"Eel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I caught an eel two thirds as long as myself. Mr. Watkins tried to make me believe that he thought it a water moccasin snake. Old Mr. Shane said that it was a 'young sea-sarpint sure.' Mr. Ficket, the blacksmith, begged it to take home for its skin, as he said for ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... lose no time—ye may depind on that same. There's not an ounce av tinder mercy in their black hearts; yez may swear till that, from the way this eel-skin cuts." ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... really came. Those who could swim were had out of their stifling quarters and allowed to do so. Nicholas could swim like an eel, and all were amazed when, after swimming farther out than any of the others, he flung up his arms, uttered a loud cry, and vanished. They watched and searched, but nothing more was seen of him, and there ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... constantly the thought of death as the revealer was present to his mind, may be gathered from an incident related by Trelawny. They were bathing in the Arno, when Shelley, who could not swim, plunged into deep water, and "lay stretched out at the bottom like a conger eel, not making the least effort or struggle to save himself." Trelawny fished him out, and when he had taken breath he said: "I always find the bottom of the well, and they say Truth lies there. In another minute I should have found it, and you would have found an empty shell. Death is the veil which ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... of his wearing apparel, than the chal either tore himself away, or contrived to slip out of it; so that in a little time the chal was three parts naked; and as for holding him by the body, it was out of the question, for he was as slippery as an eel. At last the engro seized the chal by the Belcher's handkerchief, which he wore in a knot round his neck, and do whatever the chal could, he could not free himself; and when the engro saw that, it gave him fresh heart, no doubt; 'It's of no use,' said he; 'you had better give in; hold out ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... are numerous in the acid regions. Algerian prawns, especially those of Bona, are large and of a delicate flavour. Of the twenty-one species of freshwater fish, five are peculiar to the country, but none is of much economic value save the barbel and eel. A species of trout is found in the streams near Collo, but in none of the other ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Tammany Hall They's a gintleman layin' f'r you! 'He's pinched,' sez he, 'an' cinched,' sez he, 'A lady tray comme eel foo! Go dangle th' tillyphone call, An' gimme La Mulberry Roo, F'r the town is too warrm f'r this gendarme, An' he'll go to the goats, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... eel-broiler, on finding this out, thought he would charge his stingy neighbor for the smell of his eels. So, making out his bill he presented it to Kisaburo, who seemed to be much pleased. He called to his wife to bring his iron-bound money box, which was done. Emptying out ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... had ducked his small black head and escaped. Buttoned tightly in his narrow jacket, which he had not taken off, his straight thin figure offered nothing for the hand to grasp, so that it was like trying to lay hold of a wriggling, slippery eel. It was certainly a much better fight than could have been expected from the unequal size of the rivals, and Bill's face grew a deep red, as much with rage as with his vain efforts to close with Dan, who skipped round him breathless but full of spirit. ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... in a hen's nest, a needle in a bottle of hay, which is as seldom seen as a black swan: he is gone to seek my young mistress; and I think she is better lost than found, for whosoever hath her, hath but a wet eel by the tail. But they may do, as they list; the law is in their own hands; but, and they would be rul'd by me, they should set her on the lee-land, and bid the devil split her; beshrew her fingers, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... my POLLY; wich I'm sure, my dear, you'll twig! As dear Lady JUNE informs hus, the too-little or too-big, The scraggy and the crummy ones, the lanky 'uns and the lumps, Will be grateful for a fashion as is kind to bones and 'umps. Eel-skin skirts may suit the swells, dear, and the straight, and slim, and tall, And—well, them whose wardrobe's plentiful; they don't suit me at all; Wich I'm four-foot-ten and stoutish, as to you is well beknown; I'm a bit short in the legs like, my limbs do not run to bone. Now ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... had struck him. The man near him laid hold of the fish again as it was making for the shore, and the shock he received threw him on his knees. I ran up to him, for he appeared in great pain. However, he soon recovered, and before the ill-fated eel could reach its element, he caught up a large stone and made it dearly atone for the pain it had inflicted. We made another haul, but were not so successful, as we only caught some ray, crabs, and an alligator three feet ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... clear, transparent skin, a neck like a swan, and a wealth of wavy brown hair, which was a wonder to look at and was in striking contrast to the whiteness of her complexion. A free life in the open air had made her as supple as an eel and as agile as a deer. It was said that, encumbered by her womanly raiment, she had been known to place one hand upon a six-barred fence and clear it at a single bound. And now her agility was to do her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... he fell off in taking over sharp a turn, by which old Pullen, the bell-ringer, who was holding the post, was made to coup the creels, and got a bloody nose.—And but the last was a wearyful one! He was all life, and as gleg as an eel. Up and down he went; and up and down philandered the beast on its hind-legs and its fore- legs, funking like mad; yet though he was not above thirteen, or fourteen at most, he did not cry out for ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... ardent gaze of a beast of prey watching for its spoil, and, suddenly, with a swift movement, he darted his forked weapon into the sea so vigorously that it secured a large fish swimming near the bottom. It was a conger eel, which managed to wriggle, half dead as it was, into a puddle of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... jump Anders got out of his chair. He darted like an arrow through all the halls, down all the stairs, and across the yard. He twisted himself like an eel between the outstretched arms of the courtiers, and over the soldiers' muskets he jumped like a little rabbit. He ran so fast that the Princess's necklace fell off his neck, and all the cakes jumped out of his pockets. But he had his cap. He still held on to it with both hands as he ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... banks and flooded the banqueting hall in which the Earl and Countess were sitting. She showed no sign of fear, and at the Earl's command the river receded to its normal course. At the second trial a huge eel-like monster appeared, which entered by one of the windows, crawled about among the furniture of the banqueting hall, and finally coiled itself round the body of the Countess. Still she showed no fear, and at a nod from the ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... by her voice I strove desperately to secure the hold I sought, but my antagonist was supple as any eel, moreover his skin was greased after the manner of Indian warriors, but in our struggling we had come nigh to the rock where crouched my lady and, biding my time, I let go my broken sword, and seizing him by a sort ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... and she reached her knife, and landed with it into my ribs. The pain of the stab sickened me; but the knowledge that she had landed fooled her into relaxing her hold in order to jump clear. So I got hold of both wrists again, and we rolled over and over among the bushes, she trying like an eel to wriggle away, and I doing my utmost to crush the strength out of her. We were interrupted by Will's voice, and by Will's strong ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Snakes three sorts. Red-bellied Land-Snakes. Red-back'd Snake. Black Truncheon Snake. Scorpion-Lizard. Green Lizard. Frogs, many sorts. Long black Snake. King-Snake. Green Snake. Corn Snake. Vipers black and gray. Tortois. Terebin Land and Water. Brimstone-Snake. Egg, or Chicken-Snake. Eel-Snake, or great Loach. Brown ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... Pulcinella hesitated a bit. Then, frightened by a look from their master, they left the kitchen to obey him. A few minutes later they returned, carrying poor Pinocchio, who was wriggling and squirming like an eel and ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... as he lived: and the saint supported him afther he kem into his property, as I tould you, until the day iv his death—and that was soon afther; for the poor goose thought he was ketchin' a throut one Friday; but, my jewel, it was a mistake he made—and instead of a throut, it was a thievin' horse-eel; and by gor, instead iv the goose killin' a throut for the king's supper,—by dad, the eel killed the king's goose—and small blame to him; but he didn't ate her, bekase he darn't ate what Saint Kavin had laid ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... well have held an eel. She slipped from my hands, and ran back to her lodge. "So!" she cried, as she lifted the mat before her door. "So it is not the dog alone that smells at its food before it will eat. Why stay here? I have given you what you came to find. Take it." ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... me that she was of no very elevated birth and station,—nothing more; and she herself, with her quiet, say-nothing manner, slips through all my careless questionings like an eel. She is still a beautiful creature, more regularly handsome than even Evelyn; and old Templeton had a very sweet tooth at the back of his head, though he never opened his mouth wide enough ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 'I learned it in my father's hall, I learned it for my weel, That whan I come to deep water, I can swim as it were an eel. ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... were, of course, numerous, but hake and pollock struggled on many a hook. Besides these, there was the brim, a small, red fish, which is excellent fried; the cat fish, also a good pan fish; the cusk, which is best baked; the whiting, the eel, the repulsive-looking skate, the monk, of which it can almost be said that his mouth is bigger than himself, and last, but not least, that ubiquitous fish, the curse of amateur harbor fishers, the much-abused sculpin. Nor were fish alone ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... then in the constricted passageway that seemed to Ken to raise College Hall from its foundation. It terrified him. Like an eel he slipped through reaching arms and darted forward. Ken was heavy and fast on his feet, and with fear lending him wings he made a run through College Hall that would have been a delight to the football ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... small one at the bottom. It would be idle to attempt to describe all these wigs, how they swelled at the sides, and turned under in rolls, and rose in puffs, and then shrank to a small close wig that vanished at Revolutionary times in powdered natural hair and a queue of ribbon, a bag, or an eel-skin, and finally gave way to cropped hair "a-la-Brutus or a-la-Titus," as a Boston hair-dresser ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... large fat Eel and scour it well, throw away the head and gut her, and slit her down the back, season her with Pepper, Salt, Nutmeg and Mace, then boil her in white Wine, and Salt and Water, with a bundle of sweet herbs and some Limon Pill, when ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... Wilfrid was not absolutely engaged to Lady Charlotte (she had taken care of that), and being free, and feeling his heart beat in more lively fashion, he turned almost delightedly to the girl he could not escape from. As when the wriggling eel that has been prodded by the countryman's fork, finds that no amount of wriggling will release it, to it twists in a knot around the imprisoning prong. This simile says more than I mean it to say, but those who understand similes will know the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... into her room. Emilio, seeing Genovese leave the table, while Cataneo and Capraja were absorbed in a long musical discussion, stole to the door of the bedroom, lifted the curtain, and slipped in, like an eel into ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... eyes as if in self-abandonment to her fate, Cecily thought with more repugnance of home the nearer she drew to it. It was not likely that Reuben had returned; there would be again an endless evening of misery in solitude. When the cab was at the end of Eel size Park, she called the driver's attention, and bade him drive on to a certain other address, that of the Denyers. Zillah's letter of appeal, all but forgotten, had suddenly come to mind and revived her sympathies. Was there not some resemblance between ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... the name of Bel-Samen, adored the Supreme; and it is pretty remarkable that to this very day, to wish a friend every happiness this life can afford, we say in Irish, 'the blessings of Samen and Eel be with you!' that is, of all the seasons; Bel signifying the sun, and Samhain the moon." [220] And again: "Next to the sun was the moon, which the Irish undoubtedly adored. Some remains of this worship ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... settlements on the forks of the Wabash, thirty miles from fort Wayne; and at Mississineway, thirty miles lower down. A band of them, under the name of Weas, have resided on the Wabash, sixty miles above Vincennes; and another under the Turtle, on Eel river, a branch of the Wabash, twenty miles north west of Fort Wayne. By an artifice of the Little Turtle, these three bands were passed on General Wayne as distinct tribes, and an annuity was granted to each. The Eel river and Weas however to this day call themselves ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... the root of heresy with rigor and rude chastisement;"—such explosions of savage bigotry as these, alternating with exhibitions of revolting gluttony, with surfeits of sardine omelettes, Estramadura sausages, eel pies, pickled partridges, fat capons, quince syrups, iced beer, and flagons of Rhenish, relieved by copious draughts of senna and rhubarb, to which his horror-stricken doctor doomed him as he ate—compose a spectacle less attractive to the imagination than the ancient portrait of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... eel which has a habit of sticking to stones by its mouth," said Medenham. Then he added, after a pause: "Henry the First was sixty-seven years of age when he died, so the dish of lampreys ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... to his wounded comrade, who grunted out an emphatic assent. "He didn't seem to be so very strong, but he was just a trifle quicker than chain-lightning, and as slippery and wiry as—as—Why, an eel isn't nowhere ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... severe application, to the fools who think time given to be so wasted. Roses grow for me to gather: rivers roll for me to lave in. Let the slave dig the mine, but for me let the diamond sparkle. Let the lamb, the dove, and the life-loving eel writhe and die; it shall not disturb me, while I enjoy the viands. The five senses are my deities; to them I pay worship and adoration, and never yet have I been slack in the performance ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... and fro like an eel, striving, she saw, to overthrow his adversary. But the gigantic strength of madness was too great for his lithe activity. By sheer weight ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... I have hold of his mind. And I can slack it off or fetch it taut. And make him dance a score of miles away An answer to the least twangling thrum I play on it. He thought he lurkt at last Safely; and all the while, what has he been? An eel on the end of a night line; and it's time I haul'd him in. You'll see, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... should always leave room for one more fish or bug. One year I started with a lone newt and before the summer was over I had thirteen sunfish, pickerel, bass, minnows, catfish, carp, trout, more newts, pollywogs or tadpoles, five kinds of frogs, an eel and all sorts of bugs, waterbeetles and insects. I soon found that one kind of insect would kill another and that sometimes my specimens would grow wings over night and fly away. But to learn these things, even at our own disappointment ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... a weedless wheel. That is, it is specially designed for service in South American rivers of shallow draught where an ordinary propeller would soon get entangled in the weeds and water plants and stop. We guarantee this wheel to go through any tangle, just as an eel would." ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... usual at dawn, and "stood by" all the morning. The rumour now is that De Wet never went to Lindley at all, but only a small commando, and that he is at Ficksburg, fifty miles away on the Basuto border. What an eel of a man! ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... Why, she is as slippery as a young eel, and if you take your hand off her for a moment she would be off like a hare. No, no, we must make her safe. Beside," he whispered in Ralph's ear, "she would scream to a certainty if she saw any one else coming, then they might strike off and get round us. No, no, ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... round him curiously. There was a small window and it was high up. There was no furniture but the bench on which he was sitting. But Tim was the son of a mason, and it was not for nothing that he had lived with gipsies for so long. He was a perfect cat at climbing, and as slippery as an eel in the way he could squeeze himself through places which you would have thought scarcely wide enough for his arm. His sobs ceased, his face lighted up again; he drew out of his pocket his one dearest treasure, from which night or ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... letters, that I will content myself with mentioning the novelty of a Cuban country-dish, a sort of stew, composed of ham, beef, mutton, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yuca, and yams. This is called Ayacco, and is a characteristic dish, like eel-soup in Hamburg, or salt codfish in Boston;—as is usual in such cases, it is more relished by the inhabitants than by their visitors. On the present occasion, however, it was only one among many good things, which were made better by pleasant talk, and were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... to get a grip of her anywhere. For this reason, too, the keel was sunk in the planking, so that barely three inches protruded, and its edges were rounded. The object was that "the whole craft should be able to slip like an eel out of the embraces ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... of the reptile kind observed here, and found in the woods, were brown snakes two feet long, with whitish stripes on the back and sides, which are harmless, as we often saw the natives carry them alive in their hands; and brownish water-lizards, with a tail exactly like that of an eel, which frequented the small ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... from behind and keep out of the reach of her hands. But the tussle that ensues in the water is a short one, for the rescuer is no match for the supposed involuntary resistance of the convulsed suicide, who eludes the coming grasp of her hand with eel-like dexterity, and has her round the waist and drags her under water in ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... you may call it that," wailed Deborah, "with that serping on his poor mouth and him wriggling like an eel to get free. But 'ark, there's my pretty a-calling," and Miss Junk dashed headlong from the shop shouting comfort ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... caterpillar. Its colour is a vague yellow. On the summit of thinly sown tubercles crowned with a palisade of black hairs are set pearls of a turquoise-blue. The burly brown cocoon, which is notable for its curious tunnel of exit, like an eel-pot, is always found at the base of an old almond-tree, adhering to the bark. The foliage of the same tree nourishes ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... went by, and then I knew what the Scripture meant by 'The Spirit of God passed before his face.' I had won. I slipped through the crowd of men who had gathered about the players with the quickness of an eel escaping through a broken mesh in a net. My nerves thrilled with joy instead of anguish. I felt like some criminal on the way to torture released by a chance meeting with the king. It happened that a man with a decoration found himself short by forty francs. Uneasy eyes suspected me; I turned ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... "An eel in an osier trap has more chance of freedom," said Wulf gloomily. "Let us at least be thankful that we are caged together—for how long, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... Bill," remarked one of the couple who held Jem Hogg's lines, "Jem seems to be doin' somethin' uncommon queer—he's either got hold of a conger-eel by the tail, or he's amoosin himself ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... short, all the animals played the jester before the gigantic solemn frog, who sat as grave as Louis XV. "I do not like buffoons who don't make me laugh," said that majestical monarch. At last the eel danced on the tip of his tail, and the gravity of the prodigious Batrachian gave way. He laughed till he literally split his sides, and the imprisoned waters came with a rush. Indeed, many persons were drowned, though this is not the only Australian ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... with Bill as if he were his brother, and gets to know you, and many another in the village. Then our Jane goes down into t' town and would ha' lost her life if captain he hadn't been passing by and saaved her. Then he gets killed. Just gived his life for hearn. Looks like a fate aboot it; may be it eel be our toorn next, and if ever that lad waants a man to stand beside him Luke Marner will be there. And there's Bill too—oi believe that boy would lay down his life for him. He's very fond of our Janey—fonder ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... which are small, and rise only at the end of the village, yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's thumb (gobius fluviatilis capitatus), the trout (trutta fluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (lampaetra parka et fluviatilis), and the stickle-back ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... the balusters, I see 'im lookin' at a photograft. That's a funny place, I thinks, to look at pictures—it's so dark there, ye 'ave to use yer eyesight. So I giv' a scrape with me 'eel [She illustrates] an' he pops it in his pocket, and puts up 'is 'and to knock at number three. I goes down an' I says: "You know there's no one lives there, don't yer?" "Ah!" 'e says with an air of innercence, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... been made in the demarcation of Indian boundaries, I am now able to communicate, to you a treaty with the Delawares, Shawanese, Potawatamies, Miamis, Eel-rivers, Weeas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias, establishing the boundaries of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... as it resembles more the natural organ of the torpedo, or of the electrical eel, than the Leyden Phial or the ordinary electric batteries, I may call ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... slipped through his hands like the skin of an eel. She bounded from one end of the tiny room to the other, stooped down, and raised herself again, with a little poniard in her hand, before Gringoire had even had time to see whence the poniard came; proud and angry, with swelling lips and inflated nostrils, her cheeks as red as an api apple,* ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... claim to be the most straightforward and practical people in the world. Answer me this:—Did you, did anybody, ever know Gladstone to give a straightforward answer to any one question? Straight dealing is not in him. He is slippery as an eel—with all his 'honesty,' his piety, his benevolence. But as he reads the Bible in Hawarden Church, the English believe in him. They have no other reason that I can see. Have you heard any Irishman speak well of Gladstone? No, and ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... waters, and if the Chalaeans, like the Arabs who have succeeded them in these regions, clearly preferred these fish above others, they did not despise at the same time such less delicate species as the eel, murena, silurus, and even that singular gurnard whose habits are an object of wonder to our naturalists. This fish spends its existence usually in the water, but a life in the open air has no terrors ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... name Squanto, I been to London. I show you many things. How plant corn, by putting dead fish in hill. How to hoe corn and how to make into meal. I show you to catch eel and how make Indian moccasins, canoes and ...
— History Plays for the Grammar Grades • Mary Ella Lyng
... his spectacles, polished them, and replaced them on his nose. As he did so, the thin gruffle of the tarantula sounded once more. Without changing his expression, Clarence cautiously uttered the deep snarl of a sand-eel surprised while bathing. ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... five hours before in this very chamber where she frisked about like an eel, is now a junk of lead. Were you the Tropical Zone in person, astride of the Equator, you could not melt the ice of this little personified Switzerland that pretends to be asleep, and who could freeze you from head to ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... thy dimpling course, That sweetly warbles o'er its bed, With white, round, polish'd pebbles spread; 10 While, lightly poised, the scaly brood In myriads cleave thy crystal flood; The springing trout, in speckled pride, The salmon, monarch of the tide, The ruthless pike, intent on war, The silver eel, and mottled par. Devolving from thy parent lake, A charming maze thy waters make, By bowers of birch, and groves of pine, And edges flower'd with ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... passed. A few yards beyond this, the precipice becomes perpendicular, and, blending with the water, forms the extremity of the cave. After a stay of nearly ten minutes in this most horrible purgatory, we gladly left it to its loathsome inhabitants the eel and the water-snake, who crawl about its recesses in considerable numbers,—and returned to the inn—De Roos's Travels in the United ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... took in with delighted eyes. He ran down to the ford, dodging between pack-mules and jolting two-wheeled carts, and slipping eel-like past other pedestrians, forgetting Valerius, who hurried after. He strode from stone to stone, splashed by straining horses that tugged beside him, and sprang to shore upon the island. So he won to his ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... class-room opened, gathered our elated form, awaiting the arrival of Herr Reinhardt. He was late. He always was: and it was a mistake to be so, for it gave us the opportunity, when he drew near, of asking one another the time in French: "Kell er eight eel? Onze er ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... head of the ship, and he saw out before them a great, rough grey cliff. They went on towards it then, and they saw on the edge of the cliff a high rock, round-shaped, having sides more slippery than an eel's back. And they found the track of the Hard Servant as far as to the foot ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... head to foot; I angled for my own clothes with the dexterity and success of Izaak Walton himself. I caught my hat, my jacket, my waistcoat, my trousers, my fingers, and my thumbs—some devil possessed my hook; some more than eel-like vitality twirled and twisted in every inch of my line. By the time my host arrived to assist me, I had attached myself to my fishing-rod, apparently for life. All difficulties yielded, however, ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... anon, missus!" quoth he to an imaginary landlady inside, and twisting under Amyas's hand like an eel, vanished into the house, while Frank got the hot-headed ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... observed a man on one of the piers, spearing aiguilles de mer, a beautiful silvery fish, of which he had taken several. They were about two feet long, and of the shape of an eel, excepting in the form of their long picked heads and jaws, which correspond exactly with their name. The tunny is also caught in abundance near this part of the coast; and Vernet has introduced the fishery, from a lack of picturesque circumstances, into one of his sea-ports, painted by royal ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... very horizon, and steep crests of long breakers were rolling in regularly and breaking on the flat shore, I approached it, and walked along the very line left by the ebb and flow on the yellow, ribbed sand, strewn with fragments of trailing seawrack, bits of shells, serpent-like ribbons of eel-grass. Sharp-winged gulls with pitiful cry, borne on the wind from the distant aerial depths, soared white as snow against the grey, cloudy sky, swooped down abruptly, and as though skipping from wave to wave, departed again and vanished like silvery flecks in the strips of swirling foam. Some ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... was overpassed. Swaying tufts of vegetation marked the rapid passage of eel-like bodies. The Indians had decided on an advance, being encouraged probably by the latter inaccuracy of the plainsmen's fire. Besides, the day was waning. It was no cat-and-mouse game now; but a rush, like the other except that all but the last twenty or thirty yards would be made under cover. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... action at sea merely to please Doria; in this summer his luck stood to him, and he never came across this man, who, with a sombre hatred in his heart, was seeking him high and low. If the corsair were bold as a lion when occasion offered, he was no less as slippery as an eel when he desired to escape; to face twenty-two royal galleys with Doria in command was no part of his programme. An occasion might arise when he would be forced to action; should this happen Dragut had not forgotten ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... to the help of Mr. Raeburn was the youngest Britling boy, a beautiful contrast. It was like a puff ball supporting and assisting a conger eel. In front of Mr. Direck the little stout man was being alert. Teddy was supporting the attack near the middle of the field, crying "Centre!" while Mr. Britling, very round and resolute, was bouncing straight towards the threatened goal. But Mrs. Teddy, running as swiftly ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... in the back room yonder, which she got in somehow. The man followed her in, sneaking and sneaking like an eel or a cop, ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... on an eminence in the midst of the flat district forming the centre of the county of Cambridge, and was originally a settlement termed by the Saxons Eleg or Elge, i.e. "an eel," from the number of eels found in the fenny district around. St. Etheldreda, daughter of a king of the East Angles, founded an abbey here, where she died in 679, being afterwards canonised as a saint. The monastery was destroyed by the Danes in 870, and did not regain importance ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... till the latter shrinks back involuntarily, and ends by turning round, and leaving the sheet folded behind him. Should he awake, and strive to seize the robber, he catches at a slippery form, which slides through his hands like an eel; should he even succeed in seizing him, it would be fatal—the dagger strikes him to the heart, he falls bathed in his blood, and the assassin ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... they began to think themselves ill-treated in the appointment of so inert a Ruler, and sent a second deputation to Jupiter to pray that he would set over them another sovereign. He then gave them an Eel to govern them. When the Frogs discovered his easy good nature, they sent yet a third time to Jupiter to beg him to choose for them still another King. Jupiter, displeased with all their complaints, sent a Heron, who preyed upon ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... to none of my name," said Robin, whose eyes began to kindle, but keeping the command of his temper. "It was no coward's legs or hands, Harry Waakfelt, that drew you out of the fords of Fried, when you was drifting ower the place rock, and every eel in the river expected his share ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... there very bad, yet not quite so suffocating as on the island. The sea here affords abundance of excellent fish, some kinds of which I had never before seen; one of them resembling a large silver eel, but much thicker in proportion. The inhabitants of this desolate and forbidding place cure these fish in a very cleanly manner, and export large quantities of them by the vessels which come for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Mestigoit; the other was the most noted "medicine-man," or, as the Jesuits called him, sorcerer, in the tribe of the Montagnais. Like the rest of their people, they were accustomed to set out for their winter hunt in the autumn, after the close of their eel-fishery. Le Jeune, despite the experience of De Nou, had long had a mind to accompany one of these roving bands, partly in the hope, that, in some hour of distress, he might touch their hearts, or, by a timely drop of baptismal ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... more liquor into the Indian Bush on the Grand River Reserve and drawn more timber out of it to the Hamilton and Brantford markets than any forty dealers put together. Gradually, the law thinned the whole lot out—all but me; but I was slippery as an eel and my bottles of whiskey went on, and my loads of ties and timber came off, until every officer and preacher in the place got up and ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... the Cornishman landed heavily from time to time, but his opponent's elbow or forearm often broke the force. The lighter man was slippery as an eel, as hard to hit as a Corbett. Meanwhile, he was cutting his foe to ribbons, slashing at him with swift drives that carried the full force of one hundred seventy-five pounds, sending home damaging blows to the body that played the mischief with his wind. The big miner's face was a projection ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... quite triumphant, 'w'en yeh cut through hankles, shins, an' heverythin', all them nerves begin to shout, don't they?' 'Yes,' sez the doctor, not seein' w'ere father was at. 'Then,' sez 'e quick-like, 'w'at makes 'em all shout "Toes?" W'y don't the brain 'ear "Hankle" or "'Eel"?' Then the old doctor 'e did git mad an' 'e did swear at father most orful. But father, 'e knows 'ow to conduct 'isself, an' sez 'e quite dignified, 'I 'ope as 'ow I know 'ow to treat a gentleman.' This pulls ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... know? Levison slipped out of the escapade like an eel, and the woman protested that he was more sinned against than sinning. Three-fourths of ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... jet-like streams, like steam puffed out from a tea-kettle. Again, it will appear as a series of short puffs of steam-like appearance. Again, it will twist along like an eel or snake. Another time it will twist its way like a corkscrew. At other times it will appear as a bomb, or series of bombs projected from the aura of the thinker. Sometimes, as in the case of a vigorous thinker or speaker, these thought-form bombs will ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... manfully and courageously saluted her upon one rosy cheek, in the presence of the assembled guests, and then, to cover her confusion, she giggled and shook hands energetically with the company, telling JACK to "hold up his head and do the same, for it was com eel fut, and he must try to be fashionable ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... and his steed clean. Glancing at the passersby while he was thus ambling on his way, he suddenly encountered the round eyes of the sleek-headed Rob intently fixed upon his face as if they had never been taken off, while the boy himself, with a pocket-handkerchief twisted up like a speckled eel and girded round his waist, made a very conspicuous demonstration of being prepared to attend upon him, at whatever pace he might think ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... whose rooms were just below mine, suffered a good deal from practical jokers. One day I was chatting with Reggie Wragge when we heard loud cries for help just below us. We rushed down and found Jimmy in the bath, struggling with a large conger-eel which had been introduced by some of his friends. I held on to the monster's tail, while Wragge severed its head with a carving-knife. Poor Jimmy, who was always nervous and not very 'strong in his intellects,' was much upset, and was shortly afterwards ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... it on the market all right and they made some millionaires—but I wasn't one of 'em, Kiddo! They got me to sign a paper that skinned me out of every dollar as slick as you can pull an eel through your fingers. I hired another lawyer and gave him half he could get to beat 'em. He fought like a tiger and two days before I met you he got his verdict and they paid it—just ten thousand dollars. Think of it—ten thousand dollars! And each of them got a million ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... and Dan shook loose the linen, and a straight shining streak with specks of foam shot after us. The mast bent like eel-grass, and our keel was half out of the water. Faith belied her name, and clung to the sides with her ten finger-nails; but as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... plates with slices of cold eel in jelly, salmon in jelly, tongue, ham, potted meat, etc., complete the Smrgsbord, which is often composed of fifteen or ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... said Don Lorenzo, "I wish I could catch your worship tripping at a stretch, but I cannot, for you slip through my fingers like an eel." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with suspicious distrust, and it would hardly be a safe accomplishment to possess. One very curious group represents a man, long and lean, standing between two horses' heads, and by the side of a long serpent or fish, having the appearance of an eel. On the reverse side of this piece of horn were represented the heads of two aurochs or bisons. Mr. Dawkins thinks this also represents a hunting sketch, and that the man is in the act of striking one of the horses with ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... set out for sale on the butcher's block. Tripe and cowheel are regarded as dainties, and there is the whole range of mysterious English preparations of questionable meat, from sausage and polonies to saveloys and cheap pies. Soup can be had, pea or eel, at two or three pence a pint, and beer, an essential to most of them, is "threepence a pot [quart] in your own jugs." A savory dinner or supper is, therefore, an easy matter, and the English worker fares better in this respect than the American, for whom there is much ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... the speaker do? He tried another plan. "Ceres," he began, "made a voyage one day with an eel and a swallow. After a time the three travellers were stopped by a river. This the eel got over by swimming ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... "The biggest, fattest eel I ever saw," he declared exultantly. "Guess it must have been the first one Chris ever saw. They certainly do look ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... To see a dead eel, signifies that you will overcome your most maliciously inclined enemies. To lovers, the dream denotes an end to long and hazardous courtship ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Paredes, and there is a lot about this case that looks like ghosts, but leave us a few flesh-and-blood clues. This woman in black is one of them, although she's been slippery as an eel. It looks to me as if you went to the grave to meet her alone exactly as you went to the deserted house to talk quietly with her night before last. Maybe she mistook you for one of us snooping in the dark, and ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... number of causes of this trouble, all more or less obscure and hard to overcome. It is generally thought that it is due to poor nutrition, whatever the reason for poor nutrition might be. The presence of a nematode or eel worm on the roots has found to be a cause of mottle leaf in many cases. Poor drainage, too sandy soil and a number of other things frequently cause it. Whatever the cause, no one good method ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... up, and saw, "Here eggs, ham, eel-pies, and white wine may be had!" At this sight, Gorenflot's whole face expanded ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... little kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn up nose was fresh, and even piquant, his scanty hair was black as soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole. . . . However my taste has nothing to do with it. Groholsky who was spoilt by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times in his life, saw her as a beauty. He loved her, and blind love finds ideal ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... everlasting circles; at long intervals there was a faint ripple just perceptible round the floats, when a fish was 'playing' with the worm. Very few fish were taken; during a whole hour we drew up only two loaches and an eel. I could not say why the brigadier aroused my curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on me; ruined noblemen were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, and his appearance presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which covered the whole upper part of ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... that very sagacious question I had effectually caught my uncle. Not I. He slipped through it like an eel. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... made by Faraday, such as his experiments on disruptive electric discharges, his investigations on the electric eel, his many researches on the phenomena both of frictional electricity and of the voltaic pile, his investigations on the contact and chemical theories of the voltaic pile, and those on chemical decomposition by frictional electricity; these are but some of the mere important of them. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... him by the collar of his ragged tunic, and held him in a gripe from which the little man, though he twisted like an eel could not escape. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... 'em up piecemeal as we lay our hands on 'em now. We've got one—the man we roped in with Red Ike. He's as tight as an oyster; but while we've got him he can't do anything to help his pals. Then there's the Princess. She's as slippery as an eel; but if the Liverpool people can get hold of her we may reckon she'll be kept safe for a few weeks on the charge of drugging Blake. Then there's Ivan Abramovitch. We may be able to lay our fingers on him. If there's any more in this business I don't know 'em; but every ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... thought," he writes in 821 to his sister, "that anyone who was not cock-ide drunk would have known better than to of tried to walk bear-foot through that eel-grass from the beech up to the bath-house without sneekers on, which is what that ninn Aethelbald tryed to do this AM. Well say laffter is no name for what you would of done if you had seen him. He looked ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... to die, I can't tell where: Voices I call 'em: 'twas a kind o' sough Like pine-trees thet the wind's ageth'rin' through; An', fact, I thought it was the wind a spell, Then some misdoubted, couldn't fairly tell, Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel, I knowed, an' didn't,—fin'lly seemed to feel 60 'Twas Concord Bridge a talkin' off to kill With the Stone Spike thet's druv thru Bunker's Hill; Whether 'twas so, or ef I on'y dreamed, I couldn't say; I tell it ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... further. They had caught a considerable quantity of fish, but most of them were small. I noticed three different kinds; a small one that they call Cupi, from five to six inches long, and not broader than an eel; the common one, with large coarse scales, termed Peru; and a delicious fish, some of which run from a pound to two pounds weight; the natives call them Cawilchi. On our arrival at the camp they led ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... youth up the walk, saluted Miss Mayton, and told Toddie to give the bouquet to the lady. This he succeeded in doing, but as Miss Mayton thanked him and stooped to kiss him he wriggled off the piazza like a little eel, shouted, "Tum on!" to his brother, and a moment later my nephews were following the "cutter-grass" at a respectful distance ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... to those of a cat. In Victoria and New South Wales it is a fresh-water fish, Copidoglanis tandanus, Mitchell, brought abundantly to Melbourne by railway. It inhabits the rivers of the Murray system, but not of the centre of the continent. Called also Eel-fish and Tandan (q.v.). In Sydney the same name is applied also to Cnidoglanis megastoma, Rich., and in New Zealand Kathetostoma monopterygium. Cnidoglanis and Cnidoglanis are Siluroids, and Kathetostoma is a"stargazer," i.e. a fish having eyes on the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... grin. The same smartness that led him to take such advantage of his mother made him very sure that no one on the boat, except, maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One learns a great deal from a mere tone. Long Jack called over half a dozen ropes, and Harvey danced over the deck like an eel at ebb-tide, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... mine walking out one lovely evening last summer on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington Canal, was alarmed by the cry of 'One in jeopardy!' He rushed along, collected a body of Irish haymakers (supping on buttermilk in an adjoining paddock), procured three rakes, one eel spear, and a landing-net, and at last (horresco referens) pulled out—his own publisher. The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on enquiry, to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... met, at one o'clock of the night in question, crossing the fields toward his home, from the direction of the bank, with a large wicker basket slung over his shoulders, returning, as he had said, from eel-spearing in Harlow's Creek; and there ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... jealousy and caused some remorse; for out of every hundred persons walking about that hall fifty at least had "liquidated" their affairs. Gigonnet and Gobseck, who were talking together in a corner, looked at the man of commercial honor very much as a naturalist must have looked at the first electric-eel that was ever brought to him,—a fish armed with the power of a Leyden jar, which is the greatest curiosity of the animal kingdom. After inhaling the incense of his triumph, Cesar got into the coach to go to his own home, where the marriage ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... his brow—that he said he had got in the war As he led the van: (He never ran!) In short, he was the "General's" right-hand man, And had written his name on the pages of fame. He was smooth as an eel, And rode so genteel That in less than a week every old maid and dame Was constantly lisping the bold ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... the Rittmeister; "an eel, and a Frenchman, and nine long lives! Here, you hussar, what's the matter ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... smaller than he, but he seemed amazingly strong and active. He wriggled like an eel, all the time making frantic efforts to get his right hand free, and use ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... drying road as he trudged along. The smell of it emanated from the white, pale-yellow, and pink fungi that flourished on the soaked and ancient logs along the way. He heard the voice of it in the soft murmuring of the South Fork of the Eel, which went twinkling down Bear Valley through firs and redwoods straight as telegraph poles; in the caress of the soft south wind soughing in the tree-tops. Chipmunks and gray squirrels darted across ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... and a good deal frightened when King Eel came wriggling and swimming among them. But as the days went on, and the eel was perfectly harmless, they stopped being afraid; and as soon as they stopped fearing King Eel they stopped ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... supplies could be procured with little trouble. A trip across the bay brought one to the shores of a real village, with school house, post-office and other accessories of civilization. A trip down the bay opened into eel pots in August, bluefishing in September and deep sea fishing later on, when the ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... the youth; "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever: Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose— What made you so ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... halted there for refreshment, under guard, on their way to some prison in the interior, during the War of 1812. They were true British tars of the traditional type, with immense clubs of hair, tied up with eel-skins and hanging short and thick down their necks. They seemed in no wise depressed by their condition and in fact were treated extremely well, for the general feeling of the town was decidedly adverse to the war. ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... snatch for the prize. The ten avid fingers missed the bag; and came together with clawing force. But, before they met, the finger tips of the left hand telegraphed to the man's brain that they had had momentary light experience with something hairy and warm,—something that had slipped, eel-like, past them into the night;—something that most assuredly ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... salmon, eel, whitefish or any other, is also good with cheese smoked with hickory or anything with a salubrious savor, while a sandwich of smoked turkey with smoked cheese is out of this world. We accompany it with a cup of ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... chimney-piece a bloated old man in vineleaves that might be Silenus. And over against the door of the parlour what I took to be a picture of Potiphar's wife, she looked out of the paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. Birds and fishes in cases stared glassily,—owl and kestrel, jack and eel and gudgeon. All was clean and comfortable as ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare |
