"Coiled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his stomach! So here was the monstrous secret, ejected from its lurking place into public view, in all its horrible deformity. The mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. He, if it were anything but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den. The empiric's cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, of some stupefying drug which more nearly caused the death of the patient than of the odious reptile that possessed him. When Roderick ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... did not apparently improve in proportion, Far View House shows increase in the number and variety of the decorative figures incised on hewn stones. The spiral, representing the coiled serpent, appears a number of times, as do many combinations of squares, curves, and angles arranged in fanciful design, which may or may ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... and showed the two astonished men a carefully-coiled mass of black hair, wound round and round the back of the head. And into it he slipped his own long, thin fingers—to draw them out again with an exclamation which indicated ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... be, and perhaps you may be able to say, whether he is a worthy person or not; for my part, I should only regard him as one to be watched jealously and carefully avoided. There is something creepingly malignant in the look which shoots out from his glance, like that of the rattlesnake, when coiled and partially concealed in the brake. When I looked upon his eye, as it somewhat impertinently singled me out for observation, I almost felt disposed to lift my heel as if the venomous ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Island of Corsica. It was one hundred and ten miles in length, and contained six copper wires one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, individually insulated, and each covered with a coating of gutta-percha one-twelfth of an inch in thickness. The cable was coiled in a dry pit in the yard, with its two ends accessible. The ends of the different wires could be united, so as to make of all these wires merely one wire six hundred and sixty miles in length, through which the electric current could circulate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... spirit as I lounge through the barn-yard, if I find the old hens gone about their family affairs, I do not mind a meadow-lark's singing in the top of the elm-tree beside the pump. In these excursions the watch-dogs know me for a harmless person, and will not open their eyes as they lie coiled up in the sun before the gate. At all the places, I have the people keep bees, and, in the garden full of worthy pot-herbs, such idlers in the vegetable world as hollyhocks and larkspurs and four-o'clocks, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was on firm earth again, and in a minute or two the drawling call of the conductor brought the party back to the train. The journey was renewed, and the incident forgotten by everybody save the dramatist, who sat coiled in his corner, with his eyes fixed upon a book which he might as well have held upside-down. The women of the company, five in number, were chattering like a nest of starlings, shrilling high against the slow rumble of the wheels. Miss Hampton alone was silent amongst them. Their talk was of ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... wonderful fellowship with Nature, liking even its wildest, most uncouth forms. The snakes, with shining skin and sinuous movement, glistening like streams of water, or lying coiled like stagnant pools amid the rank luxuriance of grass and flowers, were as eagerly watched by her as the most brilliant butterfly that ever fanned a blossom. She had a faculty for tracing resemblances in the material creation, akin to that, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... raise the other end of the horn and place it against a large tree. He did so. It coiled itself round the tree like a snake, it grew rapidly; the enemy was held hard and fast. Then the two began to dispatch her. It was long and weary work. Such a being, to be killed at all, must be hewed into small pieces; flesh and bones must all be ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... were spelled, my neck was coiled, And I with their fury was glowing, When the marbly waters bubbled and boiled At a watery noise ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... left hand was a ring—a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a monogram that might have been either "B.K." or "B.L." On the third finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give the full ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... exceeding hush, there was a strange and ghastly sound,—it was the howl of a dog! Helen started from her sleep. Percival's dog had followed her into her room; it had coiled itself, grateful for the kindness, at the foot of the bed. Now it was on the pillow, she felt its heart beat against her hand,—it was trembling; its hairs bristled up, and the howl changed into a shrill bark of terror and wrath. Alarmed, she looked round; quickly between her and that ray from ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Chinese girl should be dressed brightly with large, square, loose hanging sleeves, a broad sash tied on one side, her hair brushed flat, coiled in the back, with haircomb and pins thrust into the coil. She may have a Japanese parasol ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... of the tropics there are tree-snakes that twist among boughs and shrubs, or lie coiled up on the dense masses of foliage. These are of many distinct groups, and comprise both venomous and harmless genera; but almost all of them are of a beautiful green colour, sometimes more or less adorned with white or dusky bands ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... force, however; and by many heavy strokes won a way into the tomb, for such I found it to be. The stone door having fallen into the entrance I passed over it into the tomb, noting as I went a long iron chain which hung coiled on a bracket ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... than her tonnage warranted. Royson was sailor enough to perceive that her masts and spars were intended for use, and, when he reached her deck, to which much scrubbing and vigorous holy-stoning had given the color of new bread, he knew that none but men trained on a warship had coiled each rope and polished ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... few weeks old. Parts of it are very rough and ridgy, jammed together like field-ice, or compacted by rolls of lava, which may have swelled up from beneath; but the largest part of the area presents the appearance of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation of the lava rendering the illusion almost perfect. These are riven by deep cracks, ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... once. I pushed in, but it was as dark as Hades here, so, after struggling for a time in a labyrinth of chambers, chose a sandy recess, with some dry herbage by way of bedding in a corner, and there, thankful at least for shelter, my night's wanderings came to an end and I coiled myself down, ate a last handful of dry fruit, and, strange as it may seem, was soon ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... impels untutored minds to slay, and which we, in our civilised ignorance, call savage treachery, they are yet kind-hearted and hospitable to those who learn their ways and regard their customs. A tall, light-skinned, muscular people, the men with long, straight, black hair, coiled up in a knot at the back, and the women—the descendants of those who sailed with broken Fletcher Christian and his comrades of the Bounty in quest of a place where to die—soft-voiced, and with ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up at Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already unwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully removed the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following one another uninterruptedly, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... another would paralyse into idiocy their wisest sage; that a third would strike lifeless to the dust their most stalwart champion; that tears and laughter, vigour and disease, madness and reason, wakefulness and sleep, existence and dissolution, were coiled up in those unregarded leaves,—would they not have held him a sorcerer or a liar? To half the virtues of the vegetable world mankind are yet in the darkness of the savages I have supposed. There are faculties within ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... taken off her hat, and her hair was coiled close about her exquisite head. White and black, regular, significant, antique—like a cameo of some Greek woman, long dead. She stood by a little table, one hand on it, the other like some butterfly against her gown.... It was like a pose—but ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Elsewhere in this volume I have referred to the origin of the spiral symbolism and have shown that it became associated with the pearl before it became the symbol of thunder. The pearl-association in fact was one of the links in the chain of events which made the pearl and the spirally-coiled arm of the octopus ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... excitement followed. Each fellow ran around, trying to find a suitable stick, that would be stout enough to do execution, and at the same time have sufficient length. For now that they knew what its species was, the coiled serpent looked terribly ugly, as, with head drawn back, she waited for another attack, all the while sounding her rattle like a ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... when Lucien, who had been prowling about, lifting up stones and looking under stubs in order to find insects, loudly called out to me. When I got up to him, I saw at the bottom of a hole a coral-serpent, measuring about a yard in length. The reptile was coiled up, and remained motionless while we admired its beautiful red skin, divided at intervals with rings of shining black. L'Encuerado promptly cut a forked stick and pinned the animal down to the ground. The prisoner immediately tried to stand up on end; ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... he discarded because one or two strands in it were, or might be, a trifle frayed. The others he took alternately and whirled with a broad loop, standing in the centre of the room. Of the set one was a little more supple, a little more durable, it seemed. This he selected and coiled swiftly. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... an emblem seems to have been somewhat of a favorite among the colonists. Besides Franklin's snake of the many initials—which, indeed, might have stood, or coiled, for any sort of serpent—there was the one borne by Patrick Henry's men when they forced the Governor of Virginia to pay for the powder which he had carried away from the colonial magazine. Then, too, ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... cables, prettily set with spiral filaments or tendrils, by means of which it can make fast to any point. When not in use, it can retract them, and stow them away in two sacs or pouches within the body, where they may be seen coiled up, through the transparent walls. The mouth is a simple opening at one pole of the globular body. No arms are needed. The beroe is spared the labour and uncertainty of the chase. As it dances gaily along, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... (hoist), pointing to the ground under the stranger's feet. He "histed" obediently, which is to say that he voluntarily threw into play the spinal center for leg flexion; and then, looking down, saw a rattler coiled just beneath where his feet had been hanging. Now even if he had spied the rattler first, the resulting flexion, though impulsive and involuntary, would still have been aroused by way of the motor area and the pyramidal tract, since the movement would have been a response to knowledge ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... an enormous monster, whose head rested on the top of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, its body filled the whole valley of Luz, St. Sauveur, and G['e]dres, and its tail was coiled in the hollow below the cirque of Gavarnie. It fed once in three months, and supplied itself by making a very strong inspiration of its breath, whereupon every living thing around was drawn into its maw. It was ultimately killed by making a huge bonfire, and waking it from ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... he came back to all his dear families, and he coiled up his trunk and said, 'How do you do?' They were very glad to see him, and immediately said, 'Come here and be spanked for your ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... very much at first, but the Bull-frog offered his services, although he confessed that he was accustomed to sing alone. Then the gentlemen drew on their gloves, flattened their wings, pulled up their collars, and coiled away their tails; while the ladies tightened their garters, ruffled their feathers, and put out their feelers. Oh how they did dance! reels were nothing to it. The greatest difficulty was to keep the Grasshoppers in order. They became so excited that they sprang quite out of sight every moment, ...
— The Butterfly's Ball - The Grasshopper's Feast • R.M. Ballantyne
... Meg's den some time later the little gutter rat who, a few hours before, had brought the two thugs back to Balcom and Old Meg was coiled up in a ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... shadow, for the more gradual, but not less curious, formation of a street in what seemed to be space; for the sudden creation of windows in dead walls, for the turning of fantastic shadows into palpable carts, baskets, piles of wood, and the like; and for the discovery of a number of coiled-up dogs (and one or two coiled-up men) who had weathered the ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... and royalty. A narrow forehead retreated rapidly till it was lost in the crisp wool, while his eyes were wide apart, and his prominent cheek-bones formed the base of an inverted cone, the apex of which was his braided beard, coiled up under his chin. When earnest in talk, his gestures were mostly made with his head, by straining his eyes to the rim of their sockets, stretching his mouth from ear to ear, grinning like a baboon, and throwing out his ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... disturbed the pirate's progress; for, though there were plenty of them coiled or crawling near, yet their instinct probably taught them that he was a monster with a more deadly poison than themselves, and whose fangs were sharper, though his tongue did not hiss a note of warning. Captain Brand put down his burden and crept forward on hands and knees, the blazing torch lighting ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... three dogs. Roger Williams, a fine Newfoundland, stood on the piazza with the questioning, patronizing air of a dignified host; a bright-faced Scotch terrier, Charles Dickens, peered at us from the window, as if glad of a little excitement; while Carl, the graceful greyhound, was indolently coiled up on a shawl and took little ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... clambered into his hammock. Tita drew the mosquito net over him, wrapt another round her own head, and slept, or seemed to sleep; for she coiled herself up upon the floor, and master and slave soon snored a merry bass to ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... do with me, for instance?" and Bud stretched himself up as if to shake out the reserve power coiled up ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... its bonds, and emitting a hollow sound, as of escaping gas. The basket was made fast directly, the telescopes tossed into place; the Professor climbed to the side, holding by the network; and I coiled up in a ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... 'professionals,' including an unusually prepossessing likeness of Schneider, decked the walls. Satin tights, exquisitely pink, hung out of a half-open trunk. The danseuse was seated at a small table, her own profuse golden hair coiled after an indolent fashion, while her diamonded fingers were hard at work saturating some superb yellow tresses in a saucerful of colorless fluid, a bleaching agent for continuing the lustre of blond hair. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... to open it, but the catch was obstinate, or rusty, and several ineffectual efforts were made, ere he succeeded in moving the spring. The once white velvet cushion, had darkened and turned very yellow, but time had robbed in no degree, the lustre of the magnificent sapphires coiled there; and the blue fires leaped out, as if rejoicing in the privilege of displaying their splendor. "This set of stones was intended as a gift to your mother, when she was graduated at boarding-school. The time fixed ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... dat when I got to be ten year old, I'd have a snake coiled up on my liver. Dat scared me mos' to death 'til I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... a much more difficult charge, for Arthur had hardly a word that he could understand. He found the poor fellow coiled up in a corner, just where he had seen his former master's remains disappear, still moaning and weeping bitterly. As Arthur called to him he looked up for a moment, then crawled forward, striking his forehead at intervals against the deck. He was about ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... market place directly school was over. She always held the same stall in the same position on market days,—and she sat under her red umbrella on a rough wooden bench, knitting rapidly, now keeping an eye on her little lame son, coiled up in a piece of matting beside her, and anon surveying her stock-in-trade of ducks and geese and fowls, which were heaped on her counter, their wrung necks drooping limply from the board, and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... made man king of all. He set up his rain-making machinery with the smile of a fatalist. For hundreds of miles its sinuous beams sprang into the sky, writhed about like great, hungry serpents with their tremendous sucking and receiving maws, then coiled back to earth bringing not a drop. But one day the Mirror again showed small, faint clouds upon its surface. They were scattered over various parts of the world and their presence made Omega wonder. There appeared to be no reason ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... plain white robe. Her arms and feet were bare, as was the custom in those days; and no rings nor chains glit-tered about her hands and neck. For her only crown, long braids of soft brown hair were coiled about her head; and a tender smile lit up her noble face as she looked into ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the pit. The sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There was an universal cry of 'Alive or dead?' and then a deep, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... a glimpse of the Inferno seen by some Chinese Dante. But so close to us stood the newcomer that I was able to make out a ghastly parchment face, with small, oblique eyes, and a misshapen head crowned with a coiled pigtail, surmounting a slight, hunched body. There was something unnatural, inhuman, about that masklike face, and something repulsive in the bent shape and the long, yellow hands clasped ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... sea-stained and rotten. But the variety under notice takes a higher place in the deceptive art, for it seems to pose as an understudy to one of the most nimble and vicious habitants of the sea—the banded snake. It lies coiled and folded among the stones and coral of the reef, or partially hidden by brown seaweed, which heightens its momentary effect upon the nerves of the barefooted Beachcomber. Its length is from 4 to 5 feet, girth about 3 inches, colour reddish brown, with darker bands and blotches. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... and instructive prophet. John Bull is asleep, or rather in a vision; the cunning demon, Speculation, blowing a thousand bright bubbles about him. Meanwhile the rooks are busy at his fob, a knave has cut a cruel hole in his pocket, a rattlesnake has coiled safe round his feet, and will in a trice swallow Bull, chair, money and all; the rats are at his corn-bags (as if, poor devil, he had corn to spare); his faithful dog is bolting his leg-of-mutton—nay, a thief has gotten hold of his very ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... down about an hour, and the bustle and confusion necessarily attending an entrance into port had subsided. The sails were stowed, the decks were cleared up, and the ropes were coiled. A port watch was set. The crew had received their "liberty," and there was much wondering among them whether Esquimau eyes could speak a tender welcome. Nor had the Danish flag been forgotten. That swallow-tailed emblem of a gallant nationality—which, according ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... your hopes are blighted[178] till Sorrow and Shame are handmaids of your cabin— Famine and Poverty your guests at table; Despair your bed-fellow—then rise, but not From sleep, and judge! Should that day e'er arrive— 110 Should you see then the Serpent, who hath coiled Himself around all that is dear and noble Of you and yours, lie slumbering in your path, With but his folds between your steps and happiness, When he, who lives but to tear from you name, Lands, life itself, lies at your mercy, with Chance your ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... joined the main road and swung to the left up the narrowing bed of the valley. The road was in noble condition, and the car was running finely, as I mounted through forests of snowy Pines to a land where the mountains crept close together, and the highway coiled round the angles of great crags or skirted perilously some profound gorge, with only a line of wooden posts to defend it from the void. In places the snow stood in walls on either side, where the road was kept open by man's ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... you are a one—er, I must say! Born to it. You strike like an osprey. That's a fish—what?" They peered together into the net, where, coiled and massy, beaming rose and pale ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... fire-cock to which it is ordered, and the first which gets into play is of course held to have beat the other. The call to stop is then given, and both parties return to their former station, with their hose coiled up, and everything in proper travelling order; the first which arrives being understood ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... he meant to say something else when he began; but she forgot to wonder what it was when she saw what he brought out of a little corner cupboard. It was a teapot of some fine, glistening purple ware, coiled over by golden dragons with gilded claws and scales. The lid looked like a beautiful golden flower and the handle was a coil of a dragon's tail. Rachel sat and looked ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... irresistibly attractive about her, appealing to old memories which were painted clearly in his heart. She was girlishly slim. He had observed that her eyes were beautifully clear and gray in the sunlight, and her exquisitely smooth dark hair, neatly coiled and luxuriant crown of beauty, reminded him of puritanism in its simplicity. At times he doubted that she was twenty-three. If she had said nineteen or twenty he would have been better satisfied. She puzzled him and roused speculation in him. But it was a part of ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... snake-catchers of Bengal are provided with a bundle of the roots of some plant which they carefully carry along with them, when they set out on their serpent-hunting expeditions. When a serpent, disturbed in its hole, comes out furiously hissing with rage, with its body coiled, and its head lifted up, the Mal has only to present before it the bundle of roots above alluded to, at the sight of which it becomes spiritless as an eel. This we have ourselves witnessed ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Michele had almost completed his arrangements for carrying the girl from Sta. Catarina and away to Spain, when unfortunately one of the sisters, suspecting some mystery, from the changed face of Sister Maddelena, began investigating, and at length discovered the rope neatly coiled up by the nun's window, and hidden under some clinging vines. She instantly told the Mother Superior; and together they watched from a window in the crypt of the chapel,—the only place, as you will see to-morrow, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... was now about one in the morning; by three the dawn would begin. In spite of his fatigues, Moore had no idea of snatching an hour's rest. He called up Peter (who had been sleeping, coiled up like a black cat, in the smoking-room), and bade him take a bath and hot water into the room where Gumbo, the newly purchased black, had all this time been left to his own reflections. "Soap him and lather him well, Peter," said Moore; "wash him white, if you can, and let me know when he's ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... like the former one, but lower down the body. The great impetus we had when we 15 reached the whale, carried us a long way past him, out of all danger from his struggles. No hindrance was experienced from the line by which we were connected with the whale, for it was loosely coiled in a space for the purpose in the boat's bow, to the extent of two hundred feet, and this was 20 cast overboard by the harpooner as soon ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... shells come in two main varieties: BIVALVES and UNIVALVES. Bivalves have two valves, fitting together along a toothed hinge on one side, and kept closed by means of ADDUCTOR MUSCLES. Univalves have only one shell, usually coiled, but sometimes shaped like a cap or miniature volcano. Some marine univalves can seal themselves inside with an operculum, which covers the open end of the shell like a trap door. Although shells take on many ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company
... things Boy Scouts delight to learn, for several of the number carried signal flags; two had pieces of a broken looking-glass in their possession; while the tall lad, Seth Carpenter, had a rather sadly stained blanket coiled soldier fashion about his person, that gave off a scent of smoke, proving that he must have used it in communicating with distant comrades, by means of the smoke code ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... coloring, her cheeks softly tinted from her brisk walk in the morning sunshine was very lovely. She wore a white duck skirt, a soft nainsook blouse open at the throat, the sailor collar knotted with a red silk scarf. Her heavy braids were coiled about her shapely head and held in place with large shell pins, soft little locks ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... on the island. Illness of Harry. Fever. Determining temperature. Making a thermometer. Substitutes for glass and mercury. How Fahrenheit scale is determined. Centigrade scale. Testing the thermometer. Determining fever. Danger point. Why a coiled pipe tries to straighten out under pressure. Medicine for fever. Rains and rising Cataract River. Decision to explore sea coast to the east. Yoking up the yaks. Gathering samples of plants and flowers. The beach. Following ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... in many cases a hundred times the length of the original rods. The same filament, in fact, was frequently observed to stretch through several fields of the microscope. Sometimes they lay in straight lines parallel to each other, in other cases they were bent, twisted, and coiled into the most graceful figures; while sometimes they formed knots of such bewildering complexity that it was impossible for the eye to trace the individual filaments through ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... up my position in this same tree, in the hope that he would make another attempt. The night began badly, as, while climbing up to my perch I very nearly put my hand on a venomous snake which was lying coiled round one of the branches. As may be imagined, I came down again very quickly, but one of my men managed to despatch it with a long pole. Fortunately the night was clear and cloudless, and the moon made ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... disappear. They differ, secondly, in shape. The typical form appears to be spherical or nearly so; but from this typical form they may vary, becoming irregular or elongated. They are sometimes drawn out into long masses looking like a string of beads (Fig. 24), or, again, resembling minute coiled worms (Fig. 21), while in still other cells they may be branching like the twigs of a tree. The form and shape of the chromatin thread differs widely. Sometimes this appears to be mere reticulum (Fig. 23); ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... coiled in a cage by the altar; they were believed to have the power of restoring themselves, and this was regarded as a promise to the sick that they should cast off their disease as a serpent casts its skin. The swift power of the reptile over life and death, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the night flat and stale in his mouth, Thornton turned his back upon the merriment in the little schoolhouse and strode away to his horse awaiting him under the oak. He tightened the cinch with a savage jerk, coiled his tie rope and flung himself into the saddle. Did he not already have enough on his hands without running after a girl with grey eyes and a blazing temper? Had he not already enough to think about, what with guarding ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... handbills in the corner, green, and yellow, and white. Upon them you see an incompetent presentment of the senorita in her professional garb and pose. Irresistible, in black lace and yellow ribbons, she faces you; a blue racer is spiralled upon each bare arm; coiled twice about her waist and once about her neck, his horrid head close to hers, you perceive Kuku, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... through the waist of the ship and on to the promenade-deck of the third-class passengers, where a huddle of stores, coiled ropes, and riff-raff prevented these poor from taking any pleasurable exercise. I stood at the taffrail and peered down at the welter of white water, the foam of the buffets of the whirling screws, and then at ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... do then—an' whistle that idle cur off wid you," pointing to a nondescript puppy, which had lain happily coiled up at his master's feet until Mrs. Mulcahy's appearance, but that now watched her closely, his ears half cocked and his eyes wide open, though his position remained unaltered. "Go along to the divil, you lazy whelp you!"—she ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the reptile slackened speed sufficiently to admit of their attempting to haul the yacht up alongside it. Then, when they at length proceeded to make the attempt, the additional strain thrown on the rope, as it was hauled in and coiled down, seemed to exhaust the last remnant of the brute's strength, and, stopping suddenly, it rose to the surface and, throwing its head out of the water, shook it savagely from side to side in a futile endeavour to shake ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... has his tail tangled up with the centre of the earth. The blackbird has not a very good hold. He slackens a moment to get a better, but it is too late. He ought to have made the best of what purchase he had. Like a coiled spring returning to its set, the worm, released, vanishes into its hole; and the yellow bill flies up into the branches of a thorn with an angry chuckle, which says as plainly as a boy who has chased an enemy to the fortress of home, "Wait till I ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... when a character, known as Peach Blossom, interrupted her. He stirred irritably, for he wished her to go on. He was charmed by the pale face, the lissome figure, draped in pearl grey, with a coiled string of pearls at the throat. Carrie had the air of one who was weary and in need of protection, and, under the fascinating make-believe of the moment, he rose in feeling until he was ready in spirit to go to her and ease her ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... was startled by what seemed to be a worn narrow track. Advancing cautiously along it, she came across a huge carpet snake coiled "all a same rope alonga boat." It was asleep where an opening in the roof of vegetation made a patch of sunlight on the jungle floor, and she passed by, treading noiselessly. For food she had the fruits of the jungle, crude, harsh, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... pigtail coiled inside of the lost shoe, Mell ran on. She was passing a thicket of sassafras bushes, when a sound of crying met her ears. Instantly she stopped, and, parting the bushes with her hands, peered in. There they were, sitting in a little circle close together,—Arabella and Gabella Sarah fast asleep, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... world was asleep, the Snake crept into the Prince's bedroom, and coiled round his neck. The Prince slept on, and when he awoke in the morning, he was surprised to find his neck encircled with the coils of a snake. He was afraid to stir, so there he remained, until the Prince's mother became anxious and went to see what was the matter. When she entered his room, ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body of his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with his efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link that bound him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by what appeared to be whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then through a momentary gap he saw his drooping body collapse ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... Miss Kilburn had alighted so often with her father. Bolton's dog, grown now so very old as to be weak-minded, barked crazily at his master, and then, recognising him, broke into an imbecile whimper, and went back and coiled his rheumatism up in the sun on a warm stone before the door. Mrs. Bolton had to step over him as she came out, formally supporting her right elbow with her left hand as she offered the other in greeting to Miss Kilburn, with a look ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... disheveled quill pens, and the list of furniture was almost complete. All the books had evidently arrived in the course of the last twenty-four hours; and there was not a single object of any value in the room. In one corner you beheld a collection of crushed and flattened cigars, coiled pocket-handkerchiefs, shirts which had been turned to do double duty, and cravats that had reached a third edition; while a sordid array of old boots stood gaping in another angle of the room among ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Uncared for, well nigh grown into the ground. The tower is grey, and brown, and black, with green Patches of mildew and of ivy woven Over the sightless loopholes and the sides: And from the ivy deaf-coiled spiders dangle, Or scurry to catch food; and their fine webs Touch at your face wherever you may pass. The sun's light scorched upon it; and a fry Of insects in one spot quivered for ever, Out and in, in and out, with glancing wings That caught the light, and ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... arm, with its upturned sleeve, she carried a small split basket half filled with persimmons. She was of an almost pure Saxon type—tall, broad-shouldered, deep-bosomed, with a skin the colour of new milk, and soft ashen hair parted smoothly over her ears and coiled in a large, loose knot at the back of her head. As he reached her she smiled faintly and a little brown mole at the corner of her mouth played charmingly up and down. After the first minute, Gay found himself fascinated by this single imperfection in her otherwise flawless features. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... hide-and-seek in the dark. The tennis net, coiled like a grey snake on the black lawn. "Let's hide together." Harry Craven, hiding, crouching beside you under the currant bushes. The scramble together up the water-butt and along the scullery roof. The ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... and Appendicitis. The beginning of the large bowel, where the small bowel empties into it, is the largest part of it, and forms a curious pouch called the cecum, or "blind" pouch. From one side of this projects a little wormlike tube, twisted and coiled upon itself, from three to six inches long and of about the size of a slate pencil. This is the famous appendix vermiformis (meaning, "wormlike tag"), which is such a frequent source of trouble. It is the shrunken and shriveled remains of a large pouch of the intestine which ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... boatman gave me proof within ten minutes after his failure with the cotton-mouth. He had pulled out into the middle of the river, when I noticed a beautiful snake, short and rather stout, lying coiled on the water. Whether it was an optical illusion I cannot say, but it seemed to me that the creature lay entirely above the surface,—as if it had been an inflated skin rather than a live snake. We passed close by it, but it made no offer to move, only darting out its tongue as the boat slipped ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... to bed; but what he thought next morning when Maria Nikolaevna knocked impatiently at his door with the coral handle of her riding-whip, when he saw her in the doorway, with the train of a dark-blue riding habit over her arm, with a man's small hat on her thickly coiled curls, with a veil thrown back over her shoulder, with a smile of invitation on her lips, in her eyes, over all her face—what he thought then—history ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Well, you know, Uncle Andy, Bill has been out West himself, and he's seen the villages of the prairie dogs, and the little owls sitting on the tops of the hillocks which are on the roofs of the prairie dogs' houses, and the rattlesnakes coiled up here and there in the hot, sunny hollows. There were lots and lots of the prairie dogs, millions and ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... spirits, seated in a mystic gloom at the back of the hut, which is dimly lit by a lamp burning low. The hardest task of all is to drive away Sedna, and this is reserved for the most powerful enchanter. A rope is coiled on the floor of a large hut in such a way as to leave a small opening at the top, which represents the breathing hole of a seal. Two enchanters stand beside it, one of them grasping a spear as if he were watching a seal-hole in winter, the other holding the harpoon-line. A third sorcerer sits ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... daughter stood in the sunlight by the window, tall, fragile, and exquisite, her features and outline not unlike her mother's, but frailer, softer, more delicate. The golden light struck one half of her high-bred, sensitive face, and glimmered upon her thickly-coiled flaxen hair, striking a pinkish tint from her closely-cut costume of fawn-coloured cloth with its dainty cinnamon ruchings. One little soft frill of chiffon nestled round her throat, from which the white, ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Bluish smoke coiled up from the censer and bathed in the broad, slanting patch of sunshine which cut across the gloomy, lifeless emptiness of the church. And it seemed as though the soul of the dead woman were soaring into the sunlight together with the smoke. The coils ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... this useful garment were neat, were even exquisite; but then, Aunt Raby was not gifted with a stylish cut. Prissie's hair was smoothly parted, but the thick plait on the back of the neck was by no means artistically coiled. ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... dogs, she is convinced that the flea was a mad flea, and that she shall die of hydrophobia. (As it happens, the flea is not a flea at all, but a grain of snuff.) However, the Black Doctor is sent for, and finds the King as affable as usual, but Mlle. de Coulanges coiled up on a sofa—like something between a cat and a naughty child afraid of being scolded—and hiding her face. On being coaxed with the proper medical manner, she at last bursts out laughing, and finally ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... through the galleries and down the staircase, followed by the stout assistant who vainly tried to light his passage; he fled with the haste of a robber caught in the act. Blinded by a kind of delirium, he did not even notice the unexpected flexibility of the piece of shagreen, which coiled itself up, pliant as a glove in his excited fingers, till it would go into the pocket of his coat, where he mechanically thrust it. As he rushed out of the door into the street, he ran up against three young men who were ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... direction in which it was moving, lay a long black snake asleep on the sand. When directly over its victim the jelly globule again sank till it touched the middle of the reptile's back. The serpent immediately coiled itself in a knot, but was already dead. The jellyfish did not swallow, but completely surrounded its prey, and again rose in the air, with the snake's black body clearly visible within it. "Our Will-o'-the-wisp ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... the cottage thatch, living on birds and mice. They are dull and sluggish in motion. While visiting a sugar plantation a few years ago one of the hands asked if I should be interested by their maja. He dipped his hand into a nearby water-barrel in the bottom of which two of them were closely coiled. He dragged out one of perhaps ten or twelve feet in length and four or five inches in diameter, handling it as he would the same length of hawser. He hung it over the limb of a tree so that I could have a good chance for a picture of it. The ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... fireplace threw out shadows that flitted over the great loom, and the wheels, and the festoons of dried apples, and the pumpkins that hung from the beams overhead. And old Deacon, the faithful watch-dog, lay coiled up ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... were, in spite of the volcanic outburst of the startled North which answered the roar of the first gun at Sumter? Worse than all, are we permitted to doubt that in the very bosom of the North itself there was a serpent, coiled but not sleeping, which only listened for the first word that made it safe to strike, to bury its fangs in the heart of Freedom, and blend its golden scales in close embrace with the deadly reptile of the cotton-fields. ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Fate, approved of that speech. And then the monarch smiled, losing his senses, his hour having come. And he quickly placed that insect on his neck. And as the king was smiling, Takshaka, who had (in the form of that insect) come out of the fruit that had been offered to the king, coiled himself round the neck of the monarch. And quickly coiling round the king's neck and uttering a tremendous roar, Takshaka, that lord of snakes, bit that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... she, too, had heard the unaccountable cries of Poopy, although, owing to distance and the wild nature of these cries, she had failed to recognize the voice. When, therefore, her jailer left her with this threat, she coiled herself up in the smallest possible space, and ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... serpents came from their covering. One remained coiled on the raised wrists, the other—still sounding the ominous rattle—moved slowly downwards till it rested on the man's shoulder. Then Thunder-maker inclined his head, as if listening to a whisper. Afterwards his face lit ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... get theirs the whitest was an occasion for greatest merriment. "Mine's the whitest," you'd hear a young, tittering miss call out. Then followed comparisons, friendly argument. And when at last the taffy was pulled into white ropes it was again coiled on buttered plates in fancy designs of hearts and links and left to harden until it could be broken into pieces with quick ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... passes—another moon has arisen—and the gigantic serpent, that had all day lain coiled in the ravine, is seen gliding silently out at its bottom, and stretching its long vertebrate form across the plain of ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... possession of the superintendent of the London fire brigade when he was but twelve months old. His first retreat was in the engine-house, where, on some old hose and sacking, he made himself as comfortable as he could, and coiled himself up, like the tubing on which he lay. Considering that he was thus placed in charge of the engine-house, he resented the first occasion on which a fire occurred at night. The fire bell rang, and the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... gilt, and here stood a colossal image of Huitzilopochtli, the war-god. His countenance was hideous; in his right hand he held a bow, and in his left a bunch of golden arrows, which a mystic legend connected with the victories of his people. A huge serpent of pearls and precious stones was coiled about his waist, and costly jewels were profusely sprinkled over his person. On his left foot were the delicate feathers of the humming-bird, from which, singularly enough, he took his name, while round his neck hung a chain of gold and silver hearts, as an emblem of the sacrifice ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... green stamp. He drank that liquid concoction that came fresh from the heart of the corn, and he glowed. One evening while he was letting the good liquor trickle down his throat he felt something touch his foot. He looked down and saw a big rattle-snake coiled ready to strike. ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... which to sleep, they being far cooler and more healthy than standing bed-places. There was an objection, also, to sleeping on the ground: for we were liable to be stung by insects; and indeed venomous snakes might enter and remain undiscovered, coiled in the heaps of grass and dry ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... possesses—by comparison; I have searched long and vainly among the surrounding inhabitants for even one barbarian; I have failed to feel either sea-sickness or home-sickness; I have never been more perfectly healthy, and no dread fever seems to have selected me for a victim; I have found no snake coiled within my shoe of a morning, nor have I discovered one as an unwelcome bedfellow at night. Truth to tell, you are all wrong, but one, ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... to another—don't know much. There's a mob in most towns though, I think, that wants boilin' down bad. Some day they'll do it, maybe; they'll have to when all the good country's stocked up. After Warrigal had his supper he went out again to see his horse, and then coiled himself up before the fire and wouldn't ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... On a soft, muddy sand-bar, half hidden by dead branches, I beheld a somewhat cone-shaped mass about seven feet in height. From the base of this came the neck and head of the snake, flat on the ground, with beady eyes staring at us as we slowly advanced and stopped. The snake was coiled, forming an enormous pile of round, scaly monstrosity, large enough to crush us all to death at once. We had stopped at a distance of about fifteen feet from him, and looked at each other. I felt as if I were spellbound, unable to move a step farther or even to think or act ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... joined Mr. Gibney on a pile of old hemp hawser coiled on the bulkhead. "Danged if I don't feel sorry for old Scraggsy, for all his meanness," he declared. "It's goin' to cost him five hundred dollars to patch up the old boiler an' keep the Maggie runnin' until he can ship a ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... willowy girl, with masses of brown hair coiled in the funnel depths of a poke bonnet, a long check apron and a pair of tin buckets, became the typical guardian ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... mist-veiled sky. The sunlight had turned to an ominous copper glow. And in that moment Olga was afraid, with that sick apprehension of evil that comes upon occasion even to the brave. She gave no sign of it, but it was coiled like a serpent about ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Miss Loder was of middle height, with good features, grey eyes of an almost disconcerting frankness, and fair hair which she parted on her forehead and coiled neatly round her head. She was twenty-nine years of age, but looked younger; and she generally wore a well-cut grey skirt and severely plain white shirt, which somehow suited her rather ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... ecstasy is bestowed upon few. In our age Keats had it, and Shelley; Byron, despite his passion, missed it, and so did Wordsworth. We find it in Swinburne, he had it from the first; but few French poets have it. Like the "cold devils" of Felicien Rops, coiled in frozen ecstasy, the blasts of hell about them, Charles Baudelaire can boast the dangerous attribute. Poe and Heine knew ecstasy, and Liszt also; Wagner was the master adept of his century. Tschaikowsky ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... speckled, of a dirty brown colour, and can scarcely be distinguished from the ground or stump on which he is coiled up; he grows to the length of about eight feet and his bite often proves fatal ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... move on, boys!" yelled Colon, as he unlimbered his long legs, on which he had been coiled after the fashion of a ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... world—who look upon a lie as rather an operose affair, and who seem to be truthful from sheer laziness. There was, accordingly, no difficulty here; for the woman rolled off her story just as if it had been coiled up in her mind for all that length ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... they did not leave a bone of my servant. Had it not been for the bite of a serpent which nipped sharply but which was not venomous, I might have remained in my swoon. I recovered consciousness; I wrenched the snake from my right leg, round which it had coiled itself, I took it by the tail, I whirled it like a sling and I crushed its head on the trunk of a guava tree. I examined myself; I had a thigh ripped open and an arm broken; I bound the wound in my thigh with fresh leaves and secured them by a vine. As to my left arm, it ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... reply, for two days' violent seasickness rather takes the mental ginger out of one's make-up. But Fate avenged me in this wise. The door of my state-room opened into the dining-room, and my bed faced the door. Opposite to me was the settee on which Bashforth was coiled, and back of him was the locker for the tinned mushrooms, sardines, lobster, shrimp, caviar, deviled ham, and all the things which well people can eat. This locker had brass handles let into the mahogany, and ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... the trees. The whole place was filled with gloomy shadows. It was often impossible to judge whether fairly solid soil or oozy murk lay before them. Often they went down to their waists. Sometimes the children fell and were dragged up again by the stronger. Now and then rattle snakes coiled and hissed, and the women killed them with sticks. Other serpents slipped away in the slime. Everybody was plastered with mud, and they became ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of one of the most imaginative of American artists, the late Edwin A. Abbey. It represents a very fine gentleman of about 1610, walking in broad sunlight in a garden, reading a little book of verses. The name is coiled around him, with the motto, Gravis cantantibus umbra. I will not presume to translate this tag of an eclogue, and I only venture to mention such an uninteresting matter, that my indulgent readers may have a more vivid notion of what I call ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... only and notable difference is the figure of Lucifer which instead of being in the centre occupies the base of the picture. At the summit "Eriton cruda, che richiamava l'ombre a' corpi sui," is precisely in the same attitude as in the Pisan Camposanto, a figure holding a banner coiled around by a serpent, and near it is a simoniac with his entrails torn out, the identical figure from the Pisan Hell. The back view of the figure which a demon raises to throw into the jaws of a terrible monster is also copied entire from ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... person I beheld, and she has dazzled my eyes ever since. Oh, it was a wonderful picture she made, standing under a slender palm tree, in her white tulle dress flecked with gold and pearls, and those blood-red rubies encircling her white throat and perfect arms and coiled in her jetty curls; and then those glorious dark eyes! No wonder men lose their hearts over her at the first fatal glance into their wonderful, mesmeric depths. She is fairer than the ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... been shown that the perspiration-tubes are coiled up into a ball at their base. The number and extent of these tubes are astonishing. In a square inch on the palm of the hand have been counted, through a microscope, thirty-five hundred of these tubes. Each one of them is about a quarter of an inch in length, including its coils. ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... attention was soon attracted by a much more serious object. We remarked in the branches of one of the trees a dark body, which, on nearer inspection, we found to be that of a large serpent, lying coiled up, and waiting, probably, to dart upon its prey. We ventured pretty near, but it remained quite motionless without turning its eyes from us, and little thinking how near its death was. One of the gentlemen fired, and hit it in the side. As ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... the blackish grey of the stone. Now and then a toppling, gurgling mill-beck gives life to the scene. But the real life, the only beauty of the country, is set on the top of all the hills, where moor joins moor from Yorkshire into Lancashire, a coiled chain of wild free places. White with snow in winter, black at midsummer, it is only when spring dapples the dark heather-stems with the vivid green of the sprouting wortleberry bushes, only when in early autumn ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... latter has curious magnetic properties; a magnetic needle brought alongside of it will be found placing itself at right angles to the wire bearing the current. On this principle is made the galvanometer for measuring the intensity of a current. Moreover, if a piece of wire is coiled round a bar of steel, and a powerful electric current pass through the coil, the bar will ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... last are the chiefest; if but one of the four could be had, I think that (as a writer) I should take the seat. That which, of all my writing, I wrote with the fullest and keenest sense of creative pleasure, I did while coiled up, one summer day, among the dry branches of a fallen tree, at the tip of a long, promontory-like stretch of meadow, on the quiet, lonely, level Glastenbury shore, over against the Connecticut State ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... been pleased with the "Sister Sue" from a shore view, they were enthusiastic at what they saw when they got on board. The decks were white from scouring, the binnacle that held the compass shone with mirror-like brightness, ropes were neatly coiled and everywhere was the smell of fresh paint and the faint, salty odor of the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge |
