"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rack of books is offered cheap before the door, with a fixed price upon a card, I come at a trot. And if a brown dust lies on them, I bow and sniff upon the rack, as though the past like an ancient fop in peruke and buckle were giving me the courtesy of its snuff box. If I take the dust in my nostrils and chance to sneeze, it is the fit and intended observance toward the manners of ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... them, and the two captains turned their heads. A portly, broad-shouldered gentleman, in a suit of snuff colour, came slowly across the court, with both hands behind him, and a cane ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the usual things—watches, rings, snuff-boxes, hair-ornaments, curios of minor value, and a few stones of bad colour. But the men crowded round me and extolled their wares like the hucksters of Europe, and beseeched me to buy in a most anxious manner. They would sell cheap, very cheap, they confessed, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... learned; whatever you are, above all things be warned from that in time by our sunken cheeks, by our poor pimply noses, by our meagre diet, by our acid-beer, and by our extraordinary suits of clothes, of which no human being can say whether they are snuff-coloured turned black, or black turned snuff-coloured, a point upon which we ourselves are perfectly unable to offer any ray of enlightenment, it is so very long since they were undarned and new." I do not ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... were in the habit of snatching away his dinner, and allowed him no peace of his life. Upon hearing this the Argonauts spread a plentiful feast on the seashore, well knowing from what the blind king said of their greediness that the Harpies would snuff up the scent of the victuals and quickly come to steal them away. And so it turned out, for hardly was the table set before the three hideous vulture-women came flapping their wings, seized the food in their talons and flew off as fast as they could. But the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... was used only for balls, and looked bare and shut up on ordinary days; a huge drawing-room, full of costly toys,—tables loaded with Sevres cups, other tables with processions of pug-dogs in precious china, snuff-boxes, patch-boxes; chimney-piece crowded with porcelain figures and bits of old Dresden ware; there was a great deal of carving and or-moulu,—but it all had the air of being created and kept for company use, and deserted the moment company went away. ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... besides a fee to the waiter; and he pathetically warned us to beware how we dealt with Italians. Indeed, I never met a man so thoroughly persuaded of the rascality of his nation and of his own exceptional virtue. He took snuff with his whole person; and he volunteered, at sight of a flock of geese, a recipe which I give the reader: Stuff a goose with sausage; let it hang in the weather during the winter; and in the spring cut it up and stew it, and you have an excellent ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... she turned, and a bright flush stained the pallor of her cheek. Together they then examined the eighteenth-century jewels, the paste buckles and hair ornaments, the enamelled watches, the gold and ivory tortoise-shell snuff-boxes, all these pretty trifles of a by-gone day which afforded an impression of harmonious richness under the clear morning sun. Everywhere about them, the flower-sellers were offering yellow and white jonquils, double violets, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... as the company, having dropped the discussion of all weighty matters, were now briskly circulating the bottle, and beginning to give way to noisy merriment—"here, Bart, you sleepy devil, come and snuff these candles. Our chap here," he continued, winking archly to those around him—"our chap Bart, or Barty Burt, to give the whole of his euphonious name, gentlemen, may be considered an excellent specimen of the rebel party, who talk so wisely about self-government, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... fire on Lord Dunseveric and his son. Hope's musketeers in the churchyard watched in silence while the little procession approached them. Neal, with his arm round the wounded boy, walked first. Lord Dunseveric, following, drew his snuff-box from his pocket, tapped it, and took a pinch, drawing the powder into ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... audepine (or anisic aldehyde) which is the perfume of hawthorn blossoms. But treating the other of the twin products, the fragrant oil, with dry acetic acid ("Perkin's reaction") we get cumarin, which is the perfume part of the tonka or tonquin beans that our forefathers used to carry in their snuff boxes. One ounce of cumarin is equal to four pounds of tonka beans. It smells sufficiently like vanilla to be used as a substitute for it in cheap extracts. In perfumery it is known as "new ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... Ottocar's presence; and in honor of him they named it KING'S FORTRESS, "Konigsberg:" it is now grown a big-domed metropolitan City,—where we of this Narrative lately saw a Coronation going on, and Sophie Charlotte furtively taking a pinch of snuff. Among King Ottocar's esquires or subaltern junior officials on this occasion, is one RUDOLF, heir of a poor Swiss Lordship and gray Hill-Castle, called HAPSBURG, rather in reduced circumstances, whom Ottocar likes for his prudent hardy ways; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face, as if stirred to his heart's core and himself regretting and laughing at his own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a pinch of snuff. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... house exhibited an ordinary manorial presentation of Elizabethan windows, mullioned and hooded, worked in rich snuff-colored freestone from local quarries. The ashlar of the walls, where not overgrown with ivy and other creepers, was coated with lichen of every shade, intensifying its luxuriance with its nearness to the ground, till, below the plinth, ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... leisure upon my hands!—What a matchless plotter thy friend!—Stand by, and let me swell!—I am already as big as an elephant, and ten times wiser!—Mightier too by far! Have I not reason to snuff the moon with my proboscis?—Lord help thee for a poor, for a very poor creature!—Wonder not that I despise thee heartily; since the man who is disposed immoderately to exalt himself, cannot do it but by despising every body ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... he blew, and she thinned to a thread, "One puff More's enough To blow her to snuff! One good puff more where the last was bred, And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... inoculation these hundred years, a circumstance that argues very much in its favour, since they are thought to be the wisest and best governed people in the world. The Chinese, indeed, do not communicate this distemper by inoculation, but at the nose, in the same manner as we take snuff. This is a more agreeable way, but then it produces the like effects; and proves at the same time that had inoculation been practised in France it would have ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... bairns in the wood, and from the door in the afternoon to watch the schule skail till each group was lost in the kindly shadow, and the merry shouts died away in this quiet place. Then the Dominie took a pinch of snuff and locked the door, and went to his house beside the school. One evening I came on him listening bare-headed to the voices, and he showed so kindly that I shall take him as he stands. A man of middle height, but stooping below it, with sandy hair turning to grey, ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... camp we again reached the summit of the plateau (elev. 2,300 ft.), with its patches of red volcanic earth, violet-coloured sand, and snuff-coloured dust—extremely fine in quality. After crossing a streamlet flowing south, we again continued our journey on the flat plateau, slightly higher at that point, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... several inches from the floor, on three small pegs. Through the middle a "pin" was placed so that the griddle might revolve as the bread etc., cooked on the side near the hottest part of the fire. Matches, a luxury, were then sold in small boxes the size of the average snuff box at ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... elegant tastes. His linen was spotlessly white, his cloth extremely fine, and his well-brushed hat shone smartly in the sunshine. Occasionally, as some one passed on the road, he might be seen to draw forth a handsome gold snuff-box and inhale a pinch with so graceful an air that an observer would be convinced he belonged to the highest classes of society. A malicious eye, it is true, might have discovered by close inspection that the brush had been too familiar with his coat ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... of Kilmarnock, it had been the fancy of the former to station herself under the window of his chamber in one of the dismal towers in which he was detained; to send messages to him, and to obtain his dog and snuff-box. But even this show of affected feeling failed to make compassion fashionable in the regions of St. James's. Calumny was busy at the grave of the beheaded Jacobites; and the accounts of those who attended them in their last hours were attacked ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... was as happy as any woman in Scotland. She could hardly speak any English except a few detached words. Dr. Johnson was pleased at seeing, for the first time, such a state of human life. She asked for snuff. It is her luxury, and she uses a great deal. We had none; but gave her sixpence a piece. She then brought out her whiskey bottle. I tasted it; as did Joseph and our guides, so I gave her sixpence more. She sent us away with many ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... drenched with wet, having traversed an almost trackless country over dreadful rocks and mountains, laid me up at a village for a few days, but I have since crossed the island on an ass, going for six hours a day, which proves I am pretty well, now, at least.... My locket, and the valuable snuff-box Lord Sligo gave me, and two pelisses, are all I have saved—all the travelling-equipage for Smyrna is gone; the servants naked and unarmed; but the great loss of all is the medicine-chest, which saved the lives of so many travellers ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... seizing. I speak with feeling. To-day again, being the first day humanly possible for me, I went down to Apia with Fanny, and between two and three hours did I argue with that old woman—not immovable, would she had been! but with a mechanical mind like a piece of a musical snuff-box, that returned always to the same starting-point; not altogether base, for she was long-suffering with me and professed even gratitude, and was just (in a sense) to her son, and showed here and there ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the well-known firm of Trevor Pilkington, fixed his horn spectacles carefully upon his nose, took a pinch of snuff, sneezed twice, gave his papers a preliminary rustle, looked slowly round the crowded room, and began to read the will. Through forty years of will-reading his method of procedure had always been the same. But Jack Summers, who was sharing an ottoman with two of the outdoor servants, thought ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... till the next morning, when I was summoned to my mother's chamber, where she sat up in bed, with her best Flanders-lace nightcap and ruffles on, her coral rosary blessed by the Pope, her snuff-box with the Queen's portrait, and her big fan that had belonged to Queen Marie de Medicis, so that I knew something serious was in hand; and, besides, my brothers Solivet and Walwyn sat on chairs by the head of her bed. Margaret ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... away almost all Books except Omar Khayyam! which I could not help looking over in a Paddock covered with Buttercups and brushed by a delicious Breeze, while a dainty racing Filly of Browne's came startling up to wonder and to snuff about me.' The 'friend' of the letter was of course Mr. W. K. Browne, who was more of an open air man than ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... of the Exchequer therefore had the choice of the direct attack on the purse or the increase of atmospheric pressure. For the present he chose the latter method, enhancing the duties on tea, wines, sugar, spirits, game licences, glass, tobacco, and snuff, besides raising the "Assessed Taxes" by ten per cent. The produce of some of these imposts is curious. Hair-powder yielded L197,000; the extra tea and wine duties L186,000 and L923,000, severally; those ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... you, glorious!" Spouter waved his hands eloquently. "Why remain cooped up here within the dingy walls of a school when the mighty plains, the boundless forests, the leaping streams, and the azure blue of the skies await you? Why snuff the tainted air of the musty classroom when the free ozone of the hills and mountains beckons to you? Why waste time over musty books when rifle and fishing rod can be had, when one can fling himself in the saddle and ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... of ballads, not one of them later than 1700, and some of them a hundred years older. I wheedled an old woman out of these, who loved them better than her psalm-book. Tobacco, sir, snuff, and the Complete Syren, were the equivalent! For that mutilated copy of the Complaynt of Scotland I sat out the drinking of two dozen bottles of strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who in gratitude bequeathed it to me by his last will. These little Elzevirs ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... tippet! All sorts of delightful possibilities whirled through her brain, as she tossed and tumbled the parcels in the chest out on to the floor. More bundles of pieces, some knitting-needles, an old-fashioned pair of bellows (Mell did not know what these were), a book or two, a package of snuff, which flew up into her face and made her sneeze. Then an overcoat and some men's clothes folded smoothly. Mell did not care for the overcoat, but there were two dresses pinned in towels which ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... braggart's cunning, dark alleys, stealth; we look not at a man's back but into his face; we prefer sunshine to darkness. And listen," tapping his sword: "he who has done this thing, be he never so far away, yet shall this long sword of mine find him and snuff his candle out." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... and Tilloch's Snuff; Scotch Barley and Carpeting and Porter by the Dozen; With a great Number of ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... to a cheaper and meaner house. In Clover Street (then Clover Lane) the little Dickens went to a school kept by a Mr. William Giles, who years afterwards sent to him, when he was halfway through with Pickwick, a silver snuff-box inscribed to the "Inimitable Boz". To the Mitre Inn, in the Chatham High Street, where Nelson had many times put up, Dickens was often brought by his father to recite or sing, standing on a table, for the amusement of parties of friends. He speaks of it in the ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... aside. The bull squeals; he staggers; he is down. Behind the ear. I say it. There the bullet went in. There will be much meat." The old man took snuff, and cast a proud look around as if he alone ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... forgotten which, or how many we've had. This is Anthony's hour—but he may take such advantage of it as he chooses—I'm indifferent. On top of my troubles I've contracted Desert Snivels. Whether the habit of using sand for snuff has produced the malady, or whether I've caught something (despite the tonic air) from nomads or oasis-dwellers, all of whom emit a storm of coughs and sneezes, I do not know. All desire to use this grand opportunity of taking Cleopatra's advice and winning Monny's ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... skin before and behind, except when gaily arrayed in beads, or ornaments of leopard's fur and teeth, for dancing or for battle. Their wealth was their cattle, and their mealie or maize grounds; their food, beef, mealies, and curdled milk; their drink, beer, made of maize; their great luxury, snuff, made of dried dacca and burnt aloes, and taken from an ivory spoon. Though sometimes acting with great cruelty, and wholly ignorant, they were by no means a dull or indolent people; they were full of courage and spirit, excellent walkers ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... smiling shake of the head and few graceful words of homage. The young men slyly noted the length of the Colonel's periwig and the quality of Mr. Hayward's Mechlin, while their elders, suddenly lacking material for discourse, made shift to take a deal of snuff. The Colonel took matters ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... tavern. He was given the most honored seat, in summer by the window, in winter by the fire. And although he was not a great talker like Jonson, the young wits crowded around him, eager for the honor of a word or a pinch from the great man's snuff-box. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... lady's-maid to her majesty, two louis; M. d'Ormesson, an audience; M. de Calonne, some good advice, M. de Rohan, a visit; at least, we will try to induce him," said she, smiling at the thought. "Well, then, I think I may hope for eight louis within a week." Then, looking up, "Dame Clotilde," she said, "snuff this candle." ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... pastime, and the fifteenth century as present to our minds as the age of Charles Second. This gallows-bird was the one great writer of his age and country, and initiated modern literature for France. Boileau, long ago, in the period of perukes and snuff-boxes, recognised him as the first articulate poet in the language; and if we measure him, not by priority of merit, but living duration of influence, not on a comparison with obscure forerunners, but with great ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dark?" returned Mathews, glancing stealthily around. "Never feel that eyes are looking upon you—cold, glassy eyes, that peer into your very soul—eyes which are not of this world, and which no other eyes can see? Snuff the candles, Mary. The room looks as ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... warn thee that boys who are in the habit of putting snuff upon the foot-stove of the school-mistress may one day be discovered, and receive ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... down the scale of her feelings, and before two weeks she'd give Isaac Thomas, at least, a quill for a pen. Almost no one wrote with them any more, but often father made a few, and showed us how to use them. He said they were gone with candles, sand boxes, and snuff. Mother said she had no use for snuff, but candles were not gone, she'd make and use them to the day of her death, as they were the nicest light ever invented to carry from room to room, or when you only wanted ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... struck twelve-and, bounce! -the lid flew off the snuffbox; but there was not snuff in it, but a little black goblin; you see, ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... enough to express his opinion, that it would not reach a second representation. The plot, he said, was bad, and the interest not sustained; "it dwindled, and dwindled, and at last went out like the snuff of a candle." The effect of his croaking was soon apparent within the walls of the theater. Two of the most popular actors, Woodward and Gentleman Smith, to whom the parts of Tony Lumpkin and Young Marlow were assigned, refused to act them; one of them ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... outside the shop when they returned; seeing them, he assumed the attitude of a figure taking snuff, and Gertie knew from this he was in good spirits. Mrs. Mills made the announcement that supper was waiting—a special meal because royalty had gone by that day to take train for Windsor—and Mr. Trew suggested Bulpert should have first cut at the food, the while he and ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... when he broke up an' went to the poorhouse. Doctor Prescott he foreclosed on him 'bout ten years ago—you don't remember. He had his old house torn down, an' sowed the land down to grass. I s'pose I paid more'n the clock was worth, but I guess it kept the old man in snuff an' terbaccer a while. Now you look at that clock; watch that pendulum swingin'. Now s'pose we say the left is poverty—the left is the place for the goats an' the poor folks that poverty has made goats; an' ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... numbering twelve, fifteen or even nineteen children. Girls marry young, and seem to be entirely satisfied with their condition. You seldom hear a desire expressed for anything they don't possess. Give them a box of snuff and a stick to chew it with and you never hear a murmur escape their lips. Tobacco is indispensable. Old and young, male and female, are wedded to it. I have known of an old gentleman working all day for fifty cents and spending forty ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various
... royal criticism, being duly reported and printed, removed the last let to aristocratic favor; fast young bloods of the highest nobility did not acorn to shake off their perfumes and air their profane vocabulary in the green-room, offering snuff and the incense of flattery together to the Tamerlane, the Romeo, or the Lord Hamlet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... attended to in ten minutes by one person. Still, the whole family remained in town for most of the day, spending the greater part of the time in standing on the streets, the women, too often, sitting about somewhere smoking or dipping snuff. Sunday was usually spent in going to some big meeting. With few exceptions, I found that the crops were mortgaged in the counties where I went, and that the most of the coloured farmers were in debt. The state had not been able to build schoolhouses in the country districts, ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... jades and lacquers—among the latter, the ordinary inkwells and sword-guards; a few snuff-boxes; some puppets in costume from Mexico and Italy; a few begrimed vellum-bound books in foreign languages (which he could not always read); and now and then a friend who was "breaking up" would give him a bit of Capo di Monte or an absurd enigmatic musical instrument from ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... he folded his arms as he stood there alone, As calm and as cold as a statue of stone; And they read a big writin', a yard long at laste, An' JIM didn't understand it, nor mind it a taste, An' the judge took a big pinch iv snuff, and he says, "Are you guilty or not, JIM O'BRIEN, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... to look something like new once every three or four years. She wore a demi-wreath of frizzly, flaxen curls close above her shaggy eyebrows, which were of the same color; and her very long, distended nose was always filled with snuff, which assisted in giving a trombone sound to as harsh a voice as ever passed through the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... A snuff-box made of the wood of the Victory, mounted in silver, is one of the clerks' valued possessions, and they have a goodly store of plate, in spite of the fact that they, like many of their distinguished ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... of this childhood strayed with quaint inconsequence across the field of his preoccupied mind. The peculiar odour of the ancient book-shop on the floor below remained like snuff in his nostrils. Somewhere underneath, or in the wainscoting at the side, he could hear the assiduous gnawing of a rat. Was it the same rat, he wondered with a mental grin, that used to keep him awake nights, in one of the rooms next to this, with ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... but not the table, was decorated with flowers, and singers, often placed in a gallery at one end, were employed the whole time. A gentleman usher acted as butler, and a yeoman was always at hand to keep out strange dogs, snuff candles, and light to bed the guests, who were not always in a condition to find their way upstairs without his help. The hours at this time were nine or ten o'clock for dinner (except on fast-days, when it was at noon), and three or four for supper. Two meals ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... other end of the compartment my fellow-passenger had pulled down the blinds, and hidden his face behind the Western Morning News. He was a red and choleric little man of about sixty, with a protuberant stomach, a prodigious nose, to which he carried snuff about once in two minutes, and a marked deformity of the shoulders. For comfort—and also, perhaps, to hide this hump—he rested his back in the angle by the window. He wore a black alpaca coat, a high stock, white waistcoat, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... provided. Wood for cooking and washing for the family is found, but when the master's work is done, the slave must find wood for himself if he has a fire. I have repeatedly known slave children kept the whole winter's evening, sitting on the stair-case in a cold entry, just to be at hand to snuff candles or hand a tumbler of water from the side-board, or go on errands from one room to another. It may be asked why they were not permitted to stay in the parlor, when they would be still more at hand. I answer, because waiters ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... had gone to bed and they were sewing by the fire. "Oh, ma! she told me more to-day about me insides than I would care to remember. Mind ye, ma, there's a sthring down yer back no bigger'n a knittin' needle, and if ye ever broke it ye'd snuff out before ye knowed what ye was doin', and there's a tin pan in yer ear that if ye got a dinge in it, it wouldn't be worth a dhirty postage stamp for hearin' wid, and ye mustn't skip ma, for it will disturb yer Latin parts, and ye mustn't eat seeds, or ye'll get ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... (if you can) your own nephew, and to wring the heart of your born brother! A footpad that kills an old granny in a woollen mutch with a dirty bludgeon, and that for a shilling-piece and a paper of snuff—there is all the warrior ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of snuff out of a fine gold box that he pulled out of his pocket, and dusted his fingers with a silk handkerchief in a very genteel fashion. "I'm only here for a few months," he said, "but if a testimony of my esteem would pacify your good ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... 'blowin' time' of it; he roared away like thunder; at last he puffed and puffed out till he bust like a b'iler. If I see the Speaker this winter (and I shall see him to a sartainty if they don't send for him to London, to teach their new Speaker; and he's up to snuff, that 'ere man; he knows how to cipher), I'll jist say to him, 'Speaker,' says I, 'if any of your folks in the House go to swell out like dropsy, give 'em a hint in time.' Says you, 'if you have are a little ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... must be convinced, by his own experience, of the difficulty with-which long habits are surmounted. I myself suffer some indulgence which yet I cannot prevail upon myself to forbear; this indulgence is the use of too much snuff, to which it is well known that many persons of rank are not less addicted; and, therefore, I do not wonder that the law is ineffectual, which is to encounter with the habits and appetites of the whole mass of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... midsummer's glow; Of hunger sharp it blunts the edge, And softens grief as some alledge. Thus, eased of care or any stir, I broach my freshest canister; And freed from trouble, grief, or panic, I pinch away in snuff balsamic. For rich or poor, in peace or strife, It smooths ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... mules did not stop till they reached the middle of the river, and stuck their heads, ears and all, under the water. Luke's diminutive, snuff-colored beast was so overcome by the sight and feel of water that she lay down in it, with him astride, giving herself and her master the first real bath since the time that she did the same thing, in the Platte ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... gems for Gretchen brought, Them hath a priest now made his own!— A glimpse of them the mother caught, And 'gan with secret fear to groan. The woman's scent is keen enough; Doth ever in the prayer-book snuff; Smells every article to ascertain Whether the thing is holy or profane, And scented in the jewels rare, That there was not much blessing there. "My child," she cries, "ill-gotten good Ensnares the soul, consumes the blood; With them we'll ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... short sermon from a printed book. I shall long have a distinct recollection of the figure and attitude of the Verger who attended the preacher. He followed him to the pulpit, fastened the door, became stationary, and rested his left arm over the railings of the stairs. Anon, he took out his snuff-box with his right hand, and regaled himself with a pinch of snuff in the most joyous and comfortably-abstracted manner imaginable. There he remained till the conclusion of the discourse; not one word of which seemed to afford him half ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and his favorite summer cravat was of light spotted muslin, tied in the neatest and smallest of bows. He used tobacco like his son, but in a different form. While the younger man smoked, the elder took snuff copiously; and it was noticed among his intimates that he always held his "pinch" in a state of suspense between his box and his nose when he was going to clinch a good bargain or to say a good thing. The art of diplomacy ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... bulldog of Fenwick's can't be far off, for there is a half-smoked cigarette on the end of the table which has not yet gone out. I think I can see my way now to working this thing without any trouble or danger. Do you happen to know if that rheumatic old caretaker uses snuff?" ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... friend, that I brought upon you the shame of my madness," Sancho cried out, "Woe's me, your worship, do not die this bout; take my counsel, and live many a good year. For it is the maddest trick a man can play in his whole life to go out like the snuff of a candle, and die merely ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... accounted for a half-dozen sans-culottes, and was hence in high glee, a man rejuvenesced. His sallies grew livelier and more barbed as the death-tide rose higher about him. His one regret was that he had been so hasty in casting his snuff box from him, for he was missing its familiar stimulus. At his side the Marquis was fighting desperately, fencing with his left arm, and in the hot excitement seeming oblivious of the pain his broken ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... cabinet he discovered a little enamelled box, much like a snuff-box, in which were also some of the white flakes. Quickly he emptied them out and replaced them with others from jars which had not been made up ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... the wonderful thing which had come to pass, that the Boers were beating the great white people, who came out of the sea and shook the earth with their tread. Whereon the neighbour would take the opportunity to relax from toil, squat down, have a pinch of snuff, and relate in what particular collection of rocks on the hillside he and his wives slept the last night—for when the Boers are out on commando the Kafirs will not sleep in their huts for fear of being surprised and shot down. Then the pair would spend half an hour or so in speculating ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... alum to a cup of water, and snuff it up from the hand. If necessary, soak in alum water a piece of absorbent cotton, which has been wound around the pointed end of a pencil or penholder; plug the nostril by pushing it up with a twisting motion ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... grinding Bones, Ores, Sand, Old Crucibles, Fire Clay, Guanos, Oil Cake, Feed, Corn, Corn and Cob, Tobacco, Snuff, Sugar, Salts, Roots, Spices, Coffee, Cocoanut, Flaxseed, Asbestos, Mica etc., and whatever cannot be ground by other mills, Also for Paints, Printers' ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... female,—depositing his Vyse, running his digits through his perfumed hair, raising his shirt-collar so as to form an angle of forty-five with his purple Gros de Naples cravat, and applying his gold-turned snuff-box to his nose, Money (who has lived long in England, and speaks its language well) ventured to address him, by demanding if he should place a cover for him. "Sar!—your—appellation—if—you please?" the drawling and affected response of the fop. "Money, Sir." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... bird reminds me of the musical snuff-box of the late Empress!' said an old courtier. 'Ah, yes, it is the same tone, ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... of the service recalls my wandering thoughts. I then find to my astonishment that I have been, and still am, taking a strong kind of invisible snuff up my nose, into my eyes, and down my throat. I wink, sneeze, and cough. The clerk sneezes: the clergyman winks; the unseen organist sneezes and coughs (and probably winks); all our little party wink, sneeze, and cough. The snuff seems to be made of the decay of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... him again. He was a big man, strong and bronzed, as if he lived in the open. When he smiled, his very blue eyes smiled too, and many little wrinkles appeared about them, as if his smile sent out rays, like the sun. He wore loose, snuff-coloured clothes, ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... trousing (which is breechen and stockings of one piece of striped stuff), with a plaid for a cloak and a blue bonnet. They have a ponyard knife and a fork in one sheath, hanging at one side of their belt, their pistol at the other, and their snuff-mull before, with a great broadsword by their side. Their attendance was very numerous, all in belted plaids, girt like women's petticoats down to the knee, their thighs and half of the leg all bare. They had each also their broadsword and poynard, and spake all Irish, an unintelligible ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... gipsy-looking, bonneted and gowned like her prototype, and almost as oracular. Here the resemblance ceases. Mrs. Adams is a perfectly honest, industrious, painstaking person, who earns a good deal of money by washing and charing, and spends it in other luxuries than tidiness,—in green tea, and gin, and snuff. Her husband lives in a great family, ten miles off. He is a capital gardener—or rather he would be so, if he were not too ambitious. He undertakes all things, and finishes none. But a smooth tongue, a knowing look, and a great capacity of ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... my darts and shroud I'll hurl. Then shall I free my horse, and he shall graze upon the grass that grows upon the Pyramids, sleep in the palaces of emperors, drink the last drop of water from the sea, and snuff the odour of the last slow drop of blood! By day, by night, through the countless ages, he shall roam through fields eternal as the fancy takes him; shall leap with one great bound from Atlas to the Himalayas; shall course, in his insolent pride, from heaven to earth; disport himself by caracoling ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... even that poor excuse. I might just as well say, "He takes the conceivable for the supposable and by his logic enlightens himself. One statement would be as valuable as the other and neither would be worth a pinch of snuff. Come, let us argue with dignity and composure, like honest men sincerely searching after truth, and eager to lend a hand in abolishing this social Inferno of legalized robbery which fairly threatens to consume ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Capuchin listened to me with watery eyes that twinkled suspiciously. He had a battered tin snuff-box in his hand, and his finger and thumb slowly chased a few scattered grains of snuff round and round the inside of the box all the time I was speaking. When I had done, he shook his head and said: "That was certainly ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Davy to Lovibond, "of Parson Cowan. The ould man lived up Andreas way, and after sarvice he'd be saying, 'Boys let's put a sight on the Methodees,' and they'd be taking a slieu round to the chapel door. Then as the people came out he'd be offering his snuff-boxes all about. 'William, how do? have a pinch?' 'Ah, Robbie, fine evening; take a sneeze?' 'Is that you, Tommy? I haven't another box in my clothes, but if you'll put your finger and thumb into my waistcoat pocket ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... I showed considerable generalship. If I had given him time to get at his other pistol, or his toasting fork, it was all up. I dived into my pocket, where by good luck there was some loose powder, and copper caps, and a snuff-box; upset the snuff, grabbed a handful of the mixture, and pulled hard at my horse. Next moment he was by my side, lifting his pistol to knock me over. So I gave him the mixture right in the face, and let him go by. Up went both his hands, and away went he and his horse, somewhere over the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... good deal of Frederick the Great, and has given in his second volume of "A View of Society and Manners in France," &c., many interesting particulars of his private and public life. Among these, he alludes to his using "a very large gold snuff-box, the lid ornamented with diamonds," and his taking "an immoderate quantity of Spanish snuff, the marks of which very often appear on his waistcoat and breeches. These are also liable to be soiled by the paws of two or three Italian greyhounds, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... little "Monkeyana," by Landseer; Chillon, by Wallis, from a drawing by Clarkson Stanfield—a sublime picture; Fonthill, an exquisite scene from one of Turner's drawings; Beatrice, from a picture by Howard; the Lake View of Newstead, after Danby; the Snuff-Box, from Stephanoff; and last, though not least, Gainsborough's charming Young Cottagers, transferred to steel, by J.H. Robinson—perhaps the most attractive print ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... thousand ways without success, and the house was filled with distraction, till, as we were deliberating what further measures to take, he returned from a petty gaming-table, with his coat torn and his head broken; without his sword, snuff-box, sleeve-buttons, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... discharged him. To his Grand-Vizier, however, he said: "That I call a good purchase, Mansor! How can I contain myself until I become an animal! Early in the morning, do thou come to me. Then will we go together into the country, take a little snuff out of my box, and hear what is said in the air and in the water, in the forest and in ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... 'Nay, more,' added he, 'a century afterward, Isabel of Bavaria was reproached with extravagance for having too much of linen in her trousseau." He was once hissed at Orleans, when performing the part of a starving and destitute man, for taking snuff out of a bit of paper. He had thought it improbable that the needy wretch he represented would carry a snuff-box. Guessing the cause of the public disapprobation, he produced a gold ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... summoned in haste by Isaac Flint, and to delay, was unthinkable. For eighteen years the chemist had lickspittled to the Billionaire. Keen though his mind was, his character and stamina were those of a jellyfish; and when the Master took snuff, as the saying is, Herzog never failed ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... then, looking up very simply and naturally, he met the gaze of two or three of them steadily in succession, and stared them out of countenance with a quiet smile. This turned the laugh against them; and he heard the remark that he was "up to snuff, and no mistake." No one ever tried to make Walter smoke again, but for some time it used to be a regular joke to pass round word at tea-time, "Let's make Tracy smoke," and as Tracy always did smoke till he got thoroughly used to it, he was generally ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... holds; death not far off. "Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" observed a calm, highly-dressed young buck, with an eye-glass in his eye. "Snuff, indeed!" growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. "Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" again observes the buck but with more urgency; whereon were produced several open boxes, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... stimuli that reach it through the sight or smell, usually the latter. There is no mental process at all in the matter, not the most rudimentary; there is simple reaction to stimuli, as strictly so as when we sneeze on taking snuff. Man alone has ideas of what is good to eat and what is not good. When a fox prowls about a farmhouse, he has no general idea that there are eatable things there, as the essayist above referred to alleges. He is simply following his nose; he smells something to which he responds. We think ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... hair, worn in ailes de pigeon, and duly powdered every morning by the barber from the Ecole Polytechnique, described five points on his low forehead, and made an elegant setting to his face. Though his manners were somewhat boorish, he was always as neat as a new pin and he took his snuff in a lordly way, like a man who knows that his snuff-box is always likely to be filled with maccaboy, so that when Mme. Vauquer lay down to rest on the day of M. Goriot's installation, her heart, like a larded partridge, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... were so near their destination. Maurice believed he could understand the motive that influenced the woman of the house—she hoped these strangers might be liberal enough to bestow a nickel upon Danny for his services; and possibly her stock of snuff was running low. ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... the vapid glory of fine clothes, and a great periwig. A very prince of coxcombs, with his soft smile and conscious air of superiority—a mere bag of vanity, whose emptiness is partly hidden by gorgeous raiment, gold embroidery, rings, snuff-box, muff and what-not. With what genteel condescension does he greet Sir Charles; how gracefully nonchalant is he to my Lord Morelove. "My dear agreeable! Que je t'embrasse! Pardi! Il y a cent ans que je ne t'ai veu. My lord, I am your ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... were fain o' ither, [glad] And unco pack and thick thegither; [intimate] Wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit; Whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit; [moles, dug] Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, And worried ither in diversion; Until wi' daffin' weary grown, [merriment] Upon a knowe they sat them down, [knoll] And there began ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within this secret nursery were deposited near a hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately excluded to contain any rudiments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the influence of the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... really a snuff-box with the marquis' portrait enamelled in miniature on the lid, which he had placed upon the table near his plate during the time ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "fine fleur," and making over all her property to him. Soon afterwards, covered with rouge, and redolent of perfume a la Richelieu, surrounded by negro boys, delicate-shaped greyhounds and shrieking parrots, she died on a crooked silken divan of the time of Louis XV., with an enamelled snuff-box of Petitot's workmanship in her hand—and died, deserted by her husband; the insinuating M. Courtin had preferred to remove to Paris with her money. Ivan had only reached his twentieth year when this unexpected blow (we mean ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances, "Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason,[206-1] that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... often, in past days, My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, That I should one day find thy lord and thee. Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; For thou hast gone where I shall never go, And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, Corn in a golden platter ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... thou infamous bawd! Sooner will I vagabondize with my violin and fiddle for a bit of bread—sooner will I break to pieces my instrument and carry dung on the sounding-board than taste a mouthful earned by my only child at the price of her soul and future happiness. Give up your cursed coffee and snuff-taking, and there will be no need to carry your daughter's face to market. I have always had my bellyful and a good shirt to my back before this confounded scamp put his nose into ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Cayla became the hope and the mainstay of the altar and the throne. The scheme succeeded. The King was touched by her grace and beauty, and she became indispensable to his happiness. His happiness was said to consist in inhaling a pinch of snuff from her shoulders, which were remarkably broad and fair. M. de Lamartine has related the romance of her life in the thirty-eighth book of his 'Histoire de la Restauration,' and Beranger satirised her in the bitterest of his songs—that which bears ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... memorable clan of Fraser, and if he said his name was Simon to give him half-a-crown, at that time no small gift in Stratheric; but the old women, of all others, were those he was at most pains to win, even in the lowest ranks. He never was unprovided with snuff and flattery, both which he dealt liberally among them, listened patiently to their old stories, and told them others of the King of France, and King James, by which they were quite captivated, and concluded by entreating ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Edward S. Kent, at Cliftondale, are engaged in washing crude hair and preparing it for plastering and other purposes, such as curled hair, hair cloth, blankets, etc. They each give employment to quite a number of men. Albert H. Sweetser makes snuff, succeeding to the firm of Sweetser Bros., who did an extensive business until after the war. The demand for this kind of goods is more limited than formerly. Joseph. A. Raddin, manufactures the crude tobacco from the leaf into chewing and smoking tobacco. Edward O. Copp, ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... engagement prevented Mr. Walter's staying late—he had his coffee and went away. Eliza enjoyed her evening very much, and means to cultivate the acquaintance; and I see nothing to dislike in them but their taking quantities of snuff. Monsieur, the old Count, is a very fine-looking man, with quiet manners, good enough for an Englishman, and, I believe, is a man of great information and taste. He has some fine paintings, which delighted Henry as much as the son's music gratified ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... Joseph's friend Pharaoh, or the Duke of Alva's leading-staff, or the dagger that killed the Duke of Buckingham (all of which I have seen), or any other almost incredible thing, might make its appearance. Gold snuff-boxes, antique gems, jewelled goblets, Venetian wine-glasses (which burst when poison is poured into them, and therefore must not be used for modern wine-drinking), jasper-handled knives, painted Sevres teacups,—in short, there ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sprinkled with terms of commerce and Indian policy. Supper over, all rose. The table was cleared, wine and glasses brought and set upon it, between the candles. The young folk vanished. Bright as was the night, the air carried an edge. Mr. Touris, standing by the fire, warmed himself and took snuff. Strickland, who had left the hall, returned and placed her ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... du compte, what was I to do, if a banker did not choose to honor a check drawn by his dead grandmother? I began to wish I had my snuff-box back. I began to think I was a fool for changing that little old-fashioned gold for ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... in the least out of humour at losing so immensely; on the contrary, he was quite jovial; indeed, from his looks he might have been supposed to be the winner. At length, however, he said with a smile, taking a pinch from his golden snuff-box—'I am evidently not in vein. I have lost eighty thousand francs. I see that I shall soon be in for one hundred thousand. But it is proper, my dear sir, that I should say I don't make a habit of losing more than this sum at a sitting; and if it must be so, I propose to sup before ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... there was silence, while I sat immovable revolving the situation, and the Zulus regarded me with a benignant interest. Goza took his snuff-box from his ear, shook out some into the palm of his hand and, after offering it to me in vain, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... for if I had been out on a matrimonial venture; but I would rather have had one limb of that old heathen than the whole body of his "civilised" son, for with all his faults he looked a man. A chum of mine who knew the ways of these people had advised me to purchase a horn of snuff before being presented to the bride and groom, and ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... bo-peep behind them. He tried a few drawers, and found that they stuck fast; and when he at last opened one, its contents were two old dried-up horse-balls, and a dirty tobacco-pipe. He took down a jar marked Epsom salts, and found it full of Welsh snuff; the next, which was labelled cinnamon, contained blue vitriol. The spatula and pill-roller were crusted with deposits of every hue. The pill-box drawer had not a dozen whole boxes in it; and the counter was a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... yet most civilly steering, When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing; When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... approached, that she "could arrange her cow for herself and did not want any help," which she proved by tying a big blue handkerchief over the animal's eyes, producing instant docility; and then she was led away by her flushed but triumphant mistress, who calmly settled her cap, and took a pinch of snuff to refresh herself, after a scuffle which would have ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Bimbes? Please present all manner of compliments to her." "Miss Bimbes" was a dog. At another time he wrote a pathetic little poem on the death of a starling. While in the midst of the composition and rehearsal of "Idomeneo" he wrote to his father: "Give Pimperl (a dog) a pinch of Spanish snuff, a ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... market-town on the Kent, 38 m. S. of Carlisle; manufactures heavy woollen goods, paper, and snuff; it owes the introduction of its woollen manufacture to the settlement in it of Flemings in the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... not that seem to yon a short-sighted policy," he was urging upon his auditor, with the assistance of a thumb and forefinger of one hand, joined as upon a pinch of snuff, and tapping the centre of the other palm; "does not that appear inexcusable profligacy of extravagance, which fells and consumes whole surface forests of magnificent trees—virgin growth—(I use the term ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... hear the master!" was distinguishable on all sides. Mr. Brithwood looked too enraged for words; but Lord Luxmore, taking snuff with a ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... as white as silver. I heard it said, that when young he was considered one of the bravest and handsomest officers in the French army. He was very quiet in his manners, spoke very little, and took a large quantity of snuff. He was egotistic to excess, attending wholly to himself and his own comforts, and it was because the noise of children interfered with his comfort, that he disliked them so much. We saw little of him, and cared less. ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... drawn his speculations more from practice. No peer has condescended to superintend with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor commons. "With thrice great Hermes he has outwatched the Bear." Often have his candles been burned to the snuff, and glimmered and stunk in the sockets, whilst he grew pale at his constitutional studies; long, sleepless nights has he wasted, long, laborious, shiftless journeys has he made, and great sums has he expended, in order to secure the purity, the independence, and the sobriety of elections, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... aware of the fears of the family of Maulincour about this mysterious person who was bold enough to swear the death of an officer of the Guards, in defiance of the law and the police. The chief pushed up his green spectacles in amazement, blew his nose several times, and offered snuff to the vidame, who, to save his dignity, pretended not to use tobacco, although his own nose was discolored with it. Then the chief took notes and promised, Vidocq and his spies aiding, to send in a report within a few days to the Maulincour ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... recovered their senses. The first thing the woman did was to acquaint herself with the name of the person who saved her, and to express to him her liveliest gratitude.—Finding, doubtless, that her words but ill expressed her feelings, she recollected she had in her pocket a little snuff, and instantly offered it to him,—it was all she possessed. Touched with the gift, but unable to use it, M. Correard gave it to a poor sailor, which served him for three or four days. But it is impossible for us to describe a still more affecting scene, the joy this unfortunate couple testified, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous |
