"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after he had brought down the rabbits, by the hearth, making rabbit-nets of twine. Almost everybody who came along the road, home from the market town, stopped, lifted the latch without knocking, and looked in to tell the news or hear it. But Luke's favourite manoeuvre was to take out his snuff-box, tap it, and offer it to the person addressing him. This he would do to a farmer, even though it were the largest tenant of all. For this snuff-box was a present from the lady at the great house, who took an interest in poor old Luke's infirmities, and gave him the snuff-box, ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... a glimpse of some familiar places as we passed, but the attempt was altogether useless. Harrow-on-the-Hill, as we shot by it, seemed to be driving pell-mell up to town, followed by Boxmoor, Tring, and Aylesbury—I missed Wolverton and Weedon while taking a pinch of snuff—lost Rugby and Coventry before I had done sneezing, and I had scarcely time to say, "God bless us," till I found we had reached Birmingham. Whereupon I began to calculate the trifling progress my reading companion could have made in his book ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... awful conclave sat, Their noses into this to poke To poke them into that - In awful conclave sat they, And swore a solemn oath, That snuff should make no Briton sneeze, That smokers all to smoke should cease, ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... his chin new reap'd Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home: He was perfumed like a milliner; And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took't away again; Who therewith angry, when it next came there, Took it in snuff: and still he smiled and talk'd; And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded My prisoners in your Majesty's ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... feet, listening, to all appearance, to a political discussion; or he looked over the card-players' hands without a notion of what it was all about, for he could not play at any game; or he walked about and took snuff to promote digestion. Anais was the bright side of his life; she made it unspeakably pleasant for him. Stretched out at full length in his armchair, he watched admiringly while she did her part as hostess, for she talked for him. It was a pleasure, too, to him to try to see the point in her remarks; ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... with all kinds of artificial flowers, followed by little boys and girls as gaily dressed as themselves. Here they find all kinds of toys, curios, and articles of general use, from a top to a broom, from bits of jade or other precious stones, to a snuff bottle hollowed out of a solid quartz crystal, or a market basket or a dust-pan made ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... am going to snuff out each of the four candles in the center of this table by shooting the wick away. You follow me, ...
— The Eyes Have It • James McKimmey
... old one, put on the shelf after fighting the battles of my country for many a long year!" said the old gentleman, with a deep sigh that almost made the carriage shake. He then extracted a silver snuff- box from his waistcoat-pocket; and taking a pinch, which seemed to relieve his feelings, added, as if to change the subject, "But, my young friends, you haven't told ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... finem—were to be made absolute, and no one could be pronounced fortunate till the day of his death, there are few among us whose existence would, upon those conditions, be much to be envied. But this is not a fair view of the case. A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclus desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to bring forward the comedy. Still the manager was ungenerous; or, at least, indiscreet 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 alleging, in excuse, the evil predictions ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... then we camped and did not fire a gun for two days, for we were afraid we might be discovered and robbed, and we knew we could not stay long after our grub was gone. All the game we could catch was the marten or sable, which the Indians called Waubusash. The males were snuff color and the female much darker. Mink were scarce, and the beaver, living in the river bank, could not be got at till the ice ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... voice and said something salacious, which caused Mrs. Royle to draw a long breath and exclaim that she could never have credited such things—not in a Christian land. Her old husband, too, overheard it, and took snuff with ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... replied he to my right. "One of the rarest collections of authentic curiosities in France. They have the snuff-box of Clovis, the great toe of Saint Helena, and the tongs with which St. Dunstan took the devil by ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... me, I say it never struck me before,' rejoined the General, smelling it as at a pinch of snuff. 'I was saying, I always . . . .' And he tacitly, with the absurdest of smiles, begged permission to leave unterminated a sentence not in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... exquisite, evanescent universe; even for me 'tis but the bubble of a moment; I soon snuff it out, or of itself it ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... bed there, in which the Regent slept when in Ireland, and a room which was tenanted by Lord Normanby, when Lord Lieutenant. There is, moreover, a satin counterpane, which was made by the lord's aunt, and a snuff-box which was given to the lord's grandfather by Frederick the Great. These are the lions of the place, and the gratification experienced by those who see them is, no doubt, great; but I doubt if it equals the annoyance and ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... of Stocksfield-on-Tyne. Pieces of this boat have come in for the affection usually bestowed on interesting relics, for some planks that were taken out for repairs have been preserved as great treasures, and snuff-boxes and other articles have been made from them. But nothing is needed to keep in the hearts of the people of our own and other lands the memory of the gallant deed. Grace Darling is loved still, and we do not forget our ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... serious!" interposed Beau Lovelace, "it really isn't worth while! Cultivate the humor of a Socrates, and reduce everything by means of close argument to its smallest standpoint, and the world, life, and time are no more than a pinch of snuff for some great Titantic god to ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... 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 delighted her. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... officers on half-pay. These officers were suspected by the authorities and kept under observation by the police. They remained faithful to the emperor's memory; and they contrived to reproduce the features of their idol on all sorts of objects of everyday use; snuff-boxes, rings, breast-pins, pen-knives ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... exchange of courtesies between the royal model and the amateur artist; it may serve to reconcile some of our readers to the rather monotonous form in which royal munificence is usually displayed in European courts. When compared to a lame horse, a gold snuff-box appears—if not an ingenious—at least a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... the solitary at the farther end of the village. He returned with me, and, opening the door, we both entered the only room of the cottage. It was shop, bedroom, and kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, and near the window was a small stock of tobacco, snuff, and groceries all mixed up. My host's back was much bent and his face deeply furrowed. He wore a shirt with a high collar, and a blue waistcoat. He was an honest, kindly man, and seemed to take pleasure in doing what he could for me apart ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... teaching Dick to shoot straight—teaching the very man he had sent off now to get his pistol to shoot himself with! He remembered how Talbot had stood with Marley at this very tunnel's mouth and showed him how to snuff a candle at thirty yards! And Denbigh stared and glowed with admiration. Marley drew nearer down the path, his heavy crunching steps echoing through the serene and frosty air. A few minutes more and he was close ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... you; and the town of Plymouth and its fortifications, and the Hoe; and then you will come to the Devil's Point, round which the tide runs devilish strong; and then you will see the New Victualling Office,—about which Sir James Gordon used to stump all day, and take a pinch of snuff from every man who carried a box, which all were delighted to give, and he was delighted to receive, proving how much pleasure may be communicated merely by a pinch of snuff—and then you will see Mount Wise and Mutton Cove; the town ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... vaults, and exposed to the flames stocks of cotton, etc., in the stories above. This conflagration was started by the carelessness of an employee in snuffing a tallow candle with his fingers and throwing the burning snuff into the open bung-hole of a sample barrel of turpentine, of which liquid there were many hundreds of barrels on storage in the buildings. Turpentine vapor united with chlorine gas may not produce explosion, but by spreading flames almost instantly throughout the burning ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... recounting my jewvenile follies (what trix we used to play the applewoman! and how we put snuff in the old clark's Prayer-book—my eye!); but one day, a genlmn entered the school-room—it was on the very day when I went to subtraxion—and asked the master for a young lad for a servant. They pitched upon me glad enough; and nex day found me sleeping in the sculry, close under the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as your Prince Rupert, Prince Robber, took his. Go out light as a cork, come back loaded with Spanish gold to the water-line." Ben paused to take a pinch of snuff and display his ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... storm unroofed my barn, And only mine in the parish? look at her And that's enough; she has it in her face— A pair of large dead eyes, rank in her head, Just like a corpse, and purs'd with wrinkles round, A nose and chin that scarce leave room between For her lean fingers to squeeze in the snuff, And when she speaks! I'd sooner hear a raven Croak at my door! she sits there, nose and knees Smoak-dried and shrivell'd over a starved fire, With that black cat beside her, whose great eyes Shine like old Beelzebub's, ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... there, she came to a stand, to look about her, when her dog, to whom Dymock had given the poetical name of Sappho, began to prick up her ears, and snuff as if she scented something more than ordinary, and the next minute, she dashed forward, made her way through certain bushes, and disappeared. Tamar called aloud; a hollow echo re-sounded her voice, but no dog appeared;—again she called,—again ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... has a single hair of George Washington's, done up in a gold snuffbox," cried the boy. "If you'll give me two, I will hunt up a snuffbox. There's a fine old stingo in the Chemical Works who takes snuff, and I will get his, and give him a tomato can instead, and keep one ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... the panniers of donkeys which were gay with magenta tassels. At one time there was trouble getting the horse up the icy trail, yet a little later it was treading down the irises and jonquils and bending its head to snuff the rosemary. So on, beauty all the way, and infinitely variable, all the many days' journey to the coast, where the mountain drops suddenly to the surf and reflects the Mediterranean sky as a purple glamour on its snowy crest. Ah, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... laid down his pen, and looked from Oliver to Mr. Limbkins; who attempted to take snuff with a ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... valet who had been assigned to him by de Bailleul—because he had been foster father to the Chevalier's son—tied his hair, put on his morning coat and sword, buckled the sparkling buckles on his shoes, and handed him his jewelled snuff-box, each process seemed to Germain a preparation for some unknown accident that might happen, and in which he must be ready to conquer. When he stepped down to meet his companions, it was distinctly and consciously to henceforth ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... most illustrious poet!' answered M. Louet; 'I never smoke. It was not the fashion in my time. Smoking and boots were introduced by the Cossacks. I always wear shoes, and am faithful to my snuff-box.' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... their habit of hibernating all Winter, Paul supplied the Ants with Mackinaws made with three pairs of sleeves or legs. They eat nothing but Copenhagen Snuff. The Ants (or Uncles as they prefer to be called) can run to the Westwood shops with a damaged locomotive quicker than the Wrecking Crew can come out. They do not patronize bootleggers or require time ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... flying wildly about in the air in that vicinity. Then we trundled safely down the lane. We were to go in the direction leading away from home,—the horse's. I don't think he perceived it at first, but as soon as he did snuff the fact, which happened when he had gone perhaps three rods, he quietly turned around and headed the other way, paying no more attention to my reins or my terrific "whoas" than if I were a sleeping babe. A horse is none of your woman's-rights men. He is Pauline. He suffers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Miss Ruey sighed and took snuff, and related for the hundredth time to Mrs. Kittridge the great escape she once had from the addresses of Abraham Peters, who had turned out a "poor drunken creetur." But then it was only natural that Mara should be interested in Moses; and the good soul went ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... habit of imitation, a dulness and feebleness of understanding, an absence of intellectual resources, a vacuity of thought is the great inducement to the use of this, as of all other drugs, whether from the cigar-shop, or the snuff-shop, or the gin-shop, or the wine-cellar; a truth by no means the less certain, because it happens that men of the highest powers of mind are drawn into the vice, and made to reduce themselves, by their adoption and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... delight knew no bounds when, shading the giant off and springing backwards, he buttoned up his coat and roared, rather than said, that though he were all the Blunderbores and blunderbusses in the world rolled together and changed into one immortal blunder-cannon, he didn't care a pinch of bad snuff for him, and would knock all the teeth in his head down his throat. This valorous threat he followed up by shaking his fist close under the giant's nose and ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... finds it consists at most in dress-making; perhaps she does not even possess the little accompanying talent of playing the flute. How many people do not copy, like Maren, out of other people's memorandum-books, and do not excel musical-boxes! still one hears a deal of musical snuff-box music, and is waited upon by voices which are equally as insignificant as ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... and 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 ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... the august personage, who was in too good a humor to be put out by the rejection of a compliment. "You remember what I said: the time was ripe, just publish a few biographical articles telling people what he was, and Jethro Bass would snuff out like a candle. Mr. Duncan tells me the town-meeting results are very good all over the state. Even if we hadn't knocked out Jethro Bass, we'd have a fair majority for our bill in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ate a dinner, contenting himself with a biscuit and a glass of sherry as lunch, and an egg at tea, and thereby, as the doctors said, injuring his health. He once smoked a cigar, and found it so delicious that he never smoked again. He indulged in snuff until one day it occurred to him that snuff was superfluous; when the box was solemnly emptied out of the window and never refilled. Long sittings after dinner were an abomination to him, and he spoke with horror of ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... between them in point of date and nationality, he cannot doubt but that they are at one with the facts of life. It was certainly not under the influence of those passages that, about twenty years ago, I tried to get a snuff-box made, the lid of which should have two fine chestnuts represented upon it, if possible in mosaic; together with a leaf which was to show that they were horse-chestnuts. This symbol was meant to keep the thought constantly before my mind. ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... champagne; and, as he introduced me to his friend, Monsieur Carmaignac, I observed that he spoke a little thick. Monsieur Carmaignac was little, lean, and as straight as a ramrod. He was bald, took snuff, and wore spectacles; and, as I soon learned, ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the violence of Dr. Walsh, the Archbishop of Dublin, which prevented him from obtaining the coveted cardinal's hat. This was given to Dr. Logue, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, a witty, capable, clever man, who had such an inveterate habit of taking snuff that he did so even when ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... 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 and famous successors, we shall ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 the little missy strolled ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of the little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square.... Sounds of gruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening's silence, and the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square, and itinerant glee ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... doctor) has Sent me a bag full of his gas, Which snuff'd the nose up, makes wit brighter, And eke ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... guttered and flickered on the floor midway between the two bunks, and Bard, glancing to it, was about to move from his bed and snuff it; but at the thought of so doing it seemed to him as if he could almost sense with prophetic mind the upward dart of the noose about his shoulders. He edged a little lower in ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... short while they 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 ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... fly stains and other soils (the sponge may be clamped with water or spirits of wine). After this dust the surface with the finest sifted whiting or powder-blue, and polish it with a silk handkerchief or soft cloth. Snuff of candle, if quite free from grease, is an excellent polish for ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... his audience for the occasion, and had outdone them all. The fact is, he had been assisted a little by a great connoisseur, a celebrated French nobleman, Count D'O——y, who had been one of the guests. The thing was perfect; and Lord Monmouth took a pinch of snuff, and tapped approbation on ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... but many years ago, that the Ocean Waif was wrecked in a summer storm. And any who penetrate to Yport to-day will probably see in the sunlight on the sea-wall a cheery little cure, who taps his snuff-box, while he exchanges jokes with the idlers there. Yport has slowly crept into the ken of the traveller, and every summer sees English tourists pass that way. They are not popular with the rough natives, ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... supposed to believe that they had been 8 feet apart all Evening. But Mother was Canny and up to Snuff, with a Memory that reached back at least 25 Years. These little One-Act Plays under the Window did not throw her off for any part of a Minute. Before Florine turned in she was Cross-Examined and required to ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... are not "beautiful" or accomplished. Nine of every ten of them are undoubtedly passe. They have hook-billed noses, crow's-feet under their sunken eyes, and a mellow tinting of the hair. They are connoisseurs in the matter of snuff. They discard hoops, waterfalls, and bandeaux. They hold hen conventions, to discuss and decide, with vociferous expression, the orthodoxy of the minister, the regularity of the doctor, and the morals of the lawyer. They read the Tribune ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and the adroitness of his well-turned compliments. Whenever the Autocrat of All the Russias appeared in public, at a military review, or the Opera, or at Ascot, he received an ovation, and Baron Stockmar, with dry cynicism, has not failed to record the lavish gifts of 'endless snuff-boxes and large presents' which made his departure memorable to the Court officials. Out of this visit grew, though the world knew nothing of it then, the Secret Memorandum, drawn up by Peel, Wellington, and Aberdeen, and signed by them as well as ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... office. The very atmosphere was vibrant with his personality. There hung about the place an air of repressed expectancy. The room was electrically charged with the high-voltage of the man in the inner office. His secretary was a spare, middle-aged, anxious-looking woman in snuff-brown and spectacles; his stenographer a blond young man, also spectacled and anxious; his office boy a stern youth in knickers, who bore no relation to the slangy, gum-chewing, redheaded office boy of the ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... far more wealthy than people generally supposed. Diamonds were his especial passion, and he always had several in his pocket, in a little box which he would pull out and open at least a dozen times an hour, just as a snuff-taker continually ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... snuff is out. No woman-keeper i' th' world, Though she had practis'd seven year at the pest-house, Could have done 't quaintlier. My lords, he ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... Christophine Schiller, become peevish and sour in the course of time and lose the respect of his brother-in-law. For the present, however, he proved a very useful friend; for he not only executed orders for books and tobacco (Schiller had learned to smoke and take snuff), but he served as general intermediary between the mysterious Dr. Ritter and the outside world. Schiller's nature craved friendship, and his imagination easily endowed Reinwald with the qualities of an ideal companion of the soul. After a while we find him writing in such a ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... which almost amounts to veneration, the sloop in which M. Bass made the discovery of the strait which separates Tasmania from New Holland is preserved. Snuff-boxes made of the wood of her keel are valued as relics by their possessors; and the governor of the fort could think of no more acceptable present for Captain Baudin than a piece of the wood of this famous vessel, mounted in silver, upon which the chief details ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... bring my father one time and another, for what purpose I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned for him. All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King's street to catch him; and now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else. And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my fourpenny-piece that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will think his daughter has ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lives, and whoever was not there has suffered a loss not easy to estimate. We younger members of that dinner-party sat in the seventh heaven of happiness, and were translated into other spheres. Accidentally, of course, I had a seat just in front of the honored guest; saw him take a pinch of snuff out of Washington Allston's box, and heard him joke with old President Quincy. Was there ever such a night before in our staid city? Did ever mortal preside with such felicitous success as did Mr. Quincy? How he went on with his delicious compliments ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... father. You savage! You ought to be proud that I, a renowned artist, a disinterested and faithful worshipper at the shrine of art, drink from the same bottle with you! This bottle contains sandal and molasses, infused with snuff-tobacco, while you think it is port wine. It is your license for the name ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... I could be so agreeable, did you, when you asked me to keep out of sight this evening, and said that such old fudges as grandma and I would appear much better in our rooms, taking snuff, and nodding at each other ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... should taste of my thong, and proceeded, as well as I could, to comfort Mrs. Fitzsimons under her misfortunes. 'Had she lost much?' 'Everything: her purse, containing upwards of a hundred guineas; her jewels, snuff-boxes, watches, and a pair of diamond shoe-buckles of the Captain's.' These mishaps I sincerely commiserated; and knowing her by her accent to be an Englishwoman, deplored the difference that existed between the two countries, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I can say, Mawruss," Abe declared as he put on his hat, "is that I wouldn't insure it a pinch of snuff by that feller, Mawruss. So if you take out any policies from him you can pay for 'em ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... voice emerging from the tunnel. "Had I been quite sure of myself I should have sent for you. I used to snuff a candle at fo'ty yards, and but that my powder is a little old I could ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... returned her uncle. "You American ladies are so—up to snuff, as you say. But your aunt thought we'd better have her with us, ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... and how anxious she would be for him if she knew where he spent the hours not given to her. So he did not tell her of poor little Bessie, who grew weaker and weaker every day, until at last the old doctor shook his head, and between the pinches of snuff which he blew about vigorously, said there was one chance in a hundred for her, and if she had any friends who wished to see her, they should be sent for at once. But there was no one save Neil, whom Daisy expected every day, and Grey filled his place altogether with Bessie. She ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... Indian custom, into one of the tribes of the Six Nations, and was called in its language the Evergreen Brake. Charles James Fox, the statesman, was also among the admirers of the War Chief. Fox caused a beautiful silver snuff-box to be sent to Brant, engraved with his initials. The Prince of Wales was attracted by the chieftain and took Brant with him on many of his jaunts about the capital. Brant was amazed at some of the places to which his royal conductor resorted. At the royal palace he was warmly greeted by ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... we let out the Secrets of the Blue Bag, the contents of Old Nick's Sack, which that 'stupid old snuff-colour'd son of a gun,' Saint Medard 'cut into slits on the Red Sea shore' would be ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... boots of satin into which is thrust the pipe or the fan—the latter carried equally by men and women. The fan is otherwise stuck at the back of the neck, or attached to the girdle, which may also hold the purse, watch, snuff-box and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... heart—you heard him say so to Mr. Carlyle in the first chapter of this history. The earl was the one who might be supposed to know best. Whatever may have been Lady Mount Severn's malady, she—to give you the phrase that was in people's mouth's at the time—"went out like the snuff of a candle." It was now the turn of Lady Isabel. She had no more decided disorder than the countess had had, yet death had marked her. She felt that it had, and in its approach she dreaded not, as she once had done, the consequences ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... seventeenth century the Parisian rogues availed themselves of the regulations against the use of snuff to pillage the snuff-takers. As the sale of this article was forbidden by law to any but grocers and apothecaries, and as even they could only retail it to persons provided with the certificate of a medical man, the annoyance of such ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... is neither undesirable nor out of place—provided it is necessary to the proper and inevitable development of the plot. But the mistaken idea that to snuff out a human life in a thrilling or a heart-rending manner, when there is really no logical necessity for it, makes a picture either strong or dramatic is responsible for scores of unaccepted scripts. Yet it would not be well to try to apply to all picture ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... in a two pair, with a wife and family, or as good as he says; and this girl asks me to take a dish of tea with her and keeps house! Fathers and mothers goes for nothing," continued Mrs Carey, as she took a very long pinch of snuff and deeply mused. "'tis the children gets the wages," she added after a profound pause, "and there ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... not she who now came to take him from his bed in the morning, but an old woman in a short jacket, who did not kiss him, and who smelled horribly of snuff. ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... something rigorously stiff; in gait and carriage not the smallest elegance. His brow was broad; the nose thin, cartilaginous, white of colour, springing out at a notably sharp angle, much bent,—a parrot-nose, and very sharp in the point (according to Dannecker the Sculptor, Schiller, who took snuff, had pulled it out so with his hand). The red eyebrows, over the deep-lying dark-gray eyes, were bent too close together at the nose, which gave him a pathetic expression. The lips were thin, energetic; the under-lip protruding, as if pushed ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... resign the active duties of life to an eager being, of preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead and a shabby snuff-coloured coat, who (from the wharf) brought me down with his eye before the boat came into port. He darts upon my luggage, on the floor where all the luggage is strewn like a wreck at the bottom of the great deep; gets it proclaimed and weighed as the property of 'Monsieur a traveller ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street. Same house as Molly's namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford. Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too. Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake. O'Callaghan on his ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... resumed, "I 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 ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... directions. He watched in a careless way until he observed that all the Turks, exulting in their own damnable perfidies, were assembled under the roof of the building. He then coolly took the burning snuff of a candle, and threw it into a heap of combustibles, still keeping his seat upon the chest of powder. It is unnecessary to add that the little fort, and all whom it contained, were blown to atoms. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... to put it so plainly," replied the other, with a short little cough, followed by a snap like the opening and shutting of a snuff-box. ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... of stains, Is fashioned this last entry and design, By one aware of cold, approaching rains,— Who senses, through each iridescent line, A presence at the shoulder—chills and blights, Winds that will snuff ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... to snuff out the rebellion that summer of 1777: so she sent all the troops she could spare and hire, also bribes to secure the services of the Indians. England must win, though the savages kill and torture every man, woman and ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... and wheat during the war to make coffee. I ploughed during the Civil War. Strange people come through, took our snuff and tobacco. Master Tom said for us not have no light at night so the robbers couldn't find us so easy. He was a good man. The Yankees said they had to subdue our country. They took everything they could find. Times was hard. That was in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... great chief and dandy of the Swishtail Seminary. He smuggled wine in. He fought the town-boys. Ponies used to come for him to ride home on Saturdays. He had his top-boots in his room, in which he used to hunt in the holidays. He had a gold repeater: and took snuff like the Doctor. He had been to the Opera, and knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble. He could knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour. He could make French poetry. What else didn't ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the street. The dull, faint light of dawn was now strengthening slowly over the lonely roadway and on the walls of the lofty houses. Of the groups of idlers of the lowest class who had assembled during the evening in the street to snuff the fragrant odours which steamed afar from Vetranio's kitchens, not one remained; men, women, and children had long since departed to seek shelter wherever they could find it, and to fatten their lean bodies on what had been charitable bestowed on them of the coarser ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... could both see and hear men, she must have felt grateful that we remembered her with such pleasure. I treasured the hoop ear-rings which she wore, and which bore her initials, "E.L.N." Her name was Elizabeth, but she was called by all "Betsey." To Hal she had left two silver spoons and her snuff-box. He had it among his little treasures, and kept the same bean in it that was there when she died. I wished a thousand times and more that my name might be Elizabeth, but Emily was given me by a sister of father's who desired me to be her namesake, and if I had ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... slavish his labour an' little his wage, His path tuv his grave were bud rough, Poor livin' an' hardships, a deal more nor age, Hed swealed(1) daan his can'le to t' snuff. ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... would present him a snuff-box, studded with pearls, diamonds, and rubies,—monarchs have a habit of presenting snuffboxes to men who do not take snuff,—in token of his princely appreciation of the learning of the distinguished American professor. Or, perhaps, "Le Roi de Belge" would inform him that he desired to ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... the door of the smithy. He holds a snuff-box in his hand, and is rolling up a long plug of tobacco, which he puts into the box). This tastes better; the old stuff was getting as dry as hay. (Spits.) Oh, well, there was a time, ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... is, that a Frenchman has no home: He lives in the middle of the public; he breakfasts at a caffe; his wife and family generally do the same. During the day, he perhaps debates in the Corps Legislatif, or sleeps over the essays in the Academie des Sciences, or takes snuff under the Apollo, or talks of the fashions of the Nouvelle Cour, at the side of the Venus de Medicis, or varies the scene by feeding the bears in the Jardin des Plantes. He then dines abroad at a restaurateur's. His wife either is there with him, or perhaps she prefers a different house, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Volsung smiling as its breath uplifteth his hair, And his eyes shine bright with its image, and his mail gleams white and fair, And his war-helm pictures the heavens and the waning stars behind: But his neck is Greyfell stretching to snuff at the flame-wall blind, And his cloudy flank upheaveth, and tinkleth the knitted mail, And the gold of the uttermost waters ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... said Miss Sarah, with a shrug; while her father, turning his eyes on each speaker in succession, very deliberately helped himself to a pinch of snuff, his ordinary recourse against a family quarrel. The curiosity of the ladies was, however, more lively than they chose to avow and Mrs. Jarvis bade her maid go over to the rectory that evening, with her compliments to Mrs. Ives; she had lost a ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... spent a lot of time down on the crick flat looking for a mu, which is the same as a sneeze-duck, except for the parallel stripes. It has but one foot webbed; so it swims in a circle and can be easy shot by the sportsman, who first baits it with snuff that it will go miles to get. Another wild beast they had him hunting was the filo, which is like the ruffle snake, except that it has a thing like a table leg in its ear. It gets up on a hill and peeks over at you, but will never come in to lunch. The boys ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... thrown at him. His opera, L'Isolu Disabilite, to Metastasio's words, was sung in concert form at Vienna in 1779, and the Accademia Filarmonica of Modena made him a member; Haydn sent the score to the King of Spain, who repaid the compliment with a gold snuff-box. In the same year he got a little relief from the unbroken routine of his duties, for the theatre at Esterhaz was burnt to the ground, and Prince Nicolaus, seeing no means of passing his evenings, took a trip to Paris. Whether, from Haydn's ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... also an old professor, a chemist like my father, who often assisted him in his experiments. He was somewhat formidable in appearance, wearing gold spectacles, and helping himself freely to the contents of a snuff-box, but he was one of the most kind-hearted of men. Children were great favourites with him, and his affection was returned with interest as soon as the shyness consequent on his somewhat gruff manner was overcome. He ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... these special taboos ceased; but the head of a Tahitian was always sacred, he never carried anything on it, and to touch it was an offence. So sacred was the head of a Maori chief that "if he only touched it with his fingers, he was obliged immediately to apply them to his nose, and snuff up the sanctity which they had acquired by the touch, and thus restore it to the part from whence it was taken." On account of the sacredness of his head a Maori chief "could not blow the fire with his mouth, for the breath being sacred, communicated his sanctity to it, and a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Bob, in an aristocratic voice, as he took a delicate pinch of snuff, and drew out the magnificent pocket-handkerchief brought home from the East for such occasions. 'But I am afraid poor John ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... the window. It had been put in a cheap frame such as is used for chromographic advertisements of ships, soups, and tobacco. He was almost sure that he had seen that same frame, within the shop, round a pictorial announcement of Taddy's Snuff. The tobacconist had probably removed the eighteenth-century aristocrat with his fingers to his nose, from the frame, and replaced him with Putney Bridge. In any event the frame was about half-an-inch too long for the canvas, but the gap was scarcely observable. On the frame was a large notice, ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... moderate gains, he may win sufficient—taking the good days and the evil days in a lump—to keep him in a decent kind of affluence all the year round. Indeed, I once knew a croupier—we used to call him Napoleon, from the way he took snuff from his waistcoat pocket, who was in the way of expressing a grave conviction that it was possible to make a capital living at Roulette, so long as you stuck to the colours, and avoided the Scylla of the numbers and the Charybdis of the Zero. By degrees, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... and snuggest of offices. He was white-haired and amiable, with a deep-lined aquiline face, was addicted to low bows, and indeed, always seemed to carry himself at half-cock, as though just descending into one, or just recovering himself. He wore a high-buckled stock, took snuff, and adorned his conversation with ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... be both sound and young was to Stephen an everyday necessity. He was essentially a Cambridge man, springy and undemonstrative, with just that air of taking a continual pinch of really perfect snuff. Underneath this manner he was a good worker, a good husband, a good father, and nothing could be urged against him except his regularity and the fact that he was never in the wrong. Where he worked, and indeed in other places, many men were ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... you to the place. For he that's so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation vile and cheap. Let not your carriage and behaviour taste Of affectation, lest while you pretend To make a blaze of gentry to the world A little puff of scorn extinguish it, And you be left like an unsavoury snuff, Whose property is only to offend. Cousin, lay by such superficial forms, And entertain a perfect real substance; Stand not so much on your gentility, But moderate your expenses (now at first) As you may keep the same proportion still: Bear a low sail. Soft, ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... having bestowed a wild inexpressive stare at the cannibals assembled, male and 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... far corner of the room her husband gazed upon her, and bathed his senses in contemplation of her beauty while his soul soared with her song. Mother Clemm noiselessly passing near him to snuff a candle on the table upon which his elbow, propping his head, rested, paused for a moment and laid a caressing hand upon his hair. He impulsively drew her down to a ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard |
