "hundred lights" failed to brighten. In the hall a hundred knights of "marble white" lay sleeping by their steeds of "marble black as the raven's back." At the end of the hall, guarded by two huge skeleton ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... outside the trees, we made our way towards the high ground, one side of which we found consisted of a coral cliff, and we had not searched long before we discovered a cave large enough to afford shelter to all our party. The floor was of sand, and having no fear of venomous creatures or savage beasts, the men threw themselves down to obtain the rest they all so much required. We had brought from the boat the biscuits and the small stock of water we possessed, but none of them were inclined to eat, though they drank up more than half ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... and burnin', and shootin', and whippin', and Ku Kluxin', and cheatin', and swindlin', they are a damned no-'count people, and don't deserve no sort of show in the world—no more than a mean, sneakin', venomous moccasin-snake—there!" ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... to injure; in the legal sense, malice is the intent to injure, even tho with no personal ill will; as, a highwayman would be said to entertain malice toward the unknown traveler whom he attacks. Malice is direct, pressing toward a result; malignity is deep, lingering, and venomous, tho often impotent to act; rancor (akin to rancid) is cherished malignity that has soured and festered and is virulent and implacable. Spite is petty malice that delights to inflict stinging pain; grudge ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... day, however, he was glad to do as the others did; to throw down his tools, such as they were, and creep into the shadow of the log hut. The heat was very great; and the men were beginning to suffer from the bites of venomous ants which infested the island. In short, as Percival said to himself, the Rocas Reef was about as little like Robinson Crusoe's island as it could possibly be. Life would be greatly ameliorated if goats and parrots could be found amongst the rocks; shell-fish ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... vastly amusing to the reporters. Once they had him going they poised their pens in glee and began splashing their venomous ink. It was tragic; the great professor standing at bay to his tormentors. One and all they loved him and one and all they took delight in his torture. It was a hard task for a reporter to get in at a lecture; and yet it was often the ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... the back room, where Simeon was busy with his orders, came the sound of a smothered laugh. Shadrach, upon whom understanding of the situation was just beginning to dawn, slapped his knee. Mr. Clifford looked positively venomous. ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... in deep reflection, Gerfaut stood on the same spot; but at last arousing himself from this dreamy languor, he climbed the rock so as to reach the top of the cliff. After taking a few steps he stopped with a frightened look, as if he had espied some venomous reptile in his path. He could see, through the bushes which bordered the crest of the plateau at the top of the ladder cut in the rock, Bergenheim, motionless, and in the attitude of a man who is trying to conceal himself in order that he may watch somebody. The Baron's eyes not being ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... a boa-constrictor, a half-dozen wolves from the Russian plateaus, the zebras and wild asses, the hyenas, with their ugly faces; the porcupines, and some of the small venomous snakes. We could see them as they climbed up ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... is so rosy, let me see how my teeth will feel when set in a juicy morsel like you," said the Dragon and he spouted venomous vapours, stretching his horrid jaws, while Siegfried nimbly sprang to one side to avoid the poisonous steam. Standing watchful, with his sword, he tried to thrust it at the Dragon's tail, but Fafner roared and swished his tail away, and prepared to strike with his body; but ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... her to return to the flower. Mara no longer followed sweet scents. The hideous venomous creature in the flower's calyx drew her against her will, struggling wildly. Her lids were no longer closed. It was with clairvoyant eyes that the little thing went ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... President, throttle the anarchist that would shoot a President or a successor to a President. Yes, but if you leave the Southern mobocrat to shoot John Jones, an unknown entity, the element of anarchism remains pregnant in the body politic and is liable at any time to show its venomous head. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... shore, so that they are partly in water and partly on the ground, and as yonder, among the gluttonous Germans, the beaver settles himself to make his war,[1] so lay that worst of beasts upon the rim that closes in the sand with stone. In the void all his tail was quivering, twisting upwards its venomous fork, which like a ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... city, the head of the province, who ex officio should have conveyed his expression of sympathy to the sufferers, summoned the rabbi and the leaders of the Jewish community, and, in the presence of his official staff, treated them to a speech full of venomous hatred. He told them that by their actions the Jews had "armed everybody against themselves," that they were universally hated, that "they lived nowhere as happily as in Russia," and that the deputation they had sent ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... cause of solicitude, which to any person unfamiliar with mountain life would have been very serious; the place abounded with rattlesnakes. The whole region seemed to be a favorite rendezvous for these venomous reptiles. These mountaineers, however, had become so thoroughly acquainted with their habits, as to sleep in the midst of them without anxiety. In the night the rattlesnake seldom moves, in the daytime with his rattles he gives chivalric ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... agreeable in point of temperature, and the soil being fertile exceedingly, the whole land is covered with a dense and rank vegetation. I have yet to find a square smig of it that is open ground, or one that is not the lair of some savage beast, the haunt of some venomous reptile, or the roost of some offensive bird. Crackers and Coons alike are long extinct, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... But a black who suffers the rare chance of contact fortifies his theoretical cure of pulverising the offending fish by immersing the injured foot or hand in running water for a whole day, the popular treatment for all venomous wounds. As to the effect of the wound they say, "Suppose that fella nail go along your foot, you sing out all a same bullocky all night. Leg belonga you swell up and jump about? Bingie (belly) belonga you, sore fella. Might you die." One boy described the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... proceeded to do in the judge's presence, and no sooner had he levelled the great bush with the ground than the cause of the death of the two unfortunate lovers appeared; for thereunder was a toad of marvellous bigness, by whose pestiferous breath they concluded the sage to have become venomous. None daring approach the beast, they made a great hedge of brushwood about it and there burnt it, together with the sage. So ended the judge's inquest upon the death of the unfortunate Pasquino, who, together with his Simona, all swollen as they were, was buried ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... between them, dropped rapidly to a whine again and quickly died out in the distance, a flat report coming to their ears a few seconds later. Invisible bees seemed to be winging through the air, the angry and venomous droning becoming more pronounced each passing moment, and the irregular cracking of rifles grew louder rapidly. An angry s-p-a-t! told of where a stone behind them had launched the ricochet which hurled skyward ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... enters the flesh of a man he is poisoned unto death. The color of the reptile is a dirty brown. Never found far from water, it is common in the swamps, and is the terror of the rice-field negroes. The bite of the water-moccasin is exceedingly venomous, and it is considered more poisonous than that of the rattlesnake, which warns man of his ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... or falling low enough to reign over the lives of men, he lives or rather vegetates with a keen feeling of his mediocrity, which makes him despair. And the pitiless words of Zarathustra ring in his ears: "If your life is not successful, if a venomous worm is gnawing at your heart, know that death will succeed." And Serge Petrovich, desperate, ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... He coaxed and entreated me to give it him; but the more he begged, the tighter I clasped it, crying and saying I would not give it to any one. My father, who was also in the house, ran up when he heard my screams, and in his stupefaction could not think how to prevent the venomous animal from killing me. Just then his eyes chanced to fall upon a pair of scissors; and so, while soothing and caressing me, he cut its tail and mouths off. Afterwards, when the great peril had been thus averted, he took the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... in the district of Seonee, I noticed that one of my camels had a sore back and on inquiring into the cause was told by the natives that a musk-rat (our commonest shrew) had run over him. Jerdon also remarks that in Southern India (Malabar) the bite of S. murinus is considered venomous, and so ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... being or looking happy on the Lord's day! And, indeed, to think of a Christian man ever venturing to be happy at all! "Yes, this parish was highly favored in the days of Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown," said a spiteful and venomous old woman,—with a glance of deadly malice at a young lad who was present. That young lad was the son of the clergyman of the parish,—one of the most diligent and exemplary clergymen in Britain. Mr. Smith ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... and drifted, helpless, entangled weed of castaway thought: nay, you will see that most men's minds are indeed little better than rough heath wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren, partly overgrown with pestilent brakes, and venomous, wind-sown herbage of evil surmise; that the first thing you have to do for them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire to this; burn all the jungle into wholesome ash heaps, and then plough and sow. All the true literary work before you, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... mummies that had been brought from the catacombs of the ancient Pharaohs. Of these she ordered several to be taken. From thence she resorted to a gallery, where, under the guard of fifty female negroes, mute, and blind of the right eye, were preserved the oil of the most venomous serpents, rhinoceros horns, and woods of a subtle and penetrating odor, procured from the interior of the Indies, together with a thousand other horrible rarities. This collection had been formed for a purpose like the present by Carathis herself, from a presentiment ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... everything that is ruinous. In it can be found men without manhood, women without womanhood, infancy without hope, want and woe, rage and wretchedness, disease and death; and, furthermore, in the trail of this venomous serpent can be found broken vows and broken hearts, bad manners and bad morals, bad words and bad actions, bad parents and bad children, a bad beginning and a bad end. Then surely intemperance is the crowning curse of American society; and as such ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... said my brother-in-law, "your venomous bile pollutes the crystal flood of my narration. Did I ride? That was the undoing of the sage. When he recovered consciousness for the second time, it was to discover that the chain was missing and that the back tire was windless. In my endeavours to find ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... She's been a stumbling block in my way ever since I came. The sight of her is a needle in my flesh. I'd only want a minute if I could get my fingers on her throat! I'd shut that baby mouth of hers for good and all. God! How I hate her!" She hissed the words in venomous intensity, racked with the strength of her emotions, weak from it, her ghastly face ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... man to pretend that he does not know it.... All the ideas of the church are now recognized for what they are—as the worst counterfeits in existence, invented to debase nature and all natural values; the priest himself is seen as he actually is—as the most dangerous form of parasite, as the venomous spider of creation.... We know, our conscience now knows—just what the real value of all those sinister inventions of priest and church has been and what ends they have served, with their debasement ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... immediately allay the pain; and if not rubbed, no mark will be seen next day. It is well to keep salt and vinegar always in a chamber that is infested with musquitoes. It is also good for the sting of a wasp or bee; and for the bite of any venomous animal, if applied immediately. It should be left on till it becomes dry, ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... an ease and celerity that would have seemed absolutely miraculous to him three months earlier, and ever, as he went, his glances darted hither and thither, searching for the stronger light which should reveal to him the whereabout of one of those open glades, or, incidentally, a venomous snake or other noxious creature ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... thank you. Woman, the love-seeker, obsessing and possessing, fragile and fierce, soft and venomous, prouder than Lucifer and as prideless, holds a perpetual, almost morbid, attraction for the thinker. What is this flame of her, blazing through all her contradictions and ignobilities?—this ruthless passion for life, always for life, more ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... others, and in the eyes of the managers, and especially of the senior partner, a disgraced, untrustworthy youth foisted on the office by Mr. Castleford's weak partiality. That old Mr. Frith had, Clarence used to say, a perfectly venomous way of accepting his salute, and seemed always surprised and disappointed if he came in in time, or showed up correct work. Indeed, the old man was disliked and feared by all his subordinates as much as his partner was loved; and while Mr. Castleford, with ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... (post, under March 19, 1781), that 'Johnson had talked with some disgust of Mr. Gibbon's ugliness.' He wrote to Temple on May 8, 1779:—'Gibbon is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our literary club to me.' He had before classed him among 'infidel wasps and venomous insects.' Letters of Boswell, pp. 233, 242. The younger Coleman describes Gibbon as dressed 'in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword.' Random Records, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... about to drag him out of the august atmosphere as if he had been some venomous, dangerous beast come there to slay, but the voice he had heard speak of the stove said, in kind accents, "Poor little child! he is very young. Let him go: let ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... looked hastily about to see that no one was listening, then he continued: "If you give me the double cross an' peach, I'll split yer head open." His small eyes blazed with venomous fury. "Besides, it won't do no good, my word's as good as yours. But I'll give you the hundred, s'help me God! I will, if you don't ride the Chestnut out. Mum's the word," he added, bolting suddenly, for Dixon had entered ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... House of Hapsburg. And the same authority relates that the kings of Hungary were able to heal various affections by the Royal Touch, and to neutralize by this method the toxic effects of the bite of venomous creatures. ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... early exhibited a keen intellect on all the subjects which concern political and social reform. For several years after 1820 she resided here and strove to make men and women think anew on old traditional beliefs—more particularly on theology, slavery, and the social degradation of women. The venomous denunciations of press and pulpit attested the success of her efforts. In 1832 Lydia Maria Child published her History of Woman, a resume of the status of women; and this was followed by numerous ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... moved an inch towards the door, Armand, blind with passion, driven to madness by agonising remorse more even than by rage, would have sprung at his enemy's throat and crushed the life out of him as he would out of a venomous beast. But the man's calm, his immobility, recalled St. Just to himself. Reason, that had almost yielded to passion again, found strength to drive the enemy back this time, to whisper a warning, an admonition, even a reminder. Enough harm, ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... engaged in tranquil conversation with Dharini, and the parivrajaka, the vidushaka rushes in, exclaiming he has been beaten by a venomous snake, whilst gathering flowers to bring with him as a present on his visit to the queen, and he exhibits his thumb bound with his cord, and marked with the impressions made by the teeth of the reptile. The parivrajaka, with some humour as well as good surgery, recommends the actual cautery, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... In former times the Spanish Gypsies of both sexes were in the habit of casting a venomous preparation into the mangers of the cattle for the purpose of causing sickness. At present this practice has ceased, or nearly so; the Gitanos, however, talk of it as universal amongst their ancestors. They were in the habit of visiting the stalls and stables secretly, and poisoning ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... practised in the East (where the entity employed is usually a nature-spirit) and in old Atlantis, where "the lords of the dark face" used a highly-specialized and peculiarly venomous variety of artificial elemental for this purpose. Information is sometimes obtained in the same sort of way at the spiritualistic seance of modern days, but in that case the messenger employed is more likely to be a recently-deceased human being functioning more or less freely ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... mutter: "So that is it?" A venomous flashing look—a shaft from me to Anita and back again. "So that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... three sisters were. Why, instead of locks of hair, if you can believe me, they had each of them a hundred enormous snakes growing on their heads, all alive, twisting, wriggling, curling, and thrusting out their venomous tongues, with forked stings at the end! The teeth of the Gorgons were terribly long tusks; their hands were made of brass; and their bodies were all over scales, which, if not iron, were something as hard ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... to our left in the snowy peaks of the coast range. All day the sky to the east had a brazen glow, as if a great fire were raging there, but toward night the wind changed and swept it away. The trail was dusty for the first time, and the flies venomous. Late in the afternoon we pitched camp, setting our tent securely, expecting rain. Before we went to sleep the drops began to drum on the tent roof, a pleasant sound after the burning dust of the trail. The two trampers kept abreast of us nearly ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... it. Hell is a place far above their comprehension: they derive their notion of it from two of the greatest fools that ever lived, an Italian and an Englishman. The Italian described it as a place of mud, frost, filth, fire, and venomous serpents: all torture. This ass, when he was not lying about me, was maundering about some woman whom he saw once in the street. The Englishman described me as being expelled from Heaven by cannons and ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... wrong, save that Bandy-legs himself seemed to be engaged in scrambling about more or less, as though he had suddenly discovered a venomous spider crawling out from under the false ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... abound with alligators and snakes of the most venomous description. I saw many of the latter swimming about exposed to a heavy fire of six-shooters; but the alligators were frightened away ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... persecute the living. Schools do you call them? call them rather dung-hills, where the viper of intolerance deposits her young, that when their teeth are cut and their poison is mature, they may issue forth, filthy and venomous, to sting the Catholic. But are these the doctrines of the Church of England, or of churchmen? No, the most enlightened churchmen are of a different opinion. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... tells me different. Time and time ag'in I've been told he's a quare creetur. Some say he's strong as a horse and venomous as a snake. Some say he's swifter than the wind and slicker than a red fox. And many's the time by my own h'a'th-stone I've had to pooh-pooh these relations; yet there's no denying that for mighty nigh seven year that nigger's ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... to subdue the conspirator at home. It is impossible not to observe, that, in proportion as we approximate to the poisonous jaws of anarchy, the fascination grows irresistible. In proportion as we are attracted towards the focus of illegality, irreligion, and desperate enterprise, all the venomous and blighting insects of the state are awakened into life. The promise of the year is blasted and shrivelled and burned up before them. Our most salutary and most beautiful institutions yield nothing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
